Mother of Shadows, by Meg Anne | Book Review

Hello and welcome to Adele Is Reading.

Today on the blog, I have my book review of:

Mother of Shadows, by Meg Anne.

Mother of Shadows is the first book in The Chosen series.

Trigger Warnings: Kidnapping, Blood, Fighting, Violence, mentions of Mass Murder, mentions of Dead Parents, Sex Scenes, mentions of Accident (with horse).
Please note that there may be other possible triggers that I may have missed.

“It’s not a story.”

With four words, Helena’s quiet life goes up in flames. When her childhood friend returns to tell her she is the prophesied ruler of the Chosen—those blessed with the gift of magic—there’s no avoiding her destiny.

Suddenly, Helena is surrounded by a circle of protectors, each man having sworn their loyalty to her since her birth. All except for one: her Mate.

It’s not enough that she learn how to use her magic and undergo a trial to prove her worthiness; in order to claim her title, Helena must also find the man who carries the other half of her soul.

Exiled due to a past he had no part in, Von is the last man the Chosen expect Helena to select. Despite their protests, his soul calls to hers, and there’s no denying he was made for her. But the prophecy stands…and all isn’t as it seems.

There’s an enemy lurking within plain sight who will stop at nothing to destroy her.

From GoodReads [x]:

“REVERSE HAREM” IS, LITERALLY, THE OPPOSITE OF “HAREM”, WITH A GROUP OF MALES CENTERING ROUND A SINGULAR FEMALE, USUALLY WITH THREE OR MORE MALES. QUITE OFTEN FOUND UNDER THE ROMANCE GENRE.

To be quite honest with you, I didn’t know what to expect from Mother of Shadows, like, the way that people converse is more akin to Olde English, but with regular English thrown into the mix. 

There are different points of view, and there’s also a mixture of how the story is told. We have both a passive narrators voice, alongside a first point of view. 

Mave Fortune, by Elizabeth Dear | Book Review

Hello hello! Welcome back to Adele Is Reading.

Today I have my book review of:

Mave Fortune, by Elizabeth Dear.

Mave Fortune is the first book in the Blackstone Academy series.

Trigger Warnings include: Sexism, Homophobia, Bullying, Partner abuse, Manipulation, Drugging, Kidnapping, Beating/Torture, Fighting, Blood, Gun Shot, Stabbing, Underage drinking, and sexual content.

Please note that there may have been a few possible triggers that I may have missed.

When my family left our small, ultra-conservative pack back in Utah to join a giant pack in Northwest Louisiana, I thought I’d be able to coast through my last year of high school in semi-anonymity, then get the fuck away from wolf pack politics and just live my life for awhile. But the Moon decided to prolong my torture by placing my fated mate in front of my face on my first day at Blackstone Academy. He’s the Alpha’s son and king of a school crawling with shifters, and it turns out he doesn’t care to be saddled with a Moon-chosen mate who he thinks is a nobody-omega wolf.

When he rejects me in front of every shifter in school, I vow to harden my heart, become impervious to the constant, deep hurt of the rejection, and figure out how to be the first wolf in known history to shake the taint of a rejected fated mate bond.

I’m also becoming closer to a new student—a smoking hot and intriguing human, who I can’t manage to scare off even with the drama that surrounds me and the poisonous pack politics that I can’t seem to escape. I can’t even tell him what’s really going on, but I think he’s keeping secrets from me, too.

I’m Mave Fortune, and my mate threw me out like yesterday’s garbage. But fuck that guy.

This is a new adult, M/F rejected mates standalone story. It is intended for the 18+ crowd and contains foul language, some mild violence, and sexual scenes. If you’re a fan of upper YA/NA, wolf shifters, academy romances and the tropes associated with each, dive right in!

Let me start off this book review by saying that while I was interested in reading the story, I had a huge inkling that Mave Fortune was going to be a tough read.

And boy was I wrong. I read and ended up loving Mave Fortune and her story.

