Hi Fellow Bookworms and Friends! Follow along with me on my reading journey of 2023, continuing with the 5 Books I read in April. This month I got a little overwhelmed and took a small break to catch up on podcasting. With that said, I was still able to make a small dent in my Review Pile! If you think one sounds great, click on the photo to get your very own copy!
The Assassin Thief by Madeline Te Whiu
Telium was once the most feared assassin in all Alkoria. Now she lives out her days in exile as she fights for dominance over her dark gifts. But all that changes when an errant Fae warrior enters her domain. Drawn by rumours of a powerful being said to be borne from the shadow of the dark goddess Tenebris. With their kingdoms on the brink of chaos, he calls for her aid in his mission to defeat the Mad Fae King and prevent an all-out war. But the road to the Fae capital of Meannthe is a long one, and haunted by memories of her past, Telium must decide if she can risk losing dominance over the darkness in her soul.
House of Cotton by Monica Brashears
Magnolia Brown is nineteen years old, broke, and effectively an orphan. She feels stuck and haunted: by her overdrawn bank account, her predatory landlord, and the ghost of her late grandmother Mama Brown. One night, while working at her dead-end gas station job, a mysterious, slick stranger named Cotton walks in and offers to turn Magnolia’s luck around with a lucrative “modeling” job at his family’s funeral home. She accepts. But despite things looking up, Magnolia’s problems fatten along with her wallet. When Cotton’s requests become increasingly weird, Magnolia discovers there’s a lot more at stake than just her rent.
Back In A Spell by Lana Harper
Nineve Blackmoore is almost painfully down-to-earth and sensible by Blackmoore standards. After a year of nursing a broken heart inflicted by the fiancée who all but ditched her at the altar, the powerful witch is ready to try a dating app. Nina goes on a date with Morty Gutierrez, the nonbinary, offbeat soul of spontaneity and co-owner of the Shamrock Cauldron. Once Morty discovers Nina’s last name, he’s far from a fan. But when Morty begins developing magical powers, at the same time that Nina’s own magic surges beyond her control, Nina must manage Morty’s rude awakening to the hidden magical world, uncover its cause, and face the intensity of their own burgeoning connection. But what happens when that connection is tied to Nina’s power surge, a power she’s finding nearly as addictive as Morty’s presence in her life?
Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
Sally Milz is a sketch writer for The Night Owls, a late-night live comedy show that airs every Saturday. When Sally’s friend and fellow writer Danny Horst begins dating Annabel, a glamorous actress who guest-hosted the show, he joins the not-so-exclusive group of talented but average-looking and even dorky men who’ve gotten romantically involved with incredibly beautiful and accomplished women. Sally channels her annoyance into a sketch called the Danny Horst Rule, poking fun at this phenomenon while underscoring how unlikely it is that the reverse would ever happen for a woman. Enter Noah Brewster, a pop music sensation with a reputation for dating models, who signed on as both host and musical guest for this week’s show. Dazzled by his charms, Sally hits it off with Noah instantly, and as they collaborate on one sketch after another, she begins to wonder if there might actually be sparks flying. But this isn’t a romantic comedy—it’s real life. And in real life, someone like him would never date someone like her . . . right?
Elixir by Theresa Levitt
For centuries, scientists believed that living matter possessed a special quality that differentiated it from nonliving matter. But by the nineteenth century, the scientific consensus was that the building blocks of one were identical to the building blocks of the other. Elixir tells the story of two young chemists who were not convinced, and how their work rewrote the boundary between life and nonlife. In the 1830s, Édouard Laugier and Auguste Laurent were working in Laugier Père et Fils, the oldest perfume house in Paris. By day they prepared the perfumery’s revitalizing elixirs and rejuvenating eaux, drawing on alchemical traditions that equated a plant’s vitality with its aroma. In their spare time they hunted the vital force that promised to reveal the secret to life itself. Their ideas, roundly condemned by established chemists, led to the discovery of structural differences between naturally occurring molecules and their synthetic counterparts, even when the molecules were chemically identical.
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