 A feminist sorceress fantasy with romantic elements, C. L. Polk’s The Midnight Bargain offers a compelling, timely tale of women who are forced to choose between their ability & family/social obligations, & two young women who forge a friendship & resolve to beat the aforementioned system that seeks to imprison them. In the world of TMB, sorceresses go through a Bargaining Season wherein they are courted. On their wedding day, these women are adorned with a warding collar that suppresses their magic until after they’re done bearing children. If women aren’t given the collar, male mages argue, spirits will be able to take over any babies they carry in the womb & be born into the material world they crave so much. Beatrice Clayborn, a merchant’s daughter, wants to keep her magic more than anything. She learns that she isn’t alone with this hope when she meets Ysbeta, a wealthy woman visiting Chasland with her handsome brother, Ianthe Lavan, a nearly inconceivable catch. Ianthe comes to want Beatrice for his wife & there’s part of her that wants him too. But both of them know that accepting him, accepting him as her husband, would mean losing her magic & having it under someone else’s control. While the romance is a nice touch & is even inspiring in some big ways, it also feels superficial in others. It’s not really the highlight of this book for me. Instead, it’s the world-building & the premise, which feels both creative & original *&* also based on some real-world gender dynamics. After all, the tension set up for women in this book—that of pursuing self or family—doesn’t feel entirely imaginary for most women IRL, & neither does the patriarchal notion that men are entitled to have control over women’s bodies. (Haven’t we seen & heard that before?? ). Overall, while I didn’t get entirely lost in this story, I did love its trenchant critique of patriarchy & how Polk crafts two young women—& a young man—who are willing to do what it takes to bring it all down. 4 ⭐️. The Midnight Bargain is out today. Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own.
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 I didn’t know what to expect pretty much throughout my reading of Rachel Givney’s Jane in Love. Unpredictable, fun, funny, & yet sad at moments too, Jane in Love offers compelling observations about our time & the social conditions Jane Austen might have faced as a woman who wanted to write in her own time—but in terms of execution it doesn’t always work for me. In 1803 Jane Austen is a spinster who loves to write but can’t share her efforts with her embarrassed family. After she’s rejected by a promising suitor, she seeks help from a witch & tells her she wants love. As a result she’s sent to the 21st century. Straight to a film set where they’re adapting one of her novels. Jane immediately meets spoiled & yet likable actress Sophia & soon after, Sophia’s brother Fred Wentworth, who irritates Jane immensely. Initially believing that Jane is an actress in a candid camera situation, Sophia is eventually won over to believe Jane's time travel tale—with some funny scenes along the way. Sophia's going to assist Jane in her efforts to return to her own time, but of course complicating everything are Jane’s growing feelings for Fred & her awareness that her lingering time in the 21st century is slowly making her published books disappear. Givney clearly sketches out the dilemma facing Jane: what she stands to lose & gain no matter what decision she makes. A standout for me in this book is the sense of voice. Givney writes voice in such a way that I felt as if I knew the characters; they're unique & memorable. Filled with dry humor, the scenes in which Jane encounters the world of the 21st century & nearly every scene with Sophia are particularly fine. Though it’s not a humorous scene, the pep talk moment between the two women—when Jane coaches Sophia how to act—is written with sensitivity & quite lovely. But the love story between Jane & Fred lacks subtlety at moments & feels rushed. I want to warn my romance-loving friends that this is not a romance. Setting aside that for a moment, the ending overall also feels hurried to me. There are moments of Jane in Love that shine, & those moments focus on Jane as a writer & how that relates to social expectations for women, her sense of personhood, & her relationship with Sophia. I was less convinced & enamored with the “in love” part. 3⭐️. Jane in Love is out on 10/27. Thanks to HarperCollins Publishers and Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own. I don’t even quite know what to make of Samantha Cohoe’s A Golden Fury. I think I started with certain plot & character expectations & the book kept blowing them up. This made for a reading experience that was both captivating & somewhat disorienting & I didn’t feel like I had quite found my footing until the end. Beginning in Normandy in 1792, A Golden Fury tells a story centered around alchemy. Thea has long worked for & with her famous alchemist-mother Marguerite. They’re very close to creating the White Elixir & then hopefully the Philosopher’s Stone when her mother cuts her out of the