The Lunatics

The Lunatics by Navessa Allen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book has such a fun premise and really interesting world building. I am not a fan of how this ended and felt a little adrift at the conclusion.

Layla, a small town girl, is a shifter who is only attending the mating ritual to support her friend. Michael, a rich businessman, is a shifter who is also only attending the mating ritual to support his brother. When the magic goes out of control during the ceremony, Layla and Michael end up the most unlikely of mates. They really do their best to make things work but it is a really strange and baggage filled mating.

Michael is a prominent member of a large and important family in the city who cannot step away from his business or his mother, the alpha. This poses a problem because new mates cannot be far from one another. It is made extra complicated because Layla is a special kind of shifter with lots of extra powers and abilities, which are now entering the mating bond. I’m sure there is a ton more to the story, but sadly the book only gives us the start of this relationship. I wanted to know more about how they navigate the supernatural politics, new relationship, new powers/abilities, and family drama. Sadly, the book ends rather abruptly, without a lot of answers to the oodles of questions bouncing around my head.

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Hexed

Hexed by Ilona Andrews
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have had this anthology of short stories in my “to be read” list for a while. I picked it up because I really enjoy Ilona Andrew’s and the world that the Kate Daniel’s books built. The rest of the stories, honestly, I just hoped weren’t terrible. All in all, this was a short set of stories, with, not surprisingly, one standout among a few OK stories (for me).

I’m going to focus briefly on the story I bought this set for and simply suggest that the rest of the stories were interesting, but nothing I would go out and grab more books from. The Kate Daniel’s story was really nice. It felt familiar, but interesting. We get to see inside Dali’s head - a character who I didn’t really remember, having read the series a long time ago. Still, the story did all the work reminding me of anything I needed to know. I think you could enjoy it as a standalone, but it was a particularly satisfying bit of lore to tuck into that Kate Daniel’s world.

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The Cinnamon Spellbook Bakery

The Cinnamon Spellbook Bakery by Ella Cook
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was another surprise to me. Typically your magical discovery story takes place from the woman’s perspective but here we get to see Aiden, a bad boy on a motorcycle, discover he has magical baking abilities when his bike breaks down in a magical little town.

While Aiden is going through all of that, Mia is on the hunt for her magical romance. She grew up in town but is not magical and doesn’t get to see all the magical happenings in town. After some disastrous attempts at dating, she and Aiden end up with an arrangement of the hookup variety. They hide it from their shared friends, but they are obviously meant to be together. We have to jump through many hoops to get our happy ending with this one, but we do finally get there (magic and all!).

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The Mermaid in the Shot Glass

The Mermaid in the Shot Glass by Hailey Edwards
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Rian and Ana’s relationship is slowly building as she starts to find her own footing, but this book was very short so didn’t make much progress. There was still a storyline - Ana gets to try out some of her fledgling dragon skills but there is something troubling going on in the pack. Oh, and there’s some polar bear stuff that happens that is both alarming and cute. Since these are like small novellas, I don’t want to over share any details. The characters are still growing and developing, but I enjoy this world.

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The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

The Eye of the Bedlam Bride by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

These books are all great. This one had me shaking my head at Carl more than previous books, but I am sure that we will all end up OK in the end. He takes so many unnecessary risks!

Hitting on the highlights here - Samantha is rapidly becoming one of my favorites. Don’t worry, Donut is still excellent and the way they are gearing up for Faction Wars is just… perfection. But that being said, we spend a lot of time in dark areas doing dark things or learning dark secrets in this one. We, once again, surprisingly address the looming big bad in a really fast couple of chapters. I thought for sure the sunrise at the end of the last book would linger and begin to slowly erode at the team’s dynamic, but no - almost right away it gets brought to light. These gods, though - I’m sure there is a lot building for future floors there. I was happy to learn a little more about the drama between Odette and Mordecai.

I have to say that I really did not like the card game of this floor. I was channeling donut for most of the rule descriptions where my brain would just shut off. I don’t think you need to understand it all because the AI or the showrunners end up screwing with things along the way. We also began to learn more about the AI and the drama there that’s building. These books somehow make me cry one moment and then laugh out loud the next. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

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The Butcher’s Masquerade

The Butcher's Masquerade by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I did myself a huge disservice by not reviewing this before starting the next book. Now everything is merging together so I’ll just hit the highlights. Since I am blowing through these books at a rapid rate, I am obviously enjoying them. Maybe this book is slightly better than the last one? They are all excellent.

One thing these books do is surprise me, all the time! While I know I am signing up for good witty banter, and lots of twists and turns, Carl never does what I expect him to do. Also - we deal with a lot of things that I thought would derail everything (no reference to the iron tangle), but instead are over in a flash (see: Odette’s program “surprise”). I love all these characters so much that I want to throttle Carl when he does reckless things.

A surprise star in this book was Mongo and his, uh, relations? I was surprised at how much progress is being made with Carl’s focus on the NPCs and cannot wait to see how it all ends up playing out. The ending is, again, filled with all sorts of surprises that give the next book even more to address. Oh, and Wonderwall.

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Bloodlust Storm

Bloodlust Storm by Luanne Bennett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Wait - what? Is this the last book in this series?!?! I’m not ready to leave this world and I definitely don’t want to leave things this way!

Charley and gang have their big showdown with the big bad vampire that has been trapped under the witch’s house for a while. The closer he comes to freedom, the more the vampires in town begin to lose their minds, as seen by the previous book and Charley’s split with Samuel. I wish I could say it gets better, but it gets much darker and worse before this is all over. I’m very conflicted about the events and ending of this big story, though we do get to address Charley’s magic and her acceptance of her abilities.

So, this big bad vampire, it turns out he’s related in vampire terms to a group that attacks the bar. Charley is able to rally the troops to fight back but we are unfortunately missing Samuel, who was such a fixture in this series. I’m not sure if I can get over the abrupt ending of their relationship, honestly. All that aside, Charley shows the town that she is truly a power to be feared, and we get to turn the page on to… spinoffs? Please?



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