DB

I... might have cried a bit while listening to the last chapter. Review to come once I've stopped MY HEART FROM SCREAMING
just read this book pleasepleaseplease

This was such a wild ride and I hung on for dear life and enjoyed every minute. I could definitely see that Springer is a fan of the horror genre. I could see a lot of influences from the different movies in the book – which I really liked to see.

The plot was good, obviously very fast paced as this is a slasher book – I think the slasher genre is always faster than other horror subgenres. You can have slower horror, especially if it's more cerebral. But generally I prefer a fast-paced horror film. Slashers work well then!

Not to brag or anything (she says while preparing to brag) but I predicted something correctly! Obviously, I can't tell you (unless you've read this too then we can talk about it) and also this isn't to say “oh the author isn't good if the reader can predict something correctly” – my predictions are like 50/50 and it's all good fun. But also that's something I love about the horror genre – there's always a lot of places for you to predict. Especially in slashers because there is always the mystery of who the killer is and why they're after the main characters. And I love that! I love solving the mysteries, learning any secrets about the characters and trying to figure it out (the mystery/killer).

Springer wrote the death scenes so well! Gruesome, even for a YA, and I loved it! How do I say I love death scenes... without saying I love reading people die?

Two of the characters are named Chevrolet and Winchester...

There's a cat, that was okay.

Grumpy x sunshine but the grumpy is just really rude under the guise of anxiety and sunshine but she's just... Nice?

To me the synopsis didn't indicate that it was a fantasy set in our world so when Tamsin used a cell phone I was so confused for a few minutes. But that quickly changed because I really liked how the author approached it and mixed the two (a typical fantasy world and the ‘normal' world) together. Bracken really did a good job at it, which made my reading of the book easier because I was able to enjoy myself without having to work too hard on tying the two worlds together. As Bracken did such a good job on that – all I had to do was sit back and enjoy the ride.

There are a lot of new terms in the book that I had to learn. I was reading on my Kindle so I was able to highlight them all in a specific colour and just refer back to them at any point in the book – that helped a bit

Even if I didn't know beforehand I could've easily picked up that this was written by a man. It's the way he talks about everything, how he narrated through the main character's eye. Though I dnfed this it did help me to see what I like and don't like in adult thriller/horror novels. The fact that this had nearly nothing of what I like – says a lot, I think. I have this author's new arc as well so I hope it's better.

The main character was an edgy cop and I watch a lot of crime shows – I watched a lot of CSI as a kid, rewatch the older seasons of Criminal Minds because I love them. So I understand the whole ‘edgy cop' vibe that writers like to go for (even though it's much overdone and therefore very stereotypical). Markert didn't write it well. Tried too hard to make the Dectective Mills edgy. I just skim read when he spoke about something that I knew would make him more edgy – because I didn't care!

The other main character was a writer and I actually preferred when the chapter focused on Mills instead of the author. Nothing really wrong with how Ben Bookman was written, I just didn't like him at all.

The horror aspect was okay – I didn't understand any of it, unfortunately. The plot was very confusing and was another reason for me to dnf. Even when I skipped ahead and read around I still didn't understand anything. Actually, in my opinion, it read like it went on downhill in terms of quality. I was sad because in the beginning it felt a bit like Sinister and I love that movie so I wanted to see that type of thing here.

I love it when book characters do enemies-to-lovers well. I want to not only see but believe that they dislike each other. How they're annoyed with each other and how that turns to tolerating each other... And then love. Hart and Mercy do it so well – how could I not love it? One thing I love is pet names in books. I like them even more with enemies-to-lovers as you can be SURE the irritating nicknames will turn into being said lovingly. In here Mercy uses Hart-ache, and Hart says Merciless and my heart practically soared.

Bannen did a great job with Hart and Mercy's personalities. Even though I know I don't like communication like this, I still wanted them to work it out, to not be mad at each when it would eventually crash and break apart. I liked how they poured their hearts out to each other in the letters (not knowing it was the other, of course) and then disliking each other when meeting physically. I kept yelling at them “DON'T YOU KNOW (but of course they don't).

