Audiobook Review: Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

Iron Flame
Author: Rebecca Yarros
Narrator: Rebecca Soler & Teddy Hamilton
Series: Empyrean (Book 2)
Publication: Recorded Books (November 7, 2023)
Length: 28 hours and 16 minutes

Description: “The first year is when some of us lose our lives. The second year is when the rest of us lose our humanity." Xaden Riorson

Everyone expected Violet Sorrengail to die during her first year at Basgiath War College-Violet included. But Threshing was only the first impossible test meant to weed out the weak-willed, the unworthy, and the unlucky.

Now the real training begins, and Violet’s already wondering how she’ll get through. It’s not just that it’s grueling and maliciously brutal, or even that it’s designed to stretch the riders’ capacity for pain beyond endurance. It’s the new vice commandant, who’s made it his personal mission to teach Violet exactly how powerless she is–unless she betrays the man she loves.

Although Violet’s body might be weaker and frailer than everyone else’s, she still has her wits and a will of iron. And leadership is forgetting the most important lesson Basgiath has taught her: Dragon riders make their own rules.

But a determination to survive won’t be enough this year. Because Violet knows the real secret hidden for centuries at Basgiath War College and nothing, not even dragon fire, may be enough to save them in the end.

My Thoughts: Violet is entering her second year of training to become a rider. Xaden has graduated and been assigned to the front lines. They need to get together every week because their dragons are mated, but the powers the be are throwing every sort of roadblock in their way. They are also dealing with their relationship because Violet wants no secrets and Xaden has lots of secrets to keep both personally and in his role as leader of a revolution. Also, Violet isn't yet good at blocking mind readers from browsing in her brain.

The second year's highlight is teaching the students how to act if they are interrogated or tortured, and a new Vice Commandant has come to the school who's infamous for his techniques and the students who die under it. He is particularly eager to have Violet submit to his attentions. But, while Violet's body is fragile, her mind and will are not. 

Despite Xaden's disapproval, Violet has read her friends in on what is really going on in the kingdom which gives her more allies. She is especially grateful that her friend in the Scribes has agreed to help her find out more of the history of wardstones despite the knowledge being censored many years previously. 

When Xaden and Violet revolt and take half of the cadets to Xaden's home which is the center of the rebellion, they need to ally with griffin riders outside their kingdom if anyone is going to survive the incursions of the venin. But Xaden's one-time betrothed who is a griffin rider and the third in line to her kingdom isn't willing to let bygones be bygones and causes Violet some problems because of her mind gift. And Violet has her own problems with her gift. It's great to be able to throw lightning but it would be even better if she could aim. 

This was an action-packed episode filled with dragons, battles, friendship and love.

I bought a Kindle copy November 6, 2023. I bought the Audible version February 13, 2025. You can buy your copy here.

ARC Review: Breaking the Dark by Lisa Jewell

Breaking the Dark
Author: Lisa Jewell
Series: A Jessica Jones Marvel Crime Novel
Publication: Hyperion Avenue (July 2, 2024)

Description: In her most imaginative novel yet, #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell (None of This Is True) launches the Marvel Crime series of thriller books for adults with an original story starring the private detective Jessica Jones.

Meet Jessica Jones: Retired super hero, private investigator, loner. She tried her best to be a shiny spandex crimefighter, but that life only led to unspeakable trauma. Now she avoids that world altogether and works on surviving day-to-day in Hell’s Kitchen, New York.

The morning a distraught mother comes into her office, Jessica would prefer to nurse her hangover and try to forget last night’s poor choices. But something about Amber Randall’s story strikes a chord with her. Amber is adamant that something happened to her teenage twins while they were visiting their father in the UK. The twins don’t act like themselves, and they now have flawless skin, have lost their distinctive tics and habits, and keep talking about a girl named Belle. Amber insists her children have been replaced by something horrible, something “perfect.”

