#BookReview: Forging Silver into Stars (Forging Silver into Stars, #1) by @BrigidKemmerer

Synopsis: Forbidden magic. Secret romance. Dangerous alliances. Enter the world of New York Times bestselling author Brigid Kemmerer's electrifying series.

When nineteen-year-old Tycho, the King's Courier, arrives in the remote village of Briarlock, he hopes to escape the demands of his new life in the royal court, where magic reigns for the first time in ages. He doesn't expect to fall for a handsome blacksmith with a bruised heart.

After years of cruelty in his father's forge, Jax never dared to dream of a better life -- until a magic-wielding young lord shows him an enticing alternative. But when rumors of a rebellion reach Briarlock, Jax wonders who he can trust -- and if he'll even survive.

Jax's best friend, Callyn, doesn't trust anyone -- especially not a handsome stranger with magic, which killed her parents years ago. When another royal emissary arrives, seeing a co-conspirator, Callyn finds herself embroiled in a plot that could lead them all to ruin. . .

As tensions flare throughout the kingdom, it won't be long before everyone must choose a side.

War is brewing. Passions are building. And magic may doom -- or save -- them all . . .

#BookReview: Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

Synopsis: A grim and gothic new tale from author Alix E. Harrow about a small town haunted by secrets that can't stay buried and the sinister house that sits at the crossroads of it all.

Eden, Kentucky, is just another dying, bad-luck town, known only for the legend of E. Starling, the reclusive nineteenth-century author and illustrator who wrote The Underland--and disappeared. Before she vanished, Starling House appeared. But everyone agrees that it’s best to let the uncanny house―and its last lonely heir, Arthur Starling―go to rot.

Opal knows better than to mess with haunted houses or brooding men, but an unexpected job offer might be a chance to get her brother out of Eden. Too quickly, though, Starling House starts to feel dangerously like something she’s never had: a home.

As sinister forces converge on Starling House, Opal and Arthur are going to have to make a dire choice to dig up the buried secrets of the past and confront their own fears, or let Eden be taken over by literal nightmares.

If Opal wants a home, she’ll have to fight for it.

#BookReview: Revolution Empire (History Never Retreats, #1) by Rob Travalino

Synopsis: In a bleak, dystopian future surveillance state, a band of teens rises from society’s lowest classes to incite an eerily familiar revolution.

“I was born here, in this forgotten hole a mile un’er t’Empire streets. They call it t’Sewers. T’is the place where Boss Dog Magistrate dumps his trash. Us…”

Huddled under a narrow slash of light in a dank and debris-strewn alley of Regent Street, seventeen-year-old Donovan Washington Rush quickly scribbled the words across the cracked, yellowed pages of an old hand-bound journal. Barely bigger than his hand, the book overflowed with a lifetime of maps, all surrounded by musings on freedom, tyranny, and rights. It was all that was left of Donovan’s father, Dr. Princeton Rush, a man long since thought dead by the Empire’s hand.

Here in the relative anonymity of the underground maze he called home, Donovan knew he was being watched—not just by the hidden electronic eyes of the Empire, but by the people of the Sewers themselves, compelled to complicity by the Empire’s constant messages of fear and reprisal. The Empire had its eyes everywhere.

For Donovan, possessing such a book as Dr. Rush’s journal was a “Black Flag” offense—an act of subversion punishable by public execution. Yet the Empire was where Donovan and the book were both headed. This made for two forbidden crimes under one cover.

“They call us “Sewer Rats” but these Sewers once made up t’original city, t’very seat of t’Empire. T’is t’seat for sure, right un’er Boss Dog’s ass. T’nite it changes. T’nite I take the first step fo’ my brothers and sisters o’ the sword, fo’ t’Sewers whole…Freedom or death!”

#ReleaseBlitz for Whoa by @cambriahebert and @GiveMeBooksPR

Title: Whoa

Series: Westbrook Elite #6

Author: Cambria Hebert

Genre: Contemporary Sport Romance

Tropes: Friends to Lovers/Fake Engagement

Release Date: December 8, 2023

BLURB

Most people think I’m a moron. In actuality, I’m a man with a plan.

It’s one of those three-year plans that takes longer than three years.

Still, I’ve been making it happen. Checking off those to-dos and turning them into to-dones.

Everything is almost lined up.

And then my phone rings.

By the time I get to Jess, she’s unconscious and bleeding.

My carefully crafted plan blows up in my face.

I tell the hospital we’re engaged. We aren’t, but apparently, in that place, you need a permission slip to see your most important, so I do what has to be done.

I toss together an epic apology salad for when she opens her eyes, and when she does…

She asks me who I am.

