Book Review Alert: Don’t Fade Away by Natalie Pearce

Reviewed: June 15th, 2023
Released: January 1st, 2023
Genre: Paranormal Fantasy

For Elle, haunting a share house comes with a unique set of challenges. Living tenants come and go, leaving her with nothing to fill her days except a crush on longstanding housemate, Dean, who literally doesn’t know she exists. Talk about unrequited love.

Just as she despairs at being stuck halfway to the other side for the rest of her afterlife, the newest resident sparks hope for something more than the humdrum of everyday death.

As far as mediums go, Ethan barely knows he is one. He just wants a place to knuckle down and finish his medical degree. But as soon as he moves in, he senses a presence. He tries to ignore it – but Elle is insistent…

The more Ethan uncovers about Elle, the more he suspects her death was no accident. Can he help her move on, or will greater forces intervene?

Erika’s journey includes a trek through childhood friendships, narcissistic family, an obsession with 80s rock music, and the trials and joys of being a wife and mother. With relationships tested and secrets revealed, can she face the stakes of her quest and become who she needs to be?

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Book Review Alert: The Mom Group by Jennifer A. Jones

Reviewed: June 11th, 2023
Released: September 15th, 2022
Genre: Contemporary Women’s Fiction

Loneliness can motivate a woman to put herself out there, to meet new friends. But when it doesn’t go as planned, what’s next? Perhaps a little revenge…

Erika Thompson is a lonely housewife. With her kids recently off to college and her husband working long hours, she spends much of her time reading, hanging out with her dog, and trying to figure out what her next steps should be.

But an invitation to join a local mom group is about to change everything. After numerous attempts to fit in and make new friends, Erika is all but shunned. Her sorrow over this unexpected outcome quickly turns to anger, and she retaliates against the moms who’ve done her wrong. But things don’t go as planned for Erika, and she’s in for some surprises of her own.

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Book Review Alert: Hammer of Fate by G.N Gudgion

Reviewed: June 8th, 2023
Released: June 1st, 2023
Genre: Epic Fantasy

“No surrender. No retreat.” With twenty enemy swords at their backs and a broken bridge ahead, the last knights of an outlaw order turn to fight. A young woman with forbidden magic joins their final stand. And as blade meets blade, she starts to sing…

Adelais was raised in the far north, learning stories of the old gods and the skill of weaving runes into magic. Now, she is locked in a convent far from home, forced to kneel to a foreign god.

When inquisitors arrive with plans to torture an innocent man, Adelais cannot stand by. She aids an attack to free the prisoner and joins the raiders as they flee into the night.

Her new companions are the last of the Guardians—once a powerful holy order, now ragged fugitives, hunted almost to extinction.

The knights carry a secret treasure, precious and powerful enough to shape kingdoms. Their pursuers, desperate to possess it, will crush any who stand in their way.

Nowhere is safe—in city or chateau, on the road or in the wilds. And even disguised as a boy, Adelais draws attention wherever she goes. Is she angel or demon, priestess or witch?

Adelais must summon all her courage and all her memories of the old gods’ magic as the noose tightens around her and a thunderous final reckoning approaches.

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Book Review Alert: The Clan of Mist by Krysta Lyn and Johnna Dee

Reviewed: June 7th, 2023
Released: January 27th, 2023
Genre: Paranormal Fantasy

A war is brewing on the horizon; choices will have to be made that will bring unexpected allies together or tear apart clans forever.

Isolated her whole life in a village of fellow sirens, Thess finds her world turned upside down after she sets her eyes upon the tall mysterious male who walks into her life while training for the clan’s tournament that would decide her fate. Kage, a crocodile shifter from a lowborn family, has been trying to redeem his family’s name and pull them out of the mud. Kage finds his next mission will not only change his life but impact the lives of those around him.

The Clan of Mist is the first book in the Calpa Series, a new adult fantasy romance featuring shifters, magical amulets, fated mates, and enemies to lovers tropes.

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Book Review Alert: The Watchmaker’s Daughter by C.J Archer

Reviewed: May 20th, 2023
Released: June 28th, 2018
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Audiobook Narrated by Emma Powell

India Steele is desperate. Her father is dead, her fiancé took her inheritance, and no one will employ her, despite years working for her watchmaker father. Indeed, the other London watchmakers seem frightened of her. Alone, poor, and at the end of her tether, India takes employment with the only person who’ll accept her – an enigmatic and mysterious man from America. A man who possesses a strange watch that rejuvenates him when he’s ill.

Matthew Glass must find a particular watchmaker, but he won’t tell India why any old one won’t do. Nor will he tell her what he does back home, and how he can afford to stay in a house in one of London’s best streets. So when she reads about an American outlaw known as the Dark Rider arriving in England, she suspects Mr. Glass is the fugitive. When danger comes to their door, she’s certain of it. But if she notifies the authorities, she’ll find herself unemployed and homeless again – and she will have betrayed the man who saved her life.

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Book Review Alert: Spells and Sensibility by K.L Noone and K.S Murphy

Reviewed: May 16th, 2023
Released: January 29th, 2022
Genre: MM Historical Fantasy

Theodore Burnett has never been a hero. He prefers comfort to combat-spells, and jam-slathered scones to muddy boots. Fortunately, as the youngest-ever head librarian at the Royal College of Wizardry, Theo can spend his days with books and bibliomancy in place of battle-magic or politics — and in any case Napoleon’s been defeated and the war’s been won.

