Debbie

This was a very cute and quick read for me. This is what I would call a palate cleanser for in between my heavier reads. If you're looking for a light read then this is perfect. It had funny and quirky moments and it definitely lightened my mood. Not a book for me personally to rave about, HOWEVER, it's worth a read especially if paranormal romcoms are your go to.

When a retired homicide detective tell you that he has six cases he can't ever forget, you can imagine those cases are heavy to hear about. So one can imagine how hard it is to be the one in charge to solve these horrific crimes. It's easy to see why these cases haunt him to this day. With that being said, I think that Detective/author Steve did a great job in writing this out without sensationalizing the murderer(s). You can feel the empathy and respect for the victims and families as he recounts every case. If you've never read a true crime memoir, I think this one would be a great one to start with. And if you've read many then this one is one to be added to the shelves.

A second chance mafia romance inspired by the Deal with the Devil at the Crossroads legend....let's be real here...I was never going to let that pass me by. Especially written by Lilith Roman. An author I've recently found but so far I'm absolutely digging what she's giving me so far.

Morrigan wants out from under her family, their money, power, influences and the man they've set her up with. She's not just sitting around waiting for that moment. She's trapped but she's still fighting her way through it. But sometimes you have to make a deal with the devil to make things happen..and speaking of devils..Let's talk about Vincent. He's big, broody and the head of the Sanctum. He's as scary as they come...but he loves him some Morrigan and not afraid to let her shine. AND WE LOVE THAT AROUND HERE.

Side note...I wouldn't mind if Morrigan's best friend Lulu got her own story. I'm not saying, I'm just saying..I would read it.

Shifter romance? Check. Fast paced? Check. Revenge? Check.

I read this in just about one sitting that's how fast paced it was. And I loved that because it made me not want to put it down.

Rune is the FMC and what a main character she is. Yes, that is her on that pretty cover (WHAT IS IS ABOUT THE WHITE HAIRED ONES?). She's the alpha's daughter and the next heir in line. Problem is that she doesn't want it. And she certainly doesn't want to marry the heir to the northern pack. But one night her entire world is flipped upside down because of betrayal. Rune finds out the hard way that what you WANT to do and what you HAVE to do are switches that can be easily flipped.

I finished this book 2 days ago and I'm having trouble fleshing out a review. I didn't hate the book. I didn't love the book. Because I received an ARC I couldn't tell if no quotation marks around the spoken parts was intentional or not. Either way I was able to tell who was speaking but at the beginning it took me a second. The beginning chapters was interesting because it jumped in years to show pieces of Bella and Kate's life in those important ages.

Bella and Kate. The story is told from Bella's POV which was a bit unfortunate as I found her quite dull. Kate was self centered and selfish. Even with the gaps in time in their friendship, it seemed that one once was near the other, they couldn't be apart. And while that may seem beautiful, in their case, it was toxic. Almost symbiotic.

I can't say that I disliked the book because I kept reading wanting to know more of their relationship. But I didn't love it and I can say it was missing something. I don't know what though.

As a lover of true crime books/documentaries, I do enjoy them most when not set in my time. So, seeing as this was set in the 60s, I knew I had to read it. Unfortunately, when I did start reading it my excitement quickly died down. When I read nonfiction, I want the facts as they are known. This read way too much like fiction with its endless speculative conversations. I understand that sometimes civil liberties must be taken to make a story flow better, but this was too much. I also found entire chapters on Kurt Vonnegut and Normal Mailer unnecessary and just made the book that much more frustrating. Half of this book is fictional and it shouldn't be especially since it is labeled as NON FICTION. It was taking away even more victims which I found to be extremely disrespectful.

I have never been to Savannah, Georgia. I've always pictured it as a hauntingly beautiful place though. THICK with history and this book simply cemented all that. Right from the start the author let's it be known that while the story is fiction, there are certain events in this book that most certainly are not. George Dawes Green shows us a side of Savannah the rest of us would probably never see as outsiders. He gives us the good, the bad and the ugly and I was here for all of it. And in the center of all of that we have Morgana Musgrove and her grown children. All who are aware of said parts of Savannah society. A local man has been murdered and Morgana gets hired by the prime suspect to do some digging. But a lot more than a murder will be uncovered by the end of it all.

This was an interesting and fresh spin on a supernatural thriller!

Told in 3 points of view of three women who have already been murdered. Meghan, Brecia and Skye all fell for James. He's as charismatic as he is handsome...but something very dangerous lurks beneath all of that...something they didn't see until it was too late..... but just because stay dead doesn't mean that you have to stay quiet.

