Daughter of Smoke and Bone

 Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor 418 pages

Summary: Around the world, black hand prints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grows dangerously low.
And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war.
Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands", she speaks many languages - not all of them human - and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.
When beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

My Thoughts:  This book was intriguing to me and kept me guessing. I loved the fact that she has "angels and demons" but not in the normal sense, they are monsters all of them and there is no good and bad, everyone is a mixture. I loved how in tune the author was with Karou's emotions and how we felt everything she felt. It was a great start to the series and I look forward to continuing reading this series!

Phantasma

 Phantasma by Kaylie Smith 497 pages

Summary: When Ophelia’s sister disappears, there is only one way to save her. Ophelia must enter Phantasma, a deadly contest inside a haunted mansion, and claim its prize—a single wish.

Phantasma is a maze of twisting corridors and lavish ballrooms, of demons and temptations. Ophelia will face nine challenges, each more dangerous than the last. There can only be one winner, and the other contestants will stop at nothing to eliminate their rivals.
Every day the house creates new monsters. But just as Ophelia’s fears threaten to overwhelm her, a mysterious stranger offers her a bargain.
Charming, arrogant and infuriatingly attractive, Blackwell claims he can guide her through the lethal trials ahead. All he asks in return is ten years of her life.

Ophelia knows she shouldn’t trust him. Blackwell doesn’t seem dangerous, but appearances can be deceptive. Worse still, she feels a dark and irresistible attraction drawing them closer and closer.
Her life is on the line. But in Phantasma, the only thing deadlier than losing the game is losing your heart

My Thoughts: I actually really enjoyed this book. The smut ridiculous and very unrealistic... but the storyline..? Excellent. I loved the twisted Trials (very descriptive and gross at times) and I loved loved loved that the main character had OCD and the OCD that is not normally talked about. Can't wait to pick up book 2 eventually. 

The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston

 

The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston 368 Pages

Summary: Florence Day is the ghostwriter for one of the most prolific romance authors in the industry, and she has a problem—after a terrible breakup, she no longer believes in love. It’s as good as dead.

When her new editor, a too-handsome mountain of a man, won’t give her an extension on her book deadline, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye. But then she gets a phone call she never wanted to receive, and she must return home for the first time in a decade to help her family bury her beloved father.

For ten years, she’s run from the town that never understood her, and even though she misses the sound of a warm Southern night and her eccentric, loving family and their funeral parlor, she can’t bring herself to stay. Even with her father gone, it feels like nothing in this town has changed. And she hates it.
Until she finds a ghost standing at the funeral parlor’s front door, just as broad and infuriatingly handsome as ever, and he’s just as confused about why he’s there as she is.
Romance is most certainly dead... but so is her new editor, and his unfinished business will have her second-guessing everything she’s ever known about love stories.

My Thoughts: I had picked this out for the book club I run. I appreciated that it was lighthearted in a sense with romance. I also enjoyed how it wasn't like a normal rom com. There was a funeral parlor, a death, and ghosts! 

Twilight (Twilight, #1) by Stephenie Meyer

 Twilight (Twilight, #1) by Stephenie Meyer-498 pages

⭐⭐⭐

Isabella (Bella) Swan moves to Forks, Washington to live with her biological dad, Charlie, who is the local sheriff, after her mom marries another man. Bella meets Edward Cullen and his family at the local high school. She immediately realizes there's something different about Edward and is drawn to him. It turns out that Edward is a part of a vampire coven that hunts only animals and not humans. Will Bella view Edward differently? Can Bella and Edward's relationship last? The dialogue is cringey at times and the writing/prose is not literary fiction, but I did mostly enjoy this despite that. 

THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE by NEIL GAIMAN

 THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE by NEIL GAIMAN  (Pgs 192)

Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.

Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.

A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. It is a stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark.

