Tag: Fiction Review

Review: Daughter of the Golden Realm by Eva Barber

~ likelystory18 ~ 1 Comment

Synopsis:

Emery inherits a mystical necklace and a cryptic warning of its importance to humanity’s survival. When her mother’s body vanishes, Emery leads a band of refugees into a desolate, post-apocalyptic world and an eerie underground city, ruled by unscrupulous and immortal beings. Grieving her mother’s death, haunted by visions emitted by the necklace, and pursued by assassins enhanced by the technology her mother had invented, she uncovers a conspiracy that stretches from a dying Earth to the fabric of the universe itself. But things get even more complicated when a mysterious woman kidnaps her beloved Peter. She and her small group race against time to find him and stop a cosmic threat. Once again, destiny forces Emery to embrace her fate, which is far greater and more terrifying than she ever imagined, and to make an impossible choice.

Favorite Lines:

“Have hope. We’ll see stars again.”

“You need to be vicious to protect the ones you love.”

“Don’t be afraid…I’ll be with you all the way.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Daughter of the Golden Realm throws you immediately back into Emery’s complicated world, where every answer seems to uncover even more questions. She is still dealing with grief, uncertainty, and the strange golden necklace left to her by her mother, while also trying to understand what the Masters have done to the world and what role she is supposed to play in whatever comes next. There is a lot happening in this installment, but underneath the science fiction, dystopian conflict, and mythology, I thought this was really a story about Emery trying to understand where she belongs and how much of herself she is willing to give for the people she loves.

One of my favorite parts of the book was watching the world gradually open up beyond the gray underground city. The ruined landscape Emery and the others travel through is bleak, and some of the imagery makes the destruction feel much more tangible than simply being told that the planet has died. At the same time, the group begins encountering more survivors and learning that the situation is not as simple as humans versus monsters. I appreciated that the story allows for more moral gray area here. Emery can be impulsive and incredibly stubborn, but her refusal to completely give up on people is also one of the things that makes her feel like herself.

The middle of the book leans more heavily into the rebellion against the Masters and feels like a larger-scale dystopian adventure. The group uncovers more about how the gray world operates, who benefits from it, and how much control has been built into this supposedly improved society. The book has a fairly pointed environmental and social message, especially around power, inequality, immortality, and the idea of preserving a select few while everyone else suffers. It is not always subtle, but it fits the exaggerated scale of the world and gives the conflict more weight than a simple good-versus-evil setup.

For me, though, the strongest material is the more personal side of the story. Emery’s relationships with Peter, Sebastian, Tirg, Danuta, and her mother remain central even as the plot becomes much bigger. There is a constant tension between Emery wanting to protect everyone herself and the people who love her refusing to let her carry everything alone. The romance also has a bittersweet quality because Emery and Peter’s connection has always existed alongside questions about time, dimensions, and whether two people can really continue finding one another no matter what happens.

The final portion of Daughter of the Golden Realm becomes much more mythic and blends science fiction with fantasy, ancient symbolism, prophecy, and cosmic mystery. The book’s scope expands considerably, but it still comes back to Emery and the people she is fighting for. I liked that the story never completely loses sight of that emotional core, even when the world-building becomes much stranger and more ambitious. This installment answers some major questions while also opening the series into something much larger, and I think readers already invested in Emery’s journey will probably find a lot here to enjoy.

Summary:

Overall, Daughter of the Golden Realm is an ambitious mix of post-apocalyptic science fiction, dystopian rebellion, fantasy, mythology, romance, and family drama. The story follows Emery as she and her companions continue searching for answers about the destroyed Earth, the Masters, the mysterious golden necklace, and Emery’s own connection to forces she still does not fully understand.

I think this book would appeal most to readers who enjoy genre-blending speculative fiction, complicated world-building, found and biological family dynamics, environmental themes, supernatural or science-based powers, dystopian resistance stories, and romances built around the idea of soulmates finding one another across impossible circumstances. Because this story continues a much larger series mythology, I would definitely recommend reading the preceding Dark World books first rather than treating this as a standalone. Happy reading!

Check out Daughter of the Golden Realm here!

 

Review: The Weight of Snow by Sal Nudo

~ likelystory18 ~ Leave a comment

Synopsis:

The past doesn’t wash away. It just freezes over.

For fourteen years, Alex Neitzel has lived a life built on a foundation of silence and blood money. To the residents of Champaign-Urbana, he is a wealthy, solitary remote copywriter. To his teenage children, Sammy and Cecelia, he is a ghost—a cold, self-absorbed father who nurses a bottle of Scotch in a silent house where nobody truly talks.

But Alex is living in a prison of his own making, haunted by a brutal midnight memory: his brother Trevor, dead at the bottom of a frozen playground structure in Cameron Park. Every night at exactly 2:49 a.m., his fracturing mind punishes him with the phantom echoes of that horrific winter night.

Then, a knock comes at the front door.

Two local cold-case detectives are rattling old trees, armed with a deathbed confession from a witness who knows too much about the money Alex inherited after the “accident.” As the psychological chess match with the police tightens around him, Alex panics. Desperate to find an escape hatch, he risks everything on a shadowy, international investment opportunity in Brazil—only to find himself blindly stepping into the trap of a lethal predator.

With his fortune stolen, his children severing ties, and the authorities closing in, Alex is forced to engineer the ultimate exit strategy: staging his own death on the freezing waters of Lake Michigan.

A haunting, slow-burn exploration of guilt, isolation, and familial decay, The Weight of Snow is a gripping literary noir character study that asks a terrifying question: How far can a man run when the monster he’s fleeing is himself?

Favorite Lines:

“Inside the foyer, Ratatouille was whining, her little tail thumping against the floor in a frantic welcome, but Alex walked right past her, staring blindly into the dark hallway, the ghost of his brother breathing heavily down his neck.”

