Urban Faery
Written by Angela Savidge

Wow, that was nothing short of amazing! From the start, my eyes were drawn into an artist's impression of a god amidst the mother of the sea Gwenhwyfar (ya, that's just the Welsh spelling for Guinevere) but of some guy coming up out of the ocean, riding the waves on his surfboard in the middle of the night. He appears on Earth yet was from another world. A Night Owl was watching over him that had to do with some fairy tale about the Elders waiting for the right time to intervene in the world and make humans aware of the Fae creation, again. That surfer dude Luc was going to be the bridge. It was so good.

Just as it was apparent that Luc was harmless, guileless and good. His grandfather Madoc was a Dark Fae, not so good. His grandfather hates humankind for destroying the Earth. Anyway, I'm not going to go into detail of how Luc meets Cate but she was sort of on the path and destined for the encounter and again paranormal romances are still the ones I love. It's a love story.

Anyone who has ever lived in California and is from there would probably be thrilled for this book. Numerous places and areas are surrounding California that is referred to and to the Trump administration and the Malibu fires. Heck, Urban Faery A Modern Fantasy is the bee's knees, although the bees are gone and dying :P Ravens are a bad omen in this fantasy yet a Raven is Luc's spirit animal. It's complicated but exciting. The story is well-written with beautiful prose like a garden of flowers in bloom with rhododendrons :)

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Willow by E.M. Raegan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

**I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Thanks to Cortney E Designs for creating such a beautiful cover. I probably wouldn't have read it otherwise. Sci-fi or dystopia is not my favourite genre, but I try.

I like Willow and Jay but their relationship was very tumultuous. It must be the case that Willow comes from a messed-up family. Her mother was banging someone else's husband. It was very hard to keep up with everybody.
What I know is the one person who gave a damn about her is now dead and so is her mother. Furthermore, everyone else is dying around her as she fights to survive and escape a nation ravaged by Zombies.

The Turn of the Key
Written by Ruth Ware
Narrated by Imogen Church
Published by Simon & Schuster Audio
Released Aug 27, 2019
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
12 hours

When Rowan stumbles across an ad for a live-in nanny, she's looking for something else completely. But it seems like too good an opportunity to miss—with a staggeringly generous salary. And when she arrives at Heatherbrae House, she is smitten—by the luxurious "smart" house fitted out with all modern conveniences, by the beautiful Scottish Highlands, and by this picture-perfect family.

 

What Rowan doesn't know is that she's stepping into a nightmare—one that will end with a child dead and Rowan in prison awaiting trial for murder.

 

Writing to her lawyer from prison, Rowan struggles to explain the unravelling events that have led to her incarceration. It wasn't just the constant surveillance from the cameras installed around the house, or the malfunctioning technology that woke the household with booming music, or turned the lights off at the worst possible time. It wasn't just the children, who turned out to be a far cry from the immaculately behaved model children she met at her interview. It wasn't even the way she was left alone for weeks at a time, with no adults around apart from the enigmatic handyman, Jack Grant.

 

It was everything.

 

Rowan knows she's made mistakes. She admits that she lied to obtain the post, and that her behavior toward the children wasn't always ideal. She's not innocent, by any means. But, she maintains, she's not guilty—at least not of murder. Which means someone else is.

 

Full of spellbinding menace and told in Ruth Ware's signature suspenseful style, this is an unputdownable thriller from the Agatha Christie of our time.

 

** I received a free kindle ebook from Simon & Schuster Canada via Netgalley in exchange for a review**

From the very start, we believe this woman's name is Rowan the Nanny who is on trial for murder. We don't know who was murdered but when she retells her story to her solicitor she has to go into detail with her side. It was a nightmare but the character building was formidable as I was drawn in and felt very close to the important characters which IMO were the children. Always the children ho-hum. Brats. Yes. They were brats. The only exception, 5 yr old Ellie ultimately. She was adorbs ♥

Heatherbrae House wasn't a "smart-house" if a young child could manipulate it AND from an older phone on top! UGH! I could never live in a house like that! I am not one who trusts technology enough for my life to depend on it. The house was wired up and could function on an app called Happy as it didn't even have doorknobs or light switches.

Still, creak...creak... goes the sound of something in the attic.

