A roundup of several smaller reviews I wrote in late summer to fall 2025. Beware of spoilers!
Title: What Comes After
Author: Katie Bayerl
Series: n/a
Thank you to Katie Bayerl, Penguin, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a free ARC in exchange for an honest review. Sorry it’s overdue.
DNF 31%. The afterlife is the same as life, filled with veiled autocracy, big brother, social media, toxicity and strife, and other familiar bullshit. And so many awful puns. Except “post mortem depression,” I liked that one. And it’s this weird academia setting complete with cliques and bad boys. Mari’s in exactly the same situation she was before she died. I don’t understand. At all. What’s the point of them being dead if they’re pretty much living real life? You have to study and pass tests and pay fricken rent in the afterlife? Seriously? But it’s not everyone’s afterlife? It doesn’t make sense and I don’t find the characters endearing enough to put up with another seven and a half hours listening to it. Points for a unique idea, but making the afterlife just like life takes away the very essence of the afterlife, its mystery and other-ness. The vast possibility of it. No one wants the afterlife to be like life. No one wants just more of the same. Not for me, moving on.
Title: Caraval
Author: Stephanie Garber
Series: Caraval #1
Meh. Doesn’t deserve the hype. Just another YA trials fantasy and not a particularly good one. Excedingly cliche. Nothing unique or compelling about it. I thought about quitting it a couple times but couldn’t be bothered to take my phone out of my pocket to turn it off.
Characters lack dimension and personality, and the romance happened too fast and easy. They’re caught up in high stakes drama, they don’t get to know each other well enough to know if they truly like each other. All we know about Julian is he can swim. All we know about Scarlett is her mother’s absent, her father is abusive, so she’s overly protective of her sister. Oh, and she can see emotion in color, which is 100% pointless. I didn’t dislike either of them but I didn’t care all that much about them either. I fully despised Donnatella, which makes the entire premise fall apart because I really didn’t care if we found her selfish, bratty ass or not.
The worldbuilding is pitiful and vague. The magic rules are subject to the author’s whim. The sisters live on a random unnamed island in an unnamed world and travel to another random unnamed island where Caraval is being held. And setting the story in an environment filled with illusion and tricks, blatantly telling the reader not to take anything seriously? To second guess everything? Bye-bye stakes. That’s the sign of an author who prioritizes plot twists over character development—expect a shallow story. What matters? What are we supposed to care about? I became so exasperated with Scarlett for taking it all seriously when they literally told her countless times that it was a game. Nothing matters because everything is an illusion. An absolute waste of time.
The end was not at all satisfying. I don’t feel like I got a straight answer about anything because the author was too busy contorting the story with narrative backflips. I have zero interest in continuing the series.
Title: Whispers of Shadowbrook House
Author: Rebecca Anderson
Series: n/a
I, too, love stories where the creepy and the romantic meet….when it’s done well.
This wasn’t. It’s got a lot of heart, and I was moved to tears at one point, but man, is it boring. I mean, we spend the first four chapters playing a very un-thrilling game of hide-and-seek. There’s way too much exposition and inner monologue to suit me. Just blah blah-blah blah-blah, I hope this, I have to make them see that. Very little actually happens. Whenever I read a book like this, it just astounds me how an author can use so many words and yet accomplish so little.
What’s supposed to be creepy isn’t really creepy. I’d give it atmospheric, perhaps—the house was a character—but not creepy. I was SO disappointed in the “seance.” They just held hands and thought of emotional memories. Reminds me of Rocket’s line in Guardians: “Bunch of jackasses, standing in a circle.” Except they were sitting.
