Dark Breaks the Dawn: 4 Stars

Author: Sara B. Larson
Length: 320 pgs.

I really enjoyed this book, and didn’t want to put it down. It’s been a while since a fantasy novel grabbed me, but this did the trick. The writing is beautiful, and makes me want to go back and read that copy of Defy (also by Sara Larson) that’s been on my kindle for 3+ years and I haven’t gotten to. I loved reading about the differences between the Light and Dark Draiolon, their respective kingdoms and rulers, and how magic works in this world. With so many books in this genre sometimes they tend to blur together so I appreciate an author’s attempt to lend some uniqueness to their story.

The heroine, Evelayn, is immediately likeable. She’s determined, strong, and it’s easy to feel for her after she suffers the devastating loss of both her parents in a decade long war. Her magic doesn’t come easy to her but she has no choice but to take a crash course in order to take up the fight against the relentless King Bain.

The love story introduced in this book is charming and pleasant. Larson gives us the satisfaction of letting it play out naturally, not hindering it with the popular use of inner conflict that prevents so many book couples from ever getting together. Unfortunately this is only the first book of a duology, so while we get to see two likeable people fall in love, we’re not given the security of knowing they’ll have their happily ever after.

The story took a few turns that definitely gave me the creeps: a foreboding agreement of sorts between the Queen and a magical entity who will one day collect on an unnamed favor, a Dark prince who has something brewing behind the scenes, a general sense that danger is lurking just outside of our peripheral vision. Larson is excellent at propelling the story towards a disturbing and cliffhanger climax.

I’m glad I picked this up as I initially had brushed it off as yet another YA fantasy novel. Will definitely read the next one!

The Invisible Library: 2 Stars

Author: Genevieve Cogman
Length: 10 long hours, 31 painful minutes
This book was a total flop for me, which is such a bummer because it had such great potential. I fell in love with the premise and when the book had a price drop last year I snatched it up. Unfortunately, it did not meet my expectations at all. The storyline was completely confusing and mindboggling, with the librarian Irene and her trainee Kai chasing down a missing book for unknown reasons and every circumstance possible managing to get in their way. The action was painfully underwhelming and didn’t do the story any favors. Instead of being exciting, the magic that the librarians have the ability to perform in some cases was written in a way that made it the exact opposite. How can cyborg, mind-controlled alligators, evil faeries and a rogue librarian who hijacks human skin be uninteresting?? I was bored out of my mind for 99% of the story with the 1% being the climax and part of my interest stemming from the fact that I knew the book was FINALLY going to end.

I think I wanted this to be like the Chronicles of St. Mary's series (see Just One Damned Thing After Another) which is the case when I come across any sort of time/dimension travel storyline, because that series is epically exciting. That’s never, ever the case and I never seem to learn my lesson.

Pure Healing (Pure/ Dark Ones #1): 4 Stars

Author: Aja James
Length: 248 pgs.
Pure Healing is an elegantly written dark fantasy novel about a vampire-like race called the Pure Ones. They’re different from vampires in many ways however; there’s no feeding off humans in dark alleys or anything like that here. The Pure Ones are a more refined group of beings, and the tale of their origin is just one of the many unique elements that add to the book’s world building.

The world building is what I really enjoyed here. Even the ages-old vampires were given an interesting twist that sets them apart from other books in this genre, with a truly creepy genre-blurring villian in their midst. I loved reading about how everything came to be, how each character got to where they are now. Everyone has a story, a gift, and a specific purpose in the organization that serves their race.

The story alternates between viewpoints so we get a little bit of everyone’s perspectives, even the villain’s. I see other reviews comparing it to Black Dagger Brotherhood but for me, Pure Ones was better. I found that it just resonated more with me and elicited more of an emotional reaction than the three BDB books I’ve read, especially at one point towards the end when one of the characters tearfully begs another to stay. I won’t lie and say I wasn’t sobbing at that part.

There is action here, but there’s also foreshadowing and build-up to the next installment in the series, with a certain character giving me the heebie-jeebies so I just know something is going to happen there unless my instincts are way off. Must. Keep. Reading!

If you are looking for a superficial, quick urban fantasy read with a cross-species instalove storyline (so, like, any other vampire story), this is probably not the book for you. If you want a carefully thought out, layered fantasy novel with seamless prose, I would recommend Pure Ones.

