5⭐️1🌶 Ooof and wow, this ARC of An Ember in the Dawn of Night by Emery Fynn broke me. It was so good. This post is going to have some mild spoilers because there's no other way to talk about just how clever Fynn's writing is. This book tosses the reader right into the action unapologetically, there's no prologue, just bang, chapter one. And right within those first couple of chapters the FMC is following a tip to a home where a family resides. She proceeds to slaughter said family, then goes gets cleaned up, stops at her best friends house where they bone, so she can get out of her head. Then she travels back to her own place. There is very little world building or exposition, we're just along for the ride. She mentions names of towns, districts, canal ways with no explanation you just have to guess or look at the map at the beginning. I loved this. It was refreshing and its disorienting. I think its a plot d...
5⭐️2🌶 I finished my ARC of Twisted Roots and Soil by AJ Charley a couple days ago. This one was so good. I don't even know if I can describe it. In this society women, especially women like the FMC Alyxia, are expected to marry and continue the sacred bloodline by the time they hit 30. Aly's parents have a husband picked out for her already and he's a deuche. Aly is a Foundation. She is a member of one of the founding families of this realm and she has golden (literally) blood. When they turn 20 these people go through a ritual to determine which branch of magic they will choose and at what strength it will be. Aly was pressured by her parents to choose a certain branch, which wasn't the one she truly wanted and thus failed the ritual. She has no magic and has been hiding that fact from everyone for the last 8 years. Her sister Bri has fled the realm and wants to meet Aly to give her important information. Al...