This book was cute, if you can call a book about serial killers who kill other serial killers who fall in love. Sloane and Rowan are killers. However, they hunt other killers. It is a form of vigilantism. Going after people who have victimized other people who can’t defend themselves is an interesting moral code, but really, they do it because they like it. It gives them a rush. After a chance meeting, Rowan proposes a game. Once a year, they will meet up and hunt the same person. Whoever gets the kill first wins. Their banter between the two as they mock and goad each other is fun. They are attracted to each other from the moment they meet, but it shouldn’t surprise you that people who kill people for fun are not the most sociable or had a happy childhood. For years, they have played these games and ignored their feelings for each other. Once they do open up, the floodgates open, and oh boy, it gets spicy. It does take almost 2/3 of the book to get there, but worth the wait. It was a fun read, and I am looking forward to reading the next book that follows Rowan’s older brother and Sloane’s best friend. It’ll be a while before I can read it because it’s a long waitlist at my library, but I have other books to read in the meantime.
This was a very cute book. Osric has an incurable condition, and Aurielle is the only one who has any chance of finding a cure. The problem is that they are from different orders that are opposed, let’s say ethically. Osric is a paid killer, and Aurelle is a healer. They are forced to work together because Osric agrees to pay an exorbitant amount of money to find research for a vaccine for a pandemic affecting children. Aurielle is the best at what she does, so her order’s leader tells her to do what she can to help him. With all traditional methods proven to be unsuccessful, she must study the old ways, which, of course, puts them in tight situations. Over time, they both start to learn more about each other and that they may have more in common than they thought. I love the banter between the two of them. They are both quick and cunning. It is quite amusing. Halfway through, they start to discover that the virus causing the pandemic might not have been an accident, and someone powerful is behind it, but who? That is the mystery for the next book, which I don’t think has been released yet. I am very interested in seeing how this will end and maybe get a little more than just a kiss between our new lovebirds.
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is a complicated story of three women from different eras. First, you have Sabine, who we first meet in Spain in 1532. She is a woman who craves independence, living in a time when that wasn’t really an option for them. She gets out of our small town by marrying up, only to find she has less freedom than before. Lottie, in London, 1827. Lottie, growing up in the Regency era, is being forced to marry and is desperate to get out, and finally, Alice in Boston in 2019. Alice is trying to make a new life after a tragedy. We go back and forth between their POV’s as we try to discover how they are all connected. Through their narratives, we see how they navigate their societies as women as they try to live life on their own terms. The thread begins with Sabine, who is turned into a Vampire because she is desperate to escape an unhappy marriage. She starts to travel as a widow because, in her time, it was considered appropriate for women to live alone. Lottie is also turned into a vampire because she sees it as a way to live the life she wants to live and love the woman she wants to love. The saddest of them is Alice, who is turned without her consent. Unlike Sabine and Lottie, who chose to be turned, Alice did not. Alice goes to a party, has a one-night stand with a girl, and wakes up a vampire. She doesn’t know how this happened or why, and is caught in a centuries-long battle that has nothing to do with her. This book is a good examination on historical struggles of women and the violence they have to endure. I do like the ending. It is not at all a happy ending but kind of a bit hopeful for Alice to exert her own authority as she now will move through the world on her own journey.
This was a lot. I am still kind of processing it. It’s not that it was bad, but it’s a lot. By far the spiciest book I have ever read, and I have read all of Sarah J Maas’ books. If you know, you know. This is just um. I don’t know. Aly is an emergency room nurse who likes to wind down after a tough shift with a glass of wine and her favorite thirst trap, a man covered in blood in a mask. Josh is the said, masked man, with a sad past. One night, Aly gets a little tipsy, texts a past hook up her fantasy for him to wear a mask and chase her, and wouldn’t you know it, Josh is his roommate and sees it and is like, bet. Let’s see if this is what he is really like. Red flag number one. He has already started stalking her. He might have seen her once, during one of her hookups with his roommate, and from then on, he found out where she lives, works, and her work schedule. He is a skilled hacker, so it’s not hard for him to find her profile online and learn how to break into her house. He breaks into her house, tapes a thirst trap, and then leaves. Aly is understandably freaked out, but is also turned on. Hey, I am not kink-shaming here, but Josh didn’t just break into her house. He hacked into the hospital security cameras to watch her while she works. Breaks into her car to drive her home because it’s snowing. That’s the second red flag. He breaks all these boundaries and then love bombs her afterwards. Buying her food, shoveling her driveway, doing other little things to make her feel taken care of. I do think he does care for her and that nothing is malicious. Still, as someone who knows what emotional abuse feels like, this feels like it. It is explained that he is like this because of his childhood and the abuse his father inflicted on him and his mother; he has spent years scrubbing the internet of them to shield them. There are a few people in his life that he loves, and knowing what they do at all times is the only way to keep them safe. That being said, all the sexual activity is consensual, and Aly really responds to the first being scared to death and then taken care of afterwards, so again, who am I to judge? Things with their relationship kind of take a turn for me. Once they get together, they become so codependent on each other that I just find them annoying. The last third of the book was kind of a slog to get through. The spiciness kind of took a back seat, so that didn’t help. Two other books in the series follow a couple of the supporting characters. I am not sure if I even want to give them a chance. Who knows. I guess I’ll add them to the list.