The romance is more corny than cute. Shit like her smile could be traded for air and keep him alive. I liked Oliver all right, but I didn’t care for Pearl. She had a lot of trauma she refused to acknowledge. Well, they all did, but she was the one pretending to be okay most fiercely. She was a good person but unhealthily obsessed with Maxwell and blinded to reason regarding his care. She wasn’t just the kid’s governess, she was his mother and sister and playmate and all the roles. So concerned, yet so frustratingly ignorant—his bedroom smells like rot and one wall is literally, consistently, wet, soggy, and black. And it never occurred to her—to anyone—that it might be a problem? Even if they didn’t understand what black mold was, if a wall of your home is wet, soggy, and black, and it’s not supposed to be, YOU HAVE A PROBLEM. You don’t have to know about black mold to know that. People knew centuries before that that chronic dampness could cause illness. God, that was frustrating.
There’s supposed to be a mystery, but there really wasn’t. What was ailing Max? What was haunting the house? The characters accepted those as just facts, though—no one was like, we have to figure this out! Look for clues! Interview the staff! There was no sleuthing. As soon as Max’s room is described, that mystery’s solved. As soon as we’re told that many family members have died, the other mystery’s solved. Then it’s just a matter of rattling around and waiting for someone to do something about it. Madame Whatshername was completely superfluous, as was Pearl’s visit to the bookstore. Just filling pages in a story without much plot.
I never did understand what made Max so special and what the connection was he had with the house, with his bedroom. Something supernatural is suggested but not explored. I wondered at one point if Max’s health was tied to the house’s, and as long as the house was deteriorating, so would Max. But I don’t know if that was intentional or not.
The writing was heartfelt, cheesy, overly expositional, and often clunky. The first paragraph: “the world looks forward toward the coming century.” Don’t put “forward” and “toward” together. Just don’t. Another: “the skin of his face regained some color.” The skin of his face? Yuck. Just “his face,” please. Another: “proving whatever unconscious sleep he was experiencing was less than restful.” Dude. “[P]roving his sleep wasn’t restful” is all you need.
The Orchids of Ashthorne Hall has been on my list, but now I think I’ll skip it. Bummer.
Title: A Silence in Belgrave Square
Author: Jennifer Ashley
Series: Below Stairs Mystery #8
Profuse thanks to Jennifer Ashley, Berkley, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I adore this series. That’s the crux of it. There’s always an exciting, well-paced mystery to solve, though I admittedly do not prefer the ones that involve politics. But Kat’s just a cook, not a detective or inspector, so Ashley has to get creative about how Kat manages to sleuth and figure things out, since she’s not often directly involved. She’s got a lot of useful friends and a good brain.
Speaking of her friends, I think we managed to check in with just about everyone, and even met a couple new ones! I loved Hannah and Sean and look forward to seeing them again. Rough on the outside, perhaps, but hearts of gold, like all of Kat’s friends. I wish we’d seen more of James, not entirely sure why. He’s just a bright, charming lad. I’m also strangely disappointed his and Grace’s ship isn’t intended, but I suppose that’s for the best. I think the tidyness of them together appealed to me more than the reality of it.
I really hope Berkley allows Ashley to continue this series. I can’t wait to dig into Daniel’s past, see how Kat’s stall goes, and (view spoiler)
My only complaints are how hungry for pastries this book made me and the many typos. But the latter are expected in an ARC, hopefully they were corrected for the final.
Can’t wait for the next one!
Title: Knave of Diamonds
Author: Laurie R. King
Series: Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #19
Thanks to Laurie R. King, RB Media, and NetGalley for allowing me to listen to a free ALC in exchange for an honest review.
Loved seeing Uncle Jake again and getting some explanation about him.
I can’t decide if I found Mrs. Walsh annoying or fascinating. Maybe both.
It’s unfortunate there was so much talking and describing of other events–show, don’t tell–but I’m not sure I’d have appreciated jumping around in time, either, so I made peace with it. The narrators, Amy Scanlon, Jefferson Mays, and Steven Crossley, earned their wages delivering those long tellings compellingly. All three did a wonderful job. RIP Jenny Sterlin.
Usually I dislike multiple POVs, and I wasn’t a huge fan of it here, but I didn’t hate it. I think this is the first book in the series to give a third POV, so it was a little strange, and I’m not sure the POVs other than Mary’s were truly necessary, but they were interesting.
