theenchantedlibrary's reviews
620 reviews

Well Met had me hooked from the first line. “I didn’t choose the wench life. The wench life chose me.”

This idea of the city girl getting away to a small town and meeting a guy is by no means a new one, but add in great family dynamics, fun locals, an interesting love interest and a Renaissance Faire and you have an adorable nerdy read that is something you didn’t even know you needed.

While there were no huge surprises and the plot was rather predictable, this story was just so fun and I became invested in the characters so quickly that I wanted to see what came out of all of these relationships. I wanted to see Emily interact with her sister and niece, to acclimate to living in a small-town, to learn about Faire culture and, of course, deal with the ever-confusing Simon. I could have read about Willow Creek for ages and it seems like we may get just that… but that’s for another time.

Going into this story, I knew we would likely get a stereotypical newly single due to jerk ex circumstances leading lady and an infuriatingly emotional whiplash inducing leading man and - for the most part - I was ok with it. I say ‘for the most part’ because I wish that Emily hadn’t been written with such a blind spot for this one thing (being vague to avoid spoilers). In every other area, she is very self-sufficient but I feel that the backstory with her ex was put in as a plot device for her to feel insecure and that is a trope that always bothers me.

The Faire itself was such a fun idea and I loved the use of the characters’ alter egos during those weekends. Especially Captain Leather Pants *wink wink*. I could easily see myself in the tavern with Emma and Beatrice or in the crowd watching the human chess match. Now I just need to find one in real life that I can attend - preferably with the chance of being wooed!

For being a contemporary romance, Well Met had a lot of depth and heart which is something I always appreciate. This was definitely a slow-burn but, once it got there, this romance was on fire!

I had such a fun time reading this one. I feel like I just completely powered through it within a day or two. (Which I just confirmed, it actually was 2 days haha)

When I first heard about this book when it was first announced, I immediately put it on my Goodreads TBR because how could I not be interested in a Les Mis retelling?? I admit I’m not the biggest fan of sci-fi but this was a definite must-read for me. Ages and ages ago I read the book and when I was about 8 or 9 one of my childhood best friends and I loved the play so all of the nods to the original material was not lost on me and I could really tell how much Body & Rendell appreciated the source material. I kind of wish I would give myself the time to meticulously note all of the Easter eggs!

With my love of Eponine, it comes as no surprise that Chatine was my favourite POV chapters. She is such a strong, independent female in this world who has flaws but is fiercely determined to reach her goals no matter what but she still has a moral compass. Marcellus had me loving him at times and hating him at times but it is all because I can see the potential of his character arc that they have prepared for him and I cannot wait to see where he goes. Alouette is partly a wide-eyed innocent but with some pretty impressive hacking skills considering her upbringing. If their stories follow even slightly along the same lines of the original, I feel like this is going to be a roller-coaster of a series.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that this is a series written with dual authors and there are only a couple of author pairings that come to mind who I’ve enjoyed and these two have made the list. I honestly could not tell who wrote what POVs or sequences or whatnot and I think that really shows the talent and skill that they have working together. They are a really good writing team.

In this first installment alone, we have had the start of a revolution, murder, subterfuge, secret identities, hidden motives, details on the history of the world and hints at the greater planet systems, action, revenge and oh so much more! I cannot wait to see how these characters' stories play out.

Finishing this series has been a long time coming. I have been making my through it slowly but surely because I’ve wanted the hardcovers and, for whatever reason, they aren’t stocked in store so I’ve had to consciously look for and order it online. Considering I read the 4th and final book almost 2 years after it’s release, I really have enjoyed this series.

Without giving much in the way of spoilers, because this is a conclusion after all, I will say the build up throughout the series was well done. The premise of the series is following the early years of Alexander the Great with a fantastical twist. Theres magic, political intrigue, monsters, destiny and it beautifully culminates into this final book. From the start, you aren’t hit over the head with all of the underlying plot points of mysticism, Herman is able to give a slow progression of adding these details like little pieces of a much bigger puzzle coming into the picture.

This is a series full of different POVs and while I admittedly sped-read through the ones I wasn’t particularly interested in during the first couple of books, I ended up enjoying the story-lines of each character when all was said and done. I definitely have a favourite type of character in a series like this and, if you’re familiar with this particular series, it will come to no surprise that I was most invested in Alexander, Katerina and Hephaestion so they were my through-line during my reading adventure. This installment also included a few additional POVs that were good to get insight into even though I don’t think much would have been missing from the story if they weren’t included.

