Swordcrossed by Freya Marske (ARC Review)

March 11, 2025

Mattinesh Jay, dutiful heir to his struggling family business, needs to hire an experienced swordsman to serve as best man for his arranged marriage. Sword-challenge at the ceremony could destroy all hope of restoring his family’s wealth, something that Matti has been trying—and failing—to do for the past ten years.

What he can afford, unfortunately, is part-time con artist and full-time charming menace Luca Piere.

Luca, for his part, is trying to reinvent himself in a new city. All he wants to do is make some easy money and try to forget the crime he committed in his hometown. He didn’t plan on being blackmailed into giving sword lessons to a chronically responsible—and inconveniently handsome—wool merchant like Matti.

However, neither Matti’s business troubles nor Luca himself are quite what they seem… Read More Swordcrossed by Freya Marske (ARC Review)

— Adult, ARC review, book review —

Variation by Rebecca Yarros (ARC Review)

March 9, 2025

Elite ballerina Allie Rousseau is no stranger to pressure. With her mother’s eyes always watching, perfection was expected, no matter the cost. But when an injury jeopardizes all she’s sacrificed for, Allie returns to her summer home to heal and recover. But the memories she’s tried to forget rush in and threaten to take her under.

As a Coast Guard rescue swimmer, Hudson Ellis knows that hesitation can mean the difference between life and death. He’s always prided himself on being in the right place at the right time, especially when it came to Allie Rousseau…until the night he left for basic. After the biggest regret of his life, the secrets he keeps mean he can never be with the one woman he wants more than his next breath.

When Hudson’s niece shows up on Allie’s doorstep, desperate to find her birth mother, Allie finds herself in an unimaginable position. Allie and Hudson’s past and present might be endlessly complicated. The thread that tied them to each other all those years ago may have unraveled, but the truth could pull them back together, or drive them apart forever… Read More Variation by Rebecca Yarros (ARC Review)

— Adult, ARC review, book review, nonfiction —

Your Brain on Pregnancy by Dawn Kingston (ARC Review)

March 8, 2025

For women who are expecting, pregnancy can be a time of excitement, but it also comes with the expectation that they are supposed to feel happy and joyous—that they must be “glowing.” The truth is that many women who are pregnant experience troubling anxiety, depression, and stress, accompanied by feelings of guilt, shame, and inadequacy. They are often ashamed to seek help, chalking up their feelings to changing hormones, lack of sleep, or a phase that will eventually go away.

In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Dawn Kingston, world-renowned expert on mental health and pregnancy, reveals that more women are affected by mental health issues during pregnancy rather than…… Read More Your Brain on Pregnancy by Dawn Kingston (ARC Review)

— ARC review, book review, young adult —

Immortal Dark by Tigest Girma (ARC Review)

December 8, 2024

It began long before my time, but something has always hunted our family.

Orphaned heiress Kidan Adane grew up far from the arcane society she was born into, where human bloodlines gain power through vampire companionship. When her sister, June, disappears, Kidan is convinced a vampire stole her—the very vampire bound to their family, the cruel yet captivating Susenyos Sagad.

To find June, Kidan must infiltrate the elite Uxlay University—where students study to ensure peaceful coexistence between humans and vampires and inherit their family legacies. Kidan must survive living with Susenyos—even as he does everything he can to drive her away. It doesn’t matter that Susenyos’s wickedness speaks to Kidan’s own violent nature and tempts her to surrender to a life of darkness. She must find her sister and kill Susenyos at all costs.

When a murder mirroring June’s disappearance shakes Uxlay, Kidan sinks further into the ruthless underworld of vampires, risking her very soul. There she discovers a centuries-old threat—and June could be at the center of it. To save her sister, Kidan must bring Uxlay to its knees and either break free from the horrors of her own actions or embrace the dark entanglements of love—and the blood it requires… Read More Immortal Dark by Tigest Girma (ARC Review)

— Adult, ARC review, book review —

Voyage of the Damned by Frances White (ARC Review)

December 7, 2024

For a thousand years, Concordia has maintained peace between its provinces. To mark this incredible feat, the emperor’s ship embarks upon a twelve-day voyage to the sacred Goddess’s Mountain. Aboard are the twelve heirs of the provinces of Concordia, each graced with a unique and secret magical ability known as a Blessing.

All except one: Ganymedes Piscero—class clown, slacker and all-around disappointment.

When a beloved heir is murdered, everyone is a suspect. Stuck at sea and surrounded by powerful people and without a Blessing to protect him, Ganymedes’s odds of survival are slim.

But as the bodies pile higher, Ganymedes must become the hero he was not born to be. Can he unmask the killer and their secret Blessing before this bloody crusade reaches the shores of Concordia?

