• ARCs,  Book Reviews,  Fiction

    A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson | ARC Review

    26th April 2021
    Cover of A Dowry of Blood (S.T. Gibson)

    A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    Content warnings: blood, death, bones, gore, murder, loss of family, burning, plague, war, manipulation, emotional abuse, depression, sexism, cutting, confinement, isolation

    What is it like to be in a relationship with the same vampire for centuries?

    A Dowry of Blood read almost epistolarily, perhaps a nod to the original Dracula story. The book opens with “you” (think Dracula, but never named) bleeding to death, seemingly killed by the first-person character Constanta. Divided into three parts, each part tells the history of where “you” find each new lover—Constanta, Magdalena, Alexi—over the last few centuries.

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  • ARCs,  Book Reviews,  Fiction

    The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins | ARC Review

    4th January 2021
    Cover of The Wife Upstairs (Rachel Hawkins)

    The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    // tl;dr: very cishet & white (0 queer characters & 0 poc); messed up world of rich people and master manipulators with mysterious deaths

    Content warnings: on-page murder, mentions of drowning, blackmail, manipulation, forced captivity, infidelity, blood, alcohol abuse

    [background music: taylor swift’s no body, no crime]

    Everything is a sham and our seemingly lovable characters are actually master manipulators.

    It’s thrilling to read, and I couldn’t stop at all.

    Jane (23), who grew up in the foster care system until she aged out, walks dogs for the rich people in Thornfield Estates. When by chance she meets Edward “Eddie” Rochester (30s), a handsome recent widower who doesn’t entirely fit in with the rest of the neighborhood, she desperately wants him—him and the new life he could provide—because no one should ever know that Jane isn’t really Jane. But she isn’t the only one who has dark secrets from the past.

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  • ARCs,  Book Reviews,  Fiction

    Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust | ARC Review

    27th September 2020
    Cover of Girl, Serpent, Thorn (Melissa Bashardoust)

    Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust, read by Nikki Massoud

    AUDIOBOOK REVIEW

    Content warnings: kidnap, torture, murder

    This is a breathtaking and artful retelling of Persian mythology and fairy tales. From the beginning of story, I fell in love with Bashardoust’s writing and Massoud’s narration.

    Yeki bood, yeki nabood. There was, and there was not a cursed, poisonous girl named Soraya (18, bi+). She was the young shah’s twin sister, but kept away from everyone because of her venomous veins, deadly upon touch. When the shah captured a div—parik Parvaneh, Soraya knew she owed herself to seek answers of her own curse from the prizoner. And then there was Azad, a young man who understood her, giving Soraya the unconditional acceptance and love she craved the most, despite her poison. As she learned that the only way to undo her curse was to put her family’s lives at risk, would Soraya exchange their safety—a family who were ashamed of her monstrous quality—for her own human self, or keep herself tucked away for the rest of eternity?

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