oknazareth's reviews
924 reviews

Most beautiful tale of love

I loved this book so so much. At first I was skeptical because of all the hype, I swear every booktoker loves this book. Well that, and the atrocious cover. Now I understand why. 
The heartbreak, the loneliness, how these people crawled out from the hole of despair and built a family. I could cry. I did cry.
Luke’s wife died a year ago, leaving him and his son in shambles, surviving instead of living. Then Luke met Landon, and his light and steadfast support brought him out of the dark zone. 

Their love story was perfect and the spice toe-curling and impeccable! I fell for these two by 20%
Alongside the romance we read about family, father’s reconnecting with their sons, acceptance and pansexual awakening. There’s a lot of football, too.

From the moment I pressed play, I knew I was in for something special. Michael Crouch was the perfect choice for narrating Darien’s story. His voice matched exactly how I had imagined Darien—soft yet full of emotion, capturing his vulnerability and quiet strength. A great narrator can make or break an audiobook, and in this case, Crouch brought the character to life, making me love my boy even more.

The book follows Prince Darien, the shy and loyal second son, as he navigates court life and struggles to find genuine love among those who only want him for his title. While there is romance, it occasionally takes a backseat to the court intrigue and political machinations. The story feels like a condensed YA version of romance and politics—even though all the characters are adults, it still carries a strong YA tone.

The angst in this book packs a punch. At one point, it even made me cry because tragedy hits Darien hard, and he just didn’t deserve all that heartbreak. He never got a break. The love story, though, was sweet. It had a strong insta-love going on, but I didn't mind. Given Darien’s personality, I believed that he could fall in love within a week. 

The villain, unfortunately, was predictable. With so many characters displaying traits of betrayal and vengeance, the story could have offered a more complex intrigue game. The pacing was also a bit choppy in places— like after the tragedy, the plot focused solely on intrigue, leaving everything else behind until it was resolved.

Overall, this was a strong debut novel. It set out to accomplish in one book what other stories take three to achieve. While there were some predictable elements and pacing issues, the emotional depth, court politics, and Darien’s journey made for an engaging read.

*Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

I’m asking myself why did I read this? 
The premise was crazy good: a mix between The Bachelor and The Selection but add horny basilisks? Yes, sing me up. 
I liked the whole basilisk culture and learning how they lived, even if we didn’t learn much about them. I liked the love triangle, shocking, I know, but I found it nice. The spice was good until there was nothing new and it felt like reading about the sex lives of a 40 year married couple.
All was good at the beginning, if you can suspend your logical beliefs (even more than what is required for fantasy books) then you might enjoy the first chapters. 
Then it starts lagging something awful and I just wanted to skip 100 pages of the same thing. I swear if she explained one more time how basilisks kill with a look, I would have killed the book, like shredded it or whatever. Yes, we’ve known that for a while, please stop. 
It didn’t help that I knew what was coming early on, I just needed these people to move along. It also didn’t help that I never fully believed Caspen and Leo loved this girl, I was expecting one or both of them to betray her. 

My biggest pain with the story was Tem. That girl could not make up her mind if her life depended on it —literally, they were all about to meet the end and she was still changing her mind. I couldn’t wait to be out of her head for good.

This little book reads like a fever dream—the kind where you hover between reality and something else entirely. 

That’s exactly what this book feels like.

I enjoyed the story very much. The author’s voice and style reminded me of Great Expectations by Dickens. I’m not saying it has the same literary greatness, but it made me smile, laugh, and reflect on life in a similar way.

Brendan is a self-assured, middle aged doctor from Cork, Ireland—a successful family man who thinks highly of himself. Trevor, on the surface, is a copy of Brendan with more money but less successful, with only a wife and no other real achievements—at least, according to Brendan’s perspective. 

A year after their one-night stand, everything spirals into the strangest of endings. I’m still not sure what truly happened. Who played who? Who planned it all? Was any of it real, or just a creation of Brendan’s mind? I fear we’ll never know—and that’s okay.

Read this book for the fun of it. Don’t expect flowery prose or a grand, satisfying resolution. It simply is—and I believe that’s exactly what the author intended. What that ‘is’ might be? I still don’t know. But I read it, and I liked it.


*Thank you NetGalley for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Roommate Arrangement accomplished what I needed that was palate cleanse between reading heavy books. It was cute and cozy but otherwise unremarkable.

Payne finds out his husband cheated on him for over two years, and decides to left his sorry ass and get a divorce. Moves back to his hometown with no money and no place to stay.
Beau is a writer, lives alone and has a spare room. Also, has been in love with Payne since high school.
What everyone thought was going to be a rebound, ends up being a sweet love story.

I liked the ADHD representation, though it was never addressed formally. Writing characters with mental disorders as ‘quirky’ or ‘messy’ is erasure and we need to stop that. 
For me, everything else felt bland. I didn’t feel the devastation of a broken marriage of 12 years. I didn’t feel the pain of unrequited love. There was nothing deep and moving, just a story being told. 
So, it was cozy and entertaining but I will forget about it tomorrow. 