There were also a few details that were added into this last book weren’t really my favourite - a detail between Alex and Heph in particular comes to mind - but I still appreciated the choice because they don’t come out of nowhere. There’s always reason for Herman’s choices be it from true history or the natural flow of a characters decisions but, in my dream world, I wish something different.

Overall I really enjoyed the journey that this series brought me on and I think that if you have an interest in ancient history, far reaching fantastical adventures or Alexander the Great in particular, this could be right up your alley.

Confusion. Reading this book has been a long time coming. I read Passenger a few years ago and had a really fun time going through time with these characters and the cliffhanger ending got me. Maybe I mistakenly waited too long to read the 2nd and final book or should have re-read the first book before getting back into this world but this was just such a confusing read for me.

I was on board with the time travel and understood how it worked in the world in book 1 but Wayfarer somehow managed to turn that on its head. The time travel no longer made sense in terms of how an event can change the future or the ‘last common year’ or the history of the astrolabe, etc. The different time traveling families and how they interact and what each of their motives are and how there are some people who turn on their families and go to another… it’s just so much to keep track of. PLUS there’s added mysticism that wasn’t there in Passenger and no real hint of it so it felt as though it came out of nowhere. If it’s meant to be a Sci-Fi book, give me scientific reasoning (real or not) and don’t just randomly throw in a witch for good measure or nightmarish beings that just appear in the story to provide a get out of jail free card for a certain character.

The different times that we journey to are truly interesting times in history but don’t necessarily have much effect on the plot aside from maybe Petrograd. Any of the things that happen could have been in any time but theres just the added jumping through passages. Even the Epilogue felt out of place, confusing and unnecessary.

In terms of the characters, there is thankfully some growth but I couldn’t really focus much on them with the plot being all over the place and convoluted and unnecessarily overcomplicated. Yes, time travel can be tough to write but I think Bracken had too many ideas that she wanted to include which just piled on to the already mind-bendy-ness of a good time travel story.

This one was definitely an disappointing end to this duology that I had high hopes for after the first book but I think my subconscious knew it and that’s why this book has been sitting on my self for the last 2 years waiting to be read.

I have quite a few thoughts on this one and it has taken me a bit of time to sit on it and digest but I would say this was a middle of the road read for me. It was entertaining but didn’t ‘wow’ me and also is not without it’s cringe moments.

Ok, so to start things off, I want to let you know that this book isn’t exactly what I would consider a rom-com. The two main characters are both super flawed and dealing with a lot including abandonment issues. I didn’t find myself laughing or having that effervescent squeal of joy that usually comes from a rom-com so I don’t fully agree with the blurb from Lauren Layne on the back cover where she proclaims it is “Romantic comedy perfection”.

Now, when I say that these characters are flawed and that this book has major cringe moments, it really has to do with the mentality of Georgie and Travis. Both are dealing with always being passed over and not taken seriously and both want to prove that they can be mature adults so they fake a relationship to get the benefits of how it would make them appear to others: secure, independent, grown-up and ‘family-friendly’. This premise could totally work in a rom-com setting, I mean, we see it all the time right? Well where this differs is the fact that Georgie has been in love with Travis since they were kids. He is 28 now and she is 23 but his internal dialog will NOT shut up about the fact that he sees her as a kid still and that he has conflicting feeling about so much that is directly linked to that fact and he even gives her the nickname “baby girl”. If they both treated each other like adults, I wouldn’t have felt quite so uncomfortable with the relationship but as it is, it felt like an adult taking advantage of a young girl. It just didn’t sit right.

I was able to enjoy things more from Georgie’s POV because she had solid reasons for her choices and I could agree with them aside from her keeping the very big secret of her actually being in love with Travis. I liked seeing her grow as a character and come into her own as it felt like she took (mostly) the right steps. She does also have a She’s All That moment that really kicks things into high gear which I could have done without. It was basically the catalyst for everything and I wish that it was just done as an empowerment moment for Georgie and not so obviously causing a reaction from Travis.

