literature

Exposing the Dark Truth Behind 8 Passengers: A Memoir

by Stefani

The House of My Mother by Shari Franke

Published: January 7, 2025 by Gallery Books

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

Synopsis:

Shari Franke’s childhood was a constant battle for survival. Her mother, Ruby Franke, enforced a severe moral code while maintaining a façade of a picture-perfect family for their wildly popular YouTube channel 8 Passengers, which documented the day-to-day life of raising six children for a staggering 2.5 million subscribers. But a darker truth lurked beneath the surface—Ruby’s wholesome online persona masked a more tyrannical parenting style than anyone could have imagined.

As the family’s YouTube notoriety grew, so too did Ruby’s delusions of righteousness. Fueled by the sadistic influence of relationship coach Jodi Hildebrandt, together they implemented an inhumane and merciless disciplinary regime.

Ruby and Jodi were arrested in Utah in 2023 on multiple charges of aggravated child abuse. On that fateful day, Shari shared a photo online of a police car outside their home. Her caption had one word: “Finally.”

For the first time, Shari will reveal the disturbing truth behind 8 Passengers and her family’s devastating involvement with Jodi Hildebrandt’s cultish life coaching program, “ConneXions.” No stone is left unturned as Shari exposes the perils of influencer culture and shares for the first time her battle for truth and survival in the face of her mother’s cruelty.

Rating:

Review:

“From the very start, it seemed, my childhood was destined to be a fight for survival.”

I never watched the 8 Passengers channel regularly, but because I have a young child who loves the watch family vlogging on YouTube I was familiar with it. I saw enough of it to be very concerned about Ruby Franke’s parenting. It made me feel uncomfortable with how much of her children’s private lives were being shared. Honestly, this is still a big problem I have with family YouTubers. I find inherent ethical problems with publishing content featuring minor children. Firstly because it’s putting children out there online for easy access to viewing by predators. Second because children are not mature enough to give informed consent. These kids have no idea what it will mean to have a video online of them shaving their legs for the first time, or showing them being punished for normative behavior. So, I find it unethical to start with and I question the kind of parents who are willing to exploit their children’s lives for views and ad revenue.

The first time I became closely aware of Ruby Franke and her family is when she was arrested in 2023. I knew the family was Mormon, and I was raised Mormon. Because I have social connections in the Mormon sphere I was immediately aware of the criminal case. And I followed it thoroughly. And I am so glad that Shari decided to put out her story, I hope it was a therapeutic experience for her. I listened to the audiobook which was voiced by the author. I think that was the absolute right choice. It added a different layer of emotion to the words. It’s one thing to hear the words, it’s another thing to hear her voice break a little, hear how painful the memory still is. But also to hear her voice lift and sound so joyful when she learns that her siblings are finally safe from their mother. I cried almost the whole way through this book, it was so moving and riveting.

Utimately this is a story about the Mormon church and how its culture created Ruby Franke. As Shari herself speculates, if she wasn’t raised this way then maybe Ruby would have never decided to have children, which would have prevented so many people from being harmed. In the Mormon church, Shari explains, women are taught that motherhood is divine. It is the ultimate purpose of women in life. It is the only way to fully experience and appreciate womanhood. Women who choose not to have children are thought of as selfish and lacking something in their lives, they’ll never be a complete woman. Women who are unable to have children are often soothed by other women that God will give them lots of children in heaven. For a woman like Ruby Franke, who fundamentally felt that something was missing in her life, it makes sense that she decided that missing piece was children. And so, she had 6 of them. And she hated them. She wasn’t mentally or emotionally equipped to be a mother. Who knows what kind of life Ruby would have had if she had been taught that there was any other path?

Shari also talks about the YouTube channel a lot. How it felt to be judged by random internet strangers. To be told by the viewers that she was a “suck up”, when internally she was terrified of what would happen if she didn’t do exactly as she was told. Feeling desperate to just live her life and deal with the challenges of growing up without being filmed. But Ruby wouldn’t allow it.

