Tag: Likely Story Blog

Review: There Be Dragon by Michael Tars

~ likelystory18 ~ Leave a comment

Synopsis:

THERE BE DRAGON is an adult epic fantasy with slow-burn romance in a sprawling world of magic, greedy demigods, and dark prophesies.

When the people of magical Kalador prayed for a savior, they summoned Kwe—a battle-scarred soldier from a futuristic Earth who is plagued by memories of his violent past. He’s told that an ancient Dragon’s spirit resides within him and that together they’re destined to protect the realm from hungry demigods plotting Kalador’s demise.

Now, voices of several Dragons crowd Kwe’s mind, each with their own agenda, all threatening to take over. Cut-throat court politics and strange magic, assassination attempts and threats of imminent war are bad enough; it’s worse to fall in love when romance is impossible. Though try explaining that to the amorous dragon within…

Common-born Kira didn’t expect to become the Chosen. Now she must bind the new Lord Dragon’s soul to Kalador. If only he’d see not just her duty, but also her love.

With threats multiplying, and Kira’s life on the line, Kwe’s only choice is to embrace the dragons—without losing himself in the process. He might be a pawn in some demigod’s secret game, but he won’t be broken or controlled.

With a nefarious demigod plotting from the bottom of the ocean, will Kwe’s newfound
Dragon powers and battlefield experience be enough to keep the country and those he loves safe?

An adult fantasy romance for fans of romantasy, dragons, forbidden romance, and mysteries demanding to be solved.

Favorite Lines:

“The hardest lies to see are those you tell yourself.”

“Nothing had changed, yet everything was different.”

“Wars were costly. Even for the victor.”

My Opinion:

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

There Be Dragon opens like a futuristic military science fiction novel before abruptly turning into something completely different. Lieutenant Colonel Kwe is leading a raid in a technologically advanced version of Earth when he sacrifices himself to save his best friend and expects to die. Instead, he wakes up in the snow beneath a perfectly blue sky, surrounded by three girls who are convinced they have just summoned their country’s new Lord Dragon. Kira, Maya, and Kira’s younger sister Nora have been sent out as part of an ancient ritual meant to find Kalador’s new divine protector, and through either fate, magic, or some very enthusiastic pompoms, they find Kwe. It’s a strange setup, and the collision of genres gives the story an unusual starting point. Kwe tries to analyze everything through the eyes of a highly trained soldier from an advanced civilization, while everyone around him interprets his technology through the perspective of a world where magic and gods are completely real.

What I found more interesting than the actual “man from the future becomes a dragon” premise was the way Kwe reacts to the society he’s landed in. Kalador treats him as an all-powerful ruler almost immediately, but he is increasingly horrified by many of the traditions everyone else considers normal. This is especially true when it comes to the treatment of women. Kira was facing marriage to an abusive man, Maya’s father was essentially negotiating a price for her, and all three girls are suddenly told that they now “belong” to Kwe as his Maidens. Kwe’s refusal to simply accept that arrangement creates an interesting tension within the story. Even when he’s attracted to Kira, he is conscious of the fact that her society has given her very little real choice, and he doesn’t want his position as Lord Dragon to become another way for someone else to control her. That complicates their developing relationship, particularly as Kira tries to establish that what she wants is actually her own decision.

Kwe also begins challenging Kalador’s traditions in smaller ways. He isn’t only interested in defeating enemies with futuristic weapons or demonstrating how technologically superior his world was. He cooks, insists that his Maidens eat with him, recruits women as fighters and bodyguards, teaches the girls to defend themselves, and treats servants and commoners with a level of respect that repeatedly confuses the people around him. These moments help establish the kind of ruler Kwe intends to be, although I did find there was sometimes a disconnect between the story’s criticism of Kalador’s treatment of women and the way its female characters were presented elsewhere in the narrative. One particularly meaningful moment comes when Kwe meets Moira, the cook who cared for Kira and Nora when their own family failed them. Rather than dismissing her as a servant, Kwe kneels before her, thanks her, and promises to care for “her girls.” It’s a relatively small moment compared to the larger political conflicts surrounding Kalador, but it reveals quite a bit about how Kwe sees the people who have unexpectedly become part of his life.

