***This review has also been posted on The Social Potato

Last year, one of my favorite series--Mythos Academy-- came to an end. I, like many other fans was left feeling lost because I had fallen in love with the characters and wasn't ready to let go (but when are you ever ready?). So when I found out the author had a new series coming out (why I didn’t find out about it right away is beyond me), I was over the moon.  I was doing the monkey and prancing around, ready to dive into a new world. I, not for a second, doubted how much this book would please me and I am so glad I wasn’t let down.

If you’re a fan of the Mythos Academy series, it’s already a given that you gotta read this series, but for the rest of you, who make excuses and put the series off, or have never heard of it, I shall do my best to capture the geniussness of Jennifer Estep in my review.

For starters, her main characters are ALWAYS awesome. Lila is the very definition of badass but she also happens to be super clever and can take care of herself. She has issues because of her past and what she has had to live through, and is perhaps not the most open person, but given her circumstances it’s hard to blame her. Besides, she thinks things through and it’s hard not to cheer for her. I just love and admire her so much because her character is so interesting and complex. She has been living on her own too long to just succumb to the temptations of comfort so while some of her thinking process will frustrate you, it’s  also kind of nice knowing she isn’t ready to forget everything and throw caution to the air. It’s what I love about Lila.

Like all Estep books (including her adult series), this one comes with a fantastic entourage of secondary characters. From Claudia to Deah, they are all interesting and make you want to know more about them. They may seem very flat at first but when you learn more about them, you start to realize there is more to them then their face value. They are more complex and intricate than that. Unsurprisingly, I have a favorite and it happens to be Mo. I just really like Mo, okay? He has his faults but his greed for money and his awesome haggling skills just sold him as a character. Felix may be a highlight for others though with his adorable cockiness and horrifying flirting skills.

One of my other favorites, unsurprisingly, was the love interest-- Devon. He is such a sweetheart. Devon may have his own problems to deal with but he never lets them affect how he deals with the people around him and I adore that about him. I have to say, I am not as sold on him as I was on Logan (from Mythos Academy) but interesting things have happened and it’s suffice to say, I am DEFINITELY looking forward to being reunited with him in Dark Heart of Magic. 

I will say for those wondering about the romance, hold your horses, it’s much too early for us to expect much and do much besides ship the freaking heck out of the two.

Estep’s books, whatever faults they may have, will never leave you feeling bored (although maybe they will… I hope they won’t?). They are always so fast paced and get things moving. Estep just knows what she is doing. It’s an oh-so-sweet building of tension to the moment of climax where SHIT GOES DOWN. And given that it’s Estep, there will be action, mystery and intrigue. I will say that the mystery will never be unpredictable, but who cares if it is fantastically executed.

Suffice to say, I am 100% sold on this series and LOVE the new world that Estep has built. It is definitely set aside from the world of Mythos Academy in many ways (even if there are a couple similarities). We get mafia families, magical talents and monstrous creatures, all brought to life in an interesting way.

I am ready to dive into the sequel and can it just be October already? MY BODY IS READY FOR MORE. So while I suffer, you may or may not want to check out this awesomeness and devour it the same way I did.

Dead to Me is a book as pretty as its cover (although I really shouldn’t be using the word pretty).

As someone who has always been a noir mystery fan, I had a lot of fun reading this book and thought it was the perfect brain candy! It might not have been as noir as it could have been but it was still noir enough to satisfy me and keep me on the edge of my seat, flipping through the pages and trying to figure out what exactly was at play here.

Before I talk about all the good stuff, I wanted to talk a little about the setting of the novel. Dead To Me is set in the late 1940’s. There is so much that could have been done with that and even in the blurb, 'the golden Hollywood age' is mentioned, but the potential for this wasn't realized, at least I never felt it was. Their are so many things specific to that time period but they weren't as played up as they could have been. If it weren’t for little things here and there, I would have had no idea that this book was set almost 60 years in the past. I am not saying that the author doesn't go into incredibly awesome details regarding Hollywood and all the secrets that come with it but the problem is that I never felt as though it was enough and I wanted more than just Hollywood in that time period.

My issues regarding the setting aside, Alice was fantastic female lead. Her determination, her need to find out what actually happened, kept me turning the pages. It’s hard to not want to know how this all turns out. Where is everything going? Every corner Alice looks in, some deep hidden secret comes crawling out and she is forced to question the world as she knows it. She is so determined and while it did seem a tad unrealistic that this young girl managed to do all of these things all on her own, I decided to roll with it for the sake of the story. Alice was so believable as a female lead because not all of her decisions were on point but she did manage to make a lot of smart decisions over the course of the book. The way she solved the mystery and put together the puzzle pieces made sense to me as a reader. She is not a perfect character but she isn't that imperfectly perfect kind of character either. She makes mistakes that will make you shake your head but she also makes other decisions that make you want to high five her.

