Book Review: Feather (Angels of Elysium #1) by Olivia Wildenstein

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Rating: ★★★★
Audience: Urban Fantasy Romance
Length: 486 pages
Author: Olivia Wildenstein
Publisher: Twig Publishing
Release Date: January 16th, 2020
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

It was supposed to be a quick mission. The only thing quick about it was how rapidly I failed.

With only a month left to earn her missing feathers, twenty-year-old Leigh embarks on a trip to Paris to meet her newest project, twenty-five-year-old Jarod Adler, leader of the Parisian Mafia and the worst kind of sinner… a Triple.

If Leigh can get Jarod to accomplish a single act of kindness, she stands to win 100 feathers, more than enough to complete her wings and ascend to Elysium, the land of angels.

What she doesn’t count on is Jarod’s dark charm costing her feathers.

She’s dead set on saving him, and he’s dead set on destroying her.

Until he realizes destroying her wings is also destroying her heart.

A heart he longs to hear beat only for him.

Trigger warnings: graphic sexual scenes and a difficult ending. Not recommended for Young Adults.

IT WENT THERE.

I’ve heard about this book in passing and I’ve been enjoying this author’s newest series so time to do some back list diving. AND OH MY GOSH. I still haven’t recovered from that ending!!!! I am emotionally DISTRAUGHT.

I enjoyed a lot of this. Though I think I tend to struggle with Wildenstein’s FMC’s. One again Leigh was a bit too meh for me. I wish she had more of a backbone. I know there’s supposed to be this big contrast between Leigh and Jarod, but something was missing from that aspect. Otherwise I loved the romance. It has forbidden written nicely all of it and I AM HERE FOR IT. They had good chemistry and for spice fans, this personally went past my spice line, but to each their own!

The plot is well crafted and I’m grateful for the explanations of world building and magic system. It helps make the ending make more sense too. I’m curious how the politics of it all lay out. I couldn’t put this book down and must find out what happens next.

Overall audience notes:

  • Fantasy Romance
  • Language: strong
  • Romance: 4+ open; high explicit
  • Violence: high
  • Trigger/Content Warnings: graphic violence, murder, suicide, physical and weapons violence

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Book Review: Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez

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Rating: ★★★★
Audience: Contemporary Romance
Length: 432 pages
Author: Abby Jimenez
Publisher: Forever
Release Date: April 2nd, 2024
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Justin has a curse, and thanks to a Reddit thread, it’s now all over the internet. Every woman he dates goes on to find their soul mate the second they break up. When a woman slides into his DMs with the same problem, they come up with a plan: They’ll date each other and break up. Their curses will cancel each other’s out, and they’ll both go on to find the love of their lives. It’s a bonkers idea… and it just might work.

Emma hadn’t planned that her next assignment as a traveling nurse would be in Minnesota, but she and her best friend agree that dating Justin is too good of an opportunity to pass up, especially when they get to rent an adorable cottage on a private island on Lake Minnetonka.

It’s supposed to be a quick fling, just for the summer. But when Emma’s toxic mother shows up and Justin has to assume guardianship of his three siblings, they’re suddenly navigating a lot more than they expected–including catching real feelings for each other. What if this time Fate has actually brought the perfect pair together?

I DON’T KNOW.

I need to write this review, but also don’t know what to write. I enjoyed this, I did. But something was missing. I can’t quite put my finger on what. While not my least favorite of Abby Jimenez’s, I wouldn’t count it in my top reads of hers either.

Maybe something was off with the chemistry initially. It started off really funny and I liked the set-up, then I feel like I lost a bit of steam in trying to get through it. It might be my own personal past things that combined with small things happening in the book that made me a little flustered.

The romance was super sweet though. I adored Justin. That man was put through the ringer and kept showing up. I loved the way he loved. His friends, his family, Emma. He’s one of those good souls. I could have read this book entirely from his POV.

I feel like the unsung hero of this book was Maddy. She kind of got dragged threw the mud and I’m glad she found a HEA too because Maddy really deserved more.

This was a complicated read. I’m still an Abby Jimenez fan though.

