en-US Sat, 26 Apr 2025 06:59:32 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 231811314
Claire:
A summer in a tourist trap is exactly what I need. A single summer of fun before I finally buckle down and decide on what I want to do with the rest of my life. So when my best friend suggested I spend the summer as a lifeguard in Seaside Point I jumped at the opportunity.

I was ready for a summer of uncomplicated fun, so imagine my surprise when my ex’s older brother owns the house I want to rent a room in. Not only is Miles the guy I used to have the biggest crush on, he refuses to give me the time of day.

Miles:
I have enough on my plate trying to save up what I need to buy my brother out of the house we inherited by the end of the summer. I definitely don’t need the distraction of my brother’s gorgeous ex prancing around my house. But for some reason I still ������’t understand, I agreed to let her rent a room and now she’s prancing around in her little bathing suits, flirting with me endlessly, and making me a summer bucket list because she thinks I ������’t have fun.

I don’t mess with tourists, and I surely don’t mess with my brother’s exes, but just like the moon and its effect on tides, I ������’t escape her pull on me. Will I be able to survive this summer with her, or will I get distracted and lose it all?]]> 336 Morgan Elizabeth Maitland 0 to-read 1.00
author: Morgan Elizabeth
name: Maitland
average rating: 1.00
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/26
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]]> 41886271 A son struggling to grasp his violent future,
A father blind to the danger that threatens them all.

When the winds of war reach their peninsula, will the Matsuda family have the strength to defend their empire? Or will they tear each other apart before the true enemies even reach their shores?

High on a mountainside at the edge of the Kaigenese Empire live the most powerful warriors in the world, superhumans capable of raising the sea and wielding blades of ice. For hundreds of years, the fighters of the Kusanagi Peninsula have held the Empire’s enemies at bay, earning their frozen spit of land the name ‘The Sword of Kaigen.��

Born into Kusanagi’s legendary Matsuda family, fourteen-year-old Mamoru has always known his purpose: to master his family’s fighting techniques and defend his homeland. But when an outsider arrives and pulls back the curtain on Kaigen’s alleged age of peace, Mamoru realizes that he might not have much time to become the fighter he was bred to be. Worse, the empire he was bred to defend may stand on a foundation of lies.

Misaki told herself that she left the passions of her youth behind when she married into the Matsuda house. Determined to be a good housewife and mother, she hid away her sword, along with everything from her days as a fighter in a faraway country. But with her growing son asking questions about the outside world, the threat of an impending invasion looming across the sea, and her frigid husband grating on her nerves, Misaki finds the fighter in her clawing its way back to the surface.]]> 651 M.L. Wang Maitland 5 4.46 2019
author: M.L. Wang
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/17
date added: 2025/04/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 211004203 The Girl in the Creek by Hugo Award winner Wendy N. Wagner is an atmospheric and eerie story about a Pacific Northwest forest that seems to be devouring all who enter. A perfect read for fans of T. Kingfisher and Jeff VanderMeer’s cli-fi cosmic horror.

The Clackamas National Forest has always been a sanctuary for evil—human and alien. The shadows of looming trees and long-abandoned mines shelter poachers and serial killers alike. Then there’s the ruined hotel on the outskirts of picturesque small town Faraday, Oregon, nestled in the foothills of Mt. Hood. The one drowning in mushrooms and fungus not even the local expert can identify. Not to mention the stacks of missing persons cases. Freelance writer Erin Harper arrives in Faraday to find out what happened to her brother, whose disappearance in the forest has haunted her for years. But someone else has gone missing. And when Erin finds her in the creek, the girl vanishes again �� this time from the morgue, and days later her fingerprints show up at a murder scene. Maybe it’s a serial killer, or maybe it’s the spores infecting the forest and those lost inside. Erin must find answers quickly, before anyone else goes missing. But she might be next��

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 272 Wendy N. Wagner 1250908647 Maitland 0 to-read 3.54 2025
author: Wendy N. Wagner
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214151601 The long-awaited new novel from the author of global sensation Tender Is the Flesh: a thrilling work of literary horror about a woman cloistered in a secretive, violent religious order, while outside the world has fallen into chaos.

From her cell in a mysterious convent, a woman writes the story of her life in whatever she can find—discarded ink, dirt, and even her own blood. A lower member of the Sacred Sisterhood, deemed an unworthy, she dreams of ascending to the ranks of the Enlightened at the center of the convent and of pleasing the foreboding Superior Sister. Outside, the world is plagued by catastrophe—cities are submerged underwater, electricity and the internet are nonexistent, and bands of survivors fight and forage in a cruel, barren landscape. Inside, the narrator is controlled, punished, but safe.

But when a stranger makes her way past the convent walls, joining the ranks of the unworthy, she forces the narrator to consider her long-buried past—and what she may be overlooking about the Enlightened. As the two women grow closer, the narrator is increasingly haunted by questions about her own past, the environmental future, and her present life inside the convent. How did she get to the Sacred Sisterhood? Why ������’t she remember her life before? And what really happens when a woman is chosen as one of the Enlightened?

A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror.]]> 192 Agustina Bazterrica 1668051885 Maitland 0 to-read 3.64 2023
author: Agustina Bazterrica
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 218624103 448 T. Kingfisher 1250400228 Maitland 0 to-read 4.08 2018
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220687903 “I steal language and ideas from Michael Clune.�� ―Ben Lerner, Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of The Topeka School

A strange and brilliant teenager's first panic attacks lead him down the rabbit hole in this wild, highly anticipated debut novel from one of our most distinctive literary minds.

Nicholas is fifteen when he forgets how to breathe. He had plenty of reason to feel unstable already: He’s been living with his dad in the bleak Chicago suburbs since his Russian-born mom kicked him out. Then one day in geometry class, Nicholas suddenly realizes that his hands are objects. The doctor says it’s just panic, but Nicholas suspects that his real problem might not be a psychiatric one: maybe the Greek god Pan is trapped inside his body. As his paradigm for his own consciousness crumbles, Nicholas; his best friend, Ty; and his maybe-girlfriend, Sarah, hunt for answers why—in Oscar Wilde and in Charles Baudelaire, in rock and roll and in Bach, and in the mysterious, drugged-out Barn, where their classmate Tod’s charismatic older brother Ian leads the high schoolers in rituals that might end up breaking more than just the law.

Thrilling, cerebral, and startlingly funny, Pan is a new masterpiece of the coming-of-age genre by Guggenheim fellow and literary scholar Michael Clune, whose memoir of heroin addiction, White Out—named one of The New Yorker’s best books of the year—earned him a cult readership. Now, in Pan, the great novel of our age of anxiety, Clune drops us inside the human psyche, where we risk discovering that the forces controlling our inner lives could be more alien than we want to let ourselves believe.]]> 336 Michael Clune 0593834429 Maitland 0 to-read 4.35
author: Michael Clune
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.35
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> 227899555
Wes Holden, guitarist for Altas Oaks, was pleasantly surprised to find out the charity date he was wrangled into was won by Harper, the woman he’d been quietly into for years. When he hears about the trouble she’s facing, he has the perfect solution: they should get married. His band needs a distraction in the media, and he could help her designs get more exposure.

With another leap of spontaneity, Harper agrees and is thrown into the limelight. Soon, what started as a mutually beneficial fake agreement starts to become more, and Wes finds himself working to convince her to give them a shot while Harper struggles to keep the full truth of her breakup—and its repercussions—under wraps.]]> Morgan Elizabeth Maitland 0 to-read 4.17
author: Morgan Elizabeth
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.17
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> 217245649
Finally reunited in New York, they must now learn to navigate the monumental shift in their relationship. But for these two members of Archangel Raphael’s legendary Seven, there is no time to rest. As they investigate a case for the Tower that echoes the darkness from Aodhan’s past, they will be forced to confront not only the scars that mark them both, but the promise of a vast power that flickers in Illium.

The threat of ascension has haunted and troubled Aodhan’s Blue for too long, the forces of change immutable and without mercy...and uncaring of Illium’s fierce wish to remain part of the Seven. Change is a constant in an immortal’s life, and this new horizon will bring with it both terrible heartbreak and a joy extraordinary enough to reverberate through time…]]> 416 Nalini Singh 059355003X Maitland 0 to-read 4.39 2025
author: Nalini Singh
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 219301746 A hitmaking songwriter and a bitter musician share a startling and inexplicable connection that they’ll do anything to shake, in the next sparkling, magical book from Ashley Poston.

Joni Lark is living the dream. She’s one of the most coveted songwriters in LA…and she ������’t seem to write. There’s an emptiness inside her, and nothing seems to fill it.

When she returns to her hometown of Vienna Shores, North Carolina, she hopes that the sand, the surf, and the concerts at The Revelry, her family’s music venue, will spark her inspiration. But when she gets there, nothing is how she left it. Her best friend is avoiding her, her mother’s memories are fading fast, and The Revelry is closing.

How can she think about writing her next song when everything is changing without her?

Until she hears it. A melody in her head, lyric-less and half-formed, and an alluring and addictive voice to go with it—belonging, apparently, to a wry musician with hangups of his own.

Surely, he’s a figment of her overworked imagination.

But then the very real man attached to the voice shows up in Vienna Shores. He’s aggravating and gruff on the outside—nothing like the sweet, funny voice in Joni’s head—and he has a plan:

They’ll finish the song haunting them both, break their connection, and hope they don’t risk their hearts in the process.

Because that song stuck in their heads? Maybe it’s there for a reason.]]> 384 Ashley Poston 0593641000 Maitland 0 to-read 4.24 2025
author: Ashley Poston
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/01
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]]> 210191773 Two graduate students must set aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul, perhaps at the cost of their own.

Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality—her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world—that is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.

Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands, and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams. Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the same conclusion.]]> 560 R.F. Kuang 0063021471 Maitland 0 to-read 4.26 2025
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 219848368 A merchant’s daughter who yearns for adventure gets more than she bargained for when she falls for a broodingly handsome stranger in this saucy romantasy from the New York Times bestselling author of The Hurricane Wars.

As the daughter of an ambitious merchant, Guinevere’s path has been predetermined: marry into a noble house of the Dwendalian Empire, raise her family’s station, and live quietly as a lordling’s obedient wife. But Guinevere longs for a life unbounded by expectations, for freedom and passion and adventure.

Those distant dreams become a sudden reality when her caravan is beset by bandits, leaving her guards slain and Guinevere stranded alone on the dangerous Amber Road. Her only chance of survival is to travel alongside Oskar, the aloof half-orc who saved her during the attack.

Unlike Guinevere, Oskar’s path is not so set in stone. With his mother dead and his apprenticeship abandoned, all that’s left is a long, lonely walk to a land he’s never seen to find family he’s never met. The last thing he needs is a spoiled waif like Guinevere slowing him down—even if the spark between them sizzles with promise.

Despite his cold exterior, Oskar is brave and thoughtful and unlike anyone Guinevere has ever met. And while Guinevere may be sheltered, she brings out a softness in him that he has never dared to feel before. As the flames of their passion grow, they realize that soon they’ll need to choose between their expected destinations or their blossoming romance.

Written by New York Times bestselling author Thea Guanzon at the behest of Critical Role’s Jester Lavorre, Tusk Love brings the most romantic story on Exandrian bookshelves to life.]]> 288 Thea Guanzon 0593874269 Maitland 0 to-read 4.43 2025
author: Thea Guanzon
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 195853531
A Fae lord who wants in.

A human woman willing to risk it all for a taste of power.

In a land ruled by ruthless Fae, twenty-one-year-old Lore Alemeyu’s village is trapped in a forested prison. Lore knows that any escape attempt is futile—her scars are a testament to her past failures. But when her village is threatened, Lore makes a desperate deal with a Fae lord. She will leave her home to catalog/organize an enchanted library that hasn’t been touched in a thousand years. No Fae may enter the library, but there is a chance a human might be able to breach the cursed doors.

She convinces him that she will risk her life for wealth, but really she’s after the one thing the Fae covet above all: magic of her own.

As Lore navigates the hostile world outside, she’s forced to rely on two Fae males to survive. Two very different, very dangerous, very attractive Fae males. When undeniable chemistry ignites, she’s not just in danger of losing her life, but her heart to the very creatures she can never trust.]]> 339 Analeigh Sbrana 0063380595 Maitland 4
I had a really fun time with this story! Despite the plot meandering at times, I appreciated the time skips so we were not fed boring filler...however at the same time I think some of the bigger details of the world could have been developed a little more. Are there parts of the plot I am a little unsure about? Yes. Would I consider them a plot hole? Not necessarily, I feel like certain aspects will be more developed or explained in the next installment. (Like the whole Asher thing near the end...no spoilers but I have *questions*) The author had to set the stage. I feel like this book's goal was for you to become attached to Lore and the other characters so that you follow them through!

Lore and all the cozy "life" moments throughout the story are really what sold this for me. I am usually a higher fantasy gal and so I was hoping for more at times but the intimate aspects of this story kept me engaged despite me not having a lot of background information.

I will definitely be adding this book to my shelves and continuing on with the story! It was an entertaining debut!]]> 3.33 2024
author: Analeigh Sbrana
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/07
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves:
review:
Thank you to Avon and Harper Voyager for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review!

I had a really fun time with this story! Despite the plot meandering at times, I appreciated the time skips so we were not fed boring filler...however at the same time I think some of the bigger details of the world could have been developed a little more. Are there parts of the plot I am a little unsure about? Yes. Would I consider them a plot hole? Not necessarily, I feel like certain aspects will be more developed or explained in the next installment. (Like the whole Asher thing near the end...no spoilers but I have *questions*) The author had to set the stage. I feel like this book's goal was for you to become attached to Lore and the other characters so that you follow them through!

Lore and all the cozy "life" moments throughout the story are really what sold this for me. I am usually a higher fantasy gal and so I was hoping for more at times but the intimate aspects of this story kept me engaged despite me not having a lot of background information.

I will definitely be adding this book to my shelves and continuing on with the story! It was an entertaining debut!
]]> 101673225 The award-winning author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold returns with a rapturous and revelatory novel about a young chef whose discovery of pleasure alters her life and, indirectly, the world

A smog has spread. Food crops are rapidly disappearing. A chef escapes her dying career in a dreary city to take a job at a decadent mountaintop colony seemingly free of the world’s troubles.

There, the sky is clear again. Rare ingredients abound. Her enigmatic employer and his visionary daughter have built a lush new life for the global elite, one that reawakens the chef to the pleasures of taste, touch, and her own body.

In this atmosphere of hidden wonders and cool, seductive violence, the chef’s boundaries undergo a thrilling erosion. Soon she is pushed to the center of a startling attempt to reshape the world far beyond the plate.

Sensuous and surprising, joyous and bitingly sharp, told in language as alluring as it is original, Land of Milk and Honey lays provocatively bare the ethics of seeking pleasure in a dying world. It is a daringly imaginative exploration of desire and deception, privilege and faith, and the roles we play to survive. Most of all, it is a love letter to food, to wild delight, and to the transformative power of a woman embracing her own appetite.]]> 240 C Pam Zhang 0593538242 Maitland 0 to-read 3.50 2023
author: C Pam Zhang
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/20
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review:

]]> 16054217 The #1 New York Times bestselling series finale and sequel to A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night

Bringing the magic and suspense of the All Souls Trilogy to a deeply satisfying conclusion, this highly anticipated finale went straight to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. In The Book of Life, Diana and Matthew time-travel back from Elizabethan London to make a dramatic return to the present—facing new crises and old enemies. At Matthew’s ancestral home, Sept-Tours, they reunite with the beloved cast of characters from A Discovery of Witches—with one significant exception. But the real threat to their future has yet to be revealed, and when it is, the search for Ashmole 782 and its missing pages takes on even more urgency.]]> 561 Deborah Harkness 0670025593 Maitland 4 4.15 2014
author: Deborah Harkness
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2019/11/22
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 211004893
As they attempt to evade the boy's increasingly desperate father, horrifying incidents of butchery follow them. At first, Jess thinks she understands what they're up against, but she's about to learn there's more to these surreal and grisly events than she could've ever imagined.

And that when the wolf finally comes home, none will be spared.]]> 304 Nat Cassidy 125035434X Maitland 0 to-read 4.46 2025
author: Nat Cassidy
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216497102 From a blistering new voice in dark literary fiction, an unsettling portrait of loneliness, obsession, and identity which asks: if a stranger was left alone in your house, how well could they truly get to know you—enough to fall in love with you?

Alice and Tom are made for each other. Deeply connected, they share a flat in London, go to galleries together, enjoy the same books and wine. They even share a toothbrush. It’s all picture perfect.

Except Alice and Tom have never met.

Alice has been cleaning Tom’s apartment every Wednesday for a year. With every smudge wiped from his coffee cup, every multivitamin counted in the jar, Alice spirals deeper into infatuation, imagining a love so powerful it might erase a lifetime of self-hatred and loneliness.

