Jaysea Lynn's For Whom the Belle Tolls

 For Whom the Belle Tolls is a delightful, enchanting, sassy book as we follow Lily into the Afterlife upon her death. She always worked customer service type jobs in her mortal life, so when she sees that even in her afterlife people are awful to the front desk staff, she decides to help. Lily creates the Hellp desk in the hell portal and creates a fulfilling and beautiful afterlife for herself, reclaiming her sarcastic self and releasing built up anger she had bottled up not being able to tell people in her mortal life- the coveted honest answers to go with their attitude to the help. If you dish it just remember you can rejuvenate after Lily is done with you. Lily finds joy and purpose with her new demon friends and a life unexpected blossoms as she forgives her past life and lives her afterlife to its fullest potential.

I thoroughly enjoyed the entire mapped out universe of Afterlife the author created as well as the souls and denizens of it. The author throws in demons and deities we have heard of throughout myth and history as well as your everyday characters. The support characters truly make this book the snarky, therapeutic, love story that it is, and we needed it to be. It also refilled my customer service cup (yup- I get to deal with people on a daily basis as well and have to bite my tongue often with the answers I can give vs would LOVE to give) reading about Lily putting souls in their place when they tried to play their usual shrewd games or threw fits for having to go to whatever level of hell they earned. Not on Lily’s watch people! She transforms the front area of Hell.  Bel & Lily’s love story was beautiful and the family and life they built was satisfying. I think my Paradise would be almost the exact same as Lily’s with a sentient hobbit house built for cozy reading, watching movies with my kitty, and not having to clean any dishes. For Whom the Belle Tolls is truly a sexy, funny, romance novel with some darkness sprinkled throughout, but only to create a deeper story we can sink our teeth, our blades & hearts into.

Thank you, S, for the wonderful recommendation. I found myself bringing it up in conversation often as I was reading it, especially to my co-workers. Most aren’t ready for a demon romance, but at least I expanded their options.

Elsie Silver's Wild Love

 I love Wild Love! It kept me wanting and obsessing over finding time to read it. It pulled me in and I had to know what Rosie might say to Ford next or what funny thing would occur. Mixed in with that are tender and sweet moments between parents and their children, lovers, and siblings. My reading bucket was filled to the brim with Wild Love.  I adore Rosie, Ford, Cora, Ford’s parents, West, Willa, Marylin…. Everyone! The characters are just so wonderfully lovely, flawed, and honest. I found myself so drawn into the banter and conversations I was hanging on every interaction as they filled me with joy, love and laughter. I love when the author gave us what wild love is, I love the actions behind the words, I love the smart-ass exchanges so much. This book is absolutely going on my favorites shelf to reread in the future when I need a pick me up. Now I am off to dive into more novels by Elsie Silver to see if she too will be on my Rom-Com favorites shelf with authors like Jill Shalvis and Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

Meghan Quinn's How My Neighbor Stole Christmas

This book is a laugh out loud, delightful spin on How the Grinch Stole Christmas. It’s a hilarious, competitive, creative, festive and sometimes deliciously spicy, romantic comedy. Can I just say, “Oh My Candy Cane!” I don’t think I’ll see a fruity candy cane this holiday season and not think of this book ever again. The things they do with it… phew! Good thing it snowed today to help cool me off. Although, unlike Storee, I love snow.

I found the author interviews with Cole sprinkled throughout the novel and their squabbling absolutely delightful. The obvious mentioning of “wouldn’t this be a great Lovemark movie?” or “this is a ___ trope.” Made me laugh because we are all thinking it and I loved the author was like, “DUH! Yes, to all!” I love Storee and Cole, the Christmas Kringle competition, the town, the support characters were amazing, I just loved it all and wasn’t expecting to. Also, my parents have a doll room with Madame Alexander dolls. My grandma collected them for me. I am 100% Team Storee that it’s nearly impossible to sleep with all their eyes facing you and following you around the room.  

How My Neighbor Stole Christmas went deeper than I expected, bringing depth to the story and characters you craved. With emotions flowing all around and Christmas lights twinkling around town, it was a true Christmas gift for us, the readers. Bonus- the cover is perfect and so enticing. I cannot wait to reread this treasure during future Christmas seasons. 