“He needed this. He needed a new sky.”

“What am I not running from?”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

The Weight of Snow is a dark, surprisingly compact psychological crime story about a man who has spent fourteen years waiting for the worst thing he has ever done to finally catch up with him. Alex Neitzel has money, a beautiful home, and two children who will never have to worry financially, but his actual life is pretty miserable. His relationship with his son, Sammy, is openly hostile, his daughter, Cecelia, is basically holding the household together by herself, and Alex spends most of his time drinking, hiding in his office, and being haunted by the death of his brother Trevor. When two detectives show up asking questions about Trevor’s supposedly accidental death, Alex immediately knows exactly how much trouble he is in.

What I found most interesting about this book is that it doesn’t really try to make Alex’s guilt a mystery. We learn fairly early that Trevor’s death wasn’t an innocent accident and that Alex’s fortune is tied to what happened that night. Instead, the tension comes from watching someone who has gotten away with something terrible for fourteen years suddenly realize that the walls might finally be closing in. Alex is not an especially sympathetic character, but he is an interesting one because there are moments where you can see that he genuinely loves his children and recognizes how badly he has failed them. Then, almost immediately, his fear or anger takes over and he treats them horribly again. The scenes between Alex, Sammy, and Cecelia were actually some of the strongest parts of the book for me because the damage Alex has caused isn’t limited to the people who died. His guilt has seeped into every part of the family’s life.

The Brazil storyline takes the book in a direction I wasn’t initially expecting. Alex becomes so desperate to escape the reopened investigation that he jumps at what appears to be an opportunity to invest in a legitimate Brazilian gardening business, only to discover that Francisco Silva is supposedly running a massive criminal operation behind it. What makes this section work is how quickly Alex is willing to accept it. He has already convinced himself that he crossed the moral line years ago, so becoming involved in something even darker doesn’t seem like much of a leap if it can buy him a new identity and a way out. Of course, the irony is that Francisco is not actually offering Alex salvation at all. He is a con man who specifically targets wealthy, desperate people with secrets, and Alex is almost the perfect victim. Watching a man who built his entire life on deception get spectacularly deceived himself was probably my favorite twist in the story.

I also liked that the book doesn’t give Alex an easy redemption arc. Even when he loses his money, stages his own suicide, abandons his children, and flees halfway around the world, there is no sense that he has actually escaped. The final scene in the Akatarawa Forest brings the story back to its central idea in a way that worked for me. Alex has managed to leave behind the police, his identity, his wealth, and even his family, but none of those things were ever the real source of his imprisonment. He is still carrying Cameron Park with him. I thought the ending was appropriately bleak because Alex technically succeeds at running away while also completely failing to escape the one thing he cannot outrun: himself.

Summary:

Overall, The Weight of Snow is a short psychological crime thriller about guilt, paranoia, family dysfunction, and the impossibility of escaping your own past. Rather than building its suspense around the question of whether Alex committed a crime, the story focuses on what happens when the consequences of that crime finally begin closing in fourteen years later. I especially liked the irony of Alex, a man who has spent years living a lie, becoming the victim of an elaborate con when he desperately searches for a way to disappear. The ending is bleak but fitting and reinforces the idea that Alex’s real prison has never been a physical place.

I would recommend this to readers who enjoy morally complicated protagonists, psychological crime fiction, dysfunctional family dynamics, stories about guilt and consequences, and shorter thrillers that move quickly. Readers who prefer traditional mysteries with a concealed culprit may find this less mystery driven than expected, since Alex’s guilt is revealed relatively early. It is much more about watching a guilty man unravel. Happy reading!

Check out The Weight of Snow here!

 

Review: Fire Breathes Stone and Storm by Teresa Hakaraia

~ likelystory18 ~ 1 Comment

Synopsis:

Sekya has spent her life making herself small.

Raised in an orphanage alongside Khala, Riva, and Lio, she has done whatever it takes to keep her found family together — even if it means surviving in Silk House, a pleasure house in the fire dominion of Eratari.

On the world of Thyra, power belongs to the Taniva: rare shapeshifters who carry the blood of the first elemental creatures.

Sekya is not one of them.

Then one night, watching from the balcony, Sekya sees the Queen return in phoenix-drake form, her Taniva wings cutting through the dark, her wounded son carried on her back.

Then time just stops.

The city is motionless.

The Queen hangs suspended above the lake, her great wings caught in mid-beat. And on her back, wounded and dying, Prince Kairon lifts his head — and turns to find Sekya, as though he knows exactly who stopped the world.

From that moment, Sekya’s attempt to remain unseen becomes impossible. She begins to share dreams with Kairon, drawn into a connection neither of them understands and neither can ignore.

When the Queen comes searching for the girl from her son’s visions, she finds more than Sekya. She finds four young people who carry something she cannot name: a strangeness in them, a power she can feel but not identify. Whether they are the answer to saving her son, or a threat to him, the Queen does not yet know.

What follows will change everything they thought they were.

Khala holds fire.
Riva holds water.
Lio holds stone.
And Sekya — Sekya can hold time itself.

Four orphans. Four powers that should not exist. And a world of four dominions holding a peace none of them fully trust.

But the thread between Sekya and Kairon runs deeper than magic. Deeper than blood. Deeper than anything either of them knows how to name.

Some connections cannot be undone.

Some costs cannot be survived.

Favorite Lines:

“What I do know…is that you are not some mistake Silk House made. You and your family love each other fiercely. You protect each other. You are Eratari.”

“Last night, I had not wanted to become another thing a man wanted from me. I wanted to be seen. Wanting, on its own, was too easy. Men did it all the time.”

“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. And you love me.”

