Her Guardian Angel

Her Guardian Angel by Larissa Ione
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

OK, so I’ve read these books in a little bit of a weird order, but had this novella on my radar for completion’s sake for a while. E-book secret Santa sent it to me so I eagerly dove in!

Suzanne is the grim reaper’s daughter and she’s not exactly happy with her role as guardian angel to Declan. It’s not that she doesn’t like spending time essentially stalking him, but instead she wants to just be… normal and get to know him. She also wants to go after her dreams of being a cooking tv personality, but that’s beside the larger story. Declan is a bodyguard who, unbeknownst to him, has been marked as someone that needs to be protected at all costs. This is made especially difficult when it is discovered that he angered a family of big, bad, demons.

Suzanne, in an effort to maybe somewhat selfishly keep Declan safe, sets up a cover story to get him to be assigned as her bodyguard. The two obviously hit it off, break lots of angel rules, and uncover even more secrets in poor Declan’s past. This novella gives you action, brief romance, a little smutty bondage, and refreshingly familiar faces from the Demonica series. This was a quick and easy read without huge ramifications or delays in gratification.

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The ​Crown of Gilded Bones

The ​Crown of Gilded Bones by Jennifer L. Armentrout
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Gah, these books! While this one ends in less of a cliffhanger more of an exciting event, I’m still left unsettled and actually thought about immediately picking up book#4. I don’t think these books should be read back-to-back, though, for your own sanity. This book felt long in a way the previous one didn’t even. The paragraphs are long and felt a little repetitive, but that could be because we travel back and forth to the same places a few times and the descriptions from the previous book may have also been fresh in my head.

We join Poppy fresh off being handed the queen’s crown. Think that was a lot? That’s NOTHING compared to what goes down immediately after that. It’s like a sprint that begins at chapter one and didn’t let up. The rollercoaster of emotion kept me 1000% engaged, but when the dust settled it felt like.. there were no stakes? Oddly, because everyone is always under attack or removing from some horrible thing, I felt that as Poppy’s powers grew, it’s a bit like Superman where you don’t have any of that needed tension or worry for their safety. Somehow Cas is now the one I worry about, especially with the overwhelming amount of reveal/data dump at the end of this book.

I called the last book the “building the relationship” book so I guess this one is the “REVEAL!” Book because of all the information we have shoved at us at the end. I’m happy because Poppy has appeared to find a good balance between petulant child and ruler but I guess we’ll see what happens next.

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A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire

A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire by Jennifer L. Armentrout
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

OK, first disclaimer, I have no idea what these books are called, even having just finished one. The titles, I get it, this is the new trendy naming thing, but I’m just going to refer to this one as the “in between” one. I did the thing where I finished this book and immediately read the next one (hello - cliffhanger?) so they kind of blur into one another, except that this one stitches together Poppy & Cas in a “true” relationship.

We join this couple right after the end of book 1, with Poppy reluctantly being kept by Cas, who appears to be a murderous prince of a whole kingdom of murderers. That’s all we’ve seen since the start, so I don’t blame Poppy for wanting to escape, even with very poor planning. This book leans heavy into the banter and relationship angles for these two, with Poppy needing to grieve for, ya know, the friends that these folks killed. Also, she’s left everything she’s known behind to go along with this madness. She doesn’t really have a safe place, but somehow that becomes with Cas.

I get why other reviewers have trouble with him - it almost feels like we get two version of him in this series so far. Poppy waves her hands and calls them different “masks” but maybe that’s just lazy writing. Either way, no problems from me - they sell the romance, smut, and we spend enough time with them that I forgave him early on in this book. I am struggling a little to recreate in my head what went on in this book. It was a lot of traveling, mysterious hints about Poppy’s family/past/powers, and lots of time building that aforementioned relationship to become “real.”

This book ends in a good-ish place, but still left me immediately wanting to dive into the next book, as I said. Things do not go easy for Poppy no matter how hard she tries to be a relatively good, albeit stabby person. If I were summarizing the books, book 1 was the escape, book 2 is building the relationship.

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The Wedding Witch

The Wedding Witch by Erin Sterling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a very cute, fun, wintery paranormal romance. I admit, I didn’t read the previous books in this series, but was easily able to slip into this world, especially because it takes a timey-wimey twist.

Bowen is a broody loner who is determined to solve a magical mystery for his friend Declan. He is, of course, not telling anyone his true intentions here, so he tries to go through a magical acquirer of things to further his research. Tamsyn is said “acquirer” and he has an adorably awkward meeting with her that ends with a kiss and her accepting his business proposition. Through ghostly and ramen intervention, both these lonely friends end up together on an estate for a wedding that turns sour when yet another ghost interferes.