A Crown of Smoke and Ash, by Sloane Murphy | Book Review

Hello, and welcome to Adele Is Reading!
Today on the blog I have my book review of:

A Crown of Smoke and Ash, by Sloane Murphy.

A Crown of Smoke and Ash is the second book in The Shadow Walkers Saga.

Trigger / Content Warnings: Sex (& BDSM).

Please note that this book may contain triggering content. Unfortunately I didn’t write down any triggers for this book, other than sex.

After having my life turned upside down, I discovered past me had left more than one thing that needed fixing. 

Past me was awesome.

Saved by an angel, protected by him and the three other men I love, I learn there’s more to the mystery of my past lives than I ever could have realized. 

With danger around every corner, wrongs from a long-forgotten past, and more betrayal than I ever thought possible. I try to realign a world gone awry. 

Can we survive all that is to come?

From GoodReads [x]:

“REVERSE HAREM” IS, LITERALLY, THE OPPOSITE OF “HAREM”, WITH A GROUP OF MALES CENTERING ROUND A SINGULAR FEMALE, USUALLY WITH THREE OR MORE MALES. QUITE OFTEN FOUND UNDER THE ROMANCE GENRE.

Within this second Shadow Walkers book, the story develops quite a bit, and the flow of the story as well, is much better than the first book was.

Taming Demons for Beginners by Annette Marie | Book Review

Hello! Today I’ve got my book review of

Taming Demons for Beginners, by Annette Marie.

Taming Demons for Beginners is the first book in The Guild Codex: Demonized Series.

Trigger Warnings: Blood, Blood mention, Attempted Murder, Torture, Starvation mention, Abuse mention, Dead parents mention.

Rule one: Don’t look at the demon.

When I arrived at my uncle’s house, I expected my relatives to be like me—outcast sorcerers who don’t practice magic. I was right about the sorcery, but wrong about everything else.

Rule two: Don’t listen to the demon.

My uncle chose a far deadlier power. He calls creatures of darkness into our world, binds them into service contracts, and sells them to the highest bidder. And I’m supposed to act like I don’t know how illegal and dangerous it is.

Rule three: Don’t talk to the demon.

All I had to do was keep my nose out of it. Pretend I didn’t find the summoning circle in the basement. Pretend I didn’t notice the shadowy being trapped inside it. Pretend I didn’t break the rules.

But I did, and now it’s too late.

—
From the author of The Guild Codex: Spellbound comes a new series that will plunge an unprepared young woman into the darkest magic of the mythic world.

—
THE GUILD CODEX: DEMONIZED
Taming Demons for Beginners (#1)
Slaying Monsters for the Feeble (#2)

Taming Demons for Beginners is a New Adult Epic Urban Fantasy.

I genuinely

Breaker, by Harloe Rae | Book Review

Hello, friends! Today I’m reviewing

Breaker, by Harloe Rae.

TW; Stalking, Wrongful imprisonment, Death of a Parent, Drug & abuse mention, Drug Addiction (a character’s mom).

​“Tell me a happy something, Sutton.”

I was only seven the first time Grady Bowen whispered those words to me. Cloaked by the black sky under a blanket of stars, it was easy to get lost. He didn’t have any good memories of his own, and needed to borrow mine. I’d willingly give him anything.

Being infatuated with that boy was a beautiful curse. What could have been special didn’t get the chance to bloom. He’d never see me as more than his best friend’s kid sister. That was a hard lesson to learn, but not the most difficult.

Grady had always been struggling against the odds. Eventually he quit fighting and let his family’s reputation own him. Try as I might, those influences were beyond my reach.

He didn’t mean to break my heart. Or maybe he did. I shouldn’t have made it so easy for him. Either way, our wrongs against each other carved new lines between us.

I went four years without seeing Grady—each one more painful than the last. That distance did nothing to dull my feelings toward him. But things are different now. Most noticeably is Grady. I barely recognize this man he’s become. And that’s the way he intends to keep it. Not that it really matters.

Grady Bowen stopped being my happy something long ago.

