Knitting, Sci-fi and other stuff...

5⭐️1🌶 I finished City of Lost Kings by Kristen R. Moore a day or two ago.  This one came up in my Instagram feed because the artist who did images for this book also did some character art for LJ Generous.  I was immediately hooked by the vibe description of this and saved it to my kindle library immediately.  Once I finished Sapphire Sailor's Tale I decided there was enough of a time interval before my next ARC deadline that I could read a book of my choosing.  I thought about reading The Wildborn but that book is over 600 pages so I'll save it for a little later.  This book was very good and different.  I really liked it.  The vibe description that hooked me was Atlantis meets The Mummy meets Game of Thrones.  Now that I've read it, I'd throw Treasure Planet in there too.  It's got flying ships and some steam punk elements.  It was different while still being really well written fantasy romance.  Realistically there a...

5⭐️2🌶 Oops, it appears I've been slacking on my book blog posts.  I finished the audio of Long Time Coming by SL Scott a couple days ago.  I got this audio book in a promotion Bookfunnel ran a few months ago.  I just had to sign up for the author's newsletter to get a free audiobook.  There was a selection of 6 or 7 books.  I chose 4 I thought I'd like then kind of forgot about them.  I decided to monopolize my time and listen while commuting.  I had forgotten the premise of all the books so I picked at random.  This turned out to be a super cute book and I loved it!  The narration is duel for this one, which took a little for me to get used to as all two of the audiobooks I've listened to previously have been duet narration.  After a couple chapters though, it was fine,  my brain adapted.  Both the narrators were great.   So this was a small town, brother's best friend, childhood crush, single dad, cowbo...

5⭐️2🌶  I finished my ARC of Red Runs the Blood by Angelina J. Steffort last night.  It was so freaking good.  Better than the first book which I loved, but found to be a tad slow at the beginning.  This one picked up right where 1 left off and did not slow down at any point.  I sadly can't say too much about it because I'd be spoiling so much of it.  We do get a couple chapters from Elina's POV.  Elina is Khayrivven's sister who is being held by King Ulder as leverage over Khayrivven.  Khay let's Lory into his carefully crafted facade just a little bit more.  He reveals several more secrets to her.  Lory continues to hone her powers and gains better control over them.  There is an undertone in thus book, there is something rotten at Ashthorn Ward and people are starting to get a whiff of it.  The found family is as strong as ever in this one.  Some new alliances are formed and new allies brought into the fold....

5⭐️1🌶 I finished an ARC of Waterbound by Aeva Vox.  This was a quick fun read at only 235 pages.  It moved quickly, was well paced and had a good amount of action.  It did not feel rushed and had a good story arc.  I enjoyed it.  This is book two in the Fated Shores series and immediately follows the events of book 1, Wildbound.  This book follows Natalie and Vincent.  Vincent is the actor who was thrown out of Hollywood after a scandal and was working in the theater department at the college.  Natalie is a graduate student studying art history.  They hadn't interacted very much prior to the whale watch nor once they got to the island.  Whatever is in the water hits these two.  This time though Lex, Olivia, Ben and Cody know what's happening to them, just not how, so these two get a bit of an explanation.  Natalie wanders off toward the beach to clear her head.  She has a boyfriend and doesn't want to be drawn...

4⭐️ 1🌶 I finished The Sapphire Sailor's Tale by Julia Lovely last evening.  This was a solid debut novel.  I'm assuming this is a standalone; the story arc was completed.  It was short at just under 400 pages so it was a pretty quick read.  Cordelia the FMC is a junior officer in the Navy.  She is on her first tour aboard a ship.  She is running herself ragged doing her own job and going through all the training a new officer is required to take on as well.  When the ship enters the Bermuda triangle Cordelia starts feeling odd, like she's being pulled toward the ocean floor.  During the swim day Cordelia is pulled by that force down to the bottom of the ocean. She assumes she should be dead, but she wakes up in a completely different world.  She finds herself in a castle built into the walls of a cavern with lava streaming down the walls.  She steps out onto the balcony attached to her room and comes face to face with a fire...

5⭐️1🌶 I finished The Ties That Bind Us by Deidra Duncan at about 4:30 this morning.  It was amazing but if I'm honest, I feel scandalized by that ending.  I knew it was the first in a series; I think it's going to be a duology, so I figured it would end on a cliffhanger but holy Hannah, I was not expecting that.  The book is very heavy with fantasy lore, the magic system is also downright trippy.  It's essentially a portal fantasy.  David and Sean are raised in Viterra, the mortal realm, our realm.  They live in a tiny town in California.  But they are both important.  There is a prophesy, they are both components of this prophesy along with a couple other people.  It gets really complicated, really fast.  I will admit, this first bit of this book dragged a bit for me, but there was so much that needed to be established.  Sean and David get pulled into Luxoria separately but they both wind up there.  Sean is the pu...

5⭐️1🌶 I finished Scream for Me by Rabea Scholz. How do I begin to even describe this book?  It wasn't remotely what I thought it was going to be.  In no way is that a disparaging comment.  This was so much more than I ever could have possibly imagined.  This book dives deep, so incredibly deep, into human connection, vulnerability and true surrender.  I've had books pull at my heart strings; I've felt sympathy for characters.  I've even seen parts of myself in them.  I have never read a book that cracked me open and peered into my soul. Owen, the MMC, is emotionally closed off.  He's completely numb and is just floating through his life mearly existing.  He goes down a bit of an internet rabbit hole and finds The Grey Lady, who specializes in "therapeutic surrender."  Owen is rather intrigued and on an impulse fills out the contact info on the website.  He goes through the lengthy intake process and meets Claire Stirlin...