Admittingly the suspense was killing me but when the attic was finally opened up there were still the unexplainable open windows, the lost or stolen necklace, the sudden music disturbances and most importantly the history. Why would all the hired Nanny's tuck tail and run? The Turn of the Key is a well-written murder mystery/haunting but I felt I was deceived with all the hidden secrets. The main one being about who Rowan actually was.

I can't imagine what the girls had been through. Was it because of their father? What disturbed them so much? They kept repeating that they hated her and she should go away. Why? Was it not because of what their father made them do?

The strange poison garden seemed exciting but I was disappointed that nothing really became of it. All we know about the history of the house is that it used to be called Struan House and that Dr. Kenwick Grant planted rare poisonous plants nowhere else found in all of Scotland. His daughter died from ingesting some of those plants and he and his wife also passed away there. I wasn't convinced the house was haunted though *shrugs, even though it was meant to be believed as such.

Not particularly fond of the end. Too many loose ends.

Sharpest Sting (Elemental Assassin #18) by Jennifer Estep
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Gin Blanco is relentless and is determined to avenge the man responsible for killing her father Tristan and her foster father Fletcher. Her uncle Mason is head of a secret society known as The Circle but when she uncovers the truth about someone she thought she knew she feels the sharpest sting.

Pictured on the front cover is Gin in her bridesmaid dress at the wedding of her friends Stuart Mosley and Mallory Parker.

Dead Meat: Day 1 (Dead Meat #1)

Kindle Edition, 1st, 140 pages

Expected publication: October 8th 2019

Goodreads summary:

The end of the world one day at a time.
In this new apocalyptic zombie series from the author of They Come at Night and Human Flesh, we follow events day by day as the world slowly but surely descends into mayhem as the zombies take over. Don't miss the thrilling ride! For fans of The Walking Dead, The Orphans Book and World War Z. How it all began Three teenagers find themselves trapped in a stuffy, warm basement. The old lady who used to own the house is now dead. She's also standing right on the other side of the basement door, scraping and moaning, trying to get in. Patiently. Tirelessly. How did they end up here? Just a few hours ago, all three of them were sitting in Thomas' car, sweating and listening to music, not a care in the world. They were almost done with the paper route when they came to the old lady's house. And that's when everything turned to chaos.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

***I was provided with a free copy by the author in exchange for a review.

Dead Meat: Day 1 is the first book in the Zombie apocalypse.

The Following takes place on Saturday, July 26 somewhere in Denmark.
When Thomas, Dan and his sister Jennie arrive at the end of their paper route, the furthest thing on their minds was being eaten by zombies. The weather was hot that day and they were all thirsty but are themselves trapped in a basement hiding from a family of Zombies inside the old dilapidated farmhouse. I don't think they were very brave or smart enough to know how to kill zombies because they were scared. Jennie thought she scraped herself on some glass but she was scratched by the zombie's long nails. They knew she was infected when they realized her symptoms were getting worse. She had a burning fever and it was inevitable she would die and turn. It didn't take long either.

Thomas and Dan had been planning their escape when Jennie reanimated into a zombie. They never killed her only kept her a safe distance from attacking them.

For Thomas and Dan, it was an ordeal to finally be out of that house. Evidently only 3 zombies were inside: the father, the grandma and a child. Yet Thomas managed to free himself. He also had to rescue Dan. They also realized someone alive was hiding in a car but she didn't have the car keys. She told Thomas they were in her husband's pant pocket. *facepalm*

Thomas and Dan locked themselves inside their car and drank a whole case of warm pop. The car wouldn't start and wouldn't you know it. Only then Thomas remembered the glass that he cut his foot on had zombie blood on it. So now he was also infected and burning with fever. Before he died he desperately wanted Dan and the lady of the other car to get out and get help. There were two zombies smashed against the car so Thomas got the key out of the husbands pocket and killed them before he passed out.

The lady of the car and Dan got away and made it to the hospital only to find out Dan had stuck Thomas's body in the trunk. Ugh. Why?

Realizing it was a bad idea to have taken Thomas' body to the hospital, Dan could have caused a zombie outbreak. So, they high tail it out of there and come to an abandoned area where they could set the damn body and the car on fire. Now that all of the zombies were dead was everything back to normal again? No! Dan remembers Jennie! They never killed her and he just hoped when he got out he secured the basement window ... to be continued.