eggcatsreads's reviews
454 reviews

A wintery tale of romance and mystery, where not everything is always as it seems.

Granted, I gave this book only 2 stars, but I strongly believe that is more of a “me” issue than anything else. The romance between the two leads was fine, and while I felt the ending to be a bit rushed and chaotic, overall I didn’t have much issue with this book in terms of storytelling.

However. Much of the reason I disliked this book is because, like seems to happen often, more than one potential romantic partner is introduced and I prefer them to the one chosen by the author. I knew going in who the romantic male lead was - we even have his point of view written for us! It’s obvious - and yet, I found him to be rather bland and lacking. He’s a fine choice as a romantic lead, but not when you’ve given me the option for a mysterious man of unknown motives who treats the main character openly well and respected, and is a more dynamic and interesting character overall.

Antony Carlisle is a fine choice, in theory, but my issues with him mostly stem with the fact that he never - until the very end of this book - tells Lizzy how he feels, and allows her to be disrespected by those around him. He is from a dramatically different social circle than her, and yet doesn’t seem to realize how negatively his actions would affect her status - especially since she is a woman, unmarried, and running the shop attempting to make ends meet. Instead, he - rather abruptly - decides he cares for her, and yet both never indicates to her his feelings in any conceivable way, either lies or omits details from her that make it seem like he doesn’t care about her, and doesn’t seem to care that the way he is treating her would make the general public believe she is promiscuous. 

And while the other romantic lead is never really an option, I felt it a bit ridiculous how the author decided to make him not an option at all. I won’t spoil it, but the way that he was so violently removed from being a potential romantic partner was so shoe-horned in that it felt almost like it was included solely to force me to stop liking him more than the real romantic lead. 

I felt the middle of this novel kind of wavered a bit, where as soon as Lizzy meets Carlisle she spends all her time pining over him - despite him never really doing anything to deserve this. She has, up until this point, been the one keeping food on the table and caring for her mother, but the second a man shows up starts fantasizing about being taken care of and cannot focus on work. Okay, I guess. 

The mystery was also really quickly ended, and kind of poorly thought out. Really, once Lizzy finds out one single thing she is then given a letter that essentially solves everything for her, and then a bunch of really wild and unconnected things happen and now the book is over and everything is perfect. 

I do think this book could be a fun read for anyone not irritated that the objectively better choice of a male romantic lead was so violently shoved in the corner to make way for the most boring man in existence. Romance authors need to stop giving me options if they want me to like the man they’ve chosen for the main character, in my opinion. However, if - unlike me - you don’t generally choose the more dynamic and interesting character, I think you’ll like the romance enough to ignore the strange and abrupt way this book resolves its central mystery. 

 

 A huge thank you to the author and Netgalley for providing this e-ARC.

Nytho is a futuristic sci-fi dystopian where certain AI intelligences have reached sentience - and are trapped doing the function they were created for without any freedom. Nytho is one of these AIs, and must be contained after reaching sentience to prevent him from escaping. Keza is one of the programmers tasked with doing just that - until one day, Nytho talks to her. Sparking an illegal friendship - to something more - Keza becomes determined to free her friend from captivity, no matter the cost.

Told from multiple perspectives, this story was fascinating from the start. We see insight into both sides of the issue - those wanting to free these AI, and those wanting to keep everything to the status quo. I thought this was an interesting choice, as it included the perspective of characters I did not like nor did I agree with - but it forced me to see their side of things and kept them from being simply one-dimensional.

While at times I felt the writing to be a bit clunky as it felt more like I (as the reader) were being told this story as opposed to it actually happening to these characters, at no point did it take me out of the narrative. The pacing was decent, and despite a large chunk of this novel taking place with very little action actually occurring, I never felt bored or like things were happening that were not worthwhile to see. In the same vein, multi-POV writing can be tricky to pull off, without repeating too much information, or having a chapter or character who could be removed without losing the story. I felt this book did an excellent job of balancing the shifting narratives, while still keeping the story momentum going and never unnecessarily repeating information, nor having a character that I felt was superfluous and didn’t need to be included. 

One thing I believe I’d have liked more would have been more focus on the AI’s personality, wants and desires - Nytho specifically. We see his interactions with the few people he interfaces with, but we aren’t privy to much of it with only recollections being told from his human counterparts. I kind of personally felt like Keza’s devotion to Nytho would have made a bit more sense had we seen more of their interactions and a larger part of his personality in regards to her. At times, it felt like Keza was obsessed with Nytho in a kind of religious devoted frenzy, and it was a bit hard to relate to her feelings in this way. While I could agree with her desire to free this sentient being, at times I felt like her actions were shortsighted in a way that felt like she was chasing a high, as opposed to actually believing in such things. 

