While I thoroughly enjoyed The Ex Hex, The Kiss Curse used a near duplicate plot that wasn't nearly as enjoyable the second time around. Also, WelMeh.
While I thoroughly enjoyed The Ex Hex, The Kiss Curse used a near duplicate plot that wasn't nearly as enjoyable the second time around. Also, Wells was a total bore....more
A fascinatingly fun take on a handful of fairytales. Admittedly though, I did struggle with the way the author chose to open this story which was n3.5
A fascinatingly fun take on a handful of fairytales. Admittedly though, I did struggle with the way the author chose to open this story which was not at the beginning of the tale but in the middle of a rather bizarre scene. I feel like the author was trying to draw readers in with all of the questions this scene posed, but it almost had the opposite effect on me and if I hadn't already been a fan of Kingfisher I'm not sure I would've been able to stick with it. Once the story comes full circle and the character's beginnings are explained, I was captivated. Thoroughly enjoyable, although it did oftentimes feel like a protracted short story....more
Valuable advice, but advice that Vivi fails to heed. Nine years ago, after falling hard for Rhys Penhallow only t"Never mix vodka and witchcraft."
Valuable advice, but advice that Vivi fails to heed. Nine years ago, after falling hard for Rhys Penhallow only to find out too late of his betrothal, Vivi shouts frivolous curses into the night not realizing there was actual magic behind them. When Rhys returns to town for the first time since that fateful night his luck is exceptionally bad and he has no idea why until he finds out the truth behind his misfortune. Vivi, feeling most apologetic for her role in this debacle, decides to set aside past grievances to find out how to reverse the curse especially when they discover the curse is going to destroy the very town itself. It doesn't help matters when she realizes Rhys Penhallow is just as distracting as he was when she fell in love with him nine years ago.
The Hex Hall series and the spin-off novel School Spirits are some of my favorite YA books so discovering that Erin Sterling (a.k.a. Rachel Hawkins) was writing a witchy adult novel had me thrilled. I found this story to be extremely delightful overall (and well worth the read) but there were some aspects that I wish had been better. There's plastic skulls that come to life, a talking cat that won't stop asking for treats, and even a ghost that haunts a library. The magical bits were absolutely, well, magical, but considering this has been pitched as "Hocus Pocus but they fuck" (hahaha...) I wanted, and rather anticipated, this book to be straight imbued with magic. The romance was far from lacking in chemistry but I expected more tension between the two since Vivi had been pining over Rhys for the entire nine years but they acted almost as if their issues never happened.
I adored the family aspects of this though (it felt very much like Practical Magic) and the light humor was on point. Apparently this is the first in an anticipated series and I am here for it. Bottom Line: this was an incredibly cute, delightfully whimsical, and overall perfect read for the Halloween season (or when you need a little magic with your romance.)
I received this book free from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review....more
I’ve been anxiously awaiting the release of A Bad Day for Sunshine (Darynda’s upcoming release following the end of her Charley Davidson series) so coI’ve been anxiously awaiting the release of A Bad Day for Sunshine (Darynda’s upcoming release following the end of her Charley Davidson series) so color me surprised when Amazon informs me that Darynda has another new book and it’s available now. And even though I make it a hobby to sign up for Kindle Unlimited and then promptly never use it, I downloaded Betwixt and started it. Same day.
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Betwixt introduces us to forty-four-year-old Defiance Dayne who is still reeling from the recent brutal divorce that left her destitute. Drowning in uncertainty about her bleak future, she’s shocked to discover she’s been bestowed an old house in Salem, Massachusetts from an elderly lady she never met named Ruthie Goode. Deciding to take a chance and see this house for herself, she hops in her vintage mint green Volkswagen Beetle and leaves Arizona behind. She arrives to find not only has she been left a house that is named Percival but that the town seems to know more about Defiance than even she does, including the fact that she might just be magical.
You ever finish a story with a smile on your face, thinking about how great it was, how fun it was, when suddenly the critiques start invading your mind and you start realizing all the things that just didn’t work? I’ve often wondered if becoming a book reviewer lessens your enjoyment of a novel because of your natural inclination to analyze the details, sometimes overly so. But I feel that while overanalyzing can uncover the bad it can also help to highlight the good and this book did have both in almost equal measure.
What this book got right… It’s a charming and whimsical type of paranormal mystery with just a hint of a potentially steamy romance. Darynda’s writing style retains its standard ease making this entertaining story one you’ll fly through. It also happens to be overflowing with snark.
“This house is gorgeous, Nette. It’s ancient and dank and dusty, yet it has so much potential?” “Like your vagina?” “What’s strange is that, even though Mrs. Goode only passed away three days ago, it’s like no one has entered it in years.” “Oh, then it’s exactly like your vagina.”
