Book Review Alert: Legend of Tal: A King’s Bargain by J.D.L. Rosell

Reviewed: March 28th, 2024
Released: June 1st, 2020
Genre: Epic Fantasy

The legend of Tal Harrenfel is sung across the Westreach—and with each telling, the tales grow taller. But though his king declares him a hero, Tal has never claimed to be more than a man…

After three decades of fighting warlocks, killing mythical beasts, and hunting enchanted treasure, Tal has had enough. Running from the deeds of his past, he retreats to his home village under a different name and meets an unlikely companion: Garin, a village boy who dreams of making a name for himself and seeing the world beyond their sleepy town.

When Tal receives a mysterious visitor, both he and Garin are thrown into a journey across the kingdom. Soon, they become embroiled in the plots of monarchs, on the frontlines of an ancient war, and at the mercy of a fabled sorcerer.

Now Tal must live up to his legend, and Garin discover his own power, to survive the forces pitted against them…….Read My Thoughts…

Book Review Alert: A Dowry of Blood by S.T Gibson

Reviewed: March 19th, 2024
Released: February 23rd, 2022
Genre: Gothic Fantasy

This is my last love letter to you, though some would call it a confession. . .

S.T. Gibson’s sensational novel is the darkly seductive tale of Dracula’s first bride, Constanta.

Saved from the brink of death by a mysterious stranger, Constanta is transformed from a medieval peasant into a bride fit for an undying king. But when Dracula draws a cunning aristocrat and a starving artist into his web of passion and deceit, Constanta realizes that her beloved is capable of terrible things.

Finding comfort in the arms of her rival consorts, she begins to unravel their husband’s dark secrets. With the lives of everyone she loves on the line, Constanta will have to choose between her own freedom and her love for her husband. But bonds forged by blood can only be broken by death….Read My Thoughts…

Book Review Alert: Crescent City: House of Blood and Earth by Sarah J Maas

Reviewed: March 16th, 2024
Released: March 3rd, 2020
Genre: Fantasy

BOUND BY BLOOD.
TEMPTED BY DESIRE.
UNLEASHED BY DESTINY.

Bryce Quinlan loves her life. Every night is a party, and Bryce is going to savour all the pleasures Lunathion – also known as Crescent City – has to offer. But when a brutal murder shakes the very foundations of the city, Bryce’s world comes crashing down.

Two years later, Bryce still haunts the city’s most notorious nightclubs – but seeking only oblivion now. Then the murderer attacks again. And when an infamous Fallen angel, Hunt Athalar, is assigned to watch her every footstep, Bryce knows she can’t forget any longer.

As Bryce and Hunt fight to unravel the mystery and their own dark pasts, the threads they tug ripple through the underbelly of the city, across warring continents and down to the deepest levels of Hel, where things that have been sleeping for millennia are beginning to stir …Read My Thoughts…

Book Review Alert: Lady Avely’s Guide to Truth and Magic by Rosalie Oaks

Reviewed: March 10th, 2024
Released: February 16th, 2014
Genre: Magical Cosy Mystery

Regency widow shouldn’t be hunting spectres all night.

Lady Judith Avely’s magical gift for divining the truth makes her prodigiously good at lying. To absolve a guilty secret, she travels to the exiled Duke of Sargen’s estate, but the last thing she expects is to run into the duke himself, who is lamentably now even more attractive than in his volatile youth.

The duke has his own concerns: he has returned home to a haunted house, with skulls floating about and a footman apparently bashed by a book. Such vulgar circumstances are best avoided, but the duke needs Judith’s unique talents to help uncover the culprit – even if it might put her in the sights of a killer.

With the help of a tiny vampiric acquaintance and a continuous supply of drinking chocolate, Judith should be able to solve the uncanny mystery…if only the duke will stop making improper remarks about her mobcaps.

A lady who can discern lies, the duke who lied to her, and a gothic cosy mystery full of bats, skulls, and cocoa.

Lady Avely’s Guide to Truth and Magic features a mid-life heroine, a slow-burn second-chance romance, and a magical version of Regency England. Read My Thoughts…

Book Review Alert: Legends of Astraea by Sophia Alessandrini

Reviewed: February 26th, 2024
Released: October 21st, 2018
Genre: YA Fantasy

Can the power of love save the world?

Ailie, a gutsy girl who possesses a sharp wit and a playful, irreverent voice that pairs well with that of her best friend’s, a werewolf; embarks on a quest for revenge with the help of her psychotic, warmongering, and good-hearted legal guardian. She alone can open the gates of hell just like Pandora did when she opened the jar that contained all evils.

And evil wants those doors open.
Fallen Angels conspire to help her with Cupid’s Golden Arrow.

She finds herself in a whimsical world of myths, legends, glittering gowns, priceless jewels, life threatening enemies, and eccentric immortals that call themselves Strzyga.

However, there are side effects to the arrow. What’s not to like about a gorgeous, two-hundred-year old Strzyga prince who is totally and completely head over heels for her?

But things never go as planned, do they?