I'll admit the world-building is quite confusing and I certainly didn't understand everything, nor do I intend to understand everything. I've learnt there's an art in letting yourself not understand books fully and it can be great! Honestly I could in fact write a whole post about that

Kokoro is a character that I loved instantly and I'm glad we had her as a main character. I really liked that as the book went on she opened up to her mom – I think that relationship will improve (after the book is finished). I'm also very happy that her parents didn't force her to go to school – I think that helped me to like them more. She (Kokoro) was a great main character to follow because she fit the essence of this book so well.

It's a slow-paced book but the author writes it without making it seem too slow. Sometimes it felt like the story was dragging a bit but the author quickly managed to bring it back and therefore keep my interest piqued.

I definitely did not predict the plot twists that happened in the book and I think I can predict about 60-70% of plot twists in books? So the fact that everything here took me by surprise was a joy to read. Especially because it meant that I could just sit and enjoy the book without being (somewhat) annoyed at where it was going because I could predict the plot.

The other characters in this were also slow to get to know but I think as you delve deeper into the story you really get to know them. And I hope that, just like they made me cry, that they'll leave you in tears – or at the very least, wanting to hold the nearest thing to you tightly because you feel sad.

Another really quick read and another one that I really loved! I hope I can carry on with these quick reads that I really love. This one was a heartfelt, sweet read about two friends falling in love.

As I've said before, I'm just not really a fan of the friends-to-lovers but I think it's due to how it's normally written. Luckily it wasn't the case in Nate Plus One. I very much enjoyed the trope and definitely would've liked the book to have been longer. Even if it would just have been more South African things to fill the pages.

Speaking of South African things, I loved seeing all the nods and little things – even if they didn't come down to Cape Town (I live near Cape Town and I don't remember Durban very well).

I laughed when they heard ‘robots' and were very confused because, yes, we do call traffic lights robots. (don't ask why, I don't know why). I loved they included a braai (like a barbeque, but just better) but I would have loved the braai to be longer – both as in more written and chronologically longer. It's a running joke that braais take forever. You could go to a friend's house at 2pm and only eat the cookd food around 11pm. I'm quite serious

Absolutely deserves to be so hyped up

My review copy was SO bad I had to loan it out of a library I thankfully had access to through my sister. I'll show you some pictures (which I luckily had because I sent them to a friend as I removed the arc from my Kindle). It was so bad. I would've actually preferred a pdf I had to read through ADE or something than have to go through this pain.

My name is Sorceline... is supposed to be IN THE WHITE BOX. Every single panel's dialogue all had the text underneath. Same with the other page. I tried to read it and I just couldn't do any of it.

I was so looking forward to read this and then was let down. They focused more on the plot than characters and that resulted in an imbalance that made me not interested in the characters. It also felt like there were multiple plots in this one SMALL book. It's not even 150 pages and multiple plots (subplots included of course) are not worth it. I would mix up the names with the faces and didn't care. Which should tell you a lot. There were lines that were said and then they wouldn't be followed up on even though the line... should've been followed up. The main character, Sorceline, was written out to be this super cool and important character (didn't feel like it to me) and it was hard to be interested in her (or anything, really).

It wasn't the art -the art was great and I loved all the panels. I could definitely feel the emotions on the characters faces and I could see that the illustrator enjoyed drawing it. So for that (the art) it gets 2 stars (and everything else, literally nothing lol). I loved looking at all the fantasy creatures as they were beautifully illustrated. I liked that the colours weren't bright and the graphic novel felt like a cute animated movie. I know I would've loved this graphic novel – had it just been written differently. I love the idea of a cryptozoologist and we're in the classes, learning about the creatures – that I enjoyed. Maybe even more emphasis on the classes instead of the characters.

I sort of expected Lovelace to narrate the audiobook and she did a really good job! The audio actually had a little bit of extra in it – sometimes Lovelace would expand on a poem, or explain why she wrote the poem. I like how simple the poems were and at the same time meant a lot. As always I could see the passion she had for writing in her poems – both for poetry and for the topics in general.
Persephone is a big part of this poetry collection. Some people see the (Hades and Persephone) myth as a happy one – where Hades and Persephone are in love; others as more of a horror story – where Hades kidnaps Persephone and tricks her into eating the pomegranate seeds. This collection focuses mostly on Persephone and her knowing that she's more than just a love interest, that she's powerful and she knows it.