Demon Lover (Fairytale Fantasies #2): 3 Stars

Author: Marie Treanor
Length: 232 pgs.
I borrowed this book via Kindle Unlimited.

This was a cute little read. I give it a solid three stars. It puts an interesting twist on the Rumpelstiltskin fairytale in which he turns straw into gold. However in this story his name isn’t actually Rumpelstiltskin but Ragnorak-if you know his true name, Svartan if you don’t.

Ragnorak comes to Gwyneth’s aid after her father’s boastful words put her in front of the king, who thinks she’s able to spin straw into gold. She’s locked up for 3 nights in order to do this, and as the story goes Ragnorak shows up after she pleads with God for assistance.

There’s instant chemistry but of course, on the third night Ragnorak asks for Gwyneth to promise him her firstborn in order to turn the straw into gold one last time. Desperate, she agrees – and months later Ragnorak returns to take her new daughter, Brea, back with him to his underground realm of Elohim. Only in this story, Gwyneth is given and accepts an offer of accompanying Brea.

Over the course of the story Ragnorak and Gwyneth of course fall in love and make an erotic deal which Gwyneth at first hopes will get her out of Elohim and back to the outside world. As days go by, however, she begins to fall for Ragnorak, and finds that he treats her and Brea much better than the King ever did.

I liked reading about Ragnorak’s underground world. I found Gwyneth to be likable and I enjoyed seeing them fall in love, albeit delayed for a bit due to the fact that both are playing their cards close to their chest. I did like that they threw in the storyline of Ragnorak’s secret ties to the King and his attempt to make a deal with King Midas. It was good to see some outside conflict after reading about Gwyneth and Ragnorak hanging out underground for a while. Unfortunately the downside was that there was nothing going on that really grabbed me, gave me that feeling of I NEED TO KEEP READING. But it wasn't unenjoyable, just a little middle of the line.

A short, fun 3 star read if you like fairytales and erotica.

Where Darkness Falls: 3 stars

Author: Bella Jewel
Length: 257 pgs.
What to say, what to say….

Well, to start off I did like this book. I just didn’t like it as much-nearly as much- as its predecessor, Enslaved by the Ocean. I’m a sucker for pirates and sea adventures so I snatched up the kindle book and accompanying audio for $3. This book picks up right where Enslaved leaves off, when the heroine Jess is kidnapped by a pirate Dimitri right off the ship where she lives. I prepared for another adventure on the open waters to begin. So imagine my disappointment when Dimitri immediately takes Jess to California where they dock his ship. That’s right…they spend about 5 minutes in the beginning on the actual pirate ship before heading to L.A. So basically this was a story about a docked pirate who, due to a years-long misunderstanding, is using Jess to get back at his longtime enemy Hendrix.

I did like the back and forth between Jess and Dimitri; you know they’re going to fall for each other you’re just not sure how or when. They did bond over some similar traumatic events they’d both experienced, but not until later in the book when Jess was forced due to some outside circumstances to share her past with him.

I was disappointed that there was no real sense of danger at all until the end of the book when some very unlikely events bring Jess back into the hands of a man who terrorized her as a child. But even when she’s first kidnapped by Dimitri, there’s really no fear that she’s not safe. Nothing bad really happens around her, the “pirates” seem more like a rowdy group of friends hanging out. It’s basically a lot of talking, getting to know each other, eventual removal of the clothes and what not, until Jess is re-kidnapped by someone else and thrown into an underground women’s wrestling league.

You read that correctly, lol. I enjoyed the nice little twist there and how Dimitri was suddenly replaced by an actual bad guy who does bad things. Once Jess’s life was in actual danger things got exciting. But that was at maybe 75-80% through the book and was pretty much just a means to propel us towards the inevitable HEA.

So while I liked this book, I’d have to stick with Enslaved by the Ocean as my favorite of the series, since it takes place on the actual ocean with actual pirates whom we don’t know and can’t trust. Dimitri is a character who’s mentioned in the first book and just never holds that level of threatening unfamiliarity as the book’s mysterious male MC. I liked Jess as the heroine and they were a good pair at the end but it just wasn’t as fun as the first book.

Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass #3): 4 Stars

Author: Sarah Maas
Length: 576 pgs.
Audiobook length: 20 hours 39 minutes

WOW. Wowee wow wow. This was SUCH an improvement on the second book - Crown of Midnight (review here.)