When the bride has a major meltdown, Tamsyn and Bowen somehow end up back in time and trapped in (gasp) a room with only one bed! This was truly fun and romantic, and it even had some good mystery that shocked me at the end. There’s smutty goodness and a really fun time all wrapped into this romance. I’d recommend this even if you haven’t read the others in the series (like me). It gave good holiday vibes, too!

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Impractical Magic

Impractical Magic by Emily Grimoire
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was a mix of small town romance and a witchy mystery in a fun way!

Scarlett is returning home (aka the bed and breakfast her family owns) at the request of her eldest sister. Bad things are afoot in her small town that brings back all sorts of traumatic memories for Scarlett, since the last time they were tasked with fishing the town’s magic, her father ended up dead. She also had to abandon her childhood sweetheart, Nate, to run away to the mundane world. This weird witchy world is… definitely odd in an interesting way.

Scarlett and Nate were my favorite part of this book. They didn’t get enough romance time due o the life threatening magic issues they were forced to face, but what we did get was great. Scarlett has to work through buckets of problems in this book - her family issues, unspoken resentment, misunderstandings and blame, and also Scarlett’s magical self-confidence. All of this culminates in the book’s ending, which, while HEA-like, really took you on a journey to get there!

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Best Hex Ever

Best Hex Ever by Nadia El-Fassi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was an adorable paranormal romance that wove together wonderful friendships, family, and even a wedding with the perfect amount of spicy goodness.

Dina is a witch who owns a coffee shop/bakery. She’s got a great, supportive group of friends who encourage her to break through a hex that’s been placed on her. While she eagerly helps others find love or comfort, she herself can’t find the same without cursing whoever she is with. One failed relationship has cursed her love life, literally. When Scott, a local museum employee, stumbles into her shop, and subsequently her life, she knows she’s in trouble.

Scott, on the other hand, is smitten. These two do a great dance around one another until they are (shocker) stuck in a cabin together, forced to handle their attraction during a getaway wedding weekend. Loved everything about this story and the world that this author has built for the characters! What a refreshing and surprising story with, yes, an HEA.

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Fang Fiction

Fang Fiction by Kate Stayman-London
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a completely unexpected read! It takes a lot to surprise and engage me, having read a ton of paranormal romance, but this book really surprised me at every turn. While this book might not be for everyone, I loved the meta qualities and was ok with the darker elements.

Tess is somewhat naive when we meet her, new to grad school, making friends, and generally optimistic about life. Her love of a vampire series, Blood Feud, ties her to a larger fandom that ultimately becomes where she hides after a terrible thing happens. It turns out, however, that the vampires this series is based on are real and one of them needs her help getting back “home.” Of course, the books end up being unreliable narrators and Tess goes on a wild adventure directly into the pages of her favorite book.

I was completely addicted to this book from the start. Even with the darker tones sometimes expressed, it felt gritty and real and I loved it. The characters were fully formed and fun! Even the universe had neat unexpected lore thrown in. The outcome of the overall mystery was a surprise to me, which is always great, but it was the characters that I was rooting for. I’m not sure what I expected at the start, but this book won me over 100% by the finish!

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Demon’s Bluff

Demon's Bluff by Kim Harrison
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Rachel is infuriating. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love this crew of characters, but the way Rachel stumbles through life is so frustrating. This book, in particular, lands somewhere around 3.5 stars for me just because I struggled to motivate myself to pick this one up again when I stopped.

We join Rachel still in the thick of things like vampire politics. She’s still leading from her secret position behind the official vampire ruler and she is also still struggling with the curse she cast in the last book. Without a key component of the counter-curse, the coven is threatening to throw her in a cell. Elyse, the new leader of the coven, sets off a series of decisions that somehow makes it logical in Rachel’s mind to go back in time. It’s kind of hard to explain, but she needs to go on a solo trip back 5 years so she can get the missing piece of the counter-curse from the most powerful demon in existence.

Of course, things don’t go as expected. Not only are we left alone without our other familiar characters but she ends up with Elyse, who is probably the most annoying character in the series. It was a buddy adventure I never wanted to read, but somehow had to because there’s a true threat that Rachel can muck up the future if she changes too many things. Don’t worry, though, because there is a lot of hand waving that goes on to explain away just about everything. I wasn’t rooting for Rachel to fail or anything, but it was a truly frustrating read.

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