“I only hope tomorrow finds us worthy of what comes after.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Fire Breathes Stone and Storm is the kind of fantasy that throws you into a fairly expansive world but keeps the emotional center of the story surprisingly intimate. At the center of the story is Sekya and the family she has created with fellow orphans Khala, Riva, and Lio. They have grown up relying on one another, and I liked that the story establishes those relationships as something worth protecting before their lives begin changing. As Sekya discovers there is more to her own identity and abilities than she realized, the world around the four of them starts opening up as well. What begins as a more personal story gradually introduces elemental powers, divided dominions, political tensions, and a mythology that suggests their lives are connected to something much older and more complicated than any of them know.

I thought Sekya’s struggle with belonging was one of the more interesting parts of her character. She’s fiercely protective of the people she considers family, but she doesn’t always extend that same confidence or sense of worth to herself. Her growing connection with Prince Kairon complicates things further, especially as the line between dreams and reality becomes increasingly difficult to understand. There is romance here, but I appreciated that Sekya’s story isn’t entirely defined by it. Her bond with the other orphans remains an important part of who she is, and there is an underlying tension between the life and family she already knows and the unfamiliar world that seems determined to claim her.

The world itself has a lot of moving pieces, and this definitely feels like the first installment of a series that plans to keep expanding. The elemental magic is only one part of it. There are four dominions with their own histories and conflicts, strange creatures, the mysterious Shell, and questions surrounding a sleeping god and the characters’ origins. I was particularly interested in the way the story touches on what happens when a society’s understanding of its own history is incomplete. Ariki’s experiences add another perspective to that idea, bringing prejudice and cultural identity into a story that could otherwise have remained focused primarily on magic and political conflict. There are still a lot of questions left unanswered, but I get the sense that many of the smaller details introduced here will become more important as the series continues.

The pacing does take its time, particularly as the story works to establish both its characters and a fairly complicated fantasy world. There were places where I thought things could move a little faster, but I also understand why so much groundwork was necessary for what appears to be a much larger story. I found myself more interested in the mysteries surrounding the characters and their connections to this world than in having every answer immediately. By the end, it becomes clear that what happens in this book is really only the beginning, so readers should go in expecting the start of an ongoing story rather than something that wraps everything up neatly.

Summary:

Overall, I thought Fire Breathes Stone and Storm was an interesting introduction to a fantasy world with plenty of room to grow. For me, the strongest aspect was the idea of these four young people who have already chosen one another as family finding themselves pulled toward identities and destinies they never asked for. The magic and mythology create the larger mystery, but it’s the questions of belonging, identity, and what makes someone your family that give the story its emotional foundation. There is clearly much more waiting to be uncovered about the Shell, the characters’ powers, and the history connecting everything together, and I think readers who enjoy settling into the beginning of a larger fantasy series will find plenty here to make them curious about what comes next. Happy reading!

Check out Fire Breathes Stone and Storm here!

 

Review: The Meaning of Androsia by Eric Bush

~ likelystory18 ~ 2 Comments

Synopsis:

It was a time of steam locomotives and horses, of city-states and principalities ruled by monarchs – but it did not take place in the past. It was a time of civil war between Protestants and Catholics over direct access to the Messiah – but the Messiah wasn’t Jesus. It was a place where Orthodox spires dotted the landscape, and people addressed each other with matronymics instead of patronymics – but it wasn’t a Slavic country, or even in Europe or Asia. It was a culture that venerated the great writers and composers from prior centuries – but their names were not Bach, or Shakespeare, or Beethoven. And when mid-winter rolled around, everyone celebrated the traditional holiday by decorating fir trees – but it was not Christmas. In short, it was a time very much like past centuries of our own – except that it was different. Something had happened to change the course of history.

Thus begins the story of Ilya Erynovich and Katerinya Emlynovna, a lifelong search for the meaning of something from the past. Ilya doesn’t know where he came from, or how old he is. He seems to know things he couldn’t possibly have learned. He has skills he couldn’t possibly have acquired. He is sought out, and sometimes captured, by political and religious leaders, and constantly followed by anonymous stalkers.

At first, he doesn’t even know that he is Ilya. He wakes up one evening in a train station, unable to remember anything about himself, including his own name. As he searches for someone – anyone – who might know who he is, he encounters Katerinya, a young writer, who takes an interest in his predicament and offers to help. She takes him in, and although strangers, they soon develop a mutual affection that blossoms into love.

This turns out to be good memory therapy for Ilya, and he recovers his knowledge of the last 20 years or so – but then it becomes stuck. He can’t remember anything prior to that. And it soon becomes clear to them that Ilya’s past self has left messages for his present self – there is something about the past that his present self needs to know – but the clues are cryptic and hard to decipher.

Over the course of a 24 year love affair, buffeted by political and religious intrigue, two epidemics, and a civil war, Ilya and Katerinya finally figure out who he really is…or was. But it’s not what either had expected.

Favorite Lines:

“How does a person function in a world with no past or future, and only a fleeting present?”

“For all practical purposes, I am what I can remember.”

“And as the great Reaper strode across her corporeal landscape, extinguishing her small internal fires, she died as she thought she would, gently raging at the dying of the light.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

The Meaning of Androsia starts with a really intriguing mystery. Professor Ilya Erynovich Koskayin wakes in a train station with no idea why he is there or, initially, much of an idea who he is. Even more alarming, he realizes he isn’t forming new memories properly either, forcing him to leave himself notes just to maintain some connection between one version of himself and the next. Following the limited clues he has takes him to Mariankursk, where he meets Katerinya, a young woman who rather unexpectedly becomes his partner in trying to piece everything together. Their investigation eventually intersects with a mysterious disease outbreak, a strange mark on Ilya’s ankle, people pursuing him for reasons he can’t remember, and a word that seems to carry some significance he has completely forgotten: Androsia.