But as Alice prepares for the moment when she and Tom will finally meet face-to-face, she discovers that love might not be the cure she thought it was. Instead, their coming together sets off a chain of events that shatters everything Alice thought she knew and burns her world to the ground.

Told in Alice’s compelling, deliciously acidic voice, Creep is a literary study of unreliability and unlikability. Exploring alienation and loneliness, class and race, it's a skilled debut with resonance in the way that we view women, mental health, and the lost in society.]]> 256 Emma van Straaten 0063411016 Maitland 0 to-read 3.54 2025
author: Emma van Straaten
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> 60290692 A fledgling vampire and a headstrong vampire huntress must work together--against their better judgment—to rid the world of monsters in this irresistible romantic fantasy.

Carolina Fuentes has always wanted to join her family in hunting down the bloodthirsty monsters that plague her pueblo. But these days, her father wants her out of town with a husband of his choosing. That’s not happening. Carolina plans to show everyone that she’d make a better vampire slayer than wife. But when she runs into a sediento that is not only handsome but kind, she questions everything.

Lalo Villalobos doesn’t act on impulses. As the eldest of two, his duties were to carry on the family business, marry, and have children. But then he is turned into a sediento and must flee the city, taking lives as he goes north, where he believes the first vampire was made. Surely, the pueblo there will have the answers to reverse this curse or end sedientos altogether. Another unexpected turn? Lalo runs right into a beautiful young woman who’d gladly stake him.

Fortunately, mostly for him, they share a common enemy. They can stop these evil beasts. Together. And if along the way, Lalo and Fernanda discover what it is to truly live and love, then they’ll have won anyway.]]> 432 Angela Montoya 0593643372 Maitland 0 to-read 3.84 2024
author: Angela Montoya
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> 209594872 The Last of Us meets The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in this standalone dystopian romance about survival, sacrifice, and love that risks everything.

By encouraging massive accumulations of debt from its underclass, a single corporation, Caerus, controls all aspects of society.

Inesa lives with her brother in a half-sunken town where they scrape by running a taxidermy shop. Unbeknownst to Inesa, their cruel and indolent mother has accrued an enormous debt—enough to qualify one of her children for Caerus’s livestreamed assassination spectacle: the Lamb’s Gauntlet.

Melinoë is a Caerus assassin, trained to track and kill the sacrificial Lambs. The product of neural reconditioning and physiological alteration, she is a living weapon, known for her cold brutality and deadly beauty. She has never failed to assassinate one of her marks.

When Inesa learns that her mother has offered her as a sacrifice, at first she despairs—the Gauntlet is always a bloodbath for the impoverished debtors. But she’s had years of practice surviving in the apocalyptic wastes, and with the help of her hunter brother, she might stand a chance of staying alive.

For Melinoë, this is a game she ������’t afford to lose. Despite her reputation for mercilessness, she is haunted by painful flashbacks. After her last Gauntlet, where she broke down on livestream, she desperately needs redemption.

As Mel pursues Inesa across the wasteland, both girls begin to question everything: Inesa wonders if there’s more to life than survival, while Mel wonders if she’s capable of more than killing.

And both wonder if, against all odds, they might be falling in love.]]> 384 Ava Reid 0063211556 Maitland 0 to-read 3.83 2025
author: Ava Reid
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> 214537762 The truth is stranger than fan fiction in this sexy paranormal rom-com.

The only place small-town outcast Alex Lawson fits in is the online fan forum she built for The Arcane Files, a long-running werewolf detective show. Her dedication to archiving fictional supernatural lore made her Internet-famous, even if she harbors a secret disdain for the show’s star, Devin Ashwood. (Never meet your heroes—sometimes they turn out to be The Worst.)

Ever since his show went off the air, Devin and his career have spiraled, but waking up naked in the woods outside his LA home with no memory of the night before is a new low. It must have been a coincidence that the once-in-a-century Wolf Blood Moon crested last night. The claws, fangs, and howling are a little more difficult to explain away. Desperate for answers, Devin finds Alex—the closest thing to an expert that exists. If only he could convince her to stop hating his guts long enough to help....

Once he makes her an offer she ������’t refuse, these reluctant allies lower their guards trying to wrangle his inner beast. Unfortunately, getting up close and personal quickly comes back to bite them.]]> 415 Rosie Danan 0593437160 Maitland 0 to-read 3.82 2025
author: Rosie Danan
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> 211143113
But Mama’s want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a beautiful, white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires, and make her own bid for freedom.

With this gothic coming-of-age tale, novelist Lucy Rose explores how women swallow their anger, desire, and animal instincts—and wrings the relationship between mother and daughter until blood drips from it.]]> 336 Lucy Rose 0063374609 Maitland 0 to-read 3.89 2025
author: Lucy Rose
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214151452 The long-awaited new novel from the author of global sensation Tender Is the Flesh: a thrilling work of literary horror about a woman cloistered in a secretive, violent religious order, while outside the world has fallen into chaos.

From her cell in a mysterious convent, a woman writes the story of her life in whatever she can find—discarded ink, dirt, and even her own blood. A lower member of the Sacred Sisterhood, deemed an unworthy, she dreams of ascending to the ranks of the Enlightened at the center of the convent and of pleasing the foreboding Superior Sister. Outside, the world is plagued by catastrophe—cities are submerged underwater, electricity and the internet are nonexistent, and bands of survivors fight and forage in a cruel, barren landscape. Inside, the narrator is controlled, punished, but safe.

But when a stranger makes her way past the convent walls, joining the ranks of the unworthy, she forces the narrator to consider her long-buried past—and what she may be overlooking about the Enlightened. As the two women grow closer, the narrator is increasingly haunted by questions about her own past, the environmental future, and her present life inside the convent. How did she get to the Sacred Sisterhood? Why ������’t she remember her life before? And what really happens when a woman is chosen as one of the Enlightened?

A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror.]]> 192 Agustina Bazterrica 1668063700 Maitland 0 to-read 3.70 2023
author: Agustina Bazterrica
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 206180583 In this highly atmospheric thriller from the Bram Stoker Award–nominated author of The Violence, a young woman hopes to reinvent herself at an isolated artists�� colony . . . only to be drawn into its dark, twisted past.

Sarah Carpenter is starting over.

She’s on the run—leaving behind her unsupportive, narcissistic ex-boyfriend and alcoholic, abusive mother—and headed for a new beginning at Tranquil Falls, a secluded artists�� colony on the grounds of a closed hotel. There, with no cell signal or internet to distract her, she hopes to rediscover her love for pottery and put the broken pieces of her life back together.

But when Sarah uncovers the body of a young woman while digging a hole for a pit kiln, things start to fall apart. Her fellow artists begin to act in troubling ways. The eccentric fiber artist knits an endless scarf. The musician plays the same carousel song over and over until his fingers bleed. The calligrapher grins with ink-stained teeth. Not to mention the haunting dreams Sarah has night after night.

When she discovers glass shards in her clay, Sarah wonders if someone is out to get her—or if she’s losing her grip on reality out here in the wilds, where the pounding of the waterfall never, ever fades. As she investigates the beautiful valley and the crumbling resort looming over them all, she unearths a chilling past that refuses to remain buried . . .]]> 368 Delilah S. Dawson 059315665X Maitland 0 to-read 3.64 2024
author: Delilah S. Dawson
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 219551319 A woman who wields magical tarot cards lands herself in a false engagement with the headmaster of a mysterious academy in this first installment of an enthralling romantasy series from the bestselling author of A Deal with the Elf King.

Clara Graysword has survived the underworld of Eclipse City through thievery, luck, and a whole lot of illegal magic. After a job gone awry, Clara is sentenced to a lifetime in prison for inking tarot cards-a rare power reserved for practitioners at the elite Arcana Academy.

Just when it seems her luck has run dry, the academy's enigmatic headmaster, Prince Kaelis, offers her an escape-for a price. Kaelis believes that Clara is the perfect tool to help him steal a tarot card from the king and use it to re-create an all-powerful card long lost to time.

In order to conceal her identity and keep her close, Kaelis brings Clara to Arcana Academy, introducing her as the newest first-year student and his bride-to-be.

Thrust into a world of arcane magic and royal intrigue, where one misstep will send her back to prison or worse, Clara finds that the prince she swore to hate may not be what he seems. But can she risk giving him power over the world-and her heart? Or will she take it for herself?]]> 576 Elise Kova 0593726340 Maitland 0 to-read 4.36 2025
author: Elise Kova
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 219848373 A slow burn, enemies-to-lovers romance featuring a scholarly healer and a gentleman assassin, set in an exquisite fantasy world.

Osric Mordaunt, member of the Fyren Order of assassins, finds himself in dire need of an expert healer. As fate would have it, that very healer is Aurienne Fairhrim, a member of his enemy Order, the Haelen.

Aurienne is desperate for funding to heal the sick, so desperate that when Osric breaks into her office to offer her a bribe for her healing services, she must accept. Even if she loathes him.

A forced collaboration ensues: the brilliant Woman in STEM is coerced into working with the PhD in Murders - much to Aurienne's disgust. Despite being enemies thrown together, as Osric and Aurienne work together to solve not only his illness, but the mysterious reoccurrence of a deadly Pox, they find themselves ardently denying their attraction which seems to only fuel the heat between them.

Romance tropes include:
Enemies to lovers
High interaction slow burn
Hypercompetent idiots
He falls first and harder
Evisceration as a love language]]> 384 Brigitte Knightley 0593819454 Maitland 0 to-read 4.42 2025
author: Brigitte Knightley
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 208840739 We Were Liars meets The Raven Boys in this mind-bending YA debut about dark revenge, twisted desire, and the sinister secrets lurking behind the walls of an elite boarding school.

Seventeen-year-old Marin James has spent her entire life living in the shadow of the exclusive Huntsworth Academy. And when her cousin’s dead body is found in a creek on school property, Marin knows exactly who’s to blame: Adrian Hargraves and Henry Wu, the enigmatic yet dangerously alluring leaders of the school's social elite.

Swapping her ripped jeans for a crisp prep school skirt, Marin infiltrates Huntsworth to seek justice. But her quest is quickly muddied by a confusing attraction to her new life, and to the two dysfunctional and depraved boys who somehow understand her better than anyone ever has.

When Marin uncovers an otherworldly secret the boys are hiding within Huntsworth's ivied gates, the lines between right and wrong, love and hate, and nightmare and reality begin to crumble -- and nothing is as it seems.

Welcome to Huntsworth Academy.]]> 400 Jenni Howell 1250334594 Maitland 0 to-read 3.38 2025
author: Jenni Howell
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214349650 Dark Romance meets Retelling: Er will Rache, aber er will sie mehr ...
James hatte immer nur ein Ziel: seinen Feind, Peter Michaels, zu vernichten. Als Peters zwanzigjährige Tochter Wendy in James' Bar auftaucht, sieht er seine Chance gekommen. Er will Wendy verführen und für seine Rache benutzen. Es ist der perfekte Plan, bis die Dinge in James' Organisation zu bröckeln beginnen. Plötzlich muss er den Verräter in ihrer Mitte finden. Und er beginnt, in Wendy mehr als nur eine Schachfigur in seinem Spiel zu sehen.

Wendy wurde die meiste Zeit ihres Lebens von ihrem reichen, kalten Vater abgeschirmt. Als sie sich eines abends mit Freunden wegstiehlt, um in einem Club zu feiern, lernt sie den dunklen und geheimnisvollen James kennen. Wendy weiß, dass James gefährlich ist, fühlt sich aber trotzdem zu ihm hingezogen. Während ihre Beziehung immer inniger wird und sie mehr über die Welt erfährt, in der er sich bewegt, kann sie nicht mehr sagen, ob sie sich in den Mann namens James oder das Monster namens Hook verliebt hat.

Hooked ist ein düsterer Liebesroman und der erste, unabhängig lesbare, Teil der Never-After-Serie: einer Sammlung von gebrochenen Märchen, in denen die Bösewichte die Helden sind. Es handelt sich nicht um eine Nacherzählung und nicht um Fantasy. Hooked enthält Themen und Inhalte, die möglicherweise nicht für alle Leser:innen geeignet sind. Alle Warnhinweise zum Inhalt findet ihr auf der Webseite der Autorin.]]> 320 Emily McIntire 1464230595 Maitland 0 to-read 3.92 2021
author: Emily McIntire
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211826907 A woman on the run. A crew of Viking mercenaries. A forbidden romance. And the secret which threatens them all.

Silla Nordvig is running for her life.

The Queen of Íseldur has sent warriors to bring Silla to Sunnavík, where death awaits her. When her father is killed, his last words set Silla on a perilous travel the treacherous Road of Bones–a thousand-mile stretch haunted by warbands, creatures of darkness, and a mysterious murderer–and go to Kopa, where a shield-house awaits her.

After barely surviving the first stretch of road, a desperate Silla sneaks into a supply wagon belonging to the notorious Bloodaxe Crew. To make it to Kopa, she must win over Axe Eyes, the brooding leader of the Crew, while avoiding the Wolf, his distractingly handsome right-hand man. But the queen’s ruthless assassin has other plans and hunts Silla obsessively.

Will Silla make it safely to Kopa? Or will she fall prey to the perils of the Road of Bones?

Featuring an immersive world blending fairy tale with Vikings, The Road of Bones leads you on an adrenaline-fueled chase with fun banter and a slow-building enemies to lovers romance. The first book in the Ashen Series, you are one click away from reading it!]]> 560 Demi Winters 0593975618 Maitland 0 to-read 4.27 2023
author: Demi Winters
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216522630 She’s the one that got away. He’s the one that never let her go.

From the bestselling author of Done and Dusted and Swift and Saddled, the next book in the Rebel Blue Ranch series, a small town romance in which past lovers get a second chance to rediscover what they lost.

Camille Ashwood had always loved a plan. Her latest was her best yet. She was going to get married so she could secure her daughter’s future, get her overbearing parents off her back, and finally start building her own life in small town Meadowlark, Wyoming. Easy, right?

But when her groom doesn’t show up to the wedding, Cam’s life is turned upside down—she doesn’t even have a place to live. That is, until she finds out the house she’s loved since high school is available to rent. There’s only one problem: the neighbor.

Dusty Tucker has spent nearly all of his adult life running. Running from what, though? More like who: Cam Ashwood. But ever since he returned home last year, the girl who was his first, well, everything has become a woman seemingly determined to keep him at arm’s length. And he was okay with that—at least, that’s what he kept telling himself. She was getting married, after all. But now she’s single and living next door. Dusty wants to show her that they can be friends, and that he can stay put.

Despite her best attempts to stay far away from Dusty Tucker, Cam realizes that being close to him is like slipping on her favorite jeans. Easy. Comfortable. That is until past wounds start to open and feelings—both old and new—wreak havoc. Nearly ten years after they first met, Dusty and Cam begin to wonder if their first love can also be their last. And this time, will it be forever?]]> 368 Lyla Sage 0593732472 Maitland 0 to-read 4.20 2025
author: Lyla Sage
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 195430687 Three estranged siblings return to their family home in New York after their beloved sister's death in this unforgettable story of grief, identity, and the complexities of family.

The three Blue sisters are exceptional—and exceptionally different. Avery, the eldest and a recovering heroin addict turned strait-laced lawyer, lives with her wife in London; Bonnie, a former boxer, works as a bouncer in Los Angeles following a devastating defeat; and Lucky, the youngest, models in Paris while trying to outrun her hard-partying ways. They also had a fourth sister, Nicky, whose unexpected death left Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky reeling. A year later, as they each navigate grief, addiction, and ambition, they find they must return to New York to stop the sale of the apartment they were raised in.

But coming home is never as easy as it seems. As the sisters reckon with the disappointments of their childhood and the loss of the only person who held them together, they realize the greatest secrets they've been keeping might not have been from each other, but from themselves.]]> 342 Coco Mellors 0593723767 Maitland 0 to-read 3.93 2024
author: Coco Mellors
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 52880778
Darrow is a Red, a miner in the interior of Mars. His mission is to extract enough precious elements to one day tame the surface of the planet and allow humans to live on it.
The Reds are humanity's last hope.

Or so it appears, until the day Darrow discovers it's all a lie.

That Mars has been habitable - and inhabited - for generations, by a class of people calling themselves the Golds.

A class of people who look down on Darrow and his fellows as slave labour, to be exploited and worked to death without a second thought. Until the day that Darrow, with the help of a mysterious group of rebels, disguises himself as a Gold and infiltrates their command school, intent on taking down his oppressors from the inside.

But the command school is a battlefield - and Darrow isn't the only student with an agenda.

Break the chains.

Live for more.

This edition contains a preview of Golden Son, Book II of the Red Rising trilogy.]]> 400 Pierce Brown 034553980X Maitland 0 to-read 4.21 2014
author: Pierce Brown
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216971223
In the small mountain town of Jasper, North Carolina, June Farrow is waiting for fate to find her. The Farrow women are known for their thriving flower farm - and the mysterious curse that has plagued their family line. The whole town remembers the madness that led to Susanna Farrow's disappearance, leaving June to be raised by her grandmother and haunted by rumors.

