mspilesofpaper's reviews
889 reviews

While it was entertaining enough as an audiobook, I must say that I did enjoy the previous books by far more than Odyssey. The book has some pacing issues because some chapters/parts are so dragged out that listening to those parts is exhausting, while others are very fast-paced. My main issue, though, is Fry's constant Englishness when it comes to characters addressing each other with titles. Penelope is "Ma'am" instead of "my Queen" (similar with other characters of some standing), and so forth. It feels very jarring at times. Most frustratingly, Fry teases a post-structuralist view of history through the lens of how we construct an ancient text like the Odyssey but then drops this line of thought soon after. 

The end ("further adventures") tells the story of Aeneas and how he reached Rome (or the area that would be Rome in the future). It gives me the feeling that Fry might tackle it in another instalment. 

Baxter and Paxton were set up by their children in a Christmas Buddies program - though their kids had very different motives for doing so. Right from the start, they don't get along because Paxton is grumpy and distrustful of Baxter, and Baxter ... well, he tries. Yet, as they spend time together, they start falling for each other.

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Let Your Hearts Be Light is a contemporary romance set in the USA. It is the first book in a series, but can be considered as a standalone because the reader gets only hints at the following pairings. There's no world-building in it at all. Everything is very vague and very much Hallmark movie-esque.

Usually, I would talk about the characters and the romance a bit more in-depth here, but this book is (and pardon my French) a fucking shitshow. It's very clearly written by a straight woman, and if you switch out the baker Dad with a baker Mom, the book won't change much aside from the homophobia that's mentioned in two sentences and the coming out of Lumberjack Dad to his son. That's it. Everything else would be the same and the sex scenes would make more sense because my only thought was: "Yeah, that's not how anal sex works." :-| (And if I have to read once more the phrase "his fluttering pink hole", I'm going to commit a crime.) Also the icing went from sugary icing to buttercream to icing again, and putting that up your ass is ... well, I hope you have a good shower.

The entire romance is very forced and based on instant-love and instant-attraction. Lumberjack Dad goes from "I hate the man" to "Fuck, I want him so badly" in like two days. There's no "enemies-to-lovers" or "hate-to-love" that's playing out realistically. There's zero character development and romance development that would make sense. They don't really learn anything about each other until suddenly they give each other gifts that are semi-meaningful. When did they learn that the other would like it? Who knows. Even the big gesture from Lumberjack Dad to Baker Dad is so ... ugh. It's very Hallmark-esque but it could have been used to show that Lumberjack Dad connects more with his new future step-daughter but they get like 2 scenes where he just realises that she looks like her uncle-father (biologically her uncle, socially her dad) and wants to touch her hair because it's in a bun.

The writing style is 100% "tell and no showing" because there's so much fucking inner monologue. Pretty much everything that is semi-plot relevant is being told in inner monologue and after the event happens. There's barely any dialogue and if there is dialogue, it is cringy as hell. The end speech made me shiver and die from second hand embarrassment.

TL;DR: Save your time and skip this one. It is pretty much "straight woman fetishing gay/bi man, so she wrote a novel about it" because you could exchange the sunshine character dad with a mother and not much would change. The sex is utterly repulsive (I'm already sex-repulsed but if I wouldn't be, this book would've made me sex-repulsed). 

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TWs & CWs: oral and anal sex, anxiety, panic attacks, coming out, rimming, fingering, death of a sibling (in the past), homophobia (mentioned; from parents to their son), sex in a semi-public setting (car and hot pool), food play, no condom

Trope(s): grumpy & sunshine, older main characters

Genre: Contemporary romance, LGBTQIA+ romance

Heat/Spice: 2 🌶️ 

Fern is being audited by the IRS in the form of an Anubis since she hasn't filed her taxes for two years. Shenanigans happen, and they suddenly fake dating to keep Fern's mother and her ex-husband away. How long is it fake, though?

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Audited by the Anubis is a paranormal romance set in the USA where monsters exist very openly. It plays in a fictional small town (with the most stereotypical name that I can't remember behind something with Cedar and Heights because the MMC complained that there's no mountain nearby). It's the first in a series, and we meet two other monsters who will play a role in some later book. 

