Source: NetGalley

Hazelthorn by CG Drews

Posted 07/09/2026 by Charli in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Hazelthorn is one of those books that took me forever to read, for no good reason. I literally have no reason why it took me so long to actually sit down and read this book – other than perhaps a combination of mood reading and school. I say this because Hazelthorn is an amazing book. Characters There are a lot of characters in this book – some designed to make you hate them, clearly. Characters like Oleander, Dawes, and Bane just made me want to reach into the pages and punch the daylights out of them. Azalea wasn’t much better, but at least it was obvious that she was only in it for herself. Laurie is an interesting character. He’s arrogant, rude, and acts like he hates everyone and everything. And, I suppose, in a way, he does. But the secrets he hides are why he’s the way he is. […]

Unexpected Magic by Jude Knigh..

Posted 07/09/2026 by Charli in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

And another historical romance novel has now been read – but this one was most definitely a fantasy romance. Unexpected Magic takes place in the Regency/Victorian era of the UK, but not in our universe or history. No, Ms. Knight created a bit of alternate history and a different universe – one in which people and animals are born with magic. She gives a wonderful explanation of her thought process and how she created her magic system and alternate history at the end of the book – which I was tempted to skip over but was glad I had not. Characters Unexpected Magic has a wonderful cast of characters, although our story focuses on two of them mostly: Jasper Thornton and Cordelia Nettleford. Jasper is a wonderful character – a man with a mage-gift that is powerful but wild and uncontrolled. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. You don’t get […]

Corpse in the Canal by Mary La..

Posted 07/04/2026 by Charli in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I like historical romance and I like mysteries, so Corpse in the Canal was a no-brainer for me to give a whirl. The 9th book in Mary Lancaster’s Silver and Grey series, I had not read any of the previous eight books – yet there was no need as I wasn’t confused at all about anything. If I needed to know it – it was mentioned. If I didn’t, well, it wasn’t. Characters There are a myriad of characters in this particular story, but the ones we deal with the most are Mr. and Mrs. Solomon Grey – aka Solomon Grey and his wife, Constance Silver (Grey). I loved both of these characters. They were fun, incorrigible, and interesting. I was particularly taken with Constance, as the hints about her not-so-proper past gave just the insight needed to understand her. I do wish we’d had a bit more background info […]

Tides of Passion by Lauren Eve..

Posted 07/01/2026 by Charli in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Now, if you’ve been here very long at all, you know, I’m not a big reader of romance novels. Yes, there are a few scattered here and there on the blog, but for the most part, I’m not particularly interested in them. Romance was more of my mom’s thing, but… we did both enjoy a good historical romance. I recently saw a video on YouTube that the historical romance sub-genre was dying, along with the various reasons why they felt it was happening – publishers not renewing contracts for authors who write historical romances, removing the old “clench covers” or “bodice ripper” covers and replacing them with illustrated/cartoonish covers, younger readers being “embarrassed” to be seen reading romance novels, and the “death of the mass market paperback”. The aforementioned reasons were both mentioned in the video and in the comments. Obviously, I set out to prove that historical romance wasn’t […]

Sweet Nightmare by Tracy Wolff

Posted 06/30/2026 by Charli in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

So I was approved for Sweet Nightmare back in 2024, but I didn’t get around to reading it until now. Part of this was because I’d tried out the Crave series and it just wasn’t for me. Unfortunately, I’d tried the Crave series after I’d been approved for Sweet Nightmare, so I decided not to bother reading it, figuring Tracy Wolff wasn’t the author for me. Well, I was wrong. As with many of the books I’ve had issues getting into on NetGalley that have already been released, I found that listening to the audiobook helped me immensely. I really liked the main narrator – Suzy Jackson, and I was impressed with Andrew B. Wehrlen as well, although we didn’t get to hear him nearly as much as we did Ms. Jackson. Both narrators did their jobs well and did not detract from the story at all. Characters The characters […]