Book: A Baby for the Bratva by Chloe Kent (A Baby for Them #3)

The final installment in the A Baby For Them trilogy, A Baby for the Bratva by Chloe Kent! Now, this one is only slightly different from the last two books, but not quite. The whole series is just copy & paste with different skins, essentially. The series isn't bad, but it did become predictable after the first book with Scarlet. Also, all the main girls' names start with the letter "s," just something I picked up while reading. 

Starla Anderson is our main girl for this journey. She is an orphan living in an orphanage in Russia. She had come to Russia some years ago with her mother and soon enough her mother perished in a fire at their hotel. While the fire was happening, Starla was at the orphanage with Sister Alena, her mother's best friend, meeting girls her age and making friends. Once news got back to her, it was clear that she was stuck in Russia indefinitely...

Book: The Silence Between Us by Alison Gervais

The Silence Between Us by Alison Gervais is a coming of age YA romance that features a Deaf protagonist! September is Deaf Awareness Month, so I though it appropriate to post this now. Maya is a seventeen-year-old girl who grew up hearing but got sick with meningitis, therein losing her ability to hear and becomes Deaf. She recently moved to Colorado from New Jersey and readjusts to being at a hearing school, having attended a deaf school for many years, due to the fact that the nearest deaf school is too far a commute. 

Maya goes through many struggles, juggling with her brother's cystic fibrosis, CF, while trying to fit in with the hearing students. Soon, she meets Beau, the student council president, one of the only hearing students who actually takes an interest in her and ASL. Maya is more focused on school and so he isn't even on her radar, especially with him being a hearing boy...

Book: A Baby for the Mountain Men by Chloe Kent (A Baby for Them #2)

A Baby for the Mountain Men by Chloe Kent is the second book in the A Baby For Them trilogy. This book takes on many of the same characteristics of the first book, from certain events and scenarios. Our main girl is Soraya Arlington, shunned and shamed by her family, with no friends to call her own, her fate lies with the mysterious men in the castle in the mountain. Promised to them by her father, when she was young, to settle his debt to the men, Soraya had always known her fate, as well as the rest town...

Book: A Baby for the Lumberjacks by Chloe Kent (A Baby for Them #1)

A Baby for the Lumberjacks by Chloe Kent is the first of a supposedly trashy romance trilogy. Fortunately for me this was not the case. Well... it was a little trashy, but not completely. This book revolves around a girl, Saffron Sinclair, your typical looking punk girl with various tattoos, piercings, thigh high heeled boots, short skimpy skirt and red streaks through her black hair. Her father, Alan Sinclair, is a gambling addict and her older sister, Marigold, is an artist while their mother passed away five years ago. 

With the debts Alan had acquired, he was putting himself and his family in danger. But then he makes a deal with the devil that saves his skin but puts his daughters over the flames...

Book: The Substitute Heiress by Juliane Karlis (The Ashcombe Heiresses #1)

The Substitute Heiress by Juliane Karlis is a historical, regency romance with a guaranteed happily ever after or HEA. It is the first in the Ashcombe Heiresses Trilogy, which can be read by itself without the need to read the others. I personally will read them all because there are connections throughout the books to each other, and there are some side characters I want to see again. 

Anna Bond is a girl who is a lady's maid. She is employed by Arabella Ashcombe, a little heiress that has been beckoned to Jamaica by her grandfather, due to her mother's passing. On the journey, Anna slightly befriends first mate of the Indescribable, Brand Heywood, who she grows to have affections for in the short time they have together. But unfortunately, good things don't last very long...

Book: Vampires Don't Give Hickeys by Holly Ryan (The Slayer's Reverse Harem #1)

Vampires Don't Give Hickeys by Holly Ryan is an adult paranormal romance centered around Belle Harrison, a vampire slayer, the only vampire slayer in the world. Pretty dramatic, am I right? While Belle is on patrol in the local cemetery one night, she is approached by a demon stating that she must decide to marry the King of Hell or die by the hands of the unknown darkness out to kill her. And she must make her decision by Halloween, her birthday, in four days.

