Author: Lady Nightwolf

By Rin Chupeco. Pub’d Oct 4, 2022.

4.5*s. Best enjoyed on a deserted island.

Publisher’s Synopsis:

“Pristine beaches, lush greenery, and perfect weather, the island of Kisapmata would be the vacation destination…if not for the curse. The Philippine locals speak of it in hushed voices and refuse to step foot on the island. They know the lives it has claimed. They won’t be next.

A Hollywood film crew won’t be dissuaded. Legend claims a Dreamer god sleeps, waiting to grant unimaginable powers in exchange for eight sacrifices. The producers are determined to document the evidence. And they convince Alon, a local teen, to be their guide.

Within minutes of their arrival, a giant sinkhole appears, revealing a giant balete tree with a mummified corpse entwined in its gnarled branches. And the crew start seeing strange visions. Alon knows they are falling victim to the island’s curse. If Alon can’t convince them to leave, there is no telling who will survive. Or how much the Dreamer god will destroy…“

Review:

The Sacrifice is an amazing horror story set on a legendary and terrifying island in the Philippines. Kisipmata is a place of superstition and fear for locals and has long been tied to a tremendous amount of death. The one local who seems unafraid of the island is a fisher named Alon. When a film crew shows up hoping to search for lost treasure on the haunted island, Alon is asked to guide them and is offered a hefty sum in order to do so. However, despite the warnings that they continue to get from the island, and no matter how Alon tries to warn them, they do not heed. Alon has special ties to the island, but they also develop special ties to the teenage son of one of the producers, which makes him invested in the fate of the crew. 

Quickly, things turn for the crew. People disappear. Faceless figures appear amongst the trees, familiar voices of the crew’s loved ones begin whispering in their ears, and the very topography of the island seems to change overnight, including a sinkhole that reveals a balete tree twisted around a mummified body. When they experience a storm that doesn’t seem to be on anyone else’s radar, it effectively traps the entire crew. As bodies begin to pile up, the intentions of some members of the team are revealed. In a terrifying crescendo, we begin to learn the secrets that lay under the surface of the island. Will Alon be able to protect those worthy of rescue or will the island and the Dreamer god claim everyone?

I thought The Sacrifice was super good. I definitely enjoyed the ride. I also loved that Alon, as the main character, was gender neutral. It was a great form of representation. It was also just a great horror novel. The setting was lush and incredibly creepy and the various twists were pretty unexpected. Rin Chupeco has an excellent ability to creepy out readers while also giving some of the characters the proper comeuppance. I mean, if an entire culture of people tell you not to go to an island because it has supernatural significance, don’t go! Respect other people’s cultures. Good sakes. 

Thanks to Netgalley and Sourebooks Fire for the advanced copy in exchange for this honest review. 

By Sophie Gonzales, Pub Date 11/29/22

4.5*s, Best enjoyed when you need a taste of revenge with a delightful, heaping help of sapphic romance!

Publisher’s Synopsis:

“It’s been two years since Maya’s ex-boyfriend cheated on her, and she still can’t escape him: his sister married the crown prince of a minor European country and he captured hearts as her charming younger brother. If the world only knew the real Jordy, the manipulative liar who broke Maya’s heart.

Skye Kaplan was always cautious with her heart until Jordy said all the right things and earned her trust. Now his face is all over the media and Skye is still wondering why he stopped calling.

When Maya and Skye are invited to star on the reality dating show Second-Chance Romance, they’re whisked away to a beautiful mansion—along with four more of Jordy’s exes— to compete for his affections while the whole world watches. Skye wonders if she and Jordy can recapture the spark she knows they had, but Maya has other plans: exposing Jordy and getting revenge. As they navigate the competition, Skye and Maya discover that their real happily ever after is nothing they could have scripted.”

Review:

Never Ever Getting Back Together is the reality show turned revenge plot turned sapphic love story that we’ve all been craving. It’s like reading The Bachelor, but is super enjoyable if you hate the Bachelor. 

