Tag: Likely Story Blog

Review: Brilliant Genesia by Eva Barber

~ likelystory18 ~ 1 Comment

Synopsis:

In a society that cages women’s minds, a young girl’s disturbing visions lead her to Dr. Mitchell, a psychiatrist who helps her escape her predestined existence. Zara must now hide her true identity to follow her dreams of becoming a scientist studying dark matter. But when a tragic explosion shatters her world, she must flee to a different continent with her forbidden lover and their unborn child. In that new world, the foe from her past resurfaces and kidnaps her daughter. Zara must now follow her foe into a different realm.

Years later, her daughter, Emery, emerges from a different dimension with amnesia, forced to piece together her mother’s fragmented legacy to rediscover her own identity and the extraordinary power she possesses. Taunted by figures from her past she can’t remember, Emery must confront a multi-generational conspiracy that threatens to alter reality itself.

Favorite Lines:

“Ideas and thoughts are never stupid, Zara.”

“Fourth time is the charm?”

“She is the love of my life. She is my emery. I knew and loved her in a previous life, in another dimension, in another realm. She is my destiny.”

My Opinion:

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

Brilliant Genesia begins as a quiet, unsettling dystopian story centered on Zara, a girl growing up in a rigid society where gender roles are enforced with clinical calm. Her visions of a woman trapped behind glass feel, at first, like a psychological mystery. Is she ill? Is she imagining things? But the more Zara questions the world around her — the aptitude tests, the carefully controlled research, the expectations placed on girls — the more it becomes clear that the real instability lies in the system itself. The early chapters are heavy with tension, not because of explosions or spectacle, but because of silence: what Zara cannot say, what her father will not discuss, and what her doctor may or may not be protecting her from.

What works particularly well in the first half is the slow intellectual rebellion. Zara’s awakening doesn’t come through dramatic speeches. It comes through memory, curiosity, and the terrifying realization that she might be smarter — and freer — than the world wants her to be. The recurring image of the glass barrier becomes a powerful metaphor for confinement, truth, and generational suppression. The therapy sessions with Dr. Mitchell are layered with subtext, and the domestic pressure from her father reinforces how deeply control runs in Andalian culture.

But the book does not stay contained in that quiet psychological space. As the story progresses, the scope widens dramatically. New characters step forward, and the narrative shifts into something more kinetic and expansive. Underground facilities, covert movements, rescue attempts, confrontations with authority — the second half becomes much more action-driven and ensemble-focused. The stakes move from internal questioning to physical survival. What began as a personal awakening evolves into a larger reckoning with systemic control and hidden truths. The world-building grows broader, and the tone becomes more urgent.

This structural shift may surprise some readers, but it ultimately reinforces the book’s central theme: once truth surfaces, it spreads. The later chapters lean into loyalty, sacrifice, power, and the cost of confronting institutions built on deception. Where the first half feels claustrophobic and introspective, the second half feels dangerous and wide open. Together, they form a story that moves from quiet resistance to tangible action.

Summary:

Overall, Brilliant Genesia is a layered dystopian novel that blends psychological tension with broader sci-fi elements. It asks big questions about gender, autonomy, institutionalized falsehoods, and inherited control — and then explores what happens when those questions refuse to stay buried. Readers who appreciate both slow-burn intellectual rebellion and later plot-driven momentum will likely find this one compelling. Happy reading!

Check out Brilliant Genesia here!

 

Monthly Features – February 2026

~ likelystory18 ~ Leave a comment

Twin Rivers by Jeremy Bender

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

Synopsis: The High Priest rules the city of Twin Rivers in the name of the Lord of Mercy, his AI god. In this land, where robotic Brothers complete all labor and humans are left to enjoy the fruits of this Eden, something rotten grows. Yonatan, a newly ascended Priest in the sclerotic Priesthood, is meant to shore up the faith of those left behind. Yet as Yonatan’s preaching takes him deep into the city’s bowels, he must confront heresy far deeper rooted than he ever imagined. When he sees one of the city’s paramilitary Keepers leave a young woman to die because of her unsanctioned implants, Yonatan must decide whether his faith in the Lord of Mercy outweighs his own belief in human exceptionalism.

Summary: Overall, Twin Rivers is a dense, unsettling dystopian sci-fi novel about a city that calls itself paradise while feeding on control, faith, and violence. Through priests, enforcers, and those left outside the walls, it explores how power hides behind ritual and how mercy becomes a weapon. Dark, intense, and uncomfortable in the right ways, it’s a story about what people are willing to ignore to keep believing they’re safe.

See the full review here: Twin Rivers
Purchase here

 

The Dog Years of Ananias Zachenko by Paul H. Lepp

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

Synopsis: What do you do when you run out of time? Ask Ananias Ezra Zachenko what he did after he was diagnosed. He set an agenda, took care of finances, delved into relationships, considered the heroic act. Didn’t go into denial, but defiance, there’s a difference.

