I think I read my new favourite book of all time in November, so that is a win! I also found some new authors to follow and read from a mix of genres. I am ranking these from my least favourite to my favourite but no real duds this month!
“I was born on the full moon under an auspicious constellation, the holiest of positions—much good it did me.”
So begins Kaikeyi’s story. The only daughter of the kingdom of Kekaya, she is raised on tales about the might and benevolence of the gods: how they churned the vast ocean to obtain the nectar of immortality, how they vanquish evil and ensure the land of Bharat prospers, and how they offer powerful boons to the worthy. Yet she watches as her father unceremoniously banishes her mother, listens as her own worth is reduced to the marriage alliance she can secure. And when she calls upon the gods for help, they never seem to hear.
Desperate for independence, she turns to the texts she once read with her mother and discovers a magic that is hers alone. With it, Kaikeyi transforms herself from an overlooked princess into a warrior, diplomat, and most favored queen.
But as the evil from her childhood stories threatens the cosmic order, the path she has forged clashes with the destiny the gods have chosen for her family. And Kaikeyi must decide if resistance is worth the destruction it will wreak—and what legacy she intends to leave behind.
The unforgettable tale of a woman determined to leave her mark in a world gods and men dictate the shape of things to come. “Patel’s mesmerizing debut shines a brilliant light on the vilified queen from the Ramayana“
I have such mixed feelings about Kaikeyi and it is hard to put into words why I feel that way. I started it at the beginning of the month and finished five books before finally returning to it which is always a sign that I am not connecting with what I am reading. I thought that Vaishnavi Patel’s writing was beautiful and I am still looking forward to her 2024 release. The magic system was the most interesting thing about this reading experience and it is what kept me turning the pages. In some ways, I thought the feminist themes were a little bit overwrought but I understood where Kaikeyi was coming from. I am unfamiliar with the original story of Ramayana but when I was about halfway through the novel I decided to research it some and to look up reviews from those who are familiar with and love it and doing that seemed to confirm my suspicions. I went into Kaikeyi expecting her to be an anti-hero and this to be a story that lives in the grey but it felt so black and white where she is the good one and those who were good in the original story are now bad. I wish there was more nuance and I found that distracting even as someone who went into this book ignorant to the original story. I am now interested in researching more about Ramayana and I am open to reading more retellings if anyone has any recommendations!
Tis the season to solve a murder—and innkeeper Holly White knows she’ll have to make her list and check it twice if she wants to catch the killer in the fourth Christmas Tree Farm mystery from bestselling author Jacqueline Frost.
For inn keeper Holly White, Christmas time in Mistletoe, Maine, is the ultimate holiday gift. Business at the Reindeer Games Inn is booming, her wedding to Sheriff Evan Gray is nearly here, and the annual parade is about to begin. The town is lucky to have another gift this year with the state’s ballet company staying for several performances of The Nutcracker. But disaster strikes when Tiffany, the lead ballerina, shows up dead on a float during the parade, the Rat King’s mask nearby. Holly will have to spruce up her sleuthing skills if she wants to catch the killer before Christmas—and her wedding day.
Immediately, Holly discovers that Tiffany had more than a few secrets. She finds out that the star of the show had a super fan that no one knows anything about. And the show’s understudy slips some other intriguing information Holly’s way: not only was Tiffany secretly seeing someone romantically, but there seems to be more than one rat in this company. When Holly discovers a secret passage leading to Tiffany’s dressing room, with footprints leading out; she wonders if this is evidence of a secret lover—or a stalking killer.
With an impending snowstorm and the ballet company on the way out of town, Holly must act quickly if she wants to find the person responsible for this terrible murder. Will she be able to save Christmas—or will her investigation turn cold like the weather?
