Andrea Ward

You had me at Pirate Queen! I have not read the first two in the series and that didn't dampen my enjoyment at all. There was a bit of explanation about the world, but I didn't feel that it ruined anything about the previous books. There was plenty of sailing and girl power. They were battles and other species to deal with. But the best part of the book was the way the romance just confirmed who Sorinda was. She called out one of the ‘love interests' when that was needed and opened up to another in ways that felt consistent with her character. This was just what I needed!

Exceptional! This is so so good. The colors, the characters, the plot are all great, but the heart of the story is amazing. The heart of the story shows up on every page and just bleeds amazingness and emotion and life lessons. This is a book that everyone can learn from.

I love this series. There is lots of Scotland to visit and the characters around her are wonderful. There are lots of secrets to discover. Some of them seemed a bit forced, but that's to be expected. This is a wonderful cozy series!

This felt like random bits of information until it all started coming together and I found out I was in love with these characters. I am amazed at how the story was told without overwhelming me with information. I have to continue this series.

This is a great start to a fresh new cozy mystery series. I love Tessa as a character and the way she approaches her trip to the resort. She is a great character who is learning and growing after her jilting. However, she is also hilariously bad at investigating. I laughed more than once at her antics. Sybil is an amazing side kick and mentor for Tessa. There was a love triangle, but it was dealt with quickly.
Fabulous cozy mystery!

So cute! The characters and setting were great. The different towns were interesting and helped create the world quickly. The pirate crew that was barely hanging on made for a great team to follow. The porcelain girl had a difficult background and some growing to do. So it was easy to fall in love with them. The colors were well done and d changed to reflect different parts of the story. This was a cute read and also had a good message too.

Wow! Tea in the past and Tea in the present slowly come together to be the same person. I had no clue how she became such a different person, but as it turned out she didn't change that much, which really made for an amazing story arc. There is still plenty about this world for me to understand, so I will be rereading this series sometime. The very end of this book was a little too much, but that is a very minor complaint over an entire trilogy!

At the very beginning, we meet Pud and hear about Don Lee's unrequited love. I laughed and knew I was in for funny Southern mystery. The author wrote in dialect and the audiobook narrator did a great job with those voices. There were so many over the top characters that populate this little town that I didn't have trouble keeping them straight. I loved the Sherriff and Avery's history with the people in the town. I was so glad to see how the mystery worked out. I had suspected that, but I wasn't sure if it would work out that way. Then it did work out that way and it was better than I expected. This has everything I love in a funny cozy mystery.

I have heard so much about Freida McFadden and was a bit skeptical when I started this book. It has an isolated house in a blizzard, which I love. The couple was suspicious and I didn't really like them, but I never felt like I was supposed to like them. So McFadden did a great job characterizing them. I was doubted myself if they were as bad as my first impression said and that is what a good thriller should do, make me doubt my reading. Dr. Hale is also very suspicious. I suspected part of the ending, but there were parts that I was surprised about as well. That was a good mix of surprise outcomes and expected outcomes. This was a fabulous book to start with for Freida McFadden. I look forward to reading more of her work.

I loved the machines and the battles! The description of the machines and how they work was exciting. I loved seeing the pictures of the machines on her website. I loved picturing the battles between the machines and the ways that they used qi. I also liked how see what is going on in their minds while they are battling. I enjoyed the character development as well. Zetian has to change her mind about a couple people as she learns more about them. Li has to learn to open up to people. And we learn that so many leaders are awful! It is a great set up for a sci-fi world.
Some of the points that the author was making about society were a little too on the nose. I liked the commentary and points at first, but at other times it took me out of the story. The romance was a slow burn and I liked that. I'm not quite sure how it will be going forward. The ending was a huge twist and definitely leaves Zetian with quite a dilemma going forward.

Izzy and Beau are the cutest!! I loved seeing all the nods to Beauty and the Beast in this book. I think the character of Beau is really well done. The Beast being an awful kidnapper type is a popular interpretation of the fairy tale that I never liked. I really appreciate that Guillory made Beau to be very different from that. I also love the romance in this one. It subverted some of my expectations and I loved that! This series is just the best.

Tea in the past and in the present still seems so different. She is growing stronger and more mature, but there is still a lot of people out for themselves and prepared to do something dangerous. I can't wait to see how this all wraps up.

This brought us some new characters and we learned more about fighting the curses. There was a little more philosophy in this one and that wasn't my favorite, but it might be important for world building and future books.

Almost too many new characters introduced. I might need to reread it to keep them all straight.

I love these characters. I like learning about the cursed objects and fighting them. This was a good entry to this series.

The family! The sisters! The secrets!
This kept me guessing about the secrets. I was wrong multiple times throughout the book. I was a little right on a couple things, but overall, the solutions were a surprise.
I loved their magic and the family relationships. That made the story special.

This story started off so cute and then there was a twist. After that, it got dark and scary. And the art! It was cute and then creepy. I liked the family relationships as well as the emerging romantic relationship. I like the way the legends that were included. Good book!

Wow! This was an action packed story from start to finish. The book did a good job telling us about what happened based on the sources without a lot of extra postulation. We as the reader can make decisions about who we believe and what really happened. But the book did not stop there. It also gave us an up close and personal look as to the faults of the English navy at the time. We see the failure of the war of Jenkins ear and the corruption behind it. Great book.

As I was reading the book, I kept changing my mind about what was going on. In the end there was not as much horror as I had hoped, but the reasoning behind what was happening was more intricate and therefore more interesting. The different timelines and letters kept me on my toes. Even seeing things from multiple perspectives, I couldn't quite figure out what was going on.

The number of little touches of the Little Mermaid in this book is amazing. And she was able to make Melody/ Ariel and Eric into their own characters. Her sisters are more present as a group supporting her. I liked her having more support around her. I liked the pivot to making her dad more tyrannical. The increased family drama made the story better. And this was a sweet love story. I can't wait to read more in this series.

I liked the solution and the investigation. This one felt like a classic mystery story, like you would hear on the radio. This series is so much fun.

I really liked the art work. The story is a cute story about a creative introvert.

I love that I know what is going on and I also don't know what is going on. The use of the two timelines is really wall done. The magic system and rules governing it are interesting. I can't wait to see how we get from one timeline to the next.

I loved the found family parts of this as well as the real history that the story relied on. I loved that not all of the twists were sad. And I love that this was more than just about survival and fighting back. It was more than I expected.

This one slowly crept upon me. At first I thought it was just fine, but I kept listening and kept falling in love with the characters and the setting. I love how they outwitted the bad guys and still looked out for others.