“Our subscribers didn’t understand what it was like to live under Ruby’s iron fist, they didn’t know the consequences of stepping out of line. I’m not sucking up, I’m surviving, I thought. There’s a difference.”

Shari is quite clear, Ruby was an abusive mother. She was verbally and emotionally abusive all the time, physically abusive on occasion. But when Ruby met Jodi it all spiraled out of control. Her father, Kevin, was demonized as a controlling abuser and the only way he could save his family was by abandoning them. Shari doesn’t give him a free pass. She recognizes that he was an enabler to her mother’s abusive and toxic behavior for years, but that the worst things didn’t start until after he left the home. Jodi demanded that he spend a year with no contact with his wife or his children, it was therapy. And in the end, it all ended with Ruby and Jodi being arrested after the two youngest children were rescued. Luckily Ruby and Jodi will spend a really long time in prison. Kevin has been reunited with his children and is trying to get them help. I hope that Shari finds peace in the end. I hope that they all find healing. It’s a heartbreaking story and I think it should make all of us take a hard look at our YouTube viewing habits.

Exploring Dystopia: A Review of ‘All the Water in the World’

by Stefani

All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffall

Published: January 7, 2025 by St. Martin’s Press

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

Synopsis:

All the Water in the World is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river towards what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality. But they are determined to find a way to make a new world that honors all they’ve saved.

Inspired by the stories of the curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections from war, All the Water in the World is both a meditation on what we save from collapse and an adventure story—with danger, storms, and a fight for survival. 

Rating:

Review:

My reading is not off to a good start this year. Most of the books I’ve read haven’t been very good, so I wanted to grab a dystopian novel about a family working to save exhibits in a museum from a flooded world. Unfortunately, this one was just not good.

The main narrator, Nonie, is completely flat and devoid of any emotion. Her tone and temperament don’t really change throughout the story, no matter what action packed or traumatic events are taking place around her. It made it difficult to connect with the story because the narrator was entirely disconnected from it. I’m not sure if this was done on purpose or not, but it was a bad choice. I wanted to feel something for these people. I wanted to feel something about what they were experiencing. But I couldn’t. Because Nonie didn’t.

The narrative felt very fractured. We switch back and forth from the present to the past, but all of it is written exactly the same and in the same past tense tone. So it was really difficult to determine when we were flashing back to the past and when we were in the present. Or perhaps all of the book was in the past and being told as a memory. I have no idea. It was very confusing and I got tired of trying to follow it. Eventually I just tuned out because I couldn’t keep up.

As a side note, I don’t understand what the point was of Nonie’s “superpower”. She has a “deep connection” to water. But the book doesn’t really explore this at all. It’s mentioned once in the beginning of the book, and once at the end. That’s it. We don’t explore it or discuss it at all. So, what was the point?

Unfortunately this book is a case of lots of potential that wasn’t realized. Which is disappointing.

Found Family and Fortune Telling: A Review of Julie Leong’s Debut

by Stefani

The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong

Published: November 5, 2024 by Ace

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

Synopsis:

A wandering fortune teller finds an unexpected family in this warm and wonderful debut fantasy, perfect for readers of Travis Baldree and Sangu Mandanna.

Tao is an immigrant fortune teller, traveling between villages with just her trusty mule for company. She only tells “small” fortunes: whether it will hail next week; which boy the barmaid will kiss; when the cow will calve. She knows from bitter experience that big fortunes come with big consequences…

Even if it’s a lonely life, it’s better than the one she left behind. But a small fortune unexpectedly becomes something more when a (semi) reformed thief and an ex-mercenary recruit her into their desperate search for a lost child. Soon, they’re joined by a baker with a knead for adventure, and—of course—a slightly magical cat.

