Tag: #newbookreleases

Review: SOS HOTEL: On The Road by Adam Vex (Ariana Nash)

Rating: 4.5🌈

No, our favorite triad, Adam the surprising non-human, Victor aka Fancy Fangs, and Zee the fabulous incubus, aren’t done yet! 

After all the explosive and deadly events of Your Final Resting Place #7, where they vanquished the Big Bad and saved the SOS Hotel and Lost Ones as maybe the world, you’d think they’d be able to rest. 

But Adam’s story isn’t finished. And his history is coming for him and those he loves.

So Adam does what he does best and runs. With Victor and Zee together on the road, destination unknown. 

I really loved that their relationship has grown so that Adam trusts them with his highly problematic history and the danger that’s following them. 

Of course, they encounter strange events and a few bodies with a murder to solve. 

Entertaining, sexy, formidable challenges again to face, and a wild ride for all involved. So happy to see them back!

Cover design by Ariana Nash 

SOS Hotel:

  • For a Supernaturally Safe Stay #1
  • Friendly Sanctuary for the Fiendishly Fabulous #2
  • Sleep with Us #3 
  • Great Service from Top to Bottom #4
  • No Rest for the Wicked #5 
  • Ho, Ho, No #5.5
  • Luxury To Die For #6
  • Your Final Resting Place #7 -ends this sequence of events.
  • On The Road #8 – starts a mini-trilogy 
  • Icy Reception #9 – coming soon 

Holiday release!

 SOS HOTEL: Ho, Ho, No by Adam Vex, Ariana Nash❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Buy link

        SOS HOTEL: On the Road

    

Blurb 

Did you think it was the end of our wild hotel adventures?

Yeah, us too. 

The Big Bad is gone. We’re heroes! Adam, Fancy Fangs, and me (Zee, obvs) are long overdue some downtime. I’d also like a foot rub, a string of Tom’s hallucination‑inducing cocktails, and endless hours of some much needed personal time between the sheets with my two favorite people. And my pole.

Hello, happy ever after! 

But it turns out, fate ain’t done with us yet.

Everyone’s favorite sunshine twink is great at unexpectedly unaliving folks who probably deserve it. What he’s not great at is keeping secrets. So when Adam packs our bags and springs a surprise vacation on us, it’s obvious—even to senile ancient vampires like Lord Fancy Fangs—that something is up. 

We’ll play along and won’t ask questions, because it’s Adam. He’ll tell us what’s really going on . . . eventually. 

But as we take the SOS Hotel team on the road and the weirdness stacks up—biker‑gang werewolves, psycho witchy influencers, trolls, fairy souls, and sinkholes—there’s one question Fancy Fangs and I can’t shake. 

What the f*ck do dragons run from?

(We’re back in a new three part mini-series! Ha, didn’t see that coming did you? Yeah, neither did we. I still don’t get a book about ME, but the author “allowed” me to write this blurb, so long as I don’t f*ckin’ swear. Pfft. So buckle up, b*tches, the ride ain’t fuckin’ over yet. You think you’re ready? Think again, cupcake. The crazy just got crazier.)

Welcome to the SOS Hotel ~ Where we’re definitely not on the run.

  • Publisher: Crazy Ace Publishing (February 28, 2025)
  • Publication date: February 28, 2025
  • Language: English
  • Print length: 160 pages

Review:  The Games Gods Play (The Crucible Book 1) by Abigail Owen

Rating:  4.5⭐️

Another new series and book by another new to me author, Abigail Owen’s. The first in Owen’s The Crucible series, The Games Gods Play is reimagining of Greek mythology and the Greek pantheon crossed with a Hunger Games along with a slow burn romance that ends on a cliffhanger. 

I really enjoy how different Authors put their own vision into the recognizable Greek mythology to make the Gods and Goddesses as well as their respective relationships acquire a new histories and dynamics. Owen’s book does this while retaining some of the old foundations and essential elements key to the Greek pantheon. 

I quickly found myself engaged by the premise and main characters. Primarily Lyra, a young woman cursed at birth and part of a Guild of Thieves. She’s one of the 13 human champions chosen by a Greek God or Goddess. They then represent each of them in The Crucible, a series of trials set by the same Gods, the winner of this will have unimaginable honors and their God will rule Olympus for the next 100 years. 