I thought the authors take on the ghostly women and their afterlife was fantastic. The pacing was mostly slow throughout the book. I do not mean that it was boring. Not at all. I actually didn't want to put the book because I wanted to know what each woman would do or figure out next. Also there were few parts that got me a bit teary eyed, not from fear as I didn't find the book scary at all, but from the emotions pouring forth from all three. I'll definitely keep an eye on this author.

I didn't realize I needed a Russian mafia romance at the moment. But need it I did. If you want a slow burn romance, this ain't it. I swear this book was on GO the second Maxim and Sophia locked eyes.

Who are Maxim and Sophia you ask? I SHALL TELL YOU. Ladies first...Sophia is a doctor and the head of her own clinic. Much too busy for blind dates but her meddling ass sister who can't mind her own fooking love life keeps setting her up for some anyways. She is a Hispanic, plus size, intelligent beauty who shouldn't settle for anything less than what she wants. Even if her own brain sometimes spews negative bs at her sometimes. Maxim is the head of the Russian mafia. That's all that is required of him. I'M KIDDING (maybe). For a man who didn't want to show love or affection because it was a weakness and he already had enemies (Of course he does. He's the head of the mafia. That comes with the territory), he sure af claimed Sophia crazy fast and had no problem showing her how much he loved that body ody ody. (Yes I'm a fool. That also comes with the territory). Side note...where does one sign up for Russian terms of endearment because that is hot and I'd like it twice please and thank you.

The book does end on a cliffhanger. A deal breaker for some but not for me (I mean sometimes it is..but not this time). For the most part I read this book in one sitting so I'm up for the next one.

3.5 stars

I needed something light and easy to read after several heavy reads and in came Psyche and Eros. This was the palate cleanser I needed. It didn't require anything of me and it gave what it needed to give. Did it have better world building than the first book? Nope. But, let's be honest, nobody is reading this for the world building and that book had next to none anyways. Would I have liked it? Yes because I'm a heaux for a whole new world a la Jasmine but again, all I needed was a palate cleanser.

While I do like the story of the OG Psyche and Eros, I didn't expect to find them as cute as I did. I mean as a couple...Eros could've been Any Man really. I had eyes for Psyche though. We love a plus sized beauty. I didn't dislike Eros. I just wasn't fawning over him...with that being said we also love a man who knows how to eat cough cough. Oh yea the sex was delectable af.

Also..in case anyone cares (AND I DID), Hades and Persephone make a cameo so YAY FOR MY BABIES SHOWING UP.

This book doesn't have enough reviews and I think that is absolutely criminal.

It's a beautiful but heartbreaking story. A story about a beautiful and strong, young girl coming into her own and finding out her family has several horrible secrets and a grandmother who refused to learn from those secrets.

Trigger warnings- sexual assault

YA, dark academia, spirits, magic, the arts, tackling mental health issues and an unknown family history? I'M IN.

I was initially going to give this book 3 stars because it is good. AND GOOD IS GOOD NOT BAD. (That sounds dumb but I feel like I have to put that because I feel like people run from 3 star reviews) Initially the book didn't grab me right away. HOWEVER, you can see that it has four stars....WHY YOU ASK? Don't rush me...Okay now once it started going for me it kept going and so I definitely had to bump it up. It bumped it up for me once the magic was tied into the arts.

Another thing that bumped it up for me was November's mental health struggles. Not because I like seeing teenagers struggle (what kind of monster do you think I am? Jeezus). But it's extremely relatable. And while I am not a teenager now I was one many, MANY (sob) moons ago and it would've been amazing to have a character such as this way back when. Maybe some may find her character annoying but she's a teenager with dead parents, life uprooted, family secrets abound then yes, I'd expect her to make questionable choices and to , you know, act like a freaking teenager.

Sign me up for living at Huntington mansion....and book two.

I went into this thinking it would be a quick ghost fucky read. In and out, no emotkons needed. And I was way wrong.

A dark romance between a serial killer's daughter and an assassin for the Italian mafia??? I can say YES PLEASE! in 3 languages LoL.

Raven is the killers daughter. She grew seeing things she should not have, only to then be thrust into a home where things for her were not better. AT ALL. Caelian is an assassin at just 18. Dark enough inside that , even as the oldest, his father has told him he'll never head the family. Can he help Raven harness her own darkness? These two are a force to be reckoned with and that cliffhanger left me wanting more.

Heavy trigger warnings for this one. Child abuse, sexual assault, murder, religious abuse to name a few...

