Succulents and Spells by Andi C. Buchanan

 

⭐⭐⭐

Laurel Windflower comes from a family of witches but so far her real powers evade her. Sure, she can cook up some potions and stuff but feels rather like her life is going nowhere. 

Marigold Nightfield arrives in Laurels life seeking information about a monster living in Laurel’s house. A mostly benign monster. Marigold is a scientist doing research on monsters. Marigold’s family had magic but she has none. 

During Laurel’s first visit to Marigold’s mansion she is almost knocked over by the presence of some hidden magic. The two women set out to find what secrets are hidden in the house and end up discovering much more than expected. 

This is a rather sweet book. Well written. Two likeable MCs. A rather involved magical realm. Nice chemistry between the mains. We really liked Marigold’s self-awareness and self-acceptance, and we liked everything about Laurel. 

It does take some time to get into the world and complexities that are created in the book, but that’s part of its interestingness. The book doesn’t end with a cliff hanger but there is definitely promise of more to come (hopefully because there is so much more to be explored yet).

A nice enough read.

⭐⭐⭐

Evie and the Pack-Horse Librarians by Laurel Beckley

⭐⭐⭐★

This one is a byte-sized bit of thoroughly enjoyable whimsy.

Evie Southeil loves books and is a journey-rank editor at Publishing. One misstep – a serious one – and her career as an editor is stalled, possibly derailed. Evie’s fault was love. She allowed her girlfriend, Anda, take a turn at an unpublished manuscript and the next thing Evie knew is that it has been leaked and she’s been demoted to being a pack-horse librarian in the far out-reaches of the kingdom. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Anda dumps her and acknowledges that she had always been eying Evie’s job.

Completely broken, Evie makes the journey to the vast unknown, district forty-five with her cat, Theodosia, and kitten, Mathilde. Her new colleagues are welcoming but pressed for time and money. With the briefest of training, Evie is sent off on a library run by herself. Her run has her travelling for weeks on end on her pack-horse, leading a mule, collecting the books given earlier and distributing new ones to impoverished villagers in the hills.

On her very first solo journey, something spooks Evie’s pack-horse and mule, and after dumping her off, the animals take off. Evie is rescued by a cute four-year old, Lajo, and his mysterious mother, Katalin. The pair actually live in a cave and have next t nothing, but extend every last bit of hospitality to Evie. Katalina and Evie are attracted to each other but when Evie recovers, Katalina and Lajo lead her to the nearest settlement so that she can continue her journey.

Evie discovers Katalina’s secrets, makes new friends, finds her place in the harsh world and has to decide whether to stay on or return to her city life, where Anda’s duplicity has been discovered.

This is a seriously short book. We’d have easily enjoyed it even more were it twice the length. All the characters are truly likeable. The world, while in dire straits on the financial and material comforts fronts, abounds in acceptance and affection. A nice thought, that.

This is a cute, quick, non-intense read.  

⭐⭐⭐★

Christmas Gi by A. Emma Hollis

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Riley Bale, a Senior Analyst for a non-profit think tank, walks into a plexiglass wall and knocks herself out. When she gets up, she seems to be in a hospital but also seems to be hallucinating a green woman wearing green who keeps appearing and disappearing. To compound Riley’s confusion, the green being introduces herself as Gi and patters something (completely seriously) about Christmas Miracle and Super Bonus.   

Dr. LeAnn Jensen is not having a great morning, what with having a super-bumped up head. She attends to Riley, confirms that the latter is fine and releases her.

When Riley reaches home, Gi is waiting intent on helping Riley find happiness via finding Riley’s Christmas lesson and thus earning her own Super Bonus.

This long-short is the pinnacle of the hard-to-pin-down-yet-madly-funny absurdist (or surreal) humour. The premise is fantastical. The cast of characters are convincingly real and impossibly accepting of the fantastical in their lives.

The main protagonists are Gi and Riley, though they aren’t the romantic couple. There are a bunch of other characters and every single one is totally likeable. But in the whole sea of fun, nice people, Gi raises head and shoulders above everyone else on the adorability factor.

The writing is smooth, flowing, fluid and fun. Humour is difficult to nail but Hollis nails it with panache with the premise, the dialogues and all the scenes. For a short novella, this one packs one hell of an explosive humour punch.

This book is a perfect mini-break of a pocketful of fun.

PS: Senior Analyst for a non-profit think tank – definitely one of our dream jobs!
⭐⭐⭐⭐

Midnight Magic by Cameron Darrow

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

Rich in imagination and raw in emotion this is an awesome love story set in a fantasy world.

In days long past, wizards or rather mages, had started playing God in Atvalia. They'd started creating immortal creatures its skeletons of metal and stealing the life force of a living animal to animate and give life to their skeleton. As a result of this practice they were hounded and essentially wiped out. Now, anyone with magic is a second class citizen forced to always dress in a particular way to set them apart and closely watched. 

Vimika is a wizard more second class than most because she's a struggling freelancer. Her skills are mostly used to kill rats or find missing pets. After one too many heartbreaks, Vimika has hidden herself in Durn taking whatever gigs she gets and drinking herself into oblivion every evening.

