We Burned So Bright by TJ Klune

 

Ebook with thanks to NetGalley and Tor/Pan Macmillan.

5/5 stars

A slightly belated review since I read this in January but also shockingly ahead of schedule for me considering this isn't released until April.

At 176 pages this is a novella rather than a novel but though short it packs a lot of impact.

The world is ending in a few days. A massive black hole is sucking everything up, most of the planets have been destroyed and once it comes for the moon humanity is done for.

Don and Rodney are an old married couple driving from Maine to Washington State to do something important (and heartbreaking once revealed) before it's too late. On the way they meet a variety of people: crazy bad, crazy good, dangerous crazy and queer kin.

This is a simple book but it has so much emotional depth and characterisation and it is beautiful.

Stef Out x

This Ends in Embers by Kamilah Cole

 

Ebook previously provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

3/5 stars

The First Empyrean Iya is now holding Reeve's body hostage and Faron has chosen to go with him to try and save Reeve and find out what his plan is. Elara is trying to come up with ideas to get her sister back.

I'm sorry to say I didn't enjoy one as much as the first. It felt very repetitive in places with the constant training, mind control, pass out/become injured etc. Also Faron's constant "I caused this, I'm a terrible person" monologues got a little wearing.

The last quarter and particularly the ending felt very rushed. The last battle was written in a very manic way and needed a bit of clarity and room to breathe. I did appreciate that it didn't shy away from the realities of war and the fact that even when it's over it might not be over.

Also for a duology I've seen on multiple lists for sapphic books the relationship very much takes a back seat and I did want more. Also some clear asexual/demisexual rep but it would have been nice for there to have been more of a conversation about it.

Steff Out x

So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole

 

Ebook previously provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

4/5 stars

San Irie is currently at peace following war with Langley. Faron is the Childe Empyrean, someone who can channel the powers of the Gods. San Irie's success in the war was down to her. She and her sister Elara were also responsible for finding the rightful Queen.

Now several years later tensions are rising. People don't trust such a young Queen, Faron is fed up with the pressure of being the Childe Empyrean, Elara wants to become a Drake Pilot and their friend Reeve is constantly being judged for being a traitor to his own people - his father is the Langlish ruler - and not fitting in with his white skin.

This was slow starting and I did want more history on the war, the land etc. It could almost have done with being a trilogy with book 1 covering the first war and then a time jump to the events of this book. I was into it by about a quarter of the way through.

I liked how it was dual narration between Faron and Elara, getting their different perspectives on things, especially when they were in different places. I liked that they were a lot different in personality as well.

I was definitely intrigued by the plot and I could feel the impending sense of doom throughout which I appreciated and I look forward to seeing how it all pans out.

Steff Out x

Contracts and Cats by Toni Binns

 

Ebook provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

5/5 stars

Sable is applying for what looks like her dream job. A live-in job at a local bookshop where she must also take care of The Cat. After a successful interview with the current caretaker Sable accepts the job, once she does the reality of the role becomes more obvious... For the next year she cannot leave the premises at all.

It turns out that there is plenty to keep her busy though since this is actually a magical bookshop and it... Travels to best meet it's customers needs. One of these customers leaves something behind, something he shouldn't have had in the first place. A baby dragon!

I love this book! It was long (526 pages according to StoryGraph) but it didn't feel it. I flew through it. I loved the characters and their diversity and the fact that we got passages from the point of view of The Cat. The writing flowed and the plot was engaging and easy to read and everything felt seamless. I even enjoyed the mundane day to day life bits of breakfast and coffee. I'm really looking forward to the next book!

Steff Out x

A Death at the Party by Amy Stuart

 

Ebook previously provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

3/5 stars

Past and present collide as Nadine organises her mother's 60th birthday party. It's also the 30th anniversary of her discovering her 15-year-old aunt Colleen's dead body at a previous birthday party.

Nadine has recently recovered from a broken hip and subsequent infection, she also has to cope with her ex-fling - and her husband's best friend - coming to the party with his new wife who has recently had a baby, her daughter's best friend is in a coma in hospital following an overdose and a journalist keeps sniffing around her famous author mother.

This was an interesting concept, told over the course of one day with a variety of characters although we lacked the time to get to know all of them effectively. Certain plot threads were mentioned and then discarded, there was indication that Nadine's own accident wasn't an accident but then that was abandoned. There wasn't really enough time to cover everything and then the ending was very abrupt with no resolution.

Steff Out x

Thick Witch Travels by Lizzy Ives

 

Ebook with great thanks to Sword and Rose press and the author.

5/5 stars

You may recall last year I read book 1 of this series? Trilogy? I think it's a trilogy... Fat Witch Summer which I loved.

