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Book 866: Under the Whispering Door – T.J. Klune

After loving everything I’ve read by Klune so far it was obvious I was going to read this. And then, when it appeared on NetGalley AND I was approved, I had to sit on it for SO. MANY. MONTHS.* It was 100% worth the wait.

Having not read any of Klune’s “adult” books, this one feels more mature than his superhero books (The Extraordinaries and Flash Fire) or The House in the Cerulean Sea. Most of this is directly because there are no young adult characters and this deals so much with the topics of death and grief. And it brings up so many philosophical ideas about life and death that I’m sure I still missed plenty.

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Book 746: Best Laid Plaids (Kilty Pleasures #1) – Ella Stainton

If you don’t know this about me, I very much enjoy a pun. Unexpected, unplanned puns are the best, but any pun will do. So when Ella Stainton reached out to me about her debut novel, a book set in Scotland titled Best Laid Plaids as part of the Kilty Pleasures series, I of course said yes.* And then, when I finished it and saw the title of book two, Where There’s a Kilt, There’s a Way, clearly I was in pun heaven.

For a debut MM romance novel, it was pretty good. There were definitely some parts that could use some work, but overall, I enjoyed the read.

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Book 488: Blood Persuasion (Immortal Jane Austen, #2) – Janet Mullany

Of course after finishing Jane and the Damned, we all knew I was going to go right into its sequel Blood Persuasion. Why slog through a novel that has issues when you can read paranormal Jane Austen fan fiction?! All you readers out there should be happy I’m only half serious about this. If I weren’t this would basically just be a Jane Austen fan-fiction love fest all the time.

Whereas Jane and the Damned was full of action and adventure, this one was a let down. I didn’t know this was a let down until I just now started writing this post and started to compare it to the first novel in the duology. That’s sad to think about, but not really surprising when so many sophomore novels and/or middle books in trilogies wind up disappointing.

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Book 487: Jane and the Damned (Immortal Jane Austen #1) – Janet Mullany

Only a very small part of me wishes I could say this was the first Jane Austen/Vampire fiction mash-up I’ve read. I can’t even lie and say this is the second. I read the Jane Fairfax trilogy by Michael Thomas Ford (Jane Bites BackJane Goes Batty, and Jane Vows Vengeance) back in 2015, so I guess in my weird little world I was overdue. Strangely enough, the trilogy Ford wrote could easily be a continuation of this trilogy if the two books end with Jane staying a vampire, and that would be hilarious, to me at least.

Jane and the Damned has been on my shelf for almost SIX years. I didn’t realize that until I just searched the blog to see if it was on here already. I ended up blazing through it this past weekend because we went to the park to enjoy the weather for a few hours. I needed something quick and either a physical book or on my Kindle because the galley I’m reading is on my iPad and those are not great to read outside.

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Book 454: The Book of Life (All Souls Trilogy #3) – Deborah Harkness

Where do I begin with this?

It’s very rare that a series starts off and continues to pick up steam the entire way through. In my previous experience, there is usually a middle-book slump. In the case of Deborah Harkness’ All Souls Trilogy the middle book of the trilogy, Shadow of Night, was the stand out, followed closely by The Book of Life and in a distant third, the trilogy opener A Discovery of Witches.

This could be because the entire series takes place over about a year (give or take a few months because of time travel), but more than likely I think it has to do with the amount of action continuously increasing as the series moved forward. This wasn’t necessarily a good thing as I’ll talk about below, but that’s my conjecture. Continue reading “Book 454: The Book of Life (All Souls Trilogy #3) – Deborah Harkness”