There is an entire entourage of secondary character who are all as interestingly developed as Alice and I liked getting to know them. One of the things McCoy did very well was making sure none of the characters were flat. Bad guys aside, the secondary characters walked a thin line between black and white. They all had their faults and it just made them so much more interesting to read about.
It added to this idea of black vs. white in the story because there are so many lines being crossed that you no longer know what is more shocking. Is it okay for someone to do something terrible because it was a choice between their lives and the thing they were being asked to do?

This book is incredibly atmospheric and McCoy does a great job in building the deceit, lies and the secrets. It’s a book that is well plotted. Nothing about it screams predictable and yet you won’t find yourself being surprised. I make it sound like a bad thing but it isn’t. It works incredibly well for this book and adds in a realistic layer. If there had been more red herrings and more ‘surprises’, I know it would have been harder for me to take this book seriously but as it is, my eyes were glued to the pages.

One of the best parts of this book is that there was no romance, there was a moment or two that made me question if the author would decide to throw one in but there were wayyyyy too many other things on Alice’s mind to think about any boys in any sort of way. She is being beaten up by bad guys, she is chasing bad guys! None of this actually leaves room for some ladi-da romance. SERIOUS STUFF IS GOING DOWN.

What made this book so fantastic was the way the author wrapped everything up. The book really picked up pace toward the end and I was so worried about how the author would resolve everything. I was worried she would decide to give this mystery a clean cut ending but that isn't what happened. Not everything is perfect in the real world and the book didn’t end on a ‘everything is solved and we can go back to our normal life now’ note. It was more realistic than that and it did justice to the book.

This is a fun noir mystery and while it may not be perfect, I definitely enjoyed reading it and would definitely recommend it to noir mystery fans or anything just looking for something exciting to pick up!

***This review has also been posted on The Social Potato

When I first read the blurb for this book, I was worried. It seemed as though Jax was going to make certain decisions that would make me shake my head and wonder where  the Jax I knew had gone. I needn’t have worried. Jax is still as fabulous and he did me even more proud this time around.

Jax is still dealing with the aftermath of finding out that his whole life may have been a lie and this leads to a lot of doubts. He wants a family but there seems to be nobody around who wants him just for him and that sometimes results in him missing some very obvious things (like the fact that Riley does in fact care for him) BUT, it’s understandable.

I love how brave Jax is. He is never fearless but he is brave. He goes to such lengths for his friends and I cannot help but love him for that. What makes his character such a pleasure to read about is that he reads like a kid his age. He is incredibly brave and smart and mature but that doesn’t make him seem like some grown up, it just makes him seem like Jax. His personality especially shined through in this installment.

Before I began the book, I had no idea that we'd get a second POV and when I first started reading from this character’s POV, I wasn’t sure how I felt but as I read more and more from his POV, I could see why it was essential to the story and I grew to love Dorian too. Dorian is a member of the Dulac family, the sworn enemies of Jax and sadly, also the closest relatives (as it turns out). Dorian however, at the beginning of the novel, is the complete opposite of Jax, or so he would think. He doesn’t see himself as brave, he doesn’t see himself as a ‘hero’. But he is one, in his own right. He may not be outgoing like Jax but growing up the way he did, I don’t blame him. He is brave in his own way. He risked himself trying to protect his sister who is constantly tortured by their father. He risked himself when he warned Jax and he further risked himself when he chose to help them.

The funny thing about all of this is that while Dorian’s father is not seen as the good guy, he was never seen as pure evil, just someone overly ambitious and I kind of liked that take. I liked that it wasn’t just about hating on the ‘evil’ parents.Dorian, in spite of everything, still cares enough about his parents.

What I did miss in this installment was a certain Riley. I may have a little crush on him. Just a little bit. And I wish he had been there more so that I could have seen him shine as well.

I still haven’t warmed up to Evangeline and I am waiting for that moment to come. It’s not that she isn’t a good character, it’s just, like I said in my review for book 1, we don’t know enough about her so I still don’t know what to think. I know that she is willing to risk herself for her friends but is that enough? I know a bit of her back story too but I feel like something is just missing.

