Coffee Served by an Orc! Pastries cooked by a Rat/human something or other. Legends and Lattes.

 There's a subgenre of novels that are becoming more and more popular. It's called cozy fantasy. Legends and Lattes certainly fit this description. An orc, originally a paid killer, wants to open a coffee shop in a town that only knows tea. The help she gets, the friends she makes, and the accomplishment of her dreams makes this a fun, sweet book.

If you like fantasy, but get a little tired of sword fights, or laser battles, or characters who want to be king when they could be happy with a coffee shop, you'll like Legends and Lattes.

I'd like to thank myself for buying myself the kindle version of Legends and Lattes.

                                                The Human/Rat/Thingamajig pastry chef is adorable. 

Walking In a Winter Wonderland...with a psychopath. A Review of Dead of Winter

 These people fell for the oldest scam in the world. If mysterious tickets arrive for you, don't go. Do not go! DO NOT GO. Somebody wants you out of the house and your head on a stick.

Dead of Winter is a good mystery, lots of bloody horror, and lots and lots of snow. Read this on a summer day. It will make you feel icy cold. The antagonist went through an awful lot of trouble, expense, and toe-numbing cold and it seemed like he could do the same things in an easier, cheaper, warmer way, but hey, that would be a much shorter book. Lots of violence and snow. Red shows up so much better on otherwise pristine white.

Thank you to Poison Pen Press and Netgalley for allowing me to read, review, and get the chills from Dead of Winter.

How Are You? she demanded. Fine, she barked. A Review of The Water Tower

 The Water Tower has a fantastic premise, but I think it could have used a little more editing. The attributions to the speakers seemed excessive. Characters rarely said anything. They barked their dialogue or demanded an answer even if it was a common question. Demanding answers is kind of hostile. Sometimes a character

"smiled" their dialogue. How does one smile dialogue. Maybe it's just a pet peeve of mine, but when it comes to attributions, less is more. 
  
Like I said, the premise is a good one. The main character kept telling everyone about her discoveries, her friends, her new boyfriend, absolutely everyone knew about her sleuthing. Some things are better left unsaid, which she found out the hard way. So, the idea of the story was fine, but I wanted to tell the protagonist to be quiet. 

Thanks to Netgalley and Level Best Books for allowing me to read and review an eARC of The Water Tower.

The Uses of Spit. A Review of Wolfsong by T.J. Klune

 Ok, so I love TJ Klune's books. Usually, the novels have strangers coming together to make a loving family. Wolfsong is the same...but with werewolves! Except, they're not just werewolves, they're swearwolves. Oh my, there was an abundance of the f word. I can't afford an f word-o-meter so you'll just have to take my word for it. And lots of violence of the werewolf kind, but these werewolves eat vegetables. The violence is between the veggie-eating wolves and the rogue werewolves. Humans can join the werewolves! What fun! Except for getting mauled and mangled. That might hurt. What else? Some graphic gay sex. I learned new ways that spit can be used. After three or four pages of graphic sex, I wanted to yell, "Too much information!" I'm more of a squeaking bed springs kind of reader.

Wolfsong has many of the attributes that Mr. Klune's other books having. But, if you're looking for The House on the Cerulean Sea, this ain't it. It has a sweet story involving a young kid and a blended family but with sex, violence, and swearwolves...I mean werewolves. Well written and great as a horror story...with spit.

Thanks to Tor and Netgalley for allowing me to read and review Wolfsong.

An Apology

My apologies if you were looking for reviews of the last couple of books. I was accidentally posting them on my husband's long forgotten blog. I must delete that thing. I think he last posted about ten years ago.

 

Massive World Buildings...and togas! A Review of Will of the Many...with togas!

 

Please help us up the steps. These things are hell to walk in.

Well, I tell ya, this is one super long book. Perfect for readers who love fantasy world building. With gore. Lots of getting poked with obsidian knives. No, more like getting pinned to a wall with obsidian shards. People are bleeding all over the place and losing their eyeballs. Speaking of eyeballs, there was a lot of eyeball rolling, and smirking. Fantastical story, lots of amazing things happening, but the characters are all smirking and eyeball rolling like all of the other characters in YA books.

But, despite my personal weariness of smirking and eyeball rolling, I did like, and felt like I got to know the characters. Vis, the protagonist, goes through a hell of a lot for only being seventeen. Sometimes it seemed like a little much. He should have died about a dozen times or at the least, have brain damage. Like all good heroes, he keeps plugging along. 
 
Something was a little weird. They have sappers (tables that suck the will out of unfortunates) transports that fly through the sky for hundreds of miles, trackers that can show them where anybody is at, yet they're still writing with a stylus on wax tablets and lighting oil lamps. They can transport through the air, move walls with stone push buttons but they haven't discovered electricity! 

I sound like I'm complaining but I actually liked the book (except for the smirking and eyeball rolling.) Lots of action, lots of desperate situations, good friendships and a whole bunch of stabbings. And the world building is excellent.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Saga Press for allowing me to read and review The Will of the many. Oh, and it's set up for a sequel.

Not Happy Campers. A Review of Tell Me What Really Happened.

 

Tell Me What Really Happened is one of my favorite books of 2023. Five friends (some of whom only tolerate each other) go camping. Four of them end up in police interrogation. Each chapter begins with one question from a detective. The rest of the chapter is each teens' answers. Suspense! Creepy! Also a unique way to write a novel.

Murder...or is it? Friendship...or is it?

I kept reading this book long after midnight because I was asking myself, "What next? WHAT NEXT!" Full of surprises. A couple of the characters I kind of wished would be eaten by bears. They weren't. Maybe one of them was eaten by something big and hairy. Maybe not. A real "who done it." Or what done it.

Mystery. Action. Romance...or maybe not. Definitely death. But who, how, and why?

Thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks for allowing me to read, review, and be frightened by Tell Me What Really Happened.