It's been a year since June started seeing and hearing things that weren't there. Faint wind chimes, a voice calling her name, and a mysterious door appearing out of nowhere - the signs of what June always knew was coming. But June is determined to end the curse once and for all, even if she must sacrifice finding love and having a family of her own.

After her grandmother's death, June discovers a series of cryptic clues regarding her mother's decades-old disappearance, except they only lead to more questions. But could the door she once assumed was a hallucination be the answer she's been searching for? The next time it appears, June realizes she can touch it and walk past the threshold. And when she does, she embarks on a journey that will not only change both the past and the future, but also uncover the lingering mysteries of her small town and entangle her heart in an epic star-crossed love.

With The Unmaking of June Farrow, Adrienne Young delivers a brilliant novel of romance, mystery, and a touch of the impossible--a story you will never forget.]]> 352 Adrienne Young 0593598695 Maitland 0 to-read 4.12 2023
author: Adrienne Young
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 45032 488 Jane Austen Maitland 0 3.86 1814
author: Jane Austen
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves:
review:

]]> 210163199 From the author of the Sunday Times bestseller and viral TikTok phenomenon, The Pumpkin Spice Café, comes a brand new spicy romance set in Dream Harbor!

When a secret message turns up hidden in a book in the Cinnamon Bun Bookstore, Hazel can't understand it. As more secret codes appear between the pages, she decides to follow the trail of clues�� she just need someone to help her out.

Gorgeous and outgoing fisherman, Noah, is always up for an adventure. And a scavenger hunt sounds like a lot of fun. Even better that the cute bookseller he's been crushing on for months is the one who wants his help!

Hazel didn’t go looking for romance, but as the treasure hunt leads her and Noah around Dream Harbor, their undeniable chemistry might be just as hot as the fresh-out-of-the-oven cinnamon buns the bookstore sells��

The Cinnamon Bun Book Store is a cozy romantic mystery with a HEA guaranteed!

Tropes:
�� opposites attract
�� small town
�� forced proximity
�� he falls first]]> 370 Laurie Gilmore 0008641579 Maitland 3 3.90 2024
author: Laurie Gilmore
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/21
date added: 2024/10/21
shelves:
review:

]]> 216009057 122 Meg Smitherman Maitland 5 4.13 2024
author: Meg Smitherman
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/22
date added: 2024/10/04
shelves:
review:

]]> 58801323
It was there she found her destiny, one that would shake the world from the top of Olympus to the depths of Hades. Kore does not belong in the shadows, and she is not the Goddess of Flowers, spring or otherwise. But things never start out that way. It started, as many stories do, with a boy and a girl in a meadow.

This is not the story passed down from Demeter's priests and priestesses. It is not the song sung for Demeter by her nymphs as her tears make the seasons turn. But it was never Demeter's story to tell at all.Grab your copy today to hear Persephone's side of the tale!

“In the Shadow of Demeter is broadly a captivating addition to the world of Greek mythology fiction, but at its core (no pun intended) is a story about never fitting in and the desire of wanting to belong and finding your place. Although I’m not incredibly familiar with a lot of Greek mythology beyond the most well known, Vic Malachi did a great job of telling the story in a way that everyone could follow, and included such a rich history to go with it that I was able to be fully immersed in the world." - Four Stars"I found this an entertaining twist on a classic myth, and I feel like I added a little more to my knowledge of Greek mythology. I enjoyed the story of Persephone coming into her own. I also really liked the descriptions of the various realms of the gods, they made me wish I had the talent to paint a picture of them. Recommended, even if you know nothing about Greek myths."-Five Stars]]> 286 Vic Malachai Maitland 0 to-read 3.72 2021
author: Vic Malachai
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214387949
When an ill-advised date with her Godson’s math teacher goes horribly wrong, she brings him under her protection while she figures out who’s sabotaging her operation.

Nate, the goofy, dog-owning teacher, wants nothing to do with her after learning that she’s the queen of organized crime in the city. But when the choice is life or death, he chooses to accept her help and move in for the summer. Bored out of his mind, though, Nate offers his services on the hunt for a suitable husband, interviewing every eligible mafioso in Massachusetts.

But when more sparks begin to fly between her and Nate instead of her and her suitors... she starts to wonder. Can they work and live together, without falling for each other along the way?]]> 354 Kath Richards Maitland 4 4.05
author: Kath Richards
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.05
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/29
date added: 2024/09/29
shelves:
review:

]]> 219301810 A hitmaking songwriter and a bitter musician share a startling and inexplicable connection that they’ll do anything to shake, in the next sparkling, magical book from Ashley Poston.

Joni Lark is living the dream. She’s one of the most coveted songwriters in LA…and she ������’t seem to write. There’s an emptiness inside her, and nothing seems to fill it.

When she returns to her hometown of Vienna Shores, North Carolina, she hopes that the sand, the surf, and the concerts at The Revelry, her family’s music venue, will spark her inspiration. But when she gets there, nothing is how she left it. Her best friend is avoiding her, her mother’s memories are fading fast, and The Revelry is closing.

How can she think about writing her next song when everything is changing without her?

Until she hears it. A melody in her head, lyric-less and half-formed, and an alluring and addictive voice to go with it—belonging, apparently, to a wry musician with hangups of his own.

Surely, he’s a figment of her overworked imagination.

But then the very real man attached to the voice shows up in Vienna Shores. He’s aggravating and gruff on the outside—nothing like the sweet, funny voice in Joni’s head—and he has a plan:

They’ll finish the song haunting them both, break their connection, and hope they don’t risk their hearts in the process.

Because that song stuck in their heads? Maybe it’s there for a reason.]]> Ashley Poston 0593641019 Maitland 0 to-read 4.27 2025
author: Ashley Poston
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57033379 The Ogress and The Orphans, Alex Green is a young girl in a world much like ours, except for its most seminal event: the Mass Dragoning of 1955, when hundreds of thousands of ordinary wives and mothers sprouted wings, scales, and talons; left a trail of fiery destruction in their path; and took to the skies. Was it their choice? What will become of those left behind? Why did Alex’s beloved aunt Marla transform but her mother did not? Alex doesn’t know. It’s taboo to speak of.

Forced into silence, Alex nevertheless must face the consequences of this astonishing event: a mother more protective than ever; an absentee father; the upsetting insistence that her aunt never even existed; and
watching her beloved cousin Bea become dangerously obsessed with the forbidden.

In this timely and timeless speculative novel, award-winning author Kelly Barnhill boldly explores rage, memory, and the tyranny of forced limitations. When Women Were Dragons exposes a world that wants to keep women small—their lives and their prospects—and examines what happens when they rise en masse and take up the space they deserve.]]> 352 Kelly Barnhill 0385548230 Maitland 3
I really enjoyed how this book was formatted as a fictional historical memoir. The intertwining of fake articles amongst the reflections was a nice touch. This was definitely a unique take on women regaining their agency. A real force against the patriarchy. It was superb to use women turning into dragons to free themselves from men and the control of the patriarchy as the main allegory for the novel. I did however find it odd that we didn't get a dragon POV - but I suppose that's understandable because they are dragons. I enjoyed all of the female rage!
I do think that within the time period, which the novel is set, the author could have mentioned more about Black women turning into Dragons considering how close it was to the civil rights movement. I noticed other reviewers shared similar thoughts on the intersectionality of this novel. I think it was *almost* there.

Please check the TW for this novel - there are a lot - some include misogyny, homophobia, parental deaths (on and off page)]]> 4.07 2022
author: Kelly Barnhill
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2022/04/12
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves:
review:
I received an e-ARC for this book in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed how this book was formatted as a fictional historical memoir. The intertwining of fake articles amongst the reflections was a nice touch. This was definitely a unique take on women regaining their agency. A real force against the patriarchy. It was superb to use women turning into dragons to free themselves from men and the control of the patriarchy as the main allegory for the novel. I did however find it odd that we didn't get a dragon POV - but I suppose that's understandable because they are dragons. I enjoyed all of the female rage!
I do think that within the time period, which the novel is set, the author could have mentioned more about Black women turning into Dragons considering how close it was to the civil rights movement. I noticed other reviewers shared similar thoughts on the intersectionality of this novel. I think it was *almost* there.

Please check the TW for this novel - there are a lot - some include misogyny, homophobia, parental deaths (on and off page)
]]> 212806981 A competitive diver and an ace swimmer jump into forbidden waters in this steamy college romance from the New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis.

Scarlett Vandermeer is swimming upstream. A Junior at Stanford and a student-athlete who specializes in platform diving, Scarlett prefers to keep her head down, concentrating on getting into med school and on recovering from the injury that almost ended her career. She has no time for relationships—at least, that’s what she tells herself.

Swim captain, world champion, all-around aquatics golden boy, Lukas Blomqvist thrives on discipline. It’s how he wins gold medals and breaks records: complete focus, with every stroke. On the surface, Lukas and Scarlett have nothing in common. Until a well-guarded secret slips out, and everything changes.

So they start an arrangement. And as the pressure leading to the Olympics heats up, so does their relationship. It was supposed to be just a temporary, mutually satisfying fling. But when staying away from Lukas becomes impossible, Scarlett realizes that her heart might be treading into dangerous water...]]> 447 Ali Hazelwood 0593550447 Maitland 0 to-read 4.10 2025
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214438301 Perfect for fans of Saltburn, For the Wolf, and House of Hollow, Tenderly, I Am Devoured is a moody, monstrously Gothic romantasy in which a young woman must bind herself to a dangerous chthonic demon with the help of the son of a rival family to save her family's legacy―and herself―from ruin.

Expelled from her prestigious boarding school following a violent incident, eighteen-year-old Lacrimosa Arriscane returns home in disgrace to discover her family on the point of financial ruin. Desperate to save them, she accepts a marriage of convenience�� to Therion, the chthonic god worshipped by Lark’s isolated coastal hometown.

But when her betrothal goes horribly wrong, Lark begins to vanish from the mortal realm. Her only hope is to seek help from Alastair Felimath: the brilliant, arrogant boy who was her first heartbreak, and his alluring older sister, Camille. As the trio delve into the folklore of gods, Lark falls under the spell of the Felimath siblings.

Ensnared by a fervent romance, they perform a bacchanalia with hopes the hedonistic ritual will repair the connection between Lark and her bridegroom. Instead, they draw the ire of something much darker, which seeks to destroy Therion―and Lark as well.]]> 304 Lyndall Clipstone 1250348900 Maitland 0 to-read 4.02 2025
author: Lyndall Clipstone
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211179727 From USA Today bestselling author Rebecca Jenshak comes a standalone fake dating sports romance. This steamy, grumpy / sunshine football romance delivers a swoony and emotional happily ever after.

Brogan Six’s fan mail has been filling my mailbox for weeks. With every lipstick covered letter I receive, my irritation with him grows. And let’s not talk about the time I accidentally opened one of the packages to find someone had sent him their panties. Gross.

When I come face-to-face with my new nemesis, I expect to give him a piece of my mind and we’ll go our separate ways. Me to an empty mailbox and him to sift through his panty collection.

That is not what happens.

I don’t know if it was the booze, his clever wit, or if I was tricked (I’m sure I was tricked), but now I’m fake dating the Mavericks�� hot new rookie.

And I might just be the next woman to lose her panties to Brogan Six.

Playbook is a standalone fake dating, grumpy/sunshine sports romance with banter, found family, spice, and a guaranteed happily ever after.]]> 460 Rebecca Jenshak 1951815742 Maitland 3 4.08
author: Rebecca Jenshak
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.08
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/06
date added: 2024/08/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 53426406
One person has not forgotten her. Mathior, now twenty-four, is the fierce warrior king of the Cyclopae. Yshrem is in turmoil and his advisors have a suggestion �� kill the last remaining member of the royal line, and there will be no rivals for the throne.

Mathior has a different idea. He’s loved Halla for sixteen long years, and it’s time he claimed her as his wife. But a barbarian’s wedding customs are unlike any other…]]> 136 Ruby Dixon Maitland 2 4.02 2018
author: Ruby Dixon
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2024/08/04
date added: 2024/08/04
shelves:
review:

]]> 209807879 Kennedy

I’m the only woman on staff for the Windy City Warriors, and after years of putting up with a sexist lead doctor, I’m desperate to land my dream job with a new team next year. All I have to do is maintain my professional reputation for my final season in Chicago.

But a Las Vegas run-in with the team’s shortstop threatens it all, leaving me with a fuzzy memory and a ring on my left hand.

Now, not only am I legally bound to the most persistent man I’ve ever met, but thanks to Isaiah’s scheme to save my job, I have to pretend the whole thing was a planned elopement and not a drunken mistake.

Isaiah Rhodes is reckless, impulsive, and frustratingly charming. He’s also my brand-new husband.

They got the saying wrong. What happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas�� sometimes it follows you right back home.


Isaiah

As the shortstop for Chicago’s professional baseball team, I’ve had my fair share of fun. But that all ended the day Kennedy Kay became a single woman.

I’ve crushed on the team’s athletic trainer for years. I’ve flirted to no avail, so imagine my surprise when I woke up in Sin City with a ring on my finger and my favorite redhead in my bed.

We agree to stay married for one baseball season, just long enough to keep her job safe, but in my mind, I’m using our time together to prove to her I’m husband material.

Kennedy might be reluctant to join in on our game, but it’s one I refuse to lose.

So come on, wife�� play along.]]> 384 Liz Tomforde Maitland 4 4.60 2024
author: Liz Tomforde
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/20
date added: 2024/07/20
shelves:
review:

]]> 199928276 A recently deceased woman meets “the one�� in the afterlife waiting room, scoring a second chance at life (and love!) if she can find him on Earth before ten days are up��.

If she wasn’t dead already, Delphie would be dying of embarrassment. Not only did she just die by choking on a microwaveable burger, she’s also now standing in her "sparkle and shine" nightie in front of the hottest man she’s ever seen. And he’s smiling at her.

As they start to chat, everything else becomes background noise. That is, until someone comes running through a door yelling something about a huge mistake and sends the dreamy stranger back down to Earth. And here Delphie was thinking her luck might be different in the afterlife.

When Delphie is offered a deal in which she can return to Earth and reconnect with the mysterious man, she jumps at the opportunity to find her possible soulmate and a fresh start. But to find him in a city of millions, Delphie is going to have to listen to her heart, learn to ask for help, and perhaps even see the magic in the life she’s leaving behind. . . .]]> 369 Kirsty Greenwood 0593816137 Maitland 0 to-read 4.05 2024
author: Kirsty Greenwood
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199821855 Rosie Belmont has been driving me wild for years. The good kind of wild. The bad kind of wild. But mostly the kind of wild that comes with wanting your best friend’s little sister and knowing you ������’t have her.

After living in the city, she comes blasting back into Rose Hill like a storm. Beautiful, messy, and chaotic.

And one wide-eyed desperate plea for a job is all it takes for me to hire her.

Forbes may have labelled me the World’s Hottest Billionaire but all I care about is opening my new recording studio. Something that comes to a screeching halt when I end up face-to-face with a young girl who claims I’m her biological father.

Now I spend my days balancing business with parenting a sullen twelve-year-old all while trying desperately to keep my hands the hell off my best friend’s little sister.

I vow to keep Rosie at arm’s length. I try to stick to scowls and grumpy one-liners. But with her verbal sparring is merely foreplay—friction that turns to blistering heat.

I know damn well I ����dzܱ����’t cross that line.

But ����dzܱ����’t and ������’t are two very different things.

And the only thing I truly ������’t do is resist her.]]> 466 Elsie Silver 173812553X Maitland 4 4.21 2024
author: Elsie Silver
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/05
date added: 2024/07/05
shelves:
review:

]]> 31076583 229 Sarah J. Maas 168119631X Maitland 4 3.77 2019
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2021/07/28
date added: 2024/07/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 57722167 Stefan Dalca is infuriatingly handsome. And annoyingly persistent. We’re supposed to hate each other. But apparently he didn’t get the memo, because he’s been asking me out for years.

And I always say no. Until today.

Today he has something that I desperately need. Today he’s a savior, and I’m his prize.

Our time together starts out as a simple transaction. Three dates. No touching. No telling anyone. And definitely no falling in love.

But with every intimate conversation, and each stolen glance, the tension between us builds.

The way he looks at me gives me butterflies. And when he finally touches m? We sizzle.

Stefan makes me feel seen in a way no other person has before. He cherishes my words as passionately as my body.

He makes me laugh. He makes me blush. He calls me kitten.

He’s not the villain he’s been made out to be.

And suddenly I find myself longing for him in a way the people closest to me wouldn’t approve of or understand.

Giving in to Stefan Dalca is playing with fire.