I marathoned the first three books in this series a few Christmases ago and adored them. They really helped get me into the festive spirit, so I was thrilled when it was announced that Stalking Around the Christmas Tree was finally coming out. I still had fun with this and I love the town of Mistletoe, but I found Holly frustrating in a way I hadn’t felt in the past books. Maybe she has always been this way and it didn’t start bothering me until now but the way she asks people who just lost a friend such intrusive questions was off-putting to me. She also makes comments about not wanting to eat desserts so she can fit into her wedding dress that just felt unnecessary! They mystery was good and I liked the conclusion, but there was one aspect of it that was so obvious that I was just waiting and waiting for Holly to come to the right conclusion but it didn’t even cross her mind, which felt silly. I am unsure if I will continue on with the series if there is another book but I do recommend the first three!
Her entire life, Xo has brought others happiness and love, complete with endings tied in pretty little bows.
This year, she wants that for herself.
Love.
Romance.
A happy ending.
And there’s a grumpy Santa who’s more than willing to grant her this wish in exchange for finding his love for Christmas again.
Where there are candy canes, there are happily ever afters… and they’re both about to find theirs.
I think the cover of Dear Monster Claus tells you everything you need to know about the book. It is a smutty romance between Cupid and Santa (who just happens to be a dragon who wears leather!). It was surprising cute and just a good time.
Advertising executive Nick Wong enjoys living in Toronto. He loves late nights partying and taking women back to his penthouse. And so it is with great reluctance that he returns to his boring hometown of Mosquito Bay for Thanksgiving.
This year, however, is even worse than usual. His interfering parents and grandparents, frustrated with the lack of weddings in the family, have invited blind dates for him and his three siblings. Nick’s brother Greg has been set up with Lily Tseng, who just so happens to be Nick’s latest one-night stand, the one he can’t get out of his mind.
Although Nick has never been interested in settling down, Lily has him reconsidering. Perhaps he’s good for more than a single night of sex, dumplings, and bubble tea after all. But first, he has to get through this painful weekend with his family and convince her that she should be with him, not Greg…
I saw a lot of people reading Thanksgiving-related romances this year and I was feeling jealous even though I am Canadian and we had Thanksgiving in October. I was talking about this with friends and they recommended A Match Made for Thanksgiving because it is centered around Canadian Thanksgiving and I cannot begin to tell you just how Canadian this book is. This is the beginning of a series where each of the books follows a different sibling and takes place during a different holiday after the events of this book where the rest of the family tries to set each of the siblings up during Thanksgiving and that does not go well. I actually wish we got more of that disastrous event but this only 101 pages, so I understand why we didn’t. I thought Nick and Lily has a ton of chemistry, but this is just not my favourite setup for a romance. He is good at a one night stand but not commitment and she is someone who lives by a list and is dumped because she is boring and is looking for a one night stand to prove she can have fun. That is just not my favourite but it was still cute and made me want to continue on with the series!
Greg Wong hates when things don’t go according to plan, so he definitely doesn’t appreciate it when his mother insists he drive Tasha Edwards back to Mosquito Bay for the Christmas holidays. He likes peace and quiet when he’s in the car, and that’s the opposite of what he’ll get with Tasha, his high school sweetheart. The first woman he ever loved.
Not that he has feelings for her now. Of course not. Though while he’s trying not to smile at her laughter and terrible singing, he can’t help noticing how beautiful she is.
And then his plans veer further off course when a snowstorm forces them to spend the night in an unheated motel room with only one bed…
The second book in the series happens to center around Christmas so I figured I should just picked that one up right away and make it my first holiday romance of the season! I definitely preferred A Second Chance Road Trip for Christmas over book one but that just comes down to the tropes in it and the hero. It is a grump/sunshine second chance romance and there is also the only one bed trope. I simply love grumpy heroes who soften when around their love interest and when the story takes place around Christmas time so he is more like a grinch that is even better! I cannot wait to contiue on with the series but I am going to wait for February as they are set around the Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day.
In a manor by the sea, twelve sisters are cursed.
