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The RSVP by Lauren Blakely
Something Wilder by Christina Lauren
Cold Deceit by Toni Anderson
The Witch Collector by Charissa Weaks
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Into the Storm by Rachel Grant
City of Ruin by Charissa Weaks
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Chick LitContemporary RomanceNew AdultReviews

The RSVP by Lauren Blakely

written by Dísir
The RSVP by Lauren BlakelyThe RSVP by Lauren Blakely
Series: The Virgin Society #1
Published by Lauren Blakely Books on 4th January 2023
Pages: 366
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads
three-stars

Our days are full of secrets. Our nights are for seduction…

For the last year, I’ve wanted someone I can’t have. The man my father built his latest multimillion dollar business with. He’s a decade older than I am, and he’s entirely forbidden.

The fact that he’s never given me a second glance only makes me long for him more. But the other night, across the room at a gala, everything changed.

His broody gaze lingered on me and grew darker.

So I’m officially done being the good girl. Tomorrow I turn 21. As a gift to myself, I plan to seduce my father’s business partner.

Happy birthday to me.

I struggled mightily with this one, despite it being a mouthwatering age-gap kind of story that I (not-so) secretly dig. The cover says it’s written by Lauren Blakely, but the New Adult voices bordering on cringey somehow don’t really line up with what I know of Blakely’s more ‘adult-ish’ tone for her books.

There was definitely a poor-little-rich-girl vibe that had a determined Harlow going after her womanising father’s business partner and if that didn’t really smack of desperation all around, there was too much of a staged process where Harlow schemed, flirted and plotted her way to get closer to Bridger.

On the other hand, Bridger’s struggle with his attraction to a younger woman made him blow hot and cool, yet it never really felt like a relationship of equals despite Blakely’s relatively low-angst version of both protagonists being relatively mature about what they both want and how they feel. And although this has nothing to do with our couple in question, having Harlow’s unsavoury, immoral father in the mix detracted from the sheen of their relationship, considering he is the very factor that is also a source of conflict between them.

I ending putting down and taking up ‘The RSVP’ numerous times, the slow-burning somehow turning into a glacial burn when I thought it could move faster. Overall, it’s not a bad read as Blakley quite deftly manoeuvres past all points of conflict–and gets them over quickly rather than drawing them out–but maybe it’s not quite my thing.

three-stars
The RSVP by Lauren Blakely was last modified: January 24th, 2023 by Dísir
24th January 2023 0 comment
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Action/AdventureChick LitContemporary RomanceReviews

Something Wilder by Christina Lauren

written by Dísir
Something Wilder by Christina LaurenSomething Wilder by Christina Lauren
Published by Gallery Books on 17th May 2022
Pages: 384
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Goodreads
four-half-stars

Growing up the daughter of notorious treasure hunter and absentee father Duke Wilder left Lily without much patience for the profession… or much money in the bank.

But Lily is nothing if not resourceful, and now uses Duke’s coveted hand-drawn maps to guide tourists on fake treasure hunts through the red rock canyons of Utah. It pays the bills but doesn’t leave enough to fulfill her dream of buying back the beloved ranch her father sold years ago, and definitely not enough to deal with the sight of the man she once loved walking back into her life with a motley crew of friends ready to hit the trails. Frankly, Lily would like to take him out into the wilderness—and leave him there.

Leo Grady knew mirages were a thing in the desert, but they’d barely left civilization when the silhouette of his greatest regret comes into focus in the flickering light of the campfire. Ready to leave the past behind him, Leo wants nothing more than to reconnect with his first and only love.

Unfortunately, Lily Wilder is all business, drawing a clear line in the sand: it’s never going to happen.

But when the trip goes horribly and hilariously wrong, the group wonders if maybe the legend of the hidden treasure wasn’t a gimmick after all. There’s a chance to right the wrongs—of Duke’s past and their own—but only if Leo and Lily can confront their history and work together. Alone under the stars in the isolated and dangerous mazes of the Canyonlands, Leo and Lily must decide whether they’ll risk their lives and hearts on the adventure of a lifetime.

