I am freaking floored! Mind blown - every emotion wrung out of me. When I tell you to be on the look out for this author - trust. I can't believe thi I am freaking floored! Mind blown - every emotion wrung out of me. When I tell you to be on the look out for this author - trust. I can't believe this is her debut novel.
4.5 Stars
This book goes on the shelf of books that own me, not me owning it. I'm screaming and dying inside because book two is nowhere in sight at the moment and I'm going to want to claw the walls down until there's a glimmer in sight, until I see her working on it, until there's a coverless edition on Goodreads.
╰┈➤ Abigail Ehrhardt- you have taken my breath away!
Alright besties, for those that know me well enough - or see my updates and reviews in their feed often enough. You know I'm picky AF. Just in general with books. But with fantasy, I mean, I'm super picky. This story enveloped and consumed me from the inside out. I'm honestly sitting here looking at my dog, like she doesn't even know what I just went through! Whew.
✨ Kingdom of Masks and Mourning is devastatingly beautiful story about grief, loss, and the epic power of a found family. ✨
Analia, our FMC, princess and heir to the Ash Kingdom finds herself tasked with discovering the truth of her uncle's sudden and untimely death. An uncle who is more like a father to her in a kingdom where she has not been treated too kindly.
Joining a marriage treaty with the neighboring Kingdom of Sun in order to gain access to the answers she needs to put the puzzle of her uncle's death together. A timid and deemed unworthy heir from her own Kingdom, Analia finds herself surrounded by Royals that she doesn't know and not sure who she can trust.
With the help from her new found friends - Aaron a guard who is tasked with her protection and Dimitri, a servant, bastard son of the Sun King. They start to piece together the mystery.
Besties - I really can't give too much away about the plot, but let me tell you. I was scrolling through one of my book groups last week and someone had recommended this book . I read the synopsis, thought it sounded interesting and just took a leap. I'm so freaking glad I did!
From the first page, I knew this was going to be a banger! And Abigail did not disappoint!
╰┈➤ THIS BOOK IS PURE MAGIC! It's enchanting, mesmerizing, heart-pounding, exhilarating, sanguine, harrowing and addictive. Pure freaking magic!
˚₊ · »-♡→ I'm in love with the characters - omg Dimitri is the best! Grumpy, sarcastic, hilarious best friend.
˚₊ · »-♡→ And Aaron- whew, chef's kiss. I love him.
˚₊ · »-♡→ I adore Analia - I wanted her to have this spine of steel almost immediately, I was enraged for her, hurt for her. I wanted her to root her enemies out and destroy them!
The magic system is so mf fantastic! I love love love it!
As far as the romance goes, don't expect too much of that in this first installment. No spice to offer in this one either, the author is going to torture us with an epically slow burn. But I'm telling you, I was bursting with anticipation...I'm still freaking bursting - it's so worth it.
I highly recommend for all my fantasy and romantasy besties... come join me on the dark side so we can scream in absolute wicked delight over how freaking fantastic this book is.
Edit to add - There are 5 more books coming in this series! ...more
5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in loveeeee stars!
“But it takes a good friendship to establish a solid foundation. I don’t want to only be 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in loveeeee stars!
“But it takes a good friendship to establish a solid foundation. I don’t want to only be your lover. I want to be your person. The one you go to first. The one you think of when you wake up. The one … just the one.”
Omg. I swear, I want to crawl into the pages of this book and live within the story!! ...more
"He took another drag from the blunt as her fingers skated down, running lightly over his cheek and down to his mo5 Heartachingly Beautiful Stars!!
"He took another drag from the blunt as her fingers skated down, running lightly over his cheek and down to his mouth. The dark tips of her nails traveled the shape of his upper lip, curving with it, and in another version of this precise moment, he said, Regan, come closer, let's see what happens, let's see how the stars shine on your skin."
Where do I even start?
Tattoo this book on my body, inject it into my veins!
You know that feeling when you can feel emotion stirring in your chest and it just seems to bubble up your throat to the point you audibly gasp and that raw emotion just steals the tears from your eyes? Just me? Okay, well I got that feeling so often during this book- it held me captive for the entirety of it's 288 beautifully poetic pages.
