ravensandlace's reviews
519 reviews

The Debutantes by Olivia Worley

4.0

Title: The Debutantes

Author: Olivia Worley

Genre: YA Thriller

Format: eARC

Series: NA

Star Rating: 4 stars

tw: fake blood, alcohol, teen death, underage drinking, racism, real blood, assault, misogyny, infidelity, underage relationship

A special thank you goes to Netgalley and Wednesday Books for providing me with a copy of this book. Please know that this does not influence my rating or thoughts on the book itself.

I wasn’t too sure about this book when I first started. There were quite a bit of characters, both main and side characters, to keep up with and only one of them had a somewhat original voice. I’m also not familiar with New Orleans or a lot of the traditions they have. And while the book does explain the traditions, it was a little hard to keep up with. 

While I did end up giving this book four stars, it took a little bit for me to get there. One of the problems that I had was the plot itself. It wasn’t presented right away so I wasn’t sure where it was going to go. I wasn’t sure if the girls were trying to find out who killed a debutante and their friend, who kidnapped their other friend, or both. After a bit, the smoke cleared and I was able to figure things out and enjoy the book more. 

Let me talk about the characters. There were four POVs but there were three main ones. We had April, Vivan, and Piper with Lily having a POV at the beginning and end of the book. While I didn’t mind these characters, I was not in love with them. Piper and Vivan were pretty similar and if their names hadn't been on the top of the chapter pages, I wouldn’t have known who they were. April was the POV who I recognized but that was because she had a camera and an “I am better than everything who participates in this” attitude. 

Overall, despite my complaints, this was a great book. It has made me pretty terrified of teenagers. Maybe My Chemical Romance was on to something. They can be so terrifying! But besides that, I think this was great. The twists and turns kept me guessing until the very end. I highly recommend this book. 

Episode Thirteen by Craig DiLouie

4.0

Title: Episode Thirteen

Author: Craig DiLouie

Genre: Horror

Format: own paperback book

Series: NA

Star Rating: 4 stars

tw: death (viewing of a body), sickness, child death, bodily fluids, mentions of drug use, guns, murder, mention of suicide, unethical human experiments, child abuse, alcohol, car accident, drunk driving, self-cannibalism

So, I had this book on my tbr for a while but I figured I would wait for when it was spooky season to read it since it would fit the spooky vibes. I saw that my friend wanted to read it, as it was part of a book club she belonged to, but she was nervous about how spooky it would be. I offered to read it for her since I am a horror girly. She bought it for me (if you are reading, hi my friend!) and so I read it for her. 

This was a pretty cool book! It’s a found footage horror book which I know sounds kind of odd. The story is told through blog posts, raw footage, emails, texts, etc. It made the book a bit spookier because you never truly knew what was happening because you had to rely on people filming or writing it down. And half the time, you couldn’t trust what those people were saying. 

There are five main characters: Matt, Kevin, Jess, Claire, and Jake. Each character kind of fit the typical characters you see in found footage horror movies. Matt is the leader. Claire is his wife and the skeptic. Kevin is the ex-cop and wild card. Jess is an actress and isn’t quite sure if she believes in the stuff. Jake is the camera guy and is just along for the ride. While they were typical horror characters, I enjoyed every one of them. They each brought something to the table.

 You can tell, even with the way the book is written, that there is an underlying sense of dread. You know the minute this group pulls up to the house and begins preliminary investigations, that this house is more than it seems. It waits for them to get comfy before it pulls the rug out from under them. That’s what this book does best. It’s a slow build for sure, but it’s worth the wait. 

I do have one complaint and it’s pretty teeny tiny and that’s why I rated this book four stars instead of the full five, but to me, the ending felt a little rushed and unrealistic. I can hear you all saying already “But Lacy, it’s about a paranormal investigation of a house, of course, it’s unrealistic!” First off, I believe in ghosts so do with that information what you will. And second, some things happened at the end that made it go from a simple paranormal investigation to something just a bit too much and just seemed so off. 

Overall, I truly enjoyed this book! It restored my love of horror and the found footage genre, which is one of my favorite genres, despite the rap it has. When it’s done well, like with this book or with movies like Grave Encounters, it can be a masterpiece. Overall, if you are looking for a perfect book for the upcoming spooky season, this is the book for you.  

Where You See Yourself by Claire Forrest

4.0

Title: Where You See Yourself

Author: Claire Forrest

Genre: YA Contemporary

Format: hardback library book

Series: NA

Star Rating: 4 stars

tw: ableism (pretty prevalent throughout the book), cursing

When I first started this book, I didn’t care for it or the main character, Effie. To be honest, I struggled with her woe-is-me attitude. She didn't seem like a good friend and her negative attitude started to wear me down. I was pretty unforgiving with her anxiety even though I have anxiety. I have no idea why I am like that but I tend to judge main characters when they have anxiety. 

