Review: A Touch of Darkness by Scarlett St. Clair

 

A series that I have had my eye on since I got a copy for a blogtour years ago and just never finished reading it. It was always in the back of my mind. When I first stopped reading it, I wasn't interested in romance and I was also in the middle of other books about mythology and felt that I would get confused.

I absolutely LOVED  this. It was the right amount of smut and character building. One of the hesitations I had was that it would be all smut and it would be non realistic smut with no plot or progression of the story. It had the good smut that experienced fan fic writers create and the character growth of Persephone and Hades was just amazing. There were times when I thought something typical would happen and it didn't.

So to summarize this amazing first book in a series, we follow Persephone who has gained new found freedom from her mother Demeter. She is about to graduate from New Athens University and she is starting an internship at a newspaper called New Athens News. She has no magic and what little she can control is from her mother and that is how she hides her Divine form and to appear as a mortal to her classmates, work colleagues and her best friend Lexa. 

Lexa finds a way into the most prestigous nightclub called Nevernight which is owned by Hades and Persephone has been forbidden by her mother to not go anywhere near the Gods, especially Hades. Well, Persephone ends up meeting Hades and does the worst sin imaginable and that is to enter into a contract with Hades.

I will not spoil any more of the book. Just that I flew through this book and needed to know what would happen. Thankfully Hoopla has book two and three, so I will be reading those soon. Like in the next week or so and I am bad at keeping up with series. 

Review: These Deadly Games by Diana Urban

 

An enjoyable, page turning young adult thriller all about games. It is about a group of friends who are excited about playing in a video game tournament for their favorite video game MortalDusk. They are hoping to win the grand prize money. Our main character Crystal is eager to win because she wants to help her mom pay the mortgage on the house. She is having family issues. Her father became an abusive alcoholic and he ends up leaving the family. 

One day, Crystal gets a weird text message from a app on her phone that she has no recognition of. It shows a video of her little sister tied up and being held hostage. Crystal is then told she has to play a series of games to keep her sister alive. She can't tell anyone of her friends or call the police. She has to do these random ass thing like make brownies and steal an answer key to a test. Turns out that these will all be part of a much bigger scheme and it was wild.

I figured out the person or persons right away but not the reason why until the very end of the book. I caught myself skimming to get to the next page because I needed to know what was going to happen. 

I will definitely be picking up more from Diana Urban.

Review: The Shadowhunter's Codex by Cassandra Clare

 

A must read if you are reading the Shadowhunter series. It is a textbook for Shadowhunters where it gives history on how Jonathan Shadowhunter became the first by Raziel and how the mortal instruments came to be. It goes into detail about the Silent Brothers and Iron Sisters. It also goes into detail about the weapons and angel names. Some of the reading was boring and interesting. I was mainly reading it for the commentary from Clary, Jace and Simon. I find it funny how only shadowhunters were  supposed to read the codex and no one else and then Simon's vampire ass is reading it.

While reading it, I was wondering when this fits the timeline meaning which book comes before and after this. There is not much more I can say about this just that I can finally get to Tales From The Shadowhunter Academy.

Review: Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor

 

Hey look at me reading a new release finally for the year. This was a massive book and I enjoyed it a lot. I am really into mafia, organized crime family type books and this was right up my alley. This is written by an Indian author set in India. We follow a plethora of characters and their plot lines all come together so well. 

We start off with a young boy named Ajay. He accidentally lets his family goat loose and the goat gets into the neighbors spinach. Well the neighbor is completely pissed and demands payment and Ajay's father can't pay, so he gets beaten so severely that he dies. Ajay and his family can't pay for burial or proper cremation and they end up doing a botched cremation and burial. 

Ajays mother ends up selling him and his sister gets taken to a brothel. Ajay grows up and starts working for Sunny Wadia and his father is the famous Bunty Wadia who is feared and respected. During this part of the book, we start getting Sunny's pov and how he wants to make India better and not so sloppy and crappy. He wants the homeless to have homes and stop shitting in the river and polluting the air. He ends up starting a relationship with a journalist named Neda who we also read from and how these two are just so toxic for each other but their relationship would have blossomed into something amazing if not for Sunny's family. 

I enjoyed this book a lot and I would not doubt the author writing another book with these characters or the minor characters and continuing this story espeialy with how the book ended.

BLOG TOUR: Betrayal By The Book by Michael D. Beil

I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the BETRAYAL BY THE BOOK by Michael D. Beil Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!

 

About the Book:

Title: BETRAYAL BY THE BOOK (The Swallowtail Legacy #2)

Author: Michael D. Beil

Pub. Date: April 18, 2023

Publisher: Pixel+Ink

Formats: Hardcover, eBook, Audiobook

Pages: 336

Find it: Goodreads, https://books2read.com/BETRAYAL-BY-THE-BOOK

A writer’s conference brings twelve-year-old Lark’s favorite writer—and a suspicious death—to Swallowtail Island, in the second book in this middle grade mystery series by an Edgar Award-nominated author.

Swallowtail Island is hosting the Swallowtales Writer’s Conference. Lark's ecstatic to be chosen as a “page” for her favorite author, Ann E. Keyhart.
 
But they say you should never meet your idols. When Keyhart arrives with her personal assistant in tow, she is nothing but a terror. And within a few hours, the assistant is dead! But the explanation isn't sitting well. Not when lots of people had reasons to want to be rid of Keyhart, and especially not after it’s revealed the assistant recently completed a hot new novel and the file's vanished from her computer.
 