This book has captivated and held me hostage in a way that no other romance or even general fiction novel has before. It's beautiful, literary, philosophical, and magical without being fantastical yet also romantic, and intimate. It's like baring a part of your soul to another, so that they can crawl inside and live there. Make a home there, in your mind and soul. The affinity that comes with a conversation with someone who doesn't just simply listen to what you're saying but with someone who engages with what you're saying no matter how little they understand- simply because they find you interesting.
It channels the feeling of letting someone into your space, of letting someone see you- and not the you that you let the rest of the world see on a day to day basis but the you without makeup, without the facade used to protect yourself from complete vulnerability - to let them see the real, raw and uncut you. Because they not only see you, they see through you.
One of the most beautiful romance novels I've read in a long time - It is truly underrated and I can't even understand that? I want to scream from the rooftops what an amazing book it is- I wish everyone would read it. I was moved to think deeply about love, life, time, art- astonishingly enough math lol just not on as deep of a level.
Told in third person with alternating points of view, we follow two characters in this story-
╰┈➤ Charlotte Regan aka Regan, who has mental health issues, has a court-ordered psychiatrist, and has been arrested for counterfeiting art. Regan is a curious and complex woman, a compulsive liar and has plenty of issues with family - specifically her mother.
╰┈➤ Rinaldo Damiani aka Aldo, is a pot-smoking, leather jacket wearing, motorcycle riding doctoral student of theoretical mathematics who has an incredibly low rating on ratemyprofessor.com. He's anti-social, clinically depressed and OCD.
I love that the point of views alternate between our two characters, they play so well off of each other- in the way that with only Regan's POV , Aldo would come across boring and bland. And without Aldo's POV, Reagan would come across as manic, unpredictable and extremely unstable.
This book is very cerebral and neurotic in a way that I find so appealing-almost abstract at times. Based on the two characters you would imagine that they would be one big hot mess but they aren't - they simply just complete the other. It starts off intimate, in a way where it's just all the little things you notice when you , well notice someone, when you find yourself intrigued by them- their scars, the way their hair falls, the quirk of their smile. These things that you just want to collect and bottle up to savor forever. Tumbling together towards a more candid form of romance.
"If this is what it is to burn, he thought, then I will be worth more as scattered ash than any of my unscathed pieces."
"I want you to say everything, anything. I want to have your thoughts, I want to bottle them, I want to put them in my drawer for safekeeping."
What is Alone With You In The Ether if not a collision of forces? A meeting between two people who get to connect and grow to understand each other on a deep level. It almost feels like a fated meeting if either of them believed in such a thing. This is something Regan touches on in the first pages of the book, in her hypothesis about her and Aldo meeting. Later on in the book, Aldo even says that he’s toyed with the idea of the multiverse and essentially says that he’d rather there be one universe, a universe where they meet, one Aldo and one Regan, not multiple possibilities, or multiple versions of themselves.
Honestly, I could go on forever about this book. It's amazing, it's art, it's life, it's love, it's vulnerability, it's profound and thought provoking. Olivie Blake doesn't traditionally write linear stories from my experience so if you need something with absolute structure she might not be for you, but if you love a Jackson Pollock of an author who can give Shakespeare a run for his money it's an absolute must to read this book.
╰┈➤To quote Lei, another reviewer "Olivie Blake could do Romeo and Juliet but Shakespeare couldn't do Alone With You in the Ether"- Realer words have never been spoken.
I really could have highlighted this book in it's entirety because there are so many beautiful scenes and quotes but here's some of my top favorites in addition the the ones above :
The sentence rung with familiarity. Regan wasn't sure how to identify what specifically had struck her as relatable, but she felt certain that whatever mental space Aldo had just occupied, she had been there before herself.
They both paused, sipping from their respective thoughts. "I like it," he said. "What?" He loosened the wine from his lips. "Your brain."
Three conversations, Regan marveled, and she already understood that was the highest compliment in Rinaldo Damiani's arsenal. Clearly he was onto something with his rule of sixes.
˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗
"So within those parameters, some people are exponential functions, but still largely predictable. Regan" Charlotte, he reminded himself too late, but dismissed it as a forgone error- "isn't just difficult, she's convoluted. She's contradictory- honest even when she lies," he offered as an example, "and rarely the same version twice. She's confounding, really intricate. Infinite." That was the word, he thought, clinging to it once he found it. "She'd have to be measured infinitely in order to be calculated, which no one could ever do."
˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗
He could feel it again, the buzzing she'd come into the room with vibrating there in that empty space, now occupied by the tremors of possibility. She could fill it with herself, she could shove him away, she could pull him closer. She could pry apart his ribs and leave him there, gutted, doe-eyes wide with, I didn't think it'd be so wet.
He waited there, in the gruesome image of himself spilling crimson over her hands, seeping into the beds of her narrow fingernails and forever staining the sheets and the floors - and, if he were lucky, her conscience-when she matched the distance towards him that he'd already undertake towards her. He could smell her hair, her skin, her lack of hesitation. The other half of her truths was a lie.
˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗
"These keys of mine," she said. "If you could have one of them." It was an implied question: If you could open only one part of me for your consumption, for your delectation, for the whims of your carnivorous mind, which part would you wish to see?
˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗
How mundane, Regan thought disdainfully. How small your concerns. How very little the scope of your understanding. "And why don't you?" "Because I'm painting." It's obvious, don't you see it, can't you hear it? His name is written on my skin, he scarred me, I've changed my entire shape for having fit within the enormity of his thoughts, and now the only words I know are lines and color.
˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗
She didn't feel whole with Aldo inside her. Instead, she felt splintered; like she became, in his hands, an infinite number of pieces, an entire infinity herself. Like she and eternity and omnipotence were the same, or like omniscience could be equated to the sound of his ragged breath in her ear. She wanted him to mess her up, deplete her, to deliver her to something lesser, something baser. Something less inclined to rational thought, and instead diminished only to sensations.
˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗
“Can you love my brain even when it is small? When it is malevolent? When it is violent? Can you love it even when it does not love me?”...more
**spoiler alert** So Josh is a real villain asshole in this one. I wasn’t a fan of him in The Words but he’s really straight up vile in this. I’m so c**spoiler alert** So Josh is a real villain asshole in this one. I wasn’t a fan of him in The Words but he’s really straight up vile in this. I’m so conflicted, like is he just a really good actor or just a total psychopath?
Eh there’s a few things I didn’t like, I mean Archie and Valerie are supposed to be these pretty decent foster/adoptive parents but they just let Josh go down the rabbit hole with the drinking and drugs and failing at school? After Josh tries to commit suicide, he’s going to get released from the hospital within hours? No psych hold? Come on. Lol.
Lastly, if I have to hear “the organ in my chest” one more time I’m going to scream.
I couldn’t put this book down, I barely slept and I LOVE Memphis Payne so 4⭐️ all the way ...more
This was my most anticipated book of the year, and Stephanie Garber did not disappoint!
He5 ♾ INFINITY Captivating Stars!
OH. MY. GOD. - MY HEART!
This was my most anticipated book of the year, and Stephanie Garber did not disappoint!
He would carry her through more than just freezing waters. He would pull her through fire if he had to, haul her from the clutches of war, from falling cities and breaking worlds...
Jacks had been the moon and she'd been the tide, controlled by his impossible force.
What a glorious ride that was. I am so in love with this series and all of the characters! This is the type of story telling I love! The reason I love reading! I laughed, cried, chewed off some finger nails (I'm not even an actual nail biter) , got so angry, and was on the edge of my seat to see how this epic tale was going to come to a close.
Let me just get out of the way how well Garber wrote these characters, and I want to touch on Apollo
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I really can't remember the last time I despised a character so much, I mean EVERYTHING this guy did had me ready to jump into my kindle and just take off his head myself. Bastard. Murderer. Monster.