What this book didn’t get right… While I love her Charley Davidson series, the overabundance of parallels between that series and Betwixt cannot be ignored. The snarky meme type chapter headers could be dismissed as a style choice by the author but the characters are literally carbon copies of one another. There’s the super special snowflake lead character, her equally funny side-kick best friend, and the overly protective alpha male love interest who she has a connection to from when they were younger and she saved him as a child. There’s also the fact that the forty-four-year-old sounds nothing like any forty-four-year-old I know, but maybe I’m not hanging with the right crowd. Would these critiques have been such an issue if I hadn’t read Charley Davidson? Maybe not. But if I had read Betwixt first and then picked up her Charley Davidson series then I still would’ve been disappointed by the similarities. While those similarities were quite distracting at times, the witchy plot was enough to retain my interest and I’m still intrigued by the possibilities for where the story could go, I just wish I could view Defiance Dayne as her own character rather than Charley 2.0....more
Short Summary: In Practical Magic we learn about the Owens sisters in the present day and in this unexpected prequel, we learn about their ancestors aShort Summary: In Practical Magic we learn about the Owens sisters in the present day and in this unexpected prequel, we learn about their ancestors and the curse on the family that dates back to the early 1600s.
Thoughts: The Rules of Magic is an enchanting story that flows softly, never with any sense of urgency or climax, but delineates on a family that we never quite knew we wanted (or needed) to know more of until this was released.
Verdict: I was worried that this prequel (released twenty-two years after Practical Magic would feel stale and wouldn’t possess the same magic as its predecessor: I was wrong.
I received this book free from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review....more
“He was a book, and he was holding his final pages, and he wanted to get to the end to find out how it went, and he didn’t want it toSPOILERS AHEAD
“He was a book, and he was holding his final pages, and he wanted to get to the end to find out how it went, and he didn’t want it to be over.”
We finally come to the end of the Cycle, whether we like it or not. The search for Glendower, for the lost King buried somewhere along the ley line in Virginia, comes to an end. Gansey has been searching for Glendower since he was stung to death by hornets and was miraculously brought back. “You will live because of Glendower. Someone else on the ley line is dying when they should not, and so you will live when you should not.” They are the words that have haunted him and kept up his mysterious search even when it seemed that all hope was lost. But he’s not the only one on this strenuous journey: Ronan, the dream thief, Adam, who gave his free will to Cabeswater, and Blue, who saw Gansey’s ghost before she even knew who he was and knew that he’s either Blue’s true love or she’s the one that kills him.
“What a strange constellation they all were.”
I’ve always praised this series for its fascinating way of blending magical with the contemporary and making it something anyone could believe in. Somewhere in the middle of The Raven King though, the magical hold these stories had on me died. That carefully created magic suddenly became frenzied and befuddling, leaving me grasping at straws to understand it, meanwhile watching as the story left me in its dust. The other magical aspect of this novel though is the vast amount of characters and how incredibly well developed each and every one of them are. The stories had always been centered around finding the lost King, waking him, and having him grant them a single wish. Slowly, as time progressed the friends began to realize that while they were still on an active search for Glendower, they no longer needed his aid because they had each other and they were more powerful together than they had ever realized before.
“This was where they were now: Nightmares were real. There was no difference between dreams and reality when they stood here in Cabeswater together.”
And as far as the romances, what an accomplished example of true friendship and romance going hand in hand. One never overpowered the other; they existed together in perfect harmony. Blue and Gansey. I adored reading about the short time on page that they did spend together in each others company. They nestled together like two puzzle pieces. Ronan and Adam. While these two didn’t come as a great surprise, it was still a delight to see it come to fruition. While Ronan has always kept his feelings under-wrap, I felt it essentially dulled the spark that I wanted to feel between them. That powerful realization of when they both recognize where their friendship has come to felt subdued and I wanted so much more for those two.
When Maggie Stiefvater started this series, The Raven Boys set the scene for powerful things to come. Magical things. And while the magic continued to linger, all of the predictions that were made and the expectations that were set all seemed to become entangled and left without any satisfactory explanation. I felt it was anti-climactic and made everything that came before inconsequential. These friends endured loss and suffered greatly in their adventures to discover Glendower and the buoyant tone the ending set felt almost contradictory to what the other novels established. The fervor and seriousness of the first installments set expectations for the ending which ended up vastly contrasting from what was given. I liked the impression left, that the friends’ journey wasn’t over and that many adventures were still to come, but it was hard to truly appreciate it when my mind was still wrapped up in how their previous adventures had “ended”. Add to that was the lack of closure for several other characters: Blue’s father, Gwenllian, the Grey Man and Maura, and Noah. Noah played such a vital part in this story yet he not only wasn’t given a mention of an ending but I expected the group to at least have some momentary thought for his sudden absence in their lives after so much time. Even Adam’s unworthy parents were given a semblance of an ending and that was wholly unnecessary.