When she is given the task of finding the lost pet of one of the four powerful houses that rule the city, she feels that her life is about to change with all the money she's going to earn for it and gleefully sets out. But as she gets closer to the animal, she realises that things aren't as simple as they'd seemed. Still she pushes on only to be met with nightmares in form of a forest and then...a clearing and the most beautiful woman she's ever seen -- Aurelai.

Aurelai has been imprisoned in her clearing in the forest for at least a couple of centuries by her father, the most powerful and considered the most wicked of all the mages of the past. Aurelai confesses that she purposely created a situation to get Vimika to her so that Vimika can set her free. Trapped and isolated for endless time Aurelai hungers for 'normalcy'. 

Hot-headed Vimika reacts badly, but she seems to have lost her magic and is also unable to get away. So she stays. And sees the gentleness in Aurelai. Sees her kindness. Her aloneness. Her tragedy. Her beauty -- inside and outside. 

The two women are drawn to each other and struggle to break free out of a prison created by unfathomable magic.

Aurelai and Vimika are amongst the most fully realised and well-defined characters we've met in the world of words. Aurelai in particular stole our heart. Her life is unspeakable tragedy and yet she is so strong as she struggles to live and learn from books, from nature and by herself that she inspires deep tenderness and protectiveness. It took more time for Vimika to grow on us, but grow she did, till by the end she became deserving of the perfect Aurelai.

We have to mention the penultimate climatic scene where Vimika rejects the optics of Aurelai's truth completely dismissing the person Aurelai is. It shattered us. Gutted us. Compelled us to give a thought to the prejudices society engenders and the limitations it creates. How the collective conscious and the collective unconscious shape and bind our acceptance. How discrimination and fear are ingrained so that we dismiss our experience with a person. That scene shook us. It was truly powerful in the reveal, the emotion and the dialogue.

Darrow is a talented writer. The narrative is consistently strong and solid with excellent world-building and evocative descriptions. The imagination is flawless in thought, planning and execution.

The whimsical cover belies the powerful book behind it. This is a compelling read and strongly recommended. Even if fantasy isn't your usual fare, this one is also beautiful as a love story (it is more than a romance).

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

Sailing With Her Wolf (The Nightstar Shifters #1) by Ariel Marie

⭐☆

This one is a fantasy with a friends-to-lovers storyline with two very, very attractive women on the cover.

It’s a world where shifters are completely accepted in the society. Marley Gerwulf, a wolf shifter met Zara York, a human, in high school when they were both sixteen. Right at first sight, Marley identified Zara as her mate but said nothing. The girls became best friends and remains so fourteen years thence. Marley has watched Zara move from one relationship to another with assorted me during this period. However, her feeling for Zara have never waned. When Zara is in the throes of yet another relationship ending, Marley suggests a three-week cruise to take Zara’s mind off her latest relationship crash. When their yacht is struck by lightning, the two women are adrift in the Pacific and things change between them.

This is a completely one-dimensional (being kind here) story which barely walks the razor edge of spilling into erotica. Mostly, it does spill over. There is a bow to Twilight with a fight between we-want-your-human vampires and Marley, the wolf. It was nice to see Zara pulling her own weight in the fight instead of being a helpless damsel.

This is one book that left us completely flat.

*Stars for the sex scenes only. 

⭐☆

Coyote Blues by Karen F. Williams

⭐⭐⭐⭐★

A gripping paranormal, second chances thriller, this one had us in a thrall from word go.

Riley Dawson was a foundling. She was literally found on the Appalachian trail. Adopted by a rich couple, Riley is unusual in some ways but mostly an above average student and a 'good' child. The family has a holiday home in Lenox, Massachusetts, where they spend every summer. One summer, Riley meets Fiona Bell with large blue eyes and a zest for life, and the two girls become inseparable. As they grow into their teen years, they have a deeper attraction towards each other. With the fearlessness of teens and first love, they confess their feelings and consummate their love.

And then, disaster strikes Riley. Riley was born with a tail that was surgically removed. On the night of the most fantastic day she spent with Fiona, she transforms into a coyote. She is a werecoyote (like a werewolf). 

Riley's parents witness the transformation and literally throw her out of their lives soon after. Her mother withdraws from her immediately and her father is more than happy to drop the scared teen off to a rented house in Northampton, Massachusetts where she is to atten Smith College, with instructions to not socialise with others lest her lycanthropic affliction becomes known and stricter instructions to never get in touch with them again. She is essentially cast out, though with financial support. (To their credit, the parents make Riley financially more than secure for life even when they've abandoned her).

Fast forward twenty years. Riley is a psychotherapist. She has a successful practice with Dr. Margaret Spencer (Peggy) who once her professor. Early in their acquaintanceship, Riley had confided in Peggy about her condition and found unconditional acceptance from Peggy and from Peggy's wife and brother-in-law. 

