The Marionettes

The Marionettes by Katie Wismer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I absolutely loved this book! As the first in a series, it gave me all the things I wanted - dove into the world and let me figure stuff out as I went, introduced a lot of characters without giving me too much information to judge them, took me along on a twisty turny path of story, and I am left dying for the next book. OK, that last part I could do without having as a cliffhanger, but you are forgiven.

We are dropped into Valerie’s head on a supernatural campus as she is gearing up for her initiation into “The Marionettes.” She’s a blood witch, which is super rare, so she should have an easy time passing, except her powers have been acting funky. In true teenage style, she keeps this hidden, trying to deal with it on her own. This is reinforced when right off the bat she finds out her boyfriend is cheating on her, sending her into a tailspin. Oh, and her mom is apparently an evil right-hand-lady to the vampire ruler of their area. If I understand correctly, supernaturals are “out” in this world, and rule their areas with different degrees of harshness. Witches mostly serve these vampires in various capacities, but humans are mostly food.

Valerie’s friends are great, though, so there is at least some bright spots in her life. If only she would confide in them more. The secrecy of the initiation testing leads to even more secrets and now folks are showing up attacked or murdered, which puts an ominous pall over the entire campus. Her unlikely ally in initiations ends up being the “prince” of the vampires. Things go all sorts of wrong there, too, but it’s too early in their story arc to understand where it will go. No big romance fireworks in this book, so I assume we will get there in future installments. With a hard cliffhanger at the end here, I am eager to start book 2!

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Over the Moon

Over the Moon by Hailey Edwards
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m still a little blown away that so many things ended up getting wrapped up in this single book. We start where we left off and things go WAY off course quickly, leaving even more loose ends than they started with.

Dell did her job and somehow navigated fae politics to get help in the war, and the inklings of a plan. Then faerie and earth end up mushing together in a very bad way, putting that on her already long list of to-do’s. In this post-apocalyptic world, they need to rescue Isaac’s brother, protect the supposedly future king of faerie, make sure their backup is actually on their side, not get ensnared by the fae now occupying earth, and probably a thousand other things. Oh, and there’s the whole pack/mate/future of the world stuff, too.

I had a lot of fun in this last installment, feeling like the time in faerie did end up contributing to their ultimate ending. We get oodles of shifting, danger, familiar faces, some true stakes, and what is maybe the best outcome we could hope for here. Is everything completely wrapped up? No - we don’t really know how humans are going to keep on going, but the paranormals are mostly complete. I will say that I finished this book hoping Theo had a spinoff book in the works but sadly that looks like it was abandoned. The start of it is in the epilogues but we are left incomplete there. I wish this world continued!

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Wolf at the Door

Wolf at the Door by Hailey Edwards
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am still struggling with Isaac, but LOVE Dell in this series. They gave her so much more depth of character. This is the “roadtrip” book, where they pick up a few characters, throw them outside the supporting cast and have us learn all about a new place at the same time.

When last we left Dell, she was in trouble. They ended up throwing her in supernatural prison which, obviously, is not great for a pack animal. This happen quickly at the start, somehow everyone is convinced breaking her out of jail is a good thing, and that they should trust a fae king, and that we’re all good with Isaac being able to shift to cover for Dell, and … a million other probably bad decisions, but made sense at the time. This puts Dell and her love triangle/ex-love triangle together in faerie, trying to… gosh I kind of forget. Oh! It has something to do with them needing their teenage winged friend back to be the person they are rooting to become king? It gets really complicated in the machinations and motivations in this book.

The love story, if we can call it that, does make a lot of progress. By progress I mean that they say I love you which… do they even know each other well? Sure they’ve been in life threatening situations but it feels like a fated mates quick type of love. I guess I’m on board, but can we please stop hurting Dell? She cares so much about so many people and I think she gets the short end of the stick most times. I can see the character growth from her, and it was definitely a wild ride in this book, but book 3 can’t come quick enough.

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Dining with Angels: Bits & Bites from the Demonica Universe

Dining with Angels: Bits & Bites from the Demonica Universe by Larissa Ione
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Is this required reading for the Demonica series? No. Did I need to read this because I like to be thorough? Yes. It was a very quick read, especially if you are not actively creating all the recipes in the book. I hesitate to call this a short story anthology because some of them are really just scenes strung together in the same time period of a few days.

I’m not going to go into full breakdown because that would essentially recreate this quick book, but if you’re looking to “check in” with any of your favorites from the series, this is your chance. You see all the familiar faces, or at least learn more about what they’ve been up to. Some have smutty goodness, some are just romance, some are just conversations. Overall, it left me feeling like the series is wrapped up tight (even though I know it continues on, these characters I classify firmly in HEA territory). You obviously should not pick this up unless you’ve read the series and/or if you are an avid recipe enthusiast. Since I read this on kindle I’m not sure how easily I will be able to grab recipes out of this, but it is a fun concept.