Traveling to a small village in the British countryside, Jessica meets the mysterious Belle, who lives a curiously isolated life in an old farmhouse with a strange woman who claims to be her guardian. Can this unworldly teenager really be responsible for the Randall twins’ new personas? Why does the strange little village of Barton Wallop seem to harbor dark energies and mysteries in its tight-knit community?

A mother’s intuition is never wrong. And Jessica knows that nothing in life is perfect—not these kids, not her on-again, off-again relationship with Luke Cage, and certainly not Jessica herself. But even as she tries to buy into the idea that better days are ahead, Jessica Jones has seen all too clearly that behind every promise of perfection trails a dark, dangerous shadow.

Breaking the Dark, the first book in the brand-new Marvel Crime series, introduces fans to a grittier, street-level side of the Marvel Universe, and will continue with original novels featuring fan-favorite characters like Luke Cage, written by S.A. Cosby, and Daredevil, written by Alex Segura. Marvel Crime novels build on one another but do not require in-depth familiarity with Marvel or the other books in the series.

My Thoughts: Jessica Jones has given up her life as a superhero. After unspeakable trauma, she's living in Hell's Kitchen, drinking too much and trying to make her living as a private investigator. She's also worried that she might be pregnant.

When a distraught mother comes to hire her to find out why the teenage twins she sent away to visit their father in England have come back changed. Now they are like zombies who have become perfect. 

Jessica takes the job and finds herself in a small English village that was once the site of a horrible tragedy. The twins' father is renovating a house built on the site of the tragedy. He has a mysterious new girlfriend. When Jessica tracks down the young girl who became the twins' friend while they were in England, she finds herself swept up into a situation where someone is trying to make her perfect goo. 

Interspersed with this main story are flashbacks to an immortal woman who falls in love with a serial killer obsessed with blood and a young woman who wants to gain fame and make her fortune by making an app that makes the user's all perfect too. 

I came into this story knowing nothing about the Marvel Universe and nothing about Jessica Jones or her backstory. I had questions after I began this one and consulted wikipedia for some answers. Anyone who already knows about the Universe will find that this story fits right into the canon and adds depth to Jessica's story.

I really enjoyed the book both for the science fictional aspects and the underlying question of what it means to be a mother and what being a mother can cost. 

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.

ARC Review: The Lady Sparks a Flame by Elizabeth Everett

The Lady Sparks a Flame
Author: Elizabeth Everett
Series: The Damsels of Discovery (Book 2)
Publication: Berkley (March 25, 2025)

Description: A Lady with a past. A man with ambition. A romance far from London society that might bridge their divides.

Lady Phoebe Hunt never anticipated returning from exile. A fatal choice drove her from England, but the death of her father—and the revelation of his debts—has brought her home. Once she settles her father’s estate, she will return to America, where she has reinvented herself. There’s no reason to remain, not even for one gravitationally challenged but deliciously tempting entrepreneur: Sam Fenley.

Samuel Fenley is all ambition. Rising from shop boy to wealthy investor, he’s left knocking on doors that open only for those with a title. Unless he buys the damned door itself—and the estate that goes with it. Sam offers to relieve Phoebe of her burdens, but is her crumbling mansion all Sam wants? Or is it the Lady herself?

When threats from Phoebe’s past spark new dangers, Sam and Phoebe discover that neither is what the other expected. Standing on the edge of disaster, the disgraced Ice Queen will have to decide if she wants to forge through life alone, or let an unlikely hero melt her heart.

My Thoughts: THE LADY SPARKS A FLAME was another engaging story set in England in 1845. Sam is part of the rising middle class and resentful of the glass ceiling that separated him from the aristocracy. Lady Phoebe Hunt is the abused and angry daughter of a Marquess. She also a scientist who invented an explosive that was used to kill a man.

Her friends sent her to United States in a sort of exile. She back in England to help her mother and sister close out her father's estate after his death. She plans to return to her life as a detective in the United States as soon as things are settled for her family.

The psychological issues had great impact on the romance in this one. Phoebe turned to cutting to relieve her pain as an abused child. She also turned to anger using her words to cut anyone who tried to get close to her. 