One of the things I found most interesting about the book is that the mystery surrounding Ilya is only part of a much larger mystery surrounding the world itself. This is a future society living in the aftermath of a catastrophic break with the past, and familiar pieces of our own history have survived in altered, sometimes almost unrecognizable forms. Religions, holidays, historical figures, literature, and cultural traditions have been mixed together and reinterpreted over generations. There is a lot of humor in recognizing what these characters don’t, but there’s also a serious idea underneath it. The novel keeps asking how confidently any society can claim to understand its own past when history is always being filtered through whoever happened to survive and whatever information happened to remain. Even the opening epigraph, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” ends up applying just as much to civilization as it does to Ilya personally.

Ilya and Katerinya’s relationship is also a huge part of the novel, much more than I expected when the story began. Katerinya initially feels like someone who happens to be pulled into Ilya’s mystery, but she quickly becomes indispensable to solving it. She’s often the person who makes the intuitive leap Ilya misses, while he gives her the confidence and intellectual freedom to reconsider the life she imagined for herself. Their romance is unusually gentle, built around trust and companionship rather than conflict, and I liked the idea that neither of them really pursues or conquers the other. As Katerinya eventually describes it, they simply started moving in the same direction together. That relationship becomes much more bittersweet once the truth about Ilya finally comes into focus, because the mystery they have spent so long solving ultimately tells them something neither can undo.

I don’t want to spoil anything so I will keep this intentionally vague: the eventual meaning of Androsia was probably my favorite part of the story. The word and symbol keep resurfacing in different contexts, but for much of the story neither Ilya nor the reader has enough information to understand what they actually represent. I liked the way the novel slowly builds that question into something larger than a simple conspiracy or secret organization. Androsia becomes tied to the book’s broader interest in memory, identity, and the ways knowledge can be lost, altered, or misunderstood over time. It also mirrors Ilya’s own situation in an interesting way, since he is trying to reconstruct his personal history while living in a world that has its own fractured relationship with the past. I thought that parallel gave the central mystery much more depth than I initially expected. 

By the end, the book becomes less about solving a conspiracy and more about what it actually means to preserve something. Scientific truths can be rediscovered because the underlying laws don’t change, but art, religion, culture, and even our definitions of genius depend much more heavily on what happens to survive. Ilya eventually learns who he has been and realizes what matters most to him – his life with Katerinya. I found that surprisingly moving. For a book so interested in huge questions about civilization, religion, evolution, science, and immortality, some of its strongest moments are ultimately about something much simpler: the fact that even an extraordinarily long life doesn’t make the people you love any less temporary.

Summary:

Overall, The Meaning of Androsia is an ambitious speculative mystery that combines post-apocalyptic science fiction, romance, political intrigue, religion, genetics, philosophy, and alternate future history. It follows an amnesiac professor trying to discover who he is and why people are pursuing him, only for that personal mystery to gradually uncover a much larger story about a civilization that lost most of its connection to its own past.

I think this would especially appeal to readers who enjoy big-idea speculative fiction, stories about lost civilizations and reconstructed history, scientific mysteries, philosophical discussions about religion and knowledge, and slow-burning mysteries where seemingly minor clues eventually connect to a much larger explanation. Readers who enjoy a strong central romance alongside their science fiction may also really like Ilya and Katerinya. It will probably be a harder sell for readers who prefer very fast pacing or minimal exposition, because this is a long novel that frequently pauses the central plot for extended conversations about science, religion, history, literature, politics, and human behavior. Happy reading!

Check out The Meaning of Androsia here!

 

Review: Constants by E.B. Miller

~ likelystory18 ~ Leave a comment

Synopsis:

Mark Robson is trapped in flux.

Every 18 minutes and 32 seconds he wakes up in a new reality, then dies.

The only clues to help him stop this crazed cycle and return home to his pregnant wife are the people, things, and events that reappear across worlds,

…or what he calls his constants.

Told in real time, with every chapter unfolding in a different world, Constants is a tightly-plotted exploration of reality, identity, and humanity’s search for meaning across the furthest reaches of our collective imagination.

Favorite Lines:

“That truth has to live somewhere, so for now it resides in his head.”

“Death was the exclamation mark at the close of that final inescapable argument of life’s utter meaninglessness.”

“You can’t leave me. You’re a constant.”

“Meaning takes shape from afar, so appreciate what you can.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Constants is one of those books that starts with a premise that sounds fairly easy to explain and then gets much, much stranger the longer you read (in a good way). Mark Robson is trapped in what he calls “flux,” where every eighteen minutes and thirty-two seconds he finds himself somewhere new, usually shortly before dying in some increasingly bizarre way. One moment he might be sitting in a psychiatrist’s office, the next he is somewhere completely removed from the world he knows. The only things he can really hold onto are the patterns that keep repeating, particularly his wife Lya, the exact eighteen-minute-and-thirty-two-second countdown, and eventually his troubled twin sister Alex. At first, I was mostly interested in figuring out the mechanics of what was happening to Mark, but the book gradually makes it clear that the bigger question isn’t really where he is. It’s why any of it is happening at all.

A lot of what makes the story work is how ridiculous and serious it manages to be at the same time. Some of Mark’s existences are genuinely funny or completely absurd, while others are violent, frightening, or surprisingly sad. The constant countdown gives even the strangest worlds a sense of urgency because Mark knows that no matter what he discovers, he only has a few minutes before everything disappears again. I also really liked the recurring therapy sessions with the Psychiatrist. Those scenes give the story somewhere to breathe and allow Mark to actually examine the theories he keeps developing about flux. Is he hallucinating? Dead? Jumping between dimensions? Is someone controlling him? The running percentages Mark and the Psychiatrist assign to the different possibilities were a clever way to show how their thinking evolves as the evidence changes.