process & kicks her out of their lab. Thea has never looked to her mom for kindness but this last betrayal is huge. On the same night that Thea discovers that her mother has figured out how to create the Elixir & the Stone, her mother seems to have gone mad & tries to murder her. Out of other options Thea travels to meet the father she’s never met before but not before grabbing some of the White Elixir. She will make the Stone on her & cement her reputation as the foremost alchemist. But things never go as one hopes... Inventively plotted & featuring complex characters, A Golden Fury is intriguing. I love the focus on female alchemists, how Thea constantly rises above the narrow expectations men have for her & forges her own way again & again. This critique likely reveals my own biases, but while I loved that Thea is often unlikeable, there are times that I find her unadmirable & hard to connect to as well. Ditto for most of the other characters, who rarely do “good” things & who live in a world that mostly feels dark & unsettling until the end--which feels a little too hopeful to be entirely believable to me. (Just to be clear: I don’t have to like and/or admire characters to love a book but in this one the individual characters seem portrayed unevenly & I had a difficult time emotionally connecting to them & to the book itself.) On balance, I appreciated how unpredictable this book is, how it took me for a thrilling ride that wasn’t afraid to venture into dark territory, but I also didn’t feel overly invested in any of the characters or their fates, & that's a bit of a disappointment to me. 3⭐️. A Golden Fury is available on 10/13. Thanks to Wednesday Books and Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own. 5⭐️. Q: what’s some of your fave YA fantasy lit.? Drop them below and help a woman out! Wow. I’m going to start with some of the typical words I see in fantasy reviews but honestly, Adrienne Young’s Fable *is immersive. I did feel transported. And a little awed, tbh. Like the other books of Young’s I’ve read, Fable features a strong young woman (major understatement) who has to fight for herself. Her food. Her shelter. Her life. Years before, after her mother died, the man that no one knows is Fable’s father dropped her off on a thieves’s island & never came back. Now she’s a dredger, someone who dives underwater & finds pyre that she can sell to traders. Every block she brings back to the surface is working toward her ticket off the island & back to her father. When things go pear-shaped Fable makes an earlier exit than she planned—on the ship of West, a helmsman who regularly purchased her pyre & the closest thing she has to someone she can trust (but that’s still a long way off). He & his crew want nothing to do with Fable. But they’re all drawn together in ways they probably don’t want to be. Some fantasy books have the worldbuilding down beautifully but they lack the emotional component that makes a book really stick for me. But Fable has both & her story grabbed at my heart. I love love love that Fable is a female character who makes her own way, even as my heartstrings were pulled at what she’s gone through & how visceral those images are. Her life’s been all about strategy & survival since her father left her but she’s still soft in some ways. Still able to be shocked. Still able to care. The only aspect of this book that feels a little thin to me is her relationship with West. I watched it develop rapaciously & gobbled up every little sign but I’d love to see more emotional intimacy between them. Hopefully that will come in the second book! Fable is far from a lighthearted read. It’s sometimes violent & sad & scary, but it also made my heart happy. Fable is out on 09/01. Thanks to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for my complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own. Review!Q: how do you feel when you hear a favorite author is stepping outside of his/her comfort zone in a big way?Tessa Bailey is one of my favorite contemporary romance authors and when she announced she was writing a paranormal rom com I was excited...& a little nervous. But I’m going to shout it from my rooftops (remember, social distancing): Reborn Yesterday was a divine way to spend my time. Mortician Ginny is more than a little freaked out when the handsome dead man she’s about to embalm wakes up. Turns out he’s a vampire named Jonas and he’s supposed to get rid of all of Ginny’s memories that feature him. Only he doesn’t, because (1) he’s irresistibly drawn to Ginny and (2) she’s in danger. Funny and a little kooky and a lot sexy, Reborn Yesterday has maybe one of my favorite sexytimes Tessa’s written. There’s dirty talk and vampire happenings and furniture moving and it’s lusciously sweet too?!?! The heroine is adorable & dare I say a little adorkable, the hero is romantic, devoted, & wildly protective, & I cannot *repeat, CANNOT* wait for the second book because every scene with two particular secondary characters had me internally panting for more. Before you open this book up, maybe prepare yourself for Drama (that’s different from lowercase “d” drama) because the plot and characterization are kinda no-holds barred with that trademark Tessa intensity. There’s one scene that felt a bit much to me, but most of it gave me those heart eyes because she knows how to write Good Chemistry. Reborn Yesterday is such a great book that made me happy, which I extra appreciate right now. I can’t wait to see what Tessa writes next. I mean, I think (by this mean, I’m definitely sure) she can do anything. 