Spotlight: The Foxglove Pact by Sen Zhang

 

Review: Mismatch by Lizzy Ford

 

This is the second novella in the Omega series. I read Alessandra last month. These are 30 page ebooks and that go into character backgrounds of the main people in the Omega novel. I assume that is the jist. This short story follows the gargoyle statue that we meet in Alessandra. It is the grotesque that is brought to life. 

I really liked his backstory and how he used to be a Greek prince 4000 years ago and he is part of the royal bloodline that knows that he will become a statue when his heir becomes of age. Mismatch doesn't remember his name and he gets arrested. The cops cant find him in the database because it only goes back 2000 years. At night, he turns back into his creature form. He is planning on rescuing the princess who will eventually turn into a statue as well. Her name is Phoibe and she is the next short story.

We also get more about what happened with Alessandra and how she gets captured. We also get to see Ms. Nettles try to mend Mismatch and his hurt wing. 

Review: Spy Family volume 10 by Tatsuya Endo *SPOILERS*

 

Season three comes out next month, but it won't be dubbed. So my family and I have to wait even longer and I am needing the Forger family in my life immediately. Based on the cover, we get little Loid, but Loid is not really his name. It is redacted. The volume starts off showing him playing with his friends and they are playing soldiers. They are Westalis and Ostania. Little Loid, as I am calling him, looks to be so happy and care free. He goes home and we learn that his father is abusive physically and verbally.

Little Loid lost both his parents in the bombing by Ostania. He grows up and when he turns 18, he joins the army under the name Roland Spoofy. One day his is scouting the woods and comes across an Ostania infantry man.... turns out to be Franky!!!!

"Roland" is in the mess hall one day making soup and three soldiers recognize him, and they end up being his friends from childhood who he thought had died in the bombing. They are off on a mission and "Roland" is looking forward to seeing them when they get back and the heartbreaking thing is that he got them back just to have them ripped away from him in a shoddy mission.

He gets stopped by a intelligence officer who recruits him into the spy network and basically blackmails him, telling him that if he doesn't show up he will be court martialled because he lied about his age to gain entry into the army.

We meet handler and then Loid wakes up and we learn that he was dreaming and this is immediately after Anya tells him about her second Tonitrus Bolt. So we picked up right where volume 9 left off.

We get a mission where it is all Handler. She is on a case where this famous opera singer is going to go into Ostania to try to help with the peace relations. The next day there is a smear campaign where the press is trying to discredit him and say that he is a traitor. Handler and her colleagues are keeping a close eye. There is a rookie who is so gullible and for a minute, I actually thought it was Twilight, but then he is mentioned and Handler says that he is under a lot of stress because he collapsed in his home.

Did Loid tell her that or is she secretly surveiling him to make sure the mission doesn't fuck up. 

After this mission, we get back to Anya at school. It is the end of the school day and Anya is waiting on the bus. Housemaster Henderson sees her and asks her for help with school supplies and she made me belly laugh because she tells him with the Anya face, " I am busy doing nothing." I have definitely said that before.

Housemaster Henderson is talaking to Anya and asking her if she is fine and if she has any problems and she blurts out nope. He is shocked because she isn't concerned about her two bolts. Then she freaks out because he is freaking out. He then starts getting all flabbergasted and calling her shallow because she only wants stella stars because they look cool.  Loid needs to get a grip because he passes out again because he thinks Anya got another bolt because she asks him to help her study. These people need to CHILL!

Yor is the main focus of the next mission. She is on the hunt for the tea cakes that Housemaster Henderson gave Anya. She is trying to act normal and failing. She saves a woman from falling with a bunch of her shopping and the woman is obsessed. She invited Yor to play volleyball with some other moms and they have luch together after. Yor tells them about Anya after she hears one of the moms talking about tonirtus bolts. She learns that the woman she saved was Melinda Desmond. Damian's mom. 

There are two short missions at the end. I really enjoyed the Franky and Bond mission. It made me laugh and picture my own dogs. Bond gets a crush on the Afghan dog named Coco and Franky is of course the dogsitter. He sees Coco's owner and becomes obsessed like always. He gives Bond pointers and Bond is being so adorable trying to win over Coco and eventually both Bond and Franky scare away there prospects. The other short mission was Anya watching Bondman and Bondman was pretty much a man whore because every woman was falling head over heels for him and he was just dragging them along and wanting him to chose a woman already. Not my favorite.

I just cannot wait for the third season. 

