Review: THE UNDERTAKING OF HART AND MERCY by Megan Bannen

Rating: 4/5 stars

I’ve heard this novel described as Howl’s Moving Castle but for adults, and while I don’t totally agree with that statement, I still thought the story was whimsical and cute, and I really enjoyed it. 

The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy is a hate-to-love romance with some fantasy elements. Mercy is an undertaker and Hart is a demigod marshal who brings her dead bodies to take care of. They hate each other but are forced to work together. One day, Hart writes a letter to no one about how lonely he is. He doesn’t expect it to get delivered to anyone, but it shows up at Mercy’s door, labeled as being from “a friend.” Mercy corresponds with this mysterious friend, confiding in him, neither of them knowing who is on the other end of the pen. I loved this idea because they fall in love with each other via handwritten letters while still hating each other in person. I’ve never seen that done before in a novel, but it was so much fun and had me giggling while I read because I knew more than the characters did about how they actually felt about each other. 

Although this novel is marketed as a fantasy, I think it would appeal more to romance readers who also enjoy fantastical components because the focus of the book is on the relationship between Hart and Mercy with a secondary focus on Mercy’s family and undertaking adventures. The fantasy elements are visibly present but also primarily in the background of the story, so readers expecting an epic fantasy will be disappointed here. I love romantic fantasy novels, so I had a great time with this story. 

I love that The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy is a standalone novel. As much as I love a long series, a good standalone that wraps up nicely at the end is so satisfying, and that’s how this book is. It has a nice conclusion and doesn’t leave any questions hanging open at the end. 

I had a great time reading this book and I would recommend it to anyone who likes a cute and swoon-worthy fantasy romance novel. 

Review: SPELLS FOR FORGETTING by Adrienne Young

 

Rating: 4.25/5 stars

I picked this book up on a whim and I’m so glad I did because it was delightful! There’s an unsolved murder, a fire, a spell, a secret, a reclusive dark and forested town, and a whole lot of lies in this story. When August comes back to Saoirse Island after escaping eleven years ago, the whole island is anxious for him to leave again, but his visit is going to stir up more memories and secrets and enemies than anyone bargained for. 

Spells for Forgetting is a mystery novel that takes place on the mysterious Saorise Island off the coast of Seattle. Saorise Island isn’t a real place, but the Pacific Northwest vibes were still so accurate in this story! I grew up in the Seattle area, and I love to read books set in that area because there’s just a special ambiance in the air there that I haven’t been able to find anywhere else. 

Adrienne Young writes with beautiful, descriptive prose that helps to create a lush and atmospheric setting. I kept getting swept up in her words, and I’d end up reading five or ten chapters at a time when I’d planned on only one. This book is compulsively readable. 

Despite how long it took me to finish this book, it is actually the kind of book you could read in just one or two sittings. I’ve been in the middle of moving and working extra hours and generally being busier than normal during the last month, which has led to drastically less reading time than I normally have. It took me two weeks to read this book, but Spells for Forgetting is the kind of book I would have loved to finish in just a couple days if I had had the time because I was so wrapped up in the story and the characters. 

August and Emery really come to life in this novel. I loved getting to see snippets of their lives eleven years ago before everything happened and know how they used to be, and then get to see them in the current day and see how things have changed. You can feel so much yearning between them, even after all this time. This book has a second-chance romance aspect in it, but it doesn’t come into play until very late in the story. I loved them both though, and I’m happy we got to read from both of their POVs. 

I’ve seen Spells for Forgetting classified as fantasy, but it isn’t really; it’s a mystery. There is a very minor fantastical element included in the form of spells, but it’s the kind of spells that don’t feel fantastical. There aren’t mages or incantations but instead an old apothecary and an ancient book of herbal remedies and spells that seem more paranormal than fantastical. It feels like magic in the way that tarot cards and ouija boards and reading tea leaves feel like magic, but they’re still very much rooted in reality. I think fantasy readers will enjoy this book, but categorizing it solely as fantasy is cutting out a huge audience of fiction readers who would also enjoy this book. 