4.33⭐️. Reborn Yesterday is out now. Thanks to Social Butterfly PR for my complimentary ARC and the promotional materials; all opinions provided are my own. Download your copy today!Amazon: https://amzn.to/2OwrKfV Apple Books: https://apple.co/2tzVd1b Amazon Worldwide: http://mybook.to/rebornyesterday Nook: https://bit.ly/39aMwJK Kobo: http://bit.ly/2Su51lD Add to Goodreads: http://bit.ly/2Sbr29P About Tessa Tessa Bailey is originally from Carlsbad, California. The day after high school
graduation, she packed her yearbook, ripped jeans and laptop, driving cross-country to New York City in under four days. Her most valuable life experiences were learned thereafter while waitressing at K-Dees, a Manhattan pub owned by her uncle. Inside those four walls, she met her husband, best friend and discovered the magic of classic rock, managing to put herself through Kingsborough Community College and the English program at Pace University at the same time. Several stunted attempts to enter the workforce as a journalist followed, but romance writing continued to demand her attention. She now lives in Long Island, New York with her husband of eleven years and seven- year-old daughter. Although she is severely sleep-deprived, she is incredibly happy to be living her dream of writing about people falling in love. Contact Tessa Website: https://www.tessabailey.com Facebook: http://bit.ly/2sScu5g Instagram: http://bit.ly/36pRws6 Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/2NSjQgA Goodreads: http://bit.ly/37nMrSB Join her Reader Group: http://bit.ly/2uoDGZP Stay up to date with Tessa Bailey by joining her mailing list: http://bit.ly/36j2TCl  Q: How do you keep track of books you want to read that haven’t been published and released into the world yet? I’m only asking because *she says very casually* I think you’re gonna wanna read Tessa Bailey’s first paranormal romance REBORN YESTERDAY and I’m *she starts to lose her cool* sharing the cover reveal today! Isn’t it beautiful?! Tessa is one of my favorite contemporary romance authors and I’m so so excited about this one. REBORN YESTERDAY releases on March 16th. Read on for the blurb and more deets! BlurbA timeless love story with bite. It was a night like any other for funeral home director Ginny Lynn, until the exceptionally handsome—and unfortunately deceased—young man on her embalming table sat up, opened his emerald eyes and changed the course of her life forever, making her feel quite fluttery while he was at it. Humans aren’t supposed to know Jonas Cantrell, or any vampire, exists. It’s kind of a major rule. Despite his instantaneous bond with perfectly peculiar Ginny, he has no choice but to erase her memories of their one and only meeting. That was the plan. Before a reluctant Jonas can wipe Ginny’s mind clean, she reveals a secret that brings their worlds crashing together. Human and vampire. Past and present. Darkness and light. And while their love is strictly forbidden, it might be the only thing that can save them… Pre-order Your Copy TodayAmazon: https://amzn.to/2OwrKfV Apple Books: https://apple.co/2tzVd1b Amazon Worldwide: http://mybook.to/rebornyesterday Nook: https://bit.ly/39aMwJK Kobo: http://bit.ly/2Su51lD Add to Goodreads: http://bit.ly/2Sbr29P Cover Design: Hang Le About TessaTessa Bailey is originally from Carlsbad, California. The day after high school graduation, she packed her yearbook, ripped jeans and laptop, driving cross-country to New York City in under four days. Her most valuable life experiences were learned thereafter while waitressing at K-Dees, a Manhattan pub owned by her uncle. Inside those four walls, she met her husband, best friend and discovered the magic of classic rock, managing to put herself through Kingsborough Community College and the English program at Pace University at the same time. Several stunted attempts to enter the workforce as a journalist followed, but romance writing continued to demand her attention. She now lives in Long Island, New York with her husband of eleven years and seven- year-old daughter. Although she is severely sleep-deprived, she is incredibly happy to be living her dream of writing about people falling in love. Contact TessaWebsite: https://www.tessabailey.com
Facebook: http://bit.ly/2sScu5g Instagram: http://bit.ly/36pRws6 Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/2NSjQgA Goodreads: http://bit.ly/37nMrSB Join her Reader Group: http://bit.ly/2uoDGZP Stay up to date with Tessa Bailey by joining her mailing list: http://bit.ly/36j2TCl Thanks to Social Butterfly PR for the promotional materials. All opinions provided are my own.  I received a complimentary copy of this book from Netgalley but all opinions provided are my own.