That’s the barest of things. But the storyline is so great. Primarily due to the fact that the other main character is Hades, God of the Underworld, and Lyra already has an unfortunate relationship with the Gods. 

The trials that the champions have to compete in are well crafted, terrifying, and make for a fast paced storyline, full of exactly what you might expect, characters that don’t survive, bloodshed, and heartbreak. 

As Lyra is navigating the intricacies of Olympian pantheon dynamics, and that of her fellow champions, there’s a slow burn romance trying to happen with Hades.  

Owen’s has some terrific support characters including Charon and Cerebus the three headed dog of Hades. 

I could wish that more of the other characters were better layered or the Gods/Goddesses had been more defined, but it’s a wild ride with a good many mysteries involved and a new twist on the Hades/Persephone relationship mythology that I loved. 

Actually, it’s more Percy Jackson than Hunger Games. I believe it is fine for young adults as it is for adults. Very engaging , well written, and highly entertaining.  I’m onto the next book when it’s available to see what happens! 

A definite recommendation! What a wonderful book.

Cover art and design by Bree Archer and LJ Anderson, Mayhem Cover Creations

The Crucible series:

The Games Gods Play #1

The Things Gods Break #2 – September 25,2025

Buy Link

        The Games Gods Play (The Crucible Book 1)

    

Blurb 

The gods love to play with us mere mortals. And every hundred years, we let them…

I have never been favored by the gods. Far from it, thanks to Zeus.

Living as a cursed office clerk for the Order of Thieves, I just keep my head down and hope the capricious beings who rule from Olympus won’t notice me. Not an easy feat, given San Francisco is Zeus’ patron city, but I make do. I survive. Until the night I tangle with a different god.

The worst god. Hades.

For the first time ever, the ruthless, mercurial King of the Underworld has entered the Crucible—the deadly contest the gods hold to determine a new ruler to sit on the throne of Olympus. But instead of fighting their own battles, the gods name mortals to compete in their stead.

So why in the Underworld did Hades choose me—a sarcastic nobody with a curse on her shoulders—as his champion? And why does my heart trip every time he says I’m his?

I don’t know if I’m a pawn, bait, or something else entirely to this dangerously tempting god. How can I, when he has more secrets than stars in the sky?

Because Hades is playing by his own rules…and Death will win at any cost.

  • Publisher: Entangled: Red Tower Books (September 3, 2024)
  • Publication date: September 3, 2024
  • Language: English
  • Print length: 645 pages

Review:  Weyward: A Novel by Emilia Hart

Rating: 5⭐️

“The connections between and among women are the most feared, the most problematic, and the most potentially transforming force on the planet.—Adrienne Rich”

That’s the quote that ends this extraordinary story but just as easily could be the one that begins it. 

This is one of my most favored books. 

Emilia Hart’s story of three women, related to each other by blood and by the horrific abuse they are experiencing, and the cottage named Weyward that’s their home and finally their sanctuary. 

The author relates their stories simultaneously in three different time frames , managing to emotionally and historically connect them and us as a whole rich tapestry. 

Kate is the first voice, so fearful and utterly desperate. It’s 2019 and she’s got one chance to flee her abusive husband.  The scene is chilling and the terror palpable. 

Altha, a healer, is equally terrified, afraid for her life when we first meet. She’s on trial for witchcraft. The year is 1619. 

Violet is the third voice heard, an innocent in 1942, one who listens to her bees and mayflies in the gardens, and crows in the trees. She’s a wild child hidden away from the world by a harsh father , a woman, damaged by those close, who will be an unlikely bridge to the other two women and their worlds. 

The writing is remarkable, Hart is able to create a wild magic in her descriptions of the natural beauty and sounds of a garden. She brings alive the power of winds blowing through the woods, a dark threat imminent, on a dark, scary night, making the reader feel the fears for ourselves. 

The basics of the book is the women come from a long line of witches, which make them in tune with the power of the natural world , the insects and animals, as well as the environment around them.  But it’s  also about each of them finding their inner strength,  their acceptance of themselves and their past experiences. And these women have had some truly traumatic past histories and experiences occur to them.  Every possible thing you can think of. 

They survive, are courageous and resilient and beyond brave in going forward with their lives in the end. 

This is one of my favorite books besides The Women by Kristen Hannah .  Such a remarkably crafted story and memorably well written women. 