I think what I really needed was a long and in-depth book to just push me and really get me in the mood to read long fantasy books again and this really did! Even though this is under 500 pages so it's not actually that long, but it felt like it was. That is quite impressive, though – to seem like a long book even though it's not a long book (I think long books are usually over 500 pages?).

It is such an immersive book, it really just drags you into the story, making you forget where you actually are because it truly felt like I was traveling with the characters, living the story with them – which is honestly my biggest wish when I'm reading (especially fantasy) books. Abdullah can definitely pat herself on the back because it is really impressive and I can't wait to read everything else she has (and I very much hope she'll be writing more after this trilogy is complete).

The characters are really what drew me in first. They're rich, well-written, complicated without being too complicated. They're exactly the type of characters you'd want to have and follow in a fantasy series. Loulie al-Nazari is just the type of female main character I want to see in a book – smart, capable, one who knows herself. I always love any type of magical items in books, so of course her finding and selling ancient relics made me like her more. I also like her strong personality and the fact that she's a strong character who speaks her mind. Qadir is definitely my favourite character and he just needs so many naps because he's so busy being the Dad™️ of the group. I NEED his POV in the sequel, you don't understand how much. He's funny and I love him. I loved reading his relationship with Loulie and how he cares for her.

Mazen and Aisha are two characters that I didn't think I'd like but I grew to really like them. Mazen, originally unsure about basically everything, really started to come more into his personality and shared what he loved – telling stories. I loved hearing the stories and the big emphasis that they had in the book – which just goes to show you how important oral storytelling is in various cultures. I didn't like Aisha at the start but she grew on me with her fierce personality and how she just forges on, not caring what people care about her.

The oral storytelling plays a big role in the book and I love how Abdullah ties the storytelling to culture, mythology, and history. The writing and world-building are both stunning and vibrant. Rich with description – especially the food – it made hungry several times

It's very interesting, looking at the synopsis before and after reading the book; which just shows the power of a good synopsis and how it can fool you. Which was the case with this book. I was actually interested in reading it due to the synopsis and then all the drama happened but I decided to just forge ahead and go for it. Really, I should've stopped at the sample where I could tell this book would be a very difficult one. Will I be reading the sequel and hating every minute? Absolutely.

Like I said, it looked promising from the outside and then it kept falling apart and unraveling until nothing made sense anymore (all this well before the 50% mark, mind you). The synopsis promised adventure, curses, love, intrigue, even a game that sounded so good. What we get is a smidge, about like 4.3% (if I'm being honest, probably lower, I'm not good with stats) of all of that. I haven't read Aster's other (middle grade) series so I don't know if it's her voice. Maybe her writing and editing (Lightlark) so quickly in order to keep interest made nothing really work.

I could definitely see that Aster's previous series was Middle Grade. I'm not saying that you have to write heavy and confusing sentences for teenagers to decipher (they get enough of that in their language classes) – this just read too juvenile for most YA books. Maybe Aster could be good – if she just spent more time on this. Apparently she's been working on this for over 10 years. Someone said the names read like placeholder names – and it DOES. It does read like she never changed the names even though she kept meaning to.

What I noticed was her overuse of popular tropes – and how they weren't even well executed. I will admit, I could tell that she does love the tropes she used, but it needed a LOT of work. I don't mind them being used at all, I'm just asking for them to be written well. Don't just try to mush all the tropes to say you're using them – especially if you aren't able to execute them well. Also to me it looked like Aster wanted the tropes of the book so badly that she thought she could just go ahead, the actual writing would come after (it doesn't). Also like everything about the book is very YA but Aster goes on about spicy scenes on her social media? Make it make sense.

Isla Crown is the main character. Isla means island and she lives on an island and she goes to another island. As for Crown being her last name when she's the ruler of her realm – that's like because I wear glasses, my surname is Glass (Which it isn't).

The other names and their characters were just as bad. Oh, wow, here's this guy named Grimshaw. His voice is as dark and striking as midnight. He's super tall, his eyes are black as coals, and his hair is like ink. I wonder what realm he belongs to. Maybe the “bad” realm (Nightshade)? And of COURSE he is! Azul, ruler of Skyling – Azul... azure AKA SKY. Oro is Spanish for Gold and he's the Sunling realm's leader. What colour is the Sun? GOLD. Listen, I'm not saying that you have to sit and think up a name for like months, but also... maybe sit and think of names a bit more?