Whereas Crown of Midnight was almost like a history lesson on Celaena’s world (with a little action and a devastating loss thrown in), Heir of Fire is so chockfull of action, betrayal and mischief that there's hardly any room to breathe between chapters. It's also where we witness Celaena completely come into her own and transform from the emotionally disabled assassin into the woman she is meant to be. It was time for her to grow up and it seems like such a natural progression.


We’re introduced to many new characters, one of whom is Manon, heir to the powerful Blackbeak witch clan. It’s amazing to me the thought that goes into the creation of all these characters with their rich, realistic personal backstories and extended history, unique behaviors, traditions and beliefs. The addition of the witches to the story is an example of this, and it’s not just Manon’s clan we meet but the Yellowlegs and Bluebloods as well. And why they are all together is something I won’t spoil here but gives me chills thinking about how it will eventually all play out. This is a story well over 500 pages and yet there’s so much more to come on this front.

Another character who was introduced is Rowan. He’s unlikeable at first, and wants to be that way. Yet, the bond that slowly forms and changes and grows between him and Celaena throughout the book feels completely real. By the end of the book I was emotionally affected by their friendship and the way that they rescue each other from various situations. It’s also Rowan who helps to unlock Celaena’s heart.

Shit definitely hits the fan in this book. No one really feels safe (as in, not to be killed off) except for Celaena, and that’s only because I already know her story continues, otherwise I might question even that. At the end of the book, the ever-present danger shows itself in an oh-shit-now-it’s-going-down way, and we know from that point that things are going to be WAY different moving forward.

It’s a combination of the emotional character transformations, the new relationships that are formed (some of which are painfully extinguished), the solid new characters that are introduced, new information that shines a light on so many things we’ve already seen and learned in this series, and the events that unfold in Heir of Fire’s conclusion that make this book pack such a powerful punch. I think I need to take a break and listen to some lighter fare before moving on to the fourth book, but I definitely will be reading that soon because I can’t wait to find out how everyone comes out on the other side of this.

On Wings of Time: Lochlainn Guardians #1: 3 Stars

Author: Linda Boulanger
Length: 202 pgs.

I picked this book up as an Amazon freebie. The cover made me chuckle but the storyline about dragons and time travel piqued my interest.

The book is about Amileigh, a young woman from 600 years ago who finds out she is a Prihom, a woman meant to unlock her true mate's inner dragon via, well, doin' it. She meets Eric, who was pulled into her time from 600+ years in the future to find out he is this mate. There's a rival dragon clan who wants to kill all the dragons in Eric's line so that they can make the remaining humans their slaves and become the most powerful force on earth. Therefore it's vital that Eric's line continue their dragon shifting and protection of those powerless to stop this from happening.

This is my first dragon shifter book, so I'm not sure what detail typically goes into the shifting part of it. In this book we get literally no details about the shifting itself other than what color Eric turns out to be in dragon form. I didn't mind it too much though, I just wanted to get to the good stuff- dragon fighting and the such. Buuuut, there's not much detail there either, other than the good dragons end up fighting the bad dragons and we figure out who wins when it's over about half a page later.

So detail isn't really a focus here, but I didn't really mind that in the end. The chemistry and pull between Eric and Amileigh is fun, even though Eric acts like an entitled teenager at times (he's in his twenties). When they finally get together to unlock Eric's dragon it's steamy enough to satisfy anyone's romance/erotica craving.

I enjoyed this book slightly more than I thought I would although it's pretty much on par with what you'd expect to get from a free book about time-travel and dragon shifting. I think I'll try out more dragon-shifting books though, because I enjoyed reading about their ancient, magical family history of dragons and Prihoms.

I'm always glad when I finish a freebie because it means I'm not just clouding up my Kindle with free Amazon bull@%, and I think with some more attention to detail and a little more solid storyline this could've been a four star read, but it's a quick enough read that if it's not your thing you get through it quickly enough. And anytime a book opens you up to something that's normally outside your genre it's a win, so I'm glad I picked this one up.

Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass #2): 3 Stars

Author: Sarah Maas
Length: 12 hrs 24 min
I gave the first book in this series five stars. It was an amazing read for me. I loved the heroine freed prisoner/assassin Celaena Sardothian. I felt torn by the charming love triangle between her, Prince Dorian and Chaol, the captain of the guard. I loved the storyline and the mystery, and I rooted for her the whole time.

