"All that purple? The Heater? It only blooms twice a year. You just happen to be here at the right time, but in a few months all this purple will turn brown. This place ... it wont look like this forever. But maybe that's what makes this special, what gives it meaning. If we all went on forever, if this went on forever, would we even be able to understand how beautiful this is?"

GENRE: Romance
RATING: 5/5
FORMAT: eBook ARC
Tropes: Scottish Highland Roadtrip, Poet/Bagpiper MMC, Family Rekindling, Forced Proximity

Review:
This is my first book by Naina Kumar and I fell in love with her writing and the whole book! I really loved following along with Neelu and Jacob in this book, going on a road trip with them in the highlands and spending time in Aberdeen too. OH AND AN MMC who is a bagpiper AND a poet who wears glasses? What else could we want🤭

We get to see them come together, through Neelu's POV in this book. We also get to learn about Neelu and her dad's relationship plus we get to understand more about Jacob and his grief. I did love how Grief was addressed here as a theme and how we got to dive into it. I also really love how we get to see both characters address their vulnerabilities in a single POV book and how they help each other through their strengths.

Just a Highland Fling focuses on finding love between two people while also just finding your home in your person. It's about rekindling your relationship with your loved ones and finding your chosen family. It truly was a wholesome book and the only thing I could ask for (other than for more about Neelu & Jacob) is that I wish we could have learned more about Neelu and her father. We definitely get to see and understand some of what happened but it was something that I wanted to dive deeper into.

Seriously though, this book was SO fun to read and so wholesome! I can't wait to read more by Naina Kumar and go back to read her two other books.

I was provided a free advance reader copy and I’m sharing my honest thoughts.

"The dead collect in low places."

GENRE: Sporror
RATING: 4/5
FORMAT: eBook ARC

Review:
If there's a Sporror book, I have to have it and The Midnight Muse was a fun clash of Mushroomcore with Metal Horror and a focus on who we are.

The Midnight Muse starts with a search of well, a muse, by the lead singer (Brynn) who eventually vanishes. Her band continues to exist and the story takes place a year after she vanishes. We follow along with the band members and see all of their lives unfolding. We see how and what motivates them and really, we see how far some of them would go to get what they want.

My favourite parts are that The Midnight Muse is set in an isolated forest/wood area and how on the edge this has us as we are reading it. There are the sporror part, which I loved and there is the exploration of who we are as humans and what is worth giving up some part of us to get what we want.

This is a great sporror book to read, one that leaves you wondering if everything that you are reading has really happened or not!

I was provided a free advance reader copy and I’m sharing my honest thoughts.

"...the one thing that makes me smile now, laugh even, is the notion that the Spaniards conquered us. Oh, they say, it only took five hundred men to conquer the Mexica, as if their thousands of Indigenous allies had been as useful as clouds of dust. It only took a year, they say. And I laugh, even now, I laugh at their bold-faced stupidity. For it was not those men who conquered us."

GENRE: Historical Fiction
RATING: 5/5
FORMAT: eBook Arc

Overall Impression: Easily became one of my favourite Historical Fiction & reads!

Review:
What a book! I loved everything about The Other Moctezuma Girls, from the historical aspect of it, to the characters and the story telling/writing style. It is descriptive and so emotionally powerful that it breaks your heart a little in the best of ways.

We follow Isabel's POV mainly but we get journal entries from her mother, Tecuichpoch and follow the journey of her life and how everything came to be. It genuinely was such a captivating story that broke my heart, reading about how everyone was harmed with colonialism. It also dives into how colonialism can happen with the help of people living in the area and we get to read about why people make the decisions they do.

I also loved reading about Catina, who is deaf after getting sick (coming from someone who is deaf too) and how they developed a way to communicate with her. All the characters in this book were written so well that you couldnt help feel an emotional connection to them or dislike them. We get to explore the family dynamic and watch Isabel find her footing and who she is in the world as someone who doesn't appear "ladylike".

I am so excited to read more from the author and to continue reading books set in the same time period. I was provided a free advance reader copy and I’m sharing my honest thoughts.

"I tried not to think about my body most of the time, or even about being in a body. I'd often thought I would have preferred not to have one at all if I'd had the choice. To be able to just exist, floating around the world, quietly, observing, never being perceived."

GENRE: Psychological Horror with Scottish Folklore
RATING: 3.5/5
FORMAT: eBook & physical ARC

Overall Impression: Overall, I did like Home Sick as the writing was atmospherical and descriptive while the story left me wanting to know more. I think I just went into it expecting something different and it's definitely because I didnt realise it was heavily a psychological Horror. I'm not a huge thriller reader but I will say that the book felt more of a mesh between Psychological Thriller with some horror and folklore in it. We also have a little bit of an unreliable narrator, which was very fitting for the story too, but I dont usually read a lot of Psychological Horror OR books with unreliable narrators so this was an interesting experience for me in wondering what the point of the book was (and getting the answers in the end, which tied everything up to make it a good read).

