• ARCs,  Book Reviews,  Fiction

    PASSION MARKED by Ophelia Silk | ARC Review

    23rd November 2021

    PASSION MARKED by Ophelia Silk

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    A romance between a racehorse trainer and Nocturne centaur! The first few chapters really sucked me into the story but I was slightly disappointed in how the rest of the book played out. Ellie (human, she/her) and Nadine (centaur, demi-girl, she/her, Mx.) are cute together and I really liked their interactions and small touches. Note that there is also quite some sex scenes going on, but I’m here for the cuteness and Ellie’s attempt at winking.

    The writing of Passion Marked was enjoyable. It is my second book by Silk, and while the first one Spellbound (my review) was a fantasy romance with a simplistic plot, this book was somewhat too expansive for me. I had some issues with the pacing of the story where the first half was slow and everything happened close to the end. There is a lot of talk about magic, like Nadine’s Nocturne magic, but we don’t really get to understand how these magical elements worked. The only thing I know about Nadine’s magic is that… she has shadows that curl up at her hooves? So the world-building didn’t work great for me and I had the feeling of the world setting being just out of reach. I did enjoy the fact that there were phones and high school students of different species (just random characters; this book is NOT YA), making the world in Passion Marked feel more like ours.

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  • ARCs,  Book Reviews,  Fiction

    IN THE WATCHFUL CITY by S. Qiouyi Lu | ARC Review

    31st August 2021
    Cover of In the Watchful City (S. Qiouyi Lu)

    IN THE WATCHFUL CITY by S. Qiouyi Lu

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    In the Watchful City is an Asian-centric adult queer fantasy novella about living (and death) with a heart-racing ending.

    The main character Anima (æ/ær/ær) is part of the city’s surveillance system the Gleaming (think The Matrix), one of the eight nodes in the inner sanctum. When æ meets Vessel (se/ser/ser), who carries a qíjìtáng full of knickknacks and memories from different people, ær curiosity brings ær to realize that there is more to life than guarding the city of Ora.

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  • ARCs,  Book Reviews,  Fiction

    Once Stolen by D.N. Bryn | ARC Review

    27th July 2021
    Cover of Once Stolen (D.N. Bryn)

    Once Stolen (These Treacherous Tides) by D.N. Bryn

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    This is the first novel I’ve read by Bryn, and I most definitely will be reading more of their future works.

    Bittersweet Earth (he/him, autistic, m-spec, boiuna) only cares about ignits, powerful magical stones that contains energy (think batteries, but cooler). When he saves Thais (she/her, nonbinary, human) from a boat, he only has eyes for Thais’ enormous ignit stash from her mother. But as the pair go through an adventure of reaching the ignits, Bittersweet Earth—or Cacao, as Thais calls him—realizes there is more to the world than precious stone, namely, friendship, trust, home, and maybe even love.

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  • ARCs,  Book Reviews,  Fiction

    There’s Magic Between Us by Jillian Maria | ARC Review

    6th July 2021
    Cover of There’s Magic Between Us (Jillian Maria)

    There’s Magic Between Us by Jillian Maria

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    God forbid anyone assumes I’m heterosexual.

    Fiery pansexual disaster with too much energy! Magical woods! Faeries!

    Lydia Barnes (16, pansexual) spends a week with her grandmother at Fairbrooke. Her mother hates the town and the townspeople hate her. But Lydia’s grandmother is nice and there is a forest nearby that everyone tells her to avoid. So what will Lydia find if she set foot in the woods when her grandmother naps? Eden Yu (16, Chinese American) and lots of secrets.

    It’s been a while since I had so much fun with a new read, but I did up my rating a bit just because I would have loved it even more had I been ten years younger, which is in the range of the targeted audience. I love Lydia, this prickly teen who would probably bite all her enemies. She has unbounded energy and will be quick to scale a wall when she can. The love interest Eden is more of a mysterious character. Who is this girl in the woods? Why is she trying to find those wood pieces?

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  • ARCs,  Book Reviews,  Fiction

    The Tangleroot Palace by Marjorie Liu | ARC Review

    15th June 2021
    Cover of The Tangleroot Palace (Marjorie Liu)

    The Tangleroot Palace by Marjorie Liu

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    The Tangleroot Palace contains six short stories (“Sympathy for the Bones,” “The Briar and the Rose,” “Call Her Savage,” “The Last Dignity of Man,” “Where the Heart Lives,” “After the Blood”) and one novella (“Tangleroot Palace”), all of which are fantasy with hints of horror and gorgeously written. At the end of each story, there is also brief commentary by Liu, providing some background and thematic connections between the stories.

    I adore the writing, which flowed beautifully, and I love how effortlessly detailed each sentence is. Fantasy short stories are extremely difficult to pull off, given the need to provide enough world building and plot within the limited word count, and Liu delivered not one but six satisfying stories.

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