STEEPED TO DEATH by GRETCHEN RUE

 STEEPED TO DEATH by GRETCHEN RUE (Pgs 299)

Phoebe Winchester’s beloved aunt Eudora has a taste for adventure—and a knack for making magical tea. It’s even rumored that she just might be a witch. So when Eudora passes away and leaves everything to her niece—her Victorian mansion, her bookshop/tea store, The Earl’s Study, and one very chubby orange cat named Bob—Phoebe gets more than she bargained for. And she knows she’s in deep when a dead man is found on the shop’s back step, apparently killed while trying to break in.

Two suspects immediately emerge among the townspeople of Raven Creek, Washington. There’s village busybody Dierdre Miller, who seems desperate to buy Eudora’s house, and handsome PI Rich, one of Phoebe’s childhood friends—but how well does she really know him after all these years apart?

Phoebe knows she should leave it to the professionals, but as she starts to dig into the underbelly of Raven Creek, she begins to uncover the truth about Eudora. What’s more, her aunt might not have been the only witch in the family, as Phoebe soon discovers she has unique and unexpected gifts of her own.

Now, it’s just a matter of putting her newfound power to the test and cast a spell that could catch a killer.

TOIL & TROUBLE: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft by Jessica Spotswood

 TOIL & TROUBLE: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft by Jessica Spotswood (PGS 405)

A young adult fiction anthology of 15 stories featuring contemporary, historical, and futuristic stories featuring witchy heroines who are diverse in race, class, sexuality, religion, geography, and era.

Are you a good witch or a bad witch?

Glinda the Good Witch. Elphaba the Wicked Witch. Willow. Sabrina. Gemma Doyle. The Mayfair Witches. Ursula the Sea Witch. Morgan le Fey. The three weird sisters from Macbeth.

History tells us women accused of witchcraft were often outsiders: educated, independent, unmarried, unwilling to fall in line with traditional societal expectations.

Bold. Powerful. Rebellious.

A bruja’s traditional love spell has unexpected results. A witch’s healing hands begin to take life instead of giving it when she ignores her attraction to a fellow witch. In a terrifying future, women are captured by a cabal of men crying witchcraft and the one true witch among them must fight to free them all. In a desolate past, three orphaned sisters prophesize for a murderous king. Somewhere in the present, a teen girl just wants to kiss a boy without causing a hurricane.

From good witches to bad witches, to witches who are a bit of both, this is an anthology of diverse witchy tales from a collection of diverse, feminist authors. The collective strength of women working together—magically or mundanely--has long frightened society, to the point that women’s rights are challenged, legislated against, and denied all over the world. Toil & Trouble delves deep into the truly diverse mythology of witchcraft from many cultures and feminist points of view, to create modern and unique tales of witchery that have yet to be explored.

The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness

 The Book of Life (The All Souls Trilogy #3) by Deborah Harkness - 561 pages, Audiobook - 24 hours

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Diana and Matthew time-travel back from Elizabethan London. They left loved ones behind but have reunited with (most of) those in the present at Matthew's ancestral home. With Diana pregnant with twins and their enemies closing in, they must deal with secrets from Matthew's past being revealed while still searching for Ashmole 782 and its missing pages.

I like that she brought some characters we met in the past back into the story in the present. There were interesting and unexpected twists, and I thought she wrapped the story up well. The entire trilogy was extremely well written, and I loved all three books.

Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness

 Shadow of Night (The All Souls Trilogy #2) by Deborah Harkness - 584 pages, Audiobook - 24 hours, 30 minutes

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Picking up from A Discovery of Witches’ cliffhanger ending, Shadow of Night takes Diana and Matthew on a trip through time to Elizabethan London, where they are plunged into a world of spies, magic, and Matthew’s old friends, the School of Night. Their adventure is not restricted to London as they also travel to other countries, and Diana discovers more than she ever imagined about cultures and daily life in 1590.

Their search for Ashmole 782 takes interesting turns while Diana uncovers more of Matthew's secrets while the search for a witch to tutor her in magic turns out to be much more difficult than Matthew thought it would be.

I LOVE this series. I struggled a little with the reaction one of the characters had to Diana, but once I got a little way into this 2nd book, I just wanted to keep listening to see what happened next.