He put it all in motion during the time he had left. A dog gets seven years to our one. Chenko rationalized the relationship by taking the best from both, our days the dog’s years and began to calculate. Anything to lengthen the short leash he is on.

During his dog years he planned for everything, but nothing turned out as expected. He concentrated on time, when he should have been looking at weight. No matter the type of year, when one runs out of time on this side, one has to figure out how to make weight on the other side.

Summary: Overall, The Dog Years of Ananias Zachenko  is a quiet, thoughtful novel about illness, time, and the way diagnosis forces a person to renegotiate their relationship with living. Grounded, reflective, and emotionally restrained, this story explores how we measure time when the future becomes uncertain — and whether time can ever really be controlled at all. 

See the full review here: The Dog Years of Ananias Zachenko
Purchase here

 

Her Ravishing Heartless Prince by A P Von K’Ory

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

Synopsis: He’s a European prince with a thousand-year lineage—and he hates her as much as he craves her.

Alyssa:

Prince Carl-Theodor Frederick Maximillian Christoph Albert Maria Johann Anselm is as insufferable as his name is long. Arrogant, powerful, entitled—everything I despise wrapped in devastatingly gorgeous packaging.

So I do what I do best: verbally eviscerate him and his precious bloodline with razor-sharp insults. I avoid him like the plague.

But avoidance only delays the inevitable.

Soon he has me exactly where I’ve been secretly fantasizing—on my knees before him. The problem? I can’t tell if this is seduction or revenge. Prince Hot and Cold swings between arctic ice and molten lava, dragging me to the edge of beautiful insanity.

The real question: will I survive the fall?

Prince Carl-Theodor:

Alyssa obliterates my world like a derailed train the moment we meet. Her beauty blinds me—then her vicious tongue insults thirteen thousand years of noble bloodline.

No one has ever dared.

As Head and Defender of the House of Saxony-Bremer, I vow on my ancestors’ graves to make her pay. I’ll bend her. Break her. Make her beg until she drowns in regret.

But here’s the twisted irony that threatens everything: hurting her destroys me too.

I can watch her crumble, hear her wounded cries—but the moment she surrenders, something in my chest stops cold.
Have I sworn an oath that will damn us both? And why does her pain feel like my own destruction?

Summary: Overall, this is a high-drama, ego-heavy royal romance where attraction and revenge walk hand in hand. If you enjoy dominant alpha tension, pride-fueled misunderstandings, and romance wrapped in luxury and lineage, this delivers an intense, indulgent ride.

See the full review here: Her Ravishing Heartless Prince
Purchase here

 

The 7 Albums of Stovepipe by Paul H. Lepp

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

Synopsis: From 1948 to 1982 nothing was as high mileage as a turntable. The speed limit was set at 331/3 rpms to take a spin down a highway of tunes on a ten-inch vinyl LP (Long Play) record album. The turning point 1982 when Compact Discs began to put the albums in our attics and closets. To some the change from LP to CD was a turning point on the same level as BC to AD. A wealthy collector has a well-trained staff they spend their time on finding the artifacts the turning points of the Boomer Generation left behind, items like Lee Harvey Oswalt’s belt, Jack Ruby’s cuff links. His staff comes across a nine word offer on the net, “Any Albums Made by the Stovepipe – Name Your Price.” He allows his staff to investigate, the project becomes an obsession. What they find out is a group known as The Chronologists are also interested in the authenticity of Stovepipe, the Musical Massiah between LP and CD, master of voice and instrument, lord of technology. Both Collector and Chronologists want to prove Stovepipe beyond a myth like Paul Bunyan or Johnny Appleseed, but for different reasons. One wants to prove he is alive, the other dead, and only one can be right.

Summary: Overall, a dense, unconventional novel that blends conspiracy, cultural history, and myth-making, The Seven Albums of Stovepipe is less about proving whether its central figure exists and more about why we need him to. The book rewards patient readers who enjoy experimental fiction, unreliable narrators, and stories that feel part oral history, part conspiracy file — especially those interested in music culture and how influence gets erased or mythologized. 

See the full review here: The 7 Albums of Stovepipe
Purchase here

 

Review: Her Lethal Crown Assassin by A P Von K’Ory

~ likelystory18 ~ 1 Comment

Synopsis:

A MAFIA PRINCESS
DARK KNIGHT BRITISH ARISTOCRAT
WHO’D BURN DOWN THE PLANET FOR HER

When powerful Mafia fathers need to settle debts, even daughters become currency. But Ambrosia Gianovecci Derossa has never been anyone’s pawn—and at twenty-one, she’s done playing by her father’s rules.

Ambrosia

Kidnapped from my Swiss holiday by a lethally gorgeous knight and whisked off to London on his private jet, I should be terrified. Instead, I’m fascinated. My captor is a stone-cold Crown assassin with impeccable manners and a plan to use me as bait for my notorious father. What he doesn’t know? There’s no love lost between the Phantom and his rebellious daughter.

