2/5 Stars: Love, Furballs & Forever

Sure, it’s a book that should appeal to cat lovers everywhere, but this one just wasn’t for me. I didn’t enjoy the interactions between Juliet and Carlisle, and the story simply didn’t hook me. I found Juliet difficult to connect with, and she was borderline annoying. The editing and writing worked well enough and that’s the entire reason that I finished it even though the story left me wanting something deeper.

I picked this up during a sale, and while it wasn’t a good fit for me, it seems to have a lot of positive reviews, so I’m sure people out there are enjoying it.

2/5 stars

2023 Reading Challenge – Completed!

Ah goodness, I’ve fallen behind with this site – but I did manage to complete my GoodReads reading challenge for 2023, and I’ve read 20+ books! Here’s the list, and in the future expect a lot more reviews.

20. Bookshops & Bonedust – Travis Baldree (5/5)
19. (DNF) The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic – Breanne Randall (1/5)
18. Madly, Deeply the Diaries of Alan Rickman – Alan Rickman (5/5)
17. Age of Assassins – RJ Barker (3/5)
16. Cassiel’s Servant – Jacqueline Carey (5/5)
15. Village Witch – Cassandra Latham-Jones (4/5)
14. The Power of Habit: Why we do what we do in life and Business – Charles Duhigg (2/5)
13. Her Mistletoe Cowboy – Liz Isaacson (3/5)
12. Carl’s Doomsday Scenario – Matt Dinniman (4/5)
11. Have I told you This Already?: Stories I don’t want to Forget to Remember – Lauren Graham (5/5)
10. The Complete Color Harmony, Pantone Edition – Leatrice Eiseman (5/5)
9. Buddhism for Beginners – Richard Johnson (3/5)
8. It Happened One Summer – Tessa Bailey (2/5)
7. Antony & Cleopatra – Adrian Goldsworthy (5/5)
6. Master Your Emotions – Thiabaut Meurisse (3/5)
5. Ikigai – Hector Garcia Puigcerver (2/5)
4. Homeland – R.A. Salvatore (5/5)
3. Love, Furballs & Forever – Karen Drew (2/5)
2. The Ivory Tomb – Melissa Caruso (5/5)
1. Book Lovers – Emily Henry (3/5)

I imagine a few more books will make the list before the end of 2023, but I’ll write about those as a ‘year end’ type of post. Over all, it was a pretty good year as far as books go. Some big winners and some not-so-great books, too. I think next year I’m going to aim for a higher goal. Maybe 10 more, or so. I really didn’t dedicate much time to books this year, and I want to change that for 2024. I also plan on tossing in a lot more audiobooks while I do things like knitting.

I am also currently participating in two beta reads, and I can’t wait to talk about them in the future, so watch this space!

Happy reading!

5/5 Stars: The Ivory Tomb, by Melissa Caruso

Wow. What a fantastic end to this trilogy.

I was a huge fan of the first two books, and the third did not fail to disappoint. It’s an epic fantasy tale with lots of tropes, but I didn’t mind them in the least, the author used them well. We learn more about the Dark Days, and watch the development of the relationship between Ryx and Severin. There’s a lot of action, the book was over before I knew it.

Highly recommended, I enjoyed them so much that I’ll be looking into other books that Melissa has written, if they’re anything like these then they’re sure to be winners.

5/5 stars

3/5 Stars: Book Lovers, by Emily Henry

This was an easy, comfortable, read – and that was what I was looking for. I enjoyed the beginning of the story much more than the end, which felt pretty rushed. Nora is the main character – she comes off as a badass in charge of her own life, but as the story went on I really grew annoyed with how immature she was, and how she didn’t seem to have any ability to solve her own issues. She also created issues where there were none, and I got bored of her complaining. She does have a sister, Libby, and I fared no better with that character story-wise.

The main love interest is Charlie, who Nora knows through work. He has a sob story past, but he isn’t really interesting. I did love the little current-day quips and “that’s what I think too!” moments that were strewn throughout the book, but in the end it just wasn’t quite enough.

The one shining star I will give to this book is that the writing is superb even if I didn’t really enjoy the story. The prologue and the first few chapters were lovely, and the writing held up throughout. I know plenty of people out there absolutely enjoyed it and I can see why it’s popular, but the story just wasn’t enough to keep me entertained, personally.

3/5 stars

1/5 Stars: Meow, by Skye MacKinnon

If I could give this book a negative star review, I would.

It was horrible. I read 25% of it and gave up – and that’s saying something. I don’t give up on books very easily, and I am typically able to at least complete them before judging. This book is the exception. It’s poorly written, (very) poorly edited, makes no sense, and is just plain bad. I received the book free and even that didn’t convince me to make it through to the end. Do yourself a favour, read something worthy of your time. This isn’t it.

