 3 stars
Well that was…. Something. Definitely not my favorite Sager, but that’s okay. We can’t love them all. Concept: ★★★★ Characters: ★★ Villain(s)/Reveal(s): ★★ (for me! I know a lot of other readers would give this a solid five star) Enjoyment: ★★ 1/2 The Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora Hope was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred. With that Lizzie Borden-style murder setup, The Only One Left takes off in typical Sager fashion. We've got a female main character with some secrets: home caregiver Kit McDeere, who's been on forced work leave due to a tragic and unseemly accident with her last patient. She's somewhat unlikeable, somewhat opaque in motive, and out of options. We've got a setting filled with creeps: the Hope's End manor, complete with crumbling cliffside ruins and some seriously skeevy staff. We've got the big hook: elderly Lenora Hope is finally ready to tell her story, and Kit McDeere is her semi-willing audience. It's turtles all the way down from there, folks, with some serious twists and turns along the way for even the most hardened mystery reader. The Only One Left is one of the only—pun intended—Sager novels that I hadn't read during its publication year. What can I say, the concept didn't grip me even with that compelling cover design. I think that apathy toward reading it was a harbinger for what was to come for my reading experience. I just... didn't connect with this story at all. From the concept to the main character, all the way down to the series of spectacularly Sager twists and turns in the conclusion—it just wasn't a hit for me. (I know this is a "me" issue, as the other reviews for this one are fabulous.) This was... fine. I think I would have enjoyed it more if it was set in modern times—it took place in the early 1980s—and possibly had more action? or at least, more things going on? This story was SO limited in setting, characters, and setup that I found myself bored for most of the reading experience. Which was wild, given how bonkers it got there toward the end. I do enjoy limited scenario books... so I truly don't know what was happening here with this one. Oh well. Can't love them all! If you too didn't love this one, please do still try other Riley Sager. My favorite, The Last Time I Lied, is SUCH a good time.
0 Comments
 5 stars
My second 5 star read from Heaberlin. Welcome to the Amy's Favorites pile. Night Will Find You is one of those novels that I love best—a multi-genre baby. A heavy dose of mystery/thriller, a dash of speculative intrigue, a dollop of romantic tension, a spin of literary fiction style. A lil' bit o' everything, you know? Vivvy Bouchet is an astrophysicist looking for signs of life in the night sky. She's grounded in science, loaded with reality—but she has a poorly kept secret. Vivvy can also see things she's never been able to explain. From visions to feelings to ghosts impressions, Vivvy has always existed in the contradictory push/pull of science vs. the unexplained. A boy that she saved grew up into a Texan cop, and he knows about her gift. When the girls are missing or their killers can't be found, he asks Vivvy to help. Vivvy can't say no; it's complicated. But now, her gifts and relative anonymity are about to go up in smoke—the latest case she's pulled in to unofficially help with is a famous case of a missing little girl that captured the Texas public and remained unsolved. Jesse Sharp, the dangerous-edged detective in charge, doesn't want Vivvy's help. Vivvy doesn't want Jesse Sharp—he sees things too clearly, and he's pointed right at Vivvy. Neither Jesse nor Vivvy are going to get their way, as the case unfolds around them both like a death trap. Vivvy's convinced the girl is alive, and now it's time to prove it. Jesse thinks Vivvy is full of B.S., but he's out of options. Time to roll the tape... When I say I DEVOURED this book, I mean it. I read it in almost one, uninterrupted sitting at the very end of a lackluster reading year where nothing—and I mean NOTHING—held my attention in book form. I was in the slump to end all slumps, and nothing was shaking it. Heaberlin's novel caught me, and I'm thrilled to say it kept me, too. I loved it from the top down. The writing is gorgeous. The characters are compelling and believably messy. The plot itself is complex, like Heaberlin's other novel I've read (We Are All the Same in the Dark). The Texas setting is richly contextualized for this non-Southern reader. I truly don't have anything negative to say, besides a very small caveat (see below). Don't miss this one, it's well worth the read. Small caveat to this review: There are some complicated elements here that exist outside of the story’s ecosystem—the Elon Musk and DeGrasse Tyson references, in particular, are aging badly since its pub date in 2023—but outside of the real world retroactive gate-crashing, this is a novel I would consider near perfect in every way.  5 stars