Then Lark finds out the assistant had a bird—the match to the one she found hidden in her mom’s book—and she needs answers. It looks like Swallowtail Island still has secrets to reveal, and Lark’s going to uncover them.
 
A gripping new chapter in the Swallowtail Legacy series, Mike D. Beil spins another clever clue hunt that seamlessly slips in alongside the best classics of middle grade mystery.

 

Get Book 1 WRECK AT ADA’S REEF Now!

 

 

About Michael D. Beil:

In a time not long after the fifth extinction event, Edgar Award-nominated author Michael D. Beil came of age on the shores of Pymatuning Lake, where the ducks walk on the fish. (Look it up. Seriously.) He is the author of the Red Blazer Girls series, Summer at Forsaken Lake, Lantern Sam and the Blue Streak Bandits, and Agents of the Glass: A New Recruit. For reasons that can't be disclosed until September 28, 2041, he now lives somewhere in Portugal with his wife and their two white cats, Bruno and Maisie. He still gets carsick if he has to ride in the back seat for long and feels a little guilty that he doesn't keep a journal. For more on the author and his books, visit him online at www.michaeldbeil.com.

Website | Facebook | Instagram | Goodreads | Amazon

 

Giveaway Details:

1 winner will receive a finished copy of BETRAYAL BY THE BOOK, US Only.

Ends May 16^th, midnight EST.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tour Schedule:

Week One:

5/1/2023	Cara North	Excerpt/IG Post
5/1/2023	Two Chicks on Books	Excerpt/IG Post
5/2/2023	The Chirpy Bookaholic	Excerpt/IG Post
5/2/2023	A Backwards Story	Excerpt
5/3/2023	YA Books Central	Excerpt/IG Post (when available)
5/3/2023	A Dream Within A Dream	Excerpt
5/4/2023	Jaime_of_gryffindor	IG Review
5/4/2023	The Momma Spot	Excerpt
5/5/2023	#BRVL Book Review Virginia Lee Blog	Excerpt/IG Post
5/5/2023	A Blue Box Full of Books	IG Feature

Week Two:

5/8/2023	@stargirls.magical.tale	IG Review
5/8/2023	@get.outside.and.read	IG Review
5/9/2023	Two Points of Interest	Review
5/9/2023	nolareads504	IG Review
5/10/2023	Lifestyle of Me	Review
5/10/2023	Nonbinaryknightreads	Review/IG Post
5/11/2023	@froggyreadteach	IG Review
5/11/2023	@katherinebichler	TikTok Spotlight
5/12/2023	OneMoreExclamation	Review/IG Post
5/12/2023	Country Mamas With Kids	Review/IG Post

Review: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

 

I have another favorite non fiction book that I need to purchase for my shelves. I am obsessed with nonfiction that reads like fiction and is not boring. I loved this because it made me laugh and I want to try so of the recipes that were included. 

I have always heard of this author's name and a book called The Poisonwood Bible and I found it at a Goodwill and purchased it and it is currently sitting on my TBR shelf. Back in November, I started watching a Youtuber called acre homestead and I got into homesteading and wanting to grow my own plants and garden and have a freezer full of meat and things that I have grown. 

That sent me down a homesteading research rabbit hole where every blog and youtuber captured my attention. I saw this book on someone's wishlist and the author's name jumped out at me. I immediately went to my library's website and requested it and when I got it home, it sat on my shelf for a month a a half and I was going to return it without reading it because I couldn't renew it anymore and I told myself it looks boring. Well, I hate returning books to the library and not have read them. So I looked on Hoopla and it was available on audio and I got it and started reading along with it and I am so glad I decided to buckle down and read it.

The book is narrated by Barbara Kingsolver and Camille Kingsolver and it was great. This book is about a year in their lives where they move from Arizona to West Virginia and they have their own garden and livestock and they decided to eat seasonally and not purchase out of season produce because of environmental concerns and prices. 

It also goes into detail and their livestock, especially their turkeys and turkey sex. Turkey sex is something I didn't know that I needed to know. My husband was interested and the days after I let him listen to that section of book, he was asking me what happened with the turkeys? Have they been mentioned again? lol.

I highly recommend this even if you are not into gardening or homesteading. It also goes into health talk and environmental concerns and carbon footprints. 

Review: Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree

 A new favorite of the year. I was so hesitant to pick up this book because of ALLLLLL the hype and it was great. Totally worth the hype. I don't know what made me request it from my library but while in the middle of it, I made my husband buy my own copy because I was enjoying it that much.

I am not into orcs at all and I think of them as ogres. Going into it, I learned that is had some LGBTQ rep and was kind of hopping that the romance wouldn't take over the story. I am not a big fan of romance.

We follow Viv the orc who has decided to leave her old life behind and settle down in a town and start up her own business. The problem is that no one in the town has any idea of what Coffee is. Viv meets and befriends the locals along the way who end up helping her with labor and getting her shop running for business. She advertises for help wanted and she gets a new assistant who ends up being a succubus named Tandri who wants to be known for who she is and not just a succubus. 

There is a local mafia who starts to hassle Viv for monthly collection until she meets with the Madrigal who is the leader and they come to an agreement because they both have a common enemy and decide to work together. 

I loved reading about the building process and the friendships that Viv made along the way and reading about the pastries that are eventualy made and served, which made me very hungry for some chocolate donuts. 

I am not sure how I feel about the new book coming out that will be a prequel to this about Viv's time being in a battle/ bounty hunter.