I guess it's normal, expected even, for a series to have a sophomore slump. For me, this book was definitely slump worthy. It's hard for me to pinpoint exactly why I dropped my rating for this one by 2 stars. One of the differences was that I listened to the audiobook version, and the narrator has a haughty tone that makes everyone sound conniving and/or conceited. And okay, so that might be the case actually, but hearing it versus reading it usually isn't a problem for me. Here it was hard for me to have the same connection with Celaena that I had in the first book when I pictured her sounding tough yet vulnerable. The narrator made her sound almost petulant. And she may be written as somewhat of a brat at times, but I preferred my own projection versus the audiobook version. It was just a little off-putting.

The second problem was that there was SO MUCH SETUP AND INFORMATION packed into this book that it doesn't leave much for action. We learn more about the Wyrd written language introduced in Throne of Glass and Wryd keys and where they came from and what they mean and information about the king and things he might be working on, and more background history on the war that "ended" magic, and history on Celaena herself. If you're not paying very close attention, it's easy for things to get convoluted. So that was another audiobook issue for me. I can pay attention while listening, but when there are names I need to learn and complicated family and world history I need to remember, it's better to see it in writing and take the time to process it. Maybe I could have appreciated it better or felt more of an impact from the new information if I had read it instead of listened to it.

As for my comment about not leaving room for the action - okay, so there is action in this book. But I felt like it was limited to a few big events rather than being exciting throughout. One of the big events throws Celaena completely off her rocker, and she spends a lot of time deep in thought and grief. It's supposed to affect the reader in the same way I guess, but said event was something that I expected to happen eventually (I felt a character was only put there to be taken away) and wasn't that devastating for me. The next big event that I remember happening is about 80% into the book, and after finishing the audiobook in the same sitting, I actually went back and re-read this part via the kindle version. I just felt, again, like it gave me a deeper impact to read it without the narrator's influence.

Buuuut, despite the narrator, this book just didn't do it for me. I'm guessing it was the information overhaul combined with the lack of Celaena-doing-her-badass-assassin-thing that made it fall kind of flat. And that's another thing - Maas is very good at telling us how great of an assassin Celaena is. It's mentioned as a recap i.e. telling us she just killed countless people on the king's orders, but we didn't tag along on those kills. The ones we're privy to always involve Celaena getting injured and/or caught, and I just wish we saw more of her being the best assassin in the world and all that. I know that wouldn't be as exciting if we saw her get away with it every time, but a little more could be done to help us believe all this praise.

Points for the bomb dropping, though, at the very end of the book. So many complications stem from this cliffhanger!

Despite the fact that this won't be my favorite book in the series, it won't deter me from continuing what is still an exciting story. I jumped right into #3. I have both the audiobook and kindle version to Heir of Fire, and I'm still going to listen to the audiobook version on my commutes to help me get through it faster, but other than that I think I'll stick to reading the book since that was part of why I enjoyed Throne of Glass so much. I am 75 pages in at this point and already liking it more than Crown of Midnight!

The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower #1): 4 Stars

Author: Stephen King
Length: 327 pgs.

((I picked this book up for less than $2 on Goodwill books.))

I'll be honest, I never really understood the big deal about Stephen King. I've only read one of his books (Joyland) which was more coming of age with a bit of a ghost story than horror. Of course I saw The Shining like everyone else but I never read the actual book so that doesn't count. And I never was interested in reading this book or starting this series - every review I saw said that this book is boring, moves slow, etc. And it didn't seem like the typical King "horror" I keep hearing about-and it isn't. But it is a worthwhile book.

Then one day I started watching the movie The Dark Tower with my husband. We didn't finish it because I have four kids and can't last past 11 p.m. (it takes me like 2-3 days to finish a movie usually) but what I saw made me really interested in the story. So when I was browsing Goodwill online for some books and saw this listed for a super low price I figured what the hell. I'll try it.

So, the first part of the book - about 1/3 of it - moves pretty slow. I can see how people might call it "boring" if you don't hang in there for the rest of the story. What kept me going was the prose. This being only my second Stephen King book, it's a lot more intricately written than Joyland, which is told from the POV of a male teenager. Our main character here, Roland the gunslinger, has a deeper way of viewing and recounting things, and I found myself re-reading certain lines because there would be different layers to a single sentence. I guess that's King's talent which I can certainly appreciate more now having read this book.