But with him I don’t even mind the heat.]]> 356 Elsie Silver Maitland 4 4.26 2021
author: Elsie Silver
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/01
date added: 2024/07/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 57722155 I’ve seen every square inch of Violet Eaton’s delectable body and she has no idea who I am.

Until now.

What happened between us online, in our chats, was meant to stay anonymous and in the past.

Until it didn’t.

It’s a small world, but Ruby Creek is even smaller. When I move to the tiny town, the grumpy facade I’ve created slips when we’re forced to live under the same roof.

Every flush of her cheeks, every time her eyes flare with heat, every time she begs me not to stop, the ice I’ve encased myself in melts. She has me wanting things I ������’t want. Things I’ve been dreaming about since I first laid eyes on her two years ago—things I don’t deserve.

But my invisible wounds have the power to ruin us both. As a former soldier, I should have the discipline to walk away, but the more I open up to Violet, the more I want to keep her.

I came back from the war a different man, but my scars are older and deeper than anyone knows—and I planned to keep it that way. I planned to keep my secrets hidden.

Until her.]]> 420 Elsie Silver Maitland 3 4.06 2021
author: Elsie Silver
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/28
date added: 2024/06/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 57666603
Vaughn Harding is my new boss. Getting close to him would be career suicide for a female racehorse trainer, and plain old gossip fuel in this small town. I get a kick out of our verbal sparring, but I swore off his type years ago.

And I’ve got plans.

I’m the new trainer at Gold Rush Ranch and I’ve just been handed a problem horse that I promised to make a winner. I want to put down roots, and I’m not about to let a man distract me. No matter how electric it feels when we lock eyes, or how my body ignites when we touch.

Vaughn’s a vivid reminder of every guy I grew up around. Handsome, rich, entitled--a total media darling. But there’s a sadness in him that I ������’t seem to turn my back on. A sensitive side hidden beneath brooding good looks.

The last thing I need is a broken man to put back together, and the last thing he needs is more scandal.

Teasing him for kicks is one thing, but handing over my heart?

I should have known better.]]> 388 Elsie Silver Maitland 4 3.95 2021
author: Elsie Silver
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/27
date added: 2024/06/27
shelves:
review:

]]> 210223948
But someone else puts forth her name. She has no choice but to take part, especially when she learns the champion will win the Everstone—a gemstone with enough magic to break her curse.

At long last, Astrid's freedom is within reach.

Of course, nothing is ever that simple. An infuriating shadow demon joins the competition, dead set on winning the Everstone himself. He'll do whatever it takes to succeed, particularly if it involves pilfering Astrid's cakes or tormenting her until she gives up hope.

But when the Everstone goes missing, they agree to join forces to track it down. And deep within the mines, they discover something in each other that is far more powerful than magic.

Mined in Magic is a stand-alone cozy romantasy set in the whimsical world of Falling for Fables.]]> 342 Jenna Wolfhart Maitland 3 3.87 2024
author: Jenna Wolfhart
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/18
date added: 2024/06/18
shelves:
review:

]]> 203675266
When she meets a handsome stranger on her journey to the winter festival, she finally feels she’s found a kindred spirit…until he vanishes in the early morning without so much as a goodbye.

Turns out, he rushed ahead to reach the festival first with his own traveling tavern. One he never mentioned. Now her would-be companion is her rival, or worse. Someone is trying to sabotage the festival by stealing supplies, and all her suspicions point to him.

But when he offers to help find the culprit, sparks melt the icy barriers between them. And Lilia must decide if she can trust him with saving the festival—and with her heart.

Brewed in Magic is a stand-alone cozy romantasy set in the whimsical world of Falling for Fables.]]> 342 Jenna Wolfhart Maitland 4 3.94 2024
author: Jenna Wolfhart
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/17
date added: 2024/06/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 177601547 One prestigious publishing contract.
A bargain of hearts and desire.

They say never bargain with the fae. They also say don’t get drunk on fae wine. Yet romance author Edwina Danforth has managed a blunder with both on her first visit to the infamous faelands. Now she's trapped in a magic-fueled bet she barely remembers with a man she’d be happier to forget. The terms? Whoever can bed the most lovers during their month-long dueling book tour wins a coveted publishing contract.

The win should be easy for Edwina. She’s known for penning scintillating tales of whirlwind romance. There’s just one problem: her imagination vastly exceeds her bedroom experience. But when failure means plummeting her career back into obscurity, losing isn’t an option.

Her handsome fae rival, William Haywood, poses an even greater challenge. Not only are his looks as aggravatingly perfect as his track record behind closed doors, but he has his own reasons for playing to win, and he won’t go down without a fight. Unless, of course, it’s a different kind of going down. In that case, he’s fair game.

Edwina and William clash in a rivalry of romance. But what happens when their objects of desire…turn out to be each other?

A Rivalry of Hearts is a spicy standalone adult fantasy romcom in the Fae Flings and Corset Strings series. Every book in this interconnected series is a complete story and ends with a HEA. If you like academic rivals, enemies to lovers, and quirky heroines, then you’ll love this sizzling tale.

The Fae Flings and Corset Strings series is set in the same world as The Fair Isle Trilogy and Entangled with Fae. Journey back to this beloved fae world or fall in love for the first time.]]> 409 Tessonja Odette Maitland 3 4.00
author: Tessonja Odette
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/17
date added: 2024/06/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 199333363
I’m a single dad and starting pitcher for Chicago’s MLB team.
I’m stretched too thin, but I don’t want help raising my son.

Each of his previous nannies only lasted a few weeks before I let them go.
Now, my coach is putting his foot down by hiring the one person I ������’t fire—his daughter.

Miller Montgomery is the last woman I should fall for. Too wild, too young, and too unattached.

Chicago is just a quick stop for her. I thought I’d be counting down the days until she left, but summer feels too short when I start thinking about forever.


Miller

As a high-end pastry chef who recently won the most prestigious award in my industry, I’m desperate to prove I deserve it. But with a new title comes new pressure, and I ������’t create a fresh and inspiring dessert to save my life.

With only two months to get back on track, I should be focusing in the kitchen, but instead, I let my dad talk me into using my time off to nanny for his star player’s kid.

Kai Rhodes forgot how to have fun, and I’m eager to jog his memory. But when he and his son start to feel like home, I have to remind us both that my time in Chicago ends with the summer.

Besides, I’ve always been a runner, and the last thing I want is to get caught.]]> 393 Liz Tomforde Maitland 4 4.55 2023
author: Liz Tomforde
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/25
date added: 2024/05/25
shelves:
review:

]]> 61968777
Avery Soko, a bright-eyed and ambitious do-gooder, is on the cusp of getting her dream fundraising job at the Oceanic Research Organization. Luca Navarro, a former corporate lawyer with an extravagant tie collection and an irritatingly handsome smirk, holds Avery's future in his very large hands. When he calls with the news of her rejection, Luca seems to revel in crushing her dreams.

But Avery will do anything to pursue her passion, even accept a job at a struggling start-up. Her spell of bad luck finally changes when a competition is announced at a grandiose gala that could save her and her new team from going under. Of course, Avery's least favorite person, Luca, also joins the running for the multimillion-dollar prize.

At the height of the competition, Avery and Luca realize they've met their match. Will the tense moments, absurd attempts to out-do each other, and the string of games and bets they've concocted turn into a series of failures, or will it make them into something more than adversaries?]]> Kels Stone Maitland 3 3.61 2022
author: Kels Stone
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/01/18
date added: 2024/05/23
shelves:
review:

]]> 174146852 A sharp-tongued folklorist must pair up with her academic rival to solve their mentor's murder in this lush and enthralling sapphic fantasy romance from the New York Times bestselling author of A Far Wilder Magic.

Lorelei Kaskel, a folklorist with a quick temper and an even quicker wit, is on an expedition with six eccentric nobles in search of a fabled spring. The magical spring promises untold power, which the king wants to harness to secure his reign of the embattled country of Brunnestaad. Lorelei is determined to use this opportunity to prove herself and make her wildest, most impossible dream come to become a naturalist, able to travel freely to lands she’s only ever read about.

The expedition gets off to a harrowing start when its leader—Lorelei’s beloved mentor—is murdered in her quarters aboard their ship. The suspects are her five remaining expedition mates, each with their own motive. The only person Lorelei knows must be innocent is her longtime academic rival, the insufferably gallant and maddeningly beautiful Sylvia von Wolff. Now in charge of the expedition, Lorelei must find the spring before the murderer strikes again—and a coup begins in earnest.

But there are other dangers lurking in the forests that rearrange themselves at night, rivers with slumbering dragons waiting beneath the water, and shapeshifting beasts out for blood.

As Lorelei and Sylvia grudgingly work together to uncover the truth—and resist their growing feelings for one another—they discover that their professor had secrets of her own. Secrets that make Lorelei question whether justice is worth pursuing, or if this kingdom is worth saving at all.]]> 384 Allison Saft 0593722345 Maitland 4
Allison Saft is back at it again with the luscious, the atmospheric and the mysterious prose. The story does not miss with his interesting cast of characters, provocative magic system and intriguing plot. The world and magic is both whimsical as well as horrifying. I went into the story with the sole knowledge it was sapphic "enemies" to lovers with some water magic. I suggest you do that too. I don't have any complaints about the pacing or the development of the characters or the plot. Like all Saft books you can expect the ending to be wrapped up with a neat little bow! It didn't feel particularly rushed or dragged out.]]> 3.59 2024
author: Allison Saft
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/22
date added: 2024/05/17
shelves:
review:
Thank you to Del Rey and Netgalley for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review!

Allison Saft is back at it again with the luscious, the atmospheric and the mysterious prose. The story does not miss with his interesting cast of characters, provocative magic system and intriguing plot. The world and magic is both whimsical as well as horrifying. I went into the story with the sole knowledge it was sapphic "enemies" to lovers with some water magic. I suggest you do that too. I don't have any complaints about the pacing or the development of the characters or the plot. Like all Saft books you can expect the ending to be wrapped up with a neat little bow! It didn't feel particularly rushed or dragged out.
]]> 199261152 A professor of literature finds herself caught up in a work of fiction�� literally.

Eileen Merriweather loves to get lost in a good happily-ever-after. The fictional kind, anyway. Because at least imaginary men don’t leave you at the altar. She feels safe in a book. At home. Which might be why she’s so set on going to her annual book club retreat this year—she needs good friends, cheap wine, and grand romantic gestures—no matter what.

But when her car unexpectedly breaks down on the way, she finds herself stranded in a quaint town that feels like it’s right out of a novel��

Because it is.

This place ������’t be real, and yet�� she’s here, in Eloraton, the town of her favorite romance series, where the candy store’s honey taffy is always sweet, the local bar’s burgers are always a little burnt, and rain always comes in the afternoon. It feels like home. It’s perfect—and perfectly frozen, trapped in the late author’s last unfinished story.

Elsy is sure that’s why she must be here: to help bring the town to its storybook ending.

Except there is a character in Eloraton that she ������’t place—a grumpy bookstore owner with mint-green eyes, an irritatingly sexy mouth and impeccable taste in novels. And he does not want her finishing this book.

Which is a problem because Elsy is beginning to think the town’s happily-ever-after might just be intertwined with her own.]]> 368 Ashley Poston 0593640977 Maitland 0 to-read 3.62 2024
author: Ashley Poston
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 49083140
Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol, and extreme cinema. The news triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centred around Irina’s relationship with her obsessive best friend, and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention��

Boy Parts is the incendiary debut novel from Eliza Clark, a pitch-black comedy both shocking and hilarious, fearlessly exploring the taboo regions of sexuality and gender roles in the twenty-first century.]]> 304 Eliza Clark 1910312649 Maitland 1

Just couldn’t do it! I kept comparing it to A Certain Hunger (even though they are unrelated) and could not find something I enjoyed about the MC.

Merged review:

Thank you to Netgalley for the arc in exchange for my honest review.


Just couldn’t do it! I kept comparing it to A Certain Hunger (even though they are unrelated) and could not find something I enjoyed about the MC.]]> 3.74 2020
author: Eliza Clark
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2020
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2024/04/10
shelves:
review:
Thank you to Netgalley for the arc in exchange for my honest review.


Just couldn’t do it! I kept comparing it to A Certain Hunger (even though they are unrelated) and could not find something I enjoyed about the MC.

Merged review:

Thank you to Netgalley for the arc in exchange for my honest review.


Just couldn’t do it! I kept comparing it to A Certain Hunger (even though they are unrelated) and could not find something I enjoyed about the MC.
]]> 157184735 From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny comes a horror-tinted, gothic fairy tale about a lonely dress shop clerk whose mother’s unexpected death sends her down a treacherous path in pursuit of youth and beauty. Can she escape her mother’s fate—and find a connection that is more than skin deep?

For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes, Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Méduse, the same lavish, culty spa to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) obsession with the mirror—and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass.

Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut in this surreal descent into the dark side of beauty, envy, grief, and the complicated love between mothers and daughters. With black humor and seductive horror, Rouge explores the cult-like nature of the beauty industry—as well as the danger of internalizing its pitiless gaze. Brimming with California sunshine and blood-red rose petals, Rouge holds up a warped mirror to our relationship with mortality, our collective fixation with the surface, and the wondrous, deep longing that might lie beneath.]]> 383 Mona Awad Maitland 0
Listen, I really wanted to get into this book. I enjoy the cadence and structure to Awad's writing but for me this failed in capturing my attention. I got 20% in before I decided to call it quits. I felt no desire to understand what was happening Belle or had happened with Belle's mom death. I just felt like by 20-25% of the book I should be dedicated to the story and wanting to know what happens. I was apathetic at this point.

I really would like to revisit this at another point because I own Bunny by Awad and definitely was intrigued by the start of that book.

Please don't let my apathy deter you from trying this book. You very well might find your next favorite book in this!

I am giving 2 stars because I DNF'd it but I could not bring my self to give it 1 star because the writing itself is good.

Merged review:

Thank you to NetGalley and S&S/Marysue Rucci Books for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

Listen, I really wanted to get into this book. I enjoy the cadence and structure to Awad's writing but for me this failed in capturing my attention. I got 20% in before I decided to call it quits. I felt no desire to understand what was happening Belle or had happened with Belle's mom death. I just felt like by 20-25% of the book I should be dedicated to the story and wanting to know what happens. I was apathetic at this point.

I really would like to revisit this at another point because I own Bunny by Awad and definitely was intrigued by the start of that book.

Please don't let my apathy deter you from trying this book. You very well might find your next favorite book in this!

I am giving 2 stars because I DNF'd it but I could not bring my self to give it 1 star because the writing itself is good.

Merged review:

Thank you to NetGalley and S&S/Marysue Rucci Books for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

Listen, I really wanted to get into this book. I enjoy the cadence and structure to Awad's writing but for me this failed in capturing my attention. I got 20% in before I decided to call it quits. I felt no desire to understand what was happening Belle or had happened with Belle's mom death. I just felt like by 20-25% of the book I should be dedicated to the story and wanting to know what happens. I was apathetic at this point.

I really would like to revisit this at another point because I own Bunny by Awad and definitely was intrigued by the start of that book.

Please don't let my apathy deter you from trying this book. You very well might find your next favorite book in this!

I am giving 2 stars because I DNF'd it but I could not bring my self to give it 1 star because the writing itself is good.]]> 3.54 2023
author: Mona Awad
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2023/05/01
date added: 2024/04/09
shelves:
review:
Thank you to NetGalley and S&S/Marysue Rucci Books for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

Listen, I really wanted to get into this book. I enjoy the cadence and structure to Awad's writing but for me this failed in capturing my attention. I got 20% in before I decided to call it quits. I felt no desire to understand what was happening Belle or had happened with Belle's mom death. I just felt like by 20-25% of the book I should be dedicated to the story and wanting to know what happens. I was apathetic at this point.

I really would like to revisit this at another point because I own Bunny by Awad and definitely was intrigued by the start of that book.

Please don't let my apathy deter you from trying this book. You very well might find your next favorite book in this!

I am giving 2 stars because I DNF'd it but I could not bring my self to give it 1 star because the writing itself is good.

Merged review:

Thank you to NetGalley and S&S/Marysue Rucci Books for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

Listen, I really wanted to get into this book. I enjoy the cadence and structure to Awad's writing but for me this failed in capturing my attention. I got 20% in before I decided to call it quits. I felt no desire to understand what was happening Belle or had happened with Belle's mom death. I just felt like by 20-25% of the book I should be dedicated to the story and wanting to know what happens. I was apathetic at this point.

I really would like to revisit this at another point because I own Bunny by Awad and definitely was intrigued by the start of that book.

Please don't let my apathy deter you from trying this book. You very well might find your next favorite book in this!

I am giving 2 stars because I DNF'd it but I could not bring my self to give it 1 star because the writing itself is good.

