What Lies Around The Bend...

“Can you love the dark when you know what it hides? Some things aren’t supposed to exist outside of our imagination. Thirteen years ago, monsters emerged from the shadows and plunged Kierse’s world into a cataclysmic war of near-total destruction. The New York City she knew so well collapsed practically overnight. In the wake of that carnage, the Monster Treaty was created. A truce...of sorts. But tonight, Kierse―a gifted and fearless thief―will break that treaty. She’ll enter the Holly Library...not knowing it’s the home of a monster. He’s charming. Quietly alluring. Terrifying. But he knows talent when he sees it; it’s just a matter of finding her price. Now she’s locked into a dangerous bargain with a creature unlike any other. She’ll sacrifice her freedom. She’ll offer her skills. Together, they’ll put their own futures at risk. But he’s been playing a game across centuries―and once she joins in, there will be no escape..." Review: Now this is what I'm talking about!! Brin...

  "A mysterious book that promises unlimited power and unrivaled sexual pleasure. A down-on-her-luck book dealer hoping for the sale of a lifetime. And a twist so shocking, no one will come out unscathed. After a tragedy too painful to bear, former novelist Lily Albrecht has resigned herself to a dull, sexless life as a rare book dealer. Until she gets a lead on a book that just might turn everything around. The Book of the Most Precious Substance is a 17th century manual on sex magic, rumored to be the most powerful occult book ever written - if it really exists at all. And some of the wealthiest people in the world are willing to pay Lily a fortune to find it - if she can.  Her search for the book takes her from New York to New Orleans to Munich to Paris, searching the dark corners of power where the world’s wealthiest people use black magic to fulfill their desires. Will Lily fulfill her own desires, and join them? Or will she lose it all searching for a ghost?' Review: Wha...

  "I never thought I'd be singing happy birthday to myself in a dungeon. And yet when a sinfully sexy demon crashes happy hour, that's exactly what happens. He’s known as the Lord of Chaos, and he’s mistaken me for my succubus doppelgänger. Happy birthday to me. When he tastes my blood, he finally understands I’m mortal. And I realize we have something in common: we both crave revenge. So, we make a deal: I can stay in the forbidden city to hunt for my mom's killer. In return, I’ll help him get the vengeance he craves. I just have to pose as a sexy succubus. One problem - he's my number one suspect. And that’s increasingly hard to remember as he teaches me my role: seduction. With each heated touch I drift further into peril. And if I fall under his seductive spell, death awaits me." Review: You don't know you need a good classic smutty paranormal read until you get one, and then everything falls right into place. It has all my go to favorite tropes. Force...

  "For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes, Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Méduse, the same lavish, culty spa to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) obsession with the mirror—and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass." Review: Alright this one, was a hard one to digest. I wanted to like it more than I did, if I'm honest. This is a fever dream reimag...

“What do a heartless Dragon Shifter, a cold-blooded Basilisk, an arrogant Lion Shifter, and a brooding, tattooed Harpy have in common..? Me. Elise Callisto. Vampire. Angel of vengeance. And a girl on a mission to destroy one of them for murdering my brother.I just don’t know which one did it yet.  When I kicked the ass of a Werewolf who was high on a new and dangerous drug called Killblaze, his final words painted a dark reality for me. The King of Aurora Academy killed my brother. The trouble is, there’s four kings at that school, and each of them have motive and cutthroat natures. Aurora Academy isn’t a place for the faint of heart. To put it lightly, my town is the asshole of Solaria where the dodgiest Far in the kingdom reside. The school itself is divided by the two gangs who run this town, the Lunar Brotherhood and the Oscura Clan. And guess what? Two of the kings run the gangs at the school, their hatred for each other so fierce I hear a day doesn’t go by without blood being...