Life update: a haunted house company moved in basically across the road from us, and sometimes I think I can hear people screaming from there at night. This is the stuff that Halloween dreams are made of. Also Lecia Cornwall’s book The Lady and the Highlander, a dark, seductive fairy tale with spooky, shivery imagery and a heroine who puts all the letters into “intrepid.” When the book opens, Laire MacLeod’s beloved and fierce father is marrying a beautiful and mysterious woman named Bibiana. Soon after, her father, sisters, and clan-members are swept away in a bacchanal that shows no sign of ending, and the only people who seem unaffected are Laire—who doesn’t drink spirits—and Bibiana and her unsettling entourage, including her Sealgair, or hunter. The hunter’s actually Iain Lindsay, a leader of his own clan who’s under self-imposed exile after a tragedy involving his late wife. For the last several years he’s been under obligation to serve Bibiana, a woman whose beauty helps disguise how deadly she is, and every day is a struggle between his lingering vestiges of honor and the guilt that’s poisoning him. But when Laire starts to learn the deadly truth about Bibana and her entourage, she and Iain are forced to decide which parts of themselves they’ll listen to. Will Laire be brave and canny enough to save her family? And will Iain follow his better nature and aid Laire in her quest, or his worst? The Lady and the Highlander’s a rich treat. It’s passionate and vivid, with provocative imagery that made me lost in the story even as I had a very visceral response to what the author describes. The Snow White vibes give the story a timeless feel to savor, but even more impressive is how much agency Laire has and how determined she is to save her family though she’s been sheltered her entire life. And though Iain’s initial lack of sympathy toward Bibiana’s victims made it hard for me to connect with him, his subsequent musings and actions make his good heart and overall integrity apparent. That undeniable pull between Laire and Iain is delectable, especially once Bibiana pits them as enemies of the other. It’s pretty delicious seeing how much they want the other (and how much Iain respects Laire) even as he’s sent to kill her and she must defend herself against him. Ultimately, there’s a thrilling pay-off that gives me all the romance feels. While I was all-in for most of Laire’s quest, the ending of this novel leaves me a bit disappointed. The reservations that both characters had maintained are summarily dismissed, and it lacks the more substantive emotional response that I had anticipated. But for most of the book, from that first critical meeting of Laire and Bibiana throughout Laire’s bruised, stumbling quest from the only home she’s ever known, I was entranced, appreciating Lecia Cornwall’s distinctive voice and story. 4.25 stars  I received a complimentary ARC of this book from Netgalley but all opinions provided are my own.
Thea Harrison’s American Witch was the last book to surprise me. I picked it up & read a few chapters, and before I knew it I was absolutely sucked into this story of enemies-to-lovers, older hero-heroine, witch-coming-into-her-own goodness. Molly Sullivan discovers her magical powers the same night that she discovers that her husband has been sleeping with another woman in their bed. Neither discovery goes down smooth. She’s soon approached by Josiah Mason, District Attorney and fellow witch, who proceeds to offer her help and guidance and oh yeah, steer her & her amazing powers into the direction that would be most advantageous to him, his ambitions, & his mission. For years, Josiah & a like-minded coven of witches have been itching to get revenge against the older witch who betrayed them, & the moment seems closer than ever. But Josiah’s attraction for Molly is greedy and demanding, & the attack against her & the conspiracy she’s wrapped up in seem to be intimately tied to his own revenge plans. To quote Scooby Doo: Ruh roh. I kind of love this book. There’s a keen sense of suspense, both with Molly & Josiah’s relationship and the magic plot, a beautiful enemies-to-lovers plotline that kept me invested from the first frosty exchange, & a fantastic heroine arc with Molly—who absolutely refuses to kowtow to Josiah at any point in the book—becoming even stronger as the book progresses. After years of subsuming her own wants/needs to her cheating husband, Molly makes it clear from the opening line that that shit won’t fly anymore, and I loved it. Let’s not forget about how Thea Harrison ties Josiah’s life to a compelling historical moment that still has conspiracy theorist-tongues-wagging… And you can hopefully see where some of my excitement is coming from. American Witch has the magic, the drama, the fights, the sexiness that make a book devour-able, and I can’t wait to see where the trilogy goes next. 4.5 stars.  I received a complimentary ARC of this book via Netgalley but all opinions provided are my own.
