#BookReview: The Curse of Saints (The Curse of Saints #1) by @katedramis

As an elite spy and the Queen's Third-in-Command, Aya has dedicated herself to a life of discipline and duty, using her gods-given abilities to keep dark magic from ever returning to the realm. Her oath ensures she will always act to protect those she fights alongside—including Will, the Queen's Enforcer and Aya's bitter rival.

Forced by circumstance to work together, Aya and Will struggle to come to an uneasy truce. But when tragedy strikes, Aya instinctively reacts, unleashing a power that hasn't been seen in over 500 years. Shaken, she's confronted with an impossible truth: one that threatens the precious grip she keeps on her control. One that forces her to work with Will to discover who—or what—she really is. And one that could turn her into a weapon in a war she doesn't know how to win.

With Will at her side and untold power at her fingertips, Aya will have to decide: Has she been sent to save the realm she loves…or destroy it?

#BookReview: The Shadow Cabinet (Her Majesty's Royal Coven, #2) by @junodawson

In the second installment of Juno Dawson's irresistable fantasy trilogy (Lana Harper), a group of childhood friends and witches must choose between what is right and what is easy if they have any hope of keeping their coven--and their world--from tearing apart forever.

Niamh Kelly is dead. Her troubled twin, Ciara, now masquerades as the benevolent witch as Her Majesty's Royal Coven prepares to crown her High Preistess.

Suffering from amnesia, Ciara can't remember what she's done--but if she wants to survive, she must fool Niamh's adopted family and friends; the coven; and the murky Shadow Cabinet--a secret group of mundane civil servants who are already suspicious of witches. While she tries to rebuild her past, she realizes none of her past has forgotten her, including her former lover, renegade warlock Dabney Hale.

On the other end of the continent, Leonie Jackman is in search of Hale, rumored to be seeking a dark object of ultimate power somehow connected to the upper echelons of the British government. If the witches can't figure out Hale's machinations, and fast, all of witchkind will be in grave danger--along with the fate of all (wo)mankind.

Sharp, funny, provocative, and joyous, Juno Dawson's sequel reimagines everything you think you knew about her coven and her witches in a story that spans continents and dives deep into the roots of England and its witchcraft. Ciara, Leonie, Elle, and Theo are fierce, angry, sexy, warm--and absolutely unapologetic as they fight for what they believe in, all in the name of sisterhood.

#BookTour: The Secret Girl by @erikawriteswithravens @RABTBookTours

 

The Lonely Raven Trilogy, Book One

Fantasy / Romance

Date Published: February 11, 2025

Publisher: Clay Bridges Press

 

Fallon has received premonitions since she was a child—visions that have driven her to steer countless strangers and acquaintances from looming dangers. But these powers have come at a great cost. After enduring heart-wrenching losses during her teenage years, Fallon has lived a solitary life for over a decade, her only anchor being her childhood best friend.

That is, until a series of intense premonitions draws a group of new people into her life, people who start to feel like family. But something deeper is stirring. The raven tattoo on her wrist has begun to tingle, and a raven has started appearing in her visions. Worse still, Fallon is haunted by the memory of someone from her past, someone she loved, and she believes abandoned her—a person to whom the raven seems inexplicably tied.

As the visions grow more urgent, Fallon must decipher their meaning to protect those she cares about. But the question lingers: Is the raven a guide or a harbinger of doom?

In this gripping first installment of “The Lonely Raven Trilogy,” Fallon must face the shadows of her past to safeguard the future of those she loves—and discover whether the raven is an ally or a threat.

#BookReview: The Spirit Collection of Thorne Hall by J. Ann Thomas @j.annthomasbooks

A young woman forced to live with ghosts in a mansion frozen in time must decide between forbidden love and the price of freedom in this gothic fantasy where Jane Eyre meets The Haunting of Bly Manor, perfect for fans of Starling House.

At Thorne Hall, a grand estate nestled in the Berkshires, fifteen restless spirits roam, bound within the mansion’s walls since the Gilded Age. Elegy Thorne bears the weight of her family’s curse to preserve the mansion as it was in the 1890s, using ancient folk songs to keep the spirits secret and silent in order to avoid deadly consequences.

When a mischievous child spirit wreaks havoc on the manor, the Thorne family calls upon their trusted preservationist to restore the mansion. He brings along his son, Atticus – a vibrant man full of life and ideas of modernization – and Elegy is captivated by him, igniting a longing for freedom she’s never dared to embrace.

Torn between her desire to follow her heart and her duty to her family and its legacy, Elegy begins searching for a way to release the spirit collection back to the afterlife and set both herself and the ghosts free. With century-old secrets, peculiar magic, and spirits both whimsical and deadly, Thorne Hall will haunt and enrapture readers—and you might just not want to leave.

#BookReview: Grave Empire (The Great Silence #1) by @richardswanauthor

From critically acclaimed author Richard Swan, Grave Empire begins the epic tale of an empire on the verge of industrial revolution, where sorcery and arcane practices are outlawed – and where an ancient prophecy threatens the coming end of days.

Blood once turned the wheels of empire. Now it is money.

A new age of exploration and innovation has dawned, and the Empire of the Wolf stands to take its place as the foremost power in the known world. Glory and riches await.

But dark days are coming. A mysterious plague has broken out in the pagan kingdoms to the north, while in the south, the Empire’s proxy war in the lands of the wolfmen is weeks away from total collapse. 

Worse still is the message brought to the Empress by two heretic monks, who claim to have lost contact with the spirits of the afterlife. The monks believe this is the start of an ancient prophecy heralding the end of days—the Great Silence. 

It falls to Renata Rainer, a low-ranking ambassador to an enigmatic and vicious race of mermen, to seek answers from those who still practice the arcane arts. But with the road south beset by war and the Empire on the brink of supernatural catastrophe, soon there may not be a world left to save...