There is plenty of action, magic, political maneuvering, romance, and humor, with the relationships between Kwe, Kira, Maya, and Nora forming a significant part of the story’s emotional foundation. Kwe begins the book mourning a life he believes he has lost, but over time, Kalador stops feeling quite so much like somewhere he has accidentally landed and starts becoming somewhere he genuinely wants to protect. The ending leaves the larger story unfinished, particularly when it comes to Leviathan and the threats gathering around Kalador, while still bringing Kwe’s personal journey in this installment to an important turning point. By the final pages, the people gathered around him represent the connections he has formed in a world that was completely foreign to him when the story began.

I do want to flag that there are some parts of this book that are, in my opinion, problematic. While I appreciated the novel’s emphasis on consent and Kwe’s efforts to challenge Kalador’s treatment of women, I sometimes found the repeated focus on the women surrounding him and their attraction to him excessive. There were also a few adult-oriented jokes involving a much younger character that I personally found uncomfortable and unnecessary. These elements occasionally distracted me from what I thought were the more interesting aspects of the story, particularly the clash between Kwe’s futuristic values and the traditions of his new world. Because these elements may be significant for some readers, I think they are worth mentioning as part of my overall experience with the book.

Summary:

Overall, There Be Dragon is a genre-blending portal fantasy about a futuristic soldier who finds himself transported into a medieval world and mistaken, or perhaps correctly identified, as its newly summoned Lord Dragon. As Kwe tries to understand his new powers and the Dragon sharing his consciousness, he also has to navigate a society whose traditions surrounding class, gender, marriage, and political power often conflict sharply with his own values.

I think this may appeal to readers who enjoy portal fantasy and isekai-style stories, powerful protagonists, science fiction mixed with traditional fantasy, dragons, political worldbuilding, found family, and stories where a modern or futuristic character introduces new ideas into a less technologically advanced society. Readers should also be aware that the book contains a significant romantic and sexual component, including some material that may be uncomfortable for certain audiences. The story also deals with darker subjects involving abuse, exploitation, sexual violence, assassination attempts, and war.

You can find the book trailer here
Check out There Be Dragon here

 

 

Monthly Features – July 2026

~ likelystory18 ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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.

Summary: 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. 

See the full review here: Eidolon: From the Case Files of the OHR
Purchase here

 

The Meaning of Androsia by Eric Bush

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

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.

Summary: 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. 

See the full review here: The Meaning of Androsia
Purchase 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: 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: Intrinsic by W.H.B.

~ likelystory18 ~ Leave a comment

Synopsis:

Christopher Franklin, the proud and only son of a New York literary royalty, from birth he is built and destined to nothing less than greatness. One day, out of disappointment, he makes the dangerous decision to change and turn into someone who is not. He consciously decides to entangle his life with a miserable soul. Abruptly he learns his first lesson from life, miserable souls only bring misery, with one act he will lose everything, in one evening he will be reduced to nothing. No greatness, he becomes a nobody.

Years passed by and Chris settled into his life as a taxi driver, Brooklyn is home, and the miserable soul is still around him and has gotten more miserable with the years. This time is different, he is a dad of two beautiful daughters with unconditional love, their safety is his new purpose in life, nothing and no one is above his girls. He also discovers a dear friendship with his neighbor and confidante, a place of solace.

One night, without warning, a triggered chain reaction will take Chris into a ride of a lifetime, nothing will be ever the same, lies and secrets are uncovered, he was played and fooled, he didn’t know anything about who he is and, once again, he is reduced to nothing, rock bottom is where he belongs. Suddenly, out of nowhere, greatness at last, he has the privilege to show who he is, royalty. He will rise while making sure others will fall, miserably.

Life is fair, but not for all.

Favorite Lines:

“Life is fair—but not for all.”

“Pay it forward. At some point we all need help.”

“No matter what, things have to return to where they naturally belong—a universal rule.”

“I don’t predict the future. I don’t want to, and I don’t need to. I am simply ready and prepared for whatever it throws at me. The only thing I know is no matter what it brings, I will always be the one who decides when and how it’s going to end. Simple control. Control is when you never fail to punctuate the present moment.”