Enjoying my captivity baffles my royalty abductor. The twisted attraction crackling between us floors him. Mafia princess. Knighted British gentleman killer who’s honor-bound to treat me respectfully. Kryptonite. I plan to take full advantage and charm him out of his rigid self-control.

Unfortunately, he’s about as easily swayed as the Rock of Gibraltar.

Damien

The Crown tasks me with one mission: capture the Phantom, an American crime lord more powerful than the Vatican and twice as elusive. A Royal Marines Commando, I’m built for impossible missions. Kidnapping his daughter to smoke him out should have been simple.

Think again. Now I’m trapped in a London penthouse, playing bodyguard to a 21-year-old who’s pure temptation wrapped in designer silk. Any involvement violates every code of ethics in my profession and threatens my knighthood. She’s forbidden territory.

But she flirts without boundaries, pushing me toward something dark and possessive that has nothing to do with duty. She shatters my armour, makes my resistance chains disintegrate, and awakens a hunger I’ve never known. With her, sin looks so devastatingly beautiful. I need divine f*cking intervention.

And I’m starting to wonder if I even want that.

Favorite Lines:

“God, give me strength. And Devil, please rip it the fuck away.”

“The gods aren’t heroes, the assassins are. The villains aren’t monsters, the angels are. The titans shy away from cruelty, the heroes drink it to survive. Give the villain your heart and he’ll save it in anticipation of possible further use for it down the road. Give the hero your heart and he’ll crush it under his feet on his way to his heroic deeds. The bad boys are the ones who take and admit they’re doing so, take it or leave it. The good boys are the heart-stealers who slip silently into it and then away with it, never to be seen again, leaving you with an empty hollow in your chest.”

“In the darkness, I hold her close and wonder if healing can really be this simple— if love can truly be stronger than shame.”

My Opinion:

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

Within the first pages we get birthday betrayal, mafia politics, a controlling father known as The Phantom, and a daughter who is done being traded like hard currency. Ambrosia Giannovecci Derossa is not soft. She’s sharp. Angry. Wounded. Gothic. She walks into rooms like she’s both the bomb and the fuse.

And then we get Damien. 

Elite Royal Marine. Calm. Surgical. Tactical. The kind of man who runs chemical simulations for breakfast and treats kidnapping like a chess problem. His perspective shifts the tone from emotional rebellion to strategic surveillance. Where Ambrosia burns, Damien calculates.

What makes the book compelling is that it’s not just a romance — it’s a collision course. A mafia princess raised to be bartered. A British operative tasked with using her as bait. Neither of them fully what they appear. Both more dangerous than advertised.

The setting leans fully into excess — private jets, Swiss Alps penthouses, rooftop helipads, armored SUVs. But the luxury isn’t decorative. It’s part of the tension. Every opulent space is also a potential trap. Every high-end suite doubles as a battlefield.

The pacing feels cinematic. Surveillance scenes. Tactical planning. Chemical mixtures. Helicopter arrivals. You can practically hear the score swelling under it all. It reads like a blend of mafia dynasty drama and espionage thriller, layered with simmering attraction neither side wants to admit.

The writing is bold and unapologetic. It doesn’t whisper. It declares. Internal monologues can run long. Metaphors occasionally stretch. Dialogue sometimes leans theatrical rather than subtle. But there’s ambition here — big themes, big stakes, big power dynamics. It commits fully to its world.

At its core, this story is about control. Who has it. Who loses it. And what happens when two people who are used to operating at the highest levels of power find themselves circling each other. It’s intense. It’s dramatic. It’s morally gray.

Summary:

Overall, this story is a high-stakes collision between a furious mafia heiress and a calculating British operative tasked with kidnapping her. Set against a backdrop of extreme wealth and global power politics, the story blends dynasty drama with tactical espionage. The writing leans bold and sometimes theatrical, but the tension, scale, and cinematic ambition keep it gripping. If you enjoy morally gray characters, elite military strategy, mafia power struggles, and attraction layered over danger, this delivers intensity from start to finish. Happy reading!

Check out Her Lethal Crown Assassin here!

 

Review: The 7 Albums of Stovepipe by Paul H. Lepp

~ likelystory18 ~ 2 Comments

Synopsis:

From 1948 to 1982 nothing was as high mileage as a turntable. The speed limit was set at 331/3 rpms to take a spin down a highway of tunes on a ten-inch vinyl LP (Long Play) record album. The turning point 1982 when Compact Discs began to put the albums in our attics and closets. To some the change from LP to CD was a turning point on the same level as BC to AD. A wealthy collector has a well-trained staff they spend their time on finding the artifacts the turning points of the Boomer Generation left behind, items like Lee Harvey Oswalt’s belt, Jack Ruby’s cuff links. His staff comes across a nine word offer on the net, “Any Albums Made by the Stovepipe – Name Your Price.” He allows his staff to investigate, the project becomes an obsession. What they find out is a group known as The Chronologists are also interested in the authenticity of Stovepipe, the Musical Massiah between LP and CD, master of voice and instrument, lord of technology. Both Collector and Chronologists want to prove Stovepipe beyond a myth like Paul Bunyan or Johnny Appleseed, but for different reasons. One wants to prove he is alive, the other dead, and only one can be right.

