Author: Lady Nightwolf

Historian. Wife. Dog Mom. Book Hoarder. Gamer. When she's not working or studying, she can most often be found in a hammock devouring a book, buried under her 70 pound lap dog, or in the kitchen creating new delicious things to feed to her mountain man husband.

Children's Books

The Most Beautiful Thing

by Kao Kalia Yang, pub date October 6, 2020

Five Stars. Best enjoyed with a tissue nearby.

I don’t often review children’s books, but I have to say that The Most Beautiful Thing caught my eye. The cover illustration is gorgeous and my own relationship with my grandmother fueled my desire to check this out.

The story is about a young Hmong American girl whose grandmother was a staple in her life and whom she helped care for and who helped raise her. As it should be in any culture, it is a privilege to be able to take care of one’s elders and hear their stories and history. The book talks about the tales that her grandmother told her when she would ask about the cracked soles of her feet and the little ways she changed herself or things she would do to show respect and love to her grandmother. These short tales and anecdotes mingle with reality of life of the author as a child and are emphasized by the sweeping, colorful illustrations throughout, which takes the reader on a beautiful journey. The writing is very matter of fact and gives a glimpse into the lives of the people involved.

Arguably, the overarching theme of the story is that the most important and beautiful things in life are the things we can inherit from our parents and grandparents. Not just genetically, but the stories that they pass down, the lessons that they can teach us, and the love they both give us and that they plant within us. This is an important lesson that every child should learn, especially now.

Thanks to NetGalley and Lerner Publishing Group for the advanced galley.

Page 32, The Most Beautiful Thing

Romance

HEIRESS FOR HIRE

By Madeline Hunter, Pub Date: 4/28/2020

Historical Romance, 5 Stars. Best enjoyed when you need a really good read to get you out a slump!

When Chase Radnor breaks into Minerva Hepplewhite’s home, the last thing she expects him to ask when he wakes up after she hits him with a bedpan is if she was once known by her former married name. Minerva did everything she could to get away from her old, unpleasant life with her late husband, even going so far as to change her name, and now some strange and handsome nighttime intruder has come barging in to her life claiming that she has inherited money from a man she never knew–the intruder’s recently passed uncle and Duke, nonetheless!

Chase Radnor is intrigued by the handsome and keene Ms. Heppelwhite, who has her own ambitions of becoming an inquiry agent like himself. Perhaps he can use her help in investigating the death of the very uncle who brought him to her doorstep–or, more precisely, on her floor with quite the headache. Chase and some of his family members suspect that his uncle’s death wasn’t an accident at all. Unfortunately, with Minerva as one of the heiresses, she’s also one of Chase’s lead suspects.

As Minerva and Chase investigate the incident individually and delving deeper and deeper into the events leading up to the Duke’s death and how he could have possibly known Minerva, they find themselves skirting Chase’s family politics, trying to discover one another’s secrets, and (despite their better judgement) falling for one another.

This was a fantastic romp into historic London with a cast of wonderful, well-rounded characters and a tapestry of interwoven mysteries that slowly unravelled, revealing a beautiful romance.

Minerva was ambitious, astute, and kind. She had experienced some less than ideal situations in her past, but instead of rolling over she found a way out and built the best life she could with those closest to her, using her intelligence to make a better life for them all. Chase was also a clever person who had a passion and mind for inquiry work and a bottomless need to find the truth where he could. Together, they made an impassioned couple with a passionate bedroom chemistry!

I really enjoyed this read and it was everything I look for in a London-based historical romance, ad i cannot wait for the next one in the series!

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for an advanced copy, provided in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Non Fiction

Unfamiliar Familiars

By Megan Lynn Kott & Justin DeVine, Pub Date: September 1, 2020.

Cover

5 Stars. Best enjoyed with your favorite furry being nearby.

Unfamiliar Familiars gives the modern witch (or interested reader) a few extra options for what kind of furry companion might be best fit them. It delves into forty unusual creatures that most wouldn’t associate with magical practices. How do you know which of these cute or unusual creatures might fit you best? Why, through a short, silly quiz that matches you! My unusual familiar is a Dik-Dik, which is totally fair given my short stature.

Overall, this book was absolutely adorable and was a very fun read. The illustrations are fantastic and rendered in a gorgeous pallet of various water colors. The quiz has some funny questions that made me smile, like “PANDAS,” and each creature’s description contains some interesting facts about the creatures as well as a few fun, potentially ‘magical’ properties each creature may possess. It also gives some suggested names for your new familiars, their zodiac and elemental associations, and their strengths and weaknesses, all which offer plenty of humor and pop culture references!

