Kati

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

A low 4 stars! This is just a really fun, little coffee-book-style book!

If you are in the mood to get entertained by snarky and fun little lines of text for half an hour, definitely give this a go! Obviously, not every single one of the titular 109 Things will be funny to you, but most will make you laugh or at least smirk!

However, if you are looking for a self-help or advice book and don't recognise sarcasm when it hits you in the face, then this might not be the book for you!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

2 stars. This just didn't work for me. I found it to be mostly bland and boring.

I expected this to be a fun and funny romp. It's not really. It's very dry and the story drags quite a bit. Everyone is burdened by serious issues. It's just not the kind of book I expected to get after reading the blurb. Not my historical romance cup of tea.

The writing is trying way too hard to seem historical, but it just ends up feeling clumsy. The historical element didn't make the most sense. There's no mystery around the villain of the story. All that was missing was for him to start twirling his moustache! There's also very little romance. They just occasionally think the other person is hot, but that's it. They have no chemistry. The trope of best friend's little sister, which is a favourite of mine, doesn't really deliver much!

Sadly, a miss for me. I just didn't care and wasn't having fun.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

Solid 4 stars. This is great as a fantastical historical comedy that has a little romance in it! However, I don't think it works as a genre romance. So, depending on what you want this book to do, it might be a hit or a fail!

Tonally and story-wise, this felt more like a cross between The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels and Terry Pratchett's Witches books, with a tiny dash of genre Regency romance thrown in the mix, than like a true romance novel, to me. Which was great! Just not what I had expected going in!

I adored the narrative structure and writing style of this! By far the best part of the book for me. The story is told from the perspective of a snarky Fae. (Think Puck from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.) His narration is truly hilarious and brilliantly done!

And although, said snarky narrator calls out the reader for potentially not having read the first book in the series—Which was such a funny moment!—I think it works perfectly well on its own!

Overall, it felt a tad too long and the romance could have been a bit stronger, but I had an amazing time with this book until the ending. That sadly knocked it down from a low 5 stars to a middle-of-the-road 4 stars. I am kind of angry at it. I just felt that several of the things that happened were truly unnecessary and I could see parts of it being genuinely upsetting for other readers. SPOILER: On-page animal sacrifice.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

5 sparkly stars! It's always great when you finish a book and feel the need to silently stare at a wall for 10 minutes after because you don't know what to do with yourself now.

There's some gorgeous writing in this and an infuriating countdown. What more do you want?

This is a favourite of the year. Stuart Turton remains one of my all-time favourite authors. He made me enjoy an environmental dystopia that has hints of climate scifi, a subgenre I usually don't like at all!

I can't say much about this book since I believe the less you know about this author's novels, the more fun you'll have. What I will say is that, although The Last Murder at the End of the World shares some characteristics with his previous books—namely, that they are all mysteries featuring a small number of core characters who are surrounded by a larger cast and they all have lengthy titles—it is also, once again, a completely different book compared to the other things Stuart Turton has written. In the same way that The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and The Devil and the Dark Water are very different books!

Basically, if you love how Stuart Turton builds his stories, you won't be disappointed. If what he does is not your cup of tea, then I'm not sure this will work for you.

Personally, I can't wait for his next book! And with all due respect, please write faster, sir.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

2 disappointing stars. This was such an interesting concept, but it really did not work for me. There was so much potential for this to be a great mystery-focused thriller, but I felt the execution was really bad and boring.

There was no depth to anything. Not the characters, not the plot, not the writing. Everything was surface-level and none of it made much sense.

The characters don't sound or behave like people at all! It got quite infuriating. The main character is annoying and a horrible person to a degree that goes beyond an “unlikeable” character who is fun to read about. The plot is weak and very slow-paced. You have to wait quite a while for that blurb- and title-promised reappearance and you can figure out most of what's going on about 20% into the novel. The documentary and the people making it? Not actually that important or involved in the story!

It's also insanely repetitive. The same ground gets covered again and again. There is no tension at any point and with so little going on in this, it could have been a novella. It might actually have worked in that format!

Some of the commentary on parenting is also more than questionable.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

A low 3 stars. Just not as fun as the blurb made it seem, but not a bad time overall. A lot of potential!

I love a space opera with a bit of romance, but this one was very flat and felt lifeless. The concept is great and for a novella, it wasn't too bad, but I never really cared about the characters or the plot. I was expecting rompy fun in the vein of a Jessie Mihalik book, but sadly, this story never quite got there.