This story is really that spicy which is fine by me. Especially since the 2 mains are in HS...which is why I knocked off a star. I do love the book....i think if they had been a smidgen older and in college and not HS I would've given 5.

A dark romance? Shocker, I know. LOL. This is my first Z. S. Storm book and while it is a standalone ( and read just fine as is) it is a spin off of the Dreamhaven series. I didn't read that series and I wasn't lost reading this one at all.

Let us hit you with the trigger warnings first and this is the note on the Goodreads page
Note: This is a dark, agegap MM psychological fiction and contains heavy themes and triggers. Content warning for graphic descriptions of self-harm, assault, murder, recurring theme of mental illness, ow/om scenes, homophobic slurs, misogynistic language, mentions of rape, age play, dub con, younger MC is still in high school (17) when story begins.

If any of that up there isn't your jam, then this would be where you stop reading my review. If you can't tell the book was pretty heavy (in feelings, not in size). There were certain moments where I absolutely did have to put the book down and step away for a second. And that hasn't happened for some time now whilst reading a dark romance so that was great (I don't mean that sarcastically at all).

I've never read the father's best friend trope...and I feel like I'm missing out LOL.

I am absolutely loving these Guardians/Seasons/story arc. It has been so much seeing the individual romances but the whole storyline in general is great too. I know it will all come to an end sooner rather than later and I'm legit sad thinking about it. But enough about that...let's bring on the simping.

Shade is a vampire Guardian. Done and done. I'M KIDDING (maybe LOL). He can move through the shadows sight unseen. He knows who his mate is. He knows where she is. And he is not waiting for her to come to him. He wants her and he wants her NOW. Oh and there may be a certain Unseelie Queen that he used be a consort for who may or may not be obsessed with him (Oopsie doodle).

Silver is another human shot forward from the past. But unlike the other women she didn't find a place among the fae. She is in Crystal City. And she's known for being a fae killer (GASP!). For the first time we get to see inside the human city and see what other havocs this war has reaped. Now she's leaving the human city on an important mission...and she has a secret.

We have reached the end of the Season of the Vampire BUT the ride isn't over yet. Bring on the elves!

The Hope Juvenile Detention Center is a place where troubled teens are sent after all other options are seemingly spent. It's not a very hopeful place and troubled or not these kids deserve better. Just like many places like this, there are cliques and certain people who rule over others especially when the guards aren't looking (some of who aren't any better than the bullies). What if one day the guards stop coming around? What if you find out there is a plague going on in the outside world and maybe you and your new found group of friends are left to basically fend for themselves because who is going to come for kids that everyone already gave up on?

What I liked the most was the character development. You have different types of kids banding together to survive in a world that doesn't want them to the point that they just locked them away somewhere. Which made for a very heartbreaking but hopeful story.

For the life of me I can't remember who on Bookstagram recommended this to me but if you're reading this THANK YOU.

Slow paced books seem to be what I needed because this is my second in a row, I finished it quickly and I loved it. I loved the atmosphere, the 2 MCs, the iffy morals, how my teacher kink was floating, how I couldn't decide if there was a paranormal element or if it was all in Corvina's head. I needed nothing else. Except maybe to read RuNyx's other books to see what the eff I'm missing out on.

If anybody needs me I'll be on the floor hugging this book wondering why V. E. Schwab did this to me. Like am I supposed to just keep on keeping on after this? Absolutely not. Just toss me some snacks. I live on the floor now.

There isn't much that I can say about this book that won't ruin it. You must go in blind. I will say that it is sad and beautiful. It is also slow paced. The pacing makes sense (to me at least) and it stays pretty slow throughout. Yes it has its WHA? WHO DAT? WHY DAT? QUE?! moments but again, slow paced mostly....and tbh I loved that too. Totes had me by the balls and kept a grip on the all the way to the end. And yes I did ugly cry.

If I had to choose a book to read again for the first time this book would definitely be in the top 3.

3.5 stars

Here we have the story of Elizabeth Packard. A Victorian housewife doing Victorian housewife things. And then one day she had the absolute nerve to be inspired and uplifted while attending the first (or one of the first) Womens Rights convention. She had the unmitigated gall to have her own opinions and thoughts that did not match those of her husband. So he did what any upstanding husband would do....He had her committed to an insane asylum. AS WAS HIS RIGHT AS THE MANLIEST OF MEN. Insert the hardest of eye rolls here

I had never heard of Elizabeth Packard before. Which is a pity. I absolutely want to read about women yelling FUCK THE PATRIARCHY. Elizabeth not only fought for herself but for all women. She went from a relatively sheltered life to realizing that she was not the first women or the last to be sent away by husbands and fathers for daring to think outside of the box given to them by said men.

