I picked up an ARC of Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen at Book Expo many years ago and then just didn’t get around to reading it, despite it being totally up my alley. Then a few weeks ago I was in the mood to immerse myself in a good book, and it called toRead more
Queen of the Darkness is the concluding volume of the Black Jewels Trilogy by Anne Bishop. In the previous books, we see a matriarchal society that has become twisted and dysfunctional, where the leaders abuse their power, harm those in their care, and poison the very fabric of society. It’s a very clear parallel andRead more
I received a review copy of The Curiosities waaaaay back in 2012, when I first was getting into book blogging and went through that phase when advanced reader copies were still a novelty and I acquired a lot of them and only to have to come to terms with the fact that I are humanRead more
Eidolon is the second book in Grace Draven’s Wraith Kings series. Radiance was a great example of the monster romance genre, and I enjoyed it tremendously. Eidolon focuses on the same characters, the human Ildiko and her Kai husband Brishen. In Radiance, it’s established that Brishen’s mother is evil, and that she’s maintained her youthfulRead more
Since the next of the Four Horsemen books hasn’t come out yet, my monster romance book club decided to try another new-to-us author. And I’m so glad that we did! Our goal was to find a monster romance book (sci-fi or fantasy) where the monster is a little bit more of a monster and notRead more
Note: this post will contain some minor plot spoilers for Daughter of the Blood, because it’s hard to talk about book two in this particular series without giving away the ending of the previous book. Throughout Daughter of the Blood, we followed the story of Jaenelle, a child who was born with inconceivable magical power.Read more
Daughter of the Blood is a dark fantasy novel by Anne Bishop. And I do mean dark. I started reading this book around a decade ago. There were things I loved about it, but I was also deeply uncomfortable with some of the more graphic violence, including sexual violence. But sometimes books that don’t workRead more
Cottonwood by R. Lee Smith is another slow burn monster/human romance. Aliens came to earth and were quickly separated from humans. The protagonist, Sarah Fowler, has just accepted a new job as a social worker with the organization in charge of resettling and integrating the bug-like aliens. But “resettling” and “integrating” are loaded terms, andRead more
A couple months ago at the end of Dungeons & Dragons night, one of my friends put forth a proposition. She had read a review online about some kind of eldritch erotica book, and she said she’d buy it if we’d read it too. Eldritch erotica sounded like the most bizarre subgenre I’d ever heardRead more
Next up on my stack of pulpy vintage trash… Sorcerer’s Legacy by Janny Wurts. The basic premise is this: a woman named Elienne has sex with her husband. She’s pregnant, but doesn’t know it yet. The next morning, an invading army kills her husband, and Elienne is captured and thrown into a cell. She’s then visited byRead more