Overall audience notes:

  • Contemporary Romance
  • Language: moderate
  • Romance: 1-2 open; low explicit
  • Violence: low
  • Trigger/Content Warnings: parental abandonment, panic attacks, PTSD, anxiety, depression, depictions of undiagnosed mental health issues, toxic mother, child neglect

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Book Review: Vesselless by Cortney L. Winn

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Rating: ★★★★
Audience: Fantasy Romance
Length: 483 pages
Author: Cortney L. Winn
Publisher: Self Published
Release Date: March 23rd, 2024
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

She’s heiress to the throne. The throne her family stole from him.

Nizzara has always been able to perceive spirits better than the average caster. As heiress to the Zarr throne and an avid dueler, she enters a deadly tournament of swords and bonded spirit magic to win the freedom to choose her own suitor. Not wanting to become a power-hungry tyrant like her father, Nizzara is determined to win the tournament without succumbing to the addictive spirit magic she channels or taking a life in the duel ring.

When she finds herself outmatched, Nizzara must choose to bond with Dagen (a powerful spirit) or lose her life in the tournament.

Dagen, the last King of Zarr, was killed by Nizzara’s father ten years ago. Now a half-ghost—able to phase between his human and spirit form—Dagen is stuck in another realm, hunting and ripping wretched souls from their bodies. When his keeper offers him a chance to reclaim his freedom and his kingdom in exchange for Nizzara’s pure soul, Dagen takes the deal.

There’s only one catch: she must freely give it to him by the tournament’s end or his own soul is forfeit.

Fourth Wing meets The Serpent of Wings of Night in the first instalment of this action packed romantasy as they deal with the bargain hanging over their heads. Family, love, power and deception collide as the characters need to make decisions that could change their realm forever.

THE VIBES WERE THERE.

I am a fantasy reader with a penchant for world building alongside my romance. That’s the only place where this book lost me. I am confused by the fact that there were cars and guns? Not unheard of in fantasy, of course, but I felt like there were different pieces throughout the book where I just needed more explanation.

The storyline is good though. I thought the male POV had a very unique dynamic and I liked the crossing worlds aspects. There’s some good slow burn chemistry between the two leads that I steadily fell in love with. I enjoyed all of the action and the competition. I’m hopeful about where all of the open threads could go in the next book.

An enjoyable read and one I would recommend. It didn’t give me Fourth Wing or Serpents vibes (as mentioned in the summary) so I would be weary of going in thinking the book is along those lines or anything.

Overall audience notes:

  • Fantasy Romance
  • Language: moderate-high
  • Romance: 1 open door; low innuendo
  • Violence: moderate-high
  • Trigger/Content Warnings: physical abuse, near death experiences, executions, drugging and sexual assault

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Book Review: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde #1) by Heather Fawcett

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Rating: ★★★★
Audience: Fantasy + Romance
Length: 336 pages
Author: Heather Fawcett
Publisher: Del Rey
Release Date: January 10th, 2023
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

A curmudgeonly professor journeys to a small town in the far north to study faerie folklore and discovers dark fae magic, friendship, and love, in this heartwarming and enchanting fantasy.

Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world’s first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party–or even get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog, Shadow, and the Fair Folk to other people.

So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, get in the middle of Emily’s research, and utterly confound and frustrate her.

But as Emily gets closer and closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones–the most elusive of all faeries–lurking in the shadowy forest outside the town, she also finds herself on the trail of another mystery: Who is Wendell Bambleby, and what does he really want? To find the answer, she’ll have to unlock the greatest mystery of all–her own heart.

I DON’T KNOW HOW I FEEL.

On one hand, this was an interesting read. Had some unique touches that I enjoyed and I liked the whole set-up of Emily Wilde out in the field, learning about faeries. I’d overall consider this a soft four star read.

But it also lost me for a lot of the middle. I thought that things slowed waaaay down. There were a lot more encyclopedic tangents and I was missing the point of the whole book in the first place. I did like most of the romance. It had its own flair and Wendell had snarky golden retriever vibes that I liked. Emily is fine for a FMC. I don’t really have any intense opinions on her one way or another.

The last quarter was intriguing. I have a lot of questions about some of the fae world, the king, the powers, and a few [redacted] stuff too. I want to read the next, and I’ll definitely do that through the library again.

Overall audience notes:

  • Urban Fantasy
  • Language: little
  • Romance: kisses
  • Violence: moderate

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