Favorite Lines:

“Every great turning point in history leaves behind some artifact of the moment.”

“Human nature moves in two gears: conscious and subconscious, what we see and what we dream. At times, human nature finds it hard to separate the real from the imagined. That it’s in our nature to combine the two and call it history.”

“The only thing we can’t afford is to overlook any moment in our time that changed us.”

My Opinion:

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

This is a book that doesn’t want to be read quickly. It wants to be circled, revisited, argued with, and maybe put down for a while before you come back. The Seven Albums of Stovepipe presents itself as a kind of investigation, but it quickly becomes something stranger: a meditation on authenticity, myth-making, and how culture decides what (and who) matters.

The framing device — a wealthy collector obsessed with historical turning points — works as more than a narrative hook. It becomes a lens for examining how we assign value. The artifacts, the surveillance, the obsession with documentation all point toward a deeper anxiety: that something meaningful slipped past unnoticed, and that history might have gotten it wrong. Stovepipe isn’t just a missing musician; he’s a missing explanation.

What’s most compelling is the book’s refusal to settle into a single genre. It reads at times like a conspiracy file, at times like oral history, and at others like philosophical riffing disguised as cultural criticism. The voices of the First Contacts feel intentionally uneven — not polished, not always reliable, but deeply convinced. Their certainty becomes contagious. You start wanting Stovepipe to exist simply because so many people need him to.

The language is dense, rhythmic, and unapologetically idiosyncratic. This is not streamlined prose. Lepp leans hard into repetition, digression, and accumulation, and that choice mirrors the book’s central question: does meaning come from clarity, or from persistence? The reader is asked to do work here — to follow long riffs, to sit with ambiguity, to accept that proof may never arrive in a clean form.

By the time the book reaches its later sections, the search itself feels more important than the answer. The Chronologists, the collector, the First Contacts — all of them are trying to control a narrative before it controls them. Whether Stovepipe is real almost becomes secondary. What matters is the hunger for belief, the fear of being late to history, and the quiet terror that the most important things might only exist on the margins, half-heard and easily erased.

This is a book about music, yes — but more than that, it’s about who gets to define influence. About how culture canonizes some voices while others survive only through rumor, devotion, and fragments. The Seven Albums of Stovepipe doesn’t give you answers so much as it dares you to decide what you’re willing to believe without them.

Summary:

Overall, a dense, unconventional novel that blends conspiracy, cultural history, and myth-making, The Seven Albums of Stovepipe is less about proving whether its central figure exists and more about why we need him to. The book rewards patient readers who enjoy experimental fiction, unreliable narrators, and stories that feel part oral history, part conspiracy file — especially those interested in music culture and how influence gets erased or mythologized. Happy reading!

Check out The 7 Albums of Stovepipe here!

 

Review: My Family and the End of Everything by Joe Graves

~ likelystory18 ~ Leave a comment

Synopsis:

The end of everything begins closer than you think. Of course, it always includes such foul practices as bureaucratic corruption, disregard for science (or the overindulgence of it), and corrupted religion. But this is not where it starts. It begins much closer to home-smart homes to be exact, and well-intentioned inventions (they really did think it was a good idea)-and human consolidation, and old men doing their best to retire.

My Family and the End of Everything follows generations of the Profeta family as they march naively towards the setting sun. The ending doesn’t come with explosions-at least, not at first. It arrives quietly, in funerals, final meditations, historical preservation, and decisions no one remembers volunteering for. From networked houses and autonomous bots to terraformed worlds, time travel, dying suns, and suspiciously ceremonial banquets, these stories track humanity’s ongoing attempt to stay human, in all our gloriously human ways.

This isn’t one apocalypse, but several, for the world ends far more often than we’d like to admit. Yet somehow, through all of them, a family-and their stubborn faith in each other and in their God-finds a way to endure and present to us this question: If we could change the future, would we?

Favorite Lines:

As I do with all of my short story collection reviews, rather than favorite lines, here are a few of my favorite stories: The House, The Pivot, and The Day the Sun Died.

My Opinion:

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

This is one of those books that feels quiet while you’re reading it — and then very loud in your head afterward. I went in expecting a more traditional sci-fi dystopia: smart homes, neural implants, generational timelines, the sun literally going dark. And yes, all of that is here. But what surprised me most is how personal it feels. The novel is structured as a collection of short stories that tell family histories. Each story stands on its own, with its own setting, tone, and central character, but they’re stitched together by bloodlines, history, and a shared looming reality: the slow unraveling of humanity under the weight of technology, time, and its own ambition.