Here are my favorite books of this past year. In no particular order because I don’t think I truly liked one more than another. Cop out as that may be, it’s how we are rolling.
The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater – Historical fiction but with Maggie’s signature magical elements. Set against the backdrop of WW2 in a luxury hotel in West Virginia. Instead of their normal clientele, they are serving the diplomats of the United States enemies.
The Beautiful by Renee Ahdieh – I do love a good Vampire book, and this one is no exception. As soon as I finished, I had to go to my library to get the next one.
The Dark Mirror by Samantha Shannon – This series just keeps getting better and better. Fleshing out more of the world to include outside of Scion, and for once, a hopeful ending.
Accomplice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer -This series is so funny. I can’t help be amused by the whole premise and story. So glad to find out that it isn’t a trilogy and more books to come because I am not ready to say goodbye to these characters.
Red City by Marie Lu – The complicated world we live. Nothing is black and white. What would you do for family? Power is addictive, but it is also destructive.
It never fails. You have a couple of books on hold for months at the library, and they become available at the same time. This was one of them. It’s been all over BookTok for a couple of years now. I finally thought it was time to read it, only be number 168 on the waitlist. Let’s see if it was worth the hate and the hype.
This is actually the third YA author making their adult novel debut that I have read this year. If you think about it, it makes sense. They have all been writing for over a decade. They are growing with their readers, who at this point are adults themselves. I have read many of Lu’s books in the past, and they have all been very different but still grounded in reality. Red City is no different. It follows Sam and Ari, who meet in high school and find themselves on alternate sides of a turf war. Sam is an immigrant who came to Angel City with her single mother. They have struggled to make ends meet until Sam gets an offer to join the Grand Central syndicate. Sam is a resourceful girl who can remember everything she sees and reads, but her real ability is that she can move through the world almost invisibly. People don’t seem to notice her or forget her as soon as they turn around. Ari is also an immigrant who was brought to Angel City by the Lumines syndicate after being noticed. He is always noticed. It doesn’t matter what he is doing, people always watch him, notice him, want to be his friend or more. They bond over their own loneliness and the opposing ability, not knowing that each are alchemist. In this world, Alchemy is a real ability that people possess and is mostly run by the syndicates and organized crime. Diamond Taylor and her husband discover the Philosopher’s Stone and use it to create a new drug called sand. From this, Grand Central was born. Sand heightens a person’s best and worst qualities. It makes a beautiful actress more beautiful, but it also makes someone who is depressed more depressed. Sand is only made through alchemy, hence why organized crime pretty much only employs them. Years after Sam and Ari graduate and have gone their separate ways, they reunite only to find they are on opposing sides of the sand distribution fight. A true Romeo and Juliet story. They still have feelings for each other, so you can imagine how much they struggle with their new situation. As things start to unravel, they have to figure out who they are, but also how far they want to go. I truly love how morally ambiguous Sam is. She knows she has done some pretty terrible things, but she also can’t deny that she kind of likes it. The power she gets from her position is something that she has been looking for in her own life. How can she leave? Ari is more of a compromised hero. He didn’t choose to join the Lumines the way Sam chose to join the Grand Central. He was brought to the US for a new life and a better life for his family. It does make for an interesting dynamic because the roles are usually reversed. I didn’t know it was a series until after I started reading, and I am glad. There is so much to explore with these two characters, and if the first book is any indication, we are in for a ride.
2 Women, So Many Books 