The Realms are Sunling, Wildling, Starling, Moonling, Skyling, and Nightshade. I'll give you 3 guesses as to which is written as the bad realm (even though I just said it in the previous paragraph). Once again, she really could've spent more time choosing names for them all.

Another thing I didn't like was the constant mentions of the realms and what they could do. When they barely even did any of that. We constantly heard that the Nightshade Realm is the worst one, that they're so evil. But then nothing they actually do can really be classified as evil in my opinion? Like the Wildling realm, who actually eat hearts, could technically be considered the evil realm more than Nightshade. The entire book is one whole string of tell, don't show (and even the telling was bad).

We get told that Isla is the most perfect, most beautiful, most amazing person ever to exist! She's just absolutely beautiful and gorgeous. She doesn't care what she wears but will also choose to wear beautiful, skintight clothing because that's what she's been taught to do. She can sing most wonderfully (and she was never taught to do this, it sounded like she could just sing perfectly from birth?? I don't know if other Wildlings have the same power) – looks like Aster can ALSO sing so like... I just found that a tad bit funny.

I laughed so many times because we're constantly told that Isla is beautiful and has been practicing for every single battle that can ever be fought as soon as she was able to walk BUT she's also clumsy! She's the BEST strategist to EVER strategise but none of her plans actually ever work. She's so amazing at seducing people but also hates to do it. Also I just don't understand how she was taught to wield LITERALLY every single weapon ever, PLUS able to seduce people, PLUS being able to dance, PLUS knowing how to strategise ALL WHILE knowing how to speak to other people in certain ways? And she knows how to read and write – there is absolutely no way she went through all of that at her young (18-20, I think) age. Even if she was isolated in her room, I really don't believe it.

I very much dislike the fact that we're promised diversity in the book and we get absolute crumbs. Cleo has a throwaway line about how her sexuality, and the line also reinforces the stereotype that bisexuals sleep around. Azul is black and gay (so two minorities for the price of one, I guess!) but I didn't realise he's not white until I was reading reviews and it was mentioned. We get about two lines of his (late) husband.

Isla is not white. All we get told is that her skin is a few shades darker than another ruler. The author is Indigenous Latinx and she said she wrote Lightlark, and specifically Isla, because she wanted to read that type of book and character on the shelves when she was a teen. Which is great for Aster. But that doesn't... necessarily always mean the character of colour will be written well (and that's me reading other Latinx readers' reviews to see what they had to say).

Something I don't like about the Wildlings' realm is that it's constantly seen and referred to as the wild ones, the savages ones. They're able to seduce everyone, which... is not the greatest thing when that realm is basically classed as the Latinx community and the community is often stereotyped as people who sleep around.

Some extra, tiny thoughts (because this is a long review): Lightlark was a shiny, cliffy thing. The sun was a yolky thing. Aster wrote Lightlark before breakfast, I can see. There were so many plot twists – like NINE happened in 1-2 chapters (overrated perhaps but oh well). I don't really think it could have been written well and you'd have to be a good writer (so, not Aster).

The world-building in this is both hilariously simple and it also makes absolutely no sense. I was telling my friend all about this and my friend was like “the world-building is lacking” and I'm like YOU WOULD THINK. We get told every other page of the curse (but only get told much later more about the curse), There's a prophecy but we only actually get TOLD the prophecy around the 50% mark. We get told about the different realms, their powers and their curses about every 5 pages – so really I should've have known everything by page 100. YET, there I was, sending a THIRTY MINUTE voice note to my friend, trying to explain the plot while also going every few seconds “I'm sorry if this is confusing, because I'M Confused.

Sorry is there an ALTERNATE ENDING every one is keeping from me?

I got the audio from Libby, mainly because I wanted to fulfill a bingo board prompt, but also because I could see I was struggling with the e-book. Unfortunately I had to send it back early because I didn't like the narrator at all. I think the voice for the one character was fine, I just couldn't deal with the main character's voice. He was already whiny in my eyes and the voice made it worse. convenience

Then I chose to fully dnf afterwards. I didn't like any of the characters I'd met so far. I'd thought even though I didn't them, maybe the plot points would be better for me – that wasn't the case. And finally I wasn't a fan of the dialogue – especially between Gaige (our main character) and Logan (his boyfriend). It started to make me like them and the book less. So rather than having to force myself to finish the book, I chose to say bye bye.