I’m honestly torn about how to review this book. While I enjoyed certain aspects of it, in the end, it left me wanting more.
Historical fiction, time travel, and romance are some of my favorite genres, so I was excited to dive into this story. However, I felt that it didn’t fully deliver on any of those fronts.

We follow Isla, political assistant in the 2025 London who finds herself unexpectedly transported to 1605, right before Guy Fawkes’s infamous Gunpowder Plot. As someone unfamiliar with this time period, I appreciated learning about the historical events through the story, especially since, according to the author's note, it is really close to the actual events.. That said, I didn’t connect with Guy Fawkes’s POV and felt the story could have done without those chapters.

The romance between Isla and Simon was sweet and had a slow-burn charm. Their conversations were lovely, but I found myself wanting more—more interactions, more discussion about the future, and more of Isla using her modern knowledge in the past. The twins, however, were delightful!

One of the biggest things missing for me was the usual insight I expect from time travel stories. Elements like hygiene, food, and clothing struggles—things that would naturally be jarring for a modern person in the 17th century—were barely touched on. The two times clothing was mentioned, was mostly about how difficult it was to wear or ride a horse in, but I kept wondering: Does Isla miss modern comforts? How does she adapt to daily life? These details would have helped immerse me in the world more fully.

Additionally, certain plot points—such as the plague, the dramatic ex, and even Isla’s mission—felt somewhat disconnected, like a series of events that didn’t quite flow together. And one of my biggest disappointments was that after everything, we don’t get to see Simon’s experience once he’s saved—the book jumps three years into the future for the epilogue, skipping over what could have been an emotional part of his journey.

Overall, while this book had interesting moments, it didn’t fully capture what I love about time travel, historical fiction, or romance. However, I do appreciate the historical research and the quieter moments between Isla and Simon, which brought warmth to the story.


*Thank you NetGalley and Shadow Mountain Publishing for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own. 

I finished this book with starry eyes and a heart full of warmth. It’s a sweet story of self-assurance and self-discovery that will make you wish for a love like theirs.

This book is marketed as a queer twist on Pride and Prejudice, but I appreciated that the references to Austen’s classic were subtle. We follow Benjamin Bennet, a bookstore owner—gayer than purple eyeshadow (in a quiet but proud way)—as he gets to know Avery, a dark and handsome millionaire who can be rude but is also caring and thoughtful.

Their friendship is everything good in the world, layered with the gay panic of falling for someone who might be straight. The story captures the struggle of knowing your life would be better with that person by your side while respecting their right to hide. The way he experiences life’s little moments with Avery—and slowly realizes that this could be their life—was incredibly touching.
I loved how Ben was confident and proud of who he was, yet always left space for others to be themselves around him. He captures the struggle of existing unapologetically in a world that often demands labels. As he puts it: 

This balance of self-assurance and exhaustion felt so real and made me respect his character.

Since the story is told entirely from Ben’s POV, it adds the right amount of uncertainty to the plot, but I wish we could have peeked into Avery’s mind a bit more. The final reveal helps clarify his motives, but I still wanted more insight.
I also wasn’t expecting the spice to be fade-to-black, which was a little disappointing, though it didn’t take away from the romance. My only other complaint? I wish had a different book cover that better represented Ben!


*Thank you NetGalley and Rattling Good Yarns Press for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own. 

A haunting and hopeful tale

Set in a village cursed by death, this story reads like a slow-burning nightmare. Every new moon, a man becomes a beast, killing without mercy. The villagers tried everything to break the curse, but ended up resigning themselves to live with the horrors—if you can call that living.

Wendell has carried the curse from birth, knowing he will become a killer once a month. Feared and shunned, his life has been marked by cruelty. 

This is a story about unflinching kindness and fear—about what happens when people turn against what they don’t understand.

The book isn’t the most polished in terms of writing, but it does a good job of exploring human nature. It filled me with sadness, yet there’s a point in Wendell’s journey where he’s no longer alone, where he dares to hope. And that hope, however fragile, is powerful.

I expected more horror, and I’m actually glad it wasn’t terrifying. Dark? Absolutely. But more than that, it’s about love, survival, and what truly makes a monster. 

I loved Wendell’s resilience, Jacques’s bravery, and the Grandfather’s unwavering love. While I’d love to read more about their journey, the ending left me satisfied. A beautifully haunting read.




Thank you NetGalley and Indigo River Publishing for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own. The book will be available on April 15th, 2025.

A little furry 😂

I read it was about a wolf person, but naively thought it was a werewolf or a shapeshifter. 
Nope, it’s a two legged wolf creature with fur all over his body and a wolf-like head (muzzle and big teeth included). If that doesn’t bother you, then it’s an ok read. 
I’m always up for reading about fae, and Weed was a dryad. A dryad!! 
Anyways, so cool. I wish we had more of him in his real form.
Weed has been cursed to obey his master and you know that someone who likes to own other people are not good. So his masters are the worst scraps of human beings. In his slavery, Weed forgot who he was. He lost himself to become what was asked of him, to survive. 
The Wulver doesn’t have a big personality but his only purpose in this book seems to be helping Weed become who he really is. 

It was a short and interesting.