What surprised me most was how much emotional weight the story eventually gives Mark’s relationships. Lya initially seems like his one safe place, but even that becomes complicated because the versions of her he encounters don’t necessarily share the same history he remembers. Meanwhile, his search for Alex becomes increasingly important as we learn more about their childhood, their mother’s death, Alex’s addiction, and Mark’s guilt over not being able to save the people he loves. Underneath all the strange worlds and increasingly elaborate deaths, Mark is someone who was struggling with emptiness long before flux began. He keeps believing that if he can just solve the mystery, find the right constant, or get home to Lya, he will finally feel whole. The book gradually starts questioning whether returning to his old life would actually fix anything.

The final portion is where Constants takes its biggest swing, and I think it will also be the part readers have the strongest opinions about. Without completely spoiling it, the answer to Mark’s situation changes the context of basically everything that came before it. The novel becomes openly metafictional towards the end and includes a confrontation that ends up being one of the most interesting parts of the novel for me because it asks whether suffering really needs to produce meaning at all, or whether that’s just another story we tell ourselves because we’re uncomfortable with the possibility that there may never be a satisfying answer (you’ll see when you get there!).

I also appreciated that the ending ultimately lands somewhere quieter than I expected. After spending so much of the book desperately searching for certainty, Mark doesn’t necessarily find it. Instead, he reaches something closer to accepting uncertainty itself. The idea that darkness and the unknown don’t automatically equal emptiness felt like a fitting conclusion for a character who has spent so much of his life terrified that nothing matters. Constants is definitely weird, philosophical, occasionally chaotic, and sometimes deliberately frustrating, but I think that’s also what makes it memorable. It takes a very strange science fiction premise and uses it to ask surprisingly human questions about why we’re here, whether anyone is watching, and whether a fleeting moment can still matter even when we know it has to end.

Summary:

Overall, Constants is a strange, ambitious blend of science fiction, dark comedy, existential fiction, and metafiction that follows a man trapped in a cycle of new realities that reset every eighteen minutes and thirty-two seconds. What initially feels like a mystery about multiverses and repeated deaths gradually becomes much more interested in depression, mortality, faith, memory, free will, and our need to believe there is some larger explanation for why we suffer.

I think this will work best for readers who enjoy high-concept speculative fiction that isn’t afraid to get philosophical, especially those who like stories about alternate realities, unreliable perceptions of reality, existential questions, and books that eventually become aware of themselves as stories. Readers who need very concrete worldbuilding rules or a straightforward explanation for every mystery may find parts of it frustrating, but readers willing to follow the book into increasingly strange territory will find a lot to think about after it’s over. Happy reading!

Check out Constants here!

 

Review: Eidolon: From the Case Files of the OHR by C.L. Stiles

~ likelystory18 ~ 1 Comment

Synopsis:

When a man vanishes from a Kansas City diner — pulled through reality by forces no one can explain — Nathan Quipp knows it’s only the beginning.

As director of the Office of Hidden Realms, Nathan has spent his career keeping the supernatural world invisible to those who can’t handle the truth. But something is moving even deeper beneath the surface. Ley lines are surging. Cross-realm incursions are rising. And a near-divine source whispers the need to find the missing man — the Eidolon.

Now Nathan’s team is scattered across two continents and twelve centuries, racing to piece together a mystery that reaches from the streets of Kansas City to ancient Stonehenge and back again. The Veiled world is fracturing. The Unveiled are running out of time.

And something much older than the OHR is finally paying attention.

Eidolon: From the Case Files of the OHR is the first installment of the OHR Case Files.

Favorite Lines:

“Magic or no magic, she wasn’t starting Sunday without coffee.”

“You just found out the world is even bigger and stranger than you thought…And I won’t lie and say there’s nothing to fear.”

“The Keeper peered deeper into Nathan where the true battle raged. Not of flame, but of faith, of love. No, the memory of love.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Eidolon feels like a mashup of urban fantasy, paranormal procedural, supernatural horror, and found-family adventure, but in a way that’s genuinely fun instead of overly self-aware. The setup hooked me almost immediately. A man vanishes inside a diner without any trace of magic, one witness remembers what happened while others mysteriously forget, and suddenly we’re pulled into the hidden world of the OHR, the Office of Hidden Realms. From there the novel opens wider and wider, introducing ghosts, fae, magical investigators, shapeshifters, strange prophecies, hidden archives, and a growing sense that something ancient and catastrophic is moving behind the scenes.

What worked best for me was the tone. The book balances mystery and danger with a surprisingly relaxed, conversational style that makes the world feel approachable even when the lore gets complicated. Sandra and Jasmine especially carry a lot of the early momentum. Their dynamic is one of the strongest parts of the novel because Sandra has this exhausted, sarcastic competence while Jasmine reacts to the supernatural world in ways that actually feel believable. She’s overwhelmed, curious, skeptical, and fascinated all at once. Their conversations help ground the story whenever the mythology starts expanding outward.

Nathan’s storyline adds a very different emotional layer to the book. Underneath all the monsters and magical investigations, there’s a pretty consistent thread of grief running through the novel because of Anne’s death and Nathan slowly reconnecting with abilities he thought were gone. I liked that the emotional side never completely disappears beneath the action. The supernatural elements matter, but the characters’ personal losses and fears matter too. Even some of the side characters, like Mia or Taft, feel more fleshed out than you’d expect in a book juggling this many concepts.

The worldbuilding is honestly huge. The OHR itself feels like a blend of Men in Black, The Dresden Files, Supernatural, SCP Foundation, and folklore-heavy urban fantasy. Every few chapters the reader gets introduced to something new: magical archives, latent abilities, weavers, fae bargains, edge events, ancient beings, hidden blogs, undead archivists, and supernatural politics. Normally this amount of lore would bog a book down, but Stiles usually keeps things moving by tying the exposition directly to active investigations or character interactions. The inserted guidebook sections and informational entries were also a smart choice because they help explain the setting without forcing characters into unnatural exposition dumps.