I’ve always liked this duo’s writing, but diving deep means that I’ll need to settle in for a long, invested read each time I get into one of their books. It’s definitely a great thing, but that also means that I probably don’t have as much head space as I’d like to sit down with one of these reads than I like.

‘Something Wilder’ is a bit more of a departure from their usual cozy, city-bound-type stories: there’s more adventure and mild suspense as we’re all taken for a puzzle-solving, treasure-hunting ride along characters who are wild-cards amidst an awkward reunion between two people who’d loved each other as teenagers.

And as it turned out, there was so much to like about this book, even if I’m hardly a fan of second-chance stories. My tendency to look out for a satisfactory (or at least, acceptable) explanation why the first chance didn’t work out at first and justifying whether the second chance would have even happened at all has always made this trope a sticky one with me, which Christina Lauren partially managed to do, even if I was left sceptical because Lily and Leo wouldn’t have sought each other out voluntarily after all these years without this miraculous desert intervention.

But Christina Lauren juggle the adventure and action quite deftly with some sensitive characterisation, delving deep into Lily Wilder’s fear of losing control of everything in her life as she struggles to keep herself afloat while Leo’s financially successful life in New York seems to be leading nowhere to fulfilment until he returns back to where he started with Lily. The solidness of Leo’s steady and dependable geek-vibe contrasting with Lily’s volatile resilience as they tried to wade through their rapidly-changing circumstances stood out most of all, but I did think that they moved on together pretty quickly for their HEA to suddenly appear out of the desert sunset.

Still, I needed a mental change of scenery and ‘Something Wilder’–for the fact that it was so different from what I’ve read lately–provided just that for me. Right place, right time, right read.

four-half-stars
Something Wilder by Christina Lauren was last modified: December 24th, 2022 by Dísir
24th December 2022 0 comment
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Advanced Reader CopyContemporary RomanceMilitary/ParamilitaryMystery/CrimeReviewsRomantic Suspense

Cold Deceit by Toni Anderson

written by Dísir
Cold Deceit by Toni AndersonCold Deceit by Toni Anderson
Series: Cold Justice: Most Wanted #2
Published by Toni Anderson, Toni Anderson Inc. on December 20, 2022
Pages: 294
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four-stars

When forensic anthropologist Zoe Miller stumbles across a murder victim in the blisteringly hostile Sonoran Desert, she triggers a chain of events that puts her in the crosshairs of a ruthless killer.

FBI HRT operator Seth Hopper is on secret assignment near the Mexican border when he suddenly finds himself on a rescue mission. The former Navy SEAL is ordered to protect Zoe, whether she likes it or not, which sets them off on a cross-country journey back to Virginia.

Zoe has good reason not to trust a man like Seth, but there is no denying the scorching heat that flares between them, hotter than the desert sun. Can Zoe find justice for the murdered woman? Or will the killers close in to destroy them both…

I think there’s very little that Toni Anderson can do wrong, especially when it comes to her fantastically-and-tightly-plotted stories revolving around her cadre of FBI/HRT agents. Few authors I know write consistently like her, with books that form a part of a series yet stand blindingly good on their own.

‘Cold Deceit’ brings a Bones-esque situation into the heat and the brutality of the Sonoran Desert where cartel-crimes run rife: a forensic anthropologist crosses paths there with the FBI just after she discovers the remains of a victim which snowballs into something more than she can handle on her own. Zoe Miller isn’t just anyone however; as the daughter of the Vice-President there’s more at stake here than just personal protection and Seth Miller, the man she’d initially been attracted to, has been tasked to be her shadow when he inadvertently gets involved in a case that puts both of them at risk.