Book: Studying Her Vikings by Skye MacKinnon (Norsemen Academy #1)

Studying Her Vikings by Skye MacKinnon is an interesting take on time travel. The book revolves around Lainie, a girl who gave up everything to go to an academy to learn how to travel through time, Time Travel Academy, or TTA as it is referenced in the book. 

Now, this book is actually really short, it is only about 50 pages or so. It is broken up into five novellas, in a serial format, that has actually been bound up into one book! I just found that out after I had read this first part, which covers the first five chapters or so of the novel. This was a freebie from the Kindle store so I decided to try it out.

Manga: Our Blood Oath by Kazu Kakazu

Our Blood Oath by Kakazu Kazu is a fairly new shounen manga from Shounen Jump! As good as the story is though, it is only a oneshot. That's right, folks, this is also a short-lived manga series like Guardian of the Witch by Sakano Asahi and Time Paradox Ghostwriter by Ichima Kenji. They all have amazing stories that could very well keep going in a serial but unfortunately, they don't last. 

Book: His First Time: Nick by Ann Omasta & Callie Love

His First Time: Nick by Ann Omasta and Callie Love is a Christmas themed romance! It is a very short novella that is part of a series, although it can be read alone. It is not required to read the rest of the series to understand the events that happen within this installment, but some characters from the others books do appear and vice versa. 

Now, I read this book around Christmas time, I really wanted to try to get into a Christmas-y mood since 2020 hasn't been the greatest. Unfortunately, we, in the Northeast, did not get much snow this year which really sucks! So, I went on the Kindle store to see if I could find any freebie Christmas themed books to get me into the holiday spirit and lo and behold I found this short novella! 

Manga: The Water Dragon's Bride by Rei Toma

One of ShojoBeat's newest titles, The Water Dragon's Bride by Toma Rei is a cute little historical fiction, fantasy, shoujo manga about a girl sent back in time/another world. Arisa Asahi is spirited away when she was young into the pond in her backyard. She wakes up underwater in the presence of a strange man, so ethereal looking he doesn’t even seem human, which is reasonable considering he isn’t! 

Anime: Kiss Him, Not Me! by Junko

Kiss Him, Not Me! is a ridiculously hilarious anime about this girl, Serinuma Kae, who went through a dramatic physical change in her appearance, completely by accident, drawing the attentions of several guys. Fact of the matter is Kae is a fujoshi, a girl who likes BL or boys' love. She would much rather watch boys get together and in a relationship instead of being in one herself.

Book: Betrayed by P.C. Cast & Kristen Cast (House of Night #2)

We are on a bit of a roll! Here is the review of Betrayed, the second book of the House of Night series by P.C. and Kristen Cast, from my youth! Last time, we were with Zoey and had a somewhat spoiler free revelation of what was going on in the House of Night! Zoey's story is just continuing as she is still learning how to work around the "fledgling thing." I don't have much to say on this other than that. This is obviously a continuation of last week's transcription, so I hope that all of you will enjoy this! Spoilers of course, I didn't have much of a filter back in the day.

Book: As You Wish by Jackson Pearce (Genies #1)

My fiance had recommended this book to me, having told me he really liked it in his youth. I personally don't believe he remembers the book other than the fact that a girl and a jinn fall in love, due to the fact that he forgot what the book was called and that was all he could describe to me when he asked me to find it, being the book nerd I am. So I found it and he was ecstatic. I had high hopes for this book when I started because he isn't much of a reader and for him to praise a book so highly was out of the norm. Finally we picked up the book from the library!

As You Wish by Jackson Pearce is about this girl named Viola who just recently had a break up. She goes into this major depressive state and internally wishes to "be whole again" that she accidentally summons a jinn. The jinn can't go back home until she's spent all three of her wishes!

Book: Marked by P.C. Cast & Kristen Cast (House of Night #1)

Next up on our list of book transcriptions is Marked by P.C. and Kristen Cast! A mother daughter team, if I remember correctly, wrote this wonderful series about vampires, deities and evil incarnate! I had seen these books around for a while before actually checking one out to read. I was personally avoiding it because I thought it was going to be a trashy vampiric romance kind of book, but I was proven wrong. I had come to enjoy the House of Night series immensely and had kept up with it to a point. Now let's move on to the review! Warning, there will be spoilers, I was not really a spoiler-free child.