That said, the book absolutely prioritizes atmosphere, lore, and character interactions over tight plotting. There are stretches where the story feels episodic, almost like watching a supernatural TV series with monster-of-the-week energy slowly building toward a larger threat. Personally, I think that structure mostly works because the cast is enjoyable to spend time with, but readers looking for a very streamlined plot may occasionally feel like the story wanders. 

I ended up really enjoying this. The novel has genuine personality, and that matters a lot in crowded urban fantasy. It feels written by someone who genuinely loves folklore, supernatural horror, conspiracy fiction, and paranormal investigation stories. More importantly, it feels like the author actually enjoys these characters. By the time the larger mythology involving the Serpent King and the Eidolon itself starts taking shape, I was invested enough that I wanted to keep following the OHR into future books.

Summary:

Overall, Eidolon is an urban fantasy/paranormal mystery novel centered around the Office of Hidden Realms, a secret organization dealing with supernatural threats hidden beneath everyday life. The story mixes magical investigations, folklore, ghosts, fae, monsters, prophecies, and hidden conspiracies with a surprisingly emotional undercurrent about grief and identity. The tone balances humor, mystery, horror, and found-family energy while gradually building toward a much larger supernatural conflict. Readers who enjoy The Dresden Files, Supernatural, Men in Black-style organizations, SCP-style lore, paranormal procedurals, or ensemble urban fantasy casts will probably have a great time with this. Happy reading!

Check out Eidolon: From the Case Files of the OHR here!

 

Review: Lasting Remains by Esmeralda Stone

~ likelystory18 ~ Leave a comment

Synopsis:

A funeral director searching for a way to start over.
A private investigator who refuses to leave the unknown alone.
And a case that proves the truth doesn’t always set you free—it can bury you.

Someone is hiding the truth.

Funeral invoices don’t match services. Families can’t find their loved ones’ graves. People keep disappearing.

None of it is accidental.

Emily Collins wants nothing to do with it—or the man who brought trouble to her door ten months ago: private investigator Cian “Oz” Ozdemir.

After walking away from her, Oz is back. This time, he’s calling in the favor she owes him.

He needs her funeral service expertise. She wants him gone.

But working side by side forces them to confront the connection they’ve tried to ignore since the day they met.

The deeper they dig, the more chilling the truth becomes. Because someone is using the funeral business to hide far more than accounting errors.

And if Oz and Emily keep searching for answers, the greatest risk they face isn’t losing their lives—it’s losing the life they could build together.

Favorite Lines:

“As long as she was with other people or had something physical to keep her busy, she felt marginally normal.”

“The way you threw yourself at me the other morning, I didn’t feel safe waiting another six months.”

“We’ll have to find a house near a cemetery.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Lasting Remains picks up with Emily Collins trying to rebuild her life and career after the fallout from the first book, and honestly, that emotional baggage gives the story a stronger backbone than I expected going in. Emily is working at the newly opened funeral home, A Good Mourning, trying to move forward while still carrying around a mountain of guilt, resentment, and anxiety. The book immediately throws readers back into the strange little world Esmeralda Stone has built, where funeral planning meetings can involve goats pulling wicker caskets, but serious conversations about grief, ethics, and trauma are never too far underneath the humor.

What I liked most about this one was the balance between the mystery plot and the character tension. The suspicious funeral invoice investigation could have easily become dry, but instead it turns into this genuinely interesting unraveling of fraud inside the funeral industry while also forcing Emily back into contact with Oz, who is equal parts infuriating and compelling. Their dynamic carries a huge portion of the book. They bicker constantly, both of them are stubborn to an almost unreasonable degree, and there’s a steady undercurrent of attraction that keeps every interaction tense. The cemetery scene in particular is one of the strongest sequences in the novel because it finally pushes all of Emily’s bottled-up fear and recklessness into the open. It felt suspenseful in a way that didn’t seem overdone.

The humor also worked better for me here than in a lot of mystery-romance hybrids. The funeral industry setting gives the author a lot of room for dark comedy, and Stone leans into it without making the story feel flippant. The conversations between Isaac and Cory were probably my favorite parts outside of the main plot because they bring a warmth and weird domestic energy to the book that offsets Emily’s spiraling internal monologue. There’s also a very Midwestern specificity to the writing that makes the setting feel lived in instead of generic. Little details about local politics, cemeteries, church gossip, family businesses, and small-town scandal all helped the world feel grounded.

Summary:

Overall, I thought Lasting Remains worked well as a blend of mystery, romance, and dark humor. It has a messy emotional core in the best way. The funeral home setting continues to be one of the more unique backdrops I’ve seen in this type of story, and the chemistry between Emily and Oz gives the book a constant tension that kept me reading even during quieter sections. It feels like a story about grief, guilt, attraction, and survival disguised as a quirky mystery novel, and I mean that as a compliment.

Readers who enjoy character-driven mysteries, slow-burn romance, morally complicated protagonists, and small-town drama will probably have a great time with this one. Happy reading!

Check out Lasting Remains here!

 

Review: Greet Suzon for me by Vince Rockston

~ likelystory18 ~ 2 Comments

Synopsis:

The year is 1686. King Louis XIV’s dragoons arrive in Alençon. Their mission: to brutally eradicate the Huguenot faith.

The d’Albert family’s flight is shattered when marshals ambush their wagon, seizing the father. Now, the fate of his family rests on young Gédéon. He must navigate treacherous, hostile lands, protect his mother and ailing sister, and find a boat to take them to the safe shores of Jersey.

