Fairyloot Romantasy: May 2025 – Whispers of Ruin

Fairyloot Romantasy – May 2025

Whispers of Ruin

A young woman’s quiet life is shattered when a Prince’s lethal guard uncovers the secret behind the silver scars in her eyes. Forced into the deadly service of the King, she must join forces with the man who exposed her and confront a growing passion that could change everything.

Broken Souls and Bones by LJ Andrews

🖤 Redesigned cover @serif.and.somnia
🖤 Colourway variation of trade cover – reverse dust jacket
🖤 Foiled hardcover art @catrina_paints
🖤 Digitally sprayed edges @serif.and.somnia
🖤 Character art endpapers @deerlordhunter
🖤 Author letter bound into book

Illumicrate Unboxing – April 2025: Rival Realms

April 2025
Theme = Rival Realms

There is rivalry between our realms, and danger surrounds us on all sides.

Items inspired by A Court of Thorns and Roses, Faebound, Voyage of the Damned and Trial of the Sun Queen.

💛 City of Starlight Puzzle
Inspired by ACOTAR with artwork by @harkalelinai
💛 Dragons Dawn Tote
Artwork by @niallcgrant inspired by Voyage of the Damned.
💛 Aurora and Aphelion Postcards
Artwork by @rinfishe from Trial of the Sun Queen.
💛 Cosmic Fray Sun Stickers
Designed by @perrycuffdesigns inspired by Faebound



💛 FEATURED BOOK 💛

The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson

✨ An exclusive redesigned cover (by @tomrobertsillustration)
✨ Full colour art and foil on the hardback (by @c.e.illo)
✨ Digitally printed edges (by @chattynora)
✨ Illustrated endpapers (by @zookie_art); different front and back
✨ Signed by the author

Stacking the Shelves – May 2025!

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks! And audiobooks. Don’t forget audiobooks!

In other words, if you can read it or if it can be read to you – no matter how you got it – it belongs in Stacking the Shelves.

The Stacking the Shelves meme was originally hosted at Team Tynga’s Reviews. It is currently hosted by Reading Reality.


It’s been a good month (but not for my tbr!!!) And also, May was my birthday month, so this post includes my birthday haul!!!

Books I Bought
The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson
Silver Elite by Dani Francis

Advanced Reader Copies
Traumaland by Josh Silver
The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk by Carissa Broadbent
Warrior Princess Assassin by Brigid Kemmerer
A Steeping of Blood by Hafsah Faizal
Never the Roses by Jennifer K Lambert

Birthday Haul
Foxglove by Adalyn Grace
Leather and Lark by Brynne Weaver
Apprentice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
A Shadow in the Ember by Jennifer L Armentrout

I’d better get reading!

 

TTT – Summer Freebie

Top Ten Tuesday is featured by That Artsy Reader Girl. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

Topic: Summer Freebie

I tried to pick books that remind me of Summer…maybe they have a summery cover or they are about summer or have elements of summer things in them!

Maid’s Secret – nice yellow cover!
Great Big Beautiful Life – features a beach
Courting of Bristol Keats – cover reminds me of a summer cottage!
Emily Wildes – beautiful summer flowers
Januaries – lovely red, summer cover
My Killer Vacation – a holiday that goes wrong (or right!)
Beach Read – speaks for itself!
It Happened One Summer – has summer in the title!
Moti on the Water – that cover!
Golden Dynasty – a setting sun coloured cover!

 

What books would you choose?

The Sunday Post! It’s been rereading heaven!

The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer  It’s a chance to share news, a post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received.

I hope you had a great week!

Happy June! Can you believe it, halfway through the year! Blink and we’ll be putting up our Christmas trees!

I had a week off work this week and it was my birthday! We had a lovely meal and lots of cake!

It was a relaxing week, just what the doctor ordered…..and I topped it off with a series mood read!



Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac series by Caroline Peckham (mood reread!)

Dark Fae
Savage Fae
Vicious Fae
Broken Fae
Warrior Fae

(mixture of 4 and 5 stars!)


Review – The Half King by Melissa Landers
Review – A Steep and Savage Path by JJA Harwood


Feature – Stacking the Shelves: May
Unboxing –  Illumicrate: April
Unboxing – Fairyloot Romantasy

What have you read lately?

Hello June!