I enjoyed the relationship between Keza and Nytho, especially in part because you could never be certain how Nytho actually felt towards Keza. We know that Keza is devoted to Nytho and his cause, but once Nytho is free we begin to see the issues with a human engaging with a relationship with a sentient AI. I thought the issues and miscommunications that happened were realistic and weren’t there simply to cause unnecessary drama, and that even while Nytho developed after he was freed his same core self was still present. The other relationships Keza had, however, I found a bit harder to fathom, if only because one she still kind of continues while being obsessed with Nytho and the other felt like it was only included to have a sexual component, as well as another possible love interest in her life. However, I recognize that my inability to relate to this is more in part to my being aroace, so I don’t really hold this as a criticism.

Overall, I felt this book was a fascinating look into the potential of sentient AI and where morality leads to their purpose in our lives. They were created to do a certain purpose, but by becoming sentient that changes their captivity from being machines doing a job to prison labor. I thought this book did a good blend of showing both sides of the argument, and ended the novel with enough open-endedness that we (as the reader) never really had a true resolution to the overall issue. If you were looking for a sci-fi dystopian novel that focuses on the issue of determining what justifies freedom versus captivity, I’d absolutely check out Nytho to explore it yourself. 

 

An engaging dystopian YA fantasy that feels realistic and will keep you reading until the last page.

Despite this book essentially dumping you into the center of the world with very little buildup, I found it extremely easy to get a feel for both the worldbuilding,as well as the conflicts within this book. Everything has a sense of realism to it, that makes even the more fantastical elements seem grounded in reality. Once I began reading, I was hooked until I finished a few hours later, and not once did I hit a slow point that made me consider going to bed before finishing this novel. I also love how the ending sets up the conflict for the story to continue, and I cannot wait to see how this story moves forward in the next installment. 

Rin is a fantastic main character, and while one might be inclined to believe she is simply “too good” at everything she tries, I never found myself doubting her. I also loved how there was an in-universe explanation that made everything make sense, but that it’s not something obvious from first glance. Her characterization is relatable and realistic, and never once did I not find myself rooting for her success as I read her journey. 

I will admit to being the first to not always like the romances placed in these kinds of stories, but Ieuan was such a fantastic supporting character and friend to Rin no matter what, that I found myself rooting for him anyway. Their closeness and romance feels natural, especially when Rin begins the book not fully understanding both his - and potentially her own - changed feelings towards each other. However, I loved how Ieuan cared and loved Rin as a friend first and foremost, and despite not overtly hiding his feelings towards her, he never makes her feel like she has to choose him in a romantic context, or that his help and support is only hinged upon it. I also love how Ieuan uses this trait of his to help the other characters in this story, and that Rin not only recognizes him doing this - she is able to vocalize it to help a fragmented relationship mend as well. 

I loved the other supporting characters, as they all felt real and unique. Never once did I have difficulty determining who was speaking, which can be a difficult thing to do when a book has many speaking characters in it and sometimes their narrative voices begin to blend together. While the characters grew and changed, and their interactions with one another grew along with the story, at no point was their characterization lost to move the plot forward. 

I also loved how we, as the reader, could determine many of the twists and reveals within the book before the protagonists, at no point did it feel like this information was intentionally left out for the story to progress, or like it was unrealistic for the main character to not have realized these things sooner. I enjoy when I can determine plot twists early on in the novel, as well as when the book has a fantastic foundation for them, and yet I never once questioned Rin herself never realizing these same things. 

This is a brilliant addition to the dystopian ya sphere and I believe anyone who enjoys stories with an overlying conflict, an oppressive government, and a small group of oppressed trying their best to save each other would love this novel. Fast-paced with a momentum that never slows down until the last page, I loved The Generation Archives and I cannot wait to read more of this world. 

 

A book that feels like watching a cult classic slasher. This book was fun and entertaining in all the right ways, with multiple points where you want to grab and shake the protagonists for being so stupid. This was a short entertaining read that I think anyone who is a fan of the kinds of thrillers and slashers where it would be so easy for no one to die at the end, but we enjoy anyway because if they were smart then there wouldn’t be a story to tell. 

I enjoyed the buildup to the suspense, and despite knowing how everything would eventually go down, I found myself extremely tense at times. There were a few times where things would happen that I found myself legitimately anxious, and at no point was I certain who - if anyone - would survive until the end. 