Ghostly visions of the past. A dangerous magical mirror and pearl. Family secrets coming to light like monsters in a bedroom. *Sings These are a few of my favorite things. To read about. Nicola Cornick’s House of Shadows was a delightfully eerie surprise when I discovered it nestled deep in my Kindle history the other day. Told from different perspectives—historical and present-day—and containing the gothic and romantic elements that I adore in Susanna Kearsley & Kate Morton’s books, House of Shadows had me enraptured from the word go to the final, satisfying lines. I’ll try to keep the plot’s description simple though Cornick grandly pulls off a big story. Part of the book surrounds Queen Elizabeth Stuart, a 17th-century monarch who’s been sent off to royal exile and dreams of a better world, one she and her husband hope to create through the use of a magical mirror and pearl. And then we have Holly Ansell in the present-day, whose brother Ben is missing, and who runs into other mysteries as she looks for him: like the aforementioned mirror and pearl, the diary of a courtesan she discovers on her search (that’s the novel’s third perspective), and the ghostly visions she keeps seeing as she lives and works in the village her brother was last in. House of Shadows reads like a detective novel of sorts, with Holly on the search for her brother, feeling like every clue she solves in this larger mirror & pearl historical mystery is taking her closer to finding him. Cornick’s historical descriptions are lush and lovely and her depictions of complicated women interesting and astute. I love how she captures different personalities in this book and how she not only makes aha connections between the characters but also links them to moments in time. These women feel the weight of their personal (and sometimes global) histories, and that’s part of what makes them so compelling to watch—and root for. Like Morton’s books, Cornick’s features a “historical” romance and a “contemporary” one. I had some slight issues with the pacing of the contemporary one but then it turned suspenseful in the way that I adore. House of Shadows is a scrumptious treat, and one I heartily recommend as we run headlong into fall. Give me all the ghost stories (with romance and magic and mayhem!). 4.5 out of 5 stars  I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley but all opinions provided are my own.
She’s a charmer of beasts who has a bounty on her head. He’s the assassin in charge of killing her. That sounds like the perfect premise of a fantasy romance to me. Smart and wildly inventive, Maxym M. Martineau's Kingdom of Exiles had me captivated from the first page. It’s the kind of book I can really sink my teeth into: a morally complex, live-life-on-the-edge-of-danger heroine and hero (who are determined to kill and/or use the other for much of the book!)*, a diverse round of secondary characters, and a true dilemma facing them all that I have faith they’ll overcome, even if I don’t see how. Even better are the closing pages, where Martineau ties up things just enough to leave me satisfied, but also leaves enough undone to hint at the craziness to come. Because when the final paragraph is over, there are still secrets between the characters—secrets each narrator has hinted at to the reader—and secrets which are guaranteed to wreak absolute havoc in a future book. Kingdom of Exiles is enemies to lovers done splendidly. Martineau took me on a gripping adventure that left me wanting more: more of her originality, drama, romance. She has a lot to bring to the genre—she already has this very impressive addition—and the exciting news is that I think she’s just getting started. *Seriously, I had big reservations about some of the things the hero and heroine were doing but they show major growth throughout the book. TNW Arbitrary Rating: 4.25 stars. (See how useless my rating scale is?) Q: What fantasy romance read do you recommend to everyone? One of mine is Naomi Novik's Uprooted. |
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