🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷 ARC Audiobook #Review of Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Title: The Fourth Wing
Series: The Empyrean #1
Author: Rebecca Yarros
Format: Audiobook
Narrated by: Rebecca Soler
Published: May 2, 2023 by Entangled Publishing, LLC (Red Tower Books)
ISBN: 9781649374042
Links: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N
Reviewer: Crystal
Source: NetGalley
Rating:  5/5
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Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from USA Today bestselling author Rebecca Yarros

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.
But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.

Crystal’s Thoughts

“Are you going to die a scribe? Or live as a rider?”

Welcome to Basgiath War College, where only the toughest survive the trials to become a dragon rider, and even then, your life is not guaranteed. Violet Sorrengail always thought that she would follow in her late father’s footsteps as a scribe for the realm, but when she is set to enter the Scribe Quadrant, she finds out that her mother, General Sorrengail, has other plans for her. Thrust into the Riders Quadrant where it’s fight or die, Violet knows that her size and frail health automatically put her at a disadvantage, but her name just may put an even bigger of a target on her back. The only person she can trust is her childhood friend, Dain, a second-year squad leader.  But when he can’t see past her faults, she begins to question their relationship, especially when wing leader Xaden Riorson, a man that should want her dead, seems to be the only one who truly sees her. When danger escalates outside the borders though, Violet wonders at the truth her and her fellow cadets are being taught. Is leadership hiding something, and did her father somehow know what it was before his death? Violet finds that she can’t trust anyone in this deadly game of survival.

🍷🍷🍷🍷.5 ARC #Review of The Stolen Throne by Abigail Owen

Title: The Stolen Throne
Series: Dominions #2
Author: Abigail Owen 
Format: 460 pages, ebook
Publication: May 2, 2023
Links: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N 
Source: NetGalley
Reviewer: Crystal
Rating: 4.5/5

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My twin sister is the true queen of Aryd. She survives, hiding and clinging to life in the desert, while I reign as the false queen alongside the monstrous King Eidolon. There’s only one escape from this gilded prison: Reven. My Shadowraith. My heart. Only the shadows that he struggles to control are growing more sinister, more powerful.

It’s just a matter of time before they turn on him…and on me.

Even escape doesn’t mean true freedom, though, when we’re still on the run from Eidolon’s unstoppable armies. And when we discover there’s a traitor among us, I have no choice…I must become the queen I was never meant to be.

Because as one evil hunts me, the other loves me more than himself.

And my fate lies with both.

Crystal’s Thoughts:

“The taste of him, the feel of him, is like coming home.”

The Stolen Throne is the continuation of the spellbinding tale of twin sisters, one meant to rule, and one meant to stand in, a nefarious king set on destruction, and a shadow who was never meant to love. Following the events of The Lair’s Crown, Meren finds herself the captive of King Eidolon and once again posing as the Queen of Aryd. How much longer can she pull it off though before her sister’s husband demands more than she is willing to give? Eidolon is no fool. Meren knows that she just needs to bide her time until her Shadowraith finds her, or until she can find a way out herself. Escape turns out to be the least of her problems though when histories are rewritten, truths are revealed, treachery abounds, and lives are at stake. Meren must reach deep to find the power and the will inside her if she hopes to stop Eidolon and save those she loves, including her Shadowraith. 

🍷🍷🍷🍷 #Review of From the Grave by Kresley Cole

Title: From the Grave
Series:  The Arcana Chronicles #6
Author: Kresley Cole
Format: 356 pages, Kindle Edition
Published: April 18, 2023
Links: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N
Reviewer: Crystal
Source: Author
Rating: 4 out of 5

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Kresley Cole’s New York Times bestselling Arcana Chronicles series comes to a spectacular and fiery conclusion in this final installment.

When even the gods hold their breath . . .

To defeat the Emperor and Fortune, Evie, the great Empress of Arcana, must repair her bond with Death, despite the earth-shattering developments between them.

And danger lurks in every shadow . . .

Their allies—a sea witch, a band of roving warriors, and more than a couple of rogues—overcome terrifying obstacles to help them. But when Jack makes a shocking discovery, the fallout threatens to tear their alliance apart.

One girl could deliver salvation—or doom.

If the Empress and her friends can remain united, will their powers be enough to defeat a catastrophic curse on the world, or will hellfire reign forever? The end looms for us all until the best hand wins. . . .