Merged review:

Thank you to NetGalley and S&S/Marysue Rucci Books for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

Listen, I really wanted to get into this book. I enjoy the cadence and structure to Awad's writing but for me this failed in capturing my attention. I got 20% in before I decided to call it quits. I felt no desire to understand what was happening Belle or had happened with Belle's mom death. I just felt like by 20-25% of the book I should be dedicated to the story and wanting to know what happens. I was apathetic at this point.

I really would like to revisit this at another point because I own Bunny by Awad and definitely was intrigued by the start of that book.

Please don't let my apathy deter you from trying this book. You very well might find your next favorite book in this!

I am giving 2 stars because I DNF'd it but I could not bring my self to give it 1 star because the writing itself is good.
]]> 199259305

But after her authoritative father gives her the ultimatum—stay in line rather than pursue her art—she needs to find a quick way to support herself since she’s unwilling to give up on her dreams.


The answer is landing a job at Orso, a fine-dining restaurant in the heart of Marsford Bay.

Between learning to navigate the grind of restaurant life, trying not to cry in the walk-freezer, and rebuilding her life, there is only one silver lining—a line cook that seems to always make her shifts a little easier whether it be with a cheeky grin or a delicious mid-shift snack.

Ozzy McKenna, the tattooed jester with a Casanova reputation is immediately smitten and makes it his mission to charm the new girl.

But James isn’t ready for anything serious, having just broken up with her abusive long-term boyfriend.

Their attraction, however, is undeniable.

James proposes they become friends with benefits; making a deal to leave drama out of it, and hide their arrangement from their coworkers at Orso.

However, despite their best efforts to keep it casual, things inevitably begin to change. Between cooking for James late at night and dates that aren’t meant to be dates, both soon discover that maybe they can become what the other one needs, in ways neither thought was possible.

All they need to do is get out of their own way.


*On the Line is a dark contemporary romance with a guaranteed HEA. It has mature situations and themes which may be considered triggers for some. Reader discretion is advised.*]]> 360 Naomi Loud Maitland 4 4.10 2024
author: Naomi Loud
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/18
date added: 2024/03/18
shelves:
review:

]]> 194803871 New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh’s dangerous and beautiful world of archangels, vampires, and mortals has never faced a threat this cataclysmic��

Raphael and Elena are experiencing their first ever year of true peace. No war. No horrors of archangelic power. No nightmares given flesh. Until…the earth beneath the Refuge begins to tremble, endangering not only angelkind’s precious and fragile young, but the very place that has held their most innocent safe for eons.

Amid the chaos, Elena’s father suffers a violent heart attack that threatens to extinguish their last chance to heal the bonds between them and make sense of the ruins of their agonizing shared history.

Even as Elena battles grief, Raphael is torn from her side by the sudden disappearance of an archangel. But worse yet is to come. An Ancestor, an angel unlike any other, stirs from his Sleep to warn the Cadre of a darkness so terrible that it causes empires to fall and civilizations to vanish.

This time, even the Cadre itself may not be able to stop a ticking clock that is counting down at frightening speed…]]> 378 Nalini Singh 0593550013 Maitland 0 to-read 4.23 2024
author: Nalini Singh
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 176443831
Failed Pitbull impersonator Ismael Reyes—you can call him Izzy—might not be the Scarface type, but why should that keep him from trying? Growing up in Miami has shaped him into someone who dreams of being the King of the 305, with the money, power, and respect he assumes comes with it. After finding himself at the mercy of a cease-and-desist letter from Pitbull’s legal team and living in his aunt’s garage-turned-efficiency, Izzy embarks on an absurd quest to turn himself into a modern-day Tony Montana.

When Izzy’s efforts lead him to the tank that houses Lolita, a captive orca at the Miami Seaquarium, she proves just how powerful she and the water surrounding her really are—permeating everything from Miami’s sinking streets to Izzy’s memories to the very heart of the novel itself. What begins as Izzy’s story turns into a super-saturated fever dream as sprawling and surreal as the Magic City, one as sharp as an iguana’s claws, and as menacing as a killer whale’s teeth. As the truth surrounding Izzy’s boyhood escape from Cuba surfaces, the novel reckons with the forces of nature, with the limits and absence of love, and with the dangers of pursuing a tragic inheritance. Wildly narrated and expertly rendered, Say Hello to My Little Friend is Jennine Capó Crucet’s most daring, heart-breaking, and fearless book yet.]]> 304 Jennine Capó Crucet 1668023326 Maitland 0 to-read 3.70 2024
author: Jennine Capó Crucet
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 206124645 Dating Tip #1: Never choose a fake boyfriend too hot to resist...

Theo Mahoney’s culinary dreams sit on the back burner. Hired as a private chef for a billionaire, her boss' eccentric demands never leave her time to cook.

Another soul-destroying workday takes a spicy turn when Sullivan Rivas, a blast from her high school past and old nemesis, springs a blackmail scheme on her. Armed with a secret that could torch her career for good, the devious and unfairly gorgeous Sullivan demands a meeting with her elusive boss.

What was supposed to be an introduction escalates into a full-blown fake romance, complete with double dates and public displays of all-too-real affection. Lines are crossed, promises are broken, and phony dates become genuine feelings, until Theo realizes that the only thing more devastating than getting caught with a fake boyfriend�� is falling for him.


Lark Notes:
Entering my fake dating era! "Love Contract" has all my favorite things: enemies-to-lovers, forced proximity, blackmail, angst, and spice, with rom-com vibes. –Sophie

"Love Contract" is a fake-dating contemporary romance, and the first book in the Love Contract trilogy, which follows twin brothers Sullivan and Reese, and their father Merrick. Each book in the series is a complete standalone with an HEA.]]> 355 Sophie Lark Maitland 4 3.81 2024
author: Sophie Lark
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/23
date added: 2024/02/23
shelves:
review:

]]> 58729762 409 Nikki Payne 0593440951 Maitland 4 4.04 2022
author: Nikki Payne
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/20
date added: 2024/02/20
shelves:
review:

]]> 150247395
Called in to investigate this mystery is Ana Dolabra, an investigator whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities.

At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol. Din is an engraver, magically altered to possess a perfect memory. His job is to observe and report, and act as his superior’s eyes and ears--quite literally, in this case, as among Ana’s quirks are her insistence on wearing a blindfold at all times, and her refusal to step outside the walls of her home.

Din is most perplexed by Ana’s ravenous appetite for information and her mind’s frenzied leaps—not to mention her cheerful disregard for propriety and the apparent joy she takes in scandalizing her young counterpart. Yet as the case unfolds and Ana makes one startling deduction after the next, he finds it hard to deny that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.

As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the safety of the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.

Featuring an unforgettable Holmes-and-Watson style pairing, a gloriously labyrinthine plot, and a haunting and wholly original fantasy world, The Tainted Cup brilliantly reinvents the classic mystery tale.]]> 410 Robert Jackson Bennett 1984820702 Maitland 4
I described this book to my friend as pacific rim (minus the robots)-attack on titan-body mod nature magic all had wrapped up in an Agatha Christie/Sherlock Holmes-esque mystery.

This extremely poor description doesn't even hit the tip of the iceberg of how fun and horrifying a time this book was. Despite the murder mystery being complex and the world building extensive it did not feel inaccessible. I didn't feel overwhelmed reading at any moment and was thoroughly enthralled. I found the story being from the perspective of the "engraver" to be an extremely smart choice. It allowed RJB to fill in world building/plot info organically. It didn't feel forced.

Upon finishing this book my exact words to another friend were "I inhaled it. I have like no constructive criticism, my critical thinking skills just *poofed* away -- I just got sucked it. RJB created a really wild ride."

I loved it and cannot WAIT for the next ones.]]> 4.28 2024
author: Robert Jackson Bennett
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/02/06
shelves:
review:
Thank you to Netgalley & Del Rey for granting me my wish to read this e-arc...in exchange for my honest review!

I described this book to my friend as pacific rim (minus the robots)-attack on titan-body mod nature magic all had wrapped up in an Agatha Christie/Sherlock Holmes-esque mystery.

This extremely poor description doesn't even hit the tip of the iceberg of how fun and horrifying a time this book was. Despite the murder mystery being complex and the world building extensive it did not feel inaccessible. I didn't feel overwhelmed reading at any moment and was thoroughly enthralled. I found the story being from the perspective of the "engraver" to be an extremely smart choice. It allowed RJB to fill in world building/plot info organically. It didn't feel forced.

Upon finishing this book my exact words to another friend were "I inhaled it. I have like no constructive criticism, my critical thinking skills just *poofed* away -- I just got sucked it. RJB created a really wild ride."

I loved it and cannot WAIT for the next ones.
]]> 173403890 Sumptuous and addictive, An Education in Malice is a dark academia tale of blood, secrets and insatiable hungers from S.T. Gibson, author of the cult hit A Dowry of Blood.

Deep in the forgotten hills of Massachusetts stands Saint Perpetua’s College. Isolated and ancient, it is not a place for timid girls. Here, secrets are currency, ambition is lifeblood, and strange ceremonies welcome students into the fold.

On her first day of class, Laura Sheridan is thrust into an intense academic rivalry with the beautiful and enigmatic Carmilla. Together, they are drawn into the confidence of their demanding poetry professor, De Lafontaine, who holds her own dark obsession with Carmilla.

But as their rivalry blossoms into something far more delicious, Laura must confront her own strange hungers. Tangled in a sinister game of politics, bloodthirsty professors and magic, Laura and Carmilla must decide how much they are willing to sacrifice in their ruthless pursuit of knowledge.

For more from S.T. Gibson, check out A Dowry of Blood.]]> 358 S.T. Gibson 031650145X Maitland 3
I need to be entirely honest here when I say I was a little disappointed in this book. I am not saying this wasn't a good book. It was a solid read and I would recommend it to people but I was life apathetic about it all. The story is set in the same world as "A Dowry of Blood" and that fact in itself excited me about the novel. However upon diving in I was left wanting. I felt like it was a very surface level exploration of the characters. The main subject of the book being a rivals-to-lovers with the twist of vampirism. I didn't grow particularly attached to either character as I didn't feel we got a "true" look into their psyche...it felt very shallow. I was most interested in De Lafontaine's character but considering she was the secretive professor and the POVs are from Laura and Carmilla's views...we don't get much. The vampirism aspect didn't play a huge roll other than adding another layer to the "wanting" between Laura and Carmilla. It emphasized the desire between the two.

The prose was lovely as always but this was an area too which wasn't as exciting as Gibson's previous work. It wasn't as lyrical..it just flowed nicely but it didn't have as much passion and lushness as A Dowry of Blood.

I think the most fantastic part of this book was that there were ZERO important male characters. There's some mentioned at the end but other than that it was all female cast. That was really interesting and fun addition!

All in all I was just left wanting.]]> 3.74 2024
author: S.T. Gibson
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/01/25
shelves:
review:
*I received a digital galley in exchange for my honest review.*

I need to be entirely honest here when I say I was a little disappointed in this book. I am not saying this wasn't a good book. It was a solid read and I would recommend it to people but I was life apathetic about it all. The story is set in the same world as "A Dowry of Blood" and that fact in itself excited me about the novel. However upon diving in I was left wanting. I felt like it was a very surface level exploration of the characters. The main subject of the book being a rivals-to-lovers with the twist of vampirism. I didn't grow particularly attached to either character as I didn't feel we got a "true" look into their psyche...it felt very shallow. I was most interested in De Lafontaine's character but considering she was the secretive professor and the POVs are from Laura and Carmilla's views...we don't get much. The vampirism aspect didn't play a huge roll other than adding another layer to the "wanting" between Laura and Carmilla. It emphasized the desire between the two.

The prose was lovely as always but this was an area too which wasn't as exciting as Gibson's previous work. It wasn't as lyrical..it just flowed nicely but it didn't have as much passion and lushness as A Dowry of Blood.

I think the most fantastic part of this book was that there were ZERO important male characters. There's some mentioned at the end but other than that it was all female cast. That was really interesting and fun addition!

All in all I was just left wanting.
]]> 199535412
In the tradition of Legends & Lattes , comes a cozy fantasy steeped in sapphic romance about one of the Queen’s private guards and a powerful mage who want to open a bookshop and live happily ever after…if only the world would let them.

All Reyna and Kianthe want is to open a bookshop that serves tea. Worn wooden floors, plants on every table, firelight drifting between the rafters�� all complemented by love and good company. Thing is, Reyna works as one of the Queen’s private guards, and Kianthe is the most powerful mage in existence. Leaving their lives isn’t so easy.

But after an assassin takes Reyna hostage, she decides she’s thoroughly done risking her life for a self-centered queen. Meanwhile, Kianthe has been waiting for a chance to flee responsibility–all the better that her girlfriend is on board. Together, they settle in Tawney, a town nestled in the icy tundra near dragon country, and open the shop of their dreams.

What follows is a cozy tale of mishaps, mysteries, and a murderous queen throwing the realm’s biggest temper tantrum. In a story brimming with hurt/comfort and quiet fireside conversations, these two women will discover just what they mean to each other�� and the world.]]> 339 Rebecca Thorne 1250333296 Maitland 0 to-read 3.75 2022
author: Rebecca Thorne
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 64414866 An Education in Malice is a dark academia tale of blood, secrets and insatiable hungers from Sunday Times bestselling author S.T. Gibson, author of the cult hit A Dowry of Blood.

Deep in the forgotten hills of Massachusetts stands Saint Perpetua's College. Isolated and ancient, it is not a place for timid girls. Here, secrets are currency, ambition is lifeblood, and strange ceremonies welcome students into the fold.

On her first day of class, Laura Sheridan is thrust into an intense academic rivalry with the beautiful and enigmatic Carmilla. Together, they are drawn into the confidence of their demanding poetry professor, De Lafontaine, who holds her own dark obsession with Carmilla.

But as their rivalry blossoms into something far more delicious, Laura must confront her own strange hungers. Tangled in a sinister game of politics, bloodthirsty professors and dark magic, Laura and Carmilla must decide how much they are willing to sacrifice in their ruthless pursuit of knowledge.]]> 352 S.T. Gibson 0356519325 Maitland 3 3.51 2024
author: S.T. Gibson
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/01/23
date added: 2024/01/23
shelves:
review:

]]> 181344829 A dangerous alliance between a Vampyre bride and an Alpha Werewolf becomes a love deep enough to sink your teeth into in this new paranormal romance.

Misery Lark, the only daughter of the most powerful Vampyre councilman of the Southwest, is an outcast—again. Her days of living in anonymity among the Humans are over: she has been called upon to uphold a historic peacekeeping alliance between the Vampyres and their mortal enemies, the Weres, and she sees little choice but to surrender herself in the exchange—again...

Weres are ruthless and unpredictable, and their Alpha, Lowe Moreland, is no exception. He rules his pack with absolute authority, but not without justice. And, unlike the Vampyre Council, not without feeling. It’s clear from the way he tracks Misery’s every movement that he doesn’t trust her. If only he knew how right he was��.

Because Misery has her own reasons to agree to this marriage of convenience, reasons that have nothing to do with politics or alliances, and everything to do with the only thing she's ever cared about. And she is willing to do whatever it takes to get back what’s hers, even if it means a life alone in Were territory…alone with the wolf.]]> 410 Ali Hazelwood Maitland 0 to-read 3.98 2024
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 194802722 A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

Daphne always loved the way her fiancé, Peter, told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it... right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.

Which is how Daphne begins her new story: stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.

Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned-up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex... right?]]> 400 Emily Henry Maitland 0 to-read 4.21 2024
author: Emily Henry
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61919154 From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ava Reid comes a reimagining of Lady Macbeth, Shakespeare’s most famous villainess, giving her a voice, a past, and a power that transforms the story men have written for her.

The Lady knows the stories: how her eyes induce madness in men. 

The Lady knows she will be wed to the Scottish brute, who does not leave his warrior ways behind when he comes to the marriage bed.  

The Lady knows his hostile, suspicious court will be a game of strategy, requiring all of her wiles and hidden witchcraft to survive. 

But the Lady does not know her husband has occult secrets of his own. She does not know that prophecy girds him like armor. She does not know that her magic is greater and more dangerous, and that it will threaten the order of the world. 

She does not know this yet. But she will.]]> 320 Ava Reid 1529910471 Maitland 5 3.52 2024
author: Ava Reid
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/18
date added: 2024/01/18
shelves:
review:

]]> 202102084 From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ava Reid comes a reimagining of Lady Macbeth, Shakespeare’s most famous villainess, giving her a voice, a past, and a power that transforms the story men have written for her.

The Lady knows the stories: how her eyes induce madness in men. 

The Lady knows she will be wed to the Scottish brute, who does not leave his warrior ways behind when he comes to the marriage bed.  

The Lady knows his hostile, suspicious court will be a game of strategy, requiring all of her wiles and hidden witchcraft to survive. 

