Monday, March 24, 2025

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (March 24, 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...

After a nice Spring week, I woke up to snow-covered ground this morning. We're supposed to have a rain/snow mix until midnight. I'm watching the weather closely as I have my annual wellness visit with my doctor tomorrow and I have to drive to it. Duluth's many hills aren't much fun if the roads are snow-covered or icy. 

I did meet some friends for lunch on Wednesday which was nice. I don't see this group of friends very often and it's nice to catch up with them all. 

Otherwise, I've been reading and listening and watching baseball. I need to set aside the In Death audiobooks until I have rebuilt my reading cushion. I get really stressed out if I don't have a two-week cushion between my finishing a book and when the review needs to be posted.

Read Last Week
  • A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett (Review; April 1) -- Historical fantasy murder mystery. Great worldbuilding. My review will be posted on March 26.
  • The Wind Weaver by Julie Johnson (Review; April 8) -- Beginning of an epic fantasy series. Cliffhanger ending. My review will be posted on April 1.
  • A Proposal to Die For by Molly Harper (Review; April 8) -- Contemporary romantic suspense with lots of humor. My review will be posted on April 3.
  • Executive Order by Max Allan Collins (Audiobook; Mine since June 28, 2024) -- Near future political thriller that is the finale in a trilogy. My review will be posted on April 3.
  • Undone by Blake Pierce (Kindle; Mine since December 16, 2022) -- Thriller that begins a series. My review will be posted on April 5.
Currently
Next Week

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

Review:

Bought:
What was your week like?
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Saturday, March 22, 2025

Audiobook Review: Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros

Onyx Storm
Author: Rebecca Yarros
Narrator: Jasmin Walker & Justis Bolding
Series: The Empyrean (Book 3)
Publication: Entangled: Red Tower Books (January 21, 2025)
Length: 23 hours and 52 minutes

Description: After nearly eighteen months at Basgiath War College, Violet Sorrengail knows there’s no more time for lessons. No more time for uncertainty.

Because the battle has truly begun, and with enemies closing in from outside their walls and within their ranks, it’s impossible to know who to trust.

Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything.

They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find—the truth.

But a storm is coming...and not everyone can survive its wrath.

My Thoughts: The third book in the Empyrean series has Violet and her picked companions leaving the Basgiath War College to search for allies. a cure for Zaden, and for Andarna's lost kin. The enemy is getting ever closer, and all of her quests are urgent.

The story was packed with adventure and intense emotions. Now that Xaden has declared his love for Violet, she has no intention of allowing him to set her aside because he fears that he will become the enemy that they are all fighting. So, they travel outside of their continent to see if answers and allies can be found.

The story had excellent world building. The island kingdoms were fascinating. Secrets were revealed about Violet's past which her parents had kept from her. Andarna's kin are found but prove not to have the answers they need. 

Unfortunately, this volume also ends on a cliffhanger. And the next book isn't yet in sight!

I bought the Kindle version on its release date. I added the Audible copy February 13, 2025. You can buy your copy here.
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Friday, March 21, 2025

Friday Memes: Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros

 Happy Friday!


Book Beginnings is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader. She asks that the first sentence is posted along with the author and title of the book and the reader's initial thoughts on the sentence, the book, or anything else it inspires. 
Carrie at Reading Is My Superpower.org also provides a linky for sharing first lines and connecting with others. This meme asks that the chosen books be PG or marked as Mature if they are not. 

Beginning:
Where in Malek's name is he going? I hurry through the tunnels beneath the quadrant, trying to follow, but night is the ultimate shadow and Xaden blends seamlessly into the darkness. If it wasn't for our dragons' bond leading me in his general direction and he sporadic disappearance of mage lights, I'd never think that he's masked somewhere ahead of me.
Friday 56:
"I forgot." He slowly lets go of the headboard and sits back on his heels, gripping his thighs, then letting his hands fall at his sides. "I woke up and saw you sitting there, and it was the most natural thing in the world to reach for you, but I'm not natural anymore. F**k, I'm so sorry, Violet."
This week I am spotlighting Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros. Here's the description from Amazon:
After nearly eighteen months at Basgiath War College, Violet Sorrengail knows there’s no more time for lessons. No more time for uncertainty.

Because the battle has truly begun, and with enemies closing in from outside their walls and within their ranks, it’s impossible to know who to trust.

Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything.

They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find—the truth.

But a storm is coming...and not everyone can survive its wrath.
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Thursday, March 20, 2025

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.
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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.
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Wednesday, March 19, 2025

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.
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Tuesday, March 18, 2025

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.
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