lisacanteven's reviews
526 reviews

This story was very cute and cozy. I loved the setting, especially getting a glimpse at a summertime Christmas in Australia. That was different and fun. The characters were so great, and the rep was done very well. The use of consent was very much appreciated. I thought the journey of one of the MCs discovering her ace identity was very relatable, as was the ADHD and autism rep. 

I wanted more of the trans rep other than the one sentence that says Vivian grew up as a closet trans teen. 

This was the final book I read in October while I was in a big reading slump. Also I have not read another book in this series. Both of these things might have affected my rating, but the further I read the less interesting I found this book. 

Deepa works as an escort in a roaring 20's time setting in the magical world in the story. Deepa is good at her job, but she never feels romantically or sexually satisfied by men. She enjoys fancy things, so she knows that her job gets her those things. 

Enter Roz, a butch mechanic who also boxes in the local women's boxing league? The details are vague, but Deepa goes to Roz's matches and gets to know Roz. At the same time Deepa is posing as a wealthy nobleman's fiancee. They happen to have a great arrangement and understanding, so Deepa is open with Roz about their arrangement. 

What Deepa is not open with is the curse that was put on her by her ex. He cursed her to turn into a leopard every night from midnight to 6am or dawn - it's unclear until when.

Honestly I thought this book was way too long for what it gave us. It easily could have been novella length and given us enough to enjoy the story. Instead it was novel length and didn't show as much as it should have in that many pages. By 75% I was just scanning the dialogue and getting all I needed to get. 

I will definitely not be reading anymore books in this series even though I think they are all queer. I also don't think this white author should be writing Indian rep because it came off as tokenism. 

From the very first page, this book was stunning. The writing was so descriptive while flowing so nicely. The setting was described beautifully, and the character development was next level. Very atmospheric and spooky, while being historically accurate. 

I wanted the FMC and MMC to just sit down and talk about their feelings sooner in the story, but I think it worked out the way it should. The vampires as a metaphor for colonizers' use of weapons was great.

First of all, this author has misrepresented their Indigenous genealogy. Second of all, the book gave me the ick with how aggressive the FMC is. Let’s be real, she assaulted that man in the first chapter. 

I read She Came from the Swamp last year, and tbh I don't remember much from it except that it was a fun sapphic monster romance novella. 

She Came at Midnight is a friend of novella. The human fmc in both books are friends, so I would recommend reading in order. 

She Came at Midnight is about a nightmare spirit, as Nocnitsa is referred to, and a human named Natalia. Natalia is in a family of not nice witches, and the catch is that she is powerless. She is treated as such by her powerful family members, so when she meets Nocnista in her dreams she is intrigued. Nocnista likes this and they begin meeting nightly in Natalia's dreams. 

Honestly I don't remember much more than that. There is family drama that climaxes....at midnight of course. This novella is longer than the swamp one, and fortunately the next in the series, She Came for Blood, is novel length! I am so excited to read it, and I probably will before next October. As you can guess I love sapphic vampires. 

This will be my favorite book in 2024.
I will put money on it if anyone doesn't believe me.

From the first page, I was hooked. The writing is so good and the pacing is perfect. I couldn't stop reading, but I also didn't want it to end. Every time I picked up this book, I was immediately pulled back into the story. Sometimes it takes me a bit to get back into a story when I pick up a book, but this was not the case here. I loved every single minute of this book. The characters were so dimensional, even the villains. Sometimes it is difficult in a story when there are just as many villains as there are good characters, but here it made sense. The twists kept coming until the very end.

Another review written a few weeks after reading:
Have you ever just been so moved and touched by a book but at the same time it was so difficult to keep reading because it was just breaking your heart apart? That was The Spirit Bares Its Teeth.

Silas Bell is a young trans man during the the Victorian era in London, 1883 to be exact. People with violet eyes are highly treasured as mediums. There is a secret society of men who control the family lines of all the people with violet eyes. Silas is born with violet eyes, which means he will married off to an important family to keep the violet eyes lineage going. 

Well Silas gets in some trouble at the beginning of the story that results as him being sent off to a girls' school that specializes in "veil sickness" which is what they said any violet eyed girl who did not confirm was inflicted by. This was basically a conversion school for girls, and Silas' betrothed was paying for it. 

Throughout the rest of the book we meet the girls at the boarding school, but terrible things keep happening, and loyalties are questioned. Ghosts of residents from the past start reaching through the veil to communicate, mainly with Silas. 

So yes, this is more of a ghost story, but the real monsters are all of the cishet men. And doesn't that mirror real life?

This book is very dark and emotional. Please check the trigger warnings because there are a lot, and most of them are very graphic. For example, there is a graphic abortion scene that was very hard to read. Take care of yourself.

The full cast performance of this graphic novel was so fun!

Another perfectly written atmospheric read by Alexis Henderson. Her first book, The Year of the Witching, is still my favorite of her books. I'm so bummed because there has always been a planned sequel for that book, but Alexis has talked multiple times about how she is not in a good enough space to write the sequel that book deserves. I think it blocked her for a long time and kept her from writing different stories, so I am very grateful that she is publishing again even if they aren't the sequel I so desperately want. I am still loving all her standalone stories. 

Now for this book. This is Alexis' shortest book, and I felt it. Marion lives in the slums of what equates to the south during the Civil War. She is a housemaid for a bitchy old widow, but she depends on that wage to care for her sick brother. Things between her brother and her get pretty dramatic, and through some other strange events she ends up on a train to the north. There she ends up as a blood maiden for Countess Lisavet of House of Hunger. This world has its own nobility system that the book briefly touches. The story could have really benefited for just a little more development in a few areas, on being the nobility system. 

In this world, true nobles were pretty much vampires and drank human blood for youthfulness and health, like in Countess Lisavet's case. But like I said, the word "vampire" is never printed in the book although they share a lot of characteristics. I wanted to know so much more about their world. 

This book definitely has a slow buildup, but when it gets going the climax is worth the work. Very exciting very fast. I read almost the whole last half of it in one day.