Sam is the product of a loving home and the brother to a number of sisters. He is also a stubborn man who won't let the woman he's fallen in love with manage to scare him away. 

This is one of a series of romances. We get a chance to catch up on some of the characters in earlier books in this one too. 

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.

Audiobook Review: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Fourth Wing
Author: Rebecca Yarros
Narrator: Rebecca Soler & Teddy Hamilton
Series: Empyrean (Book 1)
Publication: Recorded Book (May 2, 2023)
Length: 21 hours and 22 minutes

Description: Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from USA Today bestselling author Rebecca Yarros.

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away … because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom’s protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.

My Thoughts: Violet Sorrengail's life is changed when her mother who is a general in the army demands that she enter the Riders Quadrant instead of the Scribe Quadrant. Fragile since birth, Violet has been educated to be a scribe. Now, out of depth and with very little of the right training, Violet has to survive the brutal training to become a dragon rider. 

Luckily, Violet is very smart and has the written advice of her older brother Brennan who, along with his dragon, perished in the Tyrrish rebellion some five years earlier. Her older sister Mira who is also a dragon rider passed the book along to her to help her survive. 

Survival will be an issue. Not only are there not enough dragons willing to partner with all the candidates who are willing to kill to better their odds of securing a dragon, but the quadrant is also the home of the children of losers of the last rebellion who will do anything to kill the daughter of the general they blame for their parents' deaths. 

She should have a friend in the place. Her childhood friend Dain Aetos is a year ahead of her. But he is so busy trying to protect her and encourage her to flee to the Scribes Quadrant that he is stifling her growth. Then there is the wingleader, third year Xaden Riorson whose father led the revolt and who would really like her dead. Or would he?

I enjoyed the worldbuilding in this one. I thought it was a great adventure filled with romance and political intrigue. I liked the way Violet found a way to survive in a brutal environment. I also liked the way the mostly unlikely of romances between Xaden and Violet grew. I loved the dragons including the unprecedented two who lay claim to Violet.

Rebecca Soler and Teddy Hamilton did a great job narrating this one. I liked the way they built the suspense and depicted the difficult relationship between Violet and Xaden. I liked the two additional chapters retold from Xaden's point of view that ended this audiobook.

I bought and read the Kindle July 8, 2023. I added the Audible copy February 13, 2025. You can buy your copy here.

ARC Review: The Big Fix by Holly James

The Big Fix
Author: Holly James
Publication: Kensington (March 25, 2025)

Description: Katherine Center’s The Bodyguard meets The Fall Guy starring Ryan Gosling in a modern blend of screwball action and romantic attraction when a case of mistaken identity lands a college professor on the run with a mysterious—and dangerously hot—fixer . . .

When bookish Penny Collins reluctantly lets her sister drag her to an estate sale at a neighbor’s house, she’s hoping for a little diversion rummaging through dusty antiques. Instead, she ends up in a public squabble over candlesticks with the deceased owner’s nephew, Anthony—right before a dead body tumbles out of a closet.

Penny’s plan for the summer involved finalizing tenure at the university where she’s a computer sciences professor. Instead, she’s suddenly on the run with a man she barely knows, scaling walls, evading bullets, and accidentally stabbing henchmen. It seems the wrong people have got it in their heads that she’s Anthony’s girlfriend and, by association, in possession of something they desperately need—and will do anything to get.

As for Anthony, he has a top-secret occupation as a fixer, but a recent fix went dangerously awry, and now he and Penny are dodging both a ruthless billionaire and the FBI. And it’ll take all of Penny’s plentiful savvy and common sense, in addition to Anthony’s particular set of skills, to survive long enough for her to see the next semester . . .

My Thoughts: This romantic thriller finds Penny Collins on the run with Anthony Pierce after innocently attending a house sale and discovering a body in the closet. Penny's sister Libby had some matchmaking in mind. All Penny wants is to finish up all the requirements for tenure at the university where she teaches computer science.