Highly recommended. Read the trigger warnings. 

I love the cover. Morg the crow and possibly his descendants play an important role in their lives. 

Cover art by Michael Storrings

Buy link

SponsoredAmazon.comhttps://www.amazon.comWeyward: A Novel: Hart, Emilia: 9781250280800: Amazon.com: Books

I am a Weyward, and wild inside.

2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great-aunt she barely remembers. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she suspects that her great-aunt had a secret. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.

1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer who was stampeded to death by his herd. When Altha was a girl, her mother taught her their magic, a kind not rooted in spell casting but in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But unusual women have always been deemed dangerous, and as the evidence of witchcraft is laid out against Altha, she knows it will take all her powers to maintain her freedom.

1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family’s grand, crumbling estate. Straitjacketed by societal convention, she longs for the robust education her brother receives––and for her mother, long deceased, who was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weywardscratched into the baseboard of her bedroom.

Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Emilia Hart’s Weyward is an astonishing debut, and an enthralling novel of female resilience.

  • Publisher: St. Martin’s Press (March 7, 2023)
  • Publication date: March 7, 2023
  • Language: English
  • Print length: 408 pages

Review:  Betrothed to the Emperor (Emperor’s Assassin Book 1) by Kai Butler 

Rating: 4.5🌈

Kai Butler’s new fantasy series, Emperor’s Assassin, gets off to a fast, and absolutely magical start with Betrothed to the Emperor.  Right from the beginning, Butler plunges the reader and her protagonist into a strange, and mystical realm where the wealthy are masked by not only the makeup and outfits they wear but the rigidity of the culture and politics of the Empire that has consumed so much of the Kingdoms around it. 

It’s a highly detailed and disturbing place, a perfect place to start a plot of assassination. And a story full of twists and tricks and incredible creatures . 

Butler really is creating a universe that can expand with its series storylines, going forward into other parts of the world, exploring new cultures and their unique instruments of war. 

As this happens, so does a remarkable relationship between Emperor of the Southern Imperium, Emperor Tallu and AirĂłn of the Northern Kingdom, who gets chosen to be his consort. 

 

Exactly how that occurs and all the events that happen afterwards are just why I can’t wait for the next book to be released.  The chemistry is excellent, the cast that surrounds the pair amazing and equally interesting.  And the various layered aspects of the storyline that are being generated by Butler are so intriguing that I want to see more of everything the author is planning. 

If you are a fan of this author, like me, I’m sure you’ll have grabbed this up. I’m highly recommending it to fantasy lovers too. 

Emperor’s Assassin series:

  • Betrothed to the Emperor #1
  • Emperor’s Wrath #2 – June 23,2025

Cover by Hannah Latham at oexasart. 

Buy link 

        Betrothed to the Emperor (Emperor’s Assassin Book 1)

    

Blurb 

I was born to kill the emperor, but first, I must marry him.

I trained as an assassin while my twin sister trained to be the empress. My life will be forfeit once I murder the most powerful man on the continent, but I have no choice. If I fail, the Imperium will consume our nation and anyone who rises against them.

Too soon, we walk into the glittering imperial court, each step taking us closer to the dangerous man on the black throne, my sister’s future husband, the newly crowned Emperor of the Southern Imperium. Emperor Tallu has more spies than fish in the sea. He poisoned his own father to secure the golden crown.

When his sharp eyes skim over us, they don’t catch on my sister. They land on me, his killer.

“I choose you, Prince Airón of the Northern Kingdom. You will be my consort.” Tallu’s smile is mirthless. “Or I will reduce your entire nation to ashes.”

Betrothed to the Emperor ends with more story to tell, but the characters end on a HFN

  • Publication date: February 24, 2025
  • Language: English
  • Print length: 282 pages

Review:  Cosmic Castaway: A MM Sci-Fi Romance (Cosmic Romance 3) by Mars Quinn

Rating: 4.5🌈

Cosmic Castsway is the third book in Mars Quinn’s Cosmic Romance series about a family of alien brothers and the abducted human beings who end up as their fated mates. 

Quinn’s been able to create very diverse characters and layered backgrounds for each of the novels even within the same framework. Every human, while having been abducted, has had a very unique experience to go along with their story. And each human has their own distinctive traits, some with accompanying disorders or others (Caleb was a ghost then had to deal with body dysfunction), that figured gradually into the narrative. As did the struggles of their alien mate counterparts. 