Normally, I would talk about the characters here before saying anything else, but I have to jump directly to the "What the fuck?" stage because the book is a clusterfuck. When I read the summary on Amazon, I was like: "Oh yes, another kind of monster and not just werewolves, fae or shifters again", because I had never seen an Anubis as an MMC prior to this novel. Unfortunately, the book is 100% a mess. 

🡢 No world-building beyond the "There's another universe/world which can be entered only by monsters.", the mention that the story plays in the USA and that Anubis do origin in Egypt and are loosely based on the Death God Anubis. Why does Anhou refer to Osiris regularly? How did the Anubis (as monsters) came to be? Why are there monsters in the world in general? When did it happen? I could go on because the author drops plot details with no explanation or background.

🡢 The sex was utterly gross. It's based on a dom/sub relationship (both are switches) until suddenly the A/O/B stuff comes into play but there's also no explanation for it aside from "Yeah, I am an Alpha, which is why I have those cock marks". Uh, great? Also, calling a woman's arousal as slick is gross (though it suddenly made sense with the A/O/B stuff) but it's even worse when he licks a puddle of it off the floor. And why did a ghost (an old woman) watch him masturbate and why is he ok with it? (In general: why are people ok with ghosts?!)

🡢 The villains (the mother and the ex-husband) have awful explanations to be evil. Why did one suddenly do arson out of nowhere? Why are they ok with the chance to kill someone? Why does the ex-husband want her back (after being separated/divorced for nearly two years)? Why does the mother want her daughter to get back with the ex? 

🡢 Why is the FMC so stupid? She doesn't trust her mother at all because her mother is abusive and bad with money. Yet, the mother is in charge of Fern's business accounts and does her taxes? All because Fern is dyslexic? Also, I am dyslexic. No, dyslexia doesn't work like it does in the book. Words don't dance around the page when we read. DO YOUR FUCKING RESEARCH IF YOU USE A DISABILITY FOR YOUR CHARACTER! How did she even run a bakery so successfully if she cannot read at all and while her mother was embezzling from her?

🡢 Why was there a fake dating trope when they were into each other from the start, they were aware of it and are ok with it? Seriously, the trope didn't add anything to the plot and felt like the author had to shoehorn it into it, so they have the trope for marketing.

🡢 All the fucking trauma dumped onto the reader chapter after chapter. I was close to throwing my Kindle across the room when the FMC died. All the fatphobia is also exhausting. She's constantly described as clearly plus size. Why the cover art doesn't portray it (besides big boobs) is a mystery for the ages. 

🡢 The story is constantly told between her POV and his POV but both POVs repeat stuff from the previous chapter told by the other POV. I should have stopped after the second chapter. 


TL;DR: Just don't read it. It's already my worst book of the year read and it's just mid January.

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TWs & CWs: oral and vaginal sex, internalised fatphobia, fatphobia from mother and ex-partner, dom/sub, A/O/B, knotting, breeding kink, masturbation, voyeurism, discussion of food shaming, boob sex, sex with food involved (whipped cream and sauces), no condom, mating, death of the FMC, mentions of blood

Trope(s): fake dating

Genre: Paranormal Romance, Monster Romance

Heat/Spice: 2.5 🌶️(gross and utterly repetitive) 

Ari planned to go to an escape room with friends on Valentine's Day but didn't expect everyone to bail on her, which left her alone with her brother's best friend Wesley, a minotaur, and her crush. Being alone in the escape room leads to them acting on their sexual attraction and finding out that it is more than just sexual attraction, which leaves them to navigate their new relationship with all its issues.

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Escaping the Friendzone is a paranormal romance set in the USA where monsters, such as minotaurs, mothmen, werewolves, ... exist. It plays in Moonvale, a fictional town with a high population of monsters. It is the third book in a series, and while the couples from the previous two books appear in it, it can be considered standalone. There's not much on the world-building aside from it. 