But the Lady does not know her husband has occult secrets of his own. She does not know that prophecy girds him like armor. She does not know that her magic is greater and more dangerous, and that it will threaten the order of the world. 

She does not know this yet. But she will.]]> 295 Ava Reid 0593722566 Maitland 5
I was approved for this arc and read it within 24hrs of approval. I was THAT excited for this. Ava Reid is one of my favorite authors. A Study in Drowning firmly being in my top favorite books. I was worried I would not love this one as much as ASID but I was HAPPILY mistaken. I ate it up and left no crumbs. I will not be taking ANY negative commentary on this book. Yes I can see some flaws but I will not be acknowledging them at all.

This story feels very much like an Ava Reid story but at the same time it is such a different vibe. I felt more of the female rage...both quiet and loud.

This rewrite centering on Roscille (Lady Macbeth) forces you to really look at her. She is given a voice and a view. The gaze is unflinching. She is a complex creature that is deserving of her moment in the light.

I loved the prose. I loved the magical elements. I loved just how much you truly come to hate Macbeth (& others let's be honest). I loved how we come to love a monster over a man. (snippet of a great quote "...the man who acknowledges his monster is always wiser....")

If you are a fan of the "I am no man" moment. This is for you.]]> 3.46 2024
author: Ava Reid
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/01/18
shelves:
review:
Thank you to Del Rey and Netgalley for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review!

I was approved for this arc and read it within 24hrs of approval. I was THAT excited for this. Ava Reid is one of my favorite authors. A Study in Drowning firmly being in my top favorite books. I was worried I would not love this one as much as ASID but I was HAPPILY mistaken. I ate it up and left no crumbs. I will not be taking ANY negative commentary on this book. Yes I can see some flaws but I will not be acknowledging them at all.

This story feels very much like an Ava Reid story but at the same time it is such a different vibe. I felt more of the female rage...both quiet and loud.

This rewrite centering on Roscille (Lady Macbeth) forces you to really look at her. She is given a voice and a view. The gaze is unflinching. She is a complex creature that is deserving of her moment in the light.

I loved the prose. I loved the magical elements. I loved just how much you truly come to hate Macbeth (& others let's be honest). I loved how we come to love a monster over a man. (snippet of a great quote "...the man who acknowledges his monster is always wiser....")

If you are a fan of the "I am no man" moment. This is for you.
]]> 62898932 Do you know what happened already?
Did you know her?
Did you see it on the internet?
Did you listen to a podcast?
Did the hosts make jokes?

Did you see the pictures of the body?

Did you look for them?

It's been nearly a decade since the horrifying murder of sixteen-year-old Joan Wilson rocked Crow-on-Sea, and the events of that terrible night are now being published for the first time.

That story is Penance, a dizzying feat of masterful storytelling, where Eliza Clark manoeuvres us through accounts from the inhabitants of this small seaside town. Placing us in the capable hands of journalist Alec Z. Carelli, Clark allows him to construct what he claims is the 'definitive account' of the murder - and what led up to it. Built on hours of interviews with witnesses and family members, painstaking historical research, and most notably, correspondence with the killers themselves, the result is a riveting snapshot of lives rocked by tragedy, and a town left in turmoil.

The only question is: how much of it is true?]]> 336 Eliza Clark 0571371795 Maitland 3
I wish I could go on and on about this book, like I am able to with others but Clark did exactly what she set out to do with this one. It disgusted, saddened and infuriated me. Penance slowly reveals the seedy underbelly of the true crime community and its hypocritical and commercialized nature. The reader is led by the most unreliable of unreliable narrators.

It shows you just how decentralized the victims of crimes become and how the truth gets warped for fandom and "the (re)views" through the sensationalization of crime. ]]> 3.87 2023
author: Eliza Clark
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/01/15
date added: 2024/01/17
shelves:
review:
3.75 stars

I wish I could go on and on about this book, like I am able to with others but Clark did exactly what she set out to do with this one. It disgusted, saddened and infuriated me. Penance slowly reveals the seedy underbelly of the true crime community and its hypocritical and commercialized nature. The reader is led by the most unreliable of unreliable narrators.

It shows you just how decentralized the victims of crimes become and how the truth gets warped for fandom and "the (re)views" through the sensationalization of crime.
]]> 61190770
Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America's increasingly dominant private prison industry. It's the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.

In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games, but CAPE's corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar's path have devastating consequences.

Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system's unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means.]]> 367 Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah 0593317335 Maitland 5
The incorporation of footnotes referencing real life statistics adds a unique layer to this dystopian novel. Where some books' addition of footnotes can pull me from the narrative, Adjei-Brenyah's use of them gives the story a poignant edge. It grounds you in reality despite the story being fiction. It allows you to consider real world implication of the horrors that are entertainment in the story.

The story GLARES into the eyes of prison industrial complex with an unflinching gaze. It challenges the reader to confront issues of incarceration and punishment. To be completely honest, it shed light on aspects of the carceral network I was not privy to (or frankly ignorant of). Who are the true villains in the system?

Adjei-Brenyah reveals whose humanity is in question, making it a powerful and truly unforgettable read. It was an impactful read.]]> 4.13 2023
author: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/06
date added: 2024/01/17
shelves:
review:
This novel is a bold work that takes on the carceral complex with razor-sharp satire. The writing is powerful, offering action packed drama and heart-wrenching moments. The book captivates with moments that are truly phenomenal. I found myself rooting for the characters even when initially I was torn whether I should root for them or not (but isn't that kind of the point? Realizing their humanity and the gross miscarriage of "justice" that is thrust upon them!?).

The incorporation of footnotes referencing real life statistics adds a unique layer to this dystopian novel. Where some books' addition of footnotes can pull me from the narrative, Adjei-Brenyah's use of them gives the story a poignant edge. It grounds you in reality despite the story being fiction. It allows you to consider real world implication of the horrors that are entertainment in the story.

The story GLARES into the eyes of prison industrial complex with an unflinching gaze. It challenges the reader to confront issues of incarceration and punishment. To be completely honest, it shed light on aspects of the carceral network I was not privy to (or frankly ignorant of). Who are the true villains in the system?

Adjei-Brenyah reveals whose humanity is in question, making it a powerful and truly unforgettable read. It was an impactful read.
]]> 127282554 A New York Times Book Review Editors�� Choice
A Belletrist Book Club Pick

An elegant, razor-sharp debut about women's ambitions and appetites—and the truth about having it all

Outside of a childhood nickname she ������’t shake, Piglet’s rather pleased with how her life’s turned out. An up-and-coming cookbook editor at a London publishing house, she’s got lovely, loyal friends and a handsome fiancé, Kit, whose rarefied family she actually, most of the time, likes, despite their upper-class eccentricities. One of the many, many things Kit loves about Piglet is the delicious, unfathomably elaborate meals she’s always cooking.

But when Kit confesses a horrible betrayal two weeks before they’re set to be married, Piglet finds herself suddenly…hungry. The couple decides to move forward with the wedding as planned, but as it nears and Piglet balances family expectations, pressure at work, and her quest to make the perfect cake, she finds herself increasingly unsettled, behaving in ways even she ������’t explain. Torn between a life she’s always wanted and the ravenousness that comes with not getting what she knows she deserves, Piglet is, by the day of her wedding, undone, but also ready to look beyond the lies we sometimes tell ourselves to get by.

A stylish, uncommonly clever novel about the things we want and the things we think we want, Piglet is both an examination of women’s often complicated relationship with food and a celebration of the messes life sometimes makes for us.]]> 320 Lottie Hazell 125028984X Maitland 0 to-read 3.39 2024
author: Lottie Hazell
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 150247444
The stories in Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart are about the abomination that resides within us all. That churning, clawing, hungry the desire to be loved, and seen, and known. And the terror of those things to be loved too well, or not enough, or for long enough. To be laid bare before your sweetheart, to their horror. To be known and recognized as the monstrous thing you are. 

Two young women working at a sinister roadside attraction called the Eternal Staircase explore its secrets—and their own doomed summer love. A group of witchy teens concoct the perfect plan to induce the hated new girl into their ranks. A woman moves into a new house with her acclaimed artist boyfriend and finds her body slowly shifting into something specially constructed to accommodate his needs and whims. And two outcasts, a vampire and a goat woman, find solace in each other, even as the world's lack of understanding might bring about its own end.

In these lush, beautifully written stories, GennaRose Nethercott explores love in all its diamond-dark facets to create a collection that will redefine what you see as a beast, and make you beg to have your heart broken.]]> 259 GennaRose Nethercott 0593314182 Maitland 0 to-read
GennaRose sure knows how to write lyrical, beautiful and abstract prose. Since this was a series of stories, there were obviously those which I preferred to others. That being said, overall I enjoyed my time with these stories. I have seen in other reviews people criticizing the stories for their abstractness. Abstractness in itself doesn't really bother me. I am game for things being open to interpretation. However, I can see how that would deter readers especially those who came into this with the expectations of it being the same caliber as GennaRose's previous work "Thistlefoot."

Thistlefoot still remains concretely my preferred read out of the two but I wouldn't slight this collection. Try it for yourself!]]> 3.76 2024
author: GennaRose Nethercott
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/17
shelves: to-read
review:
Thank you for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review!

GennaRose sure knows how to write lyrical, beautiful and abstract prose. Since this was a series of stories, there were obviously those which I preferred to others. That being said, overall I enjoyed my time with these stories. I have seen in other reviews people criticizing the stories for their abstractness. Abstractness in itself doesn't really bother me. I am game for things being open to interpretation. However, I can see how that would deter readers especially those who came into this with the expectations of it being the same caliber as GennaRose's previous work "Thistlefoot."

Thistlefoot still remains concretely my preferred read out of the two but I wouldn't slight this collection. Try it for yourself!
]]> 136966828 Four women investigating the haunting murder of their friend discover more than they ever imagined in a terrifying novel about good and evil, love and death, and the spaces between.

Five years after Sofia Lyon disappeared, her remains are found stuffed into the hollow of a tree bursting through the floorboards of an abandoned house in the woods. The women who loved her flock home to the North Carolina hills to face their grief.

Frankie, Sofia’s twin, is in furious mourning. Poppy is heartbroken. Cass has never felt more homesick. And Marya knows something the rest of them don’t. Determined to find Sofia’s murderer, they share more than a need to see justice done for their friend. Each woman is haunted, bound to the next by something both cruel and kind, and now stalked by a shadowy presence they’ve yet to understand. Only to question, and to fear.

As Sofia’s secrets unravel, so do those of the woods, and the women soon realize that Sofia might not be who they thought she was at all. And that whoever—or whatever—killed her is coming after them.]]> 433 Mallory Pearson 1662515405 Maitland 2
I found that the writing style, which started off promisingly, became a bit overwhelming for my taste. I love me some purple prose but something about this rubbed me the wrong way. I believe there's a rich talent behind the words, and it might resonate more with other readers!

Please try for yourself and don't let my review deter you!]]> 3.41 2024
author: Mallory Pearson
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/01/17
shelves:
review:
Thank you to the author for sending me an early copy to review. I will not be tagging them in any of my reviews because despite my anticipation of this novel, I was unable to really attach to the story.

I found that the writing style, which started off promisingly, became a bit overwhelming for my taste. I love me some purple prose but something about this rubbed me the wrong way. I believe there's a rich talent behind the words, and it might resonate more with other readers!

Please try for yourself and don't let my review deter you!
]]> 181977823 Millicent Foxboro is haunted.

Not by ghosts but by the anguish of her past and the uncertainty of her future. After all, even in the progressive year of 1928, most people would balk at hiring a woman who’d spent two months in a mental ward for traumatic amnesia. So when an uncommon assistantship to a reclusive Professor of mythology falls into her lap with an ungodly salary attached, her desperation for stability overrides her cautious nature.

To Millie’s dismay, the widowed Professor Callum Hughes and his estate, Willowfield, are more than she bargained for. The once magnificent home, known for its sprawling gardens and dazzling parties, is falling to pieces after the death of the professor’s fragile wife. What’s more, the staff has been reduced to the only three people not frightened away by rumors of ghosts, leaving the halls empty and languishing in bitter memories.

The professor himself is a grim, intense man with unclear expectations, unpredictable moods, and hungry eyes that ignite Millie’s own dormant passions. The closer she finds herself drawn to Professor Hughes and his strange world of flowers and folklore, the more the house closes in, threatening to reveal her secrets. But the professor is keeping secrets of his own and the most dangerous of all is hers to discover.]]> 239 Bea Northwick Maitland 2
The story is if Jane Eyre / Rebecca had a spicy baby...but with not as good of writing. Despite my finishing the book and thoroughly enjoying the certain "sex*ions of the story. I felt the writing was at the same time plain and trying too hard. I felt there was a lot of unnecessary repetition of setting descriptions, etc.

The gothic "mystery" of it all was for me easy to figure out. Bea Northwick left some very overt crumbs throughout. I took a note at Chapter 6 stating what the twist was. So the mystery didn't drive me through the story. I just was interested to see how it was resolved. That being said there was an secondary plot twist at the end regarding the "villain" of the story and I didn't guess that one but I found it to be a little flat and not as convincing. It seems kind of thrown in to me.

Despite my criticisms, I was entertained and you should definitely give it a try yourself. It was definitely spicy and the gothic elements were fun!]]> 4.37 2023
author: Bea Northwick
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2023/09/20
date added: 2024/01/09
shelves:
review:
Thank you to Netgalley & Northwick books for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

The story is if Jane Eyre / Rebecca had a spicy baby...but with not as good of writing. Despite my finishing the book and thoroughly enjoying the certain "sex*ions of the story. I felt the writing was at the same time plain and trying too hard. I felt there was a lot of unnecessary repetition of setting descriptions, etc.

The gothic "mystery" of it all was for me easy to figure out. Bea Northwick left some very overt crumbs throughout. I took a note at Chapter 6 stating what the twist was. So the mystery didn't drive me through the story. I just was interested to see how it was resolved. That being said there was an secondary plot twist at the end regarding the "villain" of the story and I didn't guess that one but I found it to be a little flat and not as convincing. It seems kind of thrown in to me.

Despite my criticisms, I was entertained and you should definitely give it a try yourself. It was definitely spicy and the gothic elements were fun!
]]> 62337093 A ballerina unsure of what to do next with her art and her life, an ancient sleeping knight awakened from stone by a tipsy kiss.
A ballerina at odds with her art unlocks her destiny with a careless, tipsy kiss. Deep in stone, an ancient sleeping knight awakens. Can he protect his newfound mate, or will their fated pas de deux end in tragedy?

Half-muse Talia lives her life with one pointe shoe in the studio, and one gardening boot in the greenhouse. While dance was once her refuge, she’s beginning to waver. An impulsive, post-performance kiss disrupts her life's tidy choreography with an unexpected Gavotte, a hulking gargoyle-shaped shadow who insists he’s her destined mate.

When a fellow ballerina goes missing and a demigod threatens Talia, she's forced to flee the city for her small-town home. Gavotte insists on following in her wake as a protector, with a promise to keep his hands - and his claws - to himself...as long as Talia does, too.]]> 282 Winona Batt Maitland 3 3.70
author: Winona Batt
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.70
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2023/10/06
date added: 2024/01/09
shelves:
review:
This was a sweet, all vibes, mildly thrilling plot-lined monster romance between a gargoyle and a half-muse ballerina. Gavotte was the gold retriever, himbo gargoyle of my dreams. He’s really what stole the show. He was *hard* not to love. I loved the ballet plot line as well as the fantastical thriller aspect. The spice was top tier.
]]> 75668288 The heart is a battlefield.

All Talasyn has ever known is the Hurricane Wars. Growing up an orphan in a nation under siege by the ruthless Night Emperor, Talasyn has found her family among the soldiers who fight for freedom. But she is hiding a deadly secret: light magic courses through her veins, a blazing power believed to have been wiped out years ago that can cut through the Night Empire's shadows.

Prince Alaric, the emperor's only son and heir, has been forged into a weapon by his father. Tasked with obliterating any threats to the Night Empire's rule with the strength of his armies and mighty Shadow magic, Alaric has never been bested. That is until he sees Talasyn burning brightly on the battlefield with the magic that killed his grandfather, turned his father into a monster, and ignited the Hurricane Wars. In a clash of light and dark, their powers merge and create a force the likes of which has never been seen.

Talasyn and Alaric both know this war can only end with them. But a greater threat is coming, and the strange new magic they can create together could be the only way to overcome it. Thrust into an uneasy alliance, they will confront the secrets at the heart of the war and find, in each other, a searing passion--one that could save their world...or destroy it.

An exquisite fantasy brimming with unforgettable characters, sizzling enemies-to-lovers romance, and richly drawn worlds, The Hurricane Wars marks the breathtaking debut of an extraordinary new writer.]]> 472 Thea Guanzon 0063277271 Maitland 3

First off this was an entertaining sci-fi/fantasy. Did I know it was basically REYLO fan fiction to start? No, but that part added to my enjoyment. Overall I really enjoyed the story but there were a few things that I didn't really enjoy.