 "One hot summer night, best friends Lourdes, Fernanda, Ana, Perla, and Pauline hold a séance. It’s all fun and games at first, but their tipsy laughter turns to terror when the flames burn straight through their prayer candles and Fernanda starts crawling toward her friends and chanting in Nahuatl, the language of their Aztec ancestors. Over the next few weeks, shy, modest Fernanda starts acting strangely - smearing herself in black makeup, shredding her hands on rose thorns, sucking sin out of the mouths of the guilty. The local priest is convinced it's a demon, but Lourdes begins to suspect it’s something else - something far more ancient and powerful. As Father Moreno's obsession with Fernanda grows, Lourdes enlists the help of her “bruja Craft crew” and a professor, Dr. Camacho, to understand what is happening to her friend in this unholy tale of possession-gone-right." Review: A possession horror story where the entity is for the girls, and the real demon is jus...

“Lucy lives with her husband, Jake and their two boys. Her life is devoted to her children, her days, mapped out by their finally tune routine. Until a man calls one afternoon with a shattering message. His wife has been having an affair with Lucy’s husband. He thought she should know. Lucy is distraught. She decides to stay with Jake, if only for their children sake, but in order to even the score, they agreed that she will hurt him three times. Jake Will not know when the hurt is coming, or what form it will take. And so begins a delicate game of crime and punishment, from which there is no return…” Review: “Deeply unsettling” author Daisy Johnson said of this book, and honestly I think that’s the perfect description. For me though this wasn’t necessarily horror, and fantasy is a stretch at best, but let’s backtrack a bit. This story was about grief. Lucy is grieving and trying to heal from a monumental wound. She by no means is a pillar of a healthy psyche, but even in her worst mom...

 WARNING: SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU HAVE NOT GOTTEN THIS FAR IN THE ALEX STERN SERIES, STOP NOW. DO NOT READ. THIS IS BOOK 2. CHECK OUT NINTH HOUSE FOR THE REVIEW OF BOOK 1! "Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. Galaxy “Alex” Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory - even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale. Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies’ most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness ...

“ Can I kiss you?”   It was two months before the world premiere of  Juno , and Elliot Page was in his first ever queer bar. The hot summer air hung heavy around him as he looked at her. And then it happened. In front of everyone. A previously unfathomable experience. Here he was on the precipice of discovering himself as a queer person, as a trans person. Getting closer to his desires, his dreams, himself, without the repression he’d carried for so long. But for Elliot, two steps forward had always come with one step back.  With Juno’s massive success, Elliot became one of the world’s most beloved actors. His dreams were coming true, but the pressure to perform suffocated him. He was forced to play the part of the glossy young starlet, a role that made his skin crawl, on and off set. The career that had been an escape out of his reality and into a world of imagination was suddenly a nightmare.  As he navigated criticism and abuse from some of the most powerful peopl...

  “Jason Dessen is walking home through the chilly Chicago streets one night, looking forward to a quiet evening in front of the fireplace with his wife, Daniela, and their son, Charlie — when his reality shatters. “Are you happy with your life?” Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. Before a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.” In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible. Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying ...

"What does it take to come back to life? For Jessa-Lynn Morton, the question is not an abstract one. In the wake of her father’s suicide, Jessa has stepped up to manage his failing taxidermy business while the rest of the Morton family crumbles. Her mother starts sneaking into the taxidermy shop to make provocative animal art, while her brother, Milo, withdraws. And Brynn, Milo’s wife―and the only person Jessa’s ever been in love with―walks out without a word. It’s not until the Mortons reach a tipping point that a string of unexpected incidents begins to open up surprising possibilities and second chances. But will they be enough to salvage this family, to help them find their way back to one another?" Review: This was a fantastic read. It wasn’t like anything I’ve ever read before, I don’t even know where to begin. With a lime green background and a bright pink flamingo on the cover, I think I was expecting something a bit more vivacious and action-packed. While it wasn’t e...

" We were just these innocent girls in the night trying to make something beautiful. We nearly died. We very nearly did, didn't we? Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other "Bunny," and seem to move and speak as one. But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled "Smut Salon," and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies' sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus "Workshop" where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of re...

“Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother's dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called "calorie restriction,' eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, "Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn't tint hers?" She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.  In I'm Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail-just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly, she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi ("Hi Gale!"), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which ma...

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU HAVE NOT GOTTEN THIS FAR IN THE SAINT VIEW PRISON SERIES, STOP NOW. DO NOT READ. THIS IS BOOK 3. CHECK OUT  LOCKED UP LIARS   FOR THE REVIEW OF BOOK 1, AND  SOLITARY SINNERS  FOR BOOK 2! “When a judge declared Heath guilty and sentenced him to death row, everything we'd been fighting for went up in flames. We have no excuses. No appeals. No freedom.  Now, there's only one way out. One way left for him to avoid a lethal injection in his arm.  Escape.” Content Guidance:  This series contains explicit content that is not suitable for readers who are under 18. This book also contains dark themes that may trigger some readers. Please read with care. Review: Wow, what a fantastic way to wrap up this story. Being on the run has never been so peaceful frankly. Doesn't everyone want to live the rest of their days in a cabin in the woods with three hunky gentlemen all in love with you?????? My only quarrel is the very very end of t...

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU HAVE NOT GOTTEN THIS FAR IN THE SAINT VIEW PRISON SERIES, STOP NOW. DO NOT READ. THIS IS BOOK 2. CHECK OUT  LOCKED UP LIARS  FOR THE REVIEW OF BOOK 1! “In the middle of a prison riot, the psychopath who  murdered my sister holds me hostage. Soulless eyes  black, bloodied knife in his hand, my name a  whispered threat on his lips. My only hope is the  three men fighting for my heart…and their lives. Separated in the chaos, flames surround Rowe, the  growly prison guard who acts like he hates me but  always has my back. Liam, my lawyer on the outside.  I've only just realized the depth of my feelings for the  boy I once despised in high school. I dragged him  into all of this and now I need his  help more than  ever. And cornered by violent criminals is Heath, the  prisoner I've fallen for more with every day he's been  incarcerated. I know he's innocent and I'm here to  prove it...

“Nothing prepares you for finding your sister's lifeless body covered in blood. But when the police arrest her ex, a man I know is innocent, I can't sit by and do nothing. Not when I've been secretly in love with him for years. Heath may not want my help, but I won't take no for an answer.  To catch a killer, I'm forced to take a job at Saint View Prison. Maximum security. The place they send the worst of the worst. But it's not just Heath who doesn't want me there. Rowe, the sinfully sexy head guard has made it clear I don't belong. I'd tell him where to go with my middle finger up, if my skin didn't prickle with awareness every time he touches me.  Then there's Liam, hotshot lawyer and my old high school enemy. All that tension and chemistry is still there, burning between us like flames. I need his help, but I'll be damned if I beg for it. With every lie we uncover, every secret we expose, the danger mounts. Until there's only one ...

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU HAVE NOT GOTTEN THIS FAR IN THE SERPENT & DOVE SERIES, STOP NOW. DO NOT READ. THIS IS BOOK 3. CHECK OUT  SERPENT & DOVE   FOR THE REVIEW OF BOOK 1, AND BLOOD & HONEY FOR BOOK 2!   “Evil always seeks a foothold. We must not give it one. Lou has spent her whole life running. Now, after a crushing blow from Morgane, the time has come to go home—and claim what is rightfully hers. But this is no longer the Lou her friends knew. No longer the Lou who captured a chasseur’s heart. A darkness has settled over her, and this time it will take more than love to drive it out.” Review: This was certainly an interesting final installment. The overall feeling I’ve had throughout this whole series has been frustration. I’m frustrated with the plot, I’m frustrated with the pace and I’m frustrated with having to push through this read. Clearly though, I’m invested. I care where this goes, the author has made me care. But at what cost?  I thin...