The protagonist gets dangerously close to being annoying, rather than quirky-cute, sometimes. And this story definitely isn't a “high octane sexy space heist!” It's not sexy or dangerously heisty in any way, really. There are many elements of this that are conceptually fun, but it came across as slightly half-baked and unfinished.

Also, the writing thought it was funnier than it actually was. I could tell when it was trying to go for a more comedic tone, but it rarely actually succeeded in doing so.

It's entertaining enough for a quick read. But not much more! I probably won't continue the series.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

5 stars! I'm obsessed with this. A favourite of the year!

“A podcaster has decided to ruin my life, so I'm buying a chicken.”

Fun and funny with a wonderfully snarky protagonist, but also dealing with the nature of true crime and female victimhood in an incredible way. It's such a good time, but also has a lot of depth! And we all need a grandmother like Lucy's Grandma!

Given the nature of the story, there are some darker topics addressed in this book, but I loved the way those were handled. Taken seriously, but never feeling heavy. Perfectly pitched for a character-driven thriller with a comedic edge to it! All of the thematic content is direct, but never heavy-handed or soapboxy. It also doesn't just vilify all men without any nuance to tell the story of a woman's murder. It's just very well done and wouldn't you know it, people are complex and complicated beings!

The humour in the narration is a new all-time favourite; I just adored how this was written. The podcast element was also great and interspersed at just the right moments.

And yes, the whodunnit reveal didn't surprise me, but while it was possible to predict it, it never felt obvious, which is the important factor for me with this genre. I could always think of other possible solutions and questioned my idea of the main suspect until almost to the end. As someone who has read and watched mysteries all their life, being able to figure out the ending doesn't impact my enjoyment at all. It's about how we get there and for it to never feel blindingly obvious! And hey, who doesn't like being right sometimes?

I will be honest, I did not expect this book to have as much of an impact as it did. I was hoping it might be a fun popcorn thriller, but it's genuinely brilliant. Everything in this worked for me. I found a new favourite thriller!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

5 stars! I need the next book! And I need it now! You can't end it like that! I'm so invested in this series. This book gave me everything I wanted since reading the first instalment and then took it all away again! Rude.

Ellie is back in London. We have the usual mix of spying, safe-cracking and personal story development. Just a brilliant, fun time! If you've enjoyed the previous books in the series, especially the characters, then this one won't disappoint! It just might leave you frustrated and desperately wanting more!

Although Ashley Weaver does a fantastic job recapping past events, readers should really start at the beginning of the series. Each of the books builds on events that happened previously.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

A high 2 stars. Just a very bland and basic YA fantasy romance, with a romance that I just didn't buy.

This isn't awful, but it's completely lacking in depth. Everything is surface-level, even though the characters are supposed to be oh-so clever and the best at what they are doing. Unfortunately, they just come across as idiots and jerks. The included love triangle is annoying and stupid, plus it's immediately clear how that plotline is going to end.

The world-building doesn't make much sense and isn't very intriguing either. The class system, the land, the wider world or the level of technological advancement—it's all a bit muddled. The info-dumping is kind of clumsy and all of the writing feels clunky. Not bad, but slightly awkward.

I also don't think that this is the kind of book that has a large crossover appeal. It's just SO VERY young adult. When people complain about books being too YA, this kind of plot and characterization come to mind. It just wasn't believable to me.

There are books out there that do the witch/witch hunter dynamic much better in my opinion. This version of it just wasn't my cup of tea. There are some great ideas in this, but the execution just didn't work.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

2 stars. Great concept and I had been looking forward to reading this, but the writing style sadly didn't work for me at all.

The way this is written felt incredibly simple and juvenile. And so bland. Very few descriptions or explanations and those we did get seemed almost amateurish. Not very magical for a book about magic. I really struggled with it. I know many people enjoy this kind of writing; it just isn't for me. It lacked personality!

Unfortunately, I felt the same way about the characters. They were flat, their motivations made no sense to me and there were no connecting moments to explain their choices. If you just found a magic book that lets you travel wherever you want to go—which you immediately use, by the way—you should have a reaction beyond something along the lines of “This is the best thing ever, but now I'm hungry, let's go eat.”

The good guys, especially the two female friends, were annoying and the baddies resembled cartoon villains. The dialogue was atrocious and very much fell into the category of “People don't talk like this!”