But then something changed. I saw Effie try her hardest to stand up for herself time and time again. I saw her realize she wasn’t being a good friend. I saw her actively work on herself. I realized that this girl was just a teen doing her best to navigate her life. I realized I was being too hard on Effie. She reminded me of myself in high school. Trying so hard to stand up for myself. That's why I was so hard on Effie. I wanted her to be better because I wanted high school me to be better. 

I bonded so much with Effie when she said she had cerebral palsy. My brother has it also I’ve seen the effects of it. I think this is where my heart truly bonded with Effie and I looked at her like she was my little sister. She was so incredibly strong and my heart was so happy whenever she had any little triumph. I just wanted the best for her, as any big sister would want for their younger sibling. 

Overall, I loved this book a lot, in case you didn’t notice, it just took me a little bit to get there. I think anyone, no matter their age, would truly enjoy this book and understand Effie and her struggles and triumphs. I feel like everyone can see themselves in Effie. I guarantee you will love Effie in the same way I do. 

Thief of Lies by Brenda Drake

3.0

Title: Thief of Lies

Author: Brenda Drake

Genre: YA Fantasy

Format: eARC from Netgalley

Series: Library Jumpers (#1)

Star Rating: 3 stars

tw: blood (a lot as it’s used by the main character for an ability) , animal attack, parental death, burning, arranged marriages, car accident

A special thank you goes to Netgalley and Entangled Teen for providing me with a copy of this book. Please know that this does not influence my rating or thoughts on the book itself.

To clear up my Kindle and catch up on all super late ARCs, I went all the way to 2016. I received this whole series when I worked with Entangled Teen, back when I first started reviewing. But I never finished the book and series. Some personal things happened and I stepped back from reviewing arcs for a time. But now I’ve decided to get going on all my late ARCs, starting with this one as I don’t love leaving books unfished although I am getting better at it. 

I’m not sure if it's because I haven’t read fantasy in a while but this book threw so much information at me. I didn’t understand a lot of the lore or the magic systems so at one point I just kind of gave up understanding and just enjoyed the ride. From there, the book became a lot more enjoyable. 

The main character, Gia, was okay. She was kind of bratty at times but all teenagers are. I’m glad she accepted herself and the situation pretty quickly. We didn’t have to deal with the angst and the fighting. Sure, she was pretty bummed out about everything but it didn’t take her long to snap out of it. That was pretty refreshing. But other than that, she was okay. Maybe I will like her in the next book. 

Unfortunately one of the tropes in this book is a love triangle. I’ve never been a fan of love triangles. Even in the Hunger Games, I didn’t like them. I have a feeling that this love triangle is going to be very prominent, as I have read the synopsis of the second book, and I’m just not looking forward to that at all. This story doesn’t need one. 

Overall, while I didn’t love the book, I’m glad I read it. I’ll most likely continue with the series but I’m not going to rush to read it. I think the biggest problem for me is that I’m too old for this book. 16 year old Lacy would have loved this book but because I’m older, I think that’s why it didn’t resonate with me like I thought it was going to. I think I’ll let this one marinate for a while before I start the next book.  

The Perfect Girlfriend by Karen Hamilton

4.0

Title: The Perfect Girlfriend

Author: Karen Hamilton

Genre: Adult Thriller

Format: eARC from Netgalley

Series: NA

Star Rating: 4 stars

tw: child death, stalking, parental death, alcoholism, drug use, home invasion (violent and nonviolent), drugging, bullying, murder, infidelity

A special thank you goes to Netgalley and Wildfire for providing me with a copy of this book. Please know that this does not influence my rating or thoughts on the book itself.

I’m on that never-ending quest to get my Netgalley ratio up to an acceptable level. One night, I couldn’t find anything to read so I just randomly picked this one out, and holy cow, what a ride this book was. I stayed up way past my bedtime to read this book because it was just so enthralling! I haven’t read a good thriller in ages, since my last Greer Hendricks book, so I was in dire need of a thriller. 

Juliette was one of the most wild main characters I have ever read about. The book was in first person so we were fully in her mind and boy, her mind was dark. She was so manipulative and convincing that for a while there, I bought into everything she was saying. Like why wouldn’t Nate, her ex, not love her? She tries so hard to be perfect, he should love her. Slowly, I was able to tear myself out of her manipulation but damn, she was good. That is what made the book so good for me. When a main character, who you know isn’t good, manages to convince you that they were perfectly normal and their thought process is perfectly acceptable. I can see why people join cults now.   

As you all know, with thrillers, I struggle to write reviews. I don’t want to give too much away but I also want to convince y'all to read it. You all are just going to have to trust me when I say you need to read this book. I have a feeling that y'all will be very interested in Juliette and all she brings to the table. And you will live for the ending. It was one I certainly did not see coming.  