When the erroneous news spreads that Penny is Anthony's new girlfriend, she finds herself on the run from people who want to use her in order to get Anthony to tell what happened to a billionaire's missing wife Portia. 

Portia has been Anthony's friend since childhood. He promised her brother that he's take care of her when her brother died. They had gone their separate ways with Portia reinventing herself in California and marrying a tech billionaire and Anthony becoming an Econ major at Penn before joining his uncle's firm. His uncle was a highly successful and somewhat shady fixer. 

Now, Portia is missing, and her billionaire husbands isn't willing to let her go. She knows too much about his shady dealings.

Penny and Anthony fall in love while trying to elude the bad guys and find a way for Portia to begin a new life. 

This was an entertaining story. The cover which looks to me to be cartoonish and promising a light read doesn't really do justice to the more serious nature of the story inside. While there are some lighter moments, the book is more thriller than romance. 

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (March 17, 2025)

It's Monday, What Are You Reading? is now hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date.

It’s Monday!  What Are You Reading is where we gather to share what we have read this past week and what we plan to read this week.  It is a great way to network with other bloggers, see some wonderful blogs, and put new titles on your reading list.

Want to See What I Added to My Stack? links to Stacking the Shelves hosted by Marlene at Reading Reality.

Other Than Reading...

This week has been a temperature roller coaster. We hit a record-breaking high of 62F on Monday and currently it is 20F as I'm writing this on Sunday. We also had a third of an inch of rain on Saturday which is much better than the snow which had been predicted. Most of the ground is bare. The only remaining snow is resting in shady areas and where the snowplow deposited it. This works for me since I have a lunch out with friends on Wednesday and would prefer to drive on snow-free streets. There is, however, a slight chance of snow on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week but the high temperatures those days should be in the 40s which will mean none of the snow will stick. 

We had our taxes done last Monday and by the end of the week both my State and Federal tax refunds were in my bank accounts. It is nice to have that done for the year. Then the property tax bill arrived... Oh, well, the money isn't due until May 15 so I can luxuriate in my relative wealth until I have to write that check. 

As far as my reading goes, I have been spending a lot of time in Eve Dallas's world. The books I listened to this week are sort of a dark part of the series as Eve is dealing with more and more nightmares as she finally recalls the parts of her childhood that she has repressed. She and Roarke are also learning more about each other which sometimes results in major, heartbreaking fights. I decided to give the series a bit of a rest and listen to some of the audiobooks that are on my April calendar. 

I've been sort of skipping around in my Review books too. I have been reading A Drop of Corruption for a while since it is a dense fantasy mystery that I can only read in small chunks at a time. I have been interspersing some cozies to cleanse my palate and skipping the next fantasy on my review stack until I've finished A Drop of Corruption. I have a couple of my own books on the stack for next week and am still debating if I want to read or listen to Undone by Blake Pierce. I do have 5 Audible credits but like to spend them on books I plan to listen to more than once and I'm not sure Undone qualifies.

We have all the ingredients for Corned Beef and Cabbage to celebrate St. Patrick's Day this week, but our feast will be on Tuesday not Monday since Bill works on Monday and our housecleaner is coming that day too. Meals other than Tuesday are still undecided. Today looks to be Chinese take-out and homemade fried rice since the take-out is in the refrigerator already. 

Read Last Week

• Purity in Death by J. D. Robb (Audiobook reread)
• Written in Stone by Paige Shelton (Review; April 1) -- Tenth book in the Scottish Bookshop Mystery series. My review will be posted on March 27.
• Portrait in Death by J. D. Robb (Audiobook reread)

• Imitation in Death by J. D. Robb (Audiobook reread)
• Divided in Death by J. D. Robb (Audiobook reread)
• Murder at Gulls Nest by Jess Kidd (Review; April 8) -- First in a new series starring a former nun. Set in 1954. My review will be posted on April 2.

