Tag: NetGalley

Review: Redemption’s Edge by Alyssa Day

Published on by Amanda

5 / 5 Stars!

This is a thrilling conclusion to the Vampire Motorcycle Club series!

We get this story from the perspectives of Meara and Edge. Meara is a 300-year-old vampire, and Edge is the newer addition to their family turned by her brother Bane. He’s a scientist who spent time captured and experimented on by the chamber. Though it takes place before this book, it greatly affects him as a person, and has more consequences than anyone else was aware of. While Meara has spent her time mostly alone besides her brother, she has her own secret she’s been keeping.

I completely enjoyed this! Meara and Edge are both closed off for different reasons, so not as much of their emotions are spoken, but their chemistry is off the charts. They’re incredibly alike in their need to protect others and sacrifice themselves first for others. The action building their relationship and their search and fight with The Chamber built beautifully throughout the book. All of the characters were relatable and wonderful. I hope someday we get more of their stories.

This book can be read as a standalone, but you definitely miss out on a lot of the background with the Chamber, the other couples, and even the beginning to the romance between Meara and Edge, so I would read the others first.

I was lucky to receive an arc of this book from NetGalley and the publisher before release!

Book blurb from author’s website:

The sexy conclusion to the series readers are calling “Vampire Diaries for grown-ups” from New York Times bestselling author Alyssa Day.

Review: Legacy of Temptation by Larissa Ione

Published on by Amanda

5 / 5 Stars!

I needed this spark to go back to the Demonica series after 14 years!

Legacy of Temptation is a standalone in the new Demonica Birthright series by Larissa Ione. This series takes place after her Demonica and Horsemen series and is in the same world. I went into it basically with no background. I had read the first few books 14 years ago but remembered very little besides the basics. So much has changed!

This follows our heroine Eva, spokesperson and Guardian for The Aegis, the pro-human, anti-demon and supernatural agency. She’s sent with a select contingent to visit with the Demon Activity Response Team (DART). In theory it’s to learn to work together. In reality, it’s to spy. There she meets Logan, the human appearing son of the Horseman known as Death. We follow along as they get to know each other, though they are both supremely against the other agency, and of course sparks follow.

There is so much information in this book. Not being super familiar with this world, and not remembering or yet meeting so many of the characters from the other series’ books, there was a lot of catching up to do. That being said, I never got lost and stayed with the story. It was just a whole lot to wrap my head around, and so much happened! Ione has 16 years of this world’s development, so it is extensive.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and will continue it. I’ll also go back to the other series when I have time and catch up, but it’s a lot of books!

Thank you to #NetGalley for this #arc so that I could read this ahead of release! This book comes out February 6th!

Book blurb from author’s website:

Eva Tennant, like everyone at The Aegis, hates demons. But she loves her job as Deputy Spokesperson for the global demon-slaying organization, and she’s excited to be in the running for Chief Spokesperson. All she has to do is not screw up the two-week exchange program with The Aegis’s rival agency, the Demon Activity Response Team. But things go horribly wrong when a murder turns her into a fugitive from justice and puts a demonic target on her back.

Logan, son of the Horseman of the Apocalypse known as Death, has dedicated his life to fighting demons alongside his colleagues at DART. He loves fighting, females, and his pet hellhound, Cujo. What he doesn’t love is The Aegis, whose leadership attempted to slaughter him at birth. Understandably, he balks when he’s ordered to protect an Aegis Guardian responsible for the deaths of his friends. Really, he’d rather feed her to Cujo.

But when an old enemy rises from the ashes, Eva and Logan find themselves giving into temptation even as they sacrifice the things…and people…they love the most.

Review: City of Stardust by Georgia Summers

Published on by Amanda

Releasing tomorrow!

3.75 / 5 Stars

This book leaves me feeling very conflicted.

The premise is about the cursed Everly’s and how once a generation, an Everly goes missing.

The set up to the story is great. The prologue draws you in and sets the scene of uncovering what has plagued the Everly’s for generations.

This book reads like a movie. That’s the best way that I can think to describe it. It’s third person narration, but it’s not from any set point of few. It skips around from all the characters’ perspectives, so you know way more than the lead characters for most of the book. The majority of it is set from Violet Everly’s perspective, as she’s the one who is determined to find her mother and break their curse.