Pierce Brown's Red Rising

 

Oh, Red Rising… my dear readers who joyfully encouraged me to read this book- thank you. It is just as amazing as you said it would be! I don’t want to give away spoilers so I will be careful with my gushing.  Pierce Brown gives us a drawn-out writing style that just smacks the reader in the face with “you will not have resolution with this first book… you get to keep going, just like Darrow.” There is so much world building, but the author has a writing style that keeps it simple, smart, not wordy, he gets the point across without taking pages of description, I just loved it. It’s like Brown was just as excited to write the experiences and story as we are to contain the words in our reading hearts. I was shocked when I wasn’t even halfway through the book and HOW MUCH HAD ALREADY HAPPENED! It was crazy!

The yearlong game the kids are thrown into felt as muddled to me as it did to them, I just got to be clean and warm while experiencing it. No one really knew what the heck was happening just that they didn’t want to be enslaved, and the time would eventually run out to return to the real world. For a while, I wondered why the author seemed to speed thru Darrow’s transformation from Red to Gold to play the game for sooo long but it was to highlight the nuisances of change to Darrow’s core that have to happen to make Eo’s wish and dream come true. The writing tempo fits the speed of action and storytelling. I love getting to know the other characters (Sevro and Mustang especially) and how they might help or hinder Darrow in what his new future will be. *insert a long wolf howl* I so want Darrow to be right- the game, the world is changing, it’s not just his feelings of being top wolf in school. I cannot wait for these kids to get showers with bars of soap and tubes of toothpaste. I cannot imagine the cloud of smell the surrounds them.

This book is just an epic rollercoaster, and I can’t help but join the fans of Red Rising. I also am just mystified at what Pierce Brown has in store for us knowing it’s a 7-book series! Again, the number of things that happened in book 1 was incredible. If I had to do a general feeler for who might like this book, beyond sci-fi lovers (It all takes place on Mars and surrounding planets! This was new for me as well). I feel like lovers of The Hunger Games, Game of Thrones, Fourth Wing, maybe Brandon Sanderson, maybe Joe Abercrombie, would love this series to fill their reading droughts with.

Two Favorite October Reads: The Games Gods Play & Phantasma!

 I can't decide which one of these two books I love more. I just devoured them. I loved the stories, the settings, the plots and the characters.

The Games Gods Play was tantalizing while Phantasma was straight up spice. Both novels were brutal, winner takes all, The Hunger Games style games with Greek gods and demon princes as the game makers. Both authors, Abigail Owen and Kaylee Smith, are well versed (and oh so talented) in the lore, history, mood, descriptive language, and world building of the books they have created. They really put you inside the story and then took you on an adventure you could picture so clearly with smells, sounds, feelings, that it reads you into the stories.  I love authors who cover all the senses and take the time to romance you and remind you why you love to read, and especially their books. 

Wonderfully fun fantasy romance! It's sassy, thrilling, and had me staying up well past bedtime finishing it. 

A necromancer trying to save her sister in a gothic New Orleans mansion with the help of a sexy phantom... It's delightfully gruesome and a passionate paranormal romance. 

Kaylee Smith is a new author for me. I am going to do some looking at her other books. Abigail Owen is a known author to me and already has books sitting on my library shelves. I just love her shifter dragons and phoenixes in the Inferno Rising series. Fires Edge series I just started this last year and can't wait to read more about rogue dragon shifters. 

Sarah Beth Durst's The Spellshop

I love The Spellshop!!! It is a delightful fantasy novel. It took me by surprise how much joy and love reading this book gave me. It inspires interest, intrigue, and is somehow the best cozy comfort reading of discovering joy, hard work, and friendship. Unlike most fantasy novels that take you deep into the heart of turmoil, war, overthrowing the monarchies and governments, The Spellshop has the reader leaving the drama as we flee with Kiela (a talented librarian trying to rescue spell books from war and fire) and her trusty friend, Cass (her sentient, talking, and mobile spider plant). They need to start a new life away from the capital and protect the spell books they rescued. What follows is a journey Kiela didn’t know she needed or wanted, but she is such a lovely person, the townsfolk are unconditionally supportive and magic blooms on the remote island of her childhood. She starts out trying to hide away and just fake it until she makes it, but then she is reminded that the good in people shines bright and it’s okay to not be solely independent. We need people, and sometimes, you just need help. It’s okay! Keila blooms on the island as she discovers magic, catalogs her books, sells jam, and visits town where new friendships are blooming.