Thank you to Chronicle Books and NetGalley for the advanced copy, provided in exchange for a fair and honest review!

Fantasy Horror Mystery Romance

Kingdom of the Wicked

By Kerri Maniscalco. Pub date: 10/27/2020

Five Stars! ***** Best enjoyed on a fall day when you’re not too hungry or thirsty–there are a lot of super delicious food references in this one, along with some seriously hot love interest moments.

Emilia and her twin sister Vittoria work in their family’s restaurant in a village located on the coast of Sicily. They are also witches, called strenghe, who live secretly amongst the superstitious populace of their home, carefully avoiding suspicion and the witch hunters that may follow it. Emilia is content in her place in the restaurant’s kitchens where her family creates some of the best loved dishes in the village. That is until she stumbles across her twin sister’s desecrated body in the basement of the local Catholic church, her heart viciously removed from her body. All contentment disappears as vengeance begins to take hold of her heart. In her search for her sister’s killer, she invokes some forbidden magic, accidentally summoning Wrath, one of the very Princes of Hell and part of the court of the Kingdom of the Wicked that she has been warned against since she was a child. However, Wrath, despite being pissed that she has entrapped him, is more than willing to help her. As they delve deeper into the mystery of her sister’s death, it seems that Vittoria was not the first witch whose heart has been stolen, and Emilia may be the next target. That is, if Wrath doesn’t steal her heart first.

https://beyondwords.life/sicily-dreamy-adventure-along-coast/

I loved the setting of this book. It’s not often that a YA is written that sets itself in a Mediterranean country, and just hearing “seaside village in Sicily” invoked visions of weathered brick buildings and cool blue waters. It was the perfectly contrasting backdrop for a dark mystery with a tense, delicious romance. Maniscalco is truly an artist when it comes to building three-dimensional characters with truly deep emotions and motivation for revenge as well as grief, loss, betrayal, and love. I could practically feel the heat coming from my kindle in some scenes and found myself gripping the edges during others.

A mark of a truly good book is how lost you can get in what is happening. When I finally came up for air, I was shivering in my hammock and it was practically morning. That should alone should drill home how good I thought this was, and I am so excited for this October!

Thank you to Netgalley and Little Brown for the advanced copy in exchange for this review ❤

Horror Mystery Survival

The Wild

By Owen Laukkanen, pub date September 14, 2020

Best enjoyed outside where you can smell fresh air and dirt–even better if you can surround yourself with forest.

Dawn messed up. Dawn messed up bad enough that her mother and her step dad showed up at her middle aged drug dealing boyfriend’s house to pick her up and drag her off the Out of the Wild, a program for wayward teens. Now, Dawn is experiencing some of the toughest situations she’s ever had to deal with…at least the ones she’s willing to talk about.

Along with other messed up kids like her and int he company of two counselors, it looks like Dawn is going to be hiking non-stop over the course of the next three months until she can prove that she is responsible and respectful and has turned her life around. Maybe it will give her the opportunity to confront ‘WHAT SHE DID,’ the thing that started her down this path in the first place.

When things go horribly awry, Dawn is not only going to learn–quickly–about what she is capable of and what she is willing to do in order to survive, she will also need to learn what Doing the Right Thing really means if she has any intention of living with herself.

I’m a sucker for survival stories, especially those where someone who is completely unprepared to get lost in the woods does exactly that. Extra points when something nefarious or untoward is occurring at the same time. So many extra points. I really dug this whole story and I practically gobbled it all down in one sitting.

It reads as a very matter of fact guidebook without losing its flavor. Even with the obvious foreshadowing–and I mean, the author literally tells you that something bad is going to happen and points out mistakes that the characters make–there were still some surprising twists and turns. It gets very Lord of the Flies-y while also maintaining the dark, urgent, survival-driven vibe of the movie “The Edge.”

Laukkanen did an amazing job of describing the landscapes and scenes, the struggles, aches, and pains, and even the scent of the very air. You are sucked right into the story, experiencing it right next to the characters and embracing the exhaustion, excitement, and fear as if you are there. Highly recommend.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children’s for the advanced reader copy, provided in exchange for an honest and fair review.

