Harper L. Woods: The Coven

In the first in a series, Harper L Woods shows the power of Blood Magic.

Willow knew that after her mom passed away, that the Coven would come for her, she just thought that she would have more time. When the Vampires come to take her to Hallow Grove University, Willow is shocked with the state of the place. Willow was taught magic by her mother and respects the old ways of blood magic, give and take, but the University has forsaken all that. The Secret run deep within the Coven and none of them run deeper than that of the Headmaster Alaric Grayson. With the University finally accepting new students after 50 years, they cannot hide from their past and the massacre that forced them to shut in the first place.

I was totally looking for a witchy read and this book fit the bill for me and I absolutely LOVED the magic system in this book and that Woods had the bad guys be a mixture of demon/vampires who needed witches in order to stay this side of Hell. The beginning really starts off fast paced and I was hooked once the magic system was introduced but a few chapters in things begin to slow and by the middle of the book felt a little bit choppy and the chapters/scenes did not flow great together. I think this was due to the fact that sometimes we don’t really know that Willow is in a vision or a dream and things feel like they come out of no where. The ending obviously picks up but the middle was a bit rough.

Willow as a character is really nothing new for this genre, though I did enjoy how the Vampires underestimated her at the beginning and thought she would be an easy grab. Willow's magic is pretty incredible and I love how humble she is about where she get it from. She knows that she has to give something to the Earth in order to receive magic back from it. It was cool to see those areas that had been deprived for so long reach for the blood to get back what had been taken. I'm a little confused on the whole generational magic idea (I feel like it wasn’t explained well). I also found that Willow came off as naive in quite a few parts of the book that i was not expecting as the felt like they came out of nowhere and clashed with her personality.

Gray is a fine MMC, once again adds nothing new to the genre, but he does have some good one liners in the books. If you like the gray (pun intended) of MMC then you will like Gray as a character.

I was able to figure out one of the twist, but this book did not go the way that I thought it would, and I will 100% be picking up the next book in this series. I think most people will want to with the cliffhanger ending.

Enjoy!!!

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Megan Miranda: The Girl From Widow Hills

Megan Miranda shows that your past will always catch up to you:

Arden Maynor made national news when she was six, she had been washed away in a flash flood while sleepwalking and miraculously was found alive three days later. Arden is of course grateful to be alive, but she was and still not grateful for all the media and pressures that came afterwards. She changed her name to Olivia as soon as she could and shed Arden the best she could. She now has a life where no one knows about her past. But the past always has a way of catching up to you and with the 20th anniversary of Olivia being rescued looming, there is going to be deadly consequences that are all based from her past.

I went into this book not knowing what to expect other than the premise on the back and the fact that Miranda is a popular author that has quite a back list of books. I will admit that I went into this book with some pretty high expectations and sadly they were not met. Overall, I was bored with the book, bored with the plot, characters and things moved too slowly to keep me hooked into the story. Each chapter felt like a slog to get through, even though there were aspects I enjoyed it was just painful getting from one to the other and no real twist or shocking event along the way (at least for me).

I did enjoy Miranda's writing style, especially with the inclusion of additional information from new articles, reports and the like at the end of each chapters, I feel like this really added to the overall story. I did think that the chapters were a bit too long for my taste, but that is just a personal preference. 

I enjoyed that Olivia is an unreliable narrator of the story with her sleepwalking and her inability to remember that night as a child and anything that happened since her sleepwalking returned. Her struggle to come to terms of what may just have happened those nights felt very real.

I think that Miranda did a great job about how we treat victims of crimes or tragic/traumatizing events, even when there are children involved. The expectation from the public is unbearable and unrealistic for them. It like oh you’re safe now, you shouldn’t be bothered by anything that just happened to you and must now live a perfect life. You can really understand why she changed her name to Olivia and kept her past hidden from everyone. She has too much experience of how if she shared her past everything in the relationship, she was in would change.

I think I went into this book with too high of expectations for never having read a book by Miranda. I do have one other book by her on my TBR (All the Missing Girls) and I will pick it up eventually but just not any time soon.

Cheers!!!

