What Lies Beyond The Veil

 

What Lies Beyond The Veil

By: Harper L. Woods

Age Recommended: 18+

Genre: Adult, Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, Fantasy Romance

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Spice: 🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶/5

Recommended if you ❤️: ACOTAR 

About the book:

Once, we’d worshipped them as Gods.

For nearly 400 years, the Veil has protected us from the Fae of Alfheimr. In their absence, our lives have shifted from decadence and sin to survival and virtue under the guidance of the New Gods. I’ve spent my entire life tending to the gardens next to the boundary between our worlds, drawn to the shimmering magic like a moth to the flame.

Then, we died on their swords.

All of that changes the day the Veil shatters, unleashing the fae upon our world once again. The magic of faerie marks those of us they mean to take, but the Mist Guard protecting Nothrek will kill us all before they let the fae have us. There’s no choice but to flee everything I’ve ever known, not if I want to live to see my twenty-first birthday as a free woman.

Now, they’ll claim what’s theirs.

But before they capture me, Caelum saves me from the Wild Hunt. Fae-marked and on the run, he is able to fight back in ways I only dream of. From tentative alliance to all-consuming passion, our bond strengthens as the fae close in and evil lurks ever nearer. With my life on the line, he is everything I shouldn’t dare to want and a distraction I can’t afford. I can’t seem to stay away, not even with something greater on the line.

My heart.

“No, Little One. I’m going to love you,” he said, touching his forehead to mine. His dark eyes glimmered, tiny specks of light shining in the obsidian, like the stars that had become my namesake. “Until you forget what it is to hurt and then long after that. Until the scars you wear like armor have faded from memory, and only we remain.”

This is a dark fantasy romance with action, adventure, fated mates, close proximity, magic and everything in between.  

Estrella is the human MFC who lives in a small village of Mistfell.  She is a harvester and spends those seasons tending to the gardens until the harvest.  She lives with her Mother and her brother Brann in a small little shack of a house.  For as long as she can remember Lord Byron has had his eyes on her and he has had her get private tutoring to teach her to read write and be a lady but he has also abused her and caused many scars along her flesh.  This dark past she has is what causes most of the anger she has in her heart.  

After the veil falls she is on the run and meets Caelum (love interest). He saved her and the traveled together.  They keep running into obstacles and her violent defiant side shows more and more.  

"You're a vicious one, aren't you?" he asked, running his tongue over the top of his perfect bottom teeth.

"Only when it comes to pushy men who seem to think they have the right to touch me," I snapped, leaning further into the knife against his throat."

The world and character building was great I was able to paint a detailed picture in my mind.  Caelum is a morally grey character that you cannot help but love despite his possessive tendencies.  I loved the banter between Estrella and Caelum.  

This book has a lot of filler but I feel that it is building up for what the next book has in store.  This book was left on a massive cliff hanger that keeps me wanting more.  

I definitely recommend this book. 

Beyond The Moonlit Sea

 

Beyond The Moonlit Sea

By: Julianne MacLean

 

Genre: Women's Fiction, Contemporary Romance

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

 Spice: 🚫

About the book:

 

Olivia Hamilton is married to the love of her life, Dean, a charismatic pilot who flies private jets for the rich and famous. But when he vanishes over the Bermuda Triangle, Olivia’s idyllic existence unravels. After years of waiting, Olivia must eventually let go of the fragile hope that her beloved husband might still be alive.

 

Melanie Brown is a particle physicist who spends late nights studying the Bermuda Triangle. But her research interests falter when her mother dies in a tragic accident. Struggling to reboot her life and career, Melanie begins a forbidden love affair with her therapist.

 

When a shocking discovery shows Olivia’s and Melanie’s paths are intertwined, it casts Dean’s disappearance in a new light. The two women’s strange connection threatens to unlock secrets that will change everything Olivia thought she knew about her marriage, her husband, and most importantly, herself.

 

 

This is an emotional story, filled with secrets and some drama as the story unfolds.  I enjoyed not only the multiple POV but the multiple timelines.  

