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A Heart of Blood and Ashes
A Heart of Blood and Ashes by Milla Vane is $1.99! Romancelandia went nuts for this fantasy romance, though I will warn the environment and world is pretty bleak at times. We also had a great guest review for this one by Crystal Anne with an E. What do you think of the series?
A generation past, the western realms were embroiled in endless war. Then the Destroyer came. From the blood and ashes he left behind, a tenuous alliance rose between the barbarian riders of Parsathe and the walled kingdoms of the south. That alliance is all that stands against the return of an ancient evil—until the barbarian king and queen are slain in an act of bloody betrayal.
Though forbidden by the alliance council to kill the corrupt king responsible for his parents’ murders, Maddek vows to avenge them, even if it costs him the Parsathean crown. But when he learns it was the king’s daughter who lured his parents to their deaths, the barbarian warrior is determined to make her pay.
Yet the woman Maddek captures is not what he expected. Though the last in a line of legendary warrior-queens, Yvenne is small and weak, and the sharpest weapons she wields are her mind and her tongue. Even more surprising is the marriage she proposes to unite them in their goals and to claim their thrones—because her desire for vengeance against her father burns even hotter than his own…
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Season for Scandal
RECOMMENDED: Season for Scandal by Theresa Romain is still $1.99 ! Romain writes wonderful historicals, full of complex, fascinating people and acutely touching details. The entire series is set around the holidays, which may or may not be your think right now as we inch toward May.
Jane Tindall has never had money of her own or exceptional beauty. Her gifts are more subtle: a mind like an abacus, a talent for play-acting–and a daring taste for gambling. But all the daring in the world can’t help with the cards fixed against her. And when Edmund Ware, Baron Kirkpatrick, unwittingly spoils her chance to win a fortune, her reputation is ruined too. Or so she thinks, until he suggests a surprising mode of escape: a hasty marriage. To him. On the surface, their wedding would satisfy all the demands of proper society, but as the Yuletide approaches, secrets and scandals turn this proper marriage into a very improper affair.
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Welcome to Night Vale
Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor is $1.99! This scifi/fantasy/horror novel is based on the popular podcast of the same name. Some fans of the podcast loved this one, while others felt it didn’t translate well into book form. I’ve been curious about this one for a while, so if you’ve read it, let me know what you think!
From the creators of the wildly popular Welcome to Night Vale podcast comes an imaginative mystery of appearances and disappearances that is also a poignant look at the ways in which we all struggle to find ourselves…no matter where we live.
“Hypnotic and darkly funny. . . . Belongs to a particular strain of American gothic that encompasses The Twilight Zone, Stephen King and Twin Peaks, with a bit of Tremors thrown in.”–The Guardian
Located in a nameless desert somewhere in the great American Southwest, Night Vale is a small town where ghosts, angels, aliens, and government conspiracies are all commonplace parts of everyday life. It is here that the lives of two women, with two mysteries, will converge.
Nineteen-year-old Night Vale pawn shop owner Jackie Fierro is given a paper marked “KING CITY” by a mysterious man in a tan jacket holding a deer skin suitcase. Everything about him and his paper unsettles her, especially the fact that she can’t seem to get the paper to leave her hand, and that no one who meets this man can remember anything about him. Jackie is determined to uncover the mystery of King City and the man in the tan jacket before she herself unravels.
Night Vale PTA treasurer Diane Crayton’s son, Josh, is moody and also a shape shifter. And lately Diane’s started to see her son’s father everywhere she goes, looking the same as the day he left years earlier, when they were both teenagers. Josh, looking different every time Diane sees him, shows a stronger and stronger interest in his estranged father, leading to a disaster Diane can see coming, even as she is helpless to prevent it.
Diane’s search to reconnect with her son and Jackie’s search for her former routine life collide as they find themselves coming back to two words: “KING CITY”. It is King City that holds the key to both of their mysteries, and their futures…if they can ever find it.
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The Marriage Code
The Marriage Code by Brooke Burroughs is $1.99 at Amazon! This is a contemporary romance based on the author’s own love story. There is an enemies to lovers element here, but some found the writing/pacing to be rather stilted. Did you read this? What did you think?
In Brooke Burroughs’s endearing debut novel set in vibrant India, enemies turned allies encounter obstacles in an unexpected multicultural romance only to discover that in the end, love is love.
Emma has always lived her life according to a plan. But after turning down her boyfriend’s proposal, everything starts to crumble. In an effort to save the one thing she cares about—her job—she must recruit her colleague, Rishi, to be on her development team…only she may or may not have received the position he was promised. (She did.)
Rishi cannot believe that he got passed over for promotion. To make matters worse, not only does his job require him to return home to Bangalore with his nemesis, Emma, but his parents now expect him to choose a bride and get married. So, when Emma makes him an offer—join her team, and she’ll write an algorithm to find him the perfect bride—he reluctantly accepts.
Neither of them expect her marriage code to work so well—or to fall for one another—which leads Emma and Rishi to wonder if leaving fate up to formulas is really an equation for lasting love.
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I thought A Heart of Blood and Ashes was a solid B. The hero struggles with his anger at the situation and tries to do the best with what he has. The heroine is fantastic, is true to herself, and is stronger than everyone thinks she is. I did think the book was a bit too long however, and that there were too many descriptions of fantasy animals and places that just kind of blended into each other. I do recommend it.
I tried to get through A Touch of Stone and Snow, the next book in the series, and I just couldn’t do it. It is a shorter book, but it just dragged for me and I ended up DNFing it.
I remember enjoying the Night Vale book, but I did listen to the audiobook.
I remember all of these being quite good!
Ooh, I think I will give the Romain a try. I’ve enjoyed her stuff previously but haven’t read one in a while (Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress and To Charm a Naughty Countess were both lots of fun.)
I read The Marriage Code and thought it was decent. Not great, but decent. One thing to note is that it seems a bit like autobiography wreathed in fiction (as the author has a somewhat similar personal history of moving to India for a technical job and marrying an Indian guy). The descriptions of food are really mouthwatering, and the sense of place is excellent.
I liked the Milla Vale. There is still some humor in it so it isn’t completely bleak. I listened to it during the pandemic and it distracted me from the real world,so mission accomplished. Maddek and Yvenne are both sympathetic characters; I liked seeing the relationship develop. The heaviness for me was in what happened to the parents and how awful her life was. Even then, it’s all done with a deft hand.
I liked the 2nd book a lot more. I thought that one would be all angst and misunderstanding, but pretty early on it’s made very clear that the hero is just gone for the heroine and always has been (my catnip).
I loved the feminism, creativity, and emotional complexity of the romance in Milla Vane’s book and I’m going to read all the sequels eventually because I want to support traditionally published fantasy romance, but…
A Heart of Blood and Ashes tripped up my dyslexia! The hero consistently speaks/thinks in Yoda-like syntax which scrambles subject-verb-object order and it was such a challenge to read that densely packed linguistic world building.
I loved the WTNV book and also really enjoyed the audiobook. It’s creepy and sweet, as the show is.
I enjoyed the Milla Vane book as well. Worth noting Milla Vane is a pseudonym of Meljean Brook (who wrote the Guardians series about angelic demon hunters as well as the Iron Seas steampunk romance series) so if you’re familiar with those, that should give you a pretty good idea of whether you’ll enjoy these.