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: 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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

Manga: Caterpillar Girl and Bad Texter Boy by Sanzo

Truthfully, this is a slightly strange story. Caterpillar Girl and Bad Texter Boy by Sanzo revolves around these two teenagers, childhood friends, Kikuo Suzume and Kuchinashi Akane. Suzume was in love with Akane or "Aa-chan" is how he is known in the manga. She confessed her feelings to him one day and he rejected her due to his own low self esteem. Then, Suzume goes missing...

Book: The Bet by Tara Crescent (Menage in Manhattan #1)

Last week, I discussed a novella that I thought was a full novel when I got it, dumb me forgot to look at the page count, but fortunately it was a free book on Kindle. Now this week, we are going to be talking about The Bet by Tara Crescent, previously published as Betting on Bailey. Full disclosure… I am absolutely in love with this book! The writing is very good… very detailed to the point where I could feel what was happening, and that my friends is when you know you have been captivated by the author and the world they have created. 

Book: Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr (Wicked Lovely #1)

Alright, now this may come as a surprise, me posting about novels and the such. I have a YouTube channel that is dedicated to book reviews, strictly novels and nothing else, but I have not posted in over a year due to the fact that I haven't read any new books as of late. So, since I am here more often than over there, I decided that I am going to do an overhaul and transcribe the audio of my book reviews, posting those reviews here on the blog!

Manga: Miracle Girls by Nami Akimoto

Miracle Girls by Akimoto Nami is an old shoujo manga from the '90s when computers were a new thing in the world. Originally, this was published by TokyoPOP and has now been long out of print and in need of a rescue. I think it would be appropriate for Kodansha to pick this up due to the fact that their Japan office is the one who distributed it in the first place, and they can fix it up like they did to Sailor Moon. 

The story revolves around identical twins with psychic powers and their journey in high school trying to juggle their powers and love lives.

Anime: Ponyo on the Cliff by Hayao Miyazaki

Here's another one! Man, I feel very productive, re-watching all these Studio Ghibli films and reviewing them. This is another film by dearly beloved Miyazaki Hayao and one of the more recent films of his career. This is a fun, children-friendly movie that revolves around a little goldfish that wants to become a human, a little like The Little Mermaid, the original story not the Disney movie.