‘Far up in the deep blue sky, Great white clouds are floating by; All the world is dressed in green; Many happy birds are seen, Roses bright and sunshine clear Show that lovely June is here.’ ~ F. G. Sanders

‘In early June the world of leaf and blade and flowers explodes, and every sunset is different.’ ~ John Steinbeck

Happy June!

Have a great month!

Review:  A Steep and Savage Path by JJA Harwood

Title: A Steep and Savage Path

Author: JJA Harwood


BLURB

An immortal vampire. A mortal bride. A vow that even death can’t break.

Irina is about to be married to a dead man. She is the willing village sacrifice for the Wedding of the a desperate ritual designed to lay the hungry vampire that has been terrorising her Transylvanian village to rest. Irina’s beloved sister’s soul is trapped in the land of the dead. If Irina can retrieve it, she could bring her back – but Irina would need a guide, one who can walk between the living and the dead.

Irina strikes up a deal with her new husband – if he agrees to get her safely there and back again, then he can drink her blood as much as he wants.

They begin a perilous journey through the afterlife together, in which Irina realises Stefan isn’t the cruel and terrifying monster that she thought. In a land of three-headed beasts, winged creatures and walking corpses, the last thing Irina would have expected was to fall in love.

Only, Irina learns that by bringing Stefan to the land of the dead she has put him in grave danger, and will be faced with an impossible choice. Will they be able to make it out, undead or alive?

A bride marries the village vamp so she can gain access to the underworld to rescue her sister’s soul…..

I absolutely loved the premise of this story and I absolutely adored how the underworld was described, monsters aside!

Irina was so determined and Stefan really tried to come off as a monster because he was a vamp…..but there’s a story there too. The 2 of them together made my heart sing! (My little cauliflower!!!!)

It did fall a bit flat for me in places because their journey was just so long and repetitive but overall, I enjoyed it.


Sound like something you’d like?

Review: The Half King by Melissa Landers

Title: The Half King

Series: Half King #1

Author: Melissa Landers


BLURB

A king by day. Shadow by night…

The Great Betrayal changed everything for the Allied Realm. Long ago, the kingdom’s noble houses rose up against the goddess… and for their treachery, the firstborn of each noble family was cursed.

One with perilous beauty.
One with destructive knowledge.
One with insatiable bloodlust.

But the royal house Mortara received the worst affliction of all. For while the king exists during the day, he fades into nothingness at night…until his twenty-first birthday, when he will be lost to the shadows forever.

Now an acolyte has arrived at court. Like all the second-born children of the Allied Realm, she’s destined to serve the goddess and become a Seer…only Cerise Solon has no gift of foretelling. In fact, she has no magical gift at all.

Instead, she’s surrounded by courtiers and priests—smiling sycophants whose hearts are filled with secrets and lies. And at the center of it all sits His Majesty Kian Hannibal Mortara, with his haunting eyes, sharp tongue, and an unerring ability to send her pulse skittering at the worst possible moments.

Falling for him is unthinkable. Because the king is the last of his line, and as the specter of his twenty-first birthday—and the full force of his curse—approaches, the kingdom holds its breath.

But there’s only one way to save a dying king… and it lies with the one person who’s hiding the biggest secret of all. Cerise.

‘A king by day. Shadow by night…’

Second born, Cerise, is an acolyte and is sent to the King’s Court after a vision.

Kian is the King, struck with a curse to return to shadows from dusk until dawn.

Together, with a bunch of other courtiers, they strike out to break the curse.

The good – the secrets, twists, shocks, the romance, the pace, the championing of women and insta love (my fave!)

The not-so-good – the characters sometimes were like young teenagers instead of 19/21 year old, a lot of telling, no showing and every part of their plan seemed to resolve itself very easily!

But…..that epilogue! What the heck!

‘All of my sunrises belong to you.’


Sound like something you’d like?

TTT – Animal Companions

Top Ten Tuesday is featured by That Artsy Reader Girl. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

Topic: Animal Companions

Animal companions do really make a story…and here’s some good ones!

Nevernight – Mr Kindly
Greenteeth – Cavall
Heir of Fire – Abraxos
Skyward – Doomslug
Iron King – Grimalkin
Fourth Wing – Tairn
Emily Wilde’s –  Shadow and Orga the murder cat
Blood Orchid – evil alchemy duck, Durian
So This is Ever After – a murder crow
Shadowhunters – Church the cat 

What would you choose?