Favorite Lines:

“A servant is not greater than his master.”

“Let’s leave that in the Lord’s hands’ – Did I really say that?”

“Can’t we each take responsibility for our own lives?”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Greet Suzon for me is one of those historical novels that feels very grounded in ordinary people’s lives rather than grand political spectacle, even though huge historical events are constantly shaping everything around the characters. The story follows young Gédéon d’Albert and his Huguenot family in late seventeenth-century France during the escalating persecution of Protestants under Louis XIV. What surprised me most was how intimate the novel feels despite the historical scale. The religious oppression, arrests, threats, and growing danger are all there, but Rockston filters most of it through family life, friendships, travel, worship gatherings, and the perspective of a teenage boy trying to understand a world that suddenly feels unstable.

The opening chapters are honestly very strong. The attack on the Huguenot temple immediately establishes the fear hanging over these communities, but what gives the scene weight is how personal it feels through Gédéon’s eyes. He’s angry, impulsive, confused about why people who claim to follow God hate each other so much, and still young enough to swing between childish revenge fantasies and genuine spiritual questions. I liked that he doesn’t come across as unrealistically noble. He acts like an actual teenager growing up inside a frightening political and religious climate. His relationships with his sisters, especially Madeleine, also help soften the heavier material and give the story warmth.

One thing the book does very well is atmosphere. Rockston clearly did a huge amount of historical research, but unlike some historical fiction that reads like a textbook in disguise, this novel usually folds the details naturally into the story. The secret Protestant meetings, the courier missions, the coded greetings, the fear of informants, the stories of pastors disappearing into prison or slavery on galleys — all of it creates a believable sense of danger without feeling overly dramatized. I especially enjoyed the travel sections because they make seventeenth-century France feel alive. Forests, villages, river barges, ports, safe houses, marketplaces, and isolated farms all become part of the experience.

The emotional core of the novel, though, is really about faith, loyalty, and responsibility. Gédéon slowly realizes that the adults around him may not be able to protect him forever, and that shift gives the story more emotional depth as it progresses. His growing awareness of political reality feels believable because it happens gradually. The book also spends a lot of time exploring how persecution changes families and communities, not just physically but emotionally. Some people flee, some compromise, some resist quietly, and others cling harder to faith because it is the only thing left that feels stable.

The biggest thing readers should know going in is that this is a slower, character-driven historical novel rather than an action-heavy adventure. There are tense moments and real danger, but the pacing is deliberate. The dialogue and narration occasionally feel a little formal, which honestly fits the setting most of the time, though there were places where conversations sounded more polished than natural. Still, I appreciated how sincere the book felt. Rockston clearly cares deeply about the historical reality of the Huguenots and the human cost of religious persecution, and that passion comes through on nearly every page.

Summary:

Overall, Greet Suzon for me is a thoughtful historical novel about a Huguenot family trying to survive increasing persecution in seventeenth-century France under Louis XIV. Through the perspective of teenage Gédéon, the story explores faith, family loyalty, exile, fear, and growing political oppression. The book balances detailed historical research with emotional family-centered storytelling and strong atmosphere. Readers who enjoy slower historical fiction, religious history, coming-of-age stories, or novels about resilience during persecution will probably connect strongly with it. Fans of character-focused historical fiction rather than battle-heavy epics will likely enjoy this most. Happy reading!

Check out Greet Suzon for me here!

 

Review: Bloom: Crisis in the Mediterranean Sea by Andrea Morani

~ likelystory18 ~ 1 Comment

Synopsis:

SOMETHING IS SPREADING BENEATH THE SURFACE

Along the Mediterranean coast, people are dying or falling ill. Marine life is vanishing. The sea, once a source of life, is becoming a silent threat. No one knows why—or how far it will go. Called in to investigate, Dr. Marco Fassi and his team of scientists uncover unsettling patterns that point to something vast and unseen, pulsing beneath the water. As the phenomenon spreads, they’re forced to confront the terrifying possibility that nature itself is no longer under control.

For fans of Michael Crichton, Franck Schätzing, and eco thrillers grounded in real science, BLOOM delivers a chilling, high stakes mystery where the natural world becomes the greatest threat. Propulsive and eerily plausible, this gripping novel will leave you questioning what lies beneath the surface

Favorite Lines:

“Nature is staggeringly intricate—and largely mysterious—so much so that countless forces, known or unknown, could trigger catastrophes that endanger humanity. This isn’t a doom- and-gloom perspective; it’s a reminder that we live on a fragile balance.”

“The fate of not just the Mediterranean, but perhaps all the world’s oceans, rested on their success.”

“From then on, he made sure to never take their love for granted again. “

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Bloom feels like a mix of environmental thriller, disaster novel, and science-heavy speculative fiction. The setup immediately pulled me in because it starts with something that feels believable: the Mediterranean Sea warming, marine ecosystems shifting, and strange deaths beginning to happen around the coastline. The early chapters in Sardinia are honestly the strongest part of the book for me. The scenes with Sylvie and her parents on vacation create this calm, almost sentimental atmosphere before everything turns terrifying in a matter of minutes. The sudden collapse on the water and the confusion surrounding the dead fish and strange smell genuinely felt unsettling.

What I appreciated most was that Morani clearly knows the science behind what is being written about. The book dives deeply into harmful algal blooms, phytoplankton, saxitoxins, synthetic biology, and environmental collapse, but it usually does so through characters who are actively trying to solve the crisis. Marco’s sections especially carry the story once the scope expands beyond Italy. He’s written as a scientist first, and sometimes that makes him emotionally distant, but I actually thought that worked for the character. His family issues with Jasmine and his guilt over balancing science with real life gave the story a more human center amid all the technical discussions and global panic.