I found myself really trudging through the first almost 10 chapters of the book. I usually DNF well before then if I am feeling disconnected but I was very interested in the world and where the plot was going to lead after a VERY big event abruptly ends at the beginning.

The dialogue and writing were at times juvenile and I either reacted with a cringe or a giggle. As I finished it obviously I found it more charming than annoying.

I got extremely frustrated with the two main characters at times but maybe it's because I don't read a *whole lot* of slow burn. Some of their choices didn't make sense...even from an enemies to lovers point of view.

But all that being said I will be reading the next installment! I am curious to see where the story goes and how the enemies continue to become "lovers."]]> 3.65 2023
author: Thea Guanzon
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/10/04
date added: 2024/01/09
shelves:
review:
Thank you to Harper Voyager & Netgalley for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review!


First off this was an entertaining sci-fi/fantasy. Did I know it was basically REYLO fan fiction to start? No, but that part added to my enjoyment. Overall I really enjoyed the story but there were a few things that I didn't really enjoy.

I found myself really trudging through the first almost 10 chapters of the book. I usually DNF well before then if I am feeling disconnected but I was very interested in the world and where the plot was going to lead after a VERY big event abruptly ends at the beginning.

The dialogue and writing were at times juvenile and I either reacted with a cringe or a giggle. As I finished it obviously I found it more charming than annoying.

I got extremely frustrated with the two main characters at times but maybe it's because I don't read a *whole lot* of slow burn. Some of their choices didn't make sense...even from an enemies to lovers point of view.

But all that being said I will be reading the next installment! I am curious to see where the story goes and how the enemies continue to become "lovers."
]]> 161942909 A heartwarming, feel-good fantasy romance…with a helping of spice and only a pinch of danger.

Trapped in a tower by the emperor who conquered her homeland, Daella yearns for an escape. But as one of the few half-orcs left in the world, she knows she’ll never be free, much less find her own happily ever after.

Destiny takes an unexpected turn when the emperor offers her a deal. To earn her freedom, she must journey to the mysterious Isles of Fable and track down wielders of outlawed dragon magic. Eager to seize her chance, Daella agrees.

When a brutal storm tosses her ship off course, she washes up on the wrong island—right at the feet of Rivelin, a gruff but handsome elven blacksmith, who seems more likely to stab her than help her. To her surprise, he offers her shelter until the next ship passes through in six weeks�� time.

Daella soon realizes he’s hiding something big. It could be the very magic she’s been tasked to hunt down—the key to her long-awaited freedom. But as they bicker over the flames of his forge, her heart kindles with something she’s never felt before.

When his secrets finally come to light, Daella must decide what’s more her freedom from the wicked crown or the desires of her heart.

Forged by Magic is a complete, stand-alone fantasy romance novel set in the whimsical world of Falling for Fables.]]> 310 Jenna Wolfhart Maitland 3 3.85 2023
author: Jenna Wolfhart
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/30
date added: 2024/01/09
shelves:
review:

]]> 198667110
But when she arrives at the Christmas tree farm and ranch he grew up on, she meets his father—the crazy tall, built, golden retriever cowboy who tells her girls all about the magic of the stupid elf on a shelf.

Of course, when she later corners him and tells him thanks a lot for nothing and that she’s way too overwhelmed to have to deal with yet another responsibility, he feels terrible.

So terrible, he finds himself driving two hours every night just to deliver an elf, move him about, and create some Christmas magic for her girls.

But what happens when he decides meeting her the way he did was some kind of Christmas miracle, and he needs to convince Shae to give him a shot?]]> 294 Morgan Elizabeth Maitland 3 4.04 2023
author: Morgan Elizabeth
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/12/03
date added: 2024/01/09
shelves:
review:

]]> 62315839 An epic, sweeping historical debut novel spanning continents and a century, and how one act of survival can reverberate through generations.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Pirbhai, a teenage boy looking for work, is taken from his village in India to labor on the East African Railway for the British. One day Pirbhai commits an act to ensure his survival that will haunt him forever and reverberate across his family's future for years to come.

Pirbhai's children are born and raised under the jacaranda trees and searing sun of Kampala during the waning days of British colonial rule. As Uganda moves towards independence and military dictatorship, Pirbhai's granddaughters, Latika, Mayuri, and Kiya, are three sisters coming of age in a divided nation. As they each forge their own path for a future, they must carry the silence of the history they've inherited. In 1972, under Idi Amin's brutal regime and the South Asian expulsion, the family has no choice but to flee, and in the chaos, they leave something devastating behind.

As Pirbhai's grandchildren, scattered across the world, find their way back to each other in exile in Toronto, a letter arrives that stokes the flames of the fire that haunts the family. It makes each generation question how far they are willing to go, and who they are willing to defy to secure their own place in the world.

A History of Burning is an unforgettable tour de force, an intimate family saga of complicity and resistance, about the stories we share, the ones that remain unspoken, and the eternal search for home.]]> 400 Janika Oza 1538724243 Maitland 0 to-read 4.12 2023
author: Janika Oza
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 123179008
For the first time in her life, Clementine “Emmy�� Ryder has no idea what she’s doing. She’s accomplished everything on her to-do list. She left her small hometown of Meadowlark, Wyoming; went to college; and made a career for herself by doing her favorite thing: riding horses. But after an accident makes it impossible for her to get back into the saddle, she has no choice but to return to the hometown she always wanted to escape.

Luke Brooks is Meadowlark’s most notorious bad boy, bar owner, and bachelor. He’s also the unofficial fifth member of the Ryder family. As Emmy’s older brother’s best friend, Luke spent most of his childhood antagonizing her. It’s been years since he’s seen her, but when she walks into his bar and back into his life, he ������’t take his eyes off her. Despite his better judgment, he wants to do a whole lot more than just look at her.

Emmy’s got too much on her mind to think about romance. And Luke knows he should stay away from his best friend’s younger sister. But what if Luke is just what Emmy needs to get her spark back? Or will they both go up in flames?]]> 356 Lyla Sage Maitland 4 3.82 2023
author: Lyla Sage
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/01
date added: 2023/12/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 195790847 A dark retelling of the Brothers Grimm's Goose Girl, rife with secrets, murder, and forbidden magic

Cordelia knows her mother is unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms, and her mother doesn't allow Cordelia to have a single friend—unless you count Falada, her mother's beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him. But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don’t force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren’t sorcerers.

After a suspicious death in their small town, Cordelia’s mother insists they leave in the middle of the night, riding away on Falada’s sturdy back, leaving behind all Cordelia has ever known. They arrive at the remote country manor of a wealthy older man, the Squire, and his unwed sister, Hester. Cordelia’s mother intends to lure the Squire into marriage, and Cordelia knows this can only be bad news for the bumbling gentleman and his kind, intelligent sister.

Hester sees the way Cordelia shrinks away from her mother, how the young girl sits eerily still at dinner every night. Hester knows that to save her brother from bewitchment and to rescue the terrified Cordelia, she will have to face down a wicked witch of the worst kind.]]> 327 T. Kingfisher 1250244072 Maitland 0 to-read 4.06 2024
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 157666174 'Joelle Taylor has a Midas touch with words' Diana Souhami

The tattoo was a reclamation, a flag we mounted in the centre of our own landscape.

A woman walks into a tattoo parlour. But this is no ordinary woman, and this is Hackney in 2233.

Jones' body is covered in tattoos but she wants to add one final inking to her gallery - a thin line of ink mixed with blood that connects her body art together, creating a unique map. As the two artists set to work, Jones tells them the story behind each tattoo. As Jones is no ordinary woman, these are no ordinary tattoos: each one represents a doorway to a life Jones fell into, a 'remembering'. Some of these lives were in the past, others in the future, some are sideways, but each of them connects Jones to the two tattoo artists in some way, though they are unaware of it.

We visit the dystopian cities of the Quiet Men, the coal mines of 19th century Lancashire, join a gang of vigilante sex workers, enter the world of an INCEL murderer, haunt the old Maryville gay bar, and uncover plans to genetically modify female children. Each of the stories brings us closer to Jones' truth, and how her life is intricately interwoven with that of the women tattooing her body.

Set across geographies and timespans, The Night Alphabet is a dazzlingly bold and original work, a deep investigation into human nature and violence against women.]]> 432 Joelle Taylor 152943095X Maitland 0 to-read 4.09
author: Joelle Taylor
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.09
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 179780148
Instead of Ji-won's parents reuniting, however, her mother starts dating George, a Caucasian man with an obvious Asian fetish. Tormented by her dreams, Ji-won becomes obsessed with his beautiful blue eyes and begins noticing blue eyes all around her. No longer able to control her urges, she finds opportunities to feed her hunger, growing more and more reckless each day. And, as her obsession grows, so does her selfishness: the things that once seemed important to her no longer do, and Ji-won, who has always been hopelessly devoted to her family, decides that she must do the one thing that will end her cravings once and for all.

A brilliantly inventive, subversive novel about a young woman unravelling from feeling for too long - because of race, because of misogyny - completely unseen, THE EYES ARE THE BEST PART is also a story of an immigrant family falling apart and trying to find their way back to each other.]]> 288 Monika Kim 1914240863 Maitland 0 to-read 4.03 2024
author: Monika Kim
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 133286777 From the New York Times bestselling author of Ninth House, Hell Bent, and creator of the Grishaverse series comes a highly anticipated historical fantasy set during the Spanish Golden Age

In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to better the family's social position.

What begins as simple amusement for the bored nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain's king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada, the king is desperate for any advantage in the war against England's heretic queen—and Pérez will stop at nothing to regain the king's favor.

Determined to seize this one chance to better her fortunes, Luzia plunges into a world of seers and alchemists, holy men and hucksters, where the line between magic, science, and fraud is never certain. But as her notoriety grows, so does the danger that her Jewish blood will doom her to the Inquisition's wrath. She will have to use every bit of her wit and will to survive—even if that means enlisting the help of Guillén Santangel, an embittered immortal familiar whose own secrets could prove deadly for them both.]]> 387 Leigh Bardugo 125088425X Maitland 0 to-read 3.74 2024
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61884928 From Olivie Blake, the New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six comes Masters of Death, a story about vampires, ghosts, and death itself!

Viola Marek is a struggling real estate agent, and a vampire. But her biggest problem currently is that the house she needs to sell is haunted. The ghost haunting the house has been murdered, and until he can solve the mystery of how he died, he refuses to move on.

Fox D’Mora is a medium, and though is also most-definitely a shameless fraud, he isn’t entirely without his uses—seeing as he’s actually the godson of Death.

When Viola seeks out Fox to help her with her ghost-infested mansion, he becomes inextricably involved in a quest that neither he nor Vi expects (or wants). But with the help of an unruly poltergeist, a demonic personal trainer, a sharp-voiced angel, a love-stricken reaper, and a few high-functioning creatures, Vi and Fox soon discover the difference between a mysterious lost love and an annoying dead body isn’t nearly as distinct as they thought.]]> 384 Olivie Blake 1250892465 Maitland 5
This book was positively phenomenal. I felt all the emotions while reading it. This is a master (pun intended) class in interwoven storytelling and mystery. The overlapping of mythologies and theologies was incredibly provoking. There wasn’t a single character I didn’t like.

The prose was all at once sassy, humorous and sincere.

I really should take more time to gather my thoughts before posting reviews of books I so thoroughly enjoyed but it’s like I’m physically incapable of holding in my love of the book for long after I’ve finished it.

I will have to reread this book to find all the ways which it hinted at its ending throughout.

If you haven’t read Masters of Death yet or read a book by Olivie Blake? My god start here. It’s sublime.

Death, Fox, Brandt, Vi, Tom and all the rest��.you just HAVE to meet them.

It was fucking fab. (*pops rubber band*)]]> 3.77 2018
author: Olivie Blake
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/29
date added: 2023/11/11
shelves:
review:
I am going to tell you NOTHING of the plot of this story because I went into only having read the inner synopsis and that was a wonderful choice.

This book was positively phenomenal. I felt all the emotions while reading it. This is a master (pun intended) class in interwoven storytelling and mystery. The overlapping of mythologies and theologies was incredibly provoking. There wasn’t a single character I didn’t like.

The prose was all at once sassy, humorous and sincere.

I really should take more time to gather my thoughts before posting reviews of books I so thoroughly enjoyed but it’s like I’m physically incapable of holding in my love of the book for long after I’ve finished it.

I will have to reread this book to find all the ways which it hinted at its ending throughout.

If you haven’t read Masters of Death yet or read a book by Olivie Blake? My god start here. It’s sublime.

Death, Fox, Brandt, Vi, Tom and all the rest��.you just HAVE to meet them.

It was fucking fab. (*pops rubber band*)
]]> 123257687
ASSISTANT WANTED: Notorious, high-ranking villain seeks loyal, levelheaded assistant for unspecified office duties, supporting staff for random mayhem and terror, and other Dark Things In General. Discretion a must. Excellent benefits.

With ailing family to support, Evie Sage's employment status isn't just important, it's vital. So when a mishap with Rennedawn’s most infamous Villain results in a job offer―naturally, she says yes. No job is perfect, of course, but even less so when you develop a teeny crush on your terrifying, temperamental, and undeniably hot boss. Don’t find evil so attractive, Evie.

But just when she’s getting used to severed heads suspended from the ceiling and the odd squish of an errant eyeball beneath her heel, Evie suspects this dungeon has a huge rat…and not just the literal kind. Because something rotten is growing in the kingdom of Rennedawn, and someone wants to take the Villain―and his entire nefarious empire―out.

Now Evie must not only resist drooling over her boss but also figure out exactly who is sabotaging his work…and ensure he makes them pay.

After all, a good job is hard to find.]]> 342 Hannah Nicole Maehrer 1649375808 Maitland 4
I feel like this is a guilty pleasure book. I am embarrassed to admit just how much I enjoyed it…loved it rather.

I don’t really know how to write a review because critically it had a lot of faults but emotionally it was such fun. It had very B fantasy movie, Ella Enchanted vibes. I think that’s what had me hooked. It didn’t take itself too seriously, in my opinion (despite having serious elements).

I don’t know how to recommend this book because it is DEFINITELY not for everyone. I think you should just give it a try if you haven’t. It might hook you like it did me.

It ended on a cliffhanger of sorts which was frustrating because I have to wait for a sequel…]]> 3.88 2023
author: Hannah Nicole Maehrer
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/20
date added: 2023/11/11
shelves:
review:
�� This book was so bad it was good. ��

I feel like this is a guilty pleasure book. I am embarrassed to admit just how much I enjoyed it…loved it rather.

I don’t really know how to write a review because critically it had a lot of faults but emotionally it was such fun. It had very B fantasy movie, Ella Enchanted vibes. I think that’s what had me hooked. It didn’t take itself too seriously, in my opinion (despite having serious elements).

I don’t know how to recommend this book because it is DEFINITELY not for everyone. I think you should just give it a try if you haven’t. It might hook you like it did me.

It ended on a cliffhanger of sorts which was frustrating because I have to wait for a sequel��
]]> 63361489 "A YA fantasy classic in the making." - Charlie Lynn Herman, author of The Devouring Gray

"Fans of Leigh Bardugo's "Grisha Trilogy" and Marie Rutkoski's "Winner's Trilogy" have been waiting for this Darkling-esque romance..." - School Library Journal (Starred Review)

New York Times bestselling author Allison Saft's Down Comes the Night is a snow-drenched romantic fantasy that keeps you racing through the pages long into the night.

He saw the darkness in her magic. She saw the magic in his darkness.

Wren Southerland's reckless use of magic has cost her everything: she's been dismissed from the Queen's Guard and separated from her best friend--the girl she loves. So when a letter arrives from a reclusive lord, asking Wren to come to his estate, Colwick Hall, to cure his servant from a mysterious illness, she seizes her chance to redeem herself.

The mansion is crumbling, icy winds haunt the caved-in halls, and her eccentric host forbids her from leaving her room after dark. Worse, Wren's patient isn't a servant at all but Hal Cavendish, the infamous Reaper of Vesria and her kingdom's sworn enemy. Hal also came to Colwick Hall for redemption, but the secrets in the estate may lead to both of their deaths.

With sinister forces at work, Wren and Hal realize they'll have to join together if they have any hope of saving their kingdoms. But as Wren circles closer to the nefarious truth behind Hal's illness, they realize they have no escape from the monsters within the mansion. All they have is each other, and a startling desire that could be their downfall.

Love makes monsters of us all ]]> 400 Allison Saft 1250289858 Maitland 4
This is the most true enemies to lovers that I have ever read and I’ve read a LOT of enemies to lovers.

(Minor spoilers) There was no insta-love. The characters had actual restorative conversations…they healed each other physically (don’t get gross on me, legit medical healing) and mentally.