The early stories, like The House and The Water That Shapes Us, are intimate and unsettling. They explore smart homes that optimize autonomy away and villages wrestling with the moral cost of hyperconnection. But those are just the opening notes. As the book unfolds, we move into space brokers and gravity trials, time-traveling historians chasing the elusive “Pivot,” off-world settlements, generational missions, political maneuvering, and ultimately the literal death of the sun. Each short story feels like a snapshot from a different era of the same extended family — different centuries, different planets, different moral dilemmas — but all orbiting the same core questions: What shapes us? What do we inherit? What do we sacrifice to survive?

Because it’s structured as a collection, the pacing feels episodic. Some stories hit harder emotionally, some lean more philosophical, and others feel almost like thought experiments wrapped in narrative. That variety is part of the experience. You’re not meant to sink into one continuous arc; you’re meant to see evolution over time — spiritual, technological, familial. The repetition of certain themes across generations (connection vs. isolation, faith vs. efficiency, autonomy vs. optimization) is deliberate. It builds a cumulative weight rather than a single crescendo.

What makes the format work is the throughline of family. Even when the timeline jumps or the setting shifts from Earth to orbit to distant systems, you feel the continuity. The book reads like an archive passed down through centuries, asking whether progress always equals improvement. It’s ambitious in scope — far bigger than just one storyline — and that ambition is both its strength and its defining characteristic. If you go in expecting one protagonist and one conflict, you might feel untethered. But if you lean into the anthology-style structure, the mosaic effect becomes the point.

This collection is less about the end of the world and more about the slow rewriting of what it means to be human.

Summary:

Overall, I found this book to be a reflective, generational sci-fi that explores what we lose when everything becomes connected. Instead of flashy dystopia, this book offers quiet, unsettling plausibility — smart homes that optimize away autonomy, neural networks that gently suppress prayer, and families wrestling with what shapes identity across centuries. It’s thoughtful, faith-tinged, and morally gray in the best way. If you like speculative fiction that prioritizes emotional and philosophical depth over action, this one lingers. Happy reading!

Check out My Family and the End of Everything here!

 

Review: Daughters of the Crosslands by Brian Kerr

~ likelystory18 ~ Leave a comment

Synopsis:

An immortal bond. A brother stolen by death. A sister who must risk everything to bring him back.

Senya never wanted to be a hero. But when a spectral woman arrives to deliver a harrowing claim—her twin brother is trapped in the Crosslands between the living and the dead—she has no choice but to fight for him.

Hunted by seductive wraiths and pursued across a wilderness of shadows, Senya must master terrifying new powers awakening inside her. Drawn into her struggle by fate and bloodshed, a scarred hunter with a haunted past seems to be her only real ally.

But saving her brother may be the bait for a far darker game—one that could ultimately destroy Senya along with everyone she loves. To unlock the truth, she must face a ruthless self-made queen of the Crosslands who will stop at nothing to seize Senya’s powerful gifts in order to command the origins of life itself.

Perfect for fans of Robin Hobb, Guy Gavriel Kay, and Katherine Arden, this is an epic fantasy of deadly secrets, haunting magic, and a sister’s fight against the shadows.

Favorite Lines:

“All I know is that the memory of friendship around here isn’t what it used to be.”

“I love you and we pay one another with promises we will keep, not with useless secrets.”

“Change can come hard…Or it can come easy. But change will always come, like Father used to say. I guess we might as well embrace it as best we can.”

My Opinion:

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

Daughters of the Crosslands opens in a place that feels lived-in rather than legendary. Senya’s world is built from small, physical details: stew simmering over a fire, lambs struggling to survive, the quiet work of tending life in a hard place. From the first chapter, the book makes it clear that this is not a story about chosen glory, but about endurance. Senya isn’t waiting for adventure—she’s trying to keep things alive, and already failing in ways that worry her.

What gives the story its weight is Senya herself. She is capable, guarded, and deeply tired in a way that feels earned. Her gifts have always set her apart, and the book doesn’t romanticize that isolation. Being different has cost her safety, trust, and belonging. When Cevellica appears at her door, the moment is unsettling not just because of the supernatural elements, but because it threatens the fragile stability Senya has fought to build. The danger isn’t only what lies beyond the door—it’s what being seen will cost her inside the settlement.

The relationship between Senya and her brother, Raedwin, forms the emotional backbone of the story. Their bond is complicated by love, resentment, and a long history of damage left in Raedwin’s wake. The book does something rare here: it allows Senya to be both loyal and angry, protective and exhausted. Helping him would mean reopening old wounds, and the story never pretends that sacrifice is noble just because it’s expected.

As the Crosslands and their messengers begin to encroach more fully on Senya’s life, the book shifts into a story about fear—how communities respond to it, and how quickly protection turns into exile. The settlement’s decision to cast Senya out feels brutal but believable. Kerr has written Daughters of the Crosslands in such a way that it is at its strongest when it explores this quiet cruelty: the way people justify harm when they believe it will keep them safe. By the time Senya leaves for Pentmore, the question is no longer whether she will act, but what it will cost her to do so.

