blog-i-carry-your-heart-with-me

[blog-i-carry-your-heart-with-me]

Holly Black meets Emily Henry in the shadow of the Brothers Grimm in How to Find a Nameless Fae, a cosy, heart-flutteringly romantic take on the Rumpelstiltskin story by A.J. Lancaster. #romantasy #cosyreads #fantasyromance #netgalley #HowtoFindaNamelessFae #bookreview #AJLancaster

[blog-i-carry-your-heart-with-me]

I have to prefaces to this review: 1) it will not be spoiler free, 2) it won't be positive. As much as I dislike giving poor reviews, I am also not willing to fib. How to Survive a Horror Story started well... #bookreview #horrornovel #howtosurviveahorrorstory #galleyreview #books #horror #review

[blog-i-carry-your-heart-with-me]

Although it started life as fanfiction, Knightley's The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy, part one of the Dearly Beloathed duology, has done what few fan-fic-to-trad-fic works has managed: it has become a well written book in its own right #bookreview #TheIrresistibleUrgeToFallForYourEnemy

[blog-i-carry-your-heart-with-me]

He's to Die For is by Erin Dunn is the melding of two worlds, on the one hand a boy-meets-rock-God romance story, on the other a twisty murder investigation: in short, exactly what I was hoping it would be! #bookreview #LGBTQIAromance #MMromance #murdermystery #books #PanMacmillan #NetGalley

[blog-i-carry-your-heart-with-me]

The Listeners is delightful and compelling, in her interview with The Bookseller Maggie referred to this not as fantasy, or historical fiction, but 'Wonder' a new genre she was pioneering, and I understand now what she meant. Full review below! #bookreview #MaggieStiefvater #TheListeners #5starread

[blog-i-carry-your-heart-with-me]

A Queer Case was an unusual kind of novel. I am forever in pursuit of the viscerally human. In A Queer Case, Holtom does not shy away from these opportunities for real, simply stated, linguistically stark human moments. He embraces them. Full review below! #bookreview #LGBTQIA #mysterybooks #books

[blog-i-carry-your-heart-with-me]

Summer of Love is a fun, funny, whistle-stop romcom set in a sunny reality TV villa filled with sexy singles, and managed by eagle eyed producers. Filled with humour, mad-cap challenges, yearning, sexuality crises, personal development, and drama, Summer of Love is one for the Love Island fans

[blog-i-carry-your-heart-with-me]

The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association is a subversive anti-trope fantasy, which is unexpected, vibrant, detailed, and emotive. With bitchy magical PTA mums, and the looming spectre of a prophecy, GGSPTA is everything you want in a humorous urban fantasy, but with added Rozakis flair

[blog-i-carry-your-heart-with-me]

In an alternate America, where colonialism was never realised, and magic never died out, a Knight Maiden of the Order of Joan, the beautiful, keen, and secretive Bernie Chandler, is tasked with solving a series of brutal murders.

[blog-i-carry-your-heart-with-me]

Part romance, part murder mystery, part regency drama, The Gentleman and His Vowsmith is an engaging, emotional, suspenseful and intriguing novel, which nevertheless retains a certain cosily Gothic charm in its setting, and vibrant humour in its dialogue.

[blog-i-carry-your-heart-with-me]

I am a sucker for truly soft, adoring, devoted male love interests. I am even more of a sucker for women with tremendous power getting to keep it all. Which is to say, this was absolutely my cup of tea.

[blog-i-carry-your-heart-with-me]

Review : The Crimson Road by A.G. Slatter

Is there such a thing as cosy adventure? If there is, then The Crimson Road is the perfect example. An exceptionally well-penned adventure novel, which will also satisfy a hunger for emotive, whimsical, and fantastical fantasy. 4 stars.

★★★★ Is there such a thing as cosy adventure? If there is, then The Crimson Road is the perfect example. Violet Zennor is more than a girl. Tragedy divides her life, there was before, when she was a daughter, and there is after, when she is a tool of her father’s penance. Driven to the brink of madness by his guilt, and far too cowardly and self-important to do his own dirty work, Hedrek Zennor…

[blog-i-carry-your-heart-with-me]

Review : Murder in the Dressing Room by Holly Stars

The unlikely detective is painted for the gods in this campy drag twist on a familiar trope.

★★★ The unlikely detective is painted for the gods in this campy drag twist on a familiar trope. When her drag mother, Lady Lady, is murdered drag queen songstress Misty Divine, aka anxious non-binary 30-something Joe, is devastated. Lady Lady was like family! When the police discover she was wearing a gown stolen by notorious local thief the Kensington Catburglar, the investigation takes a…

[blog-i-carry-your-heart-with-me]

Review : The Boy I Love by William Hussey

The last William Hussey book I read was a hopeful coming of age story, struck through with humour. In contrast, The Boy I Love is a moving, emotional, well-penned novel filled with swathes of stirring romance, and very occasional moments of levity.

★★★.5 The last William Hussey book I read was a hopeful coming of age story, struck through with humour. In contrast, The Boy I Love is a moving, emotional, well-penned novel filled with swathes of stirring romance, and very occasional moments of levity. Like all war narratives, this is, and must be, deeply sad. Similarly, this is a novel which is deeply frustrating, to see the homophobia so…

[blog-i-carry-your-heart-with-me]

Review : The Lamb by Lucy Rose

Intense, creeping, and brimming with horrific suspense, The Lamb balances carefully between the spheres of literary fiction and horror.

★★★.5 Intense, creeping, and brimming with horrific suspense, The Lamb balances carefully between the spheres of literary fiction and horror. Hikers are vanishing. People who stray from the path are never seen again, swallowed by the wild things which live in the solitary woods. Margot is one of the wild things, a self-proclaimed changeling child, she lives with her Mama in a house that is not…

[blog-i-carry-your-heart-with-me]

Review : The Resurrectionist by A. Rae Dunlap

The Resurrectionist is deeply accurate. Facts and reality abound, the language is perfectly formal, without tipping over into ridiculousness, the characters felt fully realised, and of their time, and the gore, the Gothic edge, was satisfying.

★★★★ As a rule, I don’t plump for historical fiction. It’s a great genre, sometimes, but I struggle with the inherent tragedy of it, or the need to make hugely anachronistic changes (I mean surely, just set it in a fantasy world?) and I was a little worried, when I requested this, that I might be setting myself up… but I was just too tempted by the subject matter. A Gothic historical-mystery…

[blog-i-carry-your-heart-with-me]

Review : Bat Eater by Kylie Lee Baker

A review of Bat Eater by Kylie Lee Baker. A horror novel focusing on a Chinese-American woman living in NYC during Covid. Compelling and exceptional. A 5 star read.

★★★★★ About 6 months ago, give or take, a friend and I had a conversation about horror fiction. I had just read Anna Bogutskya’s Feeding the Monster, and was once again fascinated by horror, and seeking media to feed that hunger. Yet I found myself repeatedly disappointed. Nothing, I told my friend, went far enough. Nothing was sufficiently gory whilst maintaining both readability, and literary…