The scale of the crisis becomes surprisingly massive as the novel continues. What starts as isolated deaths and strange marine behavior escalates into continent-wide fear, collapsing tourism, political tension, ecological disaster, and desperate scientific experimentation. I liked that Morani didn’t keep the story small. The sections aboard the Seagull and the debates about drastic containment measures made the book feel bigger and more urgent as it went on. There are moments where the novel almost reads like a cinematic pandemic thriller, except the threat comes from the ocean instead of a virus.

That said, this definitely leans more toward “science thriller” than fast-paced action novel. The scientific explanations are frequent and detailed, sometimes to the point where the pacing slows down considerably. There are stretches where characters explain theories, toxins, genetics, or environmental systems for pages at a time. Personally, I didn’t mind most of it because the author clearly put real thought into the plausibility of the disaster, but readers looking for nonstop suspense may struggle with those sections. The dialogue can also feel a little formal at times, especially during scientific discussions where nearly every character sounds highly academic.

Still, I found Bloom genuinely interesting because it feels sincere. Morani clearly cares about the environmental themes and the science behind them, and that passion carries the book through its weaker moments. The story works best when it balances human fear with scientific uncertainty, showing how fragile modern systems really are when nature starts behaving unpredictably. It’s the kind of novel that makes you think twice the next time you hear about warming oceans or harmful algal blooms in the news.

Summary:

Overall, Bloom is a science-heavy environmental thriller about a deadly marine catastrophe spreading through the Mediterranean Sea. The novel blends disaster fiction, biology, ecology, and speculative science with family drama and global political tension. It starts strong with eerie coastal deaths and gradually expands into a large-scale international crisis involving toxins, algal blooms, and desperate scientific intervention. Readers who enjoy Michael Crichton-style scientific thrillers, environmental fiction, outbreak stories, or speculative eco-disaster novels will probably get the most out of it. Happy reading!

Check out Bloom: Crisis in the Mediterranean Sea here!

 

Review: Maze: Short Stories to Faze by Sean Sheehan

~ likelystory18 ~ 1 Comment

Synopsis:

Step into a world where ordinary lives take unexpected turns, and the line between reality and mystery blurs. In this compelling collection, each story weaves a web of intrigue, delving into the hidden corners of human nature and history:

  • Two shop assistants are unsettled by a young girl’s eerie fascination with insects, a curiosity that spirals into something darker.
  • A train driver struggles to piece his life back together after a tragic incident on the tracks.
  • A pensioner battling cognitive decline questions whether he holds the key to solving a murder near his home.
  • A burglar’s routine robbery leads to a chilling discovery that will haunt him forever.
  • The fierce rivalry between twin sisters erupts, leaving devastation in its wake.
  • A pharmacist is thrust into a life-or-death confrontation with the IRA during Ireland’s War of Independence.
  • A traveller finds himself ensnared in the chaos of Ireland’s armed struggle for freedom.

Spanning contemporary Britain, modern Ireland, and the turbulent days of 20th-century Ireland, Maze: Short Stories to Faze masterfully explores themes of identity, memory, and morality. With its diverse settings and richly drawn characters, this collection challenges perceptions and lingers long after the last page.

Favorite Lines:

As I do with all of the anthologies and short story collections that I read, rather than pulling favorite lines, I like to spotlight a couple of the stories that stood out to me the most: The Maze and The Pharmacist.

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Maze: Short Stories to Faze feels like sitting around listening to someone tell eerie local legends, strange moral tales, and old Irish ghost stories while rain taps against the windows. The collection jumps between crime fiction, psychological horror, folklore, tragedy, and dark little character studies, but what ties it all together is Sheehan’s fascination with ordinary people drifting into unsettling situations. The stories aren’t flashy or overly literary. Instead, they lean heavily into atmosphere, conversation, and the quiet weirdness that can sit underneath everyday life.

The standout for me was definitely “The Maze.” It starts almost deceptively simple, introducing supermarket workers, elderly couples, and lonely men in a very observational way, but gradually the story tightens into something genuinely sinister. Albert is one of the creepiest characters in the collection because he never feels exaggerated. His awkwardness and odd conversational habits make him believable long before the full horror of what he’s capable of becomes clear. At the same time, Pat and Maeve provide the emotional center of the story. Their aging, memory lapses, and quiet affection for one another give the story a melancholy warmth that balances the darkness extremely well. The final sections involving Pat’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis were honestly more emotionally affecting than I expected from a crime-centered story.

A lot of the collection works this way. The stories are often less concerned with twists and more interested in human behavior. Sheehan spends time on small details: cups of tea, village gossip, old songs, awkward conversations, routines, and social rituals. Sometimes that pacing really works because it creates a strong sense of place and personality. The Irish settings especially feel authentic without trying too hard. Stories like “The Pharmacist” lean heavily into Irish history and political tension, while others move into stranger or more psychological territory. The overall effect is that the collection feels varied without completely losing its identity.

That said, the writing style is very straightforward. Readers looking for highly polished prose or subtle symbolism may find some stories a little blunt in how they deliver information or themes. Some stories also end a little abruptly, almost like modern folktales rather than fully fleshed-out literary pieces. But honestly, I think part of the charm of the collection comes from that simplicity. It reads like a storyteller more interested in getting the unsettling idea across than showing off stylistically.

Summary:

Overall, I enjoyed this collection more than I expected to. There’s a sincerity to it that helped a lot of the stories land emotionally, especially when the darker material is contrasted against ordinary human tenderness. The best stories linger because they mix cruelty, loneliness, memory, and morality together in a way that feels grounded instead of theatrical. Readers who enjoy unsettling but character-focused stories, small-town atmospheres, morally strange characters, and anthology collections with a classic storytelling feel will probably enjoy this one. Happy reading!

Check out Maze: Short Stories to Faze here!