Summary:

Overall, Daughters of the Crosslands is a slow-burn fantasy about isolation, responsibility, and the cost of loving someone who keeps walking into danger. Centered on a woman who just wants a quiet life but can’t escape her past, the story explores fear—personal and communal—and how quickly safety becomes an excuse for cruelty. Grounded, tense, and deeply human, it’s a fantasy that cares more about consequence than spectacle. Happy reading!

Check out Daughters of the Crosslands here!

 

Review: A Symbol of Time by John Westley Turnbull

~ likelystory18 ~ 2 Comments

Synopsis:

Survival requires sacrifice. But what if the price is an entire world?

Their home is cold and dying, choked by the toxins of their own progress. Now, an advanced alien species looks toward the Third Planet—Earth—with hope and fear. They see a fertile paradise, but one that is hostile, hot, and dominated by massive, predatory reptiles.

The choice is stark: die in the heat, or remake this new world in their own image.

As they descend to alter the climate and purge the planet of its prehistoric masters, they set in motion a chain of events that will echo through geological time. A Symbol of Time weaves palaeontology and astronomy into a chilling tale of survival. As the new masters of Earth terraform the planet, the question remains: does high intelligence inevitably carry the seeds of its own destruction?

Favorite Lines:

“Life, relentless and ordinary, tugged him back.”

“Like a memory that refused to sleep.”

“But stories, she thought sagely, were too easily lost. Words vanished. Monuments endure.”

“The face of memory will outlast its makers.”

My Opinion:

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

A Symbol of Time opens on a world that is already dying, and it takes its time letting that grief settle. The first chapters linger on dust, loss, and memory—not in a rushed, apocalyptic way, but in a quieter, heavier one. You can feel the weight of history in every scene. This is a civilization that knows exactly why it is failing, and that knowledge makes the choice to leave feel both necessary and devastating. The book is less interested in spectacle than consequence, and that choice shapes everything that follows.

Elthyris is the emotional center of the story, not because she is flawless, but because she is resolute. She carries leadership like a burden she never asked for but refuses to set down. What works especially well is how often doubt brushes up against her certainty. She believes survival demands action, yet she never escapes the fear that her people are repeating old mistakes on a larger scale. That tension—between hope and guilt—runs quietly beneath nearly every decision she makes.

Once the journey begins, the novel shifts into a story about pressure. Life aboard the ark is tense, contained, and deeply human. The ship becomes its own fragile world, where fear spreads faster than facts and leadership is tested not by grand speeches, but by restraint. The conflict with dissenting voices never feels exaggerated; instead, it reflects how quickly unity can fracture when survival feels uncertain. The loss of Ark Hope is a turning point not just in the plot, but in tone—it strips away any illusion of safety and forces the remaining characters to confront how alone they truly are.

What stays with you after reading A Symbol of Time is not the scale of the science fiction, but the emotional through-line: responsibility across generations. This is a book that asks what it means to inherit a broken world, and whether intention is enough to avoid repeating harm. It doesn’t offer easy reassurance. Instead, it leans into the idea that survival is not the same as redemption—and that awareness, not innocence, may be the only real starting point.

Summary:

Overall, A Symbol of Time is a quiet, reflective science-fiction novel about leaving a dying world and carrying its mistakes with you. Rather than focusing on action, it centers on memory, leadership, responsibility, and the fear of repeating history. It’s reflective, emotionally grounded, and more concerned with consequence than conquest—ideal for readers who like their sci-fi slow, deliberate, and heavy with meaning. Happy reading!

Check out A Symbol of Time here!

 

Review: For the Love of Glitter by Sarah Branson

~ likelystory18 ~ Leave a comment

Synopsis:

In Bosch, loyalty isn’t just earned—it’s tested. Grey Shima has her future all planned out: graduate, enlist, and follow in the footsteps of her fearless mother, Master Commander Kat Wallace. But when Grey meets the magnetic, passionate Edmund Sinclair, her world tilts. 

 He’s not just another boy with good hair and dangerous ideas—he’s a revolutionary, dead set on exposing the ugly truth behind the glittering power that fuels Bosch. Caught between love and legacy, Grey finds herself questioning everything: her training, her purpose, and her heart.

 But she’s not alone. Sy Mercer, Grey’s best friend, has stood by her side for years. Smart, steady, and secretly in love with her, Sy sees the danger Grey can’t—or won’t—acknowledge. As Grey spirals deeper into a movement that may not be what it seems, Sy must confront his own fears and decide how far he’s willing to go to protect her… even if it means losing her.

 Because love, like revolution, is rarely without sacrifice

In a postapocalyptic world rebuilding from ruin, For the Love of Glitter is a YA speculative romance about betrayal, resistance, and finding your true north-even when everything else is falling apart.

Favorite Lines:

“It was the month I stopped believing that everything would be okay and everyone would always be safe.”

“He took a deep inhale and smiled anyway, because some people were worth loving— even if they never looked back.”