I often found myself not immersed in the book, because we would get the story moved along by another perspective while Violet was on her adventure, and we missed so much of her character’s development because of it. The same goes for Aleksander, though some of his development is explained a bit more later on in the book. Penelope, our villain, appears as evil incarnate, though some of that changes over time and when you see her compared to others like her.

This story is wrought with extremely flawed characters, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but there wasn’t much chance for redemption for those flaws, as the story just moved along. The ending I was rather expecting, yet not everything was set in stone, so you get to draw your own conclusions to a few things. I both like and dislike that equally.

There were some very unique things about this world, which I thoroughly enjoyed, I just wish that we learned more. Also, I found myself forgetting that I wasn’t reading a young adult book, because it felt like one the entire time.

I give this book more of a 3.75 but will round up to 4 on review sites, as I know there will be so many who truly love this book. It’s not entirely my cup of tea, but it’s not bad by any means.

Thank you NetGalley & OrbitBooks for providing me with an advanced reader copy!

Book blurb from Goodreads:

A young woman descends into a seductive magical underworld of power-hungry scholars, fickle gods and monsters bent on revenge to break her family’s curse in this spellbinding contemporary fantasy debut.

For centuries, generations of Everlys have seen their brightest and best disappear, taken as punishment for a crime no one remembers, for a purpose no one understands. Their tormentor, a woman named Penelope, never ages, never grows sick – and never forgives a debt.

Violet Everly was just a child when her mother Marianne vanished on a stormy night, determined to break the curse. And when Penelope cannot find her, she issues an Violet has ten years to find Marianne, or she will take her place. Violet is the last of the Everly line, the last to suffer from the curse. Unless she can break it first.

To do so, she must descend into a seductive magical underworld of power-hungry scholars, fickle gods and monsters bent on revenge. She must also contend with Penelope’s quiet assistant, Aleksander, who she knows cannot be trusted – and yet whose knowledge of a world beyond her own is too valuable to avoid.

Tied to a very literal deadline, Violet will travel the edges of the world to find Marianne and the key to the city of stardust, where the Everly story began.

Review: Faebound by Saara El-Arifi

Published on by Amanda

4 / 5 Stars!

Stories of the gods and elvish prophecies drive this book.

We follow the stories of Yeeran, an elvish colonel, and Lettle, her diviner sister, This begins as a very military fantasy, as we follow Yeeran through her first day as colonel of the Waning army during the Forever War. She’s given a prophecy by her sister, and in following it, she gets herself exiled.

Not wanting to be apart from her, Lettle and Yeeran’s captain Rayan follow her into exile. What they don’t expect is to encounter fae, who are just a part of their fairytales as far as most elves are concerned. They’re then drawn into the fae world and their lives are turned upside down.

I did enjoy this book. The unique world building, the different magic system, and the different worlds and cultures was very interesting. I just wish everything had been explored a little more.

I also really love the diverse cast of characters, the normalization of queer characters and different sexualities and viewpoints of relationships, and the representation of characters with disabilities that weren’t limited by those things. The hetero and sapphic romances were a breath of fresh air, though often felt more lust driven than deeper.

The story was rather slow in some parts, and that took me out of the book quite a bit. I really feel like the author was setting up for the next book in the series, and I hope that all this setup really shines through in the next book. I’m not sure if there were supposed to be big twists in this story, but to me it was all rather obvious how the prophesies would play out and how other events came to be.

Overall, I’m very happy that I read this, and loved a lot of the elements. It just missed the mark for me in being a truly amazing book. I have full confidence though, that it will find it’s perfect readers out there.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me the eARC before release!

Blurb from author’s website:

DIVIDED BY BLOOD. IMPRISONED BY FATE. BOUND BY DESIRE.

WELCOME TO THE INTOXICATING WORLD OF THE FAE.

Yeeran is a warrior in the elven army and has known nothing but violence her whole life. Her sister, Lettle, is trying to make a living as a diviner, seeking prophecies of a better future.

When a fatal mistake leads to Yeeran’s exile from the Elven lands, they are both forced into the terrifying wilderness beyond their borders. There they encounter the impossible: the fae court.

The fae haven’t been seen for a millennium. But now Yeeran and Lettle are thrust into their seductive world – torn between their loyalty to each other, their elven homeland, and their hearts. . .

