Tag Archives: Romance

A Court of Frost and Starlight

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“I have to create, or it was all for nothing. I have to create, or I will crumple up with despair and never leave my bed. I have to create because I have no other way of voicing this.” Her hand rested on her heart, and my eyes burned. “It is hard,” the weaver said, her stare never leaving mine, “and it hurts, but if I were to stop, if I were to let this loom or the spindle go silent …” She broke my gaze at last to look to her tapestry. “Then there would be no Hope shining in the Void.”

Title: A Court of Frost and Starlight

Author: Sarah J. Maas

Series: ACOTAR #3.1-ish

Publication: May 1st 2018 by Bloomsbury YA

Pages: 229

Summary from Goodreads:

Feyre, Rhys, and their close-knit circle of friends are still busy rebuilding the Night Court and the vastly-changed world beyond. But Winter Solstice is finally near, and with it, a hard-earned reprieve. Yet even the festive atmosphere can’t keep the shadows of the past from looming. As Feyre navigates her first Winter Solstice as High Lady, she finds that those dearest to her have more wounds than she anticipated–scars that will have far-reaching impact on the future of their Court.

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Retribution Rails

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Secrets are like bullets. Ditto the dark, personal stuff. Folks say they’ll take’em off yer hands, share the burden, but really they just load ’em into their own weapons so they can use ’em against you later.

Title: Retribution Rails

Author: Erin Bowman

Series: Companion novel to Vengeance Road

Publication:  November 7th 2017 by HMH Books for Young Readers

Pages: 384

Source: Netgalley

Summary from Goodreads:

When Reece Murphy is forcibly dragged into the Rose Riders gang because of a mysterious gold coin in his possession, he vows to find the man who gave him the piece and turn him over to the gang in exchange for freedom. Never does he expect a lead to come from an aspiring female journalist. But when Reece’s path crosses with Charlotte Vaughn after a botched train robbery and she mentions a promising rumor about a gunslinger from Prescott, it becomes apparent that she will be his ticket to freedom—or a noose. As the two manipulate each other for their own ends, past secrets are unearthed, reviving a decade-old quest for revenge that may be impossible to settle.

In this thrilling companion to Vengeance Road, dangerous alliances are formed, old friends meet new enemies, and the West is wilder than ever.

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Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe

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See it is an assumption universally made that any beautiful, brilliant, single woman who is rich as hell will be in want of a husband.

Title: Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe

Author: Melissa De La Cruz

Series: Standalone

Publication: October 17th 2017 by St. Martin’s Press

Pages: 240

Source: Publisher in exchange for a honest review

Summary from Goodreads:

Darcy Fitzwilliam is 29, beautiful, successful, and brilliant. She dates hedge funders and basketball stars and is never without her three cellphones—one for work, one for play, and one to throw at her assistant (just kidding). Darcy’s never fallen in love, never has time for anyone else’s drama, and never goes home for Christmas if she can help it. But when her mother falls ill, she comes home to Pemberley, Ohio, to spend the season with her dad and little brother.

Her parents throw their annual Christmas bash, where she meets one Luke Bennet, the smart, sardonic slacker son of their neighbor. Luke is 32 and has never left home. He’s a carpenter and makes beautiful furniture, and is content with his simple life. He comes from a family of five brothers, each one less ambitious than the other. When Darcy and Luke fall into bed after too many eggnogs, Darcy thinks it’s just another one night stand. But why can’t she stop thinking of Luke? What is it about him? And can she fall in love, or will her pride and his prejudice against big-city girls stand in their way?

Thoughts and Feelings:

I’m going to admit flat out that I am not the biggest fan of the original Pride and Prejudice to begin with. I think it’s silly when it’s praised as a beautiful romance, because it’s not – it’s a satire on Austen’s society cloaked within a romance because that was the only way she could get it published as a woman at the time. Mini rant aside, Pride and Prejudice is amazing as a satire – and I love it as such. Melissa De La Cruz has taken that satire and turned it into a satire of that romantic satire, and it’s great.

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Taken by Storm

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“I thought I might actually cry. That was so unlike me, I wasn’t sure how to respond. Bronwyn Alessia St. Vincent Clare didn’t get sad. She got mad. Or better, she got even.”’

Title: Taken by Storm

Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Series: Raised by Wolves #3

Publication:  May 22nd 2012 by EgmontUSA

Pages: 314

Source: Purchased

Summary from Goodreads:

In the eye of a storm stands Bryn, the alpha of the Cedar Ridge werewolf pack. She is young. Female. Human. Physically weaker than any werewolf, she could never survive a battle with another alpha, the strongest, fiercest, and canniest of his pack.  
 
Yet she cannot refuse a summons from the werewolf Senate. A rogue werewolf is attacking humans. The risk of exposure threatens to destroy pack life, and the center of the crisis is Cedar Ridge territory—her own lands.
 
Bryn has no choice but to attend the meeting, a gathering of the most powerful werewolves on the continent.  The subject is the rogue wolf, but Bryn knows the other packs want what she has. Her territory. Her females. Her pack. 
 
They want her death. 
 
Werewolf law prevents the other alphas from making a direct attack. It also prevents her former alpha, the mysterious and powerful Callum, from coming to her aid. But it doesn’t prevent Bryn from knowing what she wants. To keep her lands. To protect her pack. 

To survive.

My Thoughts:

This is it. The series finale to end all series finales. I know Taken by Storm has some hate, and I totally get it -this is not a happy book. This is not a happy end, wrap it all up with a pretty romance bow. This book is brutal, it rips your guts out. Taken by Storm is the epitome of a bittersweet end. It hurts, but you learn to live with it. It is so fitting, so perfect, for the world Barnes created with these wolves. Ugh, I love this series so much.

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Trial By Fire

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“Hierarchy was like breathing: the only time you thought about it was when something went wrong.”

Title: Trial By Fire

Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Series: Raised by Wolves # 2

Publication: June 14th 2011 by EgmontUSA

Pages: 357

Source: Purchased

Summary from Goodreads:

Bryn is finally settling into her position as alpha of the Cedar Ridge Pack—or at least, her own version of what it means to be alpha when you’re a human leading a band of werewolves. Then she finds a teenage boy bleeding on her front porch. Before collapsing, he tells her his name is Lucas, he’s a Were, and Bryn’s protection is his only hope.

But Lucas isn’t part of Bryn’s pack, and she has no right to claim another alpha’s Were.  With threats—old and new—looming, and danger closing in from all sides, Bryn will have to accept what her guardian Callum knew all along. To be alpha, she will have to give in to her own animal instincts and become less human. And, she’s going to have to do it alone.

Bryn faces both the costs, and the rewards, of love and loyalty, in this thrilling sequel to Raised by Wolves.

A Gif List of Feels:

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