Annaleigh lives a sheltered life at Highmoor, a manor by the sea, with her sisters, their father, and stepmother. Once they were twelve, but loneliness fills the grand halls now that four of the girls’ lives have been cut short. Each death was more tragic than the last—the plague, a plummeting fall, a drowning, a slippery plunge—and there are whispers throughout the surrounding villages that the family is cursed by the gods.
Disturbed by a series of ghostly visions, Annaleigh becomes increasingly suspicious that the deaths were no accidents. Her sisters have been sneaking out every night to attend glittering balls, dancing until dawn in silk gowns and shimmering slippers, and Annaleigh isn’t sure whether to try to stop them or to join their forbidden trysts. Because who—or what—are they really dancing with?
When Annaleigh’s involvement with a mysterious stranger who has secrets of his own intensifies, it’s a race to unravel the darkness that has fallen over her family—before it claims her next.
House of Salt and Sorrows was a reread for me for the Book Check Out Book Club. Check out our live discussion if you want to hear how we all felt about it but let’s just say I liked it the most. I first read this book when it came out in 2019 and it is funny because, at that time, it was so outside of my comfort zone and that is why I liked it so much but four years later it is so much inside my comfort zone that I have read other books that have done some similar things but in ways I liked more. However, I still thought that this was creepy and a page turner and I love the sisters and their relationships. I also ADORED the sequel so it is hard to not think about that book when reading this one even though they are so tonally different.
Nat Cassidy is at his razor-sharp best again with his horror novel Nestlings, which harnesses the creeping paranoia of Rosemary’s Baby and the urban horror of ‘Salem’s Lot, set in an exclusive New York City residential building.
Ana and Reid need a break. The horrifically complicated birth of their first child has left Ana paralyzed, bitter, and struggling―with mobility, with her relationship with Reid, with resentment for her baby. Reid dismisses disturbing events and Ana’s deep unease and paranoia, but he can’t explain the needle-like bite marks on their baby.
I read Mary by Nat Cassidy in October and it blew me away, so I had to pick up Nestlings as soon as I could. There is something special about the way that Cassidy does horror and it works for me. He is official an auto buy author after only two books. While I still prefer Mary simple for the fact that Aunt Nadine exists. That said, Nestlings holds its own and is a book I continue to think about. There is something so consumable about Cassidy’s writing and the way that he is able to build tension. I went through so many emotions while reading this book and it was brilliant. Exactly what horror should be!
Love is a sacrifice at the altar of power.
In the wake of the Kejari, everything Oraya once thought to be true has been destroyed. A prisoner in her own kingdom, grieving the only family she ever had, and reeling from a gutting betrayal, she no longer even knows the truth of her own blood. She’s left only with one certainty: she cannot trust anyone, least of all Raihn.
The House of Night, too, is surrounded by enemies. Raihn’s own nobles are none too eager to accept a Turned king, especially one who was once a slave. And the House of Blood digs their claws into the kingdom, threatening to tear it apart from the inside.
When Raihn offers Oraya a secret alliance, taking the deal is her only chance at reclaiming her kingdom–and gaining her vengeance against the lover who betrayed her. But to do so, she’ll need to harness a devastating ancient power, intertwined with her father’s greatest secrets.
But with enemies closing in on all sides, nothing is as it seems. As she unravels her past and faces her future, Oraya finds herself forced to choose between the bloody reality of seizing power – and the devastating love that could be her downfall.
I had been dying to read The Ashes and the Star Cursed King ever since I finished The Serpent and the Wings of Night but I wanted to listen to it on audio. I completely forgot that the audio came out in October but the moment I was reminded I dropped everything to listen to it and I am so glad that I did. I think I liked this even more than book one which is not what I was expecting because I typically like the first book in romance or fantasy romance series that follows the same characters because I am all about the slow burn and seeing how our characters get together. However, I think that Carissa Broadbent handled the fall out from book one perfectly without it feeling over the top and I was still rooting for these characters. There was also enough action and political manoeuvring to keep me turning the pages!
