• Book Database

    Magic in Manhattan (series) by Allie Therin

    Content Notes Warnings: Violence/Death, Child Abuse (off screen), Racism (minor) Medium-paced plot and slow-ish romance with fade-to-black sexytimes. HTBB Review Really enjoyed this book! Arthur is adorable, despite being a very rich, well-connected fellow who likes to boss people around because he’s a worrywart. Rory is also adorable, though in a scrappy kind of way. They’re both insecure (in different directions) and together they’re kind of a mess– but it’s cute. Sort of a slow burn because they don’t even kiss until more than halfway through; weirdly surprised about the fade-to-black sexytimes in a Harlequin book, but it didn’t ruin anything about the story for me. Also very much enjoyed…

  • Book Reviews

    Spectr vol. 1 by Jordan L. Hawk

    A novella series is tough to review; each book is just a little too short to write about on its own and trying to do the whole series at once is super tiring. But I really liked these books so I’m gonna give it a shot. Hunter of demons So basically all these books are short, but good. I do prefer full-length novels to almost anything else, but novellas are fun because you can finish reading them super quickly. They’re like bon-bons! Bon-bons filled with demons. SPECTR has a somewhat typical paranormal worldbuilding with demons, psychics, and special agents who solve paranormal crimes. Luckily I love all that stuff! This…

  • Book Reviews

    There Will Be Phlogston, vN, The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal

    Desperately trying to play catch-up, as always! Here’s three tiny reviews of books I’ve read several months ago. There Will Be Phlogston – Alexis Hall I hated Byron Kae’s sister in previous books because she made her sibling’s life very unhappy, but it turns out she’s more complex than just “horrible bully.” She wants to escape her terrible parents! She feels stifled by society and its expectations! She wants to find love! And she finds it, alongside a super repressed gay guy and their boyfriend. Surprise! It’s a threesome! And way more complicated than that, of course, because Alexis Hall does nothing simple in his books. Anyway, I loved it.…

  • Book Reviews

    Necropolis by Jordan L. Hawk

    This was a VERY exciting book! Not only because of the body horror human-animal hybrid situation, but because Whyborne and the gang get out of the country and head over to Egypt! Where it turns out Dr. Christine has a Secret Boyfriend! And there are, like, curses or something! It’s a little predictable in that I guessed at least two important plot points before they happened, but it was also super fun to read. Honestly, it reminded me of all the best parts of The Mummy, only with more than one female protagonist. Dr. Christine is there, of course, and she is forever my favorite of the series. She’s dealing…

  • Book Reviews

    Mystic, Remnant, Some Kind of Magic

    I read this because of Memory! Also G. Willow Wilson is writing Ms. Marvel now (which I very much enjoyed) and I wanted to try another of her books. This one’s about two friends: one destined to be a great magician and one who, well, isn’t. It is super short– maybe too short, as the story moves along at a breakneck pace and character development suffers as a result. With only 96 pages there isn’t a whole heap of room for anything but the main plot. The beginning was so strong that I had high expectation for the rest of the book. Unfortunately, the pacing was way too fast and…

  • Book Reviews

    One-Eyed Jack by Elizabeth Bear

    Things I have a soft spot for: gods (or something similar) trying to make it in America, odes to places not much oded to, boyfriends, personifications of cities gaining sentience. Things this book has: all that! Plus Elvis! Any book with American-grown gods is going to be compared to Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, but what’s different about One-Eyed Jack is that they’re not so much GODS as personifications of cities (or certain genres of media!) given life. Their choices affect the city; the city in return affects them. So, for example, if a formerly-important city dries up and turns into a ghost town, the personification either dies, too, or they…

  • Book Reviews

    Iron & Velvet by Alexis Hall (2013)

    As you know, I am a huge fan of Alexis Hall’s Prosperity series, which is a steampunk historical romance horror thing with amazing characters and a fantastic setting. Her Kate Kane series, meanwhile, is an urban paranormal mystery series with romance elements set in modern day London. I burnt out on urban paranormal mystery romances some years ago, but I had faith that AH wouldn’t just regurgitate the same old tropes that originally turned me off the genre. And he didn’t! A lot of the story elements ARE the same as other urban fantasy series– there are werewolves and vampires and witches, the protagonist is a half-faerie princess PI with…