I’m willing to overlook the insult since, you know, head injury, but then Nurszilla spills the beans on our pending nuptials.

And just like that, my friend turns into my fiancé, and I’m not even mad at it.

How could I be? Her curves fit in my arms perfectly. Kissing her is like whoa and makes me forget I’m living a lie.

I know I have to come clean, but someone dirtier than me is stalking my final girl, and until she remembers who, it’s on me to keep her safe.

The closer we get, the guiltier I feel.

When all this is over, will she forgive me? Or will everything I’ve done cost me everything I’ve always wanted?

#BookBlitz: Prick by DL Hammons @XpressoTours $25 Amazon gift card

Prick
DL Hammons
Publication date: December 12th 2023
Genres: Suspense, Thriller, Young Adult

People are dying under mysterious circumstances in the small town of New Haven. And the city’s best hope of uncovering the truth rests with a troubled teen and the girl who can’t stand him.

Cassie Underwood’s life is shattered when her younger sister dies in a freak car accident. In her grief, Cassie unfairly blames her sister’s constant companion—Taggart McGill—a boy with a sketchy past and abrasive personality. As Cassie attempts to recover from the loss, she struggles to honor her late sister’s memory by befriending the person she resents most.

Things get complicated when Cassie overhears a fellow student asking Taggart to convince the police another death in the accident had nothing to do with the crash at all. Taggart surprisingly agrees and a suspicious Cassie decides to accompany him in his snooping. She soon learns everything she knows about Taggart is wrong… and he has insight into things that link the car accident to other suspicious deaths in their close-knit community.

Now it seems there’s only one thing keeping Cassie’s name off the growing list of victims—finding out who Taggart McGill really is.

#BookReview: Ferryman (Ferryman, #1) by Claire McFall

Synopsis: After a deadly train crash, the afterlife is waiting for Dylan. But that's only if she and her intriguing Ferryman can make it across the demon-infested wasteland--and if she can bear to let him go. 

When Dylan wakes up after her train has crashed, she thinks she has survived unscathed. But she couldn't be more mistaken: the bleak landscape around her isn't Scotland, it's a wasteland--a terrain somehow shaped by her own feelings and fears, a border to whatever awaits her in the afterlife. And the stranger sitting by the train track isn't an ordinary teenage boy. Tristan is a Ferryman, tasked with guiding Dylan's soul safely across the treacherous landscape, a journey he has made a thousand times before. Only this time, something's different. The crossing, as ever, is perilous, with ravenous wraiths hounding the two at each day's end, hungry for Dylan's soul. But as Dylan focuses her strength on survival, with Tristan as protector, challenger, and confidant, she begins to wonder where she is truly meant to be--and what she must risk to get there. An international bestseller with a phenomenal following, the award-winning Ferryman (with its sequels Trespassers and Outcasts) is in development to be a major motion picture.

#CoverReveal for Ward Willing by Amanda Richardson @GiveMeBooksPR

Title: Ward Willing

Series: Ravaged Castle #3

Author: Amanda Richardson

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Tropes: Age Gap, Dad's Best Friend

Student/Professor, Ward/Guardian

Cover Design: Moonstruck Cover Design

& Photography

Photographer: Rafa G Catala

Model: Hugo Soriano

Release Date: February 20, 2024

BLURB

She was the epitome of forbidden fruit.

And I wanted a taste.

Liam

Being the oldest Ravage brother means I’ve always been the fixer, handling everyone else’s mess.

But the one problem I can’t solve?

Keeping my hands off my best friend’s daughter.

Hidden away in my remote cabin, writing is my escape until duty thrusts her into my life.

Over the years, Zoe evolves into a tempting taboo–the one person I crave but can never claim, despite what she tells me about her… inclinations.

I vowed protection at any cost–even if it’s from myself.

Zoe

Orphaned and thrust into adulthood, I bury myself in school work and keep my eyes trained on the prize.

Now, with law school and an uncertain future looming, I’m used to doing everything myself and pushing back against Liam’s stoic, overprotective resolve.

Until I learn that the vanilla, cinnamon roll of a man I’ve known my whole life isn't so vanilla after all.

Now, instead of infuriating me, his strict, commanding presence sends shivers down my spine.

I soon realize his resistance was never about denying desire for him–it was about fulfilling a different kind of hunger.

Ward Willing is a full-length, age gap, billionaire romance with BDSM themes. It is book three in the Ravaged Castle series. All books can be read as standalones.

Warning: This book contains an overprotective/possessive hero, explicit sexual situations, and strong language. There is a HEA.