Review: The Rose Bargain - Book #1 Rose Bargain Duology - Sasha Peyton Smith - February 2025 I'll be honest—when I picked up The Rose Bargain, I was skeptical. As someone who typically steers clear of romantasy and fantasy in general, I expected to struggle through another overwrought magical romance. Instead, Sasha Peyton Smith delivered something unexpectedly engaging that reminded me why I fell in love with dystopian fiction during the mid-2000s boom of series like Divergent and The Chemical Garden. The premise immediately hooked me: an Immortal Queen who once saved King Edward's kingdom, only to usurp his throne and rule with an iron fist for decades. Every year, she offers eighteen-year-olds "Rose Bargains"—the chance to gain something precious in exchange for a devastating sacrifice, whether physical or emotional. It's a brilliantly dark concept that feels fresh despite drawing from familiar fairy tale elements. Our protagonist Ivy wants nothing to do with...

Review: The Red House - Roz Watkins - June 2023 The Red House by Roz Watkins is the kind of psychological thriller that doesn't just entertain—it fundamentally shifts how you see the world around you. What begins as a straightforward mystery evolves into something far more complex and deeply human, exploring the unreliable nature of memory and perception in ways that left me questioning everything. The premise immediately gripped me: five-year-old Celestine awakens to find her parents and baby brother murdered, witnessing what she believes is her brother Joseph wielding the shotgun before fleeing to hide in their shed. But Joseph is simultaneously in a car accident that leaves him comatose for twenty years. This impossible contradiction becomes the heart of a narrative that masterfully peels back layers of truth. Watkins' genius lies in her portrayal of Celestine's facial blindness—a condition I'd never fully understood before this book. As an adult going by Eve, Cele...

Title: Someone Knows Author: Vi Keeland Publisher: S&S/Emily Bestler Books Genre: Standalone Thriller Release Date: June 17, 2025 BLURB As a college English professor, Elizabeth looks forward to the start of each new semester teaching her creative writing seminar. At least until she reads chapter one of The Reckoning, a tale about a high school senior who has an affair with her teacher. To anyone else it would be the beginning of a great page-turner, but to Elizabeth it is the beginning of the end. She knows this story. It’s all familiar because she lived it. The girl in the story was her best friend Jocelyn, and Elizabeth knows exactly how the story will end—with the teacher dead. Because she was the one who killed him. Someone knows what Elizabeth did twenty years ago and her secret is about to be exposed, but who is the mystery student submitting the chapters? In an effort to find out, Elizabeth returns to her Louisiana hometown where it soon becomes clear that no ...

Review: Wanting the Winger - Book #2 Love on the Line Series - Brenda Rothert - June 2025 Sports romances hold a special place in my reading heart, and when I saw Wanting the Winger available through Hambright PR, I didn't hesitate to request it. My history with Brenda Rothert's work goes back to before 2017, and I was fortunate enough to meet her at RT2017 in Atlanta—a dream vacation that remains one of my favorite literary memories. That connection made diving into Sebastian's story even more meaningful. Wanting the Winger delivers everything I love about the best friend's sibling trope wrapped in the high-energy world of ice hockey. Sebastian "Bash" is our charming winger who opens his home to Lainey, his best friend Eric's little sister. She's pursuing her dreams as a microbiologist with a new lab position, but there's one massive complication: her engagement to Shane, a man Bash absolutely despises. The tension between wanting to protect his ...

Review: The Four - Ellie Keel - August 2024 There's something deeply unsettling about returning to the world of boarding schools through fiction when you've lived that reality yourself. As I cracked open The Four by Ellie Keel, memories of my own three years at Hadlow from 1997-1999 came flooding back. I had won a scholarship too, just like the protagonists Rose, Sami, Lloyd, and Marta, and that shared experience made every page feel intensely personal. This YA academic thriller had been sitting on my physical bookshelf for months, practically calling to me. My friend Liv Royal had recommended it, and I'm grateful she did. The story follows four scholarship students whose dreams materialize when they're accepted into an exclusive boarding school, but their bond is forged through something far darker than academic achievement. What struck me most powerfully was how Ellie Keel captures the unique dynamics of scholarship students in elite institutions. Having lived that...

Review: The Reunion - Sonya Bateman - July 2025 Y'all, let me tell you about a book that had me clutching my coffee mug and triple-checking my door locks! This psychological thriller serves up everything I crave in a good revenge story – think "I Know What You Did Last Summer" meets your worst high school reunion nightmare. Our protagonist Desi was once part of the untouchable crew known as The Westgate Eight – you know the type, those impossibly cool kids who ruled the hallways like teenage royalty. But fifteen years ago, their perfect little world shattered on prom night when Flynn Bartell turned up dead and their queen bee Modesty vanished into thin air. Talk about a graduation gift nobody wanted! Here's where it gets juicy: every year since, the surviving members have been meeting up at this swanky resort (run by a former classmate, because apparently nobody can escape high school), basically having the world's most morbid book club meeting. But this year ma...

VBT# Review - Siblings: Emma's Story - Book #1 The Siblings Books - Hilary Coombes - June 2025 Sometimes the best reads come from the most unexpected places. When Zoe at Zooloos Book Tours put out a call for extra bloggers, I found myself raising my hand for Siblings: Emma's Story – definitely not something I would have picked up on my own. But isn't that the beauty of book tours? They push us out of our comfort zones and into stories we never knew we needed. Emma's journey hit me harder than I expected. Here's a woman who, despite not always recognizing it herself, embodies strength and resilience in ways that honestly reminded me of myself. Watching her navigate life's curveballs felt deeply personal, especially as she grappled with the fundamental question of identity after discovering her entire life had been built on lies. The story kicks off with Emma in a messy friendship fallout over a guy – we've all been there, right? When she sides with their n...