Bartholomew is among a huge number of humans abducted and sold as slaves by illegal alien marketers. His life as a slave has been one of barely surviving amidst daily violence and terror.  Until he’s seen, and kidnapped by a huge alien who says he’s saving him as he’s carted off world again. 

Serlotminden aka Mindy is the middle brother and the most impulsive of the five. He’s just gone to a shady corner of the universe and spotted humans where they shouldn’t be any.  So he decides to rescue one. 

The result doesn’t go as planned. 

Quinn does a great job in creating multiple worlds, complete with detailed flora and fauna, ferocious ones. A stumbling romance, that has the characters learning about each other’s lives and their own experiences. Which, in Bartholomew’s case, means the trauma of his recent enslavement and the survivors guilt he carries. 

Mindy and Bart’s story is well worth reading.  It’s got an extra twist in it regarding another human slave Bart was living with before Mindy saved/kidnapped him.  

Cosmic Soul is still my favorite but I love seeing how all the couples are doing together and progressing in their lives.  

Highly recommended!

Cover Artist: Etheric Designs

Cosmic Romance:

Cosmic Husband #1

Cosmic Soul #2

Cosmic Castaway #3

Buy Link

        Cosmic Castaway: A MM Sci-Fi Romance (Cosmic Romance 3)

    

Blurb 

If this is a rescue, it sucks.

Bartholomew

After two years of captivity, I’ve been “rescued” by another alien. But the supposed rescue quickly goes south when we crash on an icy planet. Freezing and in a broken shuttle, I have to work with this alien to survive. But as Mindy keeps smiling at me and moving closer and closer, I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t as horrible as I thought.

Serlotminden

My plan to rescue the captive human didn’t quite work, but it’ll be fine. My brothers will find us. Until then, I will protect him. But the longer we spend together, the more I want to touch him and make him laugh. It’s only natural, right? It’s because we’re friends, though why does that thought bother me?

This is a spicy stand-alone MM romance in the Cosmic Romance series. It’s a sci-fi romance on an icy planet with a serious human, an easy-going alien, MCs who save each other, and a happily ever after. This book is for adult audiences only and has explicit content. Content warning inside.

  • Publication date: February 24, 2025
  • Language: English
  • Print length: 410 pages

Review:  Two Thousand Promises  ( Kings of Chaos Book #5) by Jocelynn Drake

Rating: 4🌈

Two Thousand Promises finishes the Kings of Chaos series with the last of their clan to get their fated mate so they can all finally go back home to China.

Jocelynn Drake’s series has been excellent. From the beginning, the Chinese vampire, the cultural elements, and their history has added a richness and depth to a well developed, and thoughtful fantasy universe.  Dragons, elves, witches, and Chinese warrior vampires! What an incredible combination!

And Two Thousand Shadows, the fourth book, gave us and the series a fantastic dramatic ending, full of vivid battle sequences, emotional moments and scenes that tied up major plot lines and character relationships.  Realistically, that book was the series finale. 

And the clan started to prepare for their journey home, back to China. 

That left just the relationship between Xiao Dan and Huli, the fox spirit, unresolved.  That’s the storyline of Two Thousand Promises.  It’s a sweet addendum to a basically finished series, a group of alternating chapters where we see the progression of their relationship over time.

And a protagonist who has been in Huli’s life but just appears now as a dramatic character. 

Huli is a sweet character, Drake captured the essence of a nonhuman  who’s in love with a man so well. And Xiao Dan is someone we’ve gotten to know over the series, together , stumbling towards a relationship, it’s a sweet romance.

Honestly, I wish they could have been folded into the other book, Min the villain just doesn’t have the same energy as the rest of the characters. 

But it’s been a fabulous series and a grand finale. One I highly recommend reading.

Love the covers, the concept. Fantastic.

The Kings of Chaos :

  • Two Thousand Dreams #1
  • Two Thousand Tears #2
  • Two Thousand Blades #3
  • Two Thousand Shadows #4
  • Two Thousand Promises #5

Buy link

        Two Thousand Promises (Kings of Chaos Book 5)

    

Blurb 

He promised me forever…But she came to take my soul.

Huli had dedicated his entire existence to making himself into something worthy of Xiao Dan.