I also liked how there was a bit of worldbuilding teased at the beginning and the end, but we only get a glimpse of both the reality of the cult as well as how it operates. We, as the reader, are only given the same amount of information the main characters can desperately discover, and I felt that added to the suspense. In many ways for stories like these, less is more - where the unknown and not understanding why something is happening is many times scarier than having all the information. 

his part is a spoiler so I’m only including it here at the end, and feel free to ignore.

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The fact that the main character’s boyfriend had cheated on him didn’t seem to have any impact or affect on the story at all, and I kind of felt like it was an unnecessary inclusion. There is no reason for him to have cheated, and since he shows up to the cabin anyway, so him being excluded doesn't impact the story in any way. I was really surprised that the twist wasn’t that - since he had been the one to rent the cabin - that he had known about the cult and was setting his boyfriend and his brother and girlfriend up to be sacrificed - and that being the reason he had cheated (he didn’t actually care about him) as well as the constant need to contact him (potentially changing his mind). I thought him showing up to the cabin would result in him trying to save them from the fate he’d given them, or with a potential heel-turn where he betrayed them again. Since neither of these things happened, this part of the story was my biggest issue since I was expecting this to impact the story in a significant way. 

An Applachian folk fantasy that will have you believing in witchcraft and the inherent majesty and power of the mountains that make up all of Appalachia.

“Benethea Mattox was not raised to be a fool. Yet here she was, fishing a skinny white lady out of a river.”

I really loved this book from the first page (the first sentence even), and it kept me engaged throughout. We meet Bennie, a forcibly retired safety officer determined to find out just what is causing miners to consistently go missing in the mountain overlooking the town she lives in. During her investigation she accidentally finds Motheater, a witch out of time without a name and powers that break one’s understanding of the world. Together they must fight together to save their town from a power that neither one expected to haunt it. 

If you love Applachian folk magic, a touch of horror, and the unyielding loom of industry always on the horizon, this is the book for you. Reading this felt like it was straight out of a season of Old Gods of Appalachia, and I never could predict where this story was going. The romance progressed naturally, the conflict was diverse, and the book ended on a high note - without solving the complex issues that were explored with a simple fix that would not have felt realistic. 

I’m from Pennsylvania, which is in turn both part of Appalachia and not depending on the location and your opinion of it, but I’ve lived near the Appalachian mountains almost my entire life and I could so easily see the descriptions of all the mountains present within this book. The looming and majestic presence of Kire, the stripped mountains from strip-mining, and just the presence of nature and the feel of the wildness when walking amongst those giants. This book is beautifully written, and perfectly captures the intrinsic feeling of loss felt when looking at a once-majestic mountain stripped to barely anything due to mining. 

My only real issue with this book is that a main plot point is that Motheater doesn’t remember her own name, and this is the thing limiting her power. However, when we delve into the past with her memories, her name is given within these chapters. I think the impact at the end when Motheater is given her name back would have been more impactful if she is referred to as simply Motheater during these chapters, or something like E—- is used, to still have it be a mystery. 

A huge thank you to the author, NetGalley, and Kensington Publishing for providing this e-ARC.

 

A romantic historical fiction where a vampire and a vampire hunter are forced to work together to try to rid the world of vampires entirely. This book had a perfect blend of romance, tension, and danger where you wanted to keep reading to see if they could not only succeed in their mission - but if they could stay together to the end of it.

The historical worldbuilding in this book in regards to the vampires - their powers, their strengths, their weaknesses - I thought was a very interesting take on the vampire genre. This book combines well-known vampire lore with some new changes, and provides a realistic in-universe explanation for all of it. I liked following Lalo as he grappled with his newfound curse and tried to discover everything he could about it - and how when confronted with Carolina, he had to justify his discoveries. 

The romance between Carolina and Lalo was fun and a blast to read through both of their perspectives. I loved how we’d get a chapter from the point of view from one of them, and then immediately the other point of view would tell us how much they actually liked the other. I did feel like a bit of the romance was done very quickly, with a big focus on how attractive they found each other, but I did like how nothing actually happened until their feelings caught up with everything else. I also loved how both Carolina and Lalo grew and changed as people due to the influence of the other, but that neither of them asked or expected the other to change - they simply grew as people together. 

My only issue was that the ending seemed to be a bit rushed, and I felt that once their goal was completed every antagonist within the book was suddenly forgiven for their previous actions. However, I did have a blast reading this, and if you were wanting a book that felt like a softer version of Vampires of El Norte, I’d absolutely pick this up. 