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

A Discovery of Witches (The All Souls Trilogy #1) by Deborah Harkness - 579 pages, Audiobook - 24 hours

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Deep in the stacks of Oxford's Bodleian Library, young scholar Diana Bishop unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript in the course of her research. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Diana wants nothing to do with sorcery; so after a furtive glance and a few notes, she banishes the book to the stacks. But her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, and a horde of daemons, witches, and vampires soon descends upon the library. Diana has stumbled upon a coveted treasure lost for centuries-and she is the only creature who can break its spell.

Diana is a bold heroine who meets her equal in vampire geneticist, Matthew Clairmont, and gradually warms up to him as their alliance deepens into an intimacy that violates age-old taboos.

I loved this book, and I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook and the different accents she used for the various characters. There are a lot of different characters and relationships between them, but she does a good job of making sure you know exactly what is going on with the various characters and groups. The ending definitely makes you want to start reading the next book in the series.

Dewey Decimated by Allison Brook

 Dewey Decimated (The Haunted Library Mysteries #6) by Allison Brook - 336 pages, Audiobook - 9 hours

⭐⭐⭐⭐✰

Carrie Singleton is just off a hot string of murder cases centered around the spooky local library in Clover Ridge, Connecticut. She could really use a break—but no such luck.

First, a dead body is found in the basement of the building attached to the library, and it turns out to be Carrie’s fiancé’s Uncle Alec, who Dylan hasn’t seen in years. But Alec has no intention of truly checking out, and his ghost makes itself at home in the library, greatly upsetting the patrons. Carrie and Evelyn, the library ghost, work hard to keep Alec out of sight, but what was he doing in Clover Ridge to begin with? And why was he killed?

Meanwhile, the town council, of which Carrie is now a member, is embroiled in a hot debate over the fate of the Seabrook Preserve, a lovely and valuable piece of property that runs along Long Island Sound. Turn it into an upscale park? Sell it to a condo developer? Or keep it as protected land?

As the dispute rages, there’s another murder, this time involving a council member. Could the two murders be connected? And could Carrie be next on the hit list?

This is a fun series. I like the addition of another ghost in the form of Dylan's Uncle Alec, and Dylan's greater involvement in solving the murders.

Death on the Shelf by Allison Brook

 Death on the Shelf (The Haunted Library Mysteries #5) by Allison Brook - 313 pages, Audiobook - 8 hours 46 minutes

⭐⭐⭐⭐✰

Clover Ridge librarian Carrie Singleton is thrilled to attend her best friend Angela’s wedding, but Angela’s family can be a bit…much. Angela’s wealthy cousin Donna hosts an extravagant bridal shower at her resplendent home, but the celebrations turn to gossip as the guests notice Donna’s surgeon husband, Aiden, spending a bit too much time with Donna’s cousin Roxy. At the wedding reception, the sweet occasion turns darkly bitter when Aiden topples into the chocolate fountain–dead.

The suspect list is as long as the guest list, and as difficult to sort out as the seating chart. Then another member of Angela’s family is murdered, making Carrie more determined than ever to find the killer. 

I've been enjoying this lighter cozy mystery series in which the library ghost, Evelyn, helps Carrie investigate murders.

Recovery Road by Christine Feehan

 Recovery Road (Torpedo Ink #8) by Christine Feehan - 410 pages

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Kir “Master” Vasiliev doesn’t care whether he lives or dies. He’s a burnt-out shell with no one and nothing but his motorcycle club. Whatever Torpedo Ink needs, Master will put himself in harm’s way time after time. If he doesn’t make it back, he’s certain everyone will move on just fine. Investment banker Ambrielle Moore knows her own mind, and she’s not willing to settle for anyone. So when a second-rate gangster and his thugs try to coerce her into marriage—and giving up all of her family’s money—she’s having none of it. Until they turn to cold-blooded murder. Grieving and enraged, Ambrie is ready to go scorched earth on her captors when Master shows up anticipating a damsel in distress. But Ambrie is nothing like he expected, and everything he never knew he desired....