Book 2 picks up a year later, the Gift system has been dismantled thanks to Thrash and her coven but familiars keep approaching Thrash, everyone's unsettled and they just need a break.

Now Thrash, Cresca, Em and Saki are heading out on a gap year to travel Europa finished off with an apprenticeship Thrash arranged at Wainwood Academy under famed architect Fernicus Wainwood. Right from the start the four all seem to have different ideas about the trip and Thrash worried they might be growing apart but then a familiar asks for their help...

I LOVE these books, the characters are so well-written and 3D. They all have distinct voices and personalities. As a fat person I relate to Thrash's struggles to buy off the rack, especially when thrifting or at boutiques (that adjustment wand sounds amazing though!). I loved the ace rep.

The story is complex and layered but still easy to follow and the danger towards the characters feels real. I loved the expansion of the world and the magic system, everything is so well thought out and I'm really looking forward to the future and seeing where these characters end up.

Steff Out x

The Dog Share by Fiona Gibson

 

Ebook previously provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

4/5 stars

Suzy's partner Paul decides on a whim to buy a Whiskey distillery that they visited on holiday on a small Scottish island. 2 years later Paul has vanished and the distillery is close to going bust. Suzy equally on a whim but for the right reasons decides to go it alone and try to save it.

On a visit to the island Suzy comes across a lost terrier that she names Scout. Trying to find his origins she connects with local Cara who has just had to put her own dog to sleep. Suzy eventually decides to keep Scout, a new mascot for a new life.

Ricky's dad was the former head distiller and Ricky and his son Arthur are visiting for Easter to try and cheer up grandad following the loss of his dog not so long ago. Suzy tries to get Harry re-involved with the distillery but he's reluctant until Ricky and Arthur have a chance meeting with Scout on the beach.

This was super cute, I loved the variety of characters and the way everyone's paths crossed and how one dog can affect so many people.

The writing style was easy and engaging but there were frequent time jumps (two weeks later, two months later etc) which were a little annoying. There were a couple of plot threads that felt incomplete by the end which was a little bit frustrating but I still really enjoyed it.

Steff Out x

Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney

 

Ebook previously provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

3/5 stars

Grady Green is an author. He has just phoned his wife, Abby, with news of being a New York Times bestseller when she stops the car saying she sees someone in the road. The call goes silent and when Grady goes to investigate Abby has vanished!

A year later Grady is a broken man living in a cheap hotel and with a writing advance needing to be paid back (he only wrote one book of a two book deal) his debts are accumulating. But then his agent Kitty - Abby's godmother - phones. She needs him to write a new book and she's got just the place he can use, the cabin used by a now deceased author on the isolated island of Amberley off the coast of Scotland.

The island when Grady arrives is a very strange place. A tiny community of 25, phones that don't work, or do they? No consistent schedule to be able to leave the island. Odd looks and comments and for Grady the delivery of some of Abby's old newspaper articles possibly referencing people on the island.

This started off interestingly but it took a lot of time to get anywhere. The pacing struggled. There's only so many paranoid hallucinations someone can take before thinking just get on with the plot! The last quarter where we get all the reveals felt crowded and muddy. There were moments one character mentioned that earlier in the book seemed to belong to another character. Some stuff seemed a bit out of the blue and unbelievable. And then that ending!?!? What was that??? I hated the lack of clarity there.

Steff Out x

Eight Pieces of Silva by Patrice Lawrence

 

Ebook previously provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

3/5 stars

Becks's mum and Silva's dad have just got married and gone on their dream honeymoon. Silva at 18 is supposed to be the responsible adult looking after 16 year old Becks but then Silva doesn't come home after waving the parents off.

Becks's cat Azog decides to poop in Silva's room and while cleaning it up Becks finds a bunch of receipts for random items, the earliest dated has a handwritten message on it expressing romantic interest. Further investigation reveals other strange items: a crappy wig, fairground token, medal, locker key and a football related newspaper article.

So I loved Becks. Black, out and proud lesbian, Marvel and Tolkien obsessive (her cat's name even comes from the Hobbit movies). Also China - I wish we could have had more of her. Raych was interesting but we didn't know her enough to care about what happened

But Silva. Silva pissed me off in short. She's supposedly so fragile following her mum's death from cancer but it's not like she was a little kid (I can't recall if the amount of time was specified), enough time has passed for her dad to feel comfortable remarrying. Also her blind obsession frustrated me to no end. You are 28 yet you are acting like a child!

The ending was also very abrupt like the author didn't want to go over a certain word count.