Review:
I picked up Home Sick as it was folk horror with a cottage setting (cottagecore), which I love in most genres. After reading this, I can definitely say it had some folklore and it definitely played a role in the story but to me, Home Sick is definitely much more heavier on the Psychological Horror/Thriller than the Folk Horror.

All in all, the story was very atmospherical in the first half, which I loved and it gave us that whole Cottagecore vibes and added to the folklore aspect of it. The author does descriptions really well, whether it's nature based on of the cottage. We also get to know Tamsin and there's a lot of conflicting feelings about who she is and we, as the readers, feel that with her. You go back and forth with Tamsin, wondering if she is a good person, what the violent incident was at work and why did she need to escape to a remote cottage. You almost get to feel what she is feeling, her fear, paranoia, anger and have to question why she's feeling this way.

At the core of it, Home Sick is about not fitting in anywhere and the effect of it on Tamsin after a whole life time of trying to fit in and it never working out. The book takes you on a Tamsin's journey to discovering who she is, why she is the way she is and most importantly, maybe learning to accept herself. I think in the first half of the story, I did wonder if Tamsin was Autistic and reading the reviews, I can see that I wasn't the only one who picked up on this.

The horror elements were quite fun to read. It was scary in the way that is very realistic kind of scary, where our fears and insecurities come to life, with a little of folklore to help it. I think I would have loved a deeper dive into the folklore aspect as I am a huge fan of adding folklore in horror and learning more about it. I would recommend this book to people who enjoy both psychological horror and thriller generally as it might be a great book to expand into folk horror as a sub-genre as well. It's also a good book for people who want a mesh of both thriller and horror, as there are some external horrors in here but Home Sick is mainly about Tamsin and her internal fears with it manifesting externally.

I was provided a free advance reader copy and I’m sharing my honest thoughts.

"It makes trusting myself to enjoy the high of a day like today like a normal person kind of difficult... It's not like ... like I'm not functional. It just makes things hard for me, sometimes."(Yael)

"It seems like you associate a certain kind of happiness with pain... so it makes sense that you'd be wary of it." (Ravi)

GENRE: Romance
RATING: 3.75/5
FORMAT: eBook
Tropes: Hidden Identity, Epistolary Romance, Forced Proximity, Workplace Romance, Enemies to lovers

Review:

This was a cute, wholesome book! I really enjoy Romance books in which we get both of our MCs falling in life online and meeting in real life and this did not disappoint.

I really enjoyed getting to know both Yael and Ravi and watching how they got to know each other as Elle & Kevin vs Yael & Ravi as well. My favourite POV in Romance books are Dual and I love that we get an insight into both Ravi and Yael's lives. I also really loved getting to see Ravi interact with his family and getting to know Mia

Also, Isn't It Obvious has Bipolar representation, which I loved! I think this was handled really well and we got to see it through Yael in different ways, with Yael talking about her med's effect and the focus on how it impacts her self-esteem, which was very relatable.

What fell a bit short for me is that I felt we jumped from emails to real life interaction quite quickly and the way they get together overall. I think we get a lot of amazing things throughout the book, like getting to know both Yael and Ravi individually, understanding who they are and how their lives were shaped. We also get to see them with their families and friends and watch them learn to be vulnerable with each other in some things.

What I felt we didnt get is watching the transition of them falling in love in real life. We see how Elle and Kevin build their relationship online but I think I didnt feel how this was built in real life with Yael and Ravi. I did understand WHY this was the case and it played out well to the story but it did impact how connected I felt to their story when they eventually find out who they are in real life and it all comes together.

All in all, I enjoyed Isn't it Obvious and I am excited to read more by Rachel Runya Katz.

"Find the mask that fits best, never perfectly. The acceptable version. It will make it easier on them and eventually it will become your second foreign skin."

GENRE: YA Contemp/Coming of Age with Romance
RATING: 5/5
FORMAT: eBook ARC

Overall Impression: What a book! Everything Comes back to You is a book I wish I had read like when I was a teenager, lost in this world. Reading it as an adult feels like healing a part of me that was so lost when I was young and for that, I know I'm going to remember this book for a long time to come.

Review:
Okay this was my first book by Jackie Khalilieh and I'm not going to need to read everything she writes because WHAT A BOOK!!!!

Reading this and following the book through Lennon's perspective was very emotional for me and struck close to home a lot of times. I related a lot to so many aspects of it, to Lennon and how she views herself, how she faces the world as an autistic individual and I related so much to Georgie too.

And in so many ways, Everything Comes Back to You is about learning to love yourself and learning to deal with generational trauma. Now, in my late 20s, I can read this and remember how it was growing up and dealing with a lot of things that Lennon deals with. As an eldest daughter though, I did want to tell her to follow Georgie's advice of putting herself first.