This is a one of those series you need to read from the beginning (along with the last book in the Sea Haven/Sisters of the Heart series this spun off from) to really understand how all the characters fit in. A warning about this series: all the members of the motorcycle club are Russians who were thrown into an extremely abusive (physically and sexually) "school" at a young age where they were trained to be assassins. They all have psychic talents they used to escape from the "school" and now use to rescue sexually molested children.

Claimed by J.R. Ward

 Claimed by J.R. Ward (The Lair of the Wolven #1) - 509 pages

⭐⭐⭐⭐✰   

Lydia Susi is passionate about protecting wolves in their natural habitat. When a hotel chain develops a tract of land next to the preserve, Lydia is one of the most vocal opponents of the project—and becomes a target. One night, a shadowy figure threatens Lydia’s life in the forest, and a new hire at the Wolf Study Project comes from out of nowhere to save her. Daniel Joseph is both mysterious and someone she intrinsically wants to trust. But is he hiding something? As stakes get higher, one of Lydia’s colleagues is murdered, and she must decide how far she will go to protect the wolves. Then a shocking revelation about Daniel challenges Lydia’s reality in ways she could never have predicted. Some fates demand courage, others require even more, with no guarantees. Is she destined to have true love...or will a soul-shattering loss ruin her forever?

I enjoyed this book as I enjoy shapeshifter romance. This is the 1st book in a new series set in the Black Dagger Brotherhood world. Since I have not read any of the books in that previous series, I didn't know as much about characters from that series as I would have liked. The ending also sets things up so you want to read the next book in the series.

The Choice by Nora Roberts

The Choice (The Dragon Heart Legacy #3) by Nora Roberts - 438 pages, Audiobook - 15 hrs. 30 min.  

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The conclusion of The Dragon Heart Legacy trilogy, preceded by The Awakening and The Becoming.

Breen Siobhan Kelly grew up in the world of Man and was once unaware of her true nature. Now she is in Talamh after passing through a portal from Ireland, trying to heal after a terrible battle and heartbreaking losses. Her grandfather, the dark god Odran, has been defeated in his attempt to rule over Talamh, and over Breen--for now.

With the enemy cast out and the portal to the Dark World sealed, this is a time to rest and to prepare. Breen spreads her wings and realizes a power she's never experienced before. She rededicates herself to writing her stories, and when his duties as taoiseach permit, she is together with Keegan, who has trained her as a warrior and whom she has grown to love.

It's Keegan who's at her side when the enemy's witches, appear to her in her sleep, practicing black magick, sacrificing the innocent, and plotting a brutal destruction for Breen. And soon, united with him and with all of Talamh, she will seek out those in desperate need of rescue, and confront the darkness with every weapon she has: her sword, her magicks--and her courage...

I really enjoyed this book (as well as the 1st two books in the trilogy). I think listening to the audiobook added to the story as the narrator was able to add Irish accents and correct pronunciation of Irish words.

                                                             

THE RAVEN SPELL by LUANNE G. SMITH

 THE RAVEN SPELL by LUANNE G. SMITH  Pgs 255

In Victorian England a witch and a detective are on the hunt for a serial killer in an enthralling novel of magic and murder by the Amazon Charts and Washington Post bestselling author of The Vine Witch.

After a nearly fatal blow to the skull, traumatized private detective Ian Cameron is found dazed and confused on a muddy riverbank in Victorian London. Among his effects: a bloodstained business card bearing the name of a master wizard and a curious pocket watch that doesn’t seem to tell time. To retrieve his lost memories, Ian demands answers from Edwina and Mary Blackwood, sister witches with a murky past. But as their secret is slowly unveiled, a dangerous mystery emerges on the darkened streets of London.

To help piece together Ian’s lost time, he and Edwina embark on a journey that will take them from the river foreshore to an East End music hall, and on to a safe house for witches in need of sanctuary from angry mortals. The clues they find suggest a link between a series of gruesome murders, a missing person’s case, and a dreadful suspicion that threatens to tear apart the bonds of sisterhood. As the investigation deepens, could Ian and Edwina be the next to die?

THE GRAVEYARD BOOK by NEIL GAIMAN

 THE GRAVEYARD BOOK by NEIL GAIMAN  pgs 307

IT TAKES A GRAVEYARD TO RAISE A CHILD.

Nobody Owens, known as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn’t live in a graveyard, being raised by ghosts, with a guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor the dead. There are adventures in the graveyard for a boy—an ancient Indigo Man, a gateway to the abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible Sleer. But if Bod leaves the graveyard, he will be in danger from the man Jack—who has already killed Bod’s family.

Winner of the 2009 John Newberry Medal award.

BE MY GHOST by CAROL J PERRY

 BE MY GHOST by CAROL J PERRY  pgs 274

Maureen's career as a sportswear buyer hits a snag just before Halloween when the department store declares bankruptcy. Meanwhile, Finn's lost his way as a guide dog after flunking his test for being too friendly and easily distracted. Sadly, only one of them can earn unemployment, so Maureen's facing a winter of discontent in Boston--when she realizes she can't afford her apartment.

Salvation comes when she receives a mysterious inheritance: an inn in Haven, Florida. A quaint, scenic town on the Gulf of Mexico hidden away from the theme parks, Maureen believes it's a good place to make a fresh start with a new business venture. But she gets more than she bargained for when she finds a dead body on her property--and meets some of the inn's everlasting tenants in the form of ghosts who offer their otherworldly talents in order to help her solve the mystery...

This is the first in a new series for Carol J. Perry, that I found to be an easy and enjoyable read. I have  also read all of her "Witch City" series.

THE RULES OF MAGIC by ALICE HOFFMAN

 THE RULES OF MAGIC by ALICE HOFFMAN  Pgs 459 (LP)

For the Owens family, love is a curse that began in 1620, when Maria Owens was charged with witchery for loving the wrong man.

Hundreds of years later, in New York City at the cusp of the sixties, when the whole world is about to change, Susanna Owens knows that her three children are dangerously unique. Difficult Franny, with skin as pale as milk and blood red hair, shy and beautiful Jet, who can read other people’s thoughts, and charismatic Vincent, who began looking for trouble on the day he could walk.

From the start Susanna sets down rules for her children: No walking in the moonlight, no red shoes, no wearing black, no cats, no crows, no candles, no books about magic. And most importantly, never, ever, fall in love. But when her children visit their Aunt Isabelle, in the small Massachusetts town where the Owens family has been blamed for everything that has ever gone wrong, they uncover family secrets and begin to understand the truth of who they are. Back in New York City each begins a risky journey as they try to escape the family curse.

The Owens children cannot escape love even if they try, just as they cannot escape the pains of the human heart. The two beautiful sisters will grow up to be the revered, and sometimes feared, aunts in Practical Magic, while Vincent, their beloved brother, will leave an unexpected legacy. 

UNDER THE WHISPERING DOOR by T.J. KLUNE

 UNDER THE WHISPERING DOOR by T.J. KLUNE  376 pgs

Under the Whispering Door is a contemporary fantasy about a ghost who refuses to cross over and the ferryman he falls in love with.

"When a reaper comes to collect Wallace Price from his own funeral, Wallace suspects he really might be dead.

Instead of leading him directly to the afterlife, the reaper takes him to a small village. On the outskirts, off the path through the woods, tucked between mountains, is a particular tea shop, run by a man named Hugo. Hugo is the tea shop's owner to locals and the ferryman to souls who need to cross over.

But Wallace isn't ready to abandon the life he barely lived. With Hugo's help he finally starts to learn about all the things he missed in life.

When the Manager, a curious and powerful being, arrives at the tea shop and gives Wallace one week to cross over, Wallace sets about living a lifetime in seven days."

This book made me laugh and cry, sometimes both at the same time! This is the second book I have read by this author, the first was The House in the Cerulean Sea. Loved them both!