Flawed and damaged characters don’t deter me from a read, I find it gives things more depth which I did appreciate… aside from the cringe factor of child-like treatment/thoughts of an adult. I know there’s a mental barrier to overcome when you see a friend from childhood all grown up but this was a big sticking point for me. Another point I feel needs to be made is the sexuality in the book. I’m all for some smut but I’d like to warn that there are some things that I would consider triggers for some people such as aggressive male dominance, explicit scenes, possessiveness and borderline mind games. To Bailey’s credit though, she made it pretty clear that the dominance during the sex scenes was consensual.

With all of that being said, I did enjoy reading this story but don’t think I will be continuing the series that will be following the side characters.

Ok, so to preface, I just want to say that my thoughts on this book are very much subjective to ME. Going into this book, I was anticipating an adventure coming-of-age story full of magic and maybe a hint of romance. I was definitely not expecting a story about a kid who gets bullied at magic school (I use the term loosely) while trying to discover secrets from an apparent spy and dealing with his magical impotence.

This story was leaning slightly into the ‘con game’ aspect of the synopsis (for like, the first chapter) which was interesting but it should have been a much larger focus and not just alluded to with Kellen’s abilities and random throwing cards that are also to be used to gamble but not… Honestly, I don’t really know how to explain this book.

Good execution of this type of story hinges on politics and magic but I don’t feel as though either were give their due. The politics were almost non-existent (which is surprising when the main plot focuses on a spy) and the magic is fairly convoluted. You’re born with it but it’s verbal and somatic, you have tattoos for each of the strands of magic, those tattoos look cooler when you have mastered that particular strand but also your magic can fade by the time you’re 16, not all of the strands get mastered much of the time and there’s still a chance that you can be a "special" magic-user if you aren’t a master of any… I can continue to spiral but I will stop there.

I also cannot quite pin-point what type of world this is either. Is it it’s own thing? Is it some type of far off future? Is there a mix? Some of the dialog kind of fits in a purely fantasy setting but almost everything that comes out of Ferius’s mouth sound as though she could be from our non-magical modern day. Also, Ferius needs to STOP ending every sentence with ‘kid’ when addressing Kellen. We get it, you’re older than him, this isn’t a romantic relationship. Just stop already. I have also noticed a lot of readers have mentioned the witty/humorous dialog and I really don’t see it. Everything the characters say is just so… basic and unimaginative.

The way that the book is split up is based on the different tasks which is interesting but it wasn’t done to it’s full potential. It could have read the same way without being divided. I liked that each section opened up with something that relates to the task but until the end, when another character neatly wraps up how what Kellen did/didn’t do relates back to the matching task, it really doesn’t matter.

Now, when I started off, I said that my thoughts are subjective to me and while that is true for everything, I mean it a bit different here. I rated Spellslinger a 1 Star on Goodreads and there are many reasons for this: the synopsis was not accurate to the content, the book was shelved in the adult fantasy section, the writing was over simplistic and the story was not well-developed. My 1 Star rating could have easily been higher if this book was marketed better. I think this is more a story for pre-teens taking into consideration everything I mentioned before. It may be a great book for someone who is young and starting out in the fantasy genre but I expected a lot more.

It seems as though the books will follow Kellen as he gets older but based on the writing and my lack of enjoyment in the plot, I can’t stick around to see why this book was shelved in adult fantasy.

3.5*

I find it a bit difficult to classify this read to the Rom-Com genre which it is advertised as. I would consider it more of a contemporary read with some explicit romantic scenes. This is mainly due to the fact that while there are some humorous moments, the majority of the plot is dealing with some very heavy topics for our two leads.

This was not quite the light-hearted read that I was expecting. It focuses greatly on familial loss, parental lies, divorce and dealing with the fallout of lives turned upside down. As a creative person, I can fully appreciate how these types of events can put a stopper on being able to create and that’s exactly what January and Augustus are dealing with.

I had a great time reading their stories and could have easily spent a year with them as opposed to just the summer. I appreciated how honest they both were as characters in what they were each dealing with and how they handled situations they were placed in. Beach Read was at times dark and angst-y but also fun and hopeful.

The primary focus is obviously on January and Augustus but the supporting cast of characters were also fun to hear from. January’s relationship with her best friend is very indicative of a modern-day friendship where they live in completely different States and have opposite schedules but still are able to connect and fully understand each other. There are also the townspeople (as I’ll call them) who are both welcoming and offer a bit of mystery at times.

Beach Read is a great in-between read for if you aren’t quiet into the stereotypical rom-com reads but want to dip your toe in the water with a story that offers depth and reality to the normally unrealistic quality that rom-coms tend to have.