lisacanteven's reviews
522 reviews

From the very first page, this book was stunning. The writing was so descriptive while flowing so nicely. The setting was described beautifully, and the character development was next level. Very atmospheric and spooky, while being historically accurate. 

I wanted the FMC and MMC to just sit down and talk about their feelings sooner in the story, but I think it worked out the way it should. The vampires as a metaphor for colonizers' use of weapons was great.

First of all, this author has misrepresented their Indigenous genealogy. Second of all, the book gave me the ick with how aggressive the FMC is. Let’s be real, she assaulted that man in the first chapter. 

I read She Came from the Swamp last year, and tbh I don't remember much from it except that it was a fun sapphic monster romance novella. 

She Came at Midnight is a friend of novella. The human fmc in both books are friends, so I would recommend reading in order. 

She Came at Midnight is about a nightmare spirit, as Nocnitsa is referred to, and a human named Natalia. Natalia is in a family of not nice witches, and the catch is that she is powerless. She is treated as such by her powerful family members, so when she meets Nocnista in her dreams she is intrigued. Nocnista likes this and they begin meeting nightly in Natalia's dreams. 

Honestly I don't remember much more than that. There is family drama that climaxes....at midnight of course. This novella is longer than the swamp one, and fortunately the next in the series, She Came for Blood, is novel length! I am so excited to read it, and I probably will before next October. As you can guess I love sapphic vampires. 

This will be my favorite book in 2024.
I will put money on it if anyone doesn't believe me.

From the first page, I was hooked. The writing is so good and the pacing is perfect. I couldn't stop reading, but I also didn't want it to end. Every time I picked up this book, I was immediately pulled back into the story. Sometimes it takes me a bit to get back into a story when I pick up a book, but this was not the case here. I loved every single minute of this book. The characters were so dimensional, even the villains. Sometimes it is difficult in a story when there are just as many villains as there are good characters, but here it made sense. The twists kept coming until the very end.

Another review written a few weeks after reading:
Have you ever just been so moved and touched by a book but at the same time it was so difficult to keep reading because it was just breaking your heart apart? That was The Spirit Bares Its Teeth.

Silas Bell is a young trans man during the the Victorian era in London, 1883 to be exact. People with violet eyes are highly treasured as mediums. There is a secret society of men who control the family lines of all the people with violet eyes. Silas is born with violet eyes, which means he will married off to an important family to keep the violet eyes lineage going. 

Well Silas gets in some trouble at the beginning of the story that results as him being sent off to a girls' school that specializes in "veil sickness" which is what they said any violet eyed girl who did not confirm was inflicted by. This was basically a conversion school for girls, and Silas' betrothed was paying for it. 

Throughout the rest of the book we meet the girls at the boarding school, but terrible things keep happening, and loyalties are questioned. Ghosts of residents from the past start reaching through the veil to communicate, mainly with Silas. 

So yes, this is more of a ghost story, but the real monsters are all of the cishet men. And doesn't that mirror real life?

This book is very dark and emotional. Please check the trigger warnings because there are a lot, and most of them are very graphic. For example, there is a graphic abortion scene that was very hard to read. Take care of yourself.

The full cast performance of this graphic novel was so fun!

Another perfectly written atmospheric read by Alexis Henderson. Her first book, The Year of the Witching, is still my favorite of her books. I'm so bummed because there has always been a planned sequel for that book, but Alexis has talked multiple times about how she is not in a good enough space to write the sequel that book deserves. I think it blocked her for a long time and kept her from writing different stories, so I am very grateful that she is publishing again even if they aren't the sequel I so desperately want. I am still loving all her standalone stories. 

Now for this book. This is Alexis' shortest book, and I felt it. Marion lives in the slums of what equates to the south during the Civil War. She is a housemaid for a bitchy old widow, but she depends on that wage to care for her sick brother. Things between her brother and her get pretty dramatic, and through some other strange events she ends up on a train to the north. There she ends up as a blood maiden for Countess Lisavet of House of Hunger. This world has its own nobility system that the book briefly touches. The story could have really benefited for just a little more development in a few areas, on being the nobility system. 

In this world, true nobles were pretty much vampires and drank human blood for youthfulness and health, like in Countess Lisavet's case. But like I said, the word "vampire" is never printed in the book although they share a lot of characteristics. I wanted to know so much more about their world. 

This book definitely has a slow buildup, but when it gets going the climax is worth the work. Very exciting very fast. I read almost the whole last half of it in one day. 

Required reading!

This book delivered on what it was supposed to deliver on: it is the perfect standalone dark academia book. It gives the reader a fun, fast-paced, intriguing mystery. If you just settle in for the ride, you will enjoy it.

I struggled to settle in enough for 5 stars. I felt like the writing was lacking a little bit. Some phrases were recycled and reused throughout the book, but nothing terrible. The biggest hangup for me was how juvenile the adult characters at the school felt. Many times I had to remind myself that these characters were well into their 20's and not preteen and teen wizards and witches.

However I still think it is worth a read because our options of good and dark magic schools have not been measuring up to our expectations. And even with its flaws, I think this book does give what it needed to give.

Another review written a few weeks after reading:
Alexis always delivers on setting the perfect atmosphere for her settings. She created a fantastic dark academia setting and story, so if that is what you are looking for this will satisfy that craving. 

The book starts out with Lennon running out of her life basically. She receives a call in a very interesting way about her acceptance into this mysterious university, and she realizes this is the escape from her life that she needs. 

The rest of the story follows Lennon through her time at Drayton College where they study telepathic powers called Persuasion. This magic system is pretty basic, so there is not a lot of explanation. Alexis does a great job of getting into the ethics of having powers than the mechanics. I even saw in an interview that Alexis describes her process of questioning magic systems for their ethical implications. I think she did a great job exploring this topic in this book. 

The world was so cool. I wanted more world building, more information, because it felt very original and interesting. Instead we got immature romances and somewhat annoying characters.

I am so saddened by my own feelings about this book. I was bored out of my mind. Every reveal felt so anticlimactic and left me caring even less. By the end I was out of steam and felt deflated by the ending. 

Pure erotica but the story really had potential.