Tao sets down a new path with companions as big-hearted as her fortunes are small. But as she lowers her walls, the shadows of her past are closing in—and she’ll have to decide whether to risk everything to preserve the family she never thought she could have.

Rating:

Review:

This book was one of my most anticipated books last year. The cover is lovely, the synopsis is intriguing, it sounded like a perfect mix of a fantasy and a cozy mystery. But, is it possible that a cozy book can be TOO cozy? After reading it I believe the answer is yes, yes it can.

One of the best things about this book was the heavy theme of “found family”. The characters in this book either had terrible families or they were separated from their families by circumstance. And through a series of events in the book they are brought together. They come to rely on one another and trust one another. Eventually they realize that they have become a family. That was a really beautiful story and frankly one of the only reasons this didn’t get one star.

When I think of a cozy mystery, I think of a book that feels warm and inviting with loveable characters. But a book that has a compelling mystery too, to guide all these warm elements along the path of the narrative. This book has plenty of warm, fuzzy and inviting people and stories. Unfortunately the story is not at all compelling. Literally almost nothing happens in this book. What we get is a meandering story of a group of friends who travel from place to place, completing little side quests along the way, but otherwise have no actual goal. Seemingly the goal is to find one of the friend’s missing daughter. We don’t seem to accomplish anything toward this end. Everything is just rather dull.

In the end I got a lot of fuzzy feelings but not a lot of actual content.

The Hitchcock Hotel: A Suspenseful Reunion Gone Wrong

by Stefani

The Hitchcock Hotel by Stephanie Wrobel

Published: September 24, 2024 by Berkley

Buy this book: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

Synopsis:

A Hitchcock fanatic with an agenda invites old friends for a weekend stay at his secluded themed hotel in this fiendishly clever, suspenseful new novel.

Alfred Smettle is not your average Hitchcock fan. He is the founder, owner, and manager of The Hitchcock Hotel, a sprawling Victorian house in the White Mountains dedicated to the Master of Suspense. There, Alfred offers his guests round-the-clock film screenings, movie props and memorabilia in every room, plus an aviary with fifty crows.

To celebrate the hotel’s first anniversary, he invites his former best friends from his college Film Club for a reunion. He hasn’t spoken to any of them in sixteen years, not after what happened.

But who better than them to appreciate Alfred’s creation? And to help him finish it.

After all, no Hitchcock set is complete without a body.

Rating:

Review:

I cannot begin to tell you how disappointed I am about this book. I went into this book with high expectations. After I thoroughly enjoyed Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel (review found here), I was really excited to read this one. Once I reached the end however it was….meh. I can’t say anything too great about it. Nor can I saw anything too bad about it. It was just mediocre.

The idea of the hotel was a great once. I am a fan of Hitchcock and so the ambiance and reference to his films was perfect. I loved the setting. It felt like a Hitchcock film. The characters were very Hithcockian, the setting, the plot, the intrigue. It was all lining up to be an absolute joy to read!

The setup to the murder and the beginning of the reveal of the story was wonderfully done too. I found myself sitting on the edge of my seat to see where things went after the great set up. Unfortunately that’s also where this story took a downturn for me.

Alfred does so much monologuing. So much. He monologues to us as the audience, he monologues to his friends, he monologues to the housekeeper. Honestly, at a certain point I had decided that whatever his former friends did to him in college was probably deserved. He was just insufferable after awhile. But, his former friends weren’t much better. They were equally as unsufferable. But, unlike with the author’s previous book, these were not bad people that you could feel a bit of sympathy for. They were just bad people. And then I was certain that whatever Alfred did to them was entirely deserved also. This entire story was a story of insufferable people getting what’s coming to them.

After the initial set up of the mystery, things got a bit too predictable in my opinion. It wasn’t hard to figure out what was going on, the only question was who the culprit was. And once the villain was revealed I expected some fireworks, a grand finale, a final ah-ha! But alas, the villain monologued too. The entire last quarter of the book was one big monologue. And it was so desperately boring.