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Kelley Armstrong: I’ll Be Waiting

Kelley Armstrong shows you never know who is on the other side of the veil when you call:

Nicola never believed that she would live this long, let alone find a career she loves and the love of her life. Nicola has Cystic Fibrosis and most children do not live to see adulthood. She knows that she needs to live every moment and she wants to do that with her Husband Anton. Neither of them thought that he would be the one to leave first, his final words to Nic haunting her every day, "I'll Be Waiting". This take Nic on a path of trying to contact Anton, talk to him one more time to say a proper Goodbye, but something sinister has come across instead, something with death and vengeance on their mind.

I'm a huge Kelley Armstrong fan. I love the way that she constructs her story and her ability to draw the reader in. I have read one other book by Armstrong that was more of the horror side of genres. This book had me hooked from the beginning, but i will say that it was heartbreaking at the beginning middle and end. Speaking of the end, the last 30% of the book goes by so fast as you try to turn the pages faster and faster to see what is going to happen next.

You cannot help but feel for Nicola from everything thing that she has gone through in her life, and what she is having to deal with now, not only the tragedy but also those trying to profit on the death of her husband. There are always those who will try anything to make a buck and that is highlighted in this book with the amount of mediums or psychics who say they will have the ability to contact her Husband Anton. With everything really falling apart it make sense why Nicola starts question everyone and everything around her, and herself, maybe she herself is going insane.

This book is only told from Nicola's POV and while I appreciate that but I think I would have enjoyed a different perspective at times and be in the minds of other people in the house, to truly see what they were feeling and experience. I think a POV from Dr. Cirillo and his reasons for being there would have been an interesting POV and scientific one at that.

Although this book is touted as a supernatural horror, I didn’t think it was that scary, but the creepy atmosphere was on point. Things do get a bit gory at times, especially near the end of the book, so i think some people will find it scary and fit the horror genre but for me it does not. 

Was able to figure out the twist but you really don’t know who is going to be there in the end.

I did enjoy this book even though it was not quite what i wanted it to be (and probably my least favourite of Armstrong’s books). I think those looking for a creepy book that has an eerie atmosphere, then pick up this book.

Enjoy!!!

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Steve Cavanagh: Kill For Me Kill For You

Steven Cavanagh shows that the strangers we meet can ruin one's life but also in strangers we can trust:

Two strangers meet by chance and they share a tragedy in life, the loss of their child, loss of the life that they had. They cannot live with culprit walking around free while their loved ones are cold and buried. As they talk into the night, they come up with the perfect plan from the famous work, Strangers on a Train. Across town a woman is attacked in her home by a blue-eyed stranger, a face she will never forget, will she ever feel safe again with Him out there stalking/hurting/killing other woman? Her husband is beside himself with worry and what would he do if he ever encountered that blue eyed man. A city full of violence and a few people willing to do what they thinks it takes to make the city a little bit safer, so no more have to suffer, especially if one can get away with it.

This is the first book that I have read by Cavanagh (I still want to read his Eddy Flynn series) and with all the hype surrounding this book I went in with high expectations. I really loved the idea of a modern versions of strangers on a train and I was looking forward to how Cavanagh would achieve this with such a change of technology from then to now. 

Overall, I just felt underwhelmed by this story. While the premise is done in a unique way and I felt invested in the characters, especially Amanda but i felt like this book lacked the suspense that I thought it was going to have as i found that it was fairly predictable. This was really sad as i found the beginning really captured you with what had happened to Amanda and Ruth (both heartbreaking in their own ways) but after that high the book begins to petered off.

I was able to figure out most of the twists except for the final one but by then I wasn’t really invested in the story as much as I wanted to be and I was like huh that was clever. I didn’t have the draw dropping moment most seem to have with this book.

I also wish there was more POV for Farrow, he felt underdeveloped and I really enjoyed him as a character and Detective. His drive to solve cases, his compassion to the victims or victims' families, I would read a book where he was the lead and solving the cases that no one else can solve or wants to put in the work to solve.

I can only really recommend this book to people who don’t read a lot of thriller or murder mystery books or someone who is looking to get back into the genre. As someone who reads A LOT in these genres I found this book okay at best but also predictable and didn’t have the thrills or mystery that I wanted it to.

Cheers!!!!