5⭐️3🌶 I just finished Wilbound by Aeva Vox.  This was sort of a impulse read.  I'm reading a physical book but had some time but couldn't pull out the physical book.  Since book two is coming out later this month I decided I should bang out book one.  I'm glad I did because it looks like book two is going to start immediately, the last paragraph of Wildbound set it up.  This was fun.  It has fantasy or sci-fi elements but is otherwise contemporary.  This one is quite spicy but I was craving something more spicy.  Everything I've been reading just recently has hovered around a 1🌶 for me.   Lex is a English professor who's been so focused on her career she hasn't really pursued friendships or hobbies and she's a bit of an introvert.  Ben is the captain of the boat.  He took over his father's fishing business after he died, but the fishing business is struggling so he does whale sighting expeditions on the side....

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...

5⭐️2🌶 I finished the ARC of Starfire's Heir last night.  It was so good!  It has everything a good epic fantasy should have.  Lexa is just a regular girl living in a small village, minding her own business when she decides to step across the border of her small town.  She feels something shift inside her body and the world as she knows it.  She races back home to find a stranger talking with her grandmother, the only family she has; the woman who raised her.  Well, Lexa is the lost princess to a kingdom inside the Veil and she has powerful magic and is destined to save her people; there's a prophesy and everything.  The man in her kitchen is her Champion, Griff, and he's been searching for her for years.  Her grandmother had warded the village and when Lexa stepped across the border Griff, was able to sense her and came immediately to take her "home".  At her grandmother's insistence she reluctantly goes with Griff.  Griff i...

4.5 ⭐️ I just finished To Drown Among the Stars by L.K. Frost.  It was a really good palate cleanser after A Ballad for the Broken.  It was a nice quick read at under 300 pages.  The main character is male.  Bastian has failed his trail to become a knight.  He's been training all his life to become a knight.  He takes some time to get his head right.  He decides to take leave and travel alone by foot back to the Capitol city.  On his journey he encounters a ransacked fishing village and a deaf Yvri healer named Ulla.  He also discovers that something larger is afoot.  Ulla travels with him and they quickly form a bond.  Bastian, because of his failure, deals with feelings of inadequacy and thinks he isn't good enough for her.  He spends most of the book denying whats right in front of him.  Truth be told, I think that dragged on a bit much, but there is also some racism going on between the multiple species typ...

6⭐️1🌶 I finished Ballad for the Broken last evening and needed a good night's rest to collect my thoughts on this one.  It was amazing, no question about it.  It sent me through an emotional roller coaster.  The MMC and the FMC Draven and Lyra are both complex well thought out characters.  They share similar trauma and worked through it together in book 1.  This book starts out with them separated.  Lyra was taken by *redacted* who on the surface seems like a bad guy.  Well, he is fighting his own demons and after Lyra spends a lot of time with him, she comes to understand him at least a little bit better.  Slight spoiler ahead.  Lyra and Draven are reunited, a group of them from Bethara are actually, and its looking really great at least for a little bit.  I know how these things go and I knew it wouldn't last.  I seriously contemplated stopping at the 85% mark because the band was back together and everyone had time t...

6⭐️.5🌶 I have a headache as I write this because I sobbed through the last 100 pages of this book.  That is a high compliment in my world.  I received the ARC of the sequel to this book.  When I applied for that ARC I didn't know it was book 2 in a series.  I was mildly miffed that the application didn't mention that anywhere especially since book 1 is over 500 pages and book 2 is close to 800.  I take all that back, or at least half of it.  Fallen Stars was absolutely amazing and I loved it.  As long as the next book is this good or close, I'll love that one too.   There is found family, banter for days and days and a slow burn with yearning.  There is also a magic academy and trials which can be hit or miss for me, this one was a hit.  They were done really well.  The background of both the FMC, Lyra, and the MMC, Draven, is dark, deep and sad.  Both the backstories are revealed slowly, methodically over the...

5⭐️3🌶 I finished the ARC of Accidentally in Motion yesterday.  This one was amazing!  I think it's my favorite of Aeva Vox's so far.  The premise was a little outlandish but the execution was excellent.  The FMC, Whitney, is living in a beautiful Victorian house owned by her uncle.  She will inherit this house under certain conditions.  The primary one being she needs to marry.  She's been against marriage for years because her parents went through a very volatile divorce when she was a child.  The book opens with Whitney and her friends in Vegas on a long awaited girls trip.  The MMC Josh is a tennis player.  They stumble upon eachother in the hotel lobby and hit it off right away.  Whitney's friends come up with the crazy plan of Whitney and Josh getting fake married to fulfill Uncle Peter's house contract so Whitney can keep her house.  It is Vegas after all.  Josh has connections because his own father is ...

4⭐️3🌶 I just finished an ARC of Hollow Huntress by Kathryn Breaux.  It was a solid "okayish" book.  I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it.  The writing was fine, the world building was very good, the found family and banter between the characters was very very good.  The spice was good and there was quite a bit of it, thank goodness, because that was the only thing that kept me going toward the end.  This becme a spite read for me.  The two main characters were not my cup of tea.  The FMC, Mara, is a destructive self-sabotaging idiot.  The MMC, Crew, was a winey little bitch-bag.  I was more emotionally invested in the side characters Bronwyn, Damien and Locke.  Maybe I was reading this one at the wrong point in my cycle but I wanted to reach through the pages and throttle both the main characters at several points in the book.  There is so much miscommunication in this one, and I absolutely hate miscommunication so it...