After introducing all the important characters, the plot went in a direction that didn't interest me at all. I might have been able to get on board with it if I hadn't felt like I was fighting the stylistic writing choices with every page read. I wanted to enjoy a magical and immersive story all about the power of books, but regrettably, it was not to be.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

Unfortunately, this was a 1 star book for me.

Not only were all the characters unlikeable—I would be fine with that—but they were insufferable and incredibly annoying. I did not have fun spending my time with these vile individuals, who don't even read like real people (or alternatively, like fun thriller archetypes). I wanted them all to die and to do it quickly! The character work just felt really poorly done.

The writing style is more than rough. It read very juvenile and amateurish to me. Also, it takes a long time to even get to the creepy murder house and for the story to actually start. Plus, the way the big reveal at the end was handled did not work for me at all.

I wish this could have been an entertaining popcorn thriller, but it sadly didn't even come close to that!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

2 stars. A really nice idea, but sadly, it wasn't very good.

I'm a fan of mixed-media mysteries and thrillers. Especially of the kind that asks the reader to solve the case. This book isn't a successful version of that type of book, in my opinion.

The writing style was very rough and there was no distinction between the two timelines. Neither the current day nor the past setting actually made sense. The characters didn't talk or act like people and the mystery element was fairly obvious. There also wasn't enough mixed-media content and the included pieces weren't overly exciting.

The quality of the narration felt more like that of a game made to be enjoyed by your friends. It just didn't work as a novel.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

A solid 3 stars. A really good time, but there was potential for much more.

This thriller has a great set-up and features a cast of characters with great potential. And while I had a really fun time reading this, overall, the book ended up feeling a bit flat and slightly too long. It just didn't go as far as it could have or maybe should have gone! And the ending was a tad disappointing and fairly obvious.

It is also worth noting that the storm described in the blurb hits very late into the story and isn't actually that important!

Edit after reading the full novel: Still 5 stars! And it's rude that I can't read the next book immediately! So rude.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of the Sampler of Empire of the Damned!

I was able to read the first 200ish pages of the sequel to Empire of the Vampire. And based on that little teaser, I could see this becoming another 5 star book, just like the first in the series!

If you enjoyed the previous instalment, this will probably provide a similar experience! Great writing, amazing characters with brilliantly developed and complex relationships, swashbuckling action and the most creative form of swearing I've ever come across!

I can't wait to read the rest and find out more about what's really going on! The suspense in these books is stressful in the best way!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

A very surprising and sad 2 stars.

This is very much a case of “It's not you, it's me.” Sarah Hogle is my favourite Contemporary Romance author. I absolutely adore all her books! You Deserve Each Other is a comfort re-read and one of my all-time favourite books, period. Just Like Magic is pure happiness in book form and Twice Shy is one of the few books that almost made me cry. I literally squealed when I got approved for the ARC of Old Flames and New Fortunes. I was so excited! But man, purely because of personal preferences, this was very much a miss for me. And I'm so incredibly sad about it. I did not see this coming!

Unfortunately, this book features one of my absolutely least favourite tropes (someone has a - in this case secret - kid) AND on top of that, one of my least favourite female character traits (desperately wanting to be a mom) in romance novels. Not even the mysterious Sarah Hogle magic is going to make me enjoy that.

Everything else is magical! The writing is funny, but also heartfelt and a tiny bit sexy! The characters are fun and the banter is amazing. I was rooting for Romina and Alex! The emotional component was as amazing and layered as it always is in her books! And while I prefer more couple-focused romances, the friends, family and small town elements in this were great as well!

It had everything going for it! But I just can't get over those two - very prominent - elements of the story that I am probably never going to like reading about. I even had a hard time finishing this book because of my dislike for those tropes/archetypes. I'll still pick up everything Sarah Hogle publishes in the future! But this book just left me feeling disappointed.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

5 stars! No question! An amazing and actually true romcom, where that category isn't just used as a marketing tool! If you miss the energy of early aughts romcom movies, then this is the book for you!

Hilariously funny and ridiculous, to the point of making me snort while laughing. But also sincere and heartfelt, with very well-written characters. The tone of this is perfectly pitched.

Amazing family dynamics, silly antics and such a fun plot. Plus, a great, swoony romance that actually made me kick my feet at one point because I was so in love with this book!

This novel had it all! And did it all brilliantly while perfectly balancing the different elements! Definitely a favourite of the year!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

2 stars. Not for me.