I was delighted with the almost adult Disney vibe of a strong female lead with her adorable sidekicks helping her along the way- Cass, the spider plant and Meep, the cactus. They are just adorable little creatures racing around and I loved picturing them in my mind. I absolutely recommend this enchanting novel. For those seeking romance, it also has romance, but of the Hallmark variety and just the right amount sprinkled in to make your heart sigh.

Deborah Harkness' The Black Bird Oracle

I love this 5th installment to the All Souls series! Secrets, mystery and magic surround us as we learn more of not just of the de Clairmonts and Bishops, but now the Proctors too! The black bird oracle as well as the Proctors and their ghosts, gives us uncanny insight into Diana’s and Matthew’s relationship and next steps between darkness, light and shadow. The three branches of family, past and present, will be caught in the goddess and Philippe’s plans. Readers are thrown into the history and lore of the Salem witch trials and the ripples felt today.

I love and adore Harkness’s blending of history and fiction so much. There were even a few moments I felt like I was watching Hermoine, with her extended family, and reading an alternate Harry Potter book if Voldemort had won. This was a long awaited installment for our libraries and I couldn’t be happier with it.

L.J. Andrews' The Ever King & The Ever Queen

 The Ever King and The Ever Queen are a duology of the epic romance of the Serpent, Erik, and his Songbird, Livia, with fun support characters giving more depth and emotional connection to the stories. I appreciated that the support characters are not forgotten by the time you are done reading the 1^st novel rather, they get more time with us. They were so fun to get to know! These books have non-stop action, adventure, revenge, curses, kidnappings, magic, stabbiness, romance and spice (the second book especially ups the spiciness game, Yowza!).             

I loved these 2 books (they are a duology, but the series continues with new lead couples) because I wasn’t ready to read a non-fantasy book but was getting burnt out of what turns into very similar basic fantasy storylines, so, getting to follow beautiful monsters that are pirates traveling above and below the sea was fantastic! The reader is introduced to different fae with magical abilities I haven’t seen for ages or at all. I will say, while I loved that the sea fae sang their magic, I was glad the author didn’t write out the lyrics… much like with Tolkien, I would probably just skim read those parts. By the second book, the author’s writing had really tightened up and it was a joy to travel through her words she was painting a whole world with.

I recommend The Ever Seas novels for my dear fantasy and romantasy readers. They are full of swashbuckling fun, riddled with hijinks, give us an exciting, forced proximity turn romance with magical connections and strong independent characters, legit pirate’s sword fighting, unique magic, and the mysteries woven through the text abound. Plus, it ends with a happily ever after. What more can you ask for these days?!  

K.A. Linde's The Wren in the Holly Library

The Wren in the Holly Library is a fun fantasy adventure novel with forced proximity, enemies to lovers-ish, thievery, magic, betrayal, love, friendship, laughter and old feuds sparked anew. Monsters abound, trying to take over the cities, as we learn quickly that magic is real, but that it has remained hidden. What we read truly has grains of truth in the stories if you pay close attention. We are placed into an uncomplicated world of magic and monsters built in the real world (NYC), not exactly present day but dystopian. Kierse is a thief for hire who finds herself bound with and to Graves, a Warlock, to steal a powerful treasure that’s so hard to obtain, and alluring, she can’t say no. However, can Graves and Kierse find enough trust between them to pull off the heist? The author plays the question for a question game throughout the entire book, doling out info and secrets in small morsels, but it’s crafted well and not annoying as it moves you tantalizingly forward. It’s almost a game of flirtation I appreciated. I loved the mythology the author brought to life from Celtic and Druidic stories and mythology. There are twists and turns, more characters woven throughout the story and intersecting the main characters, story arcs and deceit than I imagined. I found myself thinking, but wait, there are more pages to go! What’s going to happen next?! I am very happy with this book and can’t wait to see what Kierse and Graves have in store for us next.

After reading the book and admiring the sprayed edges version I was able to obtain to read, I loved the sprayed book edges even more. We learn in the book that Graves' unique signature in his wards is hidden holly leaves wrapped within his magic codes. It’s like opening this book is breaking one of his wards or maybe he coded it to just allowing us in as the dear reader thirsting for more knowledge as he does?

For fans of Debrah Harkness’ A Discovery of Witches, this has excellent fan fiction vibes. I was a big fan of it when I picked up the thread a little ways into the novel. I remember being like, “OH! OH! That’s like Diana and Matthew!!!” Enjoy, as we wait impatiently for Harkness’ long awaited next installment, out in July 2024!