Obsessed with this intricate, odd little sapphic fable. Come for the spiders, stay for the unique elements... From the marketing blurb: The Shape of Water meets Mexican Gothic in this sapphic monster romance novella wrapped in gothic fantasy trappings... Combining old-school fairytale storytelling with a very intriguing spider motif and a surprisingly sweet/PG romance, But Not Too Bold was basically the perfect little horror novella for me this month. I'm such a sucker for loving things I've never encountered before. It's the newness factor, the "oh I can't quite predict where we're going with this", the utter delight at being surprised in any capacity. The more you read, the less you get this high—unless you continue to ride the waves of the multiple genre/novella/emerging novels landscape. But Not Too Bold is one of those new little babies, and I'm thrilled to report it's worth your time if you're like me and looking for something fresh and fun to devour in one sitting. Some people might not call this a positive thing, but I also loved that this novella felt like a highly structured fairytale—almost like an episodic play?—with its various acts and vignette-like approach to the narrative. I think this element made the relatively simple plot much stronger, and it added to the story's overall sense of timelessness. And also, let's discuss the monster in the room--this novel has a VERY strong spider motif to it, and let's just say I was thrilled to see that in practice and done in a surprisingly unique way. I'll also keep this note vague here... because short novellas are very hard to discuss without spoiling part of the magic... but there's a highly romantic component to this story that honestly made me realize that there's a large demographic of romance/fluffy readers out there who would love this tale if it was described to them. This is a sweet story? And I think there's a group of non-horror readers who would love this one.  4.5 stars
The pandemic. Discrimination against Asians. Hungry ghosts. A string of murders. And the death of a sibling. Bat Eater pulls no punches and is happy to do it. It wants you to witness. Full disclosure: I would never have picked up this horror novel if not for the Evernight subscription box. I usually avoid sibling death in all things as it's one of the worst realities I can imagine for myself and, frankly, I don't want to read about it in any context. But this book came to me via a subscription box, and so I felt I needed to give it a go. It would only be polite, right? When I tell you I was hooked by the first few chapters—wow. This author really captured my attention with just a few extremely well-constructed scenes. And then we were off to the races, this book and I, and I finished it in one day. Cora Zeng's entire life changes on one fateful day in the first few weeks of the 2020 COVID pandemic in New York City. Her and her sister traveled far looking for toilet paper—remember the TP panic??—and they finally found some in China Town. They're in the subway waiting alone for the train when the unthinkable happens. A white man in disguise pushes Cora's sister onto the tracks. She's dead. In the aftermath of the unthinkable, Cora weathers the pandemic with poor grace. She's in heavy grief, she's dealing with some severe mental health struggles in the OCD and germophobic vein, and she's almost completely alone and afraid. Oh, and jobless and broke. So she picks a job that makes no sense for her set of personal issues, but a job is a job in this pandemic landscape: she becomes a crime scene cleaner. Cora notices a disturbing pattern: she's cleaning up an inordinate amount of Asian women's gruesome deaths. All of them horrifically involving bats. Bat eater = the derogatory slur toward Asian people that spread around during the pandemic due to the false and bigoted concept that the COVID virus came from bats>Asian people eat bats>Asian people are the source/problem of the pandemic. Between the horrifying deaths, Cora's grief, and the newly emerging sense that some sort of violent ghost is following her—despite her lack of belief in ghosts—Cora's left with no way out but through. She'll get to the bottom of these mysteries before the mysteries come for her. Oof. Bat Eater was gripping... but also heavy. It needed to be, given its heavy topics and the larger conversations that the author wanted to highlight in regard to anti-Asian discrimination, how hate crimes against Asians rose during the pandemic, and how the lingering traumas of that time are still with us as a culture. So much of our media doesn't address or acknowledge the pandemic. Don't you think that's strange? Maybe you don't—maybe you, like me and everyone else, don't like to think about that time period of fear and mass hysteria that dominated our lives for years and really set us back, globally, on a massive scale. We became more animal versions of ourselves, we isolated more than just our bodies, we unlearned our niceties, we stripped our generations of valuable skills and removed a lot of their social protections. It makes so much sense why a horror novel should include the pandemic—what was the pandemic, if not our own global horror story? To combine the pandemic horror + Chinese hungry ghost storyline + a grief narrative was a deftly done, heavyweight punch. Hats off to Kylie Lee Baker for making a novel that is hard to read but very well done. I recommend it to all who can handle the subject matters mentioned.  4 stars