But now there’s a wounded captain of the Magicians’ Corps in Theo’s library. And he needs Theo’s help. And Theo can never resist a mystery, especially when that mystery’s tall and tempting and handsome.

Captain Henry Tourmaline, formerly of His Majesty’s Army and the Magicians’ Corps, requires assistance. He’s returned to London with scars on his body, soul, and heart — war, after all, will do that to anyone. But one of those scars refuses to heal, a curse that’s slowly draining Henry’s magic and eventually his life. The physicians have no answers, so Henry turns to the College’s books … and the College’s attractive head librarian. But the curse is unpredictable, and the last thing Henry wants is to drag someone else into the line of fire, particularly someone as kind and innocent and brilliant as Theo.

Theo wants to save Henry. Henry wants to keep Theo safe. Together, perhaps they can do both … while uncovering a perilous secret behind a spell, a deadly puzzle in the archives, and their own heart’s desires.

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Book Review Alert: Circe by Madeline Miller

Reviewed: May 11th, 2023
Released: April 19th, 2018
Genre: Greek Mythology Fantasy fiction

Woman. Witch. Myth. Mortal. Outcast. Lover. Destroyer. Survivor. CIRCE.

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. Circe is a strange child – not powerful and terrible, like her father, nor gorgeous and mercenary like her mother. Scorned and rejected, Circe grows up in the shadows, at home in neither the world of gods or mortals. But Circe has a dark power of her own: witchcraft. When her gift threatens the gods, she is banished to the island of Aiaia where she hones her occult craft, casting spells, gathering strange herbs and taming wild beasts. Yet a woman who stands alone will never be left in peace for long – and among her island’s guests is an unexpected visitor: the mortal Odysseus, for whom Circe will risk everything.

So Circe sets forth her tale, a vivid, mesmerizing epic of family rivalry, love and loss – the defiant, inextinguishable song of woman burning hot and bright through the darkness of a man’s world.

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Book Review Alert: The Librarian of Crooked Lane by C.J. Archer

Reviewed: May 9th, 2023
Released: September 6th, 2022
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Format: Audiobook narrated by Marian Hussey

A librarian with a mysterious past, a war hero with a secret, and the heist of a magic painting. THE LIBRARIAN OF CROOKED LANE is an intriguing new fantasy from C.J. Archer, the USA Today bestselling author of the Glass and Steele series.

Librarian Sylvia Ashe knows nothing about her past, having grown up without a father and a mother who refused to discuss him. When she stumbles upon a diary that suggests she’s descended from magicians, she’s skeptical. After all, magicians are special, and she’s just an ordinary girl who loves books. She seeks the truth from a member of the most prominent family of magicians, but she quickly learns that finding the truth won’t be easy, especially when he turns out to be as artless as her, and more compelling and dangerous than books.

War hero Gabe is gifted with wealth, a loving family, and an incredible amount of luck that saw him survive four harrowing years of a brutal war without injury. But not all injuries are visible. Burying himself in his work as a consultant for Scotland Yard, Gabe is going through the motions as he investigates the theft of a magician-made painting. But his life changes when he unwittingly gets Sylvia dismissed from her job and places her in danger.

After securing her new employment in a library housing the world’s greatest collection of books about magic, Gabe and Sylvia’s lives become intwined as they work together to find both the painting and the truth about Sylvia’s past before powerful people can stop them.

But sometimes the past is better left buried…

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Book Review Alert: The Starlight Witch by Kim Richardson

Reviewed: May 2nd, 2023
Released: October 31st, 2022
Genre: Paranormal Fantasy

Finding my husband in bed with another woman was not how I planned to start my day.

Or homeless the next minute. And broke.

So, when a job comes my way from The Twilight Hotel—a paranormal hotel in midtown Manhattan that serves as a sanctuary and residence—I take it.

Cue in tattooed, sexy as sin, grumpy restaurant owner Valen, who can’t do drama or high-maintenance women. The problem? He’s cruel and dangerous.

And he’s hiding something.

Rumors arise of a dark spell that would mean the hotel’s closure, and I don’t know who I can trust. Do I have what it takes to fight this new evil? We’ll see.

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Book Review Alert: The House Witch by Delemhach

Reviewed: April 28th, 2023
Released: June 21st, 2022
Genre: Humourous Fantasy Romance

A heartwarming and humorous blend of fantasy, romance, and mystery featuring a witch with domestic powers and the royal household he serves . . . dinner.

When Finlay Ashowan joins the staff of the King and Queen of Daxaria, he’s an enigma. No one knows where he comes from or how he came to be where he is, which suits Fin just fine. He’s satisfied simply serving as the royal cook, keeping nosy passersby out of his kitchen, and concocting some truly uncanny meals.

But Fin’s secret identity doesn’t stay hidden for long. After all, it’s not every day a house witch and his kitten familiar, Kraken, take to meddling in imperial affairs. As his powers are gradually discovered by the court, Fin finds himself involved in a slew of intrigues: going head-to-head with knights with less-than-chivalrous intentions, helping to protect the pregnant queen, fending off the ire of the royal mage, and uncovering a spy in the castle. And that’s only the beginning—because Fin’s past is catching up with him just as his love life is getting complicated.

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