My issues and my praises for this novel stack up pretty evenly in the end. I can only imagine how difficult it is to write such a sprawling story with so many highly-developed characters only to have to find some adequate way of bringing their stories to an end. Stiefvater sets this story up with the expectation of extraordinary magic only to have it taper off into something less extraordinary by the end. The Raven Cycle is a highly imaginative tale that showcases Stiefvater’s impressive abilities of bringing any character to life. Despite it all, I’m still sad to have to say goodbye....more
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars A copy of School Spirits was provided to me by Disney-Hyperion/Netgalley for review purposes.
Izzy Brannick comes from a long My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars A copy of School Spirits was provided to me by Disney-Hyperion/Netgalley for review purposes.
Izzy Brannick comes from a long line of monster hunters. Her family hunts them all for the Prodigium, the council that governs them all. The council that her cousin Sophie Mercer is in charge of. Izzy hasn't been the same since her sister went missing on a job both of them were supposed to be working on. She blames herself since she was supposed to be with her but ended up letting her go off by herself. Add to that, she just screwed up her last solo job and her mom has given her a lame assignment. It involves a ghost. And a high school. Which she has to personally attend.
I was a bit undecided when I heard about this spin-off series but when I got my hands on it my love of Hex Hall that had lay dormant sudden came alive again and I had to read this immediately. And in a single day. Hex Hall fans will love this spin-off, I have no doubt.
Izzy is such a charming yet completely clueless girl when it comes to the normal lives of teenagers. She considers black a satisfactory color for her entire wardrobe and she lacks any sort of social skills considering she's never been social and has never attended public school. So when she finds out she's going to have to actually attend a high school in order to get the necessary information to bring down the ghost that's currently haunting its halls, she's at a loss on how to acclimate. She buys all the teen magazines and the goofy teen TV shows in order to 'understand' more and... suffice it to say, it's hilarious.
Despite her lack of social skills, there still manages to be a completely adorable romance. Izzy and Dex are hilarious and awkward and it was completely endearing. It totally gave the warm fuzzies, I only wish it had gone on for more pages (this was an extremely quick read!) but fortunately this is the first in a new series so I look forward to seeing more Dex and Izzy time. Dex was definitely my favorite character with his peppy one-liners, but there were tons of characters to love in these pages. Torin, the 400-year old warlock currently trapped in Izzy's bedroom mirror, was a runner-up favorite.
Despite my gushing, I wasn't completely content with the ending. It wasn't so off-putting that I won't be continuing this series, but it'll be interesting to see where the story leads.
School Spirits is a delightful paranormal series with an unforgettable set of characters. Fun and full of witty banter, this is the perfect read for anyone looking for some quick mystical entertainment.
Since the beginning, we’ve followed in the steps of Diana Bishop and Matthew Clairmont as they seek out a losSpoilers from the first two installments!
Since the beginning, we’ve followed in the steps of Diana Bishop and Matthew Clairmont as they seek out a lost manuscript called Ashmole 782, otherwise known as The Book of Life. In A Discovery of Witches, we watch the duo fall in love and setting aside Matthew’s exceedingly over-protectiveness we’re introduced to a most interesting world where vampires, witches, and daemons manage to exist in our modern world. In Shadow of Night, we’re taken back through time to 1590 Elizabethan London to continue the search for Ashmole 782 and for an individual to help Diana control the plethora of power she now possesses. And with this installment, the All Souls Trilogy finally comes to a close. Diana and Matthew are back in the present day, continuing the seemingly endless search for the book that has become key to unlocking the mystery of the supernatural races and also ensuring the futures of Diana and Matthews unborn children.
While the plot was far easier to follow than Shadow of Night, where there were so many characters (and many historically accurate figures) that it required a glossary for them alone, The Book of Life was still convoluted and overly verbose. We have the continued search for Ashmole 782, much scientific research occurs in hopes of finding a cure for Matthew’s blood rage which he hopes was not passed down to the twins, an incredible amount of supernatural politics headed by the group known as the Congregation, and to make it even more labyrinthine we have a rogue vampire on the lose who is raping witches in the hopes of impregnating them. Oh, he’s also Matthew’s son. I honestly felt as if that whole “bad seed” storyline could have been dropped completely. I didn’t feel the addition of some supremely evil character had to be included to up the ante; it would have been just fine without.
What I did enjoy though is that this isn’t your typical fantasy taking place on some made up world. This is right here on Earth and the way in which it’s written makes the possibility of magic and supernatural beings all the more plausible, mlike how Harry Potter made me want to believe in magic. I’ve always appreciated how Harkness was able to incorporate so many supernatural creatures without it sliding into cheesy territory; the historically accurate detailing always made these stories feel of the highest quality. Watching Diana grow into her magic was wonderfully done as well and I loved the detail given to her spellcasting. While I felt the Life was unreasonably elaborate and the ending left little in the way of surprises, it was still satisfying to see Diana and Matthews story come to an end.
I received this book free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review....more
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