Concerning the characters: originally, I liked Ari and Wes because she was snarky and he was caring soft dom. Unfortunately, the constant focus on Ari's anxiety about everything (her body, her life, her work, her brother, etc) got rather exhausting with time because she views herself as the issue for pretty much everything, which leads to her being hyper-independent. As much as I like independent women, she was sometimes very whiny and went even too far in the "I'm not like other girls" direction. Wes meanwhile? He's pretty much everything you might want in a monster. He's kind, soft-hearted and a consent king. You have to like dominance with him, though, because while he isn't super dominant, he sometimes takes charge without talking about it with Ari.

As for the romance, I didn't like how both acted in the first chapter (when the reader meets them). I think the escape room setting could have been more extended to build up to them acting on their sexual attraction instead of going directly into it. If you are worried about the daddy/baby girl kink: there's no age play involved. Ari is occasionally a brat in scenes, so she does get punished, but both are adults (I think he's ~40 and she's ~30) and set up boundaries for everything.

Overall, I think the book could have been a good 50 pages shorter because the end was dragging on after the 200 page mark.

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TWs & CWs: oral and vaginal sex, internalised fatphobia, fatphobia from previous partner, discussion of cheating & gaslighting afterwards (concerning side characters), anxiety episodes, BDSM, age gap, daddy kink/baby girl, spanking, cum play, oversized monster dick, discussion of food shaming, sex in a semi-public setting, masturbation, no condom, breeding kink

Trope(s): brother's best friend

Genre: Paranormal Romance, Monster Romance

Heat/Spice: 3 🌶️(gets a bit repetitive) 

It's monster smut. There's nothing else to say.

CW & TW: size difference, BDSM, milking, hu-cow, master/pet, public sex, mentions of slavery, mentions of potential threat of sexual abuse/rape

Sirin is a scientist and wants to find out the source of their magic. The guild is against it but nothing can stop her: not expulsion nor their warnings about lost expeditions in the last decades. And the polar bear stalking her through the arctic tundra won't stop her either. Berne is, in the meanwhile, a simple shapeshifter who works as a ranger to keep people like Sirin away from his home. Unfortunately for him, Sirin might be just what he was looking for: his mate.

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A Polar Expedition and Other Stimulating Research Opportunities is a paranormal romance set in a fantasy world and is the first in a series. Each book is a finished story but introduces characters for the following books.

The world is very much gaslight/steampunk-inspired and while the author offers some explanation for the world, it feels very ... off. It could have benefitted from more world-building information because I have several questions about the overall world (Who/what is the Empire? What is the second kingdom? Why is it that no one knows about the other one? Where do the non-humans come from? What is up with the magic?). It feels like the main idea for the book was romance, and world-building came second, which would have been okay if the world-building had made sense. 

Concerning the characters, I have beef with Sirin's characterisation. First of all, she is described as a plus-size woman in the book's summary but there's nothing in the story itself that says "she is a plus-size woman". When Sirin and Berne have sex, the softness of her stomach and her thighs are described but those body parts tend to be soft on anyone who isn't a bodybuilder. I would have liked to see some actual mention of her bigger body. The cover art is giving me more "curvy woman" instead of a plus-size woman. Secondly, the author attempted to write Sirin as a neurodivergent woman working in STEM. It would have been a good representation if the author hadn't created a stereotypical portrayal of a neurodivergent person because Sirin falls into the stereotype that "all neurodivergent people are child-like/childish and cannot be taken seriously". Furthermore, Sirin's character is so inconsistent. In the first chapter, Sirin is described as meticulous and detail-oriented and who has spent a decade preparing for this research mission. The research is her life. Unfortunately, afterwards Sirin just completely ignores everything and dismisses any information that doesn't fit into her pre-determined conclusion. After the first few chapters, she is reckless and completely ignores any potential danger that she's in. Unknown bear species following her? Let's ignore him or start to feel a connection with the animal. Camping in the middle of nowhere? Let's masturbate because the polar bear and the glimpse of Berne as a human in a previous scene is enough to make her horny. 
Meanwhile, Berne is equally one-dimensional and just focused on finding a mate/protecting Sirin.
Their entire romance is very much instant lust/love as they are mates. There's no development in their feelings for each other. There's certainly no explanation for why Berne wants her as a mate aside from "she is weirdly cute and smells nice". In general, their romance is (aside from the instant lust/love due to mating bond) very much the "female main character is willful and stubborn, so she does stupid shit without a thought for the consequences or her own life and ultimately needs saving from the male love interest", which I just hate. To be honest: the book feels like the author read "A Golden Compass" and was horny for the polar bear. 

