Hey adventurer!
December is here, and if you’ve seen my social media posts, I am not exactly loving it. It’s not cold enough, but it is grey and rainy. Where is the snow?? But this post is about books to read, not about complaining about the weather. I just hope the snow is coming.
This week, let’s focus on shifter romance, mystery, and fantasy. One thing to know about me is that I really enjoy shifter romances; they usually take me out of reading slumps and just give me that feeling of warm and fuzzy romance and smut. Definitely that. At the same time, let’s add some fantasy worlds and adventure. A great journey is always able to keep one warm.
Shifter romance
1. Bride by Ali Hazelwood
This was my first Ali Hazelwood book, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. This was a cozy and warm shifter romance between a vampire and a werewolf. I wouldn’t call it a full-on shifter romance, especially if you read a lot of omegaverse. But there is another book on this list where the author delivered.
“Bride” starts with a marriage to form an alliance between a vampire Misery Lark and an Alpha werewolf Lowe Moreland. Humans, vampires, and werewolves are trying to keep peace between their lands. Misery and Lowe have no choice in this. Werewolves don’t trust vampires and vice versa. Lowe tracks Misery’s every move, and she thinks he doesn’t trust her. Misery does have her own reasons to honor the marriage, beyond keeping the peace. It’s a doozy of a romance and spice.
2. Mate by Ali Hazelwood
So “Bride” was Ali Hazelwood’s intro to the shifter universe writing and felt rather light. “Mate” knocked my socks off. I am not even going to try to hide that. This is a romance between a human-were hybrid Serena Paris and a werewolf alpha Koen Alexander. And this book was shifter with lots of great banter, tension, and spice. That spice.
Serena is Koen’s mate. Serena is on the run from someone who is trying to kill her. She needs help, Koen has a pack and land that can hide her. Koen believes Serena doesn’t care about him, but he wants to keep her save. This book made me giggle and melt into a puddle of goo.
Fantasy & mystery
3. The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett
We have a cool fantasy world, a Sherlock Holmes and Watson dynamics and a mystery. I absolutely loved the friendship between the two main characters.
An imperial officer is brutally killed in a mansion. Ana Dolabra is a brilliant and eccentric investigator on that case. Dinios Kol is her assistant. He has been magically altered to have perfect memory. The investigation sends them on a journey throughout the empire, unraveling secrets and conspiracies.
4. First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston
We are back to our world and we have an interesting mystery. From the get go we know that our main character is not who everyone thinks she is. I loved that type of beginning, where we were not led on by the author.
Evie Porter has a great boyfriend, good job and generally nice life. Biggest problem is that Evie Porter doesn’t exist. Our FMC got the identity from her employer without knowing what was the reason for this job. Her instruction were clear and her mark was Ryan Sumner. Evie started actually catching feelings for Ryan and the lines started blurring with whatever her boss wanted her to do.
5. Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson
In my last blog post, I talked about “Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone”. This is the second installment in the book. I didn’t love it as much as the first one, but I think it was still a very interesting and entertaining read. After all, we still follow our dear Ernest throughout his adventures. Only this time, instead of a remote ski resort, we are on a train going across Australia.
Ernest Cunningham is invited to the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society festival. He is not sure why, but he is excited to join some amazing crime writers. One of them is murdered. Ernest has to find out who would be able to get away with murder.