The Spencer-Dawson practice has a couple of new clients, the Barrett family -- mother and daughter, with the father already in an anger management program. Peggy asks Riley to take the mother as a client.

When her newest client walks in, Riley is shell-shocked to see her Fiona who she'd never heard from since that fateful day twenty years back.

As the two reconnect, Fiona's grim reality surfaces and continuing meeting could put both their lives in danger. Plus, despite their undeniable connection, Riley's truth could well rend them apart immediately.

Riley and Fiona are lovely women individually and quite wonderful together. Both of them have not had easy lives but never come across as weak. For the author to pull this off, especially with Fiona is especially commendable because her challenges are not of the supernatural kind. She has made some questionable choices but given her background, they are justified. In fact, Fiona is psychologically a very, very well thought out and well defined character -- her behaviour typifying that of anyone in similar circumstances.

This book has all the edge-of-seat tension of Sleeping with the Enemy. The looming spectre of Fiona's abusive husband is nerve-wrackingly omnipresent which makes you root for the couple even more. The sheer horribleness of the man ensures that none of Fiona's actions actually feel like she's cheating him.

With so much drama of the circumstances going on, we're thankful that there was no unnecessary relationship-level emotional angst added. Both the ladies had reason to feel angsty about the way the other disappeared on them, but their confessions only speak of deep love rather than accusation or betrayal. It was particularly gladdening that their feelings for each other never changed and when they re-meet they confess their feelings with the same speed and fearlessness as in their teens.

While the paranormal aspect (and the incredible support group) was nice, the romance was particularly rewarding to read. We absolutely loved the Psychology 101 parts too. 

As we mentioned at the start, this is a gripping, oh-so-good read. 

PS: We have to mention some trigger warnings because they are important drivers in the book: domestic violence; emotional, psychological, verbal and physical abuse; mentions of homophobia and self-harm and reference to homophobic characters; animal cruelty.

But these triggers are perfectly balanced and offset by unconditional platonic love and support; romantic love that meets all our ideals and then some; great chemistry between all characters and particularly between Riley and Fiona; one adorable child and a bunch of adorable animals (including dogs, kittens and turtles); great supporting and tertiary characters; lots of love, sympathy and empathy for all creatures (including earthworms in one very, very sweet scene) and above all, the extreme satisfaction of the bad guy getting what was coming to him.

⭐⭐⭐⭐★

Reaping the Benefits by E.J. Noyes

⭐⭐⭐

 

After the intense Ask,Tell; the singular Alone and the character driven romantic Gold, E. J. Noyes shakes it all up (including our expectations) with this paranormal romcom.

Morgan Ashworth owns a very successful data storage and security company and Jane Smith heads the technology side of the business. Both the women have been silently lusting after each other for years but stick to safe boss-employee zone convinced that the other cannot be similarly interested. Well, at least that is Jane's feeling. For Morgan it is a little more complicated. She is Death's Head Minion which means she is in charge of all other Minions and of late, she also has to tak care of the Americas since the Minion in charge of that geography has left (yes, the Minions have a choice).

The job of th Minions is to administer afterlife packages which are essentially a long list of questions so that each person is assigned an afterlife as per their personality. Receiving an afterlife package to fill doesn't mean that the human's days are numbered, though. They could have days, weeks, months or even years ahead of them. 

Morgan is assigned to administer an afterlife package to Jane. Getting this one done would mean that Morgan would still be eligible for the Minion of the Year award -- an award she's won consistently over years and just may lose this year. Except that Jane cottons on to how important it is to Morgan that Jane completes her package and bargains for fulfilment of her bucket list before signing that package.

Cici (Death), Morgan's boss encourages Morgan to not only accept Jane's terms but also accompany Jane around the world as the bucket list items get ticked off. 

The circumstances and the context of the story are fabulously implausible and Noyes balances that implausibility superbly with very empathiseable characters. As soon as #12 of the bucket list (Sleep with the boss) appears, both women are quite open about their attraction to each other. 

However, as their feelings deepen, Morgan started getting on our nerves with her feinting, blowing hot blowing cold, flirt and flight, and the most unforgivable of all -- complete lack of communication about her feelings for Jane or sharing of her fears. By around the 75% mark we couldn't stand Morgan anymore. Her behaviour of running away but making certain gestures and just giving enough to keep Jane hooked to her is a kind or psychological problem (we think it's a kind of dysfunctional behaviour displayed by narcissistic personalities). 

By the time we reached the point where Cici offers to 'save' Jane (i.e. give Jane many more years of life -- which seemed like at least 50 to 60 additional years) or make Jane the Minion for Americas thus granting the couple (Morgan and Jane) an eternity together -- and Morgan rejects both possibilities unilaterally, we were completely done with her and her self pity and self-preservation. We lost what little understanding we had held on for her up to this point.

Cici and Jane are lovely, very lovely, ladies, though.

While our extreme frustration with Morgan doesn't allow us to give this one an unmixed, ringing endorsement and recommendation, it is still well written plus it is a paranormal fantasy romcom by Noyes, so maybe worth a shot.

⭐⭐⭐