I really, really enjoyed this one. Bit of an abrupt ending, but honestly that can be mostly forgiven because of the excellent creeping tension. I've had Dead Water on my radar for quite some time. When it came out, I saw quite a few mutuals online who hyped it up—the title, the cover, the description—and I was so excited. It sounded gothic adjacent, paranormal in a way I always love, and just plain atmospheric. But then the reviews trickled in, and I let them sway me. (Don't let them do that! Learn from me, another random reviewer trying to sway you! Lol.) People said this was boring, too long, not exciting, not horror enough, not interesting enough, not "enough" enough. I'm kind of at the point in my reading lifecycle where those kinds of negative reviews are almost like a siren call to me now. Usually, in my experience this means that a genre purist has found a book to be multi/hybrid genre and boyyy do they not like that. As a multi-genre person myself, I usually go OOooooo, alright, it's time for me. Dead Water is one of those multi-genre feeling stories. A little bit literary, a little bit gothic, a little bit horror, a little bit small-town isolated community diary, and a little bit fable. If you like book journeys where the point of the thing is to get a bone-deep sense of an entire community, this is the novel for you. The multiple POVs, the unflinching depictions of a large handful of flawed characters, their issues and wants and hates convalescing into one tangle with the backdrop of a creeping horror.... Yeah. That's the stuff. This literary-dominant atmospheric neo-Gothic northern island story is delicious if you're in it for the unfolding experience.  4 stars
I'm convinced Kristen Ashley has found a way to lace her words with addictive something or other's. There's no other explanation for the speed I read these books or the raw joy I get from them every. single. time. I love them all. And it's that time of year again--strap in with me and hear about this latest installment in the River Rain series! Finding the One is the 7th book in the River Rain series, which starts with After the Climb. If you care about order and starting from the top, I recommend you check out that first one! But, if you're a heathen like me who likes to jump into the middle of the fray, feel free to start right here with me at book 7. (I've read the last few River Rains, it's true, but I started with book 5 and I'm doing just fine 😉) Blake Sharp is a woman trying to move on from her past. Raised under the thumb of her mean socialite mother and in the limelight of the wealthy, Blake spent most of her life trying to be her mother and then, recently, trying to change that fact and find her own way. It's been a rough journey. And it wasn't helped by her dramatic--and mean spirited--shunning of her fiance at their altar in reaction to his cheating. Her overnight social media viral fame from that incident also didn't help. So, suffice to say, Blake's been THROUGH IT. And she's convinced that soft things, good things, romantic things, are not for her. Her previous mean-girl, messy-rich persona doesn't help. But then there's Alisdair "Dair" Wallace, her childhood friend-slash-occasional nemesis. Dair's been in Blake's orbit since they were in single digits. He's Scottish, he's a former rugby sports star, and he's always seen Blake for more than what she presents. In traditional Kristen Ashley style, Dair's the kind of man who's going to move in on that action plan because there's no time like the present. Add in a heavy dash of KA's drama and flair, and we're in for a gooooood time. I feel like a broken record when I write these Kristen Ashley reviews, but it's worth repeating each time: I just love her stories. I love them all, even when they're not for me and/or not the same level as other ones. I'm pleased to report that Finding the One is, predictably, just as good as my other KAs. In fact, it had some unique, mature romance themes to it that I really appreciated! To call out one element of this River Rain series in particular--I love this blended family of blood relatives, friends, and found family. They might be richer than God (and with that aristocratic lifestyle to match) but wow do they love and support each other in a way that I just adore every time. Come for the feels, stay for the feels. And pick up another KA the minute to you finish this one because it'll give you that bug like they all do...  3.5 stars