Maya and Skye both deserved better, but they got Jordy. Now, a couple years later, Jordy is now a much beloved royalty-adjacent figure with fans everywhere due to his sister’s own royal love match. Due to his popularity, a film crew has decided to make him the star of Second-Chance Romance, a show where Jordy reunites with his exes in hopes that he can find love with someone who once cared for him before all the fame got in the way (cue gagging sounds). 

What the world doesn’t know about Jordy is that he’s a liar and a cheater, and Maya wants nothing to do with the show at first. However, she and her sister realize this may be the perfect chance at revenge—out Jordy as the a-hole he is in front of the entire world by going on the show and letting him have it! 

When Maya arrives in Chalonne, not only is she greeted by her nemesis, Jordy, but also Skye, the girl he cheated on Maya with! And now, Maya and Skye discover that they are more than just stuck in this mansion together, they’re also roommates. What Jordy didn’t count on was that they would be able to put aside their differences long enough to compare timelines and Skye finds out that Maya isn’t the crazy ex that Jordy had portrayed her as, and she’s actually a lovely person, if somewhat compulsive in ways that Skye is definitely not. 

As Maya and Skye team up against their mutual enemy, they begin to feel like more than just friends, and high fives turn into hand holding and talking into something more intimate. As things progress with their revenge plot, so does their relationship. However, as they near the end of their window of time together, decisions need to be made. Is revenge really worth what may come next? And are they willing to give up what they have gained in pursuit of it?

Thank you to Netgalley, Wednesday Books (St. Martin’s Press), and Sophie Gonzales for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. 

By Holly Jackson. Pub date 11/29/22

5*s. Best enjoyed at night in the quiet, when you don’t know who could be out there.

Publisher’s Synopsis: 

“Red Kenny is on a road trip for spring break with five friends: Her best friend – the older brother – his perfect girlfriend – a secret crush – a classmate – and a killer. 

When their RV breaks down in the middle of nowhere with no cell service, they soon realize this is no accident. They have been trapped by someone out there in the dark, someone who clearly wants one of them dead.

With eight hours until dawn, the six friends must escape, or figure out which of them is the target. But is there a liar among them? Buried secrets will be forced to light and tensions inside the RV will reach deadly levels. Not all of them will survive the night. . . . “

Review: 

Holly Jackson grabs our eyeballs from the jump with this one. I was immediately there on that road trip with the whole crew and stayed there with them all night. I basically read this book in real time. 

Red is an unreliable narrator who has secrets. Then again, so does everyone else in that RV at the time. Her best friend Maddy, their friends Simon and Arthur, and their chaperones on this doomed spring break trip, Maddy’s older brother, Oliver and his girlfriend, Reyna. Every. Last. One. 

When they get lost on the way, they find themselves on the backroads with a flat tire in the middle of absolute nowhere. However, they soon find that the flat tire is no accident. Within moments of fixing it, all four of their tires are immediately shot out. Someone in the fields around them has a gun. 

The group soon finds themselves stuck in the RV trying to come up with a plan on how to escape. Until they begin to hear a voice from a walkie talkie that tells them that they have until morning to reveal the identity of the person with a certain secret. 

But who is it? As the night wears on, the group realizes that everyone in the RV seems to be hiding something.

Red has a feeling that this has to do with her plan. The plan she has to be able to get her dad help. A plan to help Red herself go to college, something that has been out of her reach since her mother, the Chief of Police, was executed in cold blood a couple years before. But there’s no way they could know, right? And she can’t reveal the plan. The plan is the only thing she has that can help her, the only way she can get revenge for her mom. 

However, as things begin to unravel and logic takes a vacation, long hidden secrets begin to chip away at the group. Before long, they realize that fate has unknowingly woven its sticky web around the six friends, and one will not be able to get out of its clutches alive. 

A lot of the characters in this book were sympathetic, with one major exception and I absolutely hated them with a passion. I ended up yelling at my Kindle a few times in utter exasperation that they were getting away with their irrational and harmful behavior. I love books like this, ones that bring out my passionate side. I absolutely adored it. 