I loved Anderson’s thrilling action scenes–they’re engaging and heart-pounding, then sheared off after that with some steamy heat between her protagonists as they try to do the right thing between them (and sometimes fail). Zoe’s relentless search for justice is admirable, though her borderline-petulance at particular times less so. That there was this hot-cold personality change with Seth and his baby-abandonment issues did throw me off a bit, though Anderson doesn’t dwell too much on the angst or let it all descend into prolonged push-pull will-they-won’t-they, but rather brings it all to a neat (and perhaps a tad bit rushed) conclusion very soon after the climax.

four-stars
Cold Deceit by Toni Anderson was last modified: December 5th, 2022 by Dísir
10th December 2022 0 comment
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Action/AdventureFantasyMagic/ParanormalNew AdultReviews

The Witch Collector by Charissa Weaks

written by Dísir
The Witch Collector by Charissa WeaksThe Witch Collector by Charissa Weaks
Series: Witch Walker, #1, #1
Published by City Owl Press on 2nd November 2021
Pages: 343
Buy on Amazon
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three-half-stars

Every harvest moon, the Witch Collector rides into our valley and leads one of us to the home of the immortal Frost King, to remain forever. Today is that day—Collecting Day. But he will not come for me. I, Raina Bloodgood, have lived in this village for twenty-four years, and for twenty-four years he has passed me by.

His mistake.

Raina Bloodgood has one desire: kill the Frost King and the Witch Collector who stole her sister. On Collecting Day, she means to exact murderous revenge, but a more sinister threat sets fire to her world. Rising from the ashes is the Collector, Alexus Thibault, the man she vowed to slay and the only person who can help save her sister.

Thrust into an age-old story of ice, fire, and ancient gods, Raina must abandon vengeance and aid the Witch Collector in saving the Frost King or let their empire—and her sister—fall into enemy hands. But the lines between good and evil blur, and Raina has more to lose than she imagined. What is she to do when the Witch Collector is no longer the villain who stole her sister, but the hero who’s stealing her heart?

‘The Witch Collector’ has a title that had me intrigued so I picked it up with the intention of reading just a little, then a little more, then went all the way through. Probably the best kind of read, if you ask me, especially since I so rarely delve into high fantasy let alone a series of books given the kind of emotional and time investment that’s needed for it.

This is entirely on me: I’ve also got an under-active imagination when it comes to high fantasy, magic-ky stuff and the map that’s provided, so linking the events of the book, the pesky gods and their power-plays do give me a hard time following everything in the complex world that Weaks has created.

But there’s a huge backstory involved to the point where you think everyone’s just a chess pawn, an even bigger vocabulary associated with the whole world of Tiressia and quite a number of emerging sub-plots such that summarising everything here is missing the entire point. Like the Greek and Roman gods, Tiressia’s own petty deities tangle with each other and their mortals, causing destruction and chaos at their whims and fancies.

The subplots do bog down the story a bit, which would otherwise be a somewhat linear one of immortal-dude-taking-someone-but gets-caught-in-many-skirmishes-along-the-way. The pacing as a result, is a start-stop, fast-slow jerky one but Weaks’s interesting, multi-faceted characters keep it all alive, in spite of and because of their historical baggage (and possibly unrealised power) that aren’t quite fully unravelled or unexplained. Still, there’s a whole new set of magic rules and lores to learn about–these can get exhausting with the info-dumps–but ploughing through it does bring its own set of rewards as more characters expand the cast list.

The enemies-to-lovers trope between Raina and Alexus was the cherry on top, though I’d really hoped for more passion and swoony-angst perhaps. But there’s some building steam, some yearning and denial moments that kept me a happy camper, and as anxious as I am to see how both Raina and Alexus turn out together, knowing that this is just the beginning is giving me that bit of a sinking feeling that it’s not really going to go too well.

It’s early days yet though, and I’m eager to see what Weaks is going to throw in for her next few books.

three-half-stars
The Witch Collector by Charissa Weaks was last modified: November 25th, 2022 by Dísir
1st December 2022 0 comment
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Advanced Reader CopyContemporary RomanceMystery/CrimeNetgalleyReviewsRomantic Suspense

Desperate Acts by Alexandra Ivy

written by Dísir
Desperate Acts by Alexandra IvyDesperate Acts by Alexandra Ivy
Series: Pike, Wisconsin, #4, #4, #4
Published by Zebra on 21st February 2023
Pages: 352
Buy on Amazon
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three-stars

WILL SHE FIND THE ANSWER

Teenager Lia Porter shouldn't have been anywhere near the railroad bridge that night. Sneaking home after a party in the fields outside Pike, Wisconsin, she glimpsed a woman in a leather jacket, running in terror. Lia puts the incident from her mind--until a body is found near the same spot fifteen years later, wearing the same jacket. The police rule it a suicide. Lia knows different. The woman she saw was trying to save her own life, not end it. But whatever she was fleeing from found her first . . .