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He gives major Tamlin Tampon vibes through the entirety of this book and it gets to be enraging - or well maybe that's just me, but when you read it .. lmk. ...more
“Happy endings can be caught, but they are difficult to hold on to. They are dreams that want to escape the night. They are treasure with wings. Th“Happy endings can be caught, but they are difficult to hold on to. They are dreams that want to escape the night. They are treasure with wings. They are wild, feral, reckless things that need to be constantly chased, or they will certainly run away.”
OMG- I think this book has me more tangled up in my emotions the second time around - I felt everything and it feels almost so hard to express in words.
*Broken Sobs* [image]
You know how many times the middle book in a trilogy doesn't hold up to the first? Make no mistake about it, this book is even better than the first and I wanted to bring back all these feelings in anticipation for book 3.
I won't go into too much in order to avoid spoilers and my review on book 1 covers most of how I feel about this series- it's so unbelievably phenomenal.
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"You're good at this," she murmured. "Do you often travel with girls who've been flayed?" This earned her a soft laugh. "No." Then quietly, as he ran a cloth along her lower back, just below the dip in her waist, "Would you be jealous if I did?"
I'm not a jealous person was what Evangeline intended to say, but instead the words "Of course" came out.
Jacks laughed, louder this time.
Embarrassment surged through her. "That's not what I meant to say."
"It's all right. I'd probably kill another man if I found him with you like this." Jacks's hands pressed harder as they went to her shoulders and, one by one, ripped off the sleeves of her dress so that what remained of the gown completely fell away.
She made a sound somewhere between a squeal and a gasp. "Was that really necessary?"
"No, but everyone should have their clothes ripped off at some point."
In this book, I swear SG breaks you open and just pulls out your emotions. I felt them all, love, fear, anxiety, anger, angst, and pain.
Just know that this book is everything MORE than book one. Ugh I love it so much.
I'm oh so happy that at the strike of midnight I will have book 3 in my greedy little hands.
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He looked at her lips, and the most tortured expression she'd ever seen crossed his face.
When Jacks wanted something, it was with an intensity that could break worlds and build kingdoms. That was the energy pouring off him now, as if he wanted to destroy her and make her his queen all at once.
And it was oh so tempting to let him. Magic crackled in the sliver of space between them. Golden and electric and alive. It felt like the end of a fairytale, when one kiss had more power than a thousand wars or a hundred spells.
Evangeline imagined drawing closer, pressing her lips to Jacks's and spending eternity lost in one neverending kiss.
I read this book last year but then got so sidetracked with life that I didn't end up continuing the series. I'd been th 5 Stars again on the re-read!
I read this book last year but then got so sidetracked with life that I didn't end up continuing the series. I'd been thinking of it recently so I wanted to jump back in but needed to refresh my memory first.
I'm newer to Sanderson so many of you already know what a fantastic author he is but let me just gush about him for a min.
Recently with fantasy I've been struggling a little. I have the tendency to fall victim to whatever is popular at the moment, call it FOMO if you want. It's really so freaking stupid because 9 outta 10 times, I just know I'm going to be disappointed but I go and read whatever is all the rage anyway.
I've read few fantasy books this year so far because of that. Which is a true and crying shame because fantasy is my absolute favorite. I've just been so let down by it recently.
Anyway, Sanderson has pulled me out of that funk and has made me feel 1000 times lighter because I really had this heavy disappointment that I've been carrying around this year when it comes to fantasy, world building and magic systems.
This man is really, in my very humble opinion- in a league of his own. So original and creative. Action packed and a real gem of a story.
The world building is chefs kiss, filled with vivid imagery. The magic system is so unique and interesting - the characters have depth and are so well rounded.
My physical books for this series are in storage right now so I decided to try the audios and good news, the audio version is remarkable!
I can't express how happy I am to dive into some quality fantasy this year and leave reality behind! Moving right on to book 2!
"The man who wants you to trust him is the one you must fear most."
"Our belief is often strongest when it should be weakest. This is the nature of hope."
"I'm not really sure why. But... do you stop loving someone just because they betray you? I don't think so. That's what makes the betrayal hurt so much - pain, frustration, anger...and I still loved her. I still do."
♥︎ Heather ⚔
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