Fantasy & Romance
Book Reviews
April 2025
Rating: 4.5 ★
Genre: Fantasy, Historical Fiction
Review: Spectacular. I can’t wait to be dazzled by the sequel. The City of Brass follows Nahri, who summons a djinn warrior by mistake and is then flung into a new realm that explodes with the most vibrant setting.
This isn’t a quest story per se, but I do think that it gives the same vibes. There is a meandering quality about the character’s journey that makes it feel like you’re simply their companion on a mission.
I don’t typically enjoy books that feel like a carefully paced walk through the plot, but in this context, it worked perfectly, and I ended up loving it. My one very minor gripe is that Dara has the charisma of a wet noodle, but it’s okay, at least the other characters have some more pizzazz.
Also, if you’ve read my previous blogs, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. To me, The City of Brass feels like the big sister of that quartet.
Unfiltered Thoughts:
*very minor spoilers ahead*
A thief and con artist gets her big break as royalty-adjacent, befriends someone who would probably be diagnosed as autistic in the modern world (not by a professional but by a TikTok guru) and falls in love with a literal mass murderer.
“In what world do men and women pay the same price for passion?”
“‘You’re some kind of thief, then?’
‘That’s a very narrow-minded way of looking at it. I prefer to think of myself as a merchant of delicate tasks.'”
“I’m not sleeping alongside you in some temple dedicated to fish orgies.”
Rating: 4.25 ★
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Review: What a wonderful breath of fresh air! Maybe I’m just picking up the wrong books, but I feel that grief is heavily underrepresented in the romance genre. In this heartwarming story, grief takes the spotlight as Lenny processes the loss of her best friend with the help of Miles, who is the uncle of the girl she babysits.
This felt raw in all the right places, but equally hopeful in its overall tone. Promise Me Sunshine isn’t a perfect chipper story, but it does have a whole lot of heart at its core.
I also really appreciate how it chose to focus on the loss of a friend rather than a family member or romantic partner. I think that too often, the deep love that people share in friendships can be overlooked as something less important.
Unfiltered Thoughts: Everybody deserves a Miles.
“‘He treats you well?’
‘Mom, he walked into hell and dragged me back out.'”
“Grief is a relationship… it’s the way we figure out how to keep loving them even though they’re gone. And in order to do that we have to keep going. And going and going.”
Rating: 4.25 ★
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Review: Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new poster boy for hopeless devotion: Grant Shepard. If you think you’ve read every flavour of devastating backstory, I’d argue that you probably haven’t read this one; Grant and Helen’s lives are tied together through a horrific accident in their youth and are forced to face it all years later.
I’ll be frank, if you’re the healthy relationship police, you’ll probably hate this. But for me, it read as an interesting deep dive into two very flawed characters just doing their best to get by.
And the tension…my God, the tension. Yulin Kuang figures out very early on how to pull that chord tight between the characters and keep it there for almost the entire book. I never questioned the chemistry at any point, and for that, I was absolutely hooked.
Unfiltered Thoughts: I don’t know what to tell you except that this book has an abundance of the sauce.
“She used to think it was her superpower, her ability to identify her upset emotions and set them carefully aside…It made her effective, productive – powerful, even. But she’s found lately that she’s much more emotionally fragile than she used to be. All it takes is a hug while she’s trying to keep it together and the dam breaks, and the tears flow. No one’s going to hug her now, though.”
“But that was before her. Before he’d had the maddening exhilirating experience of loving someone who casually thought he could and should do better, that he hadn’t reached the peaks of his potential yet.”
“‘You’ll meet someone who’s fun and interesting and who can love you back without…without all this tortured drama.’
‘I like your tortured drama,’ he says plainly.”
Rating: 4.0 ★
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Romantasy
Review: Okay, listen, was this really anything new for the Romantasy genre? Not particularly. But did I still enjoy it? Absolutely yes.
I won’t be going around saying that this is a book that will convert people to the genre as a whole, but if you are already a lover of Romantasy, I do think that this will hit all the right points for you.
Blood & Steel draws on all the elements that make a book incredibly fun, like the fast-paced action, romantic tension and creative fantasy elements, and Helen Scheuerer balances all those pieces perfectly. I especially loved the friendships and the main character’s evolution in the relationship with her sister.
Unfiltered Thoughts: I might be more invested in the friendships than the romance, but at least I’m invested. A win is a win.
“‘The bitch hit me!’ Esyllt frowned, not even sparing Thea a glance.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. But if you’re insisting that an untrained woman landed a punch on you, then I’d say you’re the bitch Sebastos.’“