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The Witch of Wall Street

The Witch of Wall Street by M.J. Etkind
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book had a really unique spin on your typical witchy romance. In this world, magic is real but hidden, and Miriam and Nelson both have their own magical baggage to address before we get to a happy-ish ending.

Miriam is a workaholic with chaos magic. She has worked her whole life to contain this side of her, only letting it out during her nightly broomstick rides or when it bubbles up uncontrollably. Her childhood was spent embarrassed of her obviously chaotic magic, even overshadowing the childhood friendship (or attempted friendship) of Nelson. Nelson inherited a bit of a more beneficial magic that can give him or those around him a dose of lucky benefits. This drove Miriam to be jealous and that particular resentment colored her memory of the past until they re-meet as adults.

Nelson, still a very positive person, is now leading a charity that finds homes and jobs for those who wouldn’t otherwise be able to find them. Miriam’s firm, on the other hand, is secretly trying to steal the deal for new housing out from under said charity. It’s all hush hush so this puts Miriam in a bit of an awkward position when she find herself attracted to and then spending the night with her ex-arch nemesis.

This is a fade to black type romance, which didn’t bother me so much because there is A LOT they end up needing to address on their magical adventure. Oh, and they are on a magical adventure because Nelson’s magic teleporty thing and Miriam’s broomstick run away. It’s a magic thing, apparently, but ends up forcing a lot of overdue conversations, reconnections, and the Nelson/Miriam one night stand grows to multiple nights/days/weekends. Miriam also is forced to re-asses her career and what she wants to do with her life. It was definitely a journey, but ends up mostly wrapped up in a neat bow by the finish.

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Hidden

Hidden by Melody Grace Hicks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is likely somewhere around a 3.5 for me. It is a big, bold introduction to a world that combines modern times with mythology in a fun, unique way. There’s all manner of mythological being thrown in that had me searching my brain for my college classes on gods and goddesses.

Shannon is a woman who is passionate about her career. She has just somewhat recently escaped from an abusive relationship and is eager to get away to an international conference. On the plane she meets a famous lead singer and they hit it off in very sexy ways. It turns out that this lead singer is actually Loki in a disguise and he is absolutely smitten with Shannon. He, of course, reveals this is in the worst possible way, resulting in oodles of misunderstandings, fear, and some god-like revelations. This whole plot line would be enough for a single book, but this one doesn’t even begin to stop there!

Shannon needs to learn to live with one foot in the human world and one in the world of the gods. Loki, for his own part, is starting to regret all his childish decisions to upset or create enemies of other god-like beings, which ends up putting a big target on the back of anyone he shacks up with. There’s grudges, revenge plots, family lineage reveals, bad best friends, even worse sisters, dragon beings, babies, and kidnapping to round this big introductory book out. By the end I was hoping Shannon would be able to just take a breather, but we end on a cliffhanger, unsure where her life will end up!

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Promise the Moon

Promise the Moon by Hailey Edwards
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

OK, it’s totally on me that I didn’t realize this was not going to be Cam narrating anymore. I blindly added the entire “Gemini” series on my phone and have been plowing my way through them. After the third book in the series and then the short story that bridges, I was shocked to find us in Dell’s head.

Maybe with more warning I could have been prepared, but this Dell seems very different from the fun and quirky girl we met with Cam. Dell fought to become beta of the Lorimar pack and found herself in a one-sided relationship with her mate, Isaac. Since the narrator at the time didn't know much about their relationship, it is a little hard to start this book understanding the heartbreak Dell went through. Without the backstory or all the details, this first book in the series had a bigger hill to climb than the other books so far. Isaac left, so what? Convince me why they are this wonderful love story. At the start, we know more about her witch friend who still pursues her than Isaac.

What I really liked about this book was Dell’s friends. I could take or leave the love triangle dudes, but want to see more of Dell leading, having supportive friends, eating cupcakes, etc. Even when Isaac does show up, I am still not getting the romance vibes at all. It’s like fated mates but without the love story at all. Weird. I’m forgiving it because I do really enjoy Dell and this story with all its weird fae was interesting.

The larger story (and better, really) was about how the pack is protecting the new entrance from faerie to Earth and hunting down whoever is stealing away folks in town. I liked watching Dell find her footing with the accidental alpha position she’s got here while her true alphas are off trying to solve big fae stuff. While we do get another cliffhanger, it wasn’t as much painful as it was out of left field. This author has a thing for stopping the story mid-stride, so I am somewhat used to it.

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