✔️Older brother’s best friend
✔️Small town, country romance
✔️Broody, broken hero
✔️Sweet, genuine heroine
✔️Gut-wrenching feels
✔️Total standalone

I’m totally up for reading more Harloe Rae books. Yet Breaker was an absolute miss for me. I didn’t really like it at all, and I stuck out until the end.

What I didn’t like about it was that it was 100% predictable, and while there were sweet part, even sexy, steamy, parts to the story…..I didn’t enjoy the story overall.

A big part of the story that I didn’t enjoy was actually the characters themselves.

Grady……well, if Grady wasn’t so gruff and kept LITERALLY EVERYTHING close to his chest (mostly his anger) he would’ve been more interesting.

I genuinely didn’t like Sutton either. There were moments where both Grady and Sutton were okay on their own, and sometimes together too. Actually, these two were better together than they were apart from one another.

This review is soooo messy and that’s because I literally cannot with Breaker. I didn’t like it, I didn’t like the antagonist in this story — a literal proven, tested, psychopath —  with his sick, stalker fantasies towards Sutton.

So, to wrap up my thoughts on Breaker: I absolutely did not like it.

I give Breaker, 1 star.

Have you read Breaker, or anything else written by Harloe Rae? What were your thoughts on what you read? 

Thank you for stopping by!

See you soon, and Happy Reading!
Adele

Red, White & Royal Blue, by Casey McQuiston

Hello friends! Today I have my book review of

Red, White & Royal Blue, by Casey McQuiston. 

Trigger Warnings: Sex, Racism, Forced Outing, Swearing, Depression, Anxiety Attacks, Death mention, Drug Abuse mention, Alcohol use, Homophobia.

What happens when America’s First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales?

When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius—his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There’s only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse.

Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals. What at first begins as a fake, Instragramable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations and begs the question: Can love save the world after all? Where do we find the courage, and the power, to be the people we are meant to be? And how can we learn to let our true colors shine through?

Casey McQuiston’s Red, White & Royal Blue proves: true love isn’t always diplomatic.

Here’s the thing: I didn’t plan on reading Red, White & Royal Blue, but I did. And I didn’t plan on reviewing Red, White & Royal Blue, either. But I have. I was happy to not have to review another book. Less work for me! #lazy #dontforgettotakebreaks

But here I am, with an informal book review. This “book review” will only have my lasting impressions on the book since I wrote little to no notes.

Enjoy!

Magic Trials, by Meg Xuemei X | Book Review

Hello friends! Today I have my book review of

Magic Trials, by Meg Xuemei X.

Magic Trials is the first book in the Half-Blood Academy trilogy. 

Trigger Warning: Gun mention, Gun use, Fighting, Blood, Blood mention, Sex scenes.

The demigods can’t decide if they want to screw me or kill me!

My name is Marigold. I’m a hunter living in the Great Merge – Lucifer has brought Hell to half of Earth, and four demigods rule the other half…

The smoking-hot Demigod of War, round up my team to enroll them in Half-blood Academy, aka Half-death Academy; due to the survival rate of the students….

When he sees me, he wants no one else but me. So he offers to spare my team if I go in their place. Problem is, no human outside the bloodline of the gods can survive the magic trials. The demigod insists I’m anything but human, and he’s willing to risk my life to find out what I’m made of…

I’m not the weakest link, even though all the bullies in the Academy mock me. I’m nothing anyone has ever seen before, and when my forbidden power awakens, the demigods will regret they ever tried to make me their bitch!

From GoodReads [x]:

“REVERSE HAREM” IS, LITERALLY, THE OPPOSITE OF “HAREM”, WITH A GROUP OF MALES CENTERING ROUND A SINGULAR FEMALE, USUALLY WITH THREE OR MORE MALES. QUITE OFTEN FOUND UNDER THE ROMANCE GENRE.

This first Half-Blood Academy book is so completely action packed. If you didn’t know, I’m a huge fan of when there are fighting sequences/scenes in novels.

The Five Brothers Next Door, by Nikki Chase | Book Review

Hello friends! Today I have my book review of

The Five Brothers Next Door, by Nikki Chase.