What really had me excited was that Dianne explored the world. We had some sciencey explanations and I really liked that. It definitely made the nerd inside of me excited to get some explanations about how things worked in this world. I especially liked that we were introduced to some new magical creatures and even new sciency bits. This book really does combine science and magic in a fascinating way and I really cannot get enough of the world Dianne has created.

The plot definitely kept me on my toes and I am glad I had the suite to myself so no one could hear me yelling out random things. Dianne knows just how to pace her stories. She builds up and she takes us on a fantastic ride and you cannot help but feel satisfied at the end.

I haven’t decided which one of the books I enjoyed better, but I have to say, this was definitely a great addition to the series and I cannot wait to see where the next book will take us! Hopefully to magical places and beyond  and maybe even on a fun mythical ride.

This may just be the best Historical Romance I've ever read. 

I cannot even remember why I picked this up (I have short term memory loss issues), I just thought it would be a good idea and boy was it ever. 

This book kind of just gets rid of quite a bit of tropes that are common in the genre. You don't have rakes, you don't have perfect characters, the beauty of these characters is not important, the characters are presented as individuals instead of a unit. It's almost as if Courtney wrote this book with me in mind.

While I enjoy the usual historical romance, they are usually guilty pleasures, not something extraordinarily unique. This one though, this one was special. The only other historical romance I can think of that made this happy was Then Came You by Lisa Kleypas. 

I have to start with Oliver. He was PERFECT. Like where can I find one perfect. He is a bastard and has always been shunned his whole life because of this. His parents have always been encouraging and great but that didn't protect him from the experiences he had when he went to college, which caused him to disappear inside his own cocoon, making him forget about how his own rebellion against society. He molded himself into what they expected from him instead of what he believed. In spite of all that you can still see his determination. He will do whatever he can to get what he wants, but he'll let you know if he's about to destroy you to get there (or maybe he just really liked Jane). But my favorite thing about him was that he wasn't a rake. Half the historical romances out there have either rakes or angry young men for male leads but Oliver was neither. Oh he was angry but he wasn't a controlling douche bag. He was a sweetheart. His inner struggle was heartbreaking to watch. It helped that he wore glasses and that his looks were hardly mentioned in the book. The female lead did not spend a billion hours swooning over how hot he was (even if he was pretty damn hot).

Jane was pretty damn awesome too. She is also a bastard but she embraces it more readily than Oliver and society doesn't mind her as much because of the fact that she is rich as hell. She was extremely clever, it was hilarious watching her repel all these people by just being..kind of nice. Jane lives a lie. Well it isn't exactly a lie but an exaggeration of her own personality which no one accepted anyway. She is doing all of this because she cannot get married, well not while her sister is still under the care of their uncle. He may have good intentions but he does all the wrong things in the name of Emily's well being. Some of them scary as hell. So she needs to stay there to protect her baby sister. But going back to Jane, she is this wonderful female lead who isn't ashamed. She may be alone, she may not be particularly happy but she never loses her back bone. She is strong and wonderful. One of the things that I really loved about her was how that even in the end, when she got her own HEA, she didn't let go of her 'out going ness'. She didn't lose the characteristics that made her, well her, even when there was no need to repel guys. 

The romance though. It still makes me grin. It's slow to develop and starts off with friendship instead of you know, insta love. There isn't even insta attraction. Jane wants to get Oliver off her back while Oliver pities her. Even he doesn't initially see through her armor. Which is incredibly refreshing because it would be way too convenient if he did. It's really fun watching Oliver, in particular, struggle with his feelings until he comes to the realization ON HIS OWN that his life would suck without Jane. Jane again surprises me when she doesn't give up everything she is to be with this guy. It's not the fact that she didn't give up everything but the fact that she realized what she would be losing if she did that. She would be losing herself. I don't make to make their romance sound morbid, it has tons of fun banter and swoon worthy moments as well.

The secondary characters are awesome and I enjoyed Emily and Battacharya's story as well. It was sweet and lovable, just like them.

I also enjoyed Jane's relationship with her sister. It was so heartwarming. Although let me just say because I really need to get it out of my system, I AM NOT THAT KIND OF SISTER. Man I really do hope that someday someone will write a story where sisters aren't so NICE to each other. 

In the end this is a wonderful historical romance and I am pretty sure I'll be re-reading it sometime in the near future. Hell for the first time I actually want to read the sequel although I doubt it will live up to the awesomeness of this book. I DEFINITELY recommend this book to fans of historical romance who are getting tired of the tropes.