Thank you so much Random House, Delacourte Press, and Netgalley for the advanced copy of Five Survive by Holly Jackson in exchange for this fair and honest review. 

by Grady Hendrix

Best enjoyed if you’ve ever been a teenage girl and understand how that feels.

Publisher’s Synopsis:

“Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fifth grade, when they bonded over a shared love of E.T., roller-skating parties, and scratch-and-sniff stickers. But when they arrive at high school, things change. Gretchen begins to act….different. And as the strange coincidences and bizarre behavior start to pile up, Abby realizes there’s only one possible explanation: Gretchen, her favorite person in the world, has a demon living inside her. And Abby is not about to let anyone or anything come between her and her best friend. With help from some unlikely allies, Abby embarks on a quest to save Gretchen. But is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?”

REVIEW:

I’ve previously read Hendrix’s Horrorstör and I highly recommend it. However, I’ll also be adding this one into the Highly Recommended Horror category. 

This book is about Abby and Gretchen above all else. A friendship that couldn’t be conquered, two inseparable girls on their walk through high school. However, after one ill-fated night at a friend’s, something changed drastically for them, and you can guess what it is from the title. This book is about their friendship and loyalty and the lengths to which a true friend will go to save you from whatever darkness may come to be in your life—or in you. 

In natural Hendrix fashion, this book finds places for lightness in dark material and takes itself very seriously without taking itself too seriously. I really felt for Abby through this whole thing. If you’ve ever been a teen girl or have been made to feel like an outsider, you will totally get why I call this book Next Level Horrifying. It definitely tapped into all my teenage insecurities and fear of being left outside again. It also delves into body horror and betrayal and the other fears that affect us every day. Hendrix has his finger surprisingly on the pulse of what it means to be a teenage girl and the lengths that some of us will go to fit in. I don’t know if that was intentional, but it definitely tapped into some deep seated fear and resentment I had growing up. I saw myself in Abby. I’ve had friendships that I would literally fight for in the same ways. 

I’ve had this book on my shelf for over a year, always wanting to pick it up and read it, but I had a feeling that it would happen. I would get so involved in this book I wouldn’t be able to put it down. And I wasn’t wrong. It was so good, so scary, and so full of mysteries that my curious mind needed answers for. We all can tell from the title that an exorcism takes place, which obviously means ‘demon’, but watching the dawning horror in our heroine’s mind  as she slowly discovered what was really going on was a deliciously satisfying journey. And despite what happened to her, she kept fighting for her friends even when she was being sabotaged and tormented in whatever ways the being that was wearing her bestie as a skin suit could without giving themselves away. Now, whether or not she triumphed is not something I am going to reveal here. I’ve read and enjoyed plenty of books where the ending doesn’t work out the way I wanted it to that I still recommend to this day because heartbreak is a part of life. You’ll need to read that for yourself. 

If you are in the mood for some good fast-paced horror full of friendship and fight, pick this up asap. 

Hey all!

With my life how it’s been going lately, I’ve been WAY behind on my reviews. I have a wonderful full time job and am getting my second bachelor’s (my first is in History, this one is accounting, which has been my actual career for awhile), along with running my own mini business making and selling bookmarks on the side (a huge stress reliever for me, but if you’re interested feel free to pop over to Always Lost in Words Etsy shop). I’ve also had a lot of loss recently and lost most of my drive due to grief, which I am now starting to get back. It hasn’t stopped me from my escapist reading, but it’s been a real dagger in the side of my reviews, which were to keep my research/report skills sharp.

However, there’s nothing like grief to show you what is important, and I want this to be fun for you and I. This is obviously a hobby/passion for me so I don’t want it to turn into job and it’s been feeling that way. I am going to be changing how I review. I will be providing the publisher-provided snapshot of the book and will be doing a review of the things I love about it rather than my own synopsis. I’ve been experimenting with this the last few posts, and I really enjoy telling readers the best parts/parts that could be better. I’d rather be positive and come with a good ole compliment sandwich than try to rehash the entire book and worry about letting loose some major spoilers. I am going to work on honing my entertainment skills and cut down on the perfunctory reporting. I want you to read the book, not my homework.