I sadly just didn't get on with this book. The writing style and tone were not for me. The text felt cold, stilted, awkward and completely lacked descriptions. I couldn't picture the world or feel the characters' emotions. It wasn't immersive in any way for me. It seemed underwritten, while the plot itself was very repetitive.

The promised slow-burn romance involved the couple lusting after each other immediately. And there wasn't a lot of depth to the characters. They were very one-note.

The world-building felt very spotty and underdeveloped. It's just a stream of cliché Viking barbarian men who are drowning in their own masculinity, with women being their little property. Plus some vague allusions to Norse gods. I was also surprised by how brutal and violent the story was. Without anyone batting an eye or having an emotional response!

Not my cup of tea.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

A high 4 stars. A great time! I really want to spend more time with these characters and in this world!

If you enjoyed the first Emily Wilde, I see no reason why this new entry in the series wouldn't work for you!

Similarly structured, with some fun new character additions and relationship development among the old familiars! The story takes us to the German Alps, where new troubles await our diary-writing fairy scholar.

I liked this second book even more than the first one. It was funnier and the characters felt less distant! (Also, Wendell and Emily are adorable together!) The book still felt slightly too long, especially in the middle part, but that is really my only complaint.

I can't wait for the next adventure!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

5 sparkly stars! A favourite of the year! This is what I imagine the love child of “The Goes Wrong Show” and “Midsomer Murders” to look like. It's an utter delight!

The Fairway Players are back! And this time they are doing panto!

While The Appeal was slightly darkly humorous, this novella takes the funny up another notch. It is hilarious! In the most vicious, juicy and gossipy way imaginable!

Oh, and there's obviously going to be a murder that our two lawyers from the first book have to puzzle out!

All around amazing and I hope Janice Hallett writes more novellas to go in between her main books!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

An unsatisfied, low 3 stars. Or maybe a high 2 stars. I can't really make up my mind.

The first half of this novella sits somewhere between 4 and 5 stars. I loved it. But unfortunately, the second half landed between 1 or 2 stars. It frustrated me to no end. Overall, the two halves just did not successfully work as a book. But I can't ignore how much I enjoyed the beginning! So, I've settled for a rating somewhere in the middle.

The second half was odd and did not fit into this novella, given how it started, with the ending being anticlimactic. It completely lacked impact. There was no punch to it, even though there was so much potential for a juicy or fun conclusion. It just fizzles out! All of it together didn't make sense as a book.

This novella definitely felt more like a thriller than a mystery, in my opinion. And it wasn't really a take on a classic country house mystery either.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

A low 2 stars. I love mysteries and I love fantasy, but sadly, I really didn't love this.

I don't even know what to say about this book. It was such a struggle for me to even finish it. I was just so bored and didn't care! Nothing in this worked for me, sadly. Neither the characters, nor the writing were engaging.

The characters were flat. They also behaved ridiculously and not in a fun way! They just annoyed the hell out of me! The explanations for the world-building were severely lacking. It just didn't make sense! There were too many puzzle pieces missing. Everything in this book was surface-level. Yet there was time for so many useless and unimportant details.

The writing was too clunky, simplistic and straight-forward for my liking. It contradicted itself and was full of inconsistencies. Some word choices and phrases simply annoyed me. It was also very bitty. Just a series of short moments strung together.

I've read the Foundryside trilogy by Robert Jackson Bennett and while I hated the last book in that series, the first two were so much fun. Neither the world-building nor the magic nor the writing were amazing in that either, but I didn't care! The characters were great to follow, the book made me care and it was an amazing time! None of that happened in The Tainted Cup.

I also felt the publisher blurb was slightly misleading or at least open to misinterpretation. It talked about a “long-suffering assistant” - Din had worked for Ana for only four months before the start of the book. Ana is described as “wearing a blindfold at all times” - that thing comes and goes as it pleases and the text does not keep track of it! And to me, the blurb implied that this book might be a fantasy version of a classic country house mystery, but the mansion wasn't all that important to the plot and the characters moved to a different city early on in the story.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

A high 2 stars. (Mostly for Katy Purry, the fabulous cat!) Lots of potential and a promising start, but it went downhill from there and concluded with a terrible ending.

I enjoyed Suburban Hell by the same author. It wasn't perfect and I had some issues with it, but it was still really great and I was looking forward to this book. Sadly, it had all the same problems and in addition to that, it was also pretty boring after the 40% mark and had an ending that infuriated me because it made absolutely no sense!