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S. A. Cosby: Razorblade Tears

S. A. Cosby shows what two fathers will do in a quest for Vengeance:

Ike and Buddy Lee are strangers to each other, even though their sons were married and had a daughter together. When their sons are murdered in a drastic way, they do not think that anything can get any worse, but their headstones are destroyed above their graves. This causes Buddy Lee to reach out to Ike and seek their own sense of justice for their boys. Even though they were both ashamed of their kids while they are alive they see this as a small way to atone for that, to set things right and bring Vengeance to those who dared to hurt their boys.

This is the first book that I have read by Cosby and this book was making quite a few ways when it was released in 2021 and i can see why, the act of vengeance and why Ike and Buddy lee go down this path is very powerful and Hell i can't blame them for it. A parent should never have to bury their children, and one's children should never be murdered how their son's were. So once you start reading the book you cannot help but root for them. Nothing else matters, not race or that they are both ex-cons, all that matters is Justice.

Ike and Buddy Lee are very different men, but very much the same as well. Ike, is ruthless in this book and I am hear for it, Buddy Lee is more of the comedic relief in the book through his comments/idea but he shows up when you need him too. Both of them HATE how they treated their son's while they were alive and this vigilantism is a way to atone for that. It is sad that Ike and Buddy Lee could not understand their sons’ life and who they loved. Although this book takes a short amount of time, there is growth in both characters as they spend more time together, especially Ike and how he sees gay men.

This book is quite dark and graphic at times, enough that one needs to know this going in to the book. Ike has a particular set of skills and anger to go along with it that he not afraid to pull this other side of him out in this book (he is savage at times). I also appreciated that Cosby understood that Ike and Buddy Lee are older men and the hinderances that comes with this, but also the men using this to their advantage with all the young bucks out there. 

All that said above this book took me a bit to get into. Is tarted this book on Audio and the character voices just didn’t really work for me, for lack of better words the voice was too soothing that it made me sleepy (lol). Once i started reading it in physical copy form I was able to get into the book. I did find the book a bit predictable as I was able to guess the twist well before the end.

I enjoyed this book by Cosby and I would like to read other books by him. I enjoyed the premise of this book of two different but same men coming together to get justice for this sons.

Enjoy!!!

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Kelley Armstrong: Death at a Highland Wedding

Kelley Armstrong is back with the next installment in her Rip Through Time Series and this time Death is happening on the road:

Mallory, Gray and McCreadie are off to the Scotland Highlands to attend the wedding of McCreadie's younger sister. McCreadie's younger sister is upholding a match between the McCreadie's and the Cranston's as McCreadie canceled his engagement to Cranston's sister, so things are going to be a bit awkward. But Mallory is happy to escape the city, and the Cranston Estate is beautiful. But beauty can only hide so much especially when Cranston has placed deadly traps around the grounds, a wildcat is killed and one of the Wedding Guests turns up dead, it is up to Mallory, Gray and McCreadie to find out who the murderer is before another life is lost.

As this is the fourth book in the series, I highly recommend that you read the first three books in the series, starting with A Rip ThroughTime. These previous books will set up the relationship and time travel aspect in this book and really the struggle that Mallory has gone through from moving from the 21 Century to the 18th Century. I think that Armstrong does this aspect very well and builds upon with each book in the series.

I will admit that I was not sure about this series when I first started it but this one and the book before it have me even more hooked. I love that even Mallory was even more out of place in this one, as herself, Gray and McCreadie don’t have the tools and connections they have come to rely on. The country law enforcement leave much to be desired. I enjoyed that Armstrong did not rely on body after body to keep the reader's attention in this book and with that it turns out to be more of a who-done-it. This leaves a lot of room for deduction as none of them can rely as much on forensic science as they may do (even if this is less than Mallory is used to). I think that Armstrong did a great job in creating possible suspects and motives throughout the book and by the end I had not guessed who the murderer was, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Another aspect I thought that Armstong has done throughout the series is the relationship and co-worker relationship that Mallory and Gray have. They are really in a Gray area when it comes with the two of them being in private together for the time period. Their relationship that they have has this Oh Shit moment in the book, and i wonder how Armstrong is going to use that in the future.

I really enjoyed this book, the mystery it has and the relationships that Armstrong has created here. I look forward to reading another book in this series and to see where Armstrong takes this series.

Enjoy!!!

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