I’m super excited to make this happen. I will also provide some similar book titles after the review in case you want to explore more like it. I’ll be pulling some suggestions from other sites. I will also do some categorical lists of books I’ve read in a certain genre that I really enjoyed and some books I have my eye on that are similar. Right now, I’m reading some lovely, light-hearted witchy contemporary romances in honor of spooky season! I think that will be a fun way to spread the reading love. I also would ADORE suggestions. I’m always up for recommendations. Some future lists will also include survival thrillers (I love the ones where a teenager is lost in the woods with zero knowledge and has to survive), books that shaped my reading, favorite high fantasy, contemporary romances featuring luscious ladies, historical spy romance, favorite YA horror, favorite 90s/00s horror, dystopia, etc. Lots of exciting things coming that I can’t wait to share!

I’ve really appreciated the support I’ve received so far. There are only a few of you, but every person person who follows and like button pressed has been a “keep going” sign to me, and I seriously love all of you for it! I hope I can continue to provide useful reader-based content and can be a blog you want to share.

Always,

Lady Nightwolf

by Maggie Stiefvater. Pub Date May 3, 2022

4.5*s. Best Enjoyed when you need a life-changing adventure.

Publisher’s Synopsis (Disney Publishing Worldwide):

“What if you had one year to save everything you loved?

ONE PRINCESS. Merida of DunBroch needs a change. She loves her family—jovial King Fergus, proper Queen Elinor, the mischievous triplets— and her peaceful kingdom. But she’s frustrated by its sluggishness; each day, the same. Merida longs for adventure, purpose, challenge – maybe even, someday, love. 

TWO GODS. But the fiery Princess never expects her disquiet to manifest by way of Feradach, an uncanny supernatural being tasked with rooting out rot and stagnation, who appears in DunBroch on Christmas Eve with the intent to demolish the realm – and everyone within. Only the intervention of the Cailleach, an ancient entity of creation, gives Merida a shred of hope: convince her family to change within the year – or suffer the eternal consequences. 

THREE VOYAGES. Under the watchful eyes of the gods, Merida leads a series of epic journeys to kingdoms near and far in an attempt to inspire revolution within her family. But in her efforts to save those she loves from ruin, has Merida lost sight of the Clan member grown most stagnant of all – herself? 

FOUR SEASONS TO SAVE DUNBROCH – OR SEE IT DESTROYED, FOREVER.”

My Review Synopsis:

I’ve always been a lover of the Disney/Pixar movie Brave. This novel by Maggie Stiefvater follows Merida’s journey home from abroad after the events of the movie. 

Merida returns to Dunbroch to find that nothing much has changed about her home. The people, the comfortable wear and tear, the broken down parts and pieces that all have stories with no resolution. The only thing that has seemed to be an actual change is her. Little does she know that she’s not alone in noticing that Castle Dunbroch and its occupants have resisted the flow of time. 

Late one night in the dead of winter, Merida is in the kitchen when she hears three distinct knocks on the door. She sees a figure in the courtyard that shouldn’t be there and she decides to give chase, only to discover it is Feradach, a lesser god of destruction and renewal who has his hand set on destroying Dunbroch. Luckily for Merida, the ancient goddess of creation, Cailleach, has a special interest in Dunbroch and interferes on its behalf. The princess and the god decide to strike a bargain: in one year, if Dunbroch has not experienced a significant change, he will set forth and do his work. The Cailleach requires the two of them to check in on one another’s work throughout the year, an extra task that neither wants to partake in. How are the god of destruction and the princess of Dunbroch to make this work?