“Checking myself in the mirror, I don’t see the girl who left home for her birthday. Nor the woman I though I’d become that night with Edmund either. I’m something in between. Sharper. Less trusting. Wiser.”

“I always had a hope. You, Grey Shima, are why I made it a plan.”

My Opinion:

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

For the Love of Glitter is one of those YA novels that quietly disarms you before you realize how deeply it’s going to dig. It opens in the warmth of everyday life—board games, siblings, familiar teasing—but the comfort never feels accidental. Instead, it becomes the contrast that sharpens everything else. From the beginning, Branson establishes that Grey Shima’s world is one where safety is conditional and adulthood arrives early. Grey isn’t rebelling for the sake of noise; she’s reacting to knowledge she can’t unlearn. The book understands that once innocence cracks, it doesn’t shatter all at once—it splinters slowly, shaping how you move through everything that follows.

What makes the story especially compelling is how seamlessly the political and the personal are braided together. Glitter isn’t just a substance or an economic engine—it’s a moral inheritance. Grey’s frustration with adults who insist on nuance feels achingly real, especially when those adults are loving, competent, and still wrong. Her anger isn’t reckless; it’s focused. And that focus is mirrored and softened by Sy Mercer, whose quiet loyalty provides emotional ballast throughout the novel. Sy’s presence never competes with Grey’s voice, but it deepens it, giving the reader a constant reminder of what’s at stake emotionally when ideals collide with relationships.

The arrival of Edmund Sinclair complicates everything in exactly the way it should. He is charisma and ambition wrapped in righteous language, and Branson is careful not to make him a cartoon villain. Instead, Edmund represents the seductive pull of movements that promise clarity and purpose, even when they’re built on half-truths. Watching Grey fall under his spell is uncomfortable in the best way; the reader can see both the empowerment and the danger long before Grey does while feeling the emotional pain from Sy as he watches it all unfold.

By the time the story reaches its final chapters, For the Love of Glitter has matured alongside its protagonist shifting from a com-of age to reckoning.  The narrative widens, revealing that resistance doesn’t always look like refusal—it can also look like patience, planning, and legacy. The ending resists neat resolution, opting instead for something more honest: a future shaped by intention rather than certainty. It’s a conclusion that honors teenage idealism without pretending that change happens quickly or cleanly.

Summary:

Overall, For the Love of Glitter is a character-driven YA novel about activism, first love, and moral awakening in a world built on compromise. Through Grey Shima’s fierce voice, the book explores how systems harm, how movements seduce, and how growing up often means learning that change is slow—but still worth fighting for. Tender, politically sharp, and emotionally honest, this is a story that trusts its teenage characters with real complexity and trusts its readers to sit with it. Happy reading!

Check out For the Love of Glitter here!

 

Review: Tenet of the Undying: Yielded Freedom by Nathan Gregg

~ likelystory18 ~ 1 Comment

Synopsis:

Fight. Win. Die. Repeat.

That summed up Ren’s life. Or rather, both lives.

After dying a veteran in a dead land, Ren’s soul is snatched up by a Goddess to be her pet warrior. But despite every bloody assignment, Ren won’t die. His new master yanks his soul from the jaws of death each time, his second chance at life now a blur of pain and service without end.

Until his moment to escape finally comes, to a place not even she can find.

But this new world is strange. They have magic here. Their culture is utterly foreign, just as foreign as Ren is to them. In a world ruled by sects and cultivators and mana arts, might makes right. Only the strong survive.

Good thing that’s what Ren does best.

Ren’s found his freedom, and he intends to keep it at all costs. Even if he must yield some of it to yet another master… and understand a strange new power before it kills him a final time.

The Goddess’ dog is off his leash and sharpening his fangs.

Favorite Lines:

“The world had ended regardless of their struggles, after all. But that didn’t seem right.”

“Worn, but not broken. Tired, but still willing to fight”

“A man is not defeated until he considers himself to be.”

My Opinion:

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

Tenet of the Undying: Yielded Freedom is a brutal, emotionally charged fantasy that never lets the reader forget the cost of survival. From the opening chapters, it’s clear this is not a story interested in clean victories or heroic simplicity. Instead, it follows Ren through cycles of violence, endurance, and moral erosion, asking what freedom actually means when it must be earned through endless suffering. The tone is unflinching, often grim, but it never feels gratuitous. Pain here has purpose, even when it’s overwhelming.

Ren is a compelling protagonist precisely because he is worn down. He is powerful, but never invulnerable. His strength is counterbalanced by exhaustion, grief, and an accumulating sense of responsibility for those who die alongside him. The arena, the cultivators, the monsters, and the larger cosmic forces all blur together into a system that feeds on struggle. What stood out to me is how often Ren’s internal conflict mirrors the external one. Every fight pushes him forward physically while pulling him apart mentally, especially as his tenet awakens and demands something from him that he doesn’t fully understand.