Review: Throne of Air and Darkness by Emberly Ash

Published on by Amanda

5 / 5 Stars!

This series just keeps getting better!

This is book 2 in the Secrets of the Faerie Crown series. Once again, we follow Veyka and Arron on their road leading the fae. Veyka is our curvaceous heroine who’s coming into her own and rising through depression. Arron is our vicious beast king who is learning new parts to himself as well.

This book has a lot of the same characters, and we get a lot from Parys’s perspective and learn more about Gwyn as well. We get to enter see the human world, and meet wonderful and not so wonderful new characters.

This book is full of so many twists and turns. Everything that we thought we knew from the first book is wrong. Veyka’s whole world has turned upside down. Can her and Arron work through their issues and find their way through it?

I absolutely love this book. The good, the bad, the spicy, the sad, it all blends in to this read that will keep you guessing. I can’t wait for the next book! 

Book blurb from Goodreads:

Down, down, down. I am being pulled away, pulled apart, ripped at the very seams of my being. But a voice in the darkness, a name in the bitter cold air, pulls me back… She was never meant to be queen. But Veyka Pendragon sits the throne nonetheless, High Queen of Annwyn, Protector of the faerie realm. And at her side? The male who was once her enemy, then her ally, and now, something else entirely. The secret she tried so hard to protect was a lie. So was the brother she loved so dearly. She can hardly trust the reality she sees with her own two eyes, let alone the feelings burning in her chest—feelings that she swore she’d never feel again. Arran Earthborn has spent three hundred years killing his way across battlefields to find his place beside the female he loves. He will do anything to keep her safe… even if it means burning Annwyn to the ground in a quest for the truth. But the answers they seek lurk beyond… in a land of pain and desperation. The human realm. The Secrets of the Faerie Crown series is a twisted mythology retelling of the Arthur legend. It is a high-steam fantasy romance with dark elements.

Review: Crown of Earth and Sky by Emberly Ash

Published on by Amanda

4 / 5 Stars!

Twins should not exist in the fae world. Yes, King Arthur and Veyka Pendragon defied those odds. Yet it left Veyka with a terrible secret and a horrible upbringing. After Veyka is forced to take the throne even if only as a farce, she’s forced to marry. There are always two on the throne of Annwyn, an Elemental king or queen and a terrestrial heir proven to be the best and their counterpart. The Brutal Prince, Arron Earthborn, is the strongest fae in a thousand years, so he’s chosen as the king to Veyka’s queen.

The story is from both Veyka’s and Arron’s perspectives. We see Veyka struggle with grief and depression, while plotting her revenge. We see Arron, forced from the battlefield to the court, try to figure out what to do with his new queen, who has no care to rule.

The lust between the two jumps from the page, but can two such guarded people ever let their walls down, especially with secrets that could change the fate of Annwyn?

This is an adult twist of the Arthurian legends and a wonderful read. We’re mostly in one area of the world, but so much more is alluded to that I expect to see in future books. I cannot wait to see more. There are still a few Arthurian legend characters missing that I can’t wait to see, and I need to know if my hunches are right!

There are trigger warnings, so make sure you pay attention to those if you may have triggers.

Thank you to the author and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review. It’s also available on kindle unlimited.

Book Blurb from Goodreads page:

What do I want?
A quick death.
Barring that, I only dream of one thing—revenge.
Veyka Pendragon was crowned queen in a farce fit for any circus. Now, as her traitorous court plots around her, the new Queen of the Elemental Fae must take revenge on the humans who betrayed her while also guarding a dangerous secret.
The arrival of her betrothed, the storied Brutal Prince, is merely another cog in the wheels of time and space spinning around her.
Arran Earthborn is the strongest terrestrial fae in millennia. If Veyka wishes to keep the peace her ancestors fought and died for, she must join with him soon.
But the Brutal Prince has not earned his name by playing nice. The torture he exacts will enrage and enflame her—and endanger a secret that would rip their world to shreds.
The days are slipping by.
Very soon I will have to choose…
The crown that destroyed my life but protects my kingdom…
Or settling the scores that haunt my every step.
Crown of Earth and Sky is a twisted mythology retelling of the Arthur legend. It is a high-steam fantasy romance with dark elements.