But as he stood on the brink of claiming the vampire’s heart, an evil deal he’d made centuries ago was coming due.

Min wanted Xiao Dan’s soul.

Would he lose Xiao Dan when he confessed his ugly promise? And could he stop Min before it was too late?

Two Thousand Promises is the fifth and final novel in the Kings of Chaos series. This book contains a reluctant vampire who is finally giving in to the thousand-year seduction of a sly fox spirit determined to claim his mate, a nosy family who wants all the spilled tea, snark, angst, magic, found family, brotherly bickering, chaos, cuddles, secrets, and an endless love.

  • Publication date: February 21, 2025
  • Language: English
  • Print length: 230 pages

Review:  Devoted (Hopeless Blessed Book 2) by Lark Taylor

Rating: 3🌈

Having read all the preceding series and the first book in the series, which I really enjoyed, I find myself puzzled that I just couldn’t get connected to the characters and story of Devoted.

Hopeless Blessed, is the third of four series in this large universe that Lark Taylor is constantly exploring in her many books of overlapping characters and their stories. 

I’m not sure why I had such difficulty reading this book or staying involved in the storylines.  Sam is a well written character, one that Lark has invested with many of her personal life qualities per her author’s notes. 

Sam suffers from OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), GAD (generalised anxiety disorder), panic disorder, and sensory processing disorder. That is a major element of his story and a constant thread throughout the book. How Sam is dealing with situations, how characters are reacting around him and what they do that contributes to exacerbate his many issues. It’s a huge part of his story and the relationship. As well as putting the emotional issues that Angel Zeke carries around with him, damaging father abuses and severe anger management problems. 

Then there’s all the angels and their personalities that Zeke/Ezekiel lives with, his “band of angelic brothers “. Who frankly, with one or two exceptions, don’t stand out from each other, the nine or however many  just blended together in the book. 

Perhaps my take on this is that Lark spends so much time on Sam’s disorders in the book, constantly explaining to various characters (readers) what they are and how they should be treated and addressed, when a plot line pops up, it feels unwieldy. Because the author hasn’t laid any foundation for this anywhere in the book. 

There’s other things, an odd area of non-consent weirdly enough, more new areas about Sam’s brain, that I started skimming through to the end.

As much as I connected with Conflicted, I was just as left with no attachment to Devoted, and unsure about continuing with the series.  Too many characters I’m not sure about and personalities that feel one dimensional. 

Loved the original and sequel series. Those were amazing. 

Reckless Damn Series – first series 

  • Devil’s Mark #1
  • Devil May Care #2
  • Deal with the Devil #3
  • Luck of the Devil #4

 

Damned Connections – sequel 

  • Patience #1
  • Justice #2
  • Temperance #3
  • Humility #4 – finale

Hopeless Blessed – Seraphim sequel series 

  • Conflicted #1
  • Devoted #2 
  • Guarded #3 – Jan 31,2026

The Wild Edges (wolf shifters sequel series)

  • Finlay #1 – July 10, 2025

Buy link

        Devoted (Hopeless Blessed Book 2)

    

Blurb

Fate always has a plan.

Even if you don’t agree with it.

Ezekiel

Starting that online game was my attempt to find happiness. Something to fill my life other than the demands of Heaven and the rest of my unit.

I didn’t expect to find Sam.

Even with screens between us, Sam makes me feel more alive than I have in millennia. I find myself counting down the minutes until I can go online and be with him.

He’s my perfect match. In any other circumstances, I’d be doing whatever it took to make him mine.

But I’m not human. And, unlike humans, I have no say over who I spend eternity with. Fate decides who my mate will be, whether it’s the person I love or not.

Sam lives in the same city as me. If he were my mate, I’d have met him by now. I’d feel a pull towards him that I couldn’t ignore.

The right thing to do would be to end this. To put up walls between us to keep both our hearts safe. Instead, I find myself tearing down the barriers, falling faster for him every day.

I know how this story will end, but I can’t stop myself. I don’t care what plans fate has for me.

I want to make Sam mine.

Devoted is a gripping, hurt/comfort, angel x human, MM PNR romance. The second in the Hopeless Blessed series, each book follows a different couple with a guaranteed HEA.