Trigger/Content Warnings: Verbal Abuse, Toxic Parent-Child Relationship, Harassment, Stalking, Sex Scenes.

The Hunter brothers are back in town, and all five of them have got their eyes on one lucky girl.

I’ve always had a crush on the boys next door. I used to peek from my bedroom window when they were playing in their backyard. I didn’t even care that they never looked my way.

Now that we’re all grown up and they’re home for a visit, something’s different. The way they stare at me sends a thrill down my spine. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say they’re checking me out and they like what they see.

But that’s insane, right? There’s no way the five gorgeous brothers are into me.

I try to forget about them, but we keep running into one another in this small town. One night, the Hunter brothers even save me from my harassing ex.

I’m in trouble. It’s getting harder and harder to ignore the wicked glint in their eyes, or the way they linger when we touch . . .

When they whisper in my ears, telling me all the naughty things they want to do to me, I can’t deny it any longer. I want them, too. All five of them.

It’s wrong. Oh, so wrong.

But five alpha, protective, hot-as-sin men? What chance do I have of resisting the Hunter brothers?

From GoodReads [x]:

“REVERSE HAREM” IS, LITERALLY, THE OPPOSITE OF “HAREM”, WITH A GROUP OF MALES CENTERING ROUND A SINGULAR FEMALE, USUALLY WITH THREE OR MORE MALES. QUITE OFTEN FOUND UNDER THE ROMANCE GENRE.

From reading the synopsis of The Five Brothers Next Door (I actually read a synopsis LOL), I could easily tell that this one was going to be a doozy. I also knew that Ava’s ex was going to be a huge problem, and I wasn’t wrong about that.

Bone Witch, by D.N. Hoxa | Book Review

Hello lovelies! Today I have my book review of

Bone Witch, by D.N. Hoxa.

Bone Witch is the first book in the Winter Wayne series.

Trigger Warnings: Attempted Murder, Murder mention, Murder, Blood mention, Blood, Gun Use.

My name is Winter Wayne, and I’m a Bone witch—minus the magic.

I used to work in the only place in Manhattan that had use for a witch like me, until my boss kicked me out over a job gone bad (not my fault, I swear).

Pure boredom and the lack of company got to my head fast. I was so desperate, I took a delivery job from a complete stranger. It was supposed to be an easy job, clean and simple. It was anything but.

Now, there’s a price on my head and my own coworkers are hunting me down. My mad fighting skills alone aren’t going to be enough to keep me alive. Looks like the time has come to dig out my mother’s bones and complete the ritual that will finally ignite the magic in my bones—if I even make it that far.

She never wanted me to be part of the Paranormal world, but she made sure I was prepared for it anyway. I’m finally about to find out why.

**No cliffhanger

Bone Witch isn’t a reverse harem! That’s the first in a while, hey? *evil cackle*

Winter’s Guardian, by G. Bailey | Book Review

Hello friends! Today I have my review of Winter’s Guardian by G. Bailey.

Winter’s Guardian is the first book in Her Guardian series.

Trigger / Content Warning: Sex Scenes, Violence.

When Winter started university with her best friend Alex, she didn’t expect to find herself in the middle of a supernatural war. Who knew saving a stray wolf could earn you the alliance of the pack.
To make things more complicated, the broody and very attractive Jaxson is tasked with keeping her safe from the growing vampire threat in town. It’s a shame he can’t stand her and enjoys irritating the hell out of her.
When she finds out her new boyfriend has his own secrets, can she trust anyone anymore?
What happens when you get yourself stuck in the middle of a war?
This is a reverse harem book series.
17+ readers only

From GoodReads [x]:

“REVERSE HAREM” IS, LITERALLY, THE OPPOSITE OF “HAREM”, WITH A GROUP OF MALES CENTERING ROUND A SINGULAR FEMALE, USUALLY WITH THREE OR MORE MALES. QUITE OFTEN FOUND UNDER THE ROMANCE GENRE.