Everyone’s favorite lethal SecUnit is back in the next installment in Martha Wells’s New York Times bestselling Murderbot Diaries series.
Am I making it worse? I think I’m making it worse.
Everyone’s favorite lethal SecUnit is back.
Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonized planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there’s an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can’t have the planet, they’re sure as hell not leaving without something. If that something just happens to be an entire colony of humans, well, a free workforce is a decent runner-up prize.
But there’s something wrong with Murderbot; it isn’t running within normal operational parameters. ART’s crew and the humans from Preservation are doing everything they can to protect the colonists, but with Barish-Estranza’s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams, they’re going to have to hope Murderbot figures out what’s wrong with itself, and fast!
Yeah, this plan is… not going to work.
System Collapse is the seventh book in the Murderbot Diaries, so I think if you get this far it is safe to say you are a fan of Murderbot and that you will be happy with this installment. Something I want to note is that it begins directly after Network Effect ends, which is book five. I am so glad I took the advice of friends and read the sixth book, Fugitive Telemetry, before Network Effect because I was better prepared for the start of System Collapse. I liked some of the themes that we get into in this book because it explores how the events of the first sixth book have started to have an affect on Murderbot while still having the charm we have come to expect.
It’s all fun and games until someone catches feelings
Fate sends me straight into the lion’s den. Or rather, the fox’s den. After my dad trespassed into a powerful fox demon’s territory, our family is struck with a powerful curse. Now, to remove it, I’ll have to appeal to the demon’s better nature.
Easier said than done. That arrogant fox demon won’t be swayed by an apology basket full of treats. He does, however, need a fake mate for a week-long Winter Festival.
Though I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit that our doting lovers’ act was becoming harder by the day. The more time I spent with Lucca, the more his irresistible charms get under my skin. Deep down, I know it’s all a game. But my heart just can’t seem to get the memo. When our week-long affair comes to a close, will I really be able to walk away?
The Mead Mishaps series is one of my favourite series of the year and I was saving this short story for the winter time because obviously Mistlefoe is a pun on Mistletoe and the story unfolds during a Winterfest. That said, it did not feel overly festive so I think you are safe to read this at any point in the year. This is a short story that take place between book one and book two and it was a delight! It made me realize that I need more books with sentient swords or weapons that have an attitude but that has proven to be hard to find. If you are someone who normally skips the novellas or short stories in between larger series, don’t miss this one!
A human, a dwarf and an elf walk into a bake-off…
In the heart of Adenashire, where elfish enchantments and dwarven delights rule, Arleta Starstone, a human confectionist works twice as hard perfecting her unique blend of baking and apothecary herbs.
So when an orc neighbor secretly enters her creations into the prestigious Elven Baking Battle, Arleta faces a dilemma.
Being magicless, her participation in the competition could draw more scowls than smiles. And if Arleta wants to prove her talent and establish her culinary reputation, this human will need more than just her pastry craft to sweeten the odds.
While competing, she’ll set off on a journey of mouthwatering pastries, self-discovery, heartwarming friendships and romance, while questioning whether winning the Baking Battle is the true prize.
Escape to for a delightful cozy fantasy where every twist is a treat and every turn a step closer to home.
A Fellowship of Bakers and Magic is a new self-published cozy fantasy release and it is such a gem! Arleta is a magicless human living among fantastical creatures like elves and orcs
You are cordially invited to the wedding of Amerie Cross and Arnold Hightower.
And now a toast from the maid of honor, Janelle Cross!
Hi everyone, thank you for being here.
Some of you may know me as the sister of the bride.
Some of you may know me as the ex-girlfriend of the groom.
But I’m willing to bet none of you know me as the woman secretly sleeping with the best man.
I am.
I know, I’m just as surprised as you.
It was only supposed to be for the week; but every kiss, adventure, and stolen moment with Rome Martin feels like it could last forever.