The relationship between Ren and old man Ren is the emotional backbone of the book. Their dynamic is layered with mentorship, manipulation, love, resentment, and inevitability. It’s clear that everything Ren is becoming was shaped deliberately, and that realization lands heavily. The book handles this relationship with patience, allowing its full weight to unfold over time rather than relying on a single revelatory moment. The result is a quiet devastation that lingers long after the scenes themselves end.

Worldbuilding in Tenet of the Undying: Yielded Freedom is expansive but never detached from the characters living inside it. Cultivation levels, cosmic entities, and apocalyptic stakes are filtered through individual loss and memory. Even when the scale becomes immense, the narrative keeps returning to bodies, wounds, fear, and choice. By the later sections, the story feels less about winning and more about enduring without losing one’s humanity entirely.

What stayed with me most is how the book treats freedom not as a reward, but as a burden. Freedom is something Ren is promised, fights for, and ultimately questions. The novel refuses to present liberation as an endpoint. Instead, it frames it as a responsibility that can destroy you if you’re not prepared to carry it. That tension gives the book its emotional gravity and sets it apart from more conventional progression fantasy.

Summary:

Overall, Tenet of the Undying: Yielded Freedom is a dark, emotionally intense fantasy that blends cultivation, cosmic horror, and character-driven tragedy. It will resonate most with readers who enjoy grim fantasy, progression fantasy with consequences, and stories that interrogate power, sacrifice, and freedom rather than celebrating them outright. This is a book for readers who want depth alongside action, and who are comfortable sitting with discomfort long after the final chapter. Happy reading!

Check out Tenet of the Undying: Yielded Freedom here!

Review: Driftless Spirits by Karen Ringel

~ likelystory18 ~ Leave a comment

Synopsis:

Charlotte Burke can’t shake her recurring dream. Over and over again she dreams of finding a mysterious journal on a candlelit desk while wandering through a strange house in the middle of the night. Every dream has shown her a framed picture of an old woman sitting at the same desk, except the latest version. Last night, the woman stood and offered Charlotte a keyring. In the morning, Charlotte woke up with her car keys in her hand.

Her best friend is worried but skeptical when Charlotte insists the house is real. The dream is metaphorical, Ivy says, reflecting Charlotte’s restless state. Ivy gifts her a journal and urges her to take the trip her subconscious is demanding before she wakes up behind the wheel. A roadtrip of self-discovery will help Charlotte figure out what she really wants.

Charlotte agrees to the trip but not for Ivy’s reasons. To her, the house, the journal and the woman in her dream are all too real. She sets off to do the impossible. She doesn’t know it yet, but if she can find the house and uncover its secrets in time, she might save far more than her driftless life.

Favorite Lines:

“It’s the kind of place that passerby barely notice and would never stop. It’s also the kind of place that’s cherished if you live there.”

“The internet has everything if you look hard enough.”

“Sometimes you just have to take a chance and jump.”

“Drifting through some days was fine but drifting through her years without intention squandered a precious gift.

My Opinion:

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

From the opening dream sequence, Driftless Spirits establishes an atmosphere rooted in intuition, restlessness, and the slow pull of something unnamed. Charlotte’s story feels immediately familiar in the best way. She is not running from tragedy or danger but from stagnation, from the unsettling realization that her life has begun to feel paused. That emotional starting point gives the book a gentle but persistent momentum.

What Ringel does especially well is treat place as both setting and catalyst. Wisconsin’s Driftless region is not just where the story happens, it is part of what the story is about. The landscape mirrors Charlotte’s internal state: winding roads, unexpected valleys, quiet towns that seem easy to overlook unless you stop and really look. Casten’s Horn feels lived in rather than constructed, and its routines, celebrations, and peculiar rhythms give the town a sense of layered history without overwhelming the narrative.

Charlotte herself is an easy protagonist to root for because her doubts feel honest and unembellished. Her curiosity outweighs her fear, but just barely, and that balance keeps the tension grounded. The mystery elements arrive slowly and organically, never disrupting the cozy tone but gently complicating it. The supernatural aspects are understated and feel more like an extension of intuition and memory than something overtly threatening, which makes them more intriguing than alarming.

At its core, Driftless Spirits is a story about listening. Listening to instincts, to forgotten history, to places that seem to call quietly rather than loudly. The novel resists neat answers and dramatic twists, opting instead for gradual revelation and emotional payoff. It invites the reader to slow down, pay attention, and trust that small moments can still carry significance. The result is a story that feels comforting without being predictable, and reflective without losing narrative direction.

Summary:

Overall, Driftless Spirits may appeal to readers who enjoy cozy mysteries, gentle supernatural elements, and character-driven stories set in small towns. It is well suited for those who appreciate atmospheric storytelling, introspective journeys, and mysteries that unfold through mood and discovery rather than danger. Readers who enjoy themes of self-rediscovery, intuition, and place-based storytelling will likely find this a satisfying and quietly engaging read. Happy reading!

Check out Driftless Spirits here!