1/5 stars

5/5 Stars: The Quicksilver Court, by Melissa Caruso

This is the 2nd book in a trilogy that follows Ryxander and the Rookery through an incredible adventure. Demons are walking the world, and Ryx and the Rookery have to come up with a plan to get everything under control.

I don’t want to give heavy spoilers, but WOW I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING!

This book was fantastic. I was so excited to read it, and I’m incredibly pleased that the 3rd one is already out and I’ve already started reading that one immediately after because I had to know. The reader learns a great deal about Ryx, there’s some fantastic character development, and I love Melissa’s take on demons.

Melissa is a wordsmith, and her books are easy to read, but her characters are complex and that’s probably one of the things I like most about them. Yes, there are tropes, but the writing is so well done that I had no issues with them. Well done, another fantastic epic fantasy read.

5/5 stars

2/5 Stars: Have my Baby, by Taryn Quinn

Another book I read while we had no power during hurricane Fiona.

Well. What can I say. This book was built around the theory of ‘best friends forever’ (until he suddenly notices his best friend and BAM, instant love), and the sex scenes were intense, but I felt zero connection between Ally and Seth (besides the physical). The book was sweet, predictable, had drama just for the sake of having drama, angst because of course a book needs angst, and I wanted to roll my eyes on more than one occasion. If it wasn’t for the writing style I wouldn’t have even been able to make it through the entire thing, but that was done very well, despite the fact that the story itself was fairly cringe worthy. I can make it through a bad story so long as the writing is on par.

There are MANY books to this series, so it obviously has an audience that it appeals to out there, it just wasn’t for me.

2/5 Stars

2/5 Stars: Snowflakes and Sparks, by Sophie-Leigh Robbins

Another ‘pallet cleanser’ book, I read this when the power was out for two weeks during hurricane Fiona.

If you love Hallmark movies, this book is for you. It’s extra cheesy, over the top, with a huge dash of ‘will they, won’t they’ plot twists. Old Pine Cove is a lovely town that did make me want to move right in, and who doesn’t love a nice cozy winter setting.

Unfortunately this book had almost zero depth, and I need at least a tiny bit to keep interested. The characters lacked emotion, nothing really drew me to them. It’s a great fluffy lighthearted book, but some parts were confusing, like why the main characters went off to another room to flirt with each other when there was an elderly lady crying and bleeding on the floor in the next room. I didn’t really understand that part at all and it seemed out of place. Still, it passed the time and I made it through to the end, which is further than some books I’ve read.

2/5 stars

2/5 Stars: The Bridge of Little Jeremy, by Indrajit Garai

I was approached and asked to give an honest review of this book in exchange for a copy – of course I accepted! Let’s get more new authors out there.

The book takes place in Paris (beautiful setting), and the author’s writing is lovely and descriptive, but also incredibly dark. That was my main issue with the book. It is about a boy named Jeremy, and his mother. He also has a dog, Leon. I love the relationship between Jeremy and the people in his life – but it wasn’t quite enough to keep me interested. Most of the book moves at a snail’s pace.

Jeremy’s mother is a difficult character to appreciate. I couldn’t relate to her, she was passive, and Jeremy was forced into more adult roles so that he could compensate for her childish nature. At times the story was confusing to follow, the author is great at description but it tended to drone on well past what was necessary, and you spend a lot of time in Jeremy’s head with his thoughts which got confusing.

The book is quite slow moving, and although it’s beautiful it just moved too slow for me. It simply wasn’t a book for me, though I’m sure others will appreciate it.

2/5 stars

2/5 Stars: Just Friends at the Doggy Spa, by Elsie Woods

When the power went out for two weeks due to hurricane Fiona, my kindle was loaded up with a bunch of (what I like to term) ‘pallet cleanser’ books. These are books that require very little effort to read, are moderately interesting, and simple. I like using these books as filler between other more involved books – and this isn’t an insult towards those sort of books because I am a huge fan of reading in any capacity, but I can also only handle so many of those books at a time. These books are the Hallmark Movie Channel of books.

That’s the way it was with one of my latest reads. I felt like the entire book lacked chemistry. Rita and her love interest, Joey, are planning a wedding for Amelia and Rob. They have two weeks. Somehow it all comes together and is magnificent. There’s some dogs in the story too and honestly that was the best part. There wasn’t enough actual interaction between the love interest, they spent most of their time talking about the wedding, and I’m not sure what the bit at the end about Joey’s job was about, it felt like it was part of some other story and it didn’t fit at all.

That being said, if you’re looking for mindless reads, there are worse out there. It wasn’t all horrible. I tend to enjoy quiet country books, and everyone was (perhaps obnoxiously so) sweet and kind. It just wasn’t the book for me.

2/5 stars