The Merchant's Daughter by Rebecca Hardy

3.0

Title: The Merchant’s Daughter

Author: Rebecca Hardy

Genre: Historical Fiction

Format: ebook

Series: NA

Star Rating: 3 stars

tw: implications of sexual assault, blood, parental death, child loss, arranged marriage, slavery, misogyny, human trafficking, extreme grief, poisoning

So I’ve read the other book by this author, The House of Lost Wives, with my bestie. Nenia. We enjoyed that one so much we decided to try this one. I enjoyed it but it didn’t hold up and it had some flaws. It wasn’t a bad book per se, but it didn’t hold up to the author’s other book.

While I enjoyed the main character, Jenny, she was honestly kind of boring. I loved that she was a reader but that’s the only I liked about her. The book was in first person and she liked to exposition dump. This book could have easily been 100 to 200 pages less if Jenny didn’t have to constantly rehash everything we had just read. 

While I enjoy a slow-burn romance, this one was agonizingly slow. The main character and the love interest, Erasmus, didn’t even kiss until 300 pages in, and honestly, it just felt so unrewarding. They had all this banter, which was so much fun, he had a cute little nickname (Little Mouse, which is a nickname for another character in a certain book). Like the kiss should have had me kicking my feet and squealing. But I had waited so long for it, that I was just over it. I ended up just waiting way too long for it to happen.

Everything about this book was fine but like I mentioned before, everything just kind of dragged. The first half was so well done and I truly enjoyed it but things just got to be so slow towards the end. And then the ending had to be done pretty fast due to the book getting to be pretty long. So the pacing was just off.  Overall, this was good but she’s had better books. 

The House of Lost Wives by Rebecca Hardy

5.0

Title: The House of Lost Wives

Author: Rebecca Hardy

Genre: Historical Fiction

Format: ebook

Series: NA

Star Rating: 5 stars

tw: assault, blood. Alcohol, death, gambling, poverty, rape, selling of humans, misogyny, injury, murder, PTSD, poisoning, loss of pregnancy, infidelity

I’ve been slowly getting into gothic horror and just gothic books in general. It’s a wonderful genre and it fits the spooky vibes I crave. I buddy-read this one with my good friend, Nenia. We have pretty similar tastes in books so we decided to give this one a shot as it was on sale. Both of us enjoyed it. 

One of the best things about this book was the main character, Lizzie. She was such a perfect main character. She took no crap, she was incredibly strong and she could talk to ghosts which I thought was so cool. I appreciated how normal it was for her. She just kind of accepted it with no real fuss. I didn’t have to read about the angst of her seeing ghosts. It was just a part of who she was and that was that. I loved her bond with her sister as well. If a book has strong sisterly bonds, there is a very high chance I’m going to love it. 

This book also fantastically handles sexual assault from the very first page. She wasn’t instantly fixed by her love interest. She worked her way to hearing but there were times she had setbacks which is all part of the healing journey. Which was refreshing to see. Everything about the topic was handled perfectly. 

Overall, this was such a good book. It’s also a Bluebeard retelling. I’ve never read Bluebeard so I know nothing about whether it stays true to the original story or not. I’ll have to read it and then come back to let you guys know. All I know is that this a beautifully written book about a fantastic and strong main character. 

A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Mark Dawidziak

3.0

Title: The Death and Life of Edgar Allen Poe

Author: Mark Dawidziak

Genre: Biography

Format: hardback library book

Series: NA

Star Rating: 3 stars

tw: death, alcohol, illness, parental death, abandonment, drugging of children, infidelity, mental illness, poisoning, blood, pedophilia, incest (first cousin to first cousin)

Every so often, I go through these phases of being extremely interested in pretty niche things. I blame my OCD and yes, I can make that joke because I have OCD. The latest niche interest has been Edgar Allen Poe. Ever since I watched a Buzzfeed Unsolved episode on Poe, I've been interested in his life as I don’t know that much about him. When I saw this book floating around, I decided to give it a shot. It was okay but I didn’t love it like I thought I would.

One of the faults of this book was the way it was laid out. One chapter was present time, like the few months Poe had left and then it would switch the past in the next chapter. It was a weird way to set things up. Why not just keep it in chronological order? Especially for a biography. That makes no sense to me. It confused me a lot because the present chapters would often mention things that happened in the past.  

On a more personal note, Poe seemed insufferable. Every bad thing that happened to him was someone else fault. Never mind that he mouthed off to so many people, costing him multiple jobs. He seemed just so content blaming others for his problems. It was a little bit ridiculous. His family is on the verge of starvation almost all the time and he can’t get it together long enough to keep a job and keep his family fed.  