Historical Fiction Mystery

Court of Miracles

by Kester Grant Publishing Date

4 Stars–Best enjoyed all in one sitting.

In an alternative revolutionary-era France, there is a silent war waging between the rulers of the day and those who rue the night. The nobility, after having brutally crushed the revolution and all those who supported it, rule the common people with a clenched iron fist of oppression. However, those on the fringes of society–beggars, thieves, assassins, smugglers, prostitutes, and drug runners, also known as The Wretched–have created their own courts in which to rule the city’s darker dealings and the very night itself, a place that Those Who Walk by Day only hear as passing whispers; a society of legend: The Miracle Court.

After witnessing her father sell her older sister, Azelma, to the man known as The Tiger, enacting Lord of the Court of Flesh, young Nina Thenardier, with vengeance in her heart, takes her cat burglar talents to the Court of Thieves, where she pledges her self to the Lord there in exchange of a home and protection after stealing from the crown prince himself. The Lord knows talent when he sees it and Nina is known henceforth as the Black Cat.

Over the years, Nina continues to plan some what to get her sister, Azelma, out of the clutches of the nefarious Tiger. However, when one of her plans go awry and she finds herself saddled with a new sister, Ettie, whom the Tiger has his sights on, Nina feels she must do all she can to protect this beautiful, young girl from the same fate as Azelma. Her plans and plots take her from the sewers of Paris to the deepest darkest prisons, and to the very palace itself in pursuit of her ends. Throughout her story, she meets handsome princes and revolutionaries, all while dodging danger pursuit of a better life for her sisters.

This is an amazing story against the living backdrop of Mother Paris. Nina is a savvy girl who experiences moments of romantic interlude with various characters but never for one second allows it to distract her from her goals and her higher purpose. On this, she remains fixated.

The story is only further enhanced by the setting and characters, both which were described in a way that made it feel real and alive. Every character of the story was well fleshed out. I could see the dust on the ghosts, the shine of the gold around the thieves’ necks, and could practically feel myself drowning in the overwhelming gilt and brocaded silk of the palace and the honey-sweet venom of the Queen’s words. All in all, it was absolutely fantastic and I cannot wait to get my hands on another Grant offering.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Children’s for the advanced copy of Court of Miracles in exchange for a fair and honest review. All of the above opinions are my own.

Fantasy Horror

Ruthless Gods

by Emily A Duncan. Release Date 4/7/2020

3 Stars. Best enjoyed slowly, like a square of deep, dark chocolate.

Picking up the pieces left behind from the events in Wicked Saints and working to end the war between Kalyazin and Tranavia (one way or another), Nadya and Serefin find themselves at the brink of something big, dark, and more dangerous than they have ever done.

Serefin’s very sight, although not good to begin with, is changed after his experience in the temple and is now hosting a fallen god within him, while Nadya has been cut completely away from her gods and has been imbued with a strange, dark power that has scarred her hand and left her off-balance. However, despite these struggles, there is work to be done.

Someone in the court is trying to usurp Serefin’s throne.

Nadya must reconnect with her gods so she can fulfill her divine purpose as a cleric.

And the Black Vulture must be confronted before he destroys the world.

Overall I liked the story and I want to know how it ends. There were some very enjoyable parts throughout, such as the descent into the Black Vulture’s layer as well as the later portions of the book when they reach the forest where all hell breaks loose. The plot slowed a little in the middle but otherwise was intriguing. However, I felt that this one suffered a little from the problem that sometimes happens with constantly switching POVs where one is taken out of the story and has a hard time reconnecting. Because of this, it took me longer than I would like to admit to finish it. There are also portions later in the book where it feels like huge swaths of certain character’s stories are missing and it’s very disjointing, although it is certainly plausible that that is the whole point. The last third of the book takes on an interesting, ethereal quality after all. Also, if you’re looking at this for the romance aspect, prepare for that to fall a little short and just enjoy the ride.

I would recommend this to anyone who has read Wicked Saints. I think the story is still a good continuation, and it sets readers up for an explosive third installment!

Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for a fair review.

Contemporary Fiction Fantasy Mystery

Burn Our Bodies Down

By Rory Power. Release Date 7/7/2020

4 Stars. Best enjoyed during the daytime with the windows open.

Margot has been secretly searching for her past behind her emotionally distant mother’s back for as long as she can remember. That’s a hard task to accomplish when you have to walk on egg shells in a tiny, run-down apartment in a city you hate. However, when buying back some of her mother’s possessions from the local pawn shop with squirreled away money, she finds a clue tucked away in an old bible on the back of a photo.

Phalene.