BEFORE THE KILLER

The stranger who arrives at Lia's store shares her suspicions. Hollywood stunt driver Kaden Vaughn has come home to Wisconsin to learn the truth about what happened to his brother's fianc�e years ago. The leather jacket, the timing--he believes the dead woman is Vanna, and that Lia may be the only person who can help. Together they retrace Vanna's steps, but the more they dig, the darker the secrets become.

FINDS HER?

The killer is still out there, stalking the streets of Pike again, willing to do whatever is necessary to keep the truth locked in mystery. One by one, all those who know something about that night must be silenced, until there is no one left to tell . . .

Something’s rotten in the town of Pike, at least according to Alexandra Ivy’s small-town series, where decades-old murder mysteries abound and townsfolk get cagey about it.

In ‘Desperate Acts’, Lia Porter unwittingly tangles with several figures of authority after revealing her involvement in a potential murder case when she was the last to have seen the victim alive and gets caught up with an unlikely visitor seeking some answers of his own. Both Lia and Karen Vaughn play at detectives; it’s a sort of amateur sleuthing that can only go so far—both of them acknowledge it as well—but what do you do then, when the straight-laced, honest ones are sorely lacking and everything else is hindered by some guilty party?

I thought the case was quite interesting when viewed ‘objectively’ in a sense up until a (somewhat cheesy and overused) point where the perpetrator spent the last bit of the book self-righteously boasting—perhaps also quite one-dimensionally—about their cleverness and deeds when things finally came to a head. Yet both victim and perpetrator were portrayed as unlikeable and rotten and I’d actually started to think that Lia/Kaden were simply better off letting Pike stew in its own messy soup of murder mysteries.

I also wasn’t too convinced that Kaden was suddenly all into the new relationship with Lia beyond the pulsing attraction between them after just a few meetings; that it had turned so quickly to love and utter devotion by midway through had me baffled and incredulous when I thought that should have been something deeper maybe that would have tied them together.

Still, this was an easy read, delivering the body-dropping numbers with a bit of B-movie type clichés and thrills and will easily provide an entertaining night in.

three-stars
Desperate Acts by Alexandra Ivy was last modified: November 25th, 2022 by Dísir
25th November 2022 0 comment
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Into the Storm by Rachel Grant

written by Dísir
Into the Storm by Rachel GrantInto the Storm by Rachel Grant
Series: Evidence: Under Fire, #1, #1
Published by Janus Publishing on 7th October 2022
Pages: 385
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four-stars

As a storm rolls in, a team of elite Navy SEALs arrives at a remote lodge for a wilderness training exercise that becomes terrifyingly real...

Xavier Rivera planned the exercise down to the smallest detail, but he didn't plan the arrival of archaeologist Audrey Kendrick—a woman he shared a passionate night with before betraying her in the worst way.

As the storm is unleashed on the historic lodge it becomes clear the training has been compromised. Trapped by weather, isolated by the remote wilderness, and silenced as communication with the world has been severed, unarmed SEALs face an unexpected and deadly foe.

Audrey and Xavier must set aside their distrust and desire and work together to save a team under fire and survive in a battle against the wild.

Xavier Rivera’s and Audrey Kendrick’s story in the prequel is the base from which ‘Into the Storm’ launches, and somehow this book isn’t too complete without that short, steamy read.

Nonetheless, ‘Into the Storm’ is a solid offering that revolves around a military training exercise gone awry, for reasons that aren’t really made clear until the end. The atmosphere is tense and taut, made more so with the characters running around like pieces on the chessboard, wondering like the reader, just how a controlled event has just snapped off all its hinges and steamrolls into a situation where stakes are higher than they’ve ever been.