Oh well. What happens in Tulum stays in Tulum.
I am so glad that I fell back in love with my Kindle this month and picked up Only for the Week on a whim because I loved this and how messy it was. I think Rome is the ultimate book boyfriend and I love that this book was self aware because our heroine is a romance reader (of the Kindle Unlimited variety) and Rome starts to read them too and they have a discussion about book boyfriends. I ate it up! I also loved that this when we get conflict (and there is a lot of it!) it is external and not within the relationship. Even though they are hiding their romance, they are so solid. This made me have an epiphany about why I like romances centered around weddings as much as I do. It is so easy to create external drama in that situation that there is no need for a third act breakup. Janelle’s family is truly terrible and seeing her get walked all over was frustrating but Rome’s support of her made up for it. Plus it was super steamy!
Lovely Sorcha is the seventh child and only daughter of Lord Colum of Sevenwaters. Bereft of a mother, she is comforted by her six brothers who love and protect her. Sorcha is the light in their lives: they are determined that she know only contentment.
But Sorcha’s joy is shattered when her father is bewitched by his new wife, an evil enchantress who binds her brothers with a terrible spell, a spell which only Sorcha can lift—by staying silent. If she speaks before she completes the quest set to her by the Fair Folk and their queen, the Lady of the Forest, she will lose her brothers forever.
When Sorcha is kidnapped by the enemies of Sevenwaters and taken to a foreign land, she is torn between the desire to save her beloved brothers, and a love that comes only once. Sorcha despairs at ever being able to complete her task, but the magic of the Fair Folk knows no boundaries, and love is the strongest magic of them all…
I think I can confidently say that Daughter of the Forest has become my favourite book of all time. I think if you know me you know that this is such a Kristin book and I cannot believe it took me this long to read it. It came out in the 90s but I somehow missed it and I feel sad for my past self. I think it is important to know that there is a graphic SA scene that takes place on page and it is difficult to read but the narrator sort of prepares you for it and I was told that it was going to happens, so I think knowing helped me get through it. I appreciated that we don’t just breeze past this traumatizing event and that we see how it affects Sorcha throughout the rest of the story. Daughter of the Forest is a Six Swans retelling and I thought it was so beautiful and atmospheric and it had me in tears more times than I could count!
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Great wrap up 😊 just added Dear Monster Claus to my TBR
Yessss! It is so much fun and so ridiculous!
Great month of reading! I’m so glad you loved Daughter of the Forest — I’ve been intending to read it, and now I feel even more motivated. Happy December!
Thank you! Happy December to you as well! I am so happy I finally got to Daughter of the Forest. It is incredible!
I 100% agree on your assessment of Kaikeyi. The black-and-white portrayals also made Kaikeyi’s insistence on supporting Rama so ridiculous and borderline stupid since he clearly had not one good bone in his body (which I’ve learned some Hindus consider offensive since he is a major deity in that religion!).
Interesting! I just knew while reading it that something felt not quite right. It’s good for me to know that Rama is consider a major deity. I completely understand why this take would be offensive! I could feel some of that even without knowing the original story.
Happy to see that you liked System Collapse, I love the Murderbot Diaries books so much 🥰 I haven’t read the Mead Mishap books yet, but I’ve heard such good things about them!
You must read them! They are so much fun!
For a light, introductory book on Ramayana, I highly recommend “Ramayana: Divine Loophole” by Sanjay Patel (illus.). It’s an illustrated middle-grade book but so worth checking out, and the illustrations are stunning. I recommend googling it to see examples of the illustrations.
But other than reading Patel’s book and a picture book on Ramayana, I don’t know much about it either. I was interested in reading Kaikeyi because of the hype when it just came out, but my interest has wanned.
This is great. Thanks for this recommendation!
There were some interesting things happening in Kaikeyi, especially the magic system but I’m not sure it’s one I’d go out of my way to recommend. I am still curious about her 2024 release though!