Knitting, Sci-fi and other stuff...

I can't believe its July already!  Here's my recap of June.  It was a great month.  I liked everything I read.  I read seven books six of which were ARCs.   A Ballad for the Broken was another 6 star read for me.  I've gotten physical copies of that whole series now.  There is a Novella that falls in between the two which I will also read when I get the time.   To Drown Among the Stars was good solid fantasy.  I loved that it was from the MMCs perspective.   Starfire's Heir was amazing.  The MMC, Griff, was extra special and has become one of my absolute favorite MMCs.  He's on the list with 99th Commander and Lucas Scott.  I'm still floored that was a debut novel. The Merrow's Wrath was just plain fun.  Pirates, Mermaids, the high seas and a second chance at the love they should have both had years ago.   Whisked Away blew my mind.  The world building, the imagery, the story,...

5⭐️1🌶 I finished Vows of Blood and Deception by Aria Ashbrook yesterday evening.  It was a great sequel to Web of Vows and Vengeance.  It felt quite a bit different, but the banter and found family really solidified it.  I don't want to give up too many spoilers.  The events of this book immediately follow from book one.  So Rose is very angry and conflicted in the first several chapters.  I found the beginning to be a little slow, but Rose had to get her bearings and make decisions.  I will reveal this, Jonas and Khay get married and I think Jonas is committed to trying to make her happy.  Rose still possess the Issen ice magic and she can't get it under control so she decides to travel North into Issen territory.  She's hoping someone will be willing to train her.  Caz, Rubin and Benny agree to come with her.  Kyor also shows up.  Immediately there is tension between Rubin, Kyor and Rose as Kyor can immediately s...

5⭐️1🌶 I finished Cast Off by Enola M Douglas last night.  This was another absolutely beautifully written book.  It was long at over 700 pages but it never dragged or felt like a 700 page book.  Honestly 700 pages still wasn't enough.  This one had darker themes than the first book.  Both the main characters had lost at least one parent at a young age and both were dealing with the circumstances surrounding those deaths.  JingYi lived a miserable existence despite being the omega daughter of the emperor.  She was reduced to servitude.  She has a large port wine birth mark on her face and she walks with a limp.  In a society where looks and perception are everything she is ostracized for her appearance.  She becomes a shadow amongst even her own family.  Alexander is attempting to restore his family name after his father's seemingly traitorous behavior and subsequent execution.  The king offers him a bride from a fo...

I just realized I did a May Wrap-Up Instagram post but I never did a blog post and it's nearly the end of June. I read 6 books total in May totalling just shy of 3,000 pages.  Two of them were ARCs and one was a re-read.  Overall it was a pretty good month, there was only one mediocre book.   I started the month out with a very spicy, low stakes, contemporary, why choose The Ex-boyfriend Agreement by Krista Wolf.  It hit the spot.   Next I participated in Mer-May with The Saltwater Curse by Avina St.Graves.  I loved that one and was not expecting what I got.  It had so much more depth than I anticipated getting from a contemporary monster Kraken-shifter romance.  It is a Hades and Persephone retelling and it was both absolutely hilarious and incredibly poignant.  It was by far one of my favorite reads this year.   Hollow Huntress by Kathryn Breaux was next and that one was my mediocre read.  The concept wa...

5⭐️2🌶 I finished Whisked Away by Enola M Douglas last night.  It was mind blowingly good.  The world building was expansive and vivid.  I could see every place, smell the foods, the markets it was really epically done.  There are nine Kingdoms in this world, we experience two of them in this book.  Aethonia, where Princess Reiyana is from is an island and one of the smaller Kingdoms.  The palace is close to the ocean.  This is an Omega verse novel.  Reiya awakened as an Omega late at the age of 20.  Omegas are rather scarce in this world and she is the only one in her family.  Overnight she became a political pawn.  Her marriage to a foreign Alpha would be a boon to her small kingdom.  The alliance it would yield is immeasurable.  Reiya is, of course, feeling like a commodity at the beginning of this book.  She sees her awakening as a death sentence.  Any chance at happiness, freedom, autonomy.... go...

4.5⭐️1🌶 I just finished The Merrow's Wrath by Mallory Wanless.  It was a good.  It's a second chance romance where the FMC is the pirate captain of The Merrow.  Cressida fled her abusive past 15 years ago and made a life for herself at sea.  Now she's stumbled across her first love the MMC Tristen aboard one of her abusive grandfather's merchant ships.  Instead of letting Tristen go with the other crew members of the ship she pillaged she decides to abduct him.  He recognizes her immediately.  After she fled her life 15 years ago her grandfather faked her death so Tristen though she was dead all these years.  He never moved on though, and is still in love with her.  He immediately wants to rekindle their relationship.  Cressida has been through a lot in that time apart and she must navigate the expectations of her crew and the all the memories her proximity to Tristen dredges up for her.  She starts having panic attacks...