Divorce yourself from the idea that this author is the same one who wrote If We Were Villains—the writing feels like her, but that constant comparison is going to make you dislike this slim novella. I enjoyed this micro slice-of-life into 5 interesting peoples’ lives and their weird crossed paths. Extremely well written, wry, and emotionally complex while maintaining a distanced third person POV in a way that I always personally appreciate. It was with less enjoyment that I came to terms with the fact that we’re still, for some reason, culturally stuck on the mycelium horror landscape that has been so thoroughly covered by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, T Kingfisher, and others. I am tired of that concept and wish it was done with more nuance / new elements. Already anticipating the next from ML Rio. (But please, let’s retire the fungus for a bit.)  4 stars
Delighted to report that I loved this—mostly due to the fact that I am not at all what you'd consider to be a "cozy fantasy" reader! This softer fantasy was filled with a memorably personable POV, some magical hijinks, a slowwww burn romantic angle, and a fun plot. Sorcery and Small Magics follows the tale of our main point-of-view (POV) character, Leo Loveage, who is a good-time guy, mischievous and under-performing student, prolific musician, chaos goblin, and the writer of "small magics". Leo's here for a good time, you understand, and not for a long time. As a member of the gentry class, he comes from money and is going to end up with money, and therefore he's a bit petulantly irritated that he has to attend five years' worth of magical academy preparations in order to inherit his family's estate. Leo isn't sure why his father is so insistent on this--it's not like Leo can ever amount to anything, after all, because he's incapable of doing any serious levels of magic and is stuck with the basic, child-level charm work despite his classmates' proficiencies in advanced spell making. In Leo's world, there are those who write the magics (like himself) and those who can cast the written magics. One of those magic casters is Leo's academic nemesis: Sebastian Grimm. Sebastian is everything Leo is not—he's deadly serious, austerely studious, insanely talented, and capable of extremely large feats of magic. Leo hates him, you understand. So when Leo and Sebastian find themselves paired for a magic task and accidentally bind themselves together with a forbidden spell??? Disaster. Extra disaster points because they can't stand each other. Extra EXTRA disaster points because it means they're going to be bonded metaphorically at the hip until they figure it out. Cue the hijinks music... Okay, so right off the top—as you can likely tell, this is not a serious fantasy novel. This is a slightly irreverent, mostly fun, overwhelmingly lighthearted fantasy romp that involves a light level of drama and a lot of interesting side quests and fun banter-heavy scenes. I went into Sorcery and Small Magics with zero expectations, and I loved it. Did I wish the stakes were more... present? Yes. Did I also wish we had some #ANGST to give us some emotional hand-wringing? Yes. But was I pleasantly surprised at how much I fell for these characters and their relatively easily resolved dramas anyway?? Also yes. Come for the fun, stay for the fun. This was well done in its subniche genre. I'm looking forward to the next one!  3.5 stars
This latest installment of the Avenging Angels' series shares the story of Harlow and Javier—a romance teased since the first book that we've all been dyingggg to explore!—and the usual Charlie's Angels-esque shenanigans. Strap in for another good time! Romance: ★★★★ Plot/Pacing: ★★★ Enjoyment: ★★★ Tenderfoot is the third book in Kristen Ashley's Avenging Angels series, which is in itself a spin-off of sorts from her wildly popular Rock Chicks series. I'm a huge Rock Chicks fan and highly recommend new readers start there, but if you want to jump right into the action with this spin-off series check out Avenging Angel here! Harlow is a girl with iron-clad routines and a deep desire to be known and loved. Javier is a man with a past raised on the streets and a deep desire for foundations and family. When these two collided in Phoenix, Arizona, in some Angels' escapades through mutual friends involving stakeouts, hijinks, drama, and found family... sparks flew. And then they didn't. Javier backed up, and Harlow cracked in splinters. But the Angels' drama waits for no one, not even Javier and Harlow's weird hang-ups, so when shit hits the fan and Harlow finds herself at the heart of the action, Javier is Right There. As in, interrupting-the-scene-and-laying-down-the-claim, Right There. In typical KA fashion, things go from smoldering to blazing hot in the blink of an eye as this latest duo finds their feet in a tender romance amidst the fast-action plot.... Angels, action! So I've got to start my feelings off with a small caveat: I'm a girl who loves her romantic angst, and I love a slower burn. This sometimes sets me off at cross-purposes with romance