Or will the empire as he knows it fall?… Read More Voyage of the Damned by Frances White (ARC Review)

— Adult, ARC review, book review —

The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch (ARC Review)

November 29, 2024

Nicholas “Coal” Claus used to love Christmas. Until his father, the reigning Santa, turned the holiday into a PR façade. Coal will do anything to escape the spectacle, including getting tangled in a drunken, supremely hot make- out session with a beautiful man behind a seedy bar one night.

But the heir to Christmas is soon commanded to do his duty: he will marry his best friend, Iris, the Easter Princess and his brother’s not-so-secret crush. A situation that has disaster written all over it.

Things go from bad to worse when a rival arrives to challenge Coal for the princess’s hand…and Coal comes face-to-face with his mysterious behind-the-bar hottie: Hex, the Prince of Halloween.

It’s a fake competition between two holiday princes who can’t keep their hands off each other over a marriage of convenience that no one wants. And it all leads to one of the sweetest, sexiest, messiest, most delightfully unforgettable love stories of the year… Read More The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch (ARC Review)

— Adult, ARC review, book review —

The Games Gods Play by Abigail Owen (ARC Review)

November 26, 2024

The gods love to toy with us mere mortals. And every hundred years, we let them…

I have never been favored by the gods. Far from it, thanks to Zeus.

Living as a cursed office clerk for the Order of Thieves, I just keep my head down and hope the capricious beings who rule from Olympus won’t notice me. Not an easy feat, given San Francisco is Zeus’ patron city, but I make do. I survive. Until the night I tangle with a different god.

The worst god. Hades.

For the first time ever, the ruthless, mercurial King of the Underworld has entered the Crucible—the deadly contest the gods hold to determine a new ruler to sit on the throne of Olympus. But instead of fighting their own battles, the gods name mortals to compete in their stead.

So why in the Underworld did Hades choose me—a sarcastic nobody with a curse on her shoulders—as his champion? And why does my heart trip every time he says I’m his?

I don’t know if I’m a pawn, bait, or something else entirely to this dangerously tempting god. How can I, when he has more secrets than stars in the sky?

Because Hades is playing by his own rules…and Death will win at any cost… Read More The Games Gods Play by Abigail Owen (ARC Review)

— Adult, ARC review, book review —

Countess by Suzan Palumbo (ARC Review)

October 21, 2024

A queer, Caribbean, anti-colonial sci-fi novella, inspired by the Count of Monte Cristo, in which a betrayed captain seeks revenge on the interplanetary empire that subjugated her people for generations.

Virika Sameroo lives in colonized space under the Æerbot Empire, much like her ancestors before her in the British West Indies. After years of working hard to rise through the ranks of the empire’s merchant marine, she’s finally become first lieutenant on an interstellar cargo vessel.

When her captain dies under suspicious circumstances, Virika is arrested for murder and charged with treason despite her lifelong loyalty to the empire. Her conviction and subsequent imprisonment set her on a path to justice, determined to take down the evil empire that wronged her, all while the fate of her people hangs in the balance… Read More Countess by Suzan Palumbo (ARC Review)

— Adult, ARC review, book review —

I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones (ARC Review)

October 7, 2024

1989, Lamesa, Texas. A small west Texas town driven by oil and cotton—and a place where everyone knows everyone else’s business. So it goes for Tolly Driver, a good kid with more potential than application, seventeen, and about to be cursed to kill for revenge. Here Stephen Graham Jones explores the Texas he grew up in, and shared sense of unfairness of being on the outside through the slasher horror Jones loves, but from the perspective of the killer, Tolly, writing his own autobiography. Find yourself rooting for a killer in this summer teen movie of a novel gone full blood-curdling tragic… Read More I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones (ARC Review)

— ARC review, book review, children's —

Mandeep’s Cloudy Days by Kuljinder Kaur Brar & Samrath Kaur (ARC Review)

September 27, 2024

Spending time with her dad makes Mandeep’s days shine. They have cha parties, perform Bhangra shows, and best of all, they write jokes together in her favorite unicorn journal. But when Dad starts a job as a truck driver, he starts being away from home most of the week. Without Dad, storm clouds start taking over Mandeep’s sunny days, casting a shadow on all the things she used to love doing. Can anything help Mandeep feel better?

The dynamic author-illustrator team behind the National Council Teachers of English Notable Children’s Book winner My Name Is Saajin Singh brings a new poignant story about father-daughter relationships, how we cope with being separated from our loved ones, and how to find glimpses of light in our days even when clouds threaten to settle in… Read More Mandeep’s Cloudy Days by Kuljinder Kaur Brar & Samrath Kaur (ARC Review)