Steff Out x

The Villa by Jess Ryder

 

Ebook previously provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

3/5 stars

3 years ago Dani, Aoife, Tiff, Beth and Celine came to Villa Floriana in Marbella for Aoife's hen party. Aoife was killed in a suspected burglary gone wrong. Dani was never convinced by this story so she's brought the other hens back to the villa to try and figure out the truth.

Told in dual timeline of then and now and from the perspectives of the 4 surviving hens. Tiff and Beth are Aoife's childhood best friends, Dani is her adulthood best friend who was leading her astray - according to Tiff - and Celine is someone she worked with who technically wasn't supposed to be there due to some "mix-up" of a 6 person villa being booked as opposed to a group-friendly hotel.

I liked the mystery surrounding what happened and the gradual reveal of the events but apart from Dani the characters are mostly unlikable in their secret bitchy-ness. Are you people her friends or not? Also the reveal was a letdown and in my feeling not really believable. There were also some other plot points that were introduced so late that they may as well not have been there, it's like the author was just trying to add extra tension instead of working with what she already had.

Steff Out x

Isle of Ever by Jen Calonita

 

Ebook provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

4/5 stars

12 year old Everly "Benny" Benedict is living with her mum in a tiny flat worrying about how they're going to afford the rent and whether they'll have to move again when a lawyer shows up.

Benny's great great grandmother (not sure how many greats) has left a letter addressed specifically to her. She will inherit Evelyn Terry's estate and accompanying vineyard and her fortune but only if she completes her game by the 12th June.

Told in dual timeline between Benny's search in the present day and Evelyn's journal in 1835 when the area was plagued by Pertussis known as The Cough. I really enjoyed the concept for this and I liked the characters although despite them being described as Benny's age Zara and Ryan read as a little older and understandably due to the journal format we didn't learn a lot about the historical characters.

The pacing was a little uneven, slow in parts, fast in others. The explanation for Benny specifically being addressed could have come a little earlier and there was a particular troublesome family that were mentioned but that didn't come to anything at this point. A cliffhanger ending which certainly entices you to pick up the next book and I'll certainly keep my eye out for it.

Steff Out x

See the Stars by Eleanor Ray

 

Ebook provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

5/5 stars

Alice is an astronomer. Previously she was studying for her masters degree but left it suddenly and joined the world of finance in the city. As a kid she loved nothing more than stargazing with her beloved grandpa until his descent into dementia and rambles about a comet no-one else could see.

Following a collapse at work and the diagnosis of a mini-stroke Alice goes home to Yorkshire to recuperate, re-discovering her grandpa's logbooks in the process and maybe he wasn't wrong about the comet? Along the way she reconnects with her teenage crush Matt, through his nerdy, autistic nephew Berti. I loved Berti as a character and his autism is obvious to me but unfortunately never named on page which is my only slight bugbear with this novel

Told in dual timeline between Alice's time as a child and her university journey and present day this is an emotional, engaging story and I didn't find the space stuff too complicated or overwhelming in the way it was written. The characters were all well-written and easy to connect to. I was hoping for a certain outcome and I was not disappointed but no spoilers here of course.

Steff Out x

The Theory of (Not Quite) Everything by Kara Gnodde

 

Ebook previously provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

2/5 stars

CW: suicide

Mimi lives with her brother, accomplished mathematician Art, but she's feeling lonely. Art comes up with an algorithm to get her the best result on a dating app, both of which are soon forgotten when she meets Frank at a mathematics awards that Art has dragged her to. To Mimi Frank seems perfect, Art is not so sure.

This was very slow going and the plot feels thin. Apart from the relationship drama Art is working on some kind of famous maths problem which if proven could cause a lot of trouble and then there's the trauma around their parents deaths.

There are points where not a lot seems to happen and I almost DNFd several times. I kind of wish I had because the overall pay off is not there. I just found this book underwhelming overall.

Steff Out x

A Serial Killer's Guide to Marriage by Asia Mackay

 

Ebook previously provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

4/5 stars

Haze and her husband Fox were a serial killer team murdering bad men across Europe. They have very opposite backgrounds, Haze is a Brit, grew up in care under multiple abusive foster families. Fox is American, born into privilege until his parents discovered his first kill and exiled him to England.

Both agreed to retire when they had daughter Bibi but Haze in particular is struggling. She's mostly a stay at home mum - she's also a successful artist but her main inspiration was their kills - which leaves her time to dwell. Fox seems to be having a successful business career but both are hiding things.

I loved the characters and I thought it was brilliantly written but I do wish it had come to that big climax a little bit sooner. I certainly hope that there's a sequel though!