Truly, this book took me on an emotional journey. I felt sad, happy and just so emotional for Lennon and her sister. I related SO much to learning to mask and trying to be the perfect daughter, sister, person...etc. to everyone around you that you forget who you truly are. To me, the teenage years were HARD and I think this book represented why it was hard. It's like trying to fit in a world that isn't meant for you and you dont understand WHY you can't fit in.

Jackie's writing was so captivating, I read through this so QUICKLY and I couldnt sleep as I really wanted to finish it. I loved that we get to follow Lennon's journey from the beginning of high school till the end of it as well. She changes so much through the seasons and so does everyone around her.

And finally, as an Arab, reading this and seeing how the generational trauma carries on and the gaps between Georgie & Lennon with their parents was sad and healing in many ways. A lot of our culture is set in its ways, in not talking about the taboo topics and avoiding the painful things.

I was provided a free advance reader copy and I’m sharing my honest thoughts.

"...Acceptance that this palce can exist. I hate it all. I hate the politeness of this country. I hate having a stiff upper lip and pretending these systems are acceptable. that we can't all agree that removal centres should not exist, and are neither discussion-worthy nor vote-dependent, but stand as lessons that humanity should never put in place again."

GENRE: Historical/Lit Fiction
RATING: 5/5
FORMAT: physical ARC

Review:

What a book. Smallie is a Historical/Lit Fic and is inspired by the Windrush Scandal. It was an emotional read and a fast paced one as I was reading so quickly after you get into it from the first few pages.

We mainly get two POVs and it's a dual timeline, with the focus on Lucinda from her younger days and her in the present plus Patrick. We see the dynamic of the whole family through Patrick's POV and eventually, we get to see it from Lucinda's too.

Essentially, Smallie is a story about what it means to leave behind a home and find a new place that eventually becomes your home. It's a dive into what it means to build a new community, only to lose everything again. It's a story that shows the cycle of moving, the way it changes things in ourselves.

Most importantly, it's a story showing the experience of the Windrush Scandal that has happened in the UK in the late 2010s. It's a story that shows the impact of where we are today politically and how this hurts on an individual and familial level to the people harmed by politics.

As for the writing, I thought it was done in a lyrical way. The prose flowed and it was a book that left me flipping the pages and thinking about it as soon as I put it down. I would have loved to know what happened to a few things in the story in a bit more details but I do recognise that leaving it as a mystery means I'll be thinking about the few unresolved things for a long time to come.

I was provided a free advance reader copy and I’m sharing my honest thoughts.

“By touching objects, she could speak with them to understand their purposes and convince them to do small things for her.”

GENRE: Cozy Fantasy
RATING: 4.5/5
FORMAT: eBook
Overall Impression: This is definitely a wholesome Cozy Fantasy, in which we realise that happiness is found in the small things and in the mundane tasks or magical abilities

Review:

What a cute, lovely story! I loved The Teller of Small Fortunes and I have been meaning to read The Keeper of Magical things, which did not disappoint

The Keeper of Magical Things was about exploring who we are in the world and seeing our worth in it. It was also about finding your place in it and wanting to do good for the people around you.

With it being set in Shpelling, which has suffered due to its history with magic, we begin the journey of how a magical power that seems mundane and how the story shows you that this can change the world in a different and unexpected way.

I thought that this was very reflective of real life. Certainty struggles in the Guild because she can’t become a Mage with how she can do magic. It’s very reflective of how in real life, structures are set and there isn’t much room for adjustment so that each person can become the best they are and help others in their own way.

I think ultimately, this feels like a cozy fantasy that makes you realise there is beauty in the small things and it is in the small, mundane moments that awe can find happiness, relief and work to change things for the better.

“You were always waiting for something to happen, after all. Life was a series of waits, of moments in between. You couldn’t cram all your happiness and meaning into only the big moments, or you’d miss everything else that mattered along the way.”

"Are you scared, Keiran?" she taunted. "Terrified, actually." And not for the reasons she believed. Because you're everything that I want and can't have."

GENRE: Romance
RATING: 4/5
FORMAT: eBook
Tropes: Wedding related fun, enemies to lovers, Baker x Music Producer

Review:

What a fun story that shares two people finally coming together after years of being on opposing ends and hating each other!

Cherisse and Keiran have that dynamic of being in the same childhood friends group but not liking each other and that all changes with their current situation, being the maid/man of honour for the bride and groom

One of my favourite part is the character development or more accurately, how we watch Cherissa learn to accept her qualities, especially those that others have put down throughout the story. I also really enjoyed the dynamic between the two of them as they get to know each other properly and learn to be okay with displaying their vulnerabilities! I would have liked to dive a bit deeper into some of the things that were brought up but overall the book was super sweet and cute, with baking and tasty food mentioned! It's also a perfect book to read during summer too

I'm really excited to continue the series and find out more about everyone else 👀