  • Publisher: Lark Taylor (February 19, 2025)
  • Publication date: February 19, 2025
  • Language: English
  • File size: 1.2 MB
  • Simultaneous device usage: Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • Screen Reader: Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting: Enabled
  • X-Ray: Not Enabled
  • Word Wise: Enabled
  • Print length: 474 pages

Review:  The Hidden God of Open Doors by Tavia Lark

Rating: 3🌈

It didn’t immediately register but I had read this before as a short story in the Heart2Heart Valentine Day’s Anthology.  It worked there, surrounded by other like stories and given a foundation by the Anthology basis of the Heart2Heart matchmaking process, a well established tradition and built upon by each story. 

As a standalone? Removed from that structure and foundation? Unfortunately,  without a solid narrative support, it doesn’t really make the type of satisfying story you would expect from Tavia Lark. 

I love the premise and the potential of this story. That someone has been imprisoned for an indefinite amount of time within a small room for a unknown reason is horrifying. Especially as we get glimpses into his tiny room and his personality. Then Lark flips over to Raider, who, along with his sister Val, owns and runs a shop for magic items and are newly immortal. 

Ruin finally gets to communicate with someone else when mysteriously they are hooked up via the Heart2Heart dating app.  

I can’t see where this was expanded from the original version. The story is still a good concept but given the trauma of being held prisoner for thousands of years and then having a relationship, albeit a verbal one? I would have thought Rune’s reactions to have been considerably more intense and internalized.  

The backgrounds of the locals or location need further explanation, especially as that’s where Rune was imprisoned. As it was there is so many unanswered questions.

The Hidden God of Open Doors by Tavia Lark is a sweet paranormal short story.  A quick read that needs more attention to detail and depth of character. 

Cute. 

Buy link 

Amazon.comhttps://www.amazon.comThe Hidden God of Open Doors – Kindle edition by Lark, Tavia. …

Blurb 

Forget finding his perfect match. Rune is just desperate to talk to someone.

Rune is lonely, immortal, and trapped in a mysterious prison. Objects appear and disappear as the decades pass, and his only companions are the books and television. He hasn’t spoken to a real, live person in over two hundred years.

Until one day a phone appears, with a magical dating app already installed.

The app promises to find Rune’s perfect match for Valentine’s Day. Rune is tempted, even though he knows that’s impossible. Nobody wants a perfect match they can’t meet.

Then he matches with Raider—a confident ex-treasure hunter who shamelessly flirts past Rune’s loneliness.

And Raider doesn’t believe in impossible.

The Hidden God of Open Doors is a short Valentine’s Day MM romance about a trapped immortal, the flirty treasure hunter who wants to discover everything about him, and the dating app magic that brings them together. 

Previously published in the Heart2Heart Volume 7 Paranormal Anthology 

  • Publication date: January 24, 2025
  • Language: English
  • Print length: 62 pages

Review:  Quicksilver (Fae & Alchemy, #1) by Callie Hart

Rating:  4.5 ⭐️

The world building by Callie Hart in Quicksilver is truly astonishing. Incredibly detailed and rich in imagery, Hart’s worlds, yes multiple connected ones, so well crafted that each feels absolutely unique. Fundamentally different from their species of beings, mythological perspectives, life spans even their suns in the sky . 

 Hart’s female main character is a stunning figure.  Saeris Fane is a thief, a fierce fighter, a resourceful woman. She’s had to do what it takes to survive and protect herself and her irresponsible younger brother in a walled off section of the City where the worst of their kingdom is concentrated by authority of the Queen. 

Saeris’  sad history and that of dangerous diseased slum , The Third Ward, of Zilvaren City, are heavily intertwined. How will be slowly revealed throughout this story with great impact. It’s enough that we see how living in such conditions has formed her, including the fact she’s able to work a forge. And it introduces other great characters that have been important figures in her life. 

How dramatically the Fae and the figure of The Kingfisher is brought into this narrative is something I’ll leave to the story but it’s a fantastic one.  So is the creation of the element of quicksilver and all the unusual aspects of this magical material.  It’s one astounding revelation after another, and I absolutely loved it because it was so unexpected. 

The relationship between Saeris and Fisher is complex and uneasy.  I liked the way there’s a fated mate storyline but it’s not automatically acceptable. Given the circumstances and, a lack of communication, it shouldn’t be.

Main characters who don’t communicate are an issue for me but here the rationale and the foundation laid for any such actions are part of the beautifully crafted storytelling.  