My Opinion:

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

Intrinsic immediately stands out as a very ambitious and emotionally driven novel. From the opening pages, the book throws readers into a vividly detailed version of New York City that feels alive with movement, history, and personality, and there’s an unmistakable sincerity behind the writing that kept me engaged. The narration is rich and reflective, almost cinematic at times, and the story quickly establishes itself as something much larger than a straightforward family drama. It’s interested in morality, destiny, identity, sacrifice, and what truly defines a good person, all through the life of Chris Franklin, a taxi driver carrying far more emotional weight and history than people around him realize.

What stood out most to me was Chris himself. He’s written almost like an old-fashioned idealized protagonist: endlessly kind, thoughtful, generous, intelligent, patient, hardworking, devoted to his children, and seemingly able to connect deeply with everyone he encounters. In lesser hands that could have made him feel flat, but the novel balances it somewhat by surrounding him with emotional tension and instability, especially within his marriage to Mary. The family scenes were honestly the strongest part of the book for me because they feel emotionally loaded even during ordinary conversations. There’s this constant undercurrent of volatility in the household where Chris is trying to preserve warmth and tenderness for his daughters while navigating Mary’s anger and emotional instability. Those scenes created much more tension than the larger philosophical passages.

The book also has a huge sense of nostalgia attached to New York City. The opening chapters almost function as a love letter to the city in the late 2000s and to a version of urban life that feels increasingly distant. Taxi driving, neighborhood delis, late-night cigarettes on fire escapes, crowded avenues, old bookstores, political conversations about Obama’s election, family-owned buildings, and references to pre-smartphone daily life all combine to create a very specific atmosphere. Even when the writing style becomes (intentionally) overly elaborate, there’s still a genuine affection for the setting that makes the world feel lived in. The flashbacks to Chris’s privileged teenage years also help explain why he feels emotionally divided between who he used to be and who he became.

What stayed with me most after finishing Intrinsic was how emotionally sincere it felt. The book wears its heart on its sleeve in a way that feels increasingly rare, especially in modern fiction that often leans detached or overly cynical. Chris’s love for his children, his constant desire to protect the people around him, and the lingering sense that something larger is shaping the course of his life all give the story a strong emotional core. Even during quieter moments, there’s a feeling that the novel is building toward something meaningful. It’s the kind of book that is less focused on rushing from plot point to plot point and more interested in exploring the emotional weight behind the choices people make and the lives they build.

Summary:

Overall, Intrinsic feels like a character-driven literary drama disguised as a philosophical thriller. It’s ambitious, emotional, reflective, and there’s enough heart underneath it that I stayed invested in Chris and his family. Readers who enjoy emotionally heavy family sagas, morally driven protagonists, reflective narration, and stories centered around sacrifice, destiny, and identity will probably connect strongly with this one. It feels less interested in realism and more interested in exploring what kind of person someone chooses to become when life repeatedly tests them. Happy reading!

Check out Intrinsic here!

Review: County Road 2400: A Midwest Noir by Sal Nudo

~ likelystory18 ~ Leave a comment

Synopsis:

One night of “mailbox metal” was supposed to be a reset. Instead, it became a life sentence.

Illinois, 1998. Tommy Cancio and Todd Wells are fueled by cheap beer, jagged lines of cocaine, and the midnight fog of Champaign County. The mission is simple: a high-speed pass and the satisfying ping of a baseball bat against a rural mailbox.

But when the bat hits something wet and heavy on County Road 2400, the music stops.

What follows is a desperate, mud-caked crawl into a different kind of darkness. From the suffocating rows of unharvested corn to a concrete hole beneath an abandoned Indiana burger stand, Tommy discovers that the Midwest doesn’t just grow crops—it buries secrets.

Trapped with half a million dollars in drug money and a silent “gentle giant” for a jailer, Tommy must confront the ghosts of his past—and the very real predator coming to collect.

In the heart of the Heartland, the distance between a “good time” and a shallow grave is shorter than you think.

Favorite Lines:

“All for a pumpkin, Todd. You died for a fifty-cent gourd.”

“The guy wasn’t just a drunk; he was a rabbit on the run.”

“I don’t speak English today, Tommy.”