I liked Darling Rose Gold enough to give Stephanie Wrobel a shot in the future, but this one was a miss. And I couldn’t be more upset that it was. I really wanted this one to be a home run.

Exploring the Dark Fae World in ‘Servant of Earth’

by Stefani

Servant of Earth by Sarah Hawley

Published: November 12, 2024 by Ace

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

Synopsis:

In the underground Fae realm, only the strongest and most ruthless have power—but a young human woman forced into a life of servitude is about to change everything.

Kenna Heron is best known in her village for being a little wild—some say “half feral”—but she’ll need every ounce of that ferocity to survive captivity in the cruel Fae court.

Trapped as a servant in the faeries’ underground kingdom of Mistei, Kenna must help her new mistress undertake six deadly trials, one for each branch of magic: Fire, Earth, Light, Void, Illusion, and Blood. If she succeeds, her mistress will gain immortality and become the heir to Earth House. If she doesn’t, the punishment is death—for both mistress and servant.

With no ally but a sentient dagger of mysterious origins, Kenna must face monsters, magic, and grueling physical tests. But worse dangers wait underground, and soon Kenna gets caught up in a secret rebellion against the inventively sadistic faerie king. When her feelings for the rebellion’s leader turn passionate, Kenna must decide if she’s willing to risk her life for a better world and a chance at happiness.

Surviving the trials and overthrowing a tyrant king will take cunning, courage, and an iron will… but even that may not be enough.

Rating:

Review:

This book wasn’t really on my radar at all when the new year started, until I saw it listed as a newly available audiobook from the library. So, always keen on starting a new romantasy series, I dove in. And, I was pleasantly surprised!

The characters in this one were very good. I found them nuanced and realistic. Although some of their interactions and motivations were a little predictable, the narrative was interesting enough that I didn’t mind the predictability too much. The handsome charming Fire prince, the cold and distant Void prince….if you’ve ever read a romantasy series you know exactly what that dynamic is setting up. And I had trouble with why Kenna was drawn to one of the princes, but such is the way of a love triangle right? There is always one leg of the triangle that you want to yell “Girl, what?!” about. At least in my experience.

The portrayal of the fae court was absolutely amazing. The visualization of it was lovely and dark and cruel, I absolutely loved it. I could read stories about this world all day long. This is also definitely NOT a young adult book, though the cover and synopsis and love triangle make it feel like one. There is a lot of violent content in this, but seems to be aiming at the typical young adult romantasy crowd with the cover and synopsis so I hope it will find its audience. I also enjoyed the conflicted nature of some of the fae. Some of them seem to understand why the cruelty of their world should be changed, but at the same time they are immortal and in power so they struggle to find the will to change anything. I really enjoyed the conflicts this presented between the characters and it added a really interesting dynamic to the plot. Also let’s not forget the sentient homicidal dagger. I found that absolutely delightful every time it started whispering to Kenna.

Some of the plot was very well thought out and original, some of it was a bit predictable. It telegraphs where the story is going very early on. But, in the end, even though I knew where the story was going I enjoyed the journey and Kenna so much that I didn’t care. This was a worthy start to a romantasy series and I’ll be tuning in for what happens next.

Josh Malerman’s Latest Thriller: Family Secrets and Horror

by Stefani

Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman

Published: June 25, 2024 by Del Rey

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

Synopsis:

A chilling horror novel about a haunting told from the perspective of a young girl whose troubled family is targeted by an entity she calls “Other Mommy,” from the New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box
 
To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’s Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth. But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?”  
 
When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the same question, over and over . . . Bela understands that unless she says yes, soon her family must pay. 
 
Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe but other incidents show cracks in her parents’ marriage. The safety Bela relies on is on the brink of unraveling.  
 
But Other Mommy needs an answer. 