But I did learn about Poe and some other things and anytime I learn something in a book, I consider that a win. Like did you know you could potentially have tuberculosis your whole life and it might not ever affect you? I feel like if I say tuberculosis, I’ll summon John Green. He is very into tuberculosis. Anyway, I thought it was once you got it, you were done for. But that’s not the case at all. I also learned that Poe wrote comedies. He was more interested in writing comedies than the dark stuff we know and love. I thought that was pretty interesting considering we know him for his darker stories. 

Overall, this was an okay book. It had its faults, especially the way it was set up, which was one of the reasons I rated the book lower. I did learn some new information, which is always a positive when reading biographies. I certainly will be seeking out more books about Poe and will be looking out for more of his writings. 

Run, Rabbit, Run by Juniper Hartmann

5.0

Title: Run Rabbit Run

Author: Juniper Hartmann

Genre: Dark Romance/BDSM Erotica

Format: eARC from author

Series: NA

Star Rating: 5 stars

tw: sexual assault, physical assault, humiliation/degradation, group sex (mmmf), forced exhibitionism, forced orgasms, kidnapping, drugging, child abuse

A special thank you goes to Juniper Hartmann for providing me with a copy of this book. Please know that this does not influence my rating or thoughts on the book itself.

I am 100% obsessed with this book! It is up there in my top ten books of 2024 and it’s all I think about. Everything about this book was perfect and it had everything I could ask for in a dark romance book. It had aftercare (which unfortunately you do not see a lot of in dark romance or even romance books), psychological elements (I am a psych major so this especially intrigued me), and so many different types of spicy scenes. It was just so perfect. Even the book itself is pretty! The artwork is just stunning. 

There are a couple of really awesome things I want to mention. One is the discussion of fantasy and reality. Bunny, the main character, talks about reading smutty books where the MC is captured, stalked, etc and spicy things ensue. Just because someone reads those kinds of books doesn’t mean we want them to happen to us. The point is brought up multiple times as Bunny dives further and further into depravity. I enjoyed reading about that. Because oftentimes, people tend to think that just because someone reads a spicy book like this one, Den of Vipers, Haunting Adeline, etc, we want that stuff to happen to us. Which we don’t. We just enjoy reading it. It’s like people reading dystopian. Obviously we don’t want the world to end and be subjected to something Hunger Games-related.  

Another thing I wanted to mention is that it isn’t as big as my previous paragraph, but this book reminded me a lot of Anne Rice's Beauty series. I’m not entirely sure why; maybe it’s the BDSM aspects. But I promise when I say it’s a good thing. I adore that series, and this book is right up there with some of my all-time favorite books. I just had this thought the entire time I was reading Run Rabbit Run. 

Overall, I loved this book. Bunny was fabulous. Demetrius was the perfect Daddy Dom. I’m so hoping we get a book from his point of view because I have a feeling I would love it. I just need more of these two because they were giving me life. Like I said, before, everything about this book was perfect.  

Half Life by Jillian Cantor

4.0

Title: Half Life

Author: Jillian Cantor

Genre: Historical Fiction

Format: hardback library book

Series: NA

Star Rating: 4 stars

tw: suicide, parental death, sickness, sexism, alcohol, blood, stillbirth, misogyny, cancer, infidelity, death, miscarriage, domestic violence, bombing, assassination

One of my niche interests (I have so many of them) is Marie Curie. I think she’s so incredibly fascinating. It’s so wild to me that she manhandled radium, her notes are so full of radium that you have to have protective gear and sign a waiver to look at them and some are even kept in lead boxes, and she was buried in a lead coffin. But I didn’t know anything about her early life. I had seen this book floating around and I knew I had to get my hands on it. 

This book has such a cool concept. We follow the life of Marie Curie and Marya, her name in Poland. They are the same person but Marya's timeline followed what might have happened if she hadn’t gone to Paris and stayed with her fiance Kazimierz in Poland. The Marya timeline is fabricated but it was so cool to read what might have been. 

I couldn’t tell you whose POV I liked more. Both were so interesting and I truly bonded with each of them. And it was fun to see the parallels of their lives. Some things happened to both Marie and Marya but in different ways. I feel like both of them could have been friends with each other, even though I know they are the same person.

I also enjoyed how easy this book was to read. Sure, it had a lot of science stuff but it was explained in a way that made sense to me, who cannot understand anything relating to science unless it has something to do with the human body. It’s hard to enjoy a book when I don't understand the concepts so I’m glad it was explained in layman’s terms. 

Overall, this book has got me super excited about Marie Curie. I am very interested in learning more about her life and her work especially since I’ve read about the radium girls. Luckily the author listed books that helped with her research including one written by Marie’s daughter. Overall, I highly recommend this book.