They both have similar trauma and the way they navigate that and their budding romance all while the main storyline progresses is *CHEFS KISS*.

I could go into HEAVY detail about how much I enjoyed Wren as a main character. She spoke to my soul. As an “overly emotional�� person, her grappling with her place in the world and the impact her emotions have on it was such an impactful journey to be apart of.

And don’t get me started on Hal. He is my sweet little dark redemption prince. I will protect him with my life.
]]> 3.81 2021
author: Allison Saft
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/10
date added: 2023/11/11
shelves:
review:
This gothic romantasy crept up on me in a slow seductive way. I went into it thinking it’d be a fun little gothic romance standalone read but BAM there I go crying the last quarter of the book.

This is the most true enemies to lovers that I have ever read and I’ve read a LOT of enemies to lovers.

(Minor spoilers) There was no insta-love. The characters had actual restorative conversations…they healed each other physically (don’t get gross on me, legit medical healing) and mentally.

They both have similar trauma and the way they navigate that and their budding romance all while the main storyline progresses is *CHEFS KISS*.

I could go into HEAVY detail about how much I enjoyed Wren as a main character. She spoke to my soul. As an “overly emotional�� person, her grappling with her place in the world and the impact her emotions have on it was such an impactful journey to be apart of.

And don’t get me started on Hal. He is my sweet little dark redemption prince. I will protect him with my life.

]]> 59576076
São vizinhos, e vivem num complexo habitacional de baixo custo em Vacca Vale, cidade em decadência. É a partir deste lugar inóspito que Tess Gunty conduz o leitor numa invulgar viagem pelo desconcerto do espírito humano, pelas grandes doenças sociais e pelo alcance incomensurável da imaginação. Uma estreia literária arrebatadora, que inscreve Tess Gunty na linhagem do Grande Romance Americano.]]> 399 Tess Gunty Maitland 4
]]> 3.50 2022
author: Tess Gunty
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/09
date added: 2023/11/11
shelves:
review:
This was such a surreal reading experience. The different perspectives, modes of writing and overall plot line were so unique and intriguing. I really need to gather my thoughts more about it.


]]> 127653952 From bestselling author and TikTok sensation A.K. Mulford comes the first riveting, enchanting book in the all-new Golden Court romantasy trilogy��A River of Golden Bones begins a journey of self-discovery, romance, and adventure for a young heir as she/they comes out of hiding to save her sister from a malicious, powerful sorceress and her dangerous sleeping curse.

A sleeping curse. A fallen court. A secret twin.

Twins Calla and Briar have spent their entire lives hiding from the powerful sorceress who destroyed their kingdom…and from the humans who don’t know they are Wolves. Each twin has their own purpose in life: Briar’s is to marry the prince of an ally pack and save the Golden Court. Calla’s purpose is to remain a secret, her twin’s shadow . . . the backup plan.

No one knows who Calla truly is except for her childhood friend—and sister’s betrothed—the distractingly handsome Prince Grae. But when Calla and Briar journey out of hiding for Briar’s wedding, all of their well-made plans go awry. The evil sorceress is back with another sleeping curse for the last heir to the Golden Court.

Calla must step out of the shadows to save their sister, their kingdom, and their own legacy. Continuing to hide as a human and denying who she truly is, Calla embarks on a quest across the realm, discovering a whole world she never knew existed. Outside the confines of rigid Wolf society, Calla begins to wonder: who could she be if she dared to try?

Full of adventure, love, gender exploration, and self-discovery, A River of Golden Bones follows Calla’s journey through treacherous Wolf kingdoms, monster-filled realms, and the depths of their own heart in this thrilling romantic fantasy.]]> 379 A.K. Mulford 0063291428 Maitland 4
I have been a fan of AK Mulford since before they were picked up by HC. (Shout out to #AKSMOUNTAINEERS!)
Anyways, I knew going into this book that it would be a well thought out romantasy with a lovable cast of characters, a unique plot line and exquisite representation. The pacing was on target. The character development was intriguing. Despite the main plot of this book being Calla's story to defeat a sorceress and save their twin, Calla's journey of self discovery was probably the the loveliest part of the story. Calla & Ora's interactions were like warm hugs. Through all this, Calla is fighting patriarchal tradition, prejudices and oppression.

Calla is such a multidimensional character. The cast of characters that were supporting Calla's journey were so entertaining and I am left wanting more! (Hopefully we get more background info on them in the next books)]]> 3.76 2023
author: A.K. Mulford
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/10
date added: 2023/11/11
shelves:
review:
Thank you to Harper Collins & NetGalley for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review!

I have been a fan of AK Mulford since before they were picked up by HC. (Shout out to #AKSMOUNTAINEERS!)
Anyways, I knew going into this book that it would be a well thought out romantasy with a lovable cast of characters, a unique plot line and exquisite representation. The pacing was on target. The character development was intriguing. Despite the main plot of this book being Calla's story to defeat a sorceress and save their twin, Calla's journey of self discovery was probably the the loveliest part of the story. Calla & Ora's interactions were like warm hugs. Through all this, Calla is fighting patriarchal tradition, prejudices and oppression.

Calla is such a multidimensional character. The cast of characters that were supporting Calla's journey were so entertaining and I am left wanting more! (Hopefully we get more background info on them in the next books)
]]> 123288408 The Devil knows your name, David Aristarkhov.

As a teen, David Aristarkhov was a psychic prodigy, operating under the shadow of his oppressive occultist father. Now, years after his father’s death and rapidly approaching his thirtieth birthday, he is content with the high-powered life he’s curated as a Boston attorney, moonlighting as a powerful medium for his secret society.

But with power comes a price, and the Devil has come to collect on an ancestral deal. David’s days are numbered, and death looms at his door.

Reluctantly, he reaches out to the only person he’s ever trusted, his ex-boyfriend and secret Society rival Rhys, for help. However, the only way to get to Rhys is through his wife, Moira. Thrust into each other’s care, emotions once buried deep resurface, and the trio race to figure out their feelings for one another before the Devil steals David away for good��

The first book in a spellbinding and vibrant new series from The Sunday Times bestselling author of A Dowry of Blood. ]]> 301 S.T. Gibson 191520268X Maitland 0 to-read 3.61 2024
author: S.T. Gibson
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58446244 A spellbinding story about two girls whose friendship is so intense it not only threatens to destroy them, it changes the trajectory of history.

Marie Antoine is the charismatic, spoiled daughter of a sugar baron. At 12 years old, with her blond curls and her unparalleled sense of whimsey, she's the leader of all the children in the Golden Mile, an affluent strip of 19th century Montreal. Until one day in 1873, when Sadie Arnett, dark-haired, sly, and brilliant, moves to the neighborhood.

Marie and Sadie are immediately united by their passion and intensity, and they attract and repel each other in ways that light each of them on fire. Marie with her bubbly charm sees the light and sweetness of the world, whereas Sadie's obsession with darkness is all consuming. Soon their childlike games take on a thrill of danger and then become deadly.

Forced to separate, they spend their teenage years engaged in acts of alternating innocence and depravity--until a singular event unites them once more, with dizzying effects. And after Marie inherits her father's sugar empire and Sadie disappears into the city's gritty underworld, a revolution of the working class begins to foment. Each of them will have unexpected roles to play in events that upend their city--the only question is whether they will find each other once more.

Traveling from a repressive finishing school to a vibrant brothel, taking readers firsthand into the brutality of factory life and the opulent lives of Montreal's wealthy, When We Lost Our Heads dazzlingly explores gender and power, sex and desire, class and status, and the terrifying power of the human heart when it can't let someone go.]]> 448 Heather O'Neill 0593422902 Maitland 0 to-read 3.94 2022
author: Heather O'Neill
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 123242839
Not anymore. Xiomara Chavez has dedicated her life to the preservation of her Mexican homeland. Out of hundreds of applications, she alone was selected to lead the creation of the Bunchberry Tribal Museum. Faced with her most remote project ever, Xiomara must rely on the help of Calehan, the aloof museum architect. Sparks fly in the archives as Xiomara struggles to refrain from dating in the workplace.

Tight-lipped Calehan Yellowbird has been tethered to Bunchberry, Canada for a thousand years. After the loss of his mother as a teen, Calehan has been providing for his family more than half his life. While he earned his architecture degree nearly a decade ago, the Bunchberry Museum would be his first official project. The pressure was immense, and Calehan felt the pressure of this project being his first…and last. Romance and dreams weren’t in the cards for someone like him. For Xiomara though, he was willing to take the chance.

Thrown among ancient artifacts, shooting stars, and cultural obligations, Calehan and Xiomara must decide if they belong to each other or if the responsibility to their tribes and families are where they must be.]]> 266 Dani Trujillo Maitland 0 to-read 3.94 2023
author: Dani Trujillo
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60151826 I'm A Fan, a single speaker uses the story of their experience in a seemingly unequal, unfaithful relationship as a prism through which to examine the complicated hold we each have on one another. With a clear and unforgiving eye, the narrator unpicks the behaviour of all involved, herself included, and makes startling connections between the power struggles at the heart of human relationships and those of the wider world, in turn offering a devastating critique of access, social media, patriarchal hetero-normative relationships, and our cultural obsession with status and how that status is conveyed.

In this incredible debut, Sheena Patel announces herself as a vital new voice in literature, capable of rendering a range of emotions and visceral experiences on the page. Sex, violence, politics, tenderness, humour—Patel handles them all with both originality and dexterity of voice.]]> 207 Sheena Patel Maitland 0 to-read 3.28 2022
author: Sheena Patel
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 75302266 Angharad—Emrys Myrddin’s epic about a mortal girl who falls in love with the Fairy King, then destroys him—is the only thing keeping her afloat. So when Myrddin’s family announces a contest to redesign the late author’s estate, Effy feels certain it’s her destiny.

But musty, decrepit Hiraeth Manor is an impossible task, and its residents are far from welcoming. Including Preston Héloury, a stodgy young literature scholar determined to expose Myrddin as a fraud. As the two rivals piece together clues about Myrddin’s legacy, dark forces, both mortal and magical, conspire against them—and the truth may bring them both to ruin.]]> 378 Ava Reid 0063211505 Maitland 5
I have read all Ava Reid’s works and I can say that this one easily has become one of my favorites.

There are times when I’m writing reviews in which I am more eloquent than others and my literature masters�� self comes out but I ������’t seem to fully grasp how to explain how much and what I liked about this book. I’ll probably come back later with a more concise review but for how here are the incoherent thoughts:

Despite the “modern�� aspects to this story (cars, phones) it felt historic, folkloric and truly magical. The dark gothic academia setting was truly marvelous. The mirroring of Effy’s (the MC) story and the MC in her favorite novel was a lovely plot device for me �� especially when considering the great “mystery�� of the story. (No spoilers)

Ava’s descriptions of the magical instances and the settings coupled with the character interactions was hauntingly wondrous. I even appreciated the difference in cadence and pacing this book has compared to their other works (which makes sense considering it’s YA). I LOVE absolutely LOVE a creepy house and things that aren’t quite right. The history in the story behind the house and how that unfolds really pulled my attention. Gothic houses and fairy tales = a happy MK.

For the characters: I could go into heavy detail about how much I adored Preston & Effy’s interactions but I won’t because I do not want to spoil it for anyone who reads it. I could also describe how sorrowful Ianto’s character made me feel too…but I’ll let you discover for yourself.

I wish words weren’t failing me because this story was truly something magical to me.

Ava Reid’s writing is something special.]]> 3.73 2023
author: Ava Reid
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/04/25
date added: 2023/11/04
shelves:
review:
Thank you to HarperTeen & NetGalley for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

I have read all Ava Reid’s works and I can say that this one easily has become one of my favorites.

There are times when I’m writing reviews in which I am more eloquent than others and my literature masters�� self comes out but I ������’t seem to fully grasp how to explain how much and what I liked about this book. I’ll probably come back later with a more concise review but for how here are the incoherent thoughts:

Despite the “modern�� aspects to this story (cars, phones) it felt historic, folkloric and truly magical. The dark gothic academia setting was truly marvelous. The mirroring of Effy’s (the MC) story and the MC in her favorite novel was a lovely plot device for me �� especially when considering the great “mystery�� of the story. (No spoilers)

Ava’s descriptions of the magical instances and the settings coupled with the character interactions was hauntingly wondrous. I even appreciated the difference in cadence and pacing this book has compared to their other works (which makes sense considering it’s YA). I LOVE absolutely LOVE a creepy house and things that aren’t quite right. The history in the story behind the house and how that unfolds really pulled my attention. Gothic houses and fairy tales = a happy MK.

For the characters: I could go into heavy detail about how much I adored Preston & Effy’s interactions but I won’t because I do not want to spoil it for anyone who reads it. I could also describe how sorrowful Ianto’s character made me feel too…but I’ll let you discover for yourself.

I wish words weren’t failing me because this story was truly something magical to me.

Ava Reid’s writing is something special.
]]> 35412372 Freshwater explores the surreal experience of having a fractured self. It centers around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves within her as a result of being born "with one foot on the other side." Unsettling, heartwrenching, dark, and powerful, Freshwater is a sharp evocation of a rare way of experiencing the world, one that illuminates how we all construct our identities.

Ada begins her life in the south of Nigeria as a troubled baby and a source of deep concern to her family. Her parents, Saul and Saachi, successfully prayed her into existence, but as she grows into a volatile and splintered child, it becomes clear that something went terribly awry. When Ada comes of age and moves to America for college, the group of selves within her grows in power and agency. A traumatic assault leads to a crystallization of her alternate selves: Asụghara and Saint Vincent. As Ada fades into the background of her own mind and these selves--now protective, now hedonistic--move into control, Ada's life spirals in a dark and dangerous direction.

Narrated by the various selves within Ada and based in the author's realities, Freshwater dazzles with ferocious energy and serpentine grace, heralding the arrival of a fierce new literary voice.]]> 229 Akwaeke Emezi 0802127355 Maitland 0 to-read 4.03 2018
author: Akwaeke Emezi
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199271100 Olivia Atwater returns to the world of Half a Soul. Dive into The Witchwood Knot, and enjoy a dark faerie tale set in a magical version of Victorian England.

The faeries of Witchwood Manor have stolen its young lord. His governess intends to steal him back.

Victorian governess Winifred Hall knows a con when she sees one. When her bratty young charge transforms overnight into a perfectly behaved block of wood, she soon realises that the real boy has been abducted by the Fair Folk. Unfortunately, the lord of Witchwood Manor is the only man in England who doesn’t believe in faeries—which leaves Winnie in the unenviable position of rescuing the young lord-to-be all by herself.

Witchwood Manor is bigger than its inhabitants realise, however, and full of otherworldly dangers. As Winnie delves deeper into the other side of the house, she enlists the aid of its dark and dubious faerie butler, Mr Quincy, who hides several awful secrets behind his charming smile. Winnie hopes to make her way to the centre of the Witchwood Knot through wit and cleverness�� but when all of her usual tricks fail, who will she dare to trust?]]> 330 Olivia Atwater 1778271391 Maitland 4
I was so thrilled to receive this e-arc. I love Olivia Atwater's style of writing it is both cozy and eerily atmospheric in the best way. This gothic fantasy follows Winnie as she works as a "governess" at a manor beset by a curse. Everything is not as it seems including Winnie.

I don't want to include any spoilers in my review but I will say the way Winnie regained her agency in the novel as well as Mr. Quincy doing the same was so perfectly executed. I found the plot "twists" to be enjoyable and I didn't guess them immediately as I usually do.

Mr. Quincy is a terror with a rat tail and I love him.

I can't wait to see where this series goes!]]> 4.13 2023
author: Olivia Atwater
name: Maitland
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/10/30
shelves:
review:
Thank you to Netgalley and Starwatch Press for the digital galley in exchange for my honest review!

I was so thrilled to receive this e-arc. I love Olivia Atwater's style of writing it is both cozy and eerily atmospheric in the best way. This gothic fantasy follows Winnie as she works as a "governess" at a manor beset by a curse. Everything is not as it seems including Winnie.

I don't want to include any spoilers in my review but I will say the way Winnie regained her agency in the novel as well as Mr. Quincy doing the same was so perfectly executed. I found the plot "twists" to be enjoyable and I didn't guess them immediately as I usually do.

Mr. Quincy is a terror with a rat tail and I love him.

I can't wait to see where this series goes!
]]> 57693584
A dark romance exposing the gaps in American identity politics, especially when exported overseas, If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English is at once ravishing and wry, scathing and tender. Told in alternating perspectives, Noor Naga’s experimental debut examines the ethics of fetishizing the homeland and punishing the beloved . . . and vice versa. In our globalized twenty-first-century world, what are the new faces (and races) of empire? When the revolution fails, how long can someone survive the disappointment? Who suffers and, more crucially, who gets to tell about it?]]> 186 Noor Naga 164445081X Maitland 0 to-read 3.95 2022
author: Noor Naga
name: Maitland
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>