Anchoring the action are Xavier and Audrey, whose recent history together is one of betrayal and distrust–and one that they have to overcome together in the crossfire they’re inadvertently caught in. But both are capable protagonists and experts in their own fields; I liked Rachel Grant’s mature focus on how they could put aside the friction between them (though I did think Audrey was a little soft when considering what Xavier had done to her) and work together to survive the crisis. Even as Grant drives the action forward, taking the time to create some nuanced characterisation of the supporting cast to set up future books definitely helped lift ‘Into the Storm’ to new heights.

‘Into the Storm’ is a book that takes time, as compelling as it is and I found that I needed quite a fair bit of time to digest all of the details of this tightly woven story. There were places I found myself lost (like an unintended meta perhaps) and that the ending–when revealed–felt somewhat climatic. Still, it’s one of Grant’s best works I’ve read in a while…and fingers crossed, this series will just only climb higher.

four-stars
Into the Storm by Rachel Grant was last modified: October 30th, 2022 by Dísir
10th November 2022 0 comment
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Action/AdventureFantasyMagic/ParanormalNew AdultReviewsSpeculative Fiction

City of Ruin by Charissa Weaks

written by Dísir
City of Ruin by Charissa WeaksCity of Ruin by Charissa Weaks
Series: Witch Walker, #2, #2
Published by City Owl Press on 27th September 2022
Pages: 400
Buy on Amazon
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three-half-stars

The night the Prince of the East razed her village, Raina Bloodgood’s life changed forever. Forced into someone else’s war—and into the arms of the Witch Collector, Alexus Thibault—Raina discovered that everything she believed was wrong, and that she was capable of far more than anyone imagined.

Now, the Prince of the East has taken the Frost King as a pawn in his war against the Summerlands, causing Alexus’s life to hang in the balance. To thwart the prince’s endgame and prevent the Tiressian empire from returning to an age of gods, Raina, Alexus, and a band of Northlanders race against the sands of time to reach a mystical desert land where merciless assassins lurk around every corner.

In the midst of tragedy, Raina and Alexus fight to stay together and alive, all while a nefarious presence follows them straight to the jeweled gates of the Summerland queen’s citadel—the City of Ruin. With much to fear, it’s the terror of a past she shouldn't remember that Raina cannot cast from her dreams.

A past that's determined to find her. One way or another.

At double the length of the first book, there’s lots going on in this one, even if ‘City of Ruin’ is a book that I’m mostly wandering blind in (geographically speaking) because I just can’t wrap my head around the map, the politics, the backstory and the characters who are just not what they seem. Undoubtedly, it’s a massive one–bigger and bolder might I add, especially when it comes to the more untamed steamy scenes and the earthier language. In fact, ‘City of Ruin’ feels like the first book let loose.

If you take Alexus and Raina as your compass, then this pairing becomes the centring force of the book, even if they are subject to actions from others, uncontrollable external forces and intrinsic magic that can unpredictably swing one way or the other.

What has been established in the first book gets overturned in this one and with multiple POVs entering the picture, you’re left to question the grey spaces the characters inhabit (or inhabited), then eventually toss out any preconceptions you might have had about the good guys defeating the bad guys. ‘City of Ruin’ suggests just that: that there isn’t a clear line drawn between the winners and losers; neither is this pure definition of evil one that the reader can comfortably sit with.

And on and on it goes, with Weaks’s magickal world unfurling wider and deeper, with lore and stories that I thought could have been more slowly revealed. I’m reeling from the sinuous narrative (and less-than-straightforward descriptions at times) before yet another plot twist comes my way and yet another oddly-described event leaves me wondering what really happened.

The story shows no sign of abating of course; it ends on a cliffhanger and a throw back in time (you’ve got to appreciate the concept of time travel written with a fantasy twist) that makes you need the next book immediately.

three-half-stars
City of Ruin by Charissa Weaks was last modified: October 25th, 2022 by Dísir
3rd November 2022 0 comment
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