Currently

• A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett (Review; April 1)
• Executive Order by Max Allan Collins (Audiobook; Mine since June 28, 2024)

Next Week

• The Wind Weaver by Julie Johnson (Review; April 8)
• A Proposal to Die For by Molly Harper (Review; April 8)
• Undone by Blake Pierce (Mine since December 16, 2022)

• One Death at a Time by Abbi Waxman (Review; April 15)
• Carry On by Rainbow Rowell (Audiobook; Mine since July 5, 2021)
• Death Sits Down to Dinner by Tessa Arlen (Mine since December 31, 2024)

Reviews Posted

• The Summer Guests by Tess Gerritsen (Review Copy)
• The Library Game by Gigi Pandian (Review Copy)
• Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite (Review Copy)

• A Map to Paradise by Susan Meissner (Review Copy)
• The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths (Audiobook)
• Twice as Dead by Harry Turtledove (Review copy)

Want to See What I Added to My Stack Last Week?

Review:

• Dead of Summer by Jessa Maxwell (Review; July 22)
• Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes by Sandra Jackson-Opoku (Review; July 29)
• Death at an Irish Village by Ellie Brannigan (Review; August 26)

• Beyond Her Reach by Melinda Leigh (Review; September 16)
• Murder at Blackwood Inn by Penny Warner (Review; September 23)
• Murder on a Scottish Train by Lucy Connelly (Review; October 14)

Bought:

• Victorian San Francisco Mysteries by M. Louisa Locke (Chrip Audiobook, $.99)

What was your week like?

Audiobook Review: The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths

The Stranger Diaries
Author: Elly Griffiths
Narrator(s): Andrew Wincott, Esther Wane, Sarah Feathers, and 2 more
Series: Harbinder Kaur (Book 1)
Publication: Recorded Books (March 5, 2019)
Length: 10 hours and 32 minutes

Description: Death lies between the lines when the events of a dark story start coming true in this haunting modern Gothic mystery, perfect for fans of Magpie Murders and The Lake House.

Clare Cassidy is no stranger to murder. A high school teacher specializing in the Gothic writer R. M. Holland, she even teaches a course on him. But when one of Clare’s colleagues is found dead, with a line from Holland’s iconic story “The Stranger” left by her body, Clare is horrified to see her life collide with her favorite literature.

The police suspect the killer is someone Clare knows. Unsure whom to trust, she turns to her diary, the only outlet for her suspicions and fears. Then one day she notices something odd. Writing that isn't hers, left on the page of an old diary:

Hallo Clare. You don’t know me.

Clare becomes more certain than ever: “The Stranger” has come to terrifying life. But can the ending be rewritten in time?

My Thoughts: This was an excellent modern Gothic thriller. Framed around a creepy story by Victorian writer R. M. Hubbard, English teacher Clare Cassidy, her daughter Georgia, and Detective Inspector Harbinder Kaur find themselves trying to track down a killer before the killer completes his horrible agenda.

Clare is disturbed to learn that a fellow English teacher has been murdered in her home and a quotation from R. M. Hubbard is left by the body. When the police come to talk to her, she is reluctant to share what happened at a workshop/conference they both attended the past summer. She doesn't want to spread gossip. 

Clare has enough to deal with in her life with a fifteen-year-old daughter who is dating a twenty-one-year-old "older man." She has also been working on a book about Hubbard along with her duties as a teacher which have grown exponentially since her colleague's murder. 

Meanwhile, Georgia is keeping a whole secret life from her mother. She is a talented young writer who is taking classes at a local college while feigning disinterest in her current schooling and complete lack of interest in her future education. 

Harbinder Kaur is a Hindi, gay police inspector who has mentioned her sexuality to her parents yet. Nor is she interested in revisiting her past as a student at the school where Clare currently teaches or her own past encounter with the tutor who is coaching Georgia.

Kaur is certain that the killer is someone close to Clare. She becomes even more certain when Clare discovers that someone has been adding comments to her private diary. 

I enjoyed that the story was woven between the three main characters. I was also more than a little creeped out by the male narrator of R. M. Hubbard's famous short story which begins and ends this book.

I bought the Kindle January 2, 2025, and added the Audible Plus copy. You can buy your copy here.