With all that a being said, this book for me was a tad too long. The length of a book isn't scary for me at all. But sometimes less is more. This could've have benefited from being a bit shorter. Do I regret buying it or reading it? Absolutely not. But it did drag a bit for me towards the second half. Still worth the read.

At one point in my life I read historical romances heavily. Not so much no for no other reason that I read a lot of different genres but I still love to go back from time to time. And books like this one is why.

With this being my first Beverly Jenkins book and a bookstagram recommendation (for the life of me I can't remember who was the first to tell me that I must read it) I didn't know that is was book one in the Women Who Dare series but book four in the Le Veq series....which is great because I'd love to read about the rest of the family.

The book is set during the 1860s Reconstruction Era in New Orleans. That means that the setting is pretty heavy. People are trying to rebuild and cope with a massive change of life. But here you have this beautiful slow burn romance. That is not to say that the author shied away from the realness and hardships of the times. She absolutely did not. Which makes the love between Valinda and Drake all the more beautiful. Because between all that struggle and hardship two people managed to find love and you can't help but feel all the hope and beauty.....especially when one of the MCs didn't believe in love at all.

I don't know what it says about me but I love two broken people finding each other and them going through madness together and then BOOM Happily Ever After. DOES THAT MAKE ME A ROMANTIC HEAUX? Nah that's not it lol.

Celeste James can't remember pieces of her childhood. All she remembers is her father telling her to run and who to run to. She then spent 10 years with the closest thing she had to another father and one of the last things he told her before he died was to not go back home. Celeste went back home.

Thierry Bergeron is known as the Black Wolf. A man who once had a bright future ahead of him until one night where all of that changed. Now he works for bad people doing bad people things. (Look..I don't like to give spoilers so you get what you get and you don't get upset.)

The middle was beginning to drag for me a tiny bit but then Keri slapped me and said HOW DARE YOU DOUBT ME? and it was nice ride after that. (Disclaimer-Keri Lake did not in fact literally slap me). One character hurt me a bit. I was dead set on their loyalty...and I was wrong. And the reason made me mad. So read this book so that I can vent about it.

Trigger warnings- Sexual assault, knife play, dub con ( okay this one I'm not really sure about but I'll add it JUST IN CASE), torture, drug use, murder.

3.5 stars

Noel Niihashi and Ninny Spangcole are witches. They work for the Wing Bind in Reverse London their job is to deal with dragons. Either the domesticated ones that get used for resources or the eradicating the violent ones. There are two Londons...Front London, where the humans have no idea that dragons exist and believe Reverse London. Reverse London is not a myth at all, residents here can see dragons and they are fully aware of Front London. But although they are two separate places they are still somehow linked.

It's been a long time... A LONG TIME..since I've read any manga. So while I didn't LOVE this tome I certainly didn't hate it. I'm definitely into the witches and dragons story line and I'm excited to see where it goes from here.

3.5 stars

This book was definitely lighter than most of what I have been reading lately and it was a great palate cleanser. I found it to be extremely adorable and funnier than I was expecting.

Alex Claremont-Diaz is a First Son. Prince Henry is..well he's a prince. Neither one can't seemingly stand the other one. But after a very messy mishap at a royal wedding they both have to play nice because before American/British relations go down the drain. Now they have to act like they are the best of friends...and maybe under all of that they find out more then they ever expected.

I will say the middle of the book dragged for me a little bit. Not enough to make me stop reading but overall I thought this was a cute and fresh love story.

We have ourselves here book 5 in the Fae Guardians series but also book 2 in the Season of the Vampire series...and just like the 4 books before it I loved it. I'm loving where Lana P is taking this storyline. While each story can be read as a stand alone and there's a HEA in each one, there IS an overarching story going on. So while I'm absolutely loving all the romancy, smutty, magicky sexiness going on, I'm also ready for war. Because that is who I am as a person. LOL.

Haze. D'arn Haze. The one with the shadow extension. One of the very few who offered himself up to the Well voluntarily. He keeps no one close to him, and is a strict enforcer of the rules put forth the protect the Well and their way of life. And then BADA BING BADA BOOM HERE COMES PEACHES.

Peaches is not like the other women who have woken up out their time. She's not as headstrong or as sure of herself like the others. At all. She thinks herself weak and has convinced herself that being a blood slave to the Unseelie Queen is better than her situation before. (Spoiler alert..it's not). I relate a lot to Peaches because I know what it's like to look down on yourself and sometimes you do need a boost from your life partner and/or friends to show the world exactly what the fuck you're made of.