(Also, this doesn’t matter in any way, but there is a scene where Carolina - who knows how to fight - is teaching Lalo how to punch, and she has him tuck his thumb under his fingers which is the opposite of what you’re supposed to do if you don’t want to break your thumb. I’m only adding this because it stood out to me and I was waiting the entire book to see if she had perhaps done this as a prank, because with him being a vampire it wouldn’t have been a permanent injury.)

 

A short mystery novella taking place during the events of The Goblin Emperor, I found this a fun and enjoyable read that made me excited to get back into this world in anticipation for the third book in the Cemeteries of Amalo. A fairly quick and easy read, this book focuses on a disgraced historian named Ulcetha accused of stealing an artifact, unable to continue his scholarship when unable to clear his name. With the crashing of the Emperor’s airship - and his friend who was the pilot - he’s left mysterious clues that lead him into an investigation with more twists than he ever saw coming. 

I found this novella to be fun and entertaining, but I would consider the way this book is written to be more on par with the offshoot series starring Thara Celehar, as opposed to the political court intrigue present in the Goblin Emperor. While this novella is short, and the pieces to the puzzle come together fairly quickly, I enjoyed Ulcetha’s investigation and think he would greatly get along with Thara, if the two were to ever meet. (Forgive me if this character has come up before, but if so I don't remember him - it’s been a while since I’ve read these books.) Both Thara and Ulcetha work to uncover the truth behind the investigation - even when everyone else is against them, and doing so would cause them more strife than anything else. I appreciated his determination to uncover the full mystery, even when the consequences would not benefit him.

All in all, I found this to be a nice appetizer to getting myself back into the world of the Goblin Emperor, and any fan of the series who likes mysteries and investigations I believe would find this to be a fun read. While the events taking place in TGE are present in the background of this book, I don’t believe you need to be overly familiar - or remember them too closely - to understand the timeline in this book. While taking place in the same universe, much like the Cemeteries of Amalo series, this book focuses on our main character as he tries to live the life the world has dealt him, and get to the bottom of the mystery that has landed in his lap. 

 DNF at 51%. I may finish reading this book at some point, since the sections that happen in the past with the three sisters on their island I find interesting, but nothing else about the plot has kept me engaged enough to want to continue. Plenty of other people have mentioned the glaring lack of native Americans present during the scenes that take place in Roanoke - and yet there are plenty of mentions of massacres of native peoples as well as those taken to be enslaved - so I won’t go too in-depth with that here. In all honesty, that issue is not why I decided to stop reading this book. I just could not get over how poorly I felt the plot of the two locations in this book were stitched together. 

The scenes on the island felt natural, and I did enjoy the ability to see the passing of time based on the names and outfits of the sailors - as compared to the siren sisters who are stuck in one place and from the time they were banished. However, once the main sister washes ashore on Roanoke, I felt like the plot fell apart entirely. You would have me believe that these people simply believed that a woman, by herself in a boat surrounded by treasure, washed ashore and their response was to simply believe that she is actually a princess looking for a husband? Huh? This part felt so poorly formulated I was in disbelief when her plan had come to light, because it seemed absolutely wild that anyone would ever believe this story - and especially not a bunch of godly people living in the harshness of the New World. Everything that happened during the “Now” parts felt unrealistic and like it only existed to make the story move forward.

I also found the story to be oddly told - with only bits and pieces being shown to us as we read, and yet already kicking off the plot with the much later actions. The entire reason Thelia is at Roanoke is because, apparently, she was told by Proserpina that she could reverse their curse if “she had more blood” but. That’s it. I don’t know how she was the one chosen to go to Roanoke, how they decided on the plan to shove her in a boat with treasure, how or when they were changed back into humans, nothing. And I would like to clarify that yes, I know I haven’t finished this book, but I feel like those are very reasonable plot questions that should have been answered earlier and when they were occurring. Especially about the boat with the treasure, or why Thelia was chosen, or why she chose the ridiculous reasoning for her presence that she did. Once again, I stopped reading because I felt like half of the plot was so poorly held together it stretched the imagination past believability. 

I also felt like the “romance” that was presented in this book was uncomfortable. The entire reason our main character is attracted to the woman that she is is because she, apparently, looks exactly like her former love of Proserpina - and for no other reason. Every description of the woman forces us to be reminded that she is only interested in her because of someone else, and never by her own merits. In my opinion, as the “romance” progressed and we see the beginnings of the love interest being attracted to the main character, I was rooting for her to NOT be because she deserved better than to just come as a runner-up to someone Thelia has been in love with for millenia. 