Rating:

Review:

After two books by Josh Malerman, and two disappointments, I think maybe this author just isn’t for me. When I read Bird Box it had problems that severely impacted how much I enjoyed the book. But the horror aspects of the book were superb, and so I hoped that a different story would incorporate those good elements and be a much better story. But alas, another letdown.

The biggest asset this book had was the horror. The descriptions of Other Mommy were downright terrifying. Legitimately sent a chill up my spine. I also really enjoyed the changing narrative as the parents discover what this entity is capable of. At first they think Other Mommy is tethered to the house, then to their child, then she’s just everywhere. That was great.

There were also a few things that I may not have minded if the rest of the story was as good as the horror and suspense. I don’t mind never finding out what a supernatural entity is. From a logical standpoint it makes sense. If my child was being terrorized by some kind of paranormal entity, I wouldn’t give a single shit what the thing was or the origins of it. The only concern I would have is how to get rid of it and save my child. So, the fact that Malerman doesn’t tell us exactly what Other Mommy is was fine with me. He did something similar with Bird Box. So clearly this is a horror element that he enjoys and he uses it well.

I also don’t inherently mind a child narrator. For obvious reasons a child narrator can be limiting to the narrative. There are things that adults understand and can explain that a child cannot. Some authors use this to their advantage, like with Room by Emma Donoghue. But, in this case, I don’t think Malerman understands children. We are told that Bela is 8 years old. She speaks like a 4 or 5 year old child though. Her short, clipped sentences were really distracting and annoying. I’ve had an 8 year old child, I know how they speak. I’ve seen her speaking with her friends, I know how they interact. I find it hard to believe that an 8 year old wouldn’t be able to remember the word reincarnation, and would mispronounce it repeatedly. Many 8 year olds can spell reincarnation and use it in a sentence. I found it really irritating.

I found it hard to understand why Bela trusted Other Mommy. When we start the story, Other Mommy is already terrorizing her. We get no lead up to how this entity earned her trust. Bela tells us that she trusts and loves Other Mommy, and tells her things that she can’t tell other people. But I have absolutely no idea why because the author didn’t bother to show me that relationship at all. I completely understand why Bela would want another mommy, her parents are absolutely insufferable. The only thing her parents seem to do is placate her, not comfort her concerns and refuse to directly answer her questions and then argue about who’s fault it is that Bela is scared. And they both have highly inappropriate conversations with their 8 year old child.

For example, Bela’s mother has a whole conversation with her about why married people sometimes cheat on each other. An why she’s unhappy in her marriage to her father, without saying it’s about her marriage but still this was a highly inappropriate adult topic that had no business being discussed with a child. And Bela’s father likes to sit on her bed when he thinks she’s asleep an have long winded chats about his existential crisis and other pedantic philosophical topics. That was so bizarre. Who does things like that? Who has long philosophical conversations with their apparently sleeping child? I hated them both so much. This entire book convinced that this author doesn’t have children and probably hasn’t spent any time with children in his life.

The ending was also really confusing. I have no idea what happened. In the end this was a book with a good premise and really poor execution. I think I will pass on the next Malerman book that comes my way. He gets a lot of hype but I seem to be reading entirely different books than everyone else.

Taking an Elysium trip: A review

by Stefani

Elysium by Jennifer Marie Brissett

Published: December 1, 2014 by Aqueduct Press

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

Synopsis:

A computer program etched into the atmosphere has a story to tell, the story of two people, of a city lost to chaos, of survival and love. The program’s data, however, has been corrupted. As the novel’s characters struggle to survive apocalypse, they are sustained and challenged by the demands of love in a shattered world both haunted and dangerous.

Rating:

Review:

The best word I can use to describe this book is ambitious. The idea is a really big idea that would be difficult for even the most experienced writer to handle. This came to my attention as an audiobook offering from my library, the blurb intrigued me and so I listened. And honestly, the entire book made me feel like I’d taken a large amount of hallucinogenic drugs.

