Tag Archives: romance

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Book Review: The Haven, the Hallow, & the Highborn, by Jessa Grey

I was recently lucky enough to win a giveaway on Instagram that included a copy of The Haven, the Hallow, & the Highborn, by Jessa Grey.

the haven, the hallow & the highborn cover

In facing her finest opponent, she will uncover her greatest strength.

Eedy Blackthorn wields a rare and mystical witch magic—she can become a conduit to harness the raw forces of lightning itself. But her abilities do not make up for her painful past. After a tragic accident claims her beloved father, Eedy inherits his seat on the mage-led council. Consumed by guilt over her father’s death and determined to honor his legacy, she refuses to be silenced, no matter how often the male-dominated council disregards her suggestions.

When a mysterious disruption in magic threatens the kingdom’s balance, Prince Caelum is sent to join the council. Discovering Eedy’s identity reawakens a grudge tied to her late father, who ridiculed his family for years. With old wounds resurfacing, every council debate between them crackles with tension. As they clash over how to restore the magical order, their arguments become charged with something neither of them is willing to name.

With duty and destiny colliding, Eedy and Caelum must navigate their forbidden feelings for each other while racing to restore the kingdom’s magic before the winter solstice. As the solution to the magical crisis becomes clear, the couple is faced with an impossible decision, one that will test the limits of Eedy’s power and the depths of Caelum’s heart.

my review

I was really pleasantly surprised by this. I didn’t initially realize that it was a prequel to something else, and (sadly) prequels often feel ad hoc and incomplete, like the add-on they are. But not The Haven, the Hallow, & the Highborn. While it does end on something of a cliffhanger or, maybe better described as a happyish for now, HEA in the making, it feels like a complete arc. I adored Eedy from the first page. She’s practical, and I do so love a practical heroine. It took me a bit longer to warm up to Caelum. Smug always rubs me the wrong way. But as Eedy (and, by extension, I) got to know him, I came to like him quite a lot by the end. The world is fascinating, and the story circles back to its beginning in a satisfying way by the end. I’ll look forward to Grey‘s Roots of Magic series when it comes out later in the year.

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Book Review: The Spellshop, by Sarah Beth Durst

I purchased a copy of Sarah Beth Durst‘s The Spellshop.

the spellshop cover

Kiela has always had trouble dealing with people. Thankfully, as a librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium, she and her assistant, Caz—a magically sentient spider plant—have spent the last decade sequestered among the empire’s most precious spellbooks, preserving their magic for the city’s elite.

When a revolution begins and the library goes up in flames, she and Caz flee with all the spellbooks they can carry and head to a remote island Kiela never thought she’d see again: her childhood home. Taking refuge there, Kiela discovers, much to her dismay, a nosy—and very handsome—neighbor who can’t take a hint and keeps showing up day after day to make sure she’s fed and to help fix up her new home.

In need of income, Kiela identifies something that even the bakery in town doesn’t have: jam. With the help of an old recipe book her parents left her and a bit of illegal magic, her cottage garden is soon covered in ripe berries.

But magic can do more than make life a little sweeter, so Kiela risks the consequences of using unsanctioned spells and opens the island’s first-ever and much needed secret spellshop.

my review

This was really quite marvelous, super sweet without being cloying or overly sappy. Kiela is an impressively practical heroine, and I do so love a practical heroine. The love interest is shy and awkward, while the town and townspeople are wonderfully accepting. But the real star of the show for me was the sparkling banter between Kiela and her best friend/assistant/sentient spider plant, Caz.

Yes, it plays a little loose and fast with the world-building and magic system. And yes, as much as I adored Kiela and her practicality, she is also a little too naive and socially awkward to be believed. I thought for a while that perhaps she was supposed to be autistic-coded. But in the end, I decided that not every character who is oblivious to social cues is written to be autistic. Regardless, I see there is a second (standalone) book coming out, and I’ll definitely be picking it up.

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Other Reviews:

Book Review | The Spellshop

Serena’s Review: “The Spellshop”

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Audio Book Review: Pretty When She Dies, by Rhiannon Frater

I have had a copy of Rhiannon Frater’s Pretty When She Dies for a while. So, the memory of where I got it is vague. I believe I was probably given an Audible code for a free copy.

pretty when she dies cover

Amaliya wakes under the forest floor, disoriented, famished and confused. She digs out of the shallow grave and realizes she is hungry…in a new, horrific, unimaginable way… Sating her great hunger, she discovers that she is now a vampire, the bloodthirsty creature of legend. She has no choice but to flee from her old life and travels across Texas. Her new hunger spurs her to leave a wake of death and blood behind her as she struggles with her new nature. All the while, her creator is watching. He is ancient, he is powerful, and what’s worse is that he’s a necromancer. He has the power to force the dead to do his bidding.

Amaliya realizes she is but a pawn in a twisted game, and her only hope for survival is to seek out one of her own kind. But if Amaliya finds another vampire, will it mean her salvation… or her death?

my review

The narrator, Kristin Allison, did a good job, and I enjoyed this book beyond the 25% mark. I spent the first quarter of the book thinking I was going to end up DNFing it because I wasn’t having a good time. The beginning of this book just feels like female victim porn. Every person the FMC meets victimizes her somehow (most, even her family, with a sexual edge). I disliked it intensely, and it’s suuuuper cliched. I just don’t enjoy reading rapey stories. I’m not talking about trigger warnings or anything like that; I just mean I do not enjoy it and generally try to avoid it in stories I read for entertainment.

However, once the FMC meets the MMC, the story changes (pacing, tone, and the expected plot arc all shift), and the rapey victimization subsides; I then enjoyed the rest of the book. Now, because I know it’ll be a ‘no’ for many readers, I’ll state up front that cheating is involved. The FMC steps into someone else’s established relationship as ‘the other woman.’ That’s a dynamic you don’t often see because many people wouldn’t forgive an FMC for that. So, fair warning. I noted it with a bit of a raised eyebrow, but let it go easily enough.

All in all, despite the rough beginning, I finished this happy. I loved the side characters (almost pretty when she does photomore than the main characters), and the FMC showed a surprising backbone. Admittedly, the MMC is somewhat of a cardboard cutout, the relationship is quite shallow, and the FMC’s sudden mastery of her power feels a bit deus ex machina. Plus, the story and language are a little dated. (I think it was first published in 2008.) Describing women of color as “exotic” is generally understood as a microaggression now, for example. But, all in all, I’ll likely read the second book at some point.


Other Reviews:

Pretty When She Dies by Rhiannon Frater

Review – Pretty When She Dies by Rhiannon Frater