Olivia met Dean when she was a college student and interviewed him for a project they fell in love and got married.  After a few years they had started talking about starting a family.  Dean had become a pilot and he had to take a job flying over the Bermuda Triangle where he went missing.

 

Melanie is a physicist who had lost interest in her work and began seeing a therapist to try and work through what is keeping her stuck professionally, they end up dating each other (which is disgusting) Melanie ends up being this smothering, overbearing, jealous girlfriend with mood swings (totally an annoying character).

 

Olivia was a very strong character she put her life back together after spending years trying to figure out what happened to her husband.  The plot twist that shows how Olivia and Melanie’s life are intertwined wasn’t predictable.  I enjoyed this book and all the little pieces that bring it together in the end.  I do recommend this book.

The Silver Stone Challenge

The Silver Stone Challenge

By: Vanessa Bettencourt

About the book:

The Silver Stone Festival is the most important celebration of the Eskar Kingdoms. Spectators arrive in Ivoer from every capital to watch the Knights of the Order and cadets of their Academies face the trials and witness the Silver Stone.

Sixteen-year-old Eilenar lives alone with his mother on the outskirts of Ivoer. Kept away from the festival and the Order of Eskar Academy since he was born, this year he learns his name is on the lists.

If his team wins, Ivoer gets to keep the Silver Stone in the city for another year... And the victor of the final challenge gets to ask for a wish from the powerful artifact.

But the Silver's light attracts strange visitors that only Eilenar seems to see. Darkness enfolds the city, but Eilenar will not be alone. The winged guardian's voice finds Eilenar. Magic is awakening again. Can Eilenar help his team and keep his secret? 

The rules have changed... and not all who seek the stone will play by them.

When She Returned

 

When She Returned

By: Lucinda Berry

Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Fiction, Suspense, Psychological Thriller

Trigger Warnings: Abuse, Brain Washing, Gaslighting, Violence, Self-harm, Child-abuse, PTSD

About the book:

One woman’s reappearance throws her family into turmoil, exposing dark secrets and the hidden, often devastating truth of family relationships.

Kate Bennett vanished from a parking lot eleven years ago, leaving behind her husband and young daughter. When she shows up at a Montana gas station, clutching an infant and screaming for help, investigators believe she may have been abducted by a cult.

Kate’s return flips her family’s world upside down—her husband is remarried, and her daughter barely remembers her. Kate herself doesn’t look or act like she did before.

While the family tries to help Kate reintegrate into society, they discover truths they’ve been hiding from each other about their own relationships. But they aren’t the only ones with secrets. As the family unravels what happened to Kate, a series of shocking revelations shows that Kate’s return is more sinister than any of them could have imagined.

“The problem with having a fairy-tale relationship story was how much other people were invested in keeping the fairy tale alive. It wasn’t just our story—it was everyone’s.”

― Lucinda Berry, When She Returned

I have to say that at first, I was drawn into the story, Kate vanished 11 years prior from a Target parking lot and then shows back up all those years later and with and infant.  However, the further into the story I got the more I wasn’t loving it.   

Kate returns to her previous home except her 5-year-old daughter is 16 without any substantial memories of her.  Her husband has mourned the loss of her and has moved on and remarried and they are all tip toeing around her while they try to all navigate in this uncharted territory. 

I really did not like Scott, I get that his whole world was turned upside down again when Kate decides to return but the way he treats his current wife Meredith is just awful and she was being patient and as kind as she could be the whole time and she did not deserve his blatant disregard for her feelings at all.  

He also didn’t take anything she thought was significant seriously at all, he basically treated her like she was an outsider and didn’t belong.  I was rooting for her to leave him the whole book.

I did not like Kate at all, I get that she had been traumatized from being in a cult but seriously she chose to leave her family.  She chose to leave her daughter that right there was enough for me to decide I didn’t like her and the behaviors that followed solidified my dislike for her.  She never fully even explains why she chose to leave everything behind. 

The ending made me sad and not to spoil it for anyone else I will not go into it further, but the ending is the reason this gets 3 stars for me anyway. 

 My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐/5