Crystal's Thoughts:

"I was the vines. I was the trees. I was the very earth. Motherfucking Earth."

Kresley Cole's The Arcana Chronicles comes to a stunning conclusion five years in the making, and it was one hell of a ride!

🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷 #Review of Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

Title: Divine Rivals

Series: Letters of Enchantment #1

Author: Rebecca Ross

Format: 368 pages, Hardcover

Published: April 4, 2023

Links: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N 

Reviewer: Crystal

Source: NetGalley

Rating: 5 out of 5

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When two young rival journalists find love through a magical connection, they must face the depths of hell, in a war among gods, to seal their fate forever.

After centuries of sleep, the gods are warring again. But eighteen-year-old Iris Winnow just wants to hold her family together. Her mother is suffering from addiction and her brother is missing from the front lines. Her best bet is to win the columnist promotion at the Oath Gazette.

To combat her worries, Iris writes letters to her brother and slips them beneath her wardrobe door, where they vanish—into the hands of Roman Kitt, her cold and handsome rival at the paper. When he anonymously writes Iris back, the two of them forge a connection that will follow Iris all the way to the front lines of battle: for her brother, the fate of mankind, and love.

Shadow and Bone meets Lore in Rebecca Ross's Divine Rivals, an epic enemies-to-lovers fantasy novel filled with hope and heartbreak, and the unparalleled power of love.

Crystal's Thoughts:

"The two of you have found each other against great odds. And if this is your one and only night with him, then savor it."

Divine Rivals is a beautiful tale of magic and mystery sure to sweep readers away with a journey of finding hope and love in the most desolate of places. 

Read an #Excerpt from The Secret Service of Tea and Treason by India Holton

Featuring her signature blend of witty humor, steamy enemies-to-lovers romance, and whimsically outrageous magic, India Holton’s Dangerous Damsels novels continue to charm historical romance readers and fantasy fans alike.

About the Book

The Secret Service of Tea and Treason

Dangerous Damsels #3

by India Holton

Two rival spies must brave pirates, witches, and fake matrimony to save the Queen.

Known as Agent A, Alice is the top operative within the Agency of Undercover Note Takers, a secret government intelligence group that is fortunately better at espionage than at naming itself. From managing deceptive witches to bored aristocratic ladies, nothing is beyond Alice’s capabilities. She has a steely composure and a plan always up her sleeve (alongside a dagger and an embroidered handkerchief). So when rumors of an assassination plot begin to circulate, she’s immediately assigned to the case.

But she’s not working alone. Daniel Bixby, otherwise known as Agent B and Alice’s greatest rival, is given the most challenging undercover assignment of his life— pretending to be Alice’s husband. Together they will assume the identity of a married couple, infiltrate a pirate house party, and foil their unpatriotic plans.

Determined to remain consummate professionals, Alice and Daniel must ignore the growing attraction between them, especially since acting on it might prove more dangerous than their target.

AMAZON | B&N 

🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷 ARC #Review of Both Feet in the Grave by Jeaniene Frost

Title: Both Feet in the Grave

Series: Night Huntress #8

Author: Jeaniene Frost

Format: 348 pages, Kindle Edition

Published: April 18, 2023 by NYLA

Links: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N 

Reviewer: Crystal

Source: Author/NetGalley

Rating: 5 out of 5

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If you thought you learned more about the dangerous and sexy alpha vampire, Bones, in The Other Half of the Grave, you haven't seen anything yet...

This is Bones, in his own words…

Two hundred years of bounty hunting made Bones the best at what he does, yet it's still taken him four long years to find Cat, the half vampire now known as the "Red Reaper." There's a price on Cat's head, and not even her job as a secret government agent can save her. Only Bones can. But has time hardened Bones too much to love again? Or will his passion for Cat burn through every obstacle—alive, undead, or otherwise—between them?

Crystal's Thoughts:

"Halo, Kitten." ~ Bones

Just when you thought that Jeaniene Frost's Night Huntress series couldn't get any better, she releases Bones's point-of-view of One Foot in the Grave. I won't say that I wasn't primarily looking forward to this story to read Bones's perspective of Chapter 32....because I definitely was! Jeaniene delivered that, and so much more with this impressive installment.