Steff Out x

What July Knew by Emily Koch

 

Ebook previously provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

3/5 stars

Despite giving them the same rating I did prefer this to Keep Him Close and I think the author does better at these domestic sort of stories than thrillers.

July is 10 years old, as far as she knows her mother died in a car crash when she was 2, she knows very little about her and if she asks her dad too many questions he'll teach her a Lesson but then July's teacher sets their summer homework as a report on someone they know and July decides to use it to try and get some more information about her mother.

This was definitely well-written, everything felt very realistic and I liked the descriptions and the characters were all well-defined but my biggest issue was the pacing. So much of the important plot happens in the last quarter or so, there needed to be more in the earlier stages where the story felt quite flat. We also don't get much of an end past a character writing a letter which tells us a few important things.

I also want to make a specific comment about how much I loved the growth of July and her stepsister Sylvie's relationship from playground rivals that couldn't be seen together to what happened at the end was a beautiful arc.

Steff Out x

The Library of the Dead by T.L. Huchu

 

Ebook previously provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

3/5 stars

Set in some kind of future vaguely post-apocalyptic Scotland where poverty is rife and magic exists. 14-year-old Ropa is a ghostalker, delivering messages from the dead to the living for cash when a particular ghost asks for help finding her missing son Ropa ends up caught up in something new and dangerous...

I liked the characters in this, Ropa was sharp and witty and her interactions with her gran and her sister Izwi were lovely, her best friend Jomo was lovely, a real loyal to the end type, and new friend Priya was a firecracker. A wheelchair user but it definitely does not hold her back!

I also thought elements of the story were good, the talking to ghosts and the library in particular but there was a mention of fae which seemed very out of nowhere and the overall pacing wasn't brilliant. Also I understand this is the first in a series but the ending was very abrupt.

Steff Out x

Keep Him Close by Emily Koch

 

Ebook previously provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

2/5 stars

Alice's son Lou has just died following a night out. Indigo's son Kane has confessed to killing him but is that the truth?

Alice finds herself getting close to Indigo, first by accident when she visits the library where Alice works but then she deliberately orchestrates further meetings. Indigo herself refuses to believe her boy has done wrong, is she right or is she blinded by a mother's love?

I kept reading because I wanted to know the truth. Neither of our main female characters are particularly likable, Alice is cold and judgemental and Indigo is fussy and obsessed with everything containing radiation. The plot is thin and weak and everything takes way too long to be resolved and when it is it makes the ending weak.

Steff Out x 

The Memory Wood by Sam Lloyd

 

Ebook provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

3/5 stars

This is told in 3-way narration between Elissa who has been kidnapped from her chess tournament, Mairead the detective looking for her who has been having troubles of her own, and Elijah the mystery boy who visits Elissa but is unwilling or unable to help her.

This was an interesting novel and an intriguing concept but I think the execution was lacking slightly. It felt like the reveal and the full story behind it were kind of rushed and glossed over. The ending was very rushed as well.

Steff Out x

Alchemy and a Cup of Tea by Rebecca Thorne

 

Ebook provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

5/5 stars

The book opens with Reyna, who has been acting as Queen for several months at this point, being kidnapped. When Kianthe finds out she is naturally in a panic and immediately flies to the rescue but Reyna being Reyna doesn't entirely need rescuing and as a matter of fact she's also discovered the work of a rogue alchemist.

In the meantime tourists are invading Tawney and the pair are struggling with the fact that they may have to close their shop to save the town.

Along the way we solve the mystery of the missing dragon egg and Serena is trying to plan her proposal to Bonnie.

This was the fourth and final book in the Tomes and Tea quartet and I am so sad that it's over 😭 I love these books, the characters, the way they're written all just get me. I definitely plan to read anything else the author writes!

Steff Out x

My Three Dogs by W. Bruce Cameron

 

Ebook provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

5/5 stars

Liam and Sabrina have a happy life with their two dogs, Riggs and Luna, or so Liam thinks but when he brings home puppy Archie - rescuing him from a bad situation - it suddenly reveals that there are cracks in their relationship. Sabrina moves out for a break. Several days later Liam has come to his senses, he's spoken to Sabrina and they're planning to meet up where he wants to propose but before that happens he's in a car accident.

Liam's brother Brad takes over, tells Sabrina that Liam is dead and takes the dogs to a shelter where they are all eventually adopted separately to mixed success but Riggs in particular wants to reunite his pack.

At less than 300 pages this is a short novel, maybe a little too short in that we don't properly get to know our human characters but who cares when we are so perfectly in the heads of our canine characters and I love all three of them and never want them to come to harm! I especially loved the epilogue!

Steff Out x