Spells for Forgetting reminded me a lot of A History of Wild Places, not in the plot but in the setting and the overall feel of the story. I loved that book and I loved this book, so if anyone knows of more similar titles, send them my way. 

I really enjoyed my time spent reading this novel. It was my first book by Adrienne Young, but her writing was so good that now I want to check out some of her other works. I definitely recommend Spells for Forgetting and can't wait to talk to my friends about it. 

Review: THE SHADOW OF THE GODS by John Gwynne

Rating: 2/5 stars

DNF at 50%. 

This book is 100% a case of “it’s not you, it’s me.” I genuinely really wanted to like this book. I mean, dragons? Yes. A strong female protagonist who is also a mother? Yes. Epic fantasy with epic worldbuilding? Yes. Sounds great! But it’s also Norse mythology–based and focuses a lot on the gods. And that’s a no for me. 

John Gwynne is an excellent writer: he crafts fleshed-out and believable characters in a rich world with a compelling plot. But I just couldn’t find it in me to care. I feel so bad saying that because I think this is a good book, but I know it’s not a book for me. 

I started reading this book physically, and after fifty pages and finding it hard to continue, I switched to the audiobook. This story was easier to understand when reading with my eyes, but I just didn’t have it in me to keep going in that format. Because there are three POVs, the audiobook made it hard to track which POV I was reading from, so I kept getting confused about what was going on. 

I knew rather early on that I wouldn’t be finishing the series, but I at least wanted to finish this book. I struggle with mythology and any stories that are based on it or include it in any way. Doesn’t matter what kind of mythology either—I have never enjoyed it. I know some people love it though, and if that’s you, please check out this story. 

I have been hearing so many accolades for The Shadow of the Gods, and even more so for its sequel, The Hunger of the Gods, so I was excited to read it, but this just isn’t the series for me, due to no fault of the author but only due to my own personal preferences. 

If this book sounds interesting to you in any way, please go read it for yourself and don’t take my word for it. I still want to read John Gwynne’s Faithful and the Fallen series, so I do plan on getting to that eventually, but the Bloodsworn Saga is a pass for me. 

Review: THE MOTH KEEPER by K. O'Neill

 

Rating: 4/5 stars

I love K. O'neill's work and I've read every book they've released so far, so I was very excited to discover that they would be coming out with a new graphic novel. 

The Moth Keeper is true to O'neill's style: it's wholesome with a focus on friendship, found family, nature, and learning how to do hard things. The illustrations were also the soft paint style that you see in all of their other works. 

I really enjoyed this graphic novel and the morals of the story. I have already preordered the hardcover and I can't wait to sit down and reread it because the artwork in the early review copy was clearly unfinished, and I'm excited to see how it will look when it's done. 

I definitely recommend this book, and not just to the target middle-grade audience. I love K's stories and I'm an adult, but I also look forward to reading them to my future children someday. They are always wholesome and inclusive, and The Moth Keeper was no different. It's not as good as The Tea Dragon Society, in my opinion, but it was still great and worth a read. 

Review: GLEANINGS: STORIES FROM THE ARC OF A SCYTHE by Neal Shusterman

 

Rating: 4/5 stars

The Arc of a Scythe is one of my favorite dystopian series and one of my favorite young adult series ever, but even though I love it so much, I was a little apprehensive to read Gleanings because I have a history of not liking anthologies very much, which this book is.

However, I was pleasantly surprised by this collection. I really shouldn’t be though, as I love Neal Shusterman’s writing and worldbuilding, and this anthology stays true to his style. 

I recommend reading this book only after finishing The Toll. The stories here take place before, during, and after the series, but even the stories that occur pre-Scythe are best read afterward as there are still spoilers for the series in them and reveals that won’t make sense unless you already have the knowledge of the whole trilogy. 

True to the book’s title, each of the stories has to do with gleaning in some way. Most of the stories are about characters that we’ve never met before, so I didn’t have a ton of emotional attachment to any of them, but they were still good stories. We got to peek into the lives of people all over the world and experience more fleshed-out worldbuilding for this series than we got in the original three books. 

