Been a Minute

Hey, all. It’s been a minute. I have been reviewing on NetGalley if you have access over there but blah blah blah life, I haven’t had a chance to do my thing over here. Back now, though and I have a bunch for you today so lets get into it.

June 23,20206

In world where people with empathic abilities are persecuted merely for existing, the Deadman hunts them down and turns them over to organization that imprisons and experiments on them..

Someone else is hunting empaths as well, someone “corrupting” them, teaching them to use their powers to turn others into thralls but, in so doing, helping them fight back against imprisonment.

The third and final entry in Therin’s Sugar and Vice series is a suspenseful conclusion to a great series that kept me excited for the next installment all the way through. Never quite sure what was going to happen next, I read all three books in just a few sittings each and loved every second of all three.

The characters are interesting; the world building phenomenal and believable; and the pacing, for the most part, perfect. I really think this is a hidden gem of a series, both for fans of paranormal lit and dark-tinged romance and I hope this review puts it on more people’s radars.

May 25, 2026

The Last Best Quest Ever is an absolutely adorable novel about, well… the last. best quest ever. F.T. Leukens, a master of writing the thing while lightly poking fun at the thing is at the top of their game when they send Ellinore the Brave on a quest to save her brother only for her to reveal to the reader that all of her previous success has been, if not outright fraudulent, then definitely alternatively successful insofar as traditional questing goes. Will her skills measure up when it counts? What will her companions think when they find out? Will just Ellinore be able to save her brother?

Beyond being a fun quest novel, this story emphasizes the importance of being one’s self over trying to fit into a particular mold and allowing yourself to be weird, awkward, and different rather than forcing yourself to to fit some false narrative of “normal,” especially since, it turns out, the people you care about aren’t going to fit that model either. The key to making good on your quest, and making good in life, is being you.

An important message in these times of ours where everyone is preaching conformity from facial features, to modes of dress, to the colors we wear and with which we decorate our homes.

August 25, 2026

Another delightful outing to the Dead and Breakfast with Sal and Arthur Miller (no relation), this time with a coven of witches.

These two are just the absolute best and their second time around is as wonderfully silly, pithy, and full of mystery and mayhem as the first with the additional joy of getting to know them even better and watching them embrace their vampiric attributes even more than they did in Dead and Breakfast.

I particularly enjoyed that there was a thread that continued from the first book through this second book to link the two together; while Summer Coven could certainly have stood alone, it was gratifying to harken back to the original tale.

I am desperately hoping there will be more of these. Excellent summer/fall reading.

June 2, 2026

Part haunted house story, part murder mystery, part bizarre faux-memoir, Hunger & Thirst is the story of Ursua, who grew up in the system and ended up on her own, desperate for love, and looking in all the wrong places. Eventually ending up in a squat with her best friend’s boyfriend, betrayed and alone, a horrific accident leads to a haunting she can’t escape. Looking back from her vantage as a successful artist years later, dreamy and confused, she still struggles to make sense of it all.

Hunger & Thirst is not for the faint of heart nor the faint of stomach. It is, make no mistake, a horror novel in more ways than one; the situation Ursula is growing up in is horrific - a 16 year old living in a group home with adults and then a squat where a double-homicide-suicide occurred, a cottage that’s been vacant for years - and it’s a horror novel with possessions and hauntings. It’s creepy and terrible by turns and so compelling, I had a difficult time putting it down despite the fact that it isn’t an easy book to read. Fuller is a skilled writer who leaves you hanging at the end of practically every sentence and it’s difficult to find a place to take a break.

Content warnings abound so beware but if you can read it, do. It’s a fascinating look into the mind of a complex, troubled character.

June 2, 2026

Respect your mother or she’s coming for you. By this I mean Mother Nature. Or the Mother of all jellyfish.

Jo is a jellyfish scientist. So when her best friend calls her after ten years of no contact and asks her to come to their small island off the coast of Maine because they have a giant jellyfish problem it’s hard for her to say no. The problem Nadia fails to mention is, once you get a look at Clementine (the jellyfish is named Clementine), you lose the ability to leave the island. No one knows why but it’s happened to 47 people so far.

Ultimately, this is a story about how we’re all connected. It’s about the ways in which the world seeks to connect us even though we don’t always understand. The ways in which we’re connected even if we don’t want to be. The ways in which we seek our freedom, the ways in which which we gain it and the ways in which we we’re stuck with one another. The ways in which we’re individuals and the ways in which we’re family.

Hope you found something interesting! See you back here in two weeks.