097 ☆

[tinkaton]

Me when I say I should do book round-up posts monthly instead of bi-monthly: /falls off the face of Dreamwidth and doesn't post at all

Maybe next time! For now, here's the July and August's reads. 3 books and 4 graphic novels!


FICTION

When the Tides Held the Moon by Venessa Vida Kelley (★★★☆☆) [goodreads]

Fantasy Historical Romance. A Puerto Rican blacksmith creates an intricate decorative tank for a Coney Island amusement park sideshow proprietor, then ends up working for him when the tank's true purpose is revealed: it will house a real live merman. As Benny and Rio grow closer to each other, Benny must decide what's more important to him, his new home or his soulmate.

I had an okay time with this book. It wasn't bad and I didn't dislike it, but I think it just wasn't working for me the way I wanted. It's pretty slow-paced until the very end, which is the only part with any tension or sense of urgency. The romance was just okay too, imo. A little too "and they were soulmates" without putting the work in (and I say this as a lover of soulmate tropes). You would expect there to be a little more conflict in a relationship where one guy kidnapped the other out of the ocean and trapped him in an amusement park sideshow! I suppose it's very much YMMV since other reviewers have definitely enjoyed the romance, it's just to me the setting and plot didn't quite match the cozy fairytale tone the story clearly wanted to adhere to.

The illustrations were very nice! I liked the touches of blue in the art and in the chapter frames and such. Love a book with illustrations. And I didn't find any fault in the actual writing itself.

My biggest nitpick is the Spanish in the prose where it felt like it shouldn't have been... It was all presented in a mostly understandable way from context clues, so I had no problem reading it (or just highlighting the longer sections and Google translating it when I was reading on Libby), but why were basic words randomly written in Spanish in otherwise fully English paragraphs in a way that came off very "my house is your casa"??

The ending was also a little weird? In that I assumed I knew what the twist was going to be but once we got there it was like...unclear whether that was really true or not lmao.

Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy (★★★★☆) [goodreads]

Fantasy Romance. Leovander Loveage writes spells, but only small spells. He doesn't mess with serious magic. Yet when his longtime rival Sebastian Grimm accidentally casts a curse on him binding them together that neither can undo, they must work together to find a counterspell before they're caught using forbidden magic.

4 stars because I didn't realize this wasn't a standalone and thus the romance is nearly nonexistent in this book as it's the beginning of a 3-book slowburn. That being said, I did enjoy it otherwise! I feel like more "fun" could have been had with the curse, like if you're going to use an Ella Enchanted plot there should be more drama, you know. But I enjoyed Leo and Sebastian's interactions, I thought the magic system was fun, and I'm curious to see where this series goes now that the curse plot is wrapped up. The monsters in the woods were pretty neat also! I would love to see more worldbuilding in the next books.

Viscounts & Villainy by Allie Therin (★★★★☆) [goodreads]

Fantasy Historical Romance. The final book in the spin-off trilogy of Therin's Magic in Manhattan series involving an English lord caught up in a plot to destroy magic. In this final volume, the gang makes its way to England as their efforts to root out the villain leads them to the lord's aristocratic circles.

3.5 rounded up because while there's not much of a plot to speak of in this one, I do like Wesley and Sebastian and am glad to see their story wrapped up. This is meant to be the finale and in that regard it's fairly lackluster. There's a bit of a mystery and a bad guy they're trying to catch, but it all feels very low stakes even though it shouldn't. While the characters go places and do things, it doesn't feel like much is actually happening, and the villain...it's like, who cares. I'm not expecting genius from this series but at least the first two books had a bit more meat to them.

But Sebastian and Wesley are enjoyable characters and a cute couple so I still had fun reading this one! Wesley continues to be Exactly My Type of historical romance novel love interest lol. So it's definitely worth a read if you enjoyed the first two books and want to see them get their happy ending.

GRAPHIC NOVELS

Hide by Kiersten White, Andy & Veronica Fish (★★★☆☆) [goodreads]

Horror. Adapted from a novel of the same name that I didn't read, a high stakes hide-and-seek competition at an abandoned amusement park turns deadly.

I don't know why I enjoy these 'trapped in an amusement park/the game is murder!' type setups when I'm not even a horror fan, but I always seem to pick up these random graphic novels with that kind of premise. Since I never read the original book I can't make any comparisons. But the graphic novel was enjoyable enough, it's got a supernatural bent but there's nothing new or surprising in the plot here. The art is solid enough, nothing to write home about but not bad. My biggest critique is there are too many characters, they probably could have cut the cast in half and still kept everything important.

The political messaging was very on the nose but I liked the ending lmao. Eat the rich and all that.

Lore Olympus Vol. 8 by Rachel Smythe (★★★★☆) [goodreads]

Fantasy Romance. That Webtoon everyone obsesses over about Persephone and Hades.

Apparently I'd given the last several volumes 4 stars so sure, let's keep doing that. This volume finally has things happening! You have to get through the overly long trial section but then there's actually some shit going down. The Kronos plot finally does something. (But also may already be over? I hope not because that only took like 5 seconds.)

Love Ares and Athena's matching mullets.

Castle Swimmer Vol. 2 by Wendy Martin (★★★★☆) [goodreads]

Fantasy Romance. Kappa is the Beacon, destined to fulfill the prophecies of the various ocean societies. But the shark clan needs the Beacon dead, and Prince Siren is supposed to be the one to do it. Time is running out for Siren to think up a way to save Kappa and set him free...

I'm really liking this series so far! In this volume the drama intensifies as they finally attempt their prison break. Siren and Kappa continue to be cute, and the humor is good. This seems to be the wrap up of the first arc or whatever, so I'm curious to see where things go now.

Ennead Vol. 2 by Mojito (★★★☆☆) [goodreads]

Fantasy. God of war Seth has overthrown his brother Osiris to take over Egypt. Years later a new challenger appears: Horus, son of Isis, attempts to dethrone Seth and end his reign of bloodshed.

Completely forgot everything that happened in Volume 1 but I think I picked things back up as I read. For as big as these volumes are, not a ton happens, though I suppose that's also because of the page formatting and frequent use of negative space in the art. The plot seems to be picking up in this one so let's hope for some juicy drama next volume!!