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Gleanings. If you are a fan of the Scythe series then you will almost certainly enjoy this collection of stories; but on the other hand, if you want to be done with this series after The Toll and not continue on, then you’re not missing anything crucial here. This anthology is entirely extra material for the fans without being a must-read. It doesn’t negate the ending of the third book or anything drastic like that (as I’ve, unfortunately, seen done before), but simply expounds on a world that readers already know and love. 

“Formidable”—4 stars
We love to see Scythe Curie being a boss. I believe that the events of this story were alluded to in the original trilogy so it was cool to see them played out. 

“Never Work with Animals”—3 stars
This one really surprised me. Definitely didn’t expect it to turn out the way it did. Not my favorite story but still a good one. Also the longest one in the collection, I believe. 

“A Death of Many Colors”—4.5 stars 
I love reading from the Thunderhead’s point of view. And this story was really interesting, surrounding a group of people who don’t believe Scythes are real. 

“Unsavory Row”—4 stars
A very interesting look at the different kinds of Unsavories and the experiences they have. I’m glad this one was included here because I feel like I understand Unsavories better after reading it. 

“A Martian Minute”—4 stars 
Wow, that ending got me. I wasn’t sure about this story the whole time I was reading it because I don’t generally love stories set on Mars, but then the last couple of paragraphs changed everything. That’s the thing about Neal Shusterman—he has a way of writing that leads you down a curvy path where you aren’t sure where he’s leading you but you’re invested enough to keep going, and then you reach the end and suddenly everything makes sense and you realize you’ve been on a remarkable journey and you’ll never be the same. I noticed this numerous times as I was reading the Scythe series, and “A Martian Minute” is no different. Wow. 

“The Mortal Canvas”—4.5 stars 
This was one of my favorite stories in the collection. I love art and artistic exploration, and I enjoyed seeing it through the eyes of these four students as they worked to impress Scythe Af Klint. 

“Cirri”—3 stars 
A story told by “the solitary offspring of the Thunderhead’s brief union with a human,” called Cirri. This story won’t make sense unless you’ve finished The Toll. This one was less exciting than some of the others. 

“Anastasia’s Shadow”—3.5 stars 
This is a story about Citra’s brother, Ben, undergoing scythe training, and it turned out to be rather wholesome in the end. 

“The Persistence of Memory”—4 stars 
Ironic and funny, this story is the second one about art in this collection. I enjoyed it, especially the ending. 

“Meet Cute and Die”—5 stars 
Even though I didn’t know any of these characters before reading this story, I love them all now. Marni and Cochran, who actually did have a meet cute before they both died. I laughed out loud multiple times during this short story. One of the best in the collection, in my opinion. 

“Perchance to Glean”—3 stars 
This story takes place in Antarctica, where people have collective dreams together and scythes glean only during dreams. I thought this was a cool concept, but I have to say that this is the weakest of all the stories in this collection and was a little confusing at times, as is common with stories set in the unlawful land of dreamscapes. 

“A Dark Curtain Rises”—3.5 stars 
A story that takes place far after the end of The Toll, so I won’t say too much about it other than it was unexpected but I liked it. An excellent ending to this collection and also to the Arc of a Scythe series of books as a whole. 

Review: BASTILLE VS. THE EVIL LIBRARIANS by Brandon Sanderson & Janci Patterson

 

Rating: 4/5 stars

It's no secret that I'm a huge Brandon Sanderson fan, but this is the one series by him I hadn't ever read until this year when I heard the sixth and final book was being released. Over the past month, I read the first five volumes for the first time to prepare for the release of Bastille vs. the Evil Librarians, and I had such a fun time with them. 

The ending of the fifth book is quite devastating, and I can't imagine reading it and not knowing that there would be one more installment coming in the series. Luckily for me, I knew ahead of time, and I didn't have the agonizing wait for it to come out either. 