Review: The Crash by Freida McFadden

 

The first section is from Tegan's point of view. She is in her early 20's and she is 35 weeks pregnant with a rich guy's baby. He ended up raping her and she is on the way to see her brother. She is driving through a blizzard and she crashes her car. She gets saved by this gruff guy named Hank who takes her to his house because his wife Polly is a nurse. They put her in the basement and she is immeidately suspicious but she cant leave because she is having contractions and her ankle is broken.

Tegan is such a whiny and paranoid brat. 

The second section is all from Polly's perspective and throughout the first part we were painted a picture of Hank as an abusive and manipulative husband. We saw a bruise on Polly and Tegan thought that Hank did it. With this section, we learn that Polly is mentally ill and barren. We learn about the incident that made her lose her job as a nurse and how she is planning to take Tegan baby away from her. Hank is the complete opposite of what Tegan thinks and he is actually the one being manipulated by Polly. Polly is trying to keep Tegan in the basement till she has the baby. She is now lying to the police who are looking for Tegan.

Tegan stabs Polly with a fork and Hank has threatened Tegan. Polly told Hank that she wants Tegan's baby and Hank is trying to get her to call her shrink. Tegan is trying to figure out ways to get out but she is doing a real shit job because everytime she moves, she cries about the pain in her leg and if she would have let Polly take the boot off, then her circumstances would be much different. Polly is really going over the deep end and losing control. She fucked up majorly when she invited Tegan's brother into the house and then mentioned him to Tegan.

Hank ends up finally taking Tegan to the hospital because Polly has become a real lunatic. She got out of bed one night and tried to break Tegan's kneecap. Tegan has a nasty infection in her leg because she refused to let Polly remove the shoe. Polly flips when she learns that Tegan is gone and she goes to the hospital to kill Tegan so she doesn't rat out Hank and her and have to go to jail. When Polly gets to the hospital, she sees a man trying to inject Tegan's IV with a syringe. It turns out to be Tegan's brother and all of this mess comes to light about how he was blaming his sister for his career ending accident and he was in business deals with the man who raped her and he didn't want to lose that deal, so he needed to take action. 

The end of the book really was a plot twist because the prologue makes you think throughout the book that it is out two main female characters, but it is really some side characters. 

Review: Carl's Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman

 

Book two read and done. I got an email from audible offerin 3 months free and I was like sold. I also had this and the next book from Netgalley, so I had to read this immediately. I gave the first book 4 stars and I read that physically. I listened to this and while it was good and more entertaining, I still give this a 4 star because it just didn't make me belly laugh. I was also very annoyed by the narration of Donut whenerver she talked in all caps. I do think this would have been better with a full cast audio. 

This books is set all in one floor and by the end, they reach the 4th floor. But on the 3rd floor, they are in a town like setting where there is a traveling circus in the middle. They also get to choose their races at the very beginning. Donut stays a cat and Carl stays a human. Mordecai becomes an incubus or succubus and he becomes Donut's manager. He is ready for them to survive so he can finally be free of the dungeon forever.

This floor also introduces quests and there is a number of them that Carl and Donut have to partake in. Carl gets into it with an elite who puts Donut into a poisoned state. Mongo is growing at an alarming rate every time he levels up. There is also a quest whre Carl and Donut have to figure out what is happening to the local prostitutes and why they are dying. 

The title makes sense in this quest and I am really intrigued when he will use this particular item. Carl's boxers become a powerful item and this power makes it so if he gets a pair of pants to put on, it will change his stats. There is also interference from the outside empires and they are basically starting a war.

Review: The Boyfriend by Freida McFadden *SPOILERS*

 

Freida McFadden is a fomo for me. I have been wanting to read her books for a while, but she puts out so many and she is a very polarizing author. People love her and people hate her writing. I have heard that she used Ai to write her books and while reading this, I was trying to keep an open mind, but there were just paragraphs of scientific text that read like a copy and paste from a search research. It did not sound like the character at all.

The only reason I picked this up was because I wanted to complete a goodreads challenge for one of the bookmarks. I ended up giving this 4 stars because it did keep me interested. I was more interested in the Tom chapters. I was talking to my hubby and telling him about this book and the main female character's name completely slipped my mind. That has to tell you how flat and basic a character she was. I did not like her a bit. She was such a bland character that she could have been a piece of printer paper.

The book starts with a Tom chapter and how he is obsessed with this girl named Daisy and how he has loved her since he was 4 years old and that he wonders how her neck would feel in his hands. Right away, the book gives away suspense. But we have more character growth from Tom than Sydney. Sydney is the bland printer paper and she is on a date with this guy who is just a god awful person. He tries to sexuall assault her and Tom saves the day. She is immediately attracted to Tom. Like how does that happen. You are almost raped by one guy and then you are saved by a mysterious guy and you instantly have the hots for him. 