We're introduced to Roland, who is moving through a seemingly endless desert trying to find The Man In Black, but we're not sure WHY or WHO the Man in Black is. And as I said, at first it's kind of slow. But I can pinpoint the exact chilling moment when it picked up the pace for me, and from then on it was pretty quick moving. We see glimpses of Roland's past: his parents, his childhood, his road to becoming a gunslinger. We don't quite understand his pursuit yet, but at least we become more invested in learning about it.

Last night when I sat down to read a bit more, I was on page 175. A few hours later I had finished the 327 page book. I never read 100+ pages in one sitting - I just don't have time for it. But from where I began reading last night, things only got more exciting and fast paced, and when I realized I only had 20 pages left I knew I would finish it.

The conversation with The Man In Black - the last chapter of the book - was the most exciting part for me. Inter-dimensional travel, multiple worlds, countless universes on top of one another but completely out of reach-all those things pique my interest like nothing else, because the possibilities are endless. So naturally when we finally learn who The Man In Black is and what The Dark Tower actually stands for, it is truly fascinating.

Four stars for the last 2/3 of the book and the climax, and for making me a Stephen King fan!

Warcross: 4 stars

Author: Marie Lu
Length: 353 pgs.

Wow this book was fun to read!

The action starts immediately, with author Marie Lu introducing us to the world that Warcross exists in via the life of the main character Emika Chen. Emika is a hacker who makes a paltry living by working as a bounty hunter. She’s notified by police when someone is wanted for betting on a virtual reality game called Warcross. Real betting on this game is illegal and Chen spends her time tracking down the people who are wanted for this reason. In the beginning pages, she’s on the search for one such fugitive, and we immediately see the differences between her world and ours.

”A smattering of students and tourists sit at the tables. When I point my phone’s camera at them, I can see their names hovering over their heads, meaning none of them have set themselves on Private.”

Warcross is a way of life in this world – most people play it, or use the virtual reality world as a means of relaxation and escape from real life. It was created by 21-year-old billionaire Hideo Tanaka, and culminates in a yearly Warcross Championship. Emika, after being cheated out of collecting a reward on a bounty, skulks home to watch the opening ceremony with her roommate. During the ceremony, she decides to use her hacker talent in a way that accidentally ends up placing her on the radar of every single person who is watching the ceremony- including Hideo Tanaka himself.

Emika’s immediately whisked off to Tokyo at the behest of Tanaka, who informs her that someone’s messing with his Warcross code and sabotage is suspected. He’s got other hackers on the case, but Emika agrees to help locate the person-or persons-responsible. As a cover, she’s enlisted as a rookie pick for the Warcross Championship and finds herself thrown into a completely different life, one filled with media attention, a lavish apartment and clothes, new Warcross teammates who may or may not be the guilty party she’s searching for, and danger.

Can she survive in the championship long enough to get the job done? Can she trust her teammates? Who’s trying to sabotage Warcross-and why?

In the midst of all this mystery and drama, we get to witness the tampered reality that Chen exists in. With the help of special new contact lenses released by Tanaka, everyone basically walks around in a virtual reality version of the real world. It’s delicious and half the fun of the book to see brought to life the vibrant world Lu’s created.

Another interesting aspect is the introduction of the Dark World. It’s the virtual reality version of the dark web, and Emika finds herself there a few times in the book with very interesting outcomes.

Now, about Hideo himself. When he and Emika first met and I started seeing the indications of a potential love match, I found myself rolling my eyes. I thought it would be an unnecessary addition of a cliché storyline, I just hoped it wouldn’t get overly cheesy. By the middle of the book, though, I was rooting for them to get together. The chemistry was palpable and I wanted more than Lu was giving me!

”I’m very aware of our proximity to each other, as if I could feel the ghost of his presence against my skin."

This is my first book by Marie Lu, and I wasn’t sure if I could trust her not to take this sweet little romance away from me. I won’t reveal the answer to that here!

I spent a few nights staying up late reading this book. The action of the Warcross championship combined with the bounty hunter storyline and the semi-relationship that was developing between Emiko and Hideo kept me chomping at the bit for more.

Fair warning that this book ends with a cliffhanger. In a series we never get what we want in the first book so it is what it is. I was saddened and a bit disbelieving at the events that unravel within the last few pages, but it was definitely a fun read overall and I loved it. Better yet, I can add Lu to the list of writers whose other books I need to read!