Will Ailie manage to save the world, or will she accidentally open the gates of hell? Read My Thoughts…

Book Review Alert: Tombyards and Butterflies by Orlando A. Sanchez

Reviewed: February 25th, 2024
Released: February 16th, 2017
Genre: Paranormal Fantasy
Format: Audio Narrated by Kevin T. Collins

A Kindle UK Storyteller Finalist

A Missing Ferryman. An Undead Dilemma. An Immortal Detective.

An emissary from the Dark Council has just materialized in the office of the Montague & Strong Detective Agency, and makes Simon Strong an offer he can’t refuse. Charon is missing. The legendary ferryman responsible for transporting sorcerer souls across the river Styx hasn’t been seen in days. And with each passing hour, those unable to cross the river are left to walk among the living, tilting the world further out of balance.

Meet Simon Strong, an immortal, who is also the best private detective in New York City. Together with his surly partner-Tristan Montague, a mage of indeterminate age, they must find the Ferryman and get him back to work before another Supernatural War ravages the earth, destroys humanity, and Simon’s local coffee shop.

Time is running out. His landlord wants the rent and Karma with a capital K is paying him a visit, and she can be a real…

Join the Montague & Strong Detective Agency and help them locate Charon, so he can restore balance to the universe, put the dead sorcerers to rest, and maybe solve the age old conundrum-coffee or tea? Read My Thoughts…

Book Review Alert: The Doorway by Jesse L. Watson

Reviewed: February 11th, 2024
Released: October 24th, 2023
Genre: Science Fiction

FBI Agent Gene Wyke is the best of the best. But can he find a girl missing in another world?

High in the mountains of Colorado, veteran FBI agent Gene Wyke is tasked with locating ten-year-old Marigold Riley, an assignment he hopes will be the last of his career. But the investigation goes sideways when Marigold’s twin sister Katie vanishes as well. Literally.

In the middle of a forest clearing, Gene watches her dissolve into thin air.

To follow, Gene must leave his training behind and step through a doorway to another world—one filled with wonders, as well as dangers real enough to kill him. In the end, saving the two girls will take more than Gene’s cunning and skill; it will take his heart, and change it forever. Read My Thoughts…

Book Review Alert: Tea, Cake and Murder! by K.J. Heritage

Reviewed: February 8th, 2024
Released: February 7th, 2024
Genre: Cosy Mystery

A talented spell-weaving witch on the run is forced to find magical refuge in a mystery novel, playing the role of Emily Crookshanks, amateur sleuth and professional flirt.

Waking up with no idea who or where she is, Emily finds herself in the quaint 1920s English countryside village of Little Pucklewick, uncomfortably sharing tea and cakes with the not so Reverend Wilson-Smallsey, the village’s rather pompous womanising vicar.

After a series of shocking murders, Emily hooks up with the village doctor, a rather dashing ex-RAF fighter pilot known to his chums as ‘Ceddars’. Working together, they uncover clues and interrogate suspects.

Add an inept inspector, various pompous ladies from the regular vicarage get-togethers, a dashing explorer recently returned from the Orient, his very attractive career-minded secretary, and a whole host of motives and clues, including a series of nasty accusatory posters, and Emily finds herself in the middle of a most confusing and frustrating mystery.

But more than the murders, Emily suffers from terrifying visions of attack and desperate escape. And just what are wands and spell-weavery, and the smartphones and hi-def televisions she occasionally glimpses in her mind?

Despite everything, Emily knows that to survive, she must solve the mystery and, to do that, she must keep going to The End. Read My Thoughts…

Book Review Alert: Archer 887 by Anna Schroeder

Reviewed: January 30th, 2024
Released: July 1st, 2022
Genre: Science Fiction

An unknown invader. A devastating attack. And the system’s uneasy peace is broken.

Decimated, the Caprician Empire teeters on the brink of defeat. Her detractors, restive colonies and rapacious rivals alike, must come together to protect their system from invasion and domination.

Arsaces Wood is a man most wished had been killed the day he halted a doomed rebellion. Resented by the ruling Capricians and shunned by his kin, he now commands a Sentient, the AI warship Westerland.

Yet even as they join the system’s desperate defense, he discovers those he trusts most have been lying to him. Hiding secrets that threaten not only his life, but the very worlds he is fighting to save. Read My Thoughts…

Book Review Alert: Divine Guidance by Shari T. Mitchell

Reviewed: January 25th, 2024
Released: October 10th, 2014
Genre: Paranormal Murder Mystery

Psychic psychologist Marnie Reilly battles inner demons every day. But when the “demon” is flesh and blood, will the final analysis be murder?

Marnie Reilly is a hot-headed counselor with a difficult past; a dead mother, father, brother and an abusive ex-boyfriend. She has publicly taken on “The Collective,” a group of psychics and charlatans who sell hope at top dollar to troubled people looking for answers. They have threatened her, but she hasn’t taken their “hoodoo voodoo” nonsense seriously – until now.

When the police find Marnie’s ex-boyfriend’s dead body in her shed, she finds herself in the middle of a murder inquiry. Serious questions arise about her involvement in the murder and Marnie is certain The Collective has framed her.
Marnie, her Border Collie, a childhood friend and a cranky detective battle thunder, rain, ice and blizzards to end a rash of murders in the sleepy city of Creekwood. Will the ghosts of her past help too? Read My Thoughts…

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