Manga: Planet Ladder by Yuri Narushima

I am going to be completely honest... I have never heard of this series before. I have read nearly every single title put out by TokyoPOP, my local library growing up having purchased a lot of them for their readers, but never had this one. I borrowed this from another library, very nice library it is but a very small manga section so far. Anyways, they have mostly newer manga, considering it is a newer library, they don't have many from the 2000s era of TokyoPOP manga, before they went bankrupt. So this series stood out to me, took me by surprise.

Book: The Stone Child by Dan Poblocki

This is one of my earlier reviews, so I can say right now that I have absolutely no recollection of what this is about. This is the first of a few Dan Poblocki books that I read in my youth. Many schools nowadays have them added to the curriculum, I don't know why, along with Mary Downing Hahn books. This book wasn't memorable enough for me to even remember about it in my high school age, much less currently while I am an adult. But enough about the current day and age, let's go back in time to when my 13-year-old self read this particular story!

TV: Sherlock (Series 1)

The famous Sherlock Holmes is back at it again on your television screen! Or at least he was... Sherlock has since been completed back in 2017 but is still available on Netflix for your viewing pleasure. Now, Sherlock is a modern adaptation of the infamous Sherlock Holmes and his trusty companion, Doctor John Watson. Each season is only three episodes long each. Three. So I will try to keep things short and to the point.

K-Drama: Hi Bye, Mama!

Hi Bye, Mama! is a heart wrenching tale of a mother who lost her life and watches over her young child as a ghost. Spooky, am I right? But that's not the direction this K-Drama takes. It is a lovely story that guts you in the feels and makes you wish you could go in and fix everything yourself, like in Dramaworld, another kind of K-Drama...  but not really.

Anime: Mirai by Mamoru Hosoda

This critically acclaimed film, Mirai by Hosoda Mamoru, has caught my eye for a while now. There are many people who love this film to the point that it has ended up on Netflix! Time for me to see why it is so popular!

Four-year-old Kun has a mother and a father, who is an architect. Kun has a new baby sister and has to learn how to deal with her being in his life now that it's not just him anymore. Throughout the film, we get to see Kun making choices and decisions and certain events that change his outlook on his younger sibling, even if it's just for a little while.

Book: Kissed by an Angel by Elizabeth Chandler (Kissed by an Angel #1 - 3)

This book we are going to be discussing this week is one of my absolute favorites when I was a teenager going through my emo/scene phase. Kissed by an Angel by Elizabeth Chandler is about this girl, Ivy, who fully believes in angels, despite being a teenager. Her boyfriend, Tristan, supports her, from what I remember, until he dies. After his death, Ivy is completely heartbroken and loses her faith in angels, only for the irony that Tristan came back as her guardian angel! He tries to reach out to her, but her faith in angels is nearly completely gone! What is he to do?

Book: In High Spirits by Kate Danley (O'Hare House Mysteries #4)

In High Spirits by Kate O'Hare is the final book of the O'Hare House Mysteries! Oh how exciting this journey has been, strange, but exciting nonetheless. This was a satisfying ending to a long journey. Somewhat. It is with this volume, however, that most of the questions that have been plaguing my mind were resolved.

We start off with Wesley being carted away by the coppers! He has been accused of murdering Lady Rhoda Beltza amongst other crimes. Clara is then forced to act without her usual partner and takes things into her own hands...

Paper vs Screen: The Garden of Words by Makoto Shinkai

Happy anniversary! Whose you may ask? Well this blog is officially a year old today! Gods, I didn't think I would be able to chug through six months, much less a year! I honestly feel very accomplished. My book review vlog may have lasted nearly ten years but the uploads were inconsistent, there was no set schedule so I actually am really proud of myself for being able to keep on top of things and stick to a schedule despite everything that has been going on with 2020. And thanks to all who have continued to support me through the last year! I hope that I will be writing this blog for many years to come because despite this seeming to be tedious, I really like writing and being able to share my interests and thoughts with those who are the same as I. I also might be updating the schedule and try to spread out posting more throughout the week, but I'll see how things go. Now, we are going to go back in time for a bit, to the very first review that I did on this blog, but... with a little twist!

