Fantasy

Curse of the Winter Lord by Susan Shepard

This is a great stand-alone dark fantasy involving a witch, a courageous girl, a cursed lord, and a dangerous adventure. Althena lives in a small, idyllic town until winter comes and never leaves. The town blames the nearby magical woods, especially when a stranger arrives and children start to go missing. Blaming herself, Althena enters the woods to rescue the children and save the town. Lord Winter lives in the wood and has been cursed to turn into a wolf every full moon. Believing he can break the curse by capturing 12 innocents and performing a ritual, he didn’t count on Althena.

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January 25, 2024 0

The Secrets of Jane: Forgotten (Improper Bastards #1) by Charlotte Mallory

4.5 stars

Wow. wow. wow. wow. What a fantastic book! I don’t read many dark fantasy romance books, but maybe I should start. Jane is a young woman that fled Skull Row 10 years ago, home to thieves and killers and mercenary rulers called Zeniths. The village she’s hiding out in is set aflame and she’s captured by one of the most ruthless mercenaries, Soren. His job is to return her to Skull Row to face the Council. They haven’t told him why, which he doesn’t like. Most of the book is their journey back to Skull Row until the climatic cliffhanger. It’s a vicious story, filled with a lot of action and fighting. It’s definitely not for the squeamish.

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September 27, 2023 0

Wounds of Ash: Book One of the Vendi Chronicles by K.L. Hester

This is a wonderful first book in a new YA fantasy series. The kingdoms of Myral and Gralanth are separated by a range of mountains. The Myral people have magic. It’s capital is Ringard and it’s ruled by a High Enforcer, who is a member of a group of fierce warriors called Ringada. Gralanth people do not have magic, and both sides are wary of each other.

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July 17, 2023 0

The Shadow Sister by Lily Meade

This is a really good, creepy YA mystery/thriller that keeps your attention from page one. The book opens with Casey being mad that her sister Sutton is missing. She’s convinced that Sutton took off for selfish reasons and is laughing that everyone is frantically looking for her. Casey puts on a show as a worried sister for the cameras, but inside she’s fuming. There is no love lost between her and Sutton, but no way is she telling the police about their argument just before Sutton went missing.

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July 5, 2023 0

Heliotrop by Palmer Pickering

4.5 stars

Teleo is a retired soldier descended from Mages, who were cast out of power generations ago. After years of war and sorrow, he wants nothing more than to live a quiet life on his farm and work his stonemason’s craft.

His wife and daughter had been murdered during a war raid several years earlier and his young son stolen by the enemy side. He spent years unsuccessfully searching for his son and returned home broken-hearted. At the local castle, he comes upon a war orphan stolen by his side from the enemy and rescues him from abuse, adopting him as his foster son.

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April 22, 2023 0

Blind Spots by Thomas Mullen

This was a pretty good science fiction mystery/thriller set in the near future after a mysterious illness caused the entire population of the planet to go blind. A device was created that approximates vision, downloading visual data directly to people’s brains. Mark Owens, a homicide detective, investigates a murder in which the witness claims that the murderer was blacked out of her vision. He doesn’t believe her until the same thing happens to him. Mark realizes that someone is manipulating the data everyone receives from their tech. This starts Mark down a dangerous path in which more lives are in jeopardy and Mark can’t trust what he sees with his own eyes.

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April 15, 2023 0

Identifiable by Julia Tvardovskaya

3.5 stars rounded up

This is an interesting science fiction/fantasy. In this world people have a chip in their head that brings up everything about them. The first 13 years of your life are controlled by your parents, so you’re stuck with whatever they decide to upload. If you have controlling parents, you can’t control your profile until you turn 18. This happened to MC Rory. People are assigned to a brood. Each brood has defined parameters of what they do, what they believe & how they behave. People do not interact outside of their brood.

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April 8, 2023 0

The Mountain of Souls (The Chosen, #1) by Marcus Lee

Oh my gosh, you guys. This book!!! If you like dark fantasies that have mysterious sects with secret agendas, a questionable king, a brutal training process, and a strong female lead, pick this book up right now. It’s rare that a book grabs me from page 1, but this one did.

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March 12, 2023 0

The Other Merlin (Emry Merlin, #1) by Robyn Schneider

3.5 stars rounded up to 4

This is a fun YA Fantasy re-telling of Camelot. Arthur is an intelligent bookworm that isn’t much of a fighter. Lancelot is a gay castle guard that was demoted from a page (on track to becoming a knight) after a misunderstanding. Both we content bumbling along until Arthur accidentally pulls the sword from the stone, and now everyone thinks he’s some kind of hero. Emry Merlin poses as her twin brother at court to learn magic and serve Arthur. It’s supposed to be temporary, but nothing goes to plan and she’s there permanently. Princess Guinevere is betrothed to Arthur, but neither wants to marry the other.

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January 8, 2023 0