My Opinion:

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

County Road 2400 reads like someone threw a 90s Midwest burnout story into a blender with noir fiction, small-town crime drama, and just enough dark absurdity to make the violence feel grimly funny instead of purely brutal. The novel opens with one of the strongest hooks I’ve read in a while: two drunk, coked-up friends speeding down an Illinois backroad smashing mailboxes with a baseball bat when one of them accidentally obliterates what they think is a person sitting roadside. From there, the story spirals into a chain reaction of panic, bad decisions, accidental deaths, desperate escapes, heroin addicts, corrupt luck, and the kind of bleak Midwestern atmosphere where everybody seems trapped by geography, poverty, or their own terrible impulses.

What makes the book work is the voice. The writing style is lean, aggressive, and loaded with vivid imagery without becoming overly flowery. Nudo has a really strong sense of place, especially when describing Illinois cornfields, roadside bars, junky motels, drainage ditches, and dying small towns. The atmosphere almost becomes its own character. There’s a constant feeling that the landscape itself is swallowing these people whole. Tommy Cancio is also a surprisingly effective central character because beneath all the stupidity and violence, there’s still a deeply sad guy underneath trying to outrun a life that was probably doomed long before the story even started. The book never pretends Tommy is innocent, but it also understands that people can become trapped inside one catastrophic night and keep digging themselves deeper trying to escape it.

The middle section involving Tommy hiding in Indiana was probably my favorite part of the novel because the tone shifts from crime thriller into something almost existential. The abandoned burger joint cellar becomes this horrifying little psychological prison where Tommy slowly loses his grip on reality. The hallucinations involving Todd, the darkness becoming physically oppressive, and the bizarre emotional attachment to the cellar itself all worked really well for me. There’s a strong Coen brothers energy running through parts of the book where terrible people keep colliding with even worse luck, but underneath the violence there’s also genuine loneliness and desperation. Sheriff Levi Keller ended up being another standout character because he feels exhausted and human rather than written as some perfect noir lawman. His cancer diagnosis and growing weariness mirror Tommy’s emotional deterioration in an interesting way.

The novel is definitely pulpy and exaggerated at times, but honestly I think that’s intentional. The dialogue can occasionally feel theatrical, and there are moments where the noir style becomes so heightened it borders on comic-book bleakness. But the story commits fully to that tone, and because of that it mostly works. The pacing is fast, the chapters move quickly, and the writing constantly throws memorable images at the reader. Even small details stick in your head, like the J.D. Drew bobblehead lodged in Todd’s eye socket or Tommy crawling through cornfields while combines harvest around him. The epilogue also surprised me because it gives the novel a strangely melancholic ending rather than a simple crime-story conclusion.

Summary:

Overall, County Road 2400 is a dark, fast-moving Midwest noir packed with desperation, bad luck, guilt, violence, and the feeling that one reckless night can permanently ruin multiple lives. It reads like a collision between rural crime fiction and 90s grunge culture, with enough psychological weight underneath the suspense to keep it from feeling shallow. Readers who enjoy bleak Americana, morally messy protagonists, and atmospheric crime fiction will probably burn through this very quickly. Happy reading!

Check out County Road 2400: A Midwest Noir here!

 

Review: Talisman: A Time Travel Mystery by Tom Catalano

~ likelystory18 ~ Leave a comment

Synopsis:

A time travel mystery. Prominent archaeologist Henri Rutherford and his young protégé discover an ancient skeleton clutching a mysterious device. They have no idea what it is or where it came from. When they start repeating the same day over and over again they know they have something that could change the world–for better or worse. Will they use the time travel device for the betterment of society–or their own gain? Can they keep it from being stolen? Can they avoid the government agent willing to do whatever is necessary to get it and rule the world? Their lives are in danger and the future is in jeopardy. The race is on, and time is running out.

Get ready to depart on an exciting time travel journey through mystery, suspense, greed, murder, treachery, paranoia, heartache, and love!

Favorite Lines:

“If luck wasn’t volunteered, it was your right to make it. Or take it.”

“Discoveries are not meant for the discoverer. They are meant for humanity. Nothing can be gained by keeping it a secret.”

“And