Margot plots an escape to the small farming town. Seeking her family and the story of her past, everyone seems to know who she is, but no one can tell her much of anything. Things turn hostile when she finds a dead girl who shares her own face in a blazing field fire. A girl no one seems to have ever seen before. A girl her grandmother also ever knowing.

As Margo dives deeper and deeper into the mystery of her own origins and searches for answers to who this doppelgänger girl could be, she finds herself in the middle of a dark, deep mystery spanning generations. As she spirals into the horrors of her family’s history, she struggles with the choice between keeping the family and sense of belonging she has finally found or the rabbit hole that is the past.

Burn Our Bodies Down was an unexpected ride. It was a slow, aching build up of intertwined mysteries that overflowed in a rush of blood and horror. It was one of those horror stories that keeps you guessing until the bitter end. The ideas were original, the setting and plot were well fleshed out, and the larger themes were made clear in the end.

I highly recommend this to any YA horror fans out there who want a summer mystery to sink their teeth into.

Fantasy Historical Fiction Mystery Romance

The Guinevere Deception

By Kiersten White

3.5 Stars–best read if you’ve already enjoyed the Arthurian legends

Guinevere is on her way from the abbey where she has been living to the waiting arms of the kingdom of Camelot where she is to marry its beloved King Arthur. Guinevere has many secrets and very few confidants. For instance, Guinevere isn’t Guinevere, and Camelot is not safe from the magic it has only very recently beaten away from its borders during the war waged against the Dark Queen. However, the magic continues to be a threat to the kingdom and Arthur himself, shifting and terrorizing the land and forests beyond the King’s influence. Guinevere-not-Guinevere may be the only protection the king has from the dark forces that wish to work their way into the veins of Camelot. And she may have the answer to defeating it…if she could only remember who and what she really is.

The Guinevere Deception was a novel full of twists, turns, and deeply buried secrets. Curiosity is definitely a driving force throughout the book. There are some points where it gets a little tedious, and iif you have not read the tales of King Arthur and Camelot, you may not connect as well with the story itself.

I have not read the classic tales and I felt a little lost at some points, but I also learned quite a bit about the stories themselves. However, i believe i would have enjoyed it much more if I had known they were required reading. Nevertheless, there are so many loose ends yet to be tied that I will be picking up the sequel.

Fantasy Horror

Wicked Saints

Post author By Lady Nightwolf
Post date January 21, 2020

By Emily Duncan

4.5 Stars. Best enjoyed on a cold and blood-laced winter evening.

In a war between blood magic and the will of the gods, who will triumph?

A war has been fought for years between Tranavia and Kalyazin, a war that pits the divine against the profane and heretical. Two powerful people on opposing sides want nothing more than to end this war and stop the bloodshed.

Nadiya is a cleric of Kalyazin, chosen by the gods as their representative on the earthly plane, both as the wielder of their magic and their weapon in a war against divinity.

Seredin is the high prince, heir to the Tranavian throne, and one of the strongest blood mages in the army leading the charge against Kalyazin.

Then a mysterious boy emerges from the shadows with his own monsters and many secrets. He is about to upend everything they think they know about the world. Are their goals perhaps more in line then they think?

Okay. So that was intense. I’m not always the biggest fan of audiobooks with multiple narrators, they tend to take me out of the story a little. Actually, I don’t usually like multiple POV books for that reason. However, it didn’t even matter. I read a good chunk of the book and listened to the rest. I practically finished it the day I started. Not only did I listen at work, I listened at every opportunity I had. Driving? Wicked Saints. Working? Wicked Saints. Lunch? I’m skipping. I’ll just stay in my office and listen to Wicked Saints. I am so excited that I have the ARC for Ruthless Gods because you bet your butt I’m reading it this weekend. I was so invested in the character’s individual stories the entire time. I didn’t have to ride that usual “ugh, when is this POV going to be over—I honestly couldn’t care less what this person is doing” rollercoaster. When the next chapter came I was like “darn, but Oh yay! What’s Seredin up to?” Yeah, it was that good.

The world that has been built is relatively simple and feels medieval. It’s war-ravaged from the long standing holy war between Tranavia and Kalyazin, and the magic that courses through the world is an interesting character all its own, fighting between darkness and light. That’s the biggest mystery throughout the entire thing. Where does the magic come from, and where SHOULD it come from? Is it really a divine creation or is it something inherent to the people who wield it? We just don’t know…but we’re getting somewhere!

Duncan is an awesome author. She really has a talent for breathing life into her characters and exploring the dark war that happens within each of us. Are we good or evil? Is the divide even great enough to be measurable? What even defines the two?