Essentially, this book is about a computer program that lost its mate. It’s attempting to reconstruct the story of how that happened. And we follow the program through a series of glitches that bring us the same two characters (ostensibly the portrayals of the two computer programs) and put them in varying scenarios before the program glitches again and those characters are recreated as something else. And when I say they become different characters, I really mean that. They switch genders, ages, races, sexualities, motivations, and circumstances. We go from being heterosexual lovers, to gay lovers, to siblings, to parent and child, to a long time couple that has become more of a caretaking situation than a romance, etc. While I found it interesting at first, ultimately it just got very confusing. I could only track the two main characters thanks to the fact that they had similar enough names to track them through these varying tales. Consequently, I found that I didn’t really care about the two characters that much. They were going to be completely different people in just a few pages, and then I’d barely get a chance to know them before they changed again.

I was hoping that we’d slowly get some sort of overarching story that would bind these narratives together. And it started to form by the time I got to the middle, but I tuned out after that. I was lost and my brain was tired of trying to figure out who everyone was all the time. Other reviews tell me that we get a conclusion but I didn’t pay attention to it. The writing is very good but the story was just too messy for me to care about.

A Song to Drown Rivers: Unveiling Xishi’s Epic Journey

by Stefani

A Song to Drown Rivers by Ann Liang

Published: October 1, 2024 by St. Martin’s Press

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

Synopsis:

Inspired by the legend of Xishi, one of the famous Four Beauties of Ancient China, A Song to Drown Rivers is an epic historical fantasy about womanhood, war, sacrifice, and love against all odds.
Her beauty hides a deadly purpose.

Xishi’s beauty is seen as a blessing to the villagers of Yue—convinced that the best fate for a girl is to marry well and support her family. When Xishi draws the attention of the famous young military advisor, Fanli, he presents her with a rare opportunity: to use her beauty as a weapon. One that could topple the rival neighboring kingdom of Wu, improve the lives of her people, and avenge her sister’s murder. All she has to do is infiltrate the enemy palace as a spy, seduce their immoral king, and weaken them from within.

Trained by Fanli in everything from classical instruments to concealing emotion, Xishi hones her beauty into the perfect blade. But she knows Fanli can see through every deception she masters, the attraction between them burning away any falsehoods.

Once inside the enemy palace, Xishi finds herself under the hungry gaze of the king’s advisors while the king himself shows her great affection. Despite his gentleness, a brutality lurks and Xishi knows she can never let her guard down. But the higher Xishi climbs in the Wu court, the farther she and Fanli have to fall—and if she is unmasked as a traitor, she will bring both kingdoms down.

Rating:

Review:

Whew, it’s been a minute since I posted on here. Sorry about that. I rather had a tsunami upend my life for the past month and I did not have the brain power for writing or reading. From some very complicated and emotional things going on in my relationship, and difficult decisions to be made. Then my children kindly shared a stomach bug with me and so collectively there was someone in my house vomiting for about 4 weeks. Then obviously Thanksgiving. My oldest won her class Spelling Bee so we’ve been practicing for the school-wide Spelling Bee. She also had a percussion concern and a choir concert. I don’t know how such introverted parents ended up with such a social butterfly. Anyway, that’s enough about me, on to the book…as lackluster as this one may have been.

I will not claim to be an expert on this Chinese legend, but I was familiar with it before reading the book and read about it further since reading the book. And I have to say, this book could have been amazing. It could have been epic. But instead it was just alright. While the synopsis describes this as an “epic historical fantasy” there is zero fantasy in here. None at all. It’s just a retelling of a legend, written as historical fiction.

The first thing that let me down in this story was the romance. Xishi and Fanli spent a grand total of 13 weeks together, they apparently fall in love during that time. We see hardly any of what happens in that 13 weeks. We rush through it in about 40 pages. Mostly we get a recap from Xishi about all the things they learned. We see the two of them interact only two or three times before they profess their love. And then five minutes later, Xishi is gone. And she’s gone for YEARS. Literal years. And yet she’s still so deeply in love with guy that she almost ruins a plan that was years in the making. What? I just didn’t buy into their epic romance.

