This guest review comes from Lisa! A longtime romance aficionado and frequent commenter to SBTB, Lisa is a queer Latine critic with a sharp tongue and lots of opinions. She frequently reviews at All About Romance and Women Write About Comics, where she’s on staff, and you can catch her at @thatbouviergirl on Twitter. There, she shares good reviews, bracing industry opinions and thoughtful commentary when she’s not on her grind looking for the next good freelance … Continue reading When We Chased The Light by Emily Bleeker→
I inhaled this audiobook. I recommended it to a friend when I was about 15% in – risky, I know – and then I reinforced that recommendation a few times as I continued listening. I think she wanted me to calm down. Homemaker is as much a mystery as it is about the cost of being in a marriage that functions like a shrinking cage, with the key held by an emotionally immature man. It’s … Continue reading Homemaker by Ruthie Knox and Annie Mare→
This dreamy book is so much fun! The God and the Gumiho features Korean mythology, grumpy/sunshine, secrets, and of course Only One Bed. While I did I find this book to be somewhat slow going, I also found it to be deeply imaginative and delightful. It’s the first in a series, so the HEA is more of a Happy Ever Eventually Probably. The second book, The God and the Gwisin, came out on June 3, … Continue reading The God and the Gumiho by Sophie Kim→
I’m keeping this review brief because there’s only so much you can say about the third book in a trilogy without completely giving away the other two books. Also, this book is kind of a letdown. The glory and wonder of that angry vampire in book two is admittedly a tough act to follow. But let’s unpack. There are two plots in this book: the romance plot and the adventure plot. The romance plot focuses … Continue reading Rebel in the Deep by Katee Robert→
Love and Other Conspiracies makes many references to one of my favorite shows, The X-Files. Sadly, this book about a believer and a skeptic making a web series is no X-Files. It’s not terrible, but it is, alas, boring. The story is told from the heroine Hallie’s point of view in first-person, present tense, henceforth referred to as FPPT. I may need to make a rule that I don’t review books written in FPPT anymore … Continue reading Love and Other Conspiracies by Mallory Marlowe→
I went into this book totally oblivious. I didn’t even know what genre it was. I had been drawn in by the slick cover and the vague blurb. This is 100% the way I recommend you approach this novel. If you’ve read a few of my reviews and you tend to like the books I like, I recommend stopping here. Leave this review for afterwards. For those requiring a bit more information before embarking, read … Continue reading Serial Killer Games by Kate Posey→
I’m very fond of cryptids that fall under the category of “You! Kids! Stay away from the water!” I’m talking about your La Llorenas and your kelpies, your kappas and your shellycoats. English folklore alone provides a treasure trove of water spirits that will teach your child a very important and possibly fatal lesson that he or she shall not soon forget! Think of the grindylows, or Nelly Longarms and Peggy Prowler, all of whom … Continue reading Greenteeth by Molly O’Neill→
Revisionaries: What We Can Learn From the Lost, Unfinished, and Just Plain Bad Work of Great Authors is a fun and interesting book for writers and for readers who like to know how authors work. It imparts twenty-one lessons to writers using the challenges and unfinished writings of classically regarded writers. Easily read and easily digestible, each chapter uses a different author to teach a different lesson. These examples aren’t modern, and the diversity is … Continue reading Revisionaries: What We Can Learn From the Lost, Unfinished, and Just Plain Bad Work of Great Authors by Kristopher Jansma→
I love action movies with female leads. Turns out, women doing the killing and saving really works for me and this series scratches that itch. I know the Bitchery are probably sick of me climbing onto my high horse about blurbs, but I found this one misleading. I don’t think the person that wrote that blurb read the book carefully enough. The broad strokes are there, but the details aren’t right. Billie, Helen, Natalie and … Continue reading Kills Well With Others by Deanna Raybourn→
I’m an absolute sucker for historical romance and this one did not disappoint. Lady Alice Ancaster needs a husband quite urgently because her reckless brother is likely to end up dead due to his fast living.The dukedom would then fall to an odious cousin who would make Alice’s life a misery. So off she goes to London, ready to find herself a suitable man. And she does. But she doesn’t close the deal: her brother … Continue reading My Inconvenient Duke by Loretta Chase→
It Had to be You is a Mr. and Mrs. Smith style romance novel about two assassins who fall in love while also trying to kill each other. It’s a book that I loved, but will either work really, really well for someone or not at all. Neither of the main characters, Jonathan or Eva, are good people—they are both contract killers so that shouldn’t be a surprise—and I think some readers will struggle with … Continue reading It Had to Be You by Eliza Jane Brazier→