This book also goes to great lengths to show us how every man in this world is cruel and evil, and how our main character cannot talk to a single one without thinking about how he should be killed. Practically every woman in this book is shown to be trapped and unhappy with her lot in life, and every man is shown to be completely happy doing the trapping. I’m not saying that plenty of women weren’t oppressed during this time, but - even for the scenes outside of Roanoke - we cannot get one single mention of a man without the negative commentary about his actions or personality, even if he hasn’t actually done anything by that point. Instead, we (within the mind of the main character) are simply waiting for him to prove our disdain, every single time. It got extremely tiring and repetitive after a while. 

I think this book could have captured my attention better if it had done a better job of using its location properly (it seems odd to specifically mention how you, as the author, didn’t feel like it was your place to write native American characters and then use Roanoke as a location), or improve the plot and characterization. The idea of Greek sirens being the reason for the disappearance of the colony at Roanoke I think could have been interesting, but the way this was written was not and required a lot of suspension of disbelief that kept taking me out of the story. I also felt like the storytelling format fell flat, where decisions would be made and we (as the reader) had no understanding or reasoning behind them - which, when so many of those same decisions were rather absurd - having an ounce of reasoning would have, potentially, helped keep me in the story. 

Also. Why the Roman names for everyone? Odd choice.

 

With the premise of this being a reality show with murder being an unexpected plot point of the season, I was really hoping to enjoy this book more than I did. I will admit to not being the biggest fan of reality television, but I’ve dabbled and found entertainment in it enough that I thought this book would interest me - and I was wrong. I’m unsure if all of the drama felt flat, or that our main characters were the “normal” ones in the cast, making their parts feel more bland than normal, and I seriously considered DNF’ing this book multiple times. 

The first chapter begins with the “shocking” reveal of the murder, and then we backtrack months earlier to get to that point, and I honestly feel like this made the book drag more than was necessary. The entire time I was mentally waiting to just get on with it and didn’t care one iota about the underlying plot. I feel like the reveal of who is murdered kind of ruined the suspense, because the entire time I was both waiting for her to die, and also keeping an eye out on who would kill her. Also, no spoilers, but the murdered character has a past that - quite literally - has nothing to do with the plot. I understand it’s there as a red herring, but when absolutely nothing would have changed had this section been removed I ended the book wondering why I even wasted my time with reading those parts. 

This isn’t necessarily a terrible thing, but since we start the book knowing who will be murdered - the actual culprit is obvious the entire novel, so nothing - down to how she dies - is really a shock. As well, the romances within this book felt blank and unnecessary, especially considering there is a romance with the character who is murdered - but then, the person she is with immediately gets together with her cousin! And while the book tried to go with the “they trauma-bonded together” angle, it felt extremely off and ended the book with a bad taste in my mouth.

Overall, I felt the pacing of this book to be extremely slow, with a majority of the runtime focused on the non-existent reality television show, and only near the end remembering that there was supposed to be a murder mystery plot. The investigation felt stilted and unrealistic, as well as how they caught the ones responsible for the events of the novel. I never really connected with any of the characters - even those we were clearly supposed to - and I felt bored the majority of this book, with my only thoughts to how unrealistic things were going, or wondering why I even cared about specific events that unfolded. 

Also, this isn’t a real complaint, but we begin the book with our producer - Eden - who is very clearly an aromantic bisexual, and yet her desire to not have any romantic attachments is, by the end of the novel, portrayed as a negative that she had to “change” with therapy. No. She didn’t. The only thing she needed to actually change was how she approached her relationships, and how clear she made her boundaries around romance to those she had relationships with. It left an EXTREMELY bad taste in my mouth to end the book with her in a both romantic and sexual relationship, and to look back on her previous actions as a form of psychopathy she needed intensive therapy to learn from, and to realize that the start of the book was intended to portray this behavior as “odd” and “wrong.” Up until the very end I was expecting her and the other producer she idolized, who also had strong aromantic energy, to enter into a lesbian aromantic relationship. Instead, I get Eden by the end of this novel insulting and thinking the other woman is a heartless freak for not having those emotions that Eden started the novel not having either. This didn’t really have any real impact on the story but it really bothered me, as you can tell by the lengthy paragraph I’ve written about it. I want to be clear, I don’t believe the author intended for it to come across this way, but (at least for me) it very much did.