I'll have to read another Hallett book to see if Alperton Angels was a once-off because I really enjoyed this book. Her new book, The Examiner, looks the most interesting but I will pick up The Twyford Code to see what's going on. I read this in 2 days and had fun all the way through – compared to the slog and bore that was Angels (yes, I should've dnfed lol).

I think what changed this time around is that the law students (I kept thinking they were detectives, probably because they were in contact with a PC (Police Constable)) were very in the background. They'd pop up here and there with a few messages and then were only really in the forefront near the end. Compared to Angels when the authors were constantly messaging each other and we were ‘treated' to their ‘personality'.

The characters (the ones involved in the crime) were also way more interesting than the first Hallett book I read. They live in a small town, so yes, they are quite involved in each others' lives and are more nosy than I'd like people I'd see every week for community theatre. Isabel was just my absolute favourite. I screenshotted nearly every email that Isabel sent to show my friend and my girl? was so unhinged you just have to love her. Something I said to my friend and I'll say it here is: Nothing says delulu like Isalulu. She was out here planning a WHOLE TRIP to Africa with her so-called ‘bestie', Samantha, who's new to the theatre group (Samantha and her husband used to work for Doctors Without Borders in Africa – everyone just says ‘Africa', they worked in 3 different countries). Then to other people she's saying that the trip is Sam's idea. She's also just... constantly trying to make Sam her bestie and I was just Regina George in Mean Girls – “stop trying to make fetch happen!”

I thought it was an interesting idea to make Sam and her husband never really interact with any of the others. They don't send emails or text messages so you don't get to know their personalities like the others. At the same time they didn't... really have much of a personality – so that was also annoying because I didn't feel like I knew them; ; I was just knew them from others' interactions and feelings of them. And you can't trust anything Isabel say so lol.

The actual murder happens quite late in, which I'm not a fan of. I was raised on procedural crime shows where the murder happens before the intro. It's a good reason (in my opinion) to dnf – but in here that didn't bother me too much because I did want to solve the murder. I won't talk much about the murder and the perpetrator but I didn't like who it turned out to be. I understood the motives, but it didn't fit the character so much?

Extremely quick read! I would've liked more but I'm happy with what we got. Even though I really liked it I rated it that because of all the supporting characters. I didn't like them much at all. I liked them a little bit and then definitely not and then back to like, etc. I felt they (the cheer squad) wanted to look all supportive but... they weren't so much? And her parents, yeah, not a fan of the way they approached it. I felt it was “eh, we suppose you can do it. But only if...”

While I very much understood the anxiety and not wanting to make a fuss over yourself; I felt like she could've... spoken up a bit more regarding her parents and cheer squad?

All in all, this was an incredibly cute graphic novel, very expressive with the faces – which, even though I'm not an artist at all – for me that's important. And I got that here.

Apparently this is meant to be a fast-paced book – I definitely did not get that vibe. As with Goth Girl, I really tried to push myself to read and like this book, and I eventually decided this was not worth it. I really liked that it was diverse and I enjoyed seeing the Bronx rather than New York or another standard American setting – especially when they added a bit of history – that I did enjoy. That was sort of all that I enjoyed about the book.

The book didn't scare me – I love horror movies so when I read a horror book I want that same feeling. I unfortunately didn't feel the same way, which might've been another reason for my dnf – that I couldn't get into the book because the horror wasn't enough for me.

Even though I got to nearly 60% I still felt like I didn't know anything about the characters, and yet I had been given a lot of information about them. I think the writing was fine enough, I just couldn't find anything about... anything to really dig into the story and enjoy. Much like Goth Girl, this will find their audience and others will enjoy it.

So first of all – Lightlark was written in the morning, before Aster had her breakfast. She had a word goal and then she could eat (which must've been eggs every morning because why was the sun being referred to as a yolky thing etc). Nightbane was written late at night. Aster must've had to hit her word goal to be able to go to sleep – because it was boring and I wanted to SLEEP after every chapter. I want to speak to Aster's editor because what does Aster HAVE over you or WHAT is written in that contract. Why are there so many ellipses? Sometimes it was THREE IN ONE PARAGRAPH.