The Tome chapters are set when he was in high school and he has an abusive dad and he only has one best friend. His friend is a guy named Slug and he is a peeping Tom. Tom gets into a relationship with Daisy and her friend Allison is against it. She tries to blackmail Tom into breaking up with Daisy or she is going to tell her that Tom was last seen kissing the missing girl Brandi, who eventually turns up dead.

Throughout the Tome chapters, we get more and more hints that maybe Slug is behind the deaths of Brandi and evetually Allison. I mean he does help get rid of Tom's dad's body. Sydney finds her friends body slashed and mutilated and she thinks it is a slew of people. Her ex is on the case solely because she lives in the building which is a conflict of interest but that is not a plot point. Sydney gets so fed up with her ex because there has been no arrest in the murder. She starts dating again and she sees the mysterious guy again one day when she is on a date and has a horrible nosebleed.

We learn Tom is the mysterious guy and they start going on dates. Months go by and Syney is starting to get suspicious because Tom's lies are unraveling. He refuses to meet her friends and go to the same place twice. He has two different phones. She eventually learns that he was the one dating her murdered friend.

So much shit goes down and we learn who the real killer is in the past and present chapters and they are the same person. At the end of the Tom chapters, I was so sure that it would be Slug behind the killings because his character description reminded me of Real Kevin, the guy who tried to rape and kept stalking Sydney. Tom makes a weird decision at the end and him and the killer never get caught.

The Tom chapters are what made this book for me and if they weren't included, I don't think I would have finished this or given it the rating I did. 

Review: Four Ruined Realms by Mai Corland *SPOILERS*

 

Once again, I am still obsessed. I borrowed this from the library immediately after reading Five Broken Blades and then I got a Book Outlet email and I saw that this book was on sale for 10.00. Like excuse me!

I immediately made an order and when this came, I squealed. I was sad that I had to put it to the side to prioritize my library books that I got when I originally picked this up. I took my time reading this once again and I am so glad I did because I enjoyed every second of it. I liked that it had a recap of the first book even though I didn't need it because I read the first book not long ago. 

This picks up right where the first leaves off with our characters on a boat on the way to Khitan to try to steal the Gold Ring of the Dragon Lord from Queen Quilimar. Everyone is against Aeri because she lied about her lineage and that she is King Joon's daughter. Royo is at ends with himself because he hates that she lied to him but he has some deep feelings for her. Euyn and Mikhail are at odds because reasons and Sora is trying to get the group back on track while grieving the loss of Tiyung to the Idle Prison and wondering about her sister Daysum.

 They make it to Khitan and have to figure out how to arrange a meeting with the queen who was a victim of a recent assassination plot after our group left King Joon. They have to figure out how to get the Rule of Distance and they split up. Aeri and Royo go look for an egg, while Euyn, Mikhail and Sora go try to decapitate a head in a glass coffin.

Aeri and Royo are successful while the other three are almost killed by the Marmans. This is the point where I start taking an immense dislike to Euyn because he is just becoming the worst of the worst and his misogynistic and sexist side is coming out. He calls Sora just a woman and he calls Queen Quilimar who is his sister, a common whore who has an inferior female brain. I was hoping that he would die and thankfully he gets murdered by Queen Quilimar.

Tiyung learns some things while in prison. He learns that Hana who was also a poison maiden at his father's school is actually alive and acting spymaster for King Joon. He learns that Daysum was sold to his uncle's awful pleasure house and has died from an overdose. He is in a cell with Ailor who we know is Mikkhail's adoptive father but Tiyung doesn't know this and Ailor gives his life for Tiyung.

King Joon has gathered the three of the four realms to go against Khitan. He has come to the shores of Khitan and Euyn has died. Aeri gathers the Gold Ring that Mikhail took from Euyn's finger and she wears it. She also has the Sands of Time relic so she has two of the four relics. Her eyes turned golden and she is becoming powerful which is dangerous. Everyone finds out when she uses her new power and at the end, Royo finds out that she lied to him again.

We also get some mic drop news about Mikhail. He gathers the water sceptor of Wei from the bearer when the ship sank and he intends to present it to Gambria. He believes that they are descended from the Royal family of Gaya. Turns out, it is really Mikhail who is royal and his is the rightful heir to the water sceptor. Our group is now the owners of three of the relics. War is upon them and there is a lot to gear up for.

I am honestly scared to read the third because the title has my heart palpitating. I am expecting another major character death. I am hoping beyond hope that it is not Royo or Aeri because this series started with three groups of 2. Tiyung and Sora, Mikhail and Euyn, Royo and Aeri. Tiyung went to prison. Euyn was murdered.... thankfully. The title implies that something heartbreaking will happen.