I have a confession. This is my first ever Cassandra Clare book, despite being the perfect age when The Mortal Instruments came out they somehow never made it onto my radar. So this is a review from someone who is brand new to Cassandra Clare’s writing.
Romantic Fantasy
Book Review: Silver Blood (Gilded Blood #0) by Rachel Rener
TL;DR Review: Spicy, steamy, dark and broody yet surprisingly colorful. An awesome prequel to the Gilded Blood series. Synopsis: Two years before Talia’s story ended, Zayn’s story began… “I could smell her attraction for me, so potent I could almost taste it; somehow, I knew that if I ever let myself steal a sip of […]
Review: Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell
Synopsis Shesheshen has made a mistake fatal to all monsters: she’s fallen in love. Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by hunters intent on murdering her, she constructs a body from the remains of past meals: a metal […]
Book Review: Dungeons and Dragon Dating by Virginia McClain
TL;DR Review: Legends and Lattes goes on an adventure disguised as a dating game. Lovely, heartwarming, satisfying queer cozy romance I adored. Synopsis: WHAT KIND OF DRAGON SENDS A BLIND DATE TO A CURSED FOREST?! Quiet café owner Lyra Stranglevine knows that she’s too broken for romance. So, she never expected to wind up killing […]
Review: Dungeons & Dragon Dating by Virginia McClain
Synopsis WHAT KIND OF DRAGON SENDS A BLIND DATE TO A CURSED FOREST?! Quiet café owner Lyra Stranglevine knows that she’s too broken for romance. So, she never expected to wind up killing zombified bugbears with her Great Gram’s favorite sewing machine on a first date. And especially not with an adventure-hardened battle mage. Even […]
Review: Reign & Ruin (Mages of the Wheel #1) by J.D. Evans
Synopsis “All magic is beautiful…and terrible. Do you not see the beauty in yours, or the terror in mine? You can stop a heart, and I can stop your breath.” She is heir to a Sultanate that once ruled the world. He is an unwanted prince with the power to destroy. She is order and […]
Review: Cruel is the Light by Sophie Clark
A demon-strably good book Synopsis A bloody war between demons and the Vatican has waged for more than a century, with two elite soldiers now at its center: Selene Alleva, a high-ranking exorcist running from a dark family legacy, and orphan Jules Lacroix, recruited by the Vatican and unrivalled on the battlefield. When their paths […]
Review: A Kingdom of Lies (Realm of Fey #2) by Ben Alderson
For me A Kingdom of Lies had a slow start, there was a bit of time where I was wondering if I should just put it down, but I persisted and I’m happy to say I really enjoyed the second half of the book. Once the plot got out of ‘what do we do next’ and people were no longer trapped in places I found that I was quite enjoying myself.
Review: The Humane Society for Creatures & Cryptids by Stephanie Gillis
Summary: The Lambros family has never fit in with the town of Pandora, even from the very beginning. Since their ancestors immigrated from Greece with magical creatures in tow, the townsfolk have never trusted them and that hasn’t changed in the centuries since. Now, Melpomene, Calliope, and Thalia struggle to live their every day lives. […]
Review: A Betrayal of Storms (Realm of Fey #1) by Ben Alderson
This book (and I suspect the series) is fun, if you want a Fae Court fantasy with bodyguard romance this one is for you. You’re not going to find anything brand new, but sometimes you just want to curl up with a book that feels like a comfort read before you even begun.
Review: The Courting of Bristol Keats (The Courting of Bristol Keats #1) by Mary E. Pearson
By the end I was really enjoying myself. This is romantasy where it’s light on the fantasy plot and heavier on the romance. The Courting of Bristol Keats’ main fantasy plot is ‘there’s a portal open and we need to close it using a rare power’, by all means not a bad fantasy plot, this is really just the intro book to it where Bristol is learning to use her power and learning about faerieland as a whole. The romance I got quite swept up in by the end of the book.
Review: The Songbird & the Heart of Stone (Crowns of Nyaxia #3) by Carissa Broadbent
This was my first Carissa Broadbent book and I can tell you for a fact it will not be my last. This is technically the third in the Crowns of Nyaxia series but first in its own duology. So no need to have read the first two books to start this one, it follows what I believe is a side character in the first two books, and all of the important history and context is revealed throughout the book. At no point did I feel like I was missing any context by not having read the other books. TLDR; you can start with this book and be fine.