The book is narrated through Berne's POV and Sirin's POV, which would have been fine if Sirin's POV hadn't been in 3rd person with 1st person footnotes. (Yes, the story has footnotes. A nightmare if you read it on an eReader.) The idea behind the footnotes is likely that the story is told as a book, in the future, and Sirin annotated what happened. Those annotations as footnotes would be ok if they had happened only in Berne's chapters to give the reader the feeling of "I read my husband's chapters and had my own thoughts, so I annotated them". On her own chapters though? Those footnotes make no sense.

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TWs & CWs: oral and vaginal sex, FMC being injured, death threats, knotting, breeding kink, mentions of sex between human and shapeshifter in shifted form

Trope(s): marriage of convenience, shifter romance

Genre: Paranormal Romance, Historical Fantasy (Gaslight Fantasy)

Heat/Spice: 2 - 3 🌶️ (depending on the scene) 

Maddie gets dumped on national TV by her boyfriend of 10 years and she thinks: this is it, this is rock bottom. Until her mother announces that she has to appear at her ex's family for Christmas and he will bring his affair with him. Meeting Sebastian through her new work, they both get drunk in Las Vegas where he comes up with the plan of marrying her (temporarily), so she can stick it to her ex and he can gain a new visa via a spouse.

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Season's Schemings is a short, fast-paced and cute-ish contemporary romance that falls directly into the love for ice hockey on booktok. (Which is something I will never get because ice hockey isn't a famous sport in Germany, haha.) Compared to the other rom coms in the field: this one is cute-ish and has no sex scenes as they are the typical fade-to-black.

I wasn't the biggest fan of the characters because they fall very much into stereotypical, cliche roles, and lack character development beyond "I love hockey more than anything else", "He is so attractive/strong/muscular" (various versions of it) and "She is weird but cute". However, I have to say that I found Sebastian more acceptable as a character than Maddie as he really cares about her happiness. It would have been even better if he wouldn't cut out his own family because "hockey is my life but I can support them financially now". Nice? How about you pick up the phone more often and not just because Maddie inspired you to it? The side characters are equally stereotypical (mean mother, absent step-father, big brother who always has his sister's side, elegant mistress, ...). 

What really irked me: the author included a group of German tourists for a scene. Dear authors: if you use another language than English (and you do not speak the language): ASK SOMEONE NATIVE! Seriously, it is "Scheiße!" (Shit) and not "Schiesse!" (The word doesn't even exist in German.) but no German would say shit when running into someone who stopped out of nowhere. Most would be like "Pass auf!" (pay attention), "Mach die Augen auf!" (open your eyes), ... - you can include swearing (we love swear words) but we wouldn't just say shit and move on. If you don't have access to a native speaker (although you can easily summon Germans on TikTok with like one or two videos, believe me), then just be like "they swore and grumbled at my abrupt pausing" (or something alike) and be done with it. 

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TWs & CWs: Cheating (in a relationship), loveless marriage, alcohol, being drunk, aggression on the field, mentions of injuries, soft alpha man tendencies

Trope(s): Fake Dating, Marriage of Convenience, "touch her and find out"

Genre: Contemporary Romance, Rom Com

Heat/Spice: fade-to-black 

Just not for me

As much as I like the author's merman books: this one was a miss for me.

- lots of spelling & grammar mistakes in the KU version
- the "all my sisters are working in a brothel, aren't actually related to each other and our father is the kind pimp" part was so weird and gives Sorcha also Mary Sue aspects because she's better than the others, so she doesn't have to whore herself out
- the pacing!!! first it drags on, then it is rushed and ends on a cliffhanger because it's a duology
- no idea how accurate the Irish representation in terms of religion/culture is but the author threw multiple time periods together, which made it very odd