Like Suburban Hell, this is a Contemporary novel, with a light sprinkling of undefined magic. Not a genre Fantasy or Thriller book, which was fine as I hadn't expected it to be! Some problems both books shared, in my opinion, were that they are too long, repetitive when it comes to the protagonist's worries and internal thoughts and very obvious and heavy-handed with the thematic content.

I also found the blurb misleading, as this is not a story about a coven and the friendships between a group of women. It's about Sarah. And only about her. The other two ladies are barely in this book and when they show up, they have no personality besides being incredibly selfish. They might as well be cardboard cutouts, standing in the background! Some of Sarah's random neighbours or her kids' friends have more depth and they aren't even relevant to the story!

I might have been able to still enjoy the story despite all those issues, but what pushed this book from fine to bad - and not very well plotted - was the ending. It made absolutely no sense and I hated it! It was also incredibly anticlimactic and this book has basically no plot, so the ending needed to be good! However, it only made me mad, thanks to all that wasted potential. Even the amazing cat Katy Purry couldn't make up for that!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

2 stars. Sadly, not the book for me. I disliked it from the first chapter.

I hated following the protagonist's story. I have no problem with so-called unlikeable characters, but she was just so unpleasant and not in a fun way.

I thought this would be about a house flipping influencer with secrets from the past who moved into a famous murder house. Instead, I got a “therapist” aka self-help guru, who is an incredibly messy person with an alcohol and drug problem. She casually steals from her clients, seems to hate them all, unless they are even more unhappy than she is and needs to look up advice in her own book during sessions! As the book continues, she becomes even more unstable and turns into an unreliable narrator because of all her mental health and alcohol problems. I rarely enjoy these types of characters and had I known about this part of the book, I probably would not have requested it for review.

She and her husband do move into the blurb-promised murder house, but their relationship is more than just on the rocks and the confused and messy storytelling that is present in a lot of the book is also very noticeable in their dynamic. The story of the house itself also felt very lacking to me. I expected it to be much more important.

While the writing is fun, if a little clunky and the story is twisty and creepy at times, I just didn't care. I just wanted to be done with it. I could see this working for readers who aren't bothered by the protagonist and her behaviour and who are looking for some twisty thrillery fun!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!
5 stars! Such a fun time! I loved reading it and devoured it in a day!

What happens when you throw character types that could have been taken from a Samantha Downing novel into a Kate Morton-esque story? This book! Subtle dark humour, in a slow and calm story all about dramatic family secrets and the good - or maybe bad - they leave in their wake!

This book is told through the two main POVs of Jules and Cam, in the present day. But the reader also gets to experience the events of the past through letters, with some emails and newspaper articles also sprinkled in.

I adored the writing style in all the different parts, but it stood out especially in the letters written by the book's titular heiress. Ruby McTavish might not be a “good” person, but she's an amazing and most definitely memorable character! I also immediately fell in love with Jules and Cam's relationship and was so intrigued (and worried!) to find out what secrets they might be keeping from each other. Shipping couples in thrillers is exhausting!

Overall, I had the absolute best time with this and was completely invested in the story from the first chapter! But, if you need your thrillers to be fast, full of action, with plenty of twists and turns throughout all of it and featuring protagonists that are actively searching for the truth, then this might not be the book for you! There are plenty of reveals, but this is a slower book, which is at times comparable to the type of dual timeline narrative often found in Historical Fiction.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

1 star. I really didn't like this book. Some aspects of it even made me angry!

Unfortunately, this reads like a really bad fanfiction. The characters were flat and didn't talk or behave like actual people. The plot and the world-building made no sense and were full of contradictions. And the writing style itself also wasn't great. It was mostly cringey and awkward.

This also didn't feel like the blurb-promised Dark Fantasy Romance. It was mostly a courtroom mystery, with the families involved reading more like wannabe Mafia, than powerful witches or a coven. Meanwhile, the romance element felt manipulative and there was no chemistry between the characters.

I also noticed that the book was full of questionable, casual comments about people's appearance, coming from the “good guys”. This shouldn't really be happening in a book published in 2023 and set in the present day, in my opinion. But they just kept happening! Non-magical filler characters were also sent off with love potions and told to have fun with their new girlfriends. So, clearly, the idea of consent doesn't exist in this perfect, idyllic world either. There were many other head scratching and absolutely infuriating moments like this littered throughout the book.