There’s passion, mythology, battles, magical horrifying creatures, and a cliffhanger. 

Did I have a quibble? Yes. Fisher calls Saeris “Little Osha”, a shorter version of the name of a short lived butterfly.  He uses that instead of Saeris for most of the story.  Why he does this is explained in the story, however, I’m generally, and certainly not here,  a fan of male characters calling female characters “little” anything. It’s intentionally dismissive (as it is here) and turning it into some kind of weird cute nickname doesn’t work. 

The ending is stunning and unexpected. It’s a cliffhanger that leaves a reader wondering how the next book will go forward from these events.  I can’t wait.

Highly recommended. And what a gorgeous cover.

Fae & Alchemy:

Quicksilver #1

Brimstone #2 – Nov 18, 2025

Buy link

        Quicksilver (Fae & Alchemy Book 1)

    

Blurb 

An instant #1 New York Times bestseller!

The global phenomenon by Callie Hart–a highly addicting enemies-to-lovers Romantasy with razor-sharp banter, heart-stopping action, and blistering hot romance. 

Do not touch the sword. Do not turn the key. Do not open the gate.

Twenty-four-year-old Saeris Fane is good at keeping secrets. No one knows about the strange powers she possesses, or the fact that she has been picking pockets and stealing from the Undying Queen’s reservoirs for as long as she can remember. In the land of the unforgiving desert, there isn’t much a girl wouldn’t do for a glass of water. But a secret is like a knot. Sooner or later, it is bound to come undone.

When Saeris comes face-to-face with Death himself, she inadvertently reopens a gateway between realms and is transported to a land of ice and snow. The Fae have always been the stuff of myth, of legend, of nightmares…but it turns out they’re real, and Saeris has landed right in the middle of a centuries-long conflict that might just get her killed.

The first of her kind to tread the frozen mountains of Yvelia in over a thousand years, Saeris mistakenly binds herself to Kingfisher, a handsome Fae warrior, who has secrets and nefarious agendas of his own. He will use her Alchemist’s magic to protect his people, no matter what it costs him… or her. Death has a name. It is Kingfisher of the Ajun Gate. His past is murky. His attitude stinks. And he’s the only way Saeris is going to make it home.

Be careful of the deals you make, dear child. The devil is in the details…

Review: The Royal Rogue (Tales of Lilleforth, #3) by Sarah Honey

Rating: 4🌈

The third book in Sarah Honey’s historical romance series, The Royal Rogue is a very entertaining romantic comedy with a threads of action and royal intrigue running through the pages.  

The castle and universe of King Leopold of Lilleforth (The King’s Delight #1), The Royal Rogue can easily be read as a standalone novel about the Duke of Ravenport, 

Evan Devere, and Thomas Malone, Captain of the Royal Guards. Both reoccurring characters in the previous stories. 

The characters are well written, the story has wonderful dialogue and charm, and Evan it definitely a rogue to take to heart. Thomas is his match in every aspect, from intelligence to his ability to be flexible. 

I skipped over the second book, why the author named the male main character Mother I’ll never understand.Just no. But I really enjoyed The Royal Rogue (Tales of Lilleforth, #3) by Sarah Honey and it’s a recommendation from me. 

Tales of Lilleforth series:

The King’s Delight #1

The Stablemaster’s Heart #2

The Royal Rogue #3

Buy link

        The Royal Rogue (Tales of Lilleforth Book 3)

    

Blurb 

Thomas Malone is the new Captain of the Guard at Lilleforth Castle. He loves his job, but it leaves him no time for himself. It’s been way too long since he’s had anyone share his bed, let alone his life. To say he’s frustrated is an understatement.

To make matters worse, the King’s disreputable cousin Evan Devere, the Duke of Ravenport, is back from his travels. Evan is as scatterbrained as he is attractive, which is a shame—if Evan had even half a brain, he’d be exactly Thomas’s type. As it is, Thomas has resigned himself to spending his days keeping Evan out of trouble

But when a threat emerges against the crown, Thomas and Evan have to work together to find who’s behind the plot, and Thomas discovers there’s more to Evan than meets the eye. So when Evan suggests that they act on their mutual attraction, Thomas throws caution to the wind and agrees. After all, it is just a fling, right? There’s no way Thomas is actually going to fall for the sexy, infuriating cousin of the king.

No way at all.