Every time Sherlock worried about Mary and rushed to help her, my heart went soft. I don’t know how their relationship works without being gross, but it does. I absolutely adore them as a couple.
Title: Higher Magic
Author: Courtney Floyd
Series: n/a
Thanks to Courtney Floyd, Harlequin, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.
DNF 25%, and I pushed hard to get that far. Intriguing premise, not so great execution.
I appreciated that this book highlighted disability and accommodations. That’s near and dear. But ironically, I needed an accommodation to read this book. I found the writing rather dense and not easily accessible, more like reading an academic paper than a novel. Also, at times, clunky. I can look up the terms I’m not familiar with, reread the page for context, and eventually comprehend, but that’s waaayyy more mental energy than I want to expend–which probably explains why I kept falling asleep or zoning out every time I tried to read this book.
I didn’t understand the magic system; maybe I just didn’t get far enough into the book. I also hated that the word “working” was used so often, I believe in reference to a cast spell. It’s a guttural, jarring articulation in my mind, so hearing it in my head over and over and over irritated me. Kinda like tripping on every other crack in a sidewalk. One stumble, fine. Repeated stumbles and I’m getting off that sidewalk.
The narrative also suffered from lack of a hook. We meet the MC when she’s late for her own boring class, then she goes to a boring meeting that kicks off the plot, then she ditches a student and goes home to her meh friends who get her drunk, then she’s hungover. Which part of that was I supposed to find so compelling I wanted many, many more pages of it?
I didn’t dislike the MC, but I didn’t particularly like her, either. She was so consumed by her struggle, anxiety, and incompetence than she made me feel anxious and incompetent. Her friend Cy seemed like a jackass who could only act nice when prodded. Darya was likeable but a mother hen; I wish she had more to do than censure Cy and encourage Bartleby. I’m always up for sassy talking skulls, but Anne’s narration confused, disoriented, and annoyed me, like reading a book written in both first person and third person, alternating every other paragraph.
I appreciate what the author wanted to do with this story, but I don’t think she went about it well. Reading this book was work.
Title: Ghost of a Chance
Author: Katherine Garbera
Series: n/a
Thank you to Katherine Garbera, Harlequin Audio, and NetGalley for allowing me to listen to a free ALC in exchange for an honest review.
DNF 52%. From the start I knew the narrator, Regina Reagan, was going to be a problem. She sounds too old for the character and she has such a droll, flat way of speaking that nothing sounds exciting or interesting. Combine that with a very slow plot pace and I’m too bored to continue. Disappointing, because the story’s not uncompelling, I like the premise and the characters; things just aren’t happening fast enough to hold my interest, and I don’t want to listen to that narrator anymore. Bummer.
Title: Our Infinite Fates
Author: Laura Steven
Series: n/a
Thanks to Laura Steven, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.
DNF 36%. The thought of 7 more hours listening to this elicits a mental groan.
I hate the flashbacks to their past lives. Aside from my preference for linear timelines, the flashbacks are very disorienting and unnecessary: all the ones I’ve read do is tease–and only tease–why the MCs reincarnate without contributing much to the narrative. It comes across to me like Steven playing with her reincarnation toy, having fun exploring history, while we just sit there and watch, bored and impatiently waiting for the story to actually progress.
I’m curious as to why they’re cursed or whatever, but not enough to compel me to read more. What should be compelling me is this all-important, transcendental love between these fated MCs and I don’t feel it at all. They don’t seem to even like each other. The POV character–I’m not sure what their name is, they’ve had many–is likeable, except for what they’ve done to the blond guy, but I’ve been given no reason to like Arden. Yet I’m supposed to care about their story?
Doesn’t help that I don’t care for the narrator, Sofia Oxenham. Pleasant enough voice, but delivers the material in a rather flat, monotonous way that makes me tune out.
No thanks. Other books in the sea.