The entire beginning of the book felt rushed. Initially I thought that the reason we were rushing was so that we could get to the main portion of the plot. The part where Xishi has to woo the Wu king and set him up to be conquered from within. Once we got there though, nothing happened. We spent so many pages on Xishi smiling demurely and asking the king curious questions that it felt like we were doing nothing. Also, for a book about a concubine this book was very chaste. All sex scenes happen “off screen”, so it felt like they did a lot of laying together chastely in bed and that was about it. Maybe this was because the author typically writes Young Adult, but it felt odd in an adult book about such an adult topic. Ultimately we spent most of our time watching Xishi seduce a drunken idiot, who didn’t seem to be as terrible of a human as the book wanted me to believe.

The ending of this book was really its saving grace. Even though I did not care about the conclusion of Xishi and Fanli’s romance, the ending did have some other excellent moments. The lessons about politics and war were great. I found myself nodding in agreement with every single one of Xishi’s revelations. This was the moment I wanted through the rest of the book. This was the action that I was missing! And the conclusion was as tragic as expected. If the ending hadn’t nailed it then this might have been a 2-star book for me.

A Jingle Bell Mingle Review: Unexpected Roommates and Romance

by Stefani

A Jingle Bell Mingle by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone

Published: September 24, 2024 by Avon

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

Synopsis:

What happens when there’s no room at the inn and you and your potentially demonic cat become roommates with your grumpy one-night stand?

Part-time adult film actress/one-time adult film director/makeup artist Sunny Palmer has accidentally sold her very first screenplay to the Hope Channel. That was six months ago. Fast forward to a looming deadline, an uninspired Sunny has returned to the source of her inspiration in Christmas Notch, Vermont, to immerse herself in the local Christmas miracle on which her fever dream of a movie pitch was based.

Isaac Kelly, former boy band heartthrob and the saddest boy in the music biz, is the latest owner of the town’s historic mansion. After his years of heartbreak following his young wife’s death, Isaac’s record label is done waiting for new music. What better place to attempt his first holiday album than a snow-covered mansion where he can become a hermit in peace?

But after their best friends’ wedding leads to them waking up together in a freezing motel room with questionable wiring and a broken shower, Isaac takes a chance and asks Sunny to stay with him at his home. Surely the place is big enough that he’ll hardly see her or her unhinged cat. But when the two discover they’re both creatively blocked, they make a handshake deal: Isaac will help Sunny hunt down the truth behind the local lore, and Sunny will find Isaac a new muse.

And with these two opposites under one roof, there’s no way this jingle bell mingle could go off script…right?

Rating:

Review:

Full disclosure but I stopped reading this one back 30% of the way through. I think it just wasn’t my jam. I’m not sure if it was anything to do with the book itself or it wasn’t my style. I also didn’t realize this was the third book in a series, so maybe that would have made the prologue make more sense. We started the book at a wedding with a bunch of people that I didn’t know, a lot of whom seem to be porn stars. But this wedding is the vehicle that brings our main love interest together.

I loved the book’s message of sex positivity, body positivity and acceptance, embracing of the whole spectrum of human relationships. That was great.

Overall there were just too many characters. In the brief portion that I read, I was introduced to at least 15 people and most of them are people that were given no introduction. Even if I had read the other books in the series, a brief refresher would have been a good step to make.

I also think this book is being marketed wrong. Looking at the cover, I expected a pretty typical holiday romance, a cute plot in a Christmasy town and some spice along the way. But then I opened the book to someone shouting “Hey, what’s up tampon string?” Um, ok then. Definitely not the vibe I expected. Perhaps I would have liked it more if it had been marketed at the right audience.