Feradach is not the only one who wishes to see change at Castle Dunbroch, and a third player also makes themselves known, a slowly encroaching warrior King who is bent on Dunbroch bending the knee. Merida and her family also make a bargain with him to make inroads toward uniting Dunbroch and the surrounding lands. Merida also makes the deal to take three journeys to neighboring castles in allyship and must complete her tasks in this within the next year as well. 

As Merida sets off to create change amongst her family and the castle, with Feradach showing up as both a warden to her tasks and a thorn in her side, she pushes to find ways to enact change in her family. But is Merida ready for change? And is Feradach the enemy she wishes to make of him, or is there a greater enemy that will intertwine their fates like they never thought possible?

I honestly adored this entire novel. Merida is just as tough as a woman in her twenties as she was in her teens. A hugely enjoyable part of the book is getting to explore her character’s depths and to watching her grow into a new form of herself as she in turn watches the things around her change, whether it’s in ways she hoped or not. It’s an interesting exploration into life and becoming who we are meant to be. There is also a chaste and sweet growing of hearts that wasn’t the main plot, but was well-placed and heartfelt. 

There are so many lessons to be learned and taught through this book. I think it would be an excellent book club read for young adults and older adults alike. 

Thank you Netgalley and Disney Publishing for the digital ARC in exchange for this fair and honest review. 

by Kelsey Kicklighter. Pub Date 5/10/2022

3*s. Best enjoyed when you want a quick and easy tale of fae court intrigue and found family.

Publisher’s Synopsis (Independent Publisher’s Group):

“A fae girl with a human heart. A Seelie Queen with a penchant for stealing mortals. And an Unseelie King who must surrender his throne. 

On the coast of Georgia rests a small town where faeries still take changelings. Faye lost her mother to the Folk but has spent her whole life longing for a glimpse behind the veil.

When Faye finally finds her way in, she also discovers why the dark and alluring world of the Folk has always called to her: she’s half faerie, and heiress to the Dark Court’s throne.

When the rival court steals her best friend, Faye must claim the crown to save her. That means learning how to use her glamour so she can face three deadly trials and ensuring she doesn’t fall for the dark. brooding king she’s meant to replace…or the nymph-turned-knight teaching her to fight.”

My Reviewer Synopsis:

Review:

Faye and her cousin, Ellie, live with Gran in a little town in Georgia full of superstition surrounding mythical stories of the fae. But these stories aren’t the kind that you tell your children to lull them to sleep. These are stories told to children to warn them. Faye and Ellie have long thought that these are just childhood stories meant to make the offspring of the town’s residents behave, but when Faye goes to a party at her best friend’s and her best friend follows two handsome but mysterious boys into the woods, Faye realizes that the frightening stories whispered into the ears of children are more than just cautionary tales. When her cousin, Ellie, is taken by the Seelie Queen, Faye is desperate to find any way to save her. However, unbeknownst to Faye, she is the missing heir to the Unseelie Court, one that has been ruled by the Goblin King since the death of her mother and her father. And the Goblin King? One of the very “boys” her best friend followed into the woods.

The last thing that Faye wants to do is take her place in the Unseelie Throne, and the last person she expects would want to help her is Gage, the Goblin King who sits on it. His grumpy demeanor and abrasive nature hide a fierce protector who wants the best for his people. Although his magic is strong, hers has the potential to be stronger—if only she could learn to properly wield her glamour.

With the help of Isla, Gage’s right hand, Faye begins the arduous training of both her courtly expectations and her glamour that will be required if she ever expects to be able to take the throne through the trials and get her cousin Ellie back from the Unseelie queen. But there are plots in play that none of the will see coming, creepy into their lives like a low lying fog. The stakes are high but so are the possibilities for budding romance. Will Faye be victorious, or will new friendships end in the ultimate betrayal?

I liked this story. It wasn’t my absolute favorite fae tale of all time, but Kicklighter has stiff competition. I would have like a little more from it. Some more plot, a more even pace, and some deeper dives into the characters’ personalities and development, but this is definitely a quick and intriguing read if you love fae lore.

Thanks to Netgalley and The Parliment House for the advanced copy in exchange for this fair and honest review.