A lot of the chapters just ended and I don't like it – like there was meant to be more or Aster just wanted to get to the next chapter. It just makes me feel as if the author isn't doing their due diligence in ensuring the chapters flow from one to the next. The ease of chapter flowing is something I've only recently picked up on and I'm not a fan. Some choice words/phrases were used and I wonder why. His eyes had been hollow as honeycomb. Someone was built like a tombstone and then referred to like being carved out of a mountain – which I'm used to seeing. It's just... tombstone. Okay, I could argue Aster had been watching Twilight but Edward was never likened to a tombstone. My favourite sentence – “her own shoulders were small, tiny slopes. His were wide cliffs.”

Isla goes back to Wilding Isle (because remember, she's actually the ruler). The text mentions that Wildlings have animal companions, her tutors had them, she's always wanted one. That was entirely new to me because she had never mentioned this before but apparently it was mentioned in Lightlark? One time I think. You'd think if she really really wanted a companion that it would have been mentioned more, no? Adding on to this new information – other information of the other isles are given. And while a lot of sequels do this (of course, it's totally natural to add on to the world-building); the way Aster did it made it sound like this info was given on like page 267 of Lightlark and we just weren't paying attention. You can't put brand new information in the second book and act like the readers should've known this in the first book.

Maybe I'm cynical, maybe you'll say I'm a romance hater (which I'm not) but EVEN TWILIGHT has literally a better love story/love triangle than this. And that's saying something as it's Twilight. All three of the characters of the love triangle are absolutely horrible and Isla shouldn't end up with either of them. She should just stay single, on a deserted island, so nobody (me) has to look at her. They're all so boring – I don't care for any of them. Either romance is extremely unbelievable, their personalities are so bland. I don't understand the allure of this love triangle in the slightest. Also please read this line about Oro and Isla: The love between them was like a bridge. It went in both directions. I read a bunch of romance and I've been reading forever – I know about chemistry between characters – whether platonic or romantic. I can tell what works and what doesn't work. It's not only the romance that doesn't work in here. Literally nothing at all worked for like even a second in here.

Grim is not a person, he's not a ruler, he's not even a fictional character. He's just 3 badly written tropes in a (black) trench coat. You cannot write characters made up of tropes. They won't work like that. They fall flat, they feel boring, and they don't work. Not as interesting characters and not as believable love interests. You want me to root for them, you want me to care for them? I can't care for characters that aren't even fully fleshed-out characters. Oro... I don't even know what to say about him because he was so incredibly bland and boring in here. Aster stuffs so many tropes into Grim that poor Oro only receives scraps and then has to figure out how to create a personality from that.

If I thought the world-building didn't make sense the previous book, then basically all the work that had possibly been done had unravelled for this book. It was a mix of just loose world-building and plotlines flying around. A war was going to happen but the reason for it happening was never addressed? Oh no, wait, it was only addressed at like 98% and that still didn't make a lick of sense. There's a lot (like every other chapter and I groaned when I saw it) of flashbacks and I guess that and the “incoming war” were supposed to be the plotlines? Except they weren't because they were both written so dully. The first book (and I can't believe i”m saying this) actually had a plot (well multiple and Aster didn't do a good job of juggling them) so it'll be interesting to see what the third book will be like.

Actual rating 3.75 rtc

I saw that In Nightfall had vampires in it and I was like “right yes, instant add and read right here.” I've got those specific tropes and creatures that I'll read about in any format (film, tv, books) and vampires is certainly high on that list. Yes, mostly due to my Twilight phase but actually I think it's largely due to watching the Underworld Saga with Kate Beckinsale at a young age

I’m someone who really loves dual and multi povs but multiple audio narrators… I’m still getting there. It is easier when there’s at least one male narrator to at least change things up at the risk of the female narrators sounding the same. But when you’re listening at double speed just about everyone sounds the same. It’s not the book’s fault that I rated it 3.5 (even though that’s not really a low rating). It took a while to get into the story and the characters. In fact most of the trilogy was me trying to fully understand the story and characters. The action was great, Stewart is good at letting her readers be immersed in the world and action. I found that she’s good at writing physical action and magic – which is great because not many authors can successfully balance the two. The magic system was confusing but also interesting! I didn’t expect myself to understand it by the end of the first book (although I didn’t really understand by the end of the trilogy either) and I’m glad it didn’t stop me from enjoying the book.