The biggest thing that turned me off this book were the sex scenes. Just not my thing. Honestly, it made me think “Ew, that’s kinda gross.” I am sure there are people out there who will love it, but it just isn’t me. The spicy bits were not my jam. And then I realized that I should stop reading. I didn’t like the way the sex scenes were written, I was confused about characters, and the two main characters hadn’t garnered my interest at all. It was not the book for me.

Upcoming Releases – November 10, 2024

by Stefani

The Strange Case of Jane O. by Karen Thompson

Expected publication: February 25, 2025 by Random House

Check this book out at: Goodreads

Synopsis:

In the first year after her child is born, Jane suffers a series of strange episodes: amnesia, premonitions, hallucinations, and an inexplicable sense of dread. As her psychiatrist struggles to solve the mystery of what is happening to Jane’s mind, she suddenly goes missing. A day later she is found unconscious in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, in the midst of what seems to be an episode of dissociative fugue; when she comes to, she has no memory of what has happened to her.

Are Jane’s strange experiences related to the overwhelm of single motherhood, or are they the manifestation of a long-buried trauma from her past? Why is she having visions of a young man who died twenty years ago, who warns her of a disaster ahead? Jane’s symptoms lead her psychiatrist ever-deeper into the furthest reaches of her mind, and cause him to question everything he thought he knew about so-called reality—including events in his own life.

Why this caught my eye:

This book sounds really good as a psychological trauma. The period after having a baby is such an intense time, and even if everything is going normally it’s very common to feel like you are a stranger to yourself. When it goes badly, it goes really badly.

The Otherwhere Post by Emily J. Taylor

Expected publication: February 25, 2025 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons

Check this book out at: Goodreads

Synopsis:

Seven years ago, Maeve Abenthy lost her world, her father, even her name. Desperate to escape the stain of her father’s crimes, she lives under a fake name, never staying in one place long enough to put down roots.

Then she receives a mysterious letter with four impossible words Your father was innocent.

To uncover the truth, she poses as an apprentice for the Otherwhere Post, where she’ll be trained in the art of scriptomancy—the dangerous magic that allows couriers to enchant letters and deliver them to other worlds. But looking into her father’s past draws more attention than she’d planned.

Her secretive, infuriatingly handsome mentor knows she’s lying about her identity, and time is running out to convince him to trust her. Worse, she begins to receive threatening letters, warning her to drop her investigation—or else. For Maeve to unravel the mystery of what happened seven years ago, she may have to forfeit her life.

Why this caught my eye:

I love magical worlds, they are so much fun to immerse yourself into. I like the sound of this one with the blend of a magical fantasy and a mystery.

The Beasts We Bury by D.L. Taylor

Expected publication: February 4, 2024 by Henry Holt & Co

Check this book out at: Goodreads

Synopsis:

Daughter and heir to the throne, Mancella Cliff yearns for a life without bloodshed. But as a child, she emerged from the Broken Citadel with the power to summon animals—only after killing them with her bare hands. Her magic is a constant reminder of the horrors her father, the ruler of the realm, has forced upon her to strengthen their power.

Silver is a charming thief struggling to survive in a world torn apart by Mancella’s father’s reign. When a mysterious benefactor recruits him for the heist of a lifetime, a chance to rob the castle, Silver relishes the opportunity for a real future—and revenge. But he’ll have to manipulate Mance and earn her trust to pull it off.

As the deception and carnage mount, Mance must find a way to save her realm without becoming the ruthless monster she’s been bred to be. And when Silver discovers that his actions are fueling the violence that Mance wants to prevent, he’ll have to choose between his ambition and the girl he’s falling for.

Why this caught my eye:

For the most part this sounds like a typical young adult book about an heir to a magical throne who falls in love with a potential usurper. I’ve read lots of books like that, but they can be very entertaining. And I like this idea of the magical heir being able to summon animals, that’s a unique idea that I haven’t seen before. Also this cover is very beautiful and complex, it took me a few looks to notice the creature in the flowers.