Bastille vs. the Evil Librarians is a great conclusion to the Alcatraz series. It nicely wraps up the story in a satisfactory way and has all the trademark humor and character development that readers have come to expect throughout the first five books. To be honest, I couldn't really tell a difference between this book, written largely by Janci Patterson, and the first five books, written solely by Brandon Sanderson. The humor, including all the jokes and puns, is the same. It's a cohesive installment, which I was very happy to see. 

The only real difference between this book and the other books is that this one is told from Bastille's point-of-view, while the others are all told from Alcatraz's point-of-view. I think having Bastille finish the series off was a great decision since she has become such a critical character in the narrative. 

I love these books, and I can't wait to read them to my future children one day. They have good morals and great characters and excellent illustrations. Overall a very solid middle-grade series that I highly recommend, especially if you love funny fantasy stories. 

Review: LEGENDS AND LATTES by Travis Baldree

 

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Legends and Lattes was such a wholesome surprise of a novel. 

Viv is an orc who's done with the fighting lifestyle after twenty-two years and wants to do something new. After one day trying a gnomish drink called "coffee," she decides to settle down and open her own coffee shop to share the wonder with others in her town. 

This book is pretty slow, but in a good way. It's not boring at all, but it takes its time letting you get to know the characters. Viv goes through the process of procuring a building, fixing it up, hiring a few assistants, advertising to the people in the town, hosting events in her shop, and overall just watching her small business flourish. And watching her relationship with Tandri grow throughout the novel was adorable. The whole story is so inspiring and sweet. 

I am not a coffee drinker myself, but I loved this book nonetheless, and I loved all the food descriptions that made me hungry while I was reading. I want to visit this coffee shop. 

The perfect way to describe this book is that it's a cozy read. The original self-published cover had the tagline, "A novel of high fantasy and low stakes," which I think is a perfect description, and it's exactly what I wanted. As much as I love epic fantasy, I don't actually love action or battle scenes, so this book that still had that fantastical feel and setting while being a more day-to-day lifestyle story was a subgenre I didn't know I needed. All of the characters are creatures of some sort: there are orcs, succubi, gnomes, dwarfs, and elves, among other species. 

I highly recommend Legends and Lattes if you want a cozy and wholesome fantasy that feels like a hug. We need more low-key stories like this because it was just the best, and I had such a fun time reading this. 

Review: SLAYING THE DRAGON: THE SECRET HISTORY OF DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS by Ben Riggs

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

I’ve never played Dungeons & Dragons or any tabletop RPG games, nor watched anyone play them, so I’m not sure why I was drawn to this book. I’ve always loved video games, so I’ve always wanted to try out D&D and other formats of games, but for some reason I’ve never had the opportunity or means to play. Nevertheless, I still wanted to read about its history. 

Slaying the Dragon is the true story of the rise and fall of Tactical Studies Rules (TSR), the original creators of Dungeons & Dragons, and how the game ultimately ended up in the hands of Wizards of the Coast, TSR’s biggest rival at the time. 

Despite having never played D&D and not being a huge fan of nonfiction, I actually found this book to be very interesting and easily readable. The author’s writing is so captivating and enjoyable. This wasn’t dry or hard to read at all. The only real complaint I have is that sometimes I got the people mixed up, but that likely comes from listening to the audiobook and not being able to see the names written down, which overall wasn’t a huge deal. The audiobook narrator was excellent though and had a great voice to listen to. 

The history of D&D is full of surprises and the author did a great job of laying it all out from the beginning, including all the big moments while also highlighting minor details that were notable or simply just interesting facts. I think it’s hilarious that in the “Satanic Panic” era of the 1970s, people thought D&D summoned actual demons and enticed people to commit suicide. I’ve never understood how people come to these absurd conclusions about fantasy games or novels. 

Overall, Slaying the Dragon was a super fun read that I would definitely recommend to any Dungeons & Dragons fans out there, whether you were a hardcore fan in the ’80s or you’re a casual player now or you only read the novels. Tabletop and RPG gamers would likely also have a good time reading this book. Above anything, it’s a really fascinating history, even if you aren’t super familiar with D&D (like me). I’m so glad I had the opportunity to read this.