There’s five main characters and all of them have their own chapters. It took me awhile to like Lin, the Emperor’s daughter who’s trying to make her father proud of her. I think it was around the mid-mark (of the book) that I liked her a bit more and also further on (into the series). She’s a strong character who figures out what she wants and her place in the world – I liked that. Jovis was probably my favourite main character. He’s got that ‘accidental dad vibe’ to him which showed when he got an animal companion – who was absolutely adorable and basically my other favourite character. I almost immediately liked him and liked getting to his chapters. I had an issue where I’d started reading Lin as as Upper YA (like she’s 18 or a bit younger) and Jovis as nearly 30. So I side-eyed this book for a while until I realised that Lin = adult. I still don’t know her actual age but after that I felt better 😅. For most of this book she did feel younger but at least not actual teenager. Other than that I liked their relationship and was happy to follow it.

The next two characters (Phalue and Ramani) are in the same place so you get a lot of the same plots (but different feelings). It didn’t help that their individual character voices weren’t distinct in my opinion, though their personalities were well-written. I would’ve picked one, not both of them as a point of view – but I couldn’t tell you which one I would’ve chosen. My least liked POV is Sand, an outsider, and not much is really revealed about her at the start. She was an interesting character but I don’t think I ever really liked her.

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This was really good! I didn't realise that it was so short – 224 pages! A good thing is that it didn't feel like I was missing out by it not being over 300 pages. The pace was exactly what I want in a horror book. And another reason why I liked the book so much was because it felt a lot like a horror movie would – and I love it when books feel like that.

I did guess the one plot twist, but it didn't bother me much when I read it. Then there was another plot twist that I definitely didn't see coming, which was really cool to see. Normally I can figure out plot twists (thank you years of watching crime shows). All in all, the plot is really good, reads easily, and it's enough to get you to finish the book in one setting!

I really enjoyed the characters. Chrissy was a strong character and she definitely sees most of the action – she is psychic anyway, so it would make sense that she does. I didn't really like Chase – I felt him very annoying when it came to Chrissy. Emma and Kiki were cute, I did like reading their chapters.

Chase, I don't want to go into detail because I don't want to spoil anything, but he was definitely my least favourite of the Ghost Gang. He seemed to want the fame and everything that came with the Ghost Gang more than wanting to find out the truth. Maybe he changes after this, who knows.

There was also another minor character by the name of Bram and Chase doesn't like him at all for reasons I won't go into. I didn't appreciate that of Chase. It felt too much like girl-on-girl hate for me (except they were guys).

Unfortunately, there was the issue of trying to figure out whose chapter was whose (as it's a multi-pov book. I didn't feel like their voices were strong enough to tell them apart – which is a shame as it's such a short book.

I recommend this book if you like ghost stories, true crime series. Maybe you like multi-pov. Or a lot of real-life references in your books! Definitely recommend this to you!

I have The Tempest (the original play). I didn't know anything about the play before I picked up this book – or at least I tried to pick this up. It was just absolutely terrible, all the way through. I've read Samantha Cohoe's other book, A Golden Fury and that was mostly good.

It's said to be set on an island in the 1920s – I took that to be a big, big lie because nothing in the book read that way. I would believe it more if you told me it was set in the late 2020s and the main character just lived on the island, away from social media and wifi. It honestly would've been more maybe more interesting if it was a modern retelling.

I could not tell you a SINGLE thing about the main character- in fact, I had to literally scroll to find her name in the arc because it's a first person POV. Sometimes that POV works. Most times it's difficult to write it in a way where it sounds good. This was most certainly not the case here. And me not remembering her name should definitely tell you something.

All the characters felt very one-dimensional and very forgetful. I could not tell you a single fact about them – barely even their names. And I read 45% of this – I should remember something without looking at my notes or rereading some pages.

There was sort of a love triangle going on. Mae, Miles, and this 25 year old guy (who are both part of the family) whose name I don't remember. Mae is like super in love with Miles, even though she only sees him like once or something a year. And he's rude to everyone Mae included – which is a trope I really dislike. And the other love interest is 25... while she's 18 at the start of the book. No thank you to either of them. Send them both to the no-no zone on the island, faraway from this EIGHTEEN year old girl who barely knows anyone other than this super rich family.

Adorable, loved it