novels, because not everyone is here for those things. And that's valid! But given my personal tastes, when the romance kicks off too fast and too wholesome for me... I sometimes have a harder time engaging with the story. I think that was the case with Harlow and Javier's romance. Maybe it's because they were teased so heavily as a "will they, won't they" pairing. Maybe it's because I was hoping for more angst around Harlow's family dynamics and her internal dilemmas around that, not to mention Javier's intense backstory. I'm not quite sure, but the end result of my personal experience reading Tenderfoot was that, while I had a good time, I knew this particular journey was not fated to be an all-time favorite. Again, this is a "me" thing. I'm still a KA mega fan, and I'm still enjoying this series. Sometimes, I find myself wishing for some of the more grounded plot lines of her Misted Pines series, I have to say—but I think that's also my personal preferences as I mature as a reader looking for more depth and plot to a lot of my stories. Not negatives, but I think worthwhile sidebars to this review as I know many of my fellow KA fans might need to understand where I'm coming from with this more lukewarm take on my usual hype train. I think I also—for the first time—struggled more heavily with the sheer weight of how many characters, side characters, cameos, and additional people were constantly in the juggling pot to keep track of with reading their interjections and sidebars for so many of these scenes. This is likely due to the fact that I was not "in it" with Harlow and Javier to the level that I was for the other couples, so the other elements were more on the nose for me. But regardless, I found myself trying to catch a mental breather, trying to stay focused on the action when there were almost 15-20 people at any given time in a lot of the scenes, all saying dialogue bits and adding their personality flares. However, all that to say, don't miss this latest installment in the series. Come for the OTT drama, stay for the OTT drama! And we'll get some more with what appears to be new romances on the horizon... Thank you to the author for my copy in exchange for an honest review.  5 stars
Absolutely brilliant, give me 10 of them right now. This was FRESH, new, and exciting in a way that I haven't felt about a fantasy read in quite some time. Concept: ★★★★★ World building: ★★★★★ Plot/Pacing: ★★★★ 1/2 I find the more fantasy I read, the less excited I get about new books—because odds are, they'll remind me of something else I've read. That's NOT a criticism of all books, just a fact about frequency and how there's only so many ways to do certain types of stories. So it's always a huge, huge joy when I find a book like this. The Tainted Cup is a gorgeous, hybrid kind of thing. Part high fantasy—with an atmosphere of low fantasy—and part murder mystery, this novel lives in the middle of the venn diagram for a lot of subniche interests. We follow the story of Dinios "Din" Kol, the assistant to investigator Ana Dolabra, as he works to solve a murder mystery in the far reaches of the Empire, a fantasy coastal world with an emphasis on organic plant life, wet seasons, and... leviathans from the sea. Yes. Follow me. With the core murder mystery at hand, Din and Ana dive into their complex world of contagions, altered bodies, walled rings of caste systems, political corruptions, and survivalist populations in a world that feels like a very unique blend of Pacific Rim-level kaiju beings (yes, big monsters, named Leviathans in this story) and a Sherlock Holmes-style gentry mystery. I know, that's a LOT to process. But, in a truly spectacular blend of brilliant storytelling and good writing, the author masterfully sucks us into this complex world in bite-sized pieces while keeping the easily digestible murder mystery plot at the forefront. Hence my comment earlier that this novel is both high- and low-brow fantasy feeling in equal measure. However, let the record state that this novel is not like other genre hybrids of its type in the low fantasy area—there is a refreshing seriousness to the writing that I appreciated, as most novels that get this "wacky" get very campy as a result. The Tainted Cup is NOT that kind of novel, to assure other readers like me who are not usually a fan of that kind of storytelling. I couldn't put this book down, folks. The Tainted Cup was gripping as hell and a fun time to boot, and I am SO glad to hear it is a series so that we can more of this world and these characters. Come for the Sherlock Holmes pitch, stay for really interesting worldbuilding and well-written characters. |
Amy Imogene ReadsJust someone looking for her own door into Wonderland. Categories
All
Archives
January 2026
|
RSS Feed
|
Home
About Contact |
All reviews posted are my own and do not reflect the opinions of any other individual or entity. When applicable, reviewed titles sent to me by the publisher are noted at the bottom of each review.
|