Book: Distilled Spirits by Kate Danley (O'Hare House Mysteries #3)

Distilled Spirits by Kate Danley is the third installment in the O’Hare House Mysteries. In this one, we delve more into the mysteries surrounding the Nero family, tracing all the way back to the missing Peter Nero. This one truly had me in for a bit of a doozy, let me tell you. 

So, Clara ends up hiring Red as a personal driver for her household for his apparent ability to see Minnie. It is through him that they find out about Peter Nero's sister, Rhoda Beltza, Red's previous employer... The plot thickens in this installment as not all things are what they appear to be...

Book: Spirit of Denial by Kate Danley (O'Hare House Mysteries #2)

Alright! It feels nice to be able to read books in a series back to back like this, helps me not forget what had happened in the previous volume. So, I was able to get my hands on Spirit of Denial, the second book of the O'Hare House Mysteries by Kate Danley through Hoopla, an online thing that allows you to check out ebooks and the like with your library card. 

Spirit of Denial picks right up from where A Spirited Manor left off. In this one, Clara confronts her house staff, only to find out that they are honestly and truly ghosts! And she has the ability to see and speak with them! Wesley, on the other hand, is still involved in this book, with him and Clara having fallen for each other, wherever Clara goes, he is not very far behind. Now, what had transpired at the late Lord Horace Oroberg's estate seems to be much bigger than either of these two could've imagined for now they are trying to stop an ancient Egyptian curse! The reason for Violet to have become a demon! The very reason why all those people had died...

Book: A Spirited Manor by Kate Danley (O'Hare House Mysteries #1)

I picked up this pretty thing while roaming around the "free" section on the Kindle store. It sounded interesting and the cover was pretty so I went for it. I am pleasantly surprised I must say. It is good, not amazing, but enough to keep my attention for me to pick up the next one. 

The Spirited Manor is a paranormal mystery with a bit of romance sprinkled in set in a historical fiction setting. The year is 1890 and Mrs. Clara O'Hare has recently become widowed, her late husband, Thomas, having just passed some months prior. She felt as though her life was over, Clara becoming just a shell of herself. She buys a new home and moves, to try and get away from the memories of Thomas, seeing him and being reminded of him at every turn. It is with this new house that she discovers that the veil between the living and the dead is actually quite thin.

Anime: The Promised Neverland by Kaiu Shirai (Season 1)

This anime is absolutely phenomenal! I had watched this anime sometime last year, after AnimeNEXT 2019, an anime expo that happens in Atlantic City, New Jersey annually. At the time, I didn't know the anime had released for this series, I was only reading the manga. When I had gotten to the convention and saw all the cosplayers dressed as the characters from The Promised Neverland by Shirai Kaiu, I knew at that moment, as soon as I got home from AnimeNext, I would binge through the whole season in like two days. 

Which, evidently, I did. I had watched through the whole season and checked it off of my completion list for anime and manga, but this was all before I had started this blog. I have now rewatched the whole season in preparation for season two, which will be releasing January 2021, only in a few months, 'casue as of right now it is November! I am very excited for the second season to release, especially since I enjoyed the manga very much.

Manga: Crimson Hero by Mitsuba Takahashi

As the first review of the new year, I thought a throwback was in order! This is one of Shoujo Beat's older series, Crimson Hero by Takahashi Mitsuba. It's one of Shoujo Beat's only manga series to have been left discontinued, with only localizing fourteen volumes out of the full twenty. This is in desperate need of a pick-me-up. 

Updates to the blog!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you guys will enjoy 2021 better than what 2020 turned out to be. Here's to hoping that this year will be better than the last! I know that I haven't really done this for the holidays before, but personally I'm not too keen on holidays. But a new year, the passage of time, that is something I find remarkable.