gabberjaws's reviews
544 reviews

 This veered off into Cheese Town quite a few times, and I'd have liked for the MCs to actually work through the personal issues that caused a lot of their conflicts. But overall this was a cute, fun and quick read.

If you're not too bothered by too much cheesiness in your romance novels, then give this a go. 

 I'm actually so upset that this wasn't on my radar sooner. This was originally released in 2012. 2012!!!!!!! Why aren't more people talking about this?!?!?

If you've read the original Grimm Brother's tale, all the plot twists in this book won't come as a massive shock to you - but don't let that stop you from picking it up. This retelling is so beautifully crafted, so well told, and full of real-world truths. It feels like an original tale, and really holds its own. There's so much to love about this book, but I think my favorite things about it were Alyrra's character, and her relationship with Falala and her new found family. The world was so easy to get lost into, too.

GAH. I need more people to talk about this book. Please read it.

 

It was super duper ballsy of the marketing team to compare this book to The Bear and The Nightingale and Spinning Silver. Incredibly brave! Awe-inspiringly gutsy! Do I commend them for their tenacity? Yes? Do I hate them because they fucking led me on? Also, yes.

I kind of understand why they did it. I do. This book is trying so hard to be like both those other books, that it’s kind of embarrassing. It tries to match TBaTN’s sweeping, lyrical prose. It tries to match Spinning Silver’s competent, engaging self-contained storytelling. But it falls short on both accounts – so the writing is purple prose-y in a way that’s not very pleasant (it reminded me of Roshani Chokshi’s writing circa Star-Touched Queen) and the structure of the story was extremely choppy and clumsy.

The first two chapters weren’t too bad, but it becomes very clear very fast that this book really only cared about two things: 1) The romance and b) All the lore that the author wrote up for this story and loved so much that she simply had to shoehorn. all of it. in.

Like, listen. We all write too much lore and backstory for our characters and their worlds. Some of us just have the good sense to know that not everything needs to make it into the finished product. You can’t just have your main characters stop what they’re doing to tell a random-ass story every other paragraph. You can’t. Stop it.

I think I wouldn’t have been so harsh with this book if it had been YA – because I’m doing a thing, you see, where I acknowledge that I’m not the target audience and some things that work for YA audiences might not work for me, an adult woman. This book felt like it was written as a YA book – a babied down watery YA book, sure, but a YA book all the same – but was switched to an adult book at the last minute because the author wanted to shove some seggs in there.

I could go on about how much I disliked this book and how much of a chore it was to read. But much like I couldn’t bring myself to pick it up anymore, I can’t bring myself to talk about it anymore. I just can’t stop being mad about this thing being compared to The Bear and The Nightingale and Spinning Silver. It is, quite frankly, insulting. 

 Just to be clear; I'll still read anything Silvia Moreno-Garcia puts out. I just don't think this was her best work.

Velvet was the Night is set in 1970s, during the Mexican Dirty War, and follows the stories of Maite and Elvis. A secretary and Los Halcones member respectively, their stories become entwined when Maite's neighbour, an art student named Leonara goes missing, along with some potentially incriminating photos.

The premise was great. The political background and setting was brilliant. But nothing quite... gelled well together. The biggest issue for me is that I couldn't root for either of the characters. Maite was unlikable - which is usually something I can get behind. Heroines don't always need to be good and kind and likeable. But apart from her vapidness and her general unhappiness with her life, Maite had nothing else to offer us - and her character arc went pretty much nowhere. She had no goals. No aspirations. She didn't even stick her nose into Leonara's disappearance because she wanted to. She was just... along for the ride. I found Elvis a little easier to root for but not by much. I also didn't understand their "romance". At all.

It would have been one thing if this novel followed the usual noir trope and had the two of them working together for most of the mystery, but Maite and Elvis only met each other towards the end of the book. The romance had zero foundation and made no sense.

Another issue was that great premise aside, nothing really happened in this book. I think this whole story would have shined if Moreno-Garcia had leaned into the political aspects of it - put the characters in actual danger. Solidified that hey, this is actually pretty serious. But, we never even found out what the photos were, or why they were so important. El Mago's interest in Leonara was obvious from the very first time he put Elvis on the case, and cemented the minute Maite went to visit Leonara's sister. Maite said it herself at the end of the book, "all this fuss for nothing".

With that, at least, Maite and I are in agreement. 

FIRST THING'S FIRST: Yes, I did read the second book in this series before I read the first and, yes, the fake dating aspect is what got me interested. I have ZERO REGRETS.

I loved this so much. It was sweet, fun and wholesome and thoroughly captivating - I speed read it in the course of a day. Zaf and Dani's relationship was SO sweet and real, with none of the excessive drama and miscommunications that I usually detest in romance novels or romance subplots. Zaf is my favourite kind of hero in that he's a built like a truck but is a sweet little puppy on the inside. A rugby player in touch with his feelings who loves romance novels? Take my whole fucking heart whydontcha. And Dani. Oh lord I loved her so much. The wit. The brains. The confidence. She could step on me and I'd thank her.

As someone who has gone throug almost exactly what Dani had been through in her past relationships, I've gotta say that I thought Hibbert handled it really well. From Dani's fears and insecurities (super relatable btw) to her unwillingness to commit to someone lest she be hurt again. Zaf and Dani's journey felt so... real. And grounded. It presented a really healthy relationship with boundaries and communications. Two people with their own goals, but who loved each other and, more importantly imo, liked each other as individuals and were willing to respect each others boundaries without compromising their own. So lovely.

Zaf and Dani's wit, as well as the banter between the two of them was also top-notch. Hibbert mentioned in her acknowledgments that the witter zingers were a pain to write, and I just wanna take this moment to thank her for her hard work on this because they were excellent, and had me laughing out loud more times than I could count.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go read the rest of this series. 

What a lovely little surprise.

I picked The Body in The Garden up on on a lark and was pleasantly surprised by how much I ended up liking this. This was super cozy and easy to read, and I found myself not only breezing through this, but also reaching for my kindle every time I could spare a few minutes during work lulls and reading as much as I could fit in during my little breaks. Not un-putdownable, but definitely engaging enough to keep me wanting more. I wanted the sequel the instant I finished reading this.

As far as mysteries go the one this book dealt with wasn't especially complex and I did have a pretty strong idea who the murderer was pretty early on, but the clues were spaced out really well, and I had a fun time following the mystery along as the case unraveled. We learned things as the characters did, and except for one moment towards the end, no revelation was ever withheld from us. And I can't even fault that one instance too much, because if you had a memory for details, you'd have figured out what Adler's big "Oh" moment was.

All in all, I found this really enjoyable. It feels like the author really did her research on the locations and time periods and the customs of this era. And I do love that she made this a diverse novel - especially since regency novels are a genre where you'd be unsurprised by the whole cast being predominantly white. I loved that two of the main characters were biracial, that their othering by society was commented on, and that . I, personally, thought it was handled well.

My only critique is that the characters, especially Lily, didn't seem to have a lot of depth to them? But that's something I'm hoping will be fixed in future books. I also wasn't a giant fan of how we were introduced to Captain Hartley? It felt a tad rushed and flimsy, but it's a minor complaint.