April Reads

April wasn't a lot for me. Reason? I'm studying for my licensure exam. It's a huge deal and I'm giving up a lot of things so I can focus on it. One good thing is we got the construction finished on the house! Yay! That's a big deal. It's been a lot of unpacking and adjusting to getting back into the swing of life. One thing I do to calm down is crocheting lately. I'm still working on that temperature blanket and a few other projects. I keep that stuff updated on my IG Craft profile, @elenistitching. It's fun to let Mother Nature write the pattern!

My cat, Maggie, for size reference

I went to Pascha at church, which was nice. I love the Orthodox holidays and church services Hopefully, I'll be able to do more when I finish my license requirements, but you're not here for that stuff!

As for reading...

A Fragile Enchantment by Allison Saft I got this one from one of my monthly book subscriptions a while back, but just haven’t had a chance to read it. Allison Saft wrote an imaginary world based heavily on the relationship between England and Ireland, and it’s quite easy to see the connections. 

Our main character, Niamh O’Conchobhair (sounds like O’Connor), is from Machland and a gifted designer from a harsh background. Her country has been at the mercy of Avaland, and it’s not been easy since the plague. Her designs are so magical and gifted that she’s been asked to design for the royal wedding for Prince Christopher Carmine of Avaland and his bride Infanta Rosa of the country of Carillo. Upon arrival in Avaland, she gets asked by a mysterious gossip column writer to get information for the scandal sheets, but she declines. Prince Christopher isn’t the nicest, but she begins to bond with him and his bride, Infanta Rosa, and makes friends, but that doesn’t stop the scandals from growing. The Prince Consort Jack doesn’t make this easy and has his own agenda for a reason.

Overall, this book didn’t catch my attention. I kind of felt like the author wasn’t in love with the manuscript at times. I had a hard time with the main romance, because Christopher/Kit went from being a prat that was really rude to Niamh to a love interest without a lot emotional changes. Like, he trauma dumped on her, and she used her magical ability with sewing to calm him down, and then she started to get romantic feelings towards him. I did value that Niamh was a queer character, but I felt the relationship with Erin could have been more of a heartache for her in the beginning and spending time with Kit could have eased the heartache. 

I gave this one 3.5/5 stars for a good theme and fantasy world. The magic building was interesting, and I felt like a lot of historical research happened. I just took stars off because it felt like Niamh had a lot of free time for someone who was hired to do a job for royalty and the main relationship seemed a little strange to me, despite it being an enemies-to-lovers trope. 

To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo A fun nautical fantasy based on the Little Mermaid, it was just a lot darker than the Hans Christian Andersen tale. Princess Lira of the Sirens has one goal in life: to capture as many prince's hearts as possible, but her mother the Sea Queen doesn't want her getting too powerful or even daring to have empathy, so she creates a double bind to have an excuse to punish her daughter by turning her human until she can get the heart of a regular sailor, but Lira is ambitious. She wants to get the heart of a particular Prince- Prince Elian of the Kingdom of Midas. Prince Elian is happier at sea than at court, and loves to sail in his ship with her best mates and go on adventures. They come across a human Lira floating in the middle of the sea, passed out, and take her aboard, but are wary. The adventure is a lot of fun to read and it sets up a really cool universe Alexandra Christo created and there is a lot of room for companion novels in the other Kingdoms and retelling other fairy tales. It's not the same as the original Little Mermaid or the King Midas tale, but it's a great story based on them. 5 Stars.

Spectacular by Stephanie Garber, illustrated by Rosie Fowinkle A cute little Christmas Story in the Caraval universe, but there was too much trickery involved for me.  A nice story if you like Christmas novellas, and it was a nice continuation of the Caraval universe. But there is a TW in sexual assault, and if that turns you off, please don't read this. 3/5 Stars

Of Jade and Dragons by Amber Chen I really enjoyed this book. I got it from Owl Crate. It seems last year OwlCrate and Fairy Loot did a lot of AAPI authors for their YA themes, to which I say hell yeah! This one at the surface kinda looks like Mulan, but then it’s more of a murder mystery. Our heroine is a young girl who lives on one of the nine islands that’s unified into a country called Antaran. She’s the daughter of an engineer on this little rural island and tribe of Huinan. She’s the second oldest child the oldest daughter, and her name is Ying. After her father is murdered by a mysterious assassin, she goes to the mainland posing as her younger brother to try to avenge his death and get into the engineering guild. I really did like the love interest in this, Ye-yang, and it was a slow burn. There were a few other characters in the engineering trial,  but the villains were great. Ye-yang’s younger brother annoyed me, but then kinda grew on me. It became pretty obvious that the author is pretty smart and creative as I read, and then I found out that she’s actually an engineer, just like Ying wants to be. The book, unfortunately ended on a cliffie, though! I’ll have to read the sequel, the Blood Phoenix, which is coming out June 17th of this year. 5/5 Stars, my favorite book of the month.

Two by Gina Maxwell & Kristin Cast I was gifted an advanced copy of this book to read and give an honest review.

This was an enjoyable novella in Kristin Cast’s world of Towerfell. It probably has the most TW of all the books i read this month. It's not suitable for young readers, since it has a lot of spice in it and that's a big TW.

Kristin Cast and Gina Maxwell create a vibrant character in Stella, who literally falls out of the sky into two perfect men’s laps. While they initially ask her to be a beard for the crown Prince Valen so that he can escape the Kingdom as an emissary and live out his life with his love Marek while his younger brother matures, things start to heat up in his fake engagement.

I thought both Marek and Stella had tragic betrayals in their pasts. It was beautiful that Marek was able to love again, but I felt like he was breaking my heart giving up true love for the well-being of the royal line.

Stella was resilient and brought life and light back into the world for both Valen and Marek. She was written well, and you could see how she made life better just by being there.

Valen was a little assumptive, but he at least got Stella to agree to his plan. It was sad to see a crown Prince only partially accepted for who he really was by his family, but found the strength to be who he really was by the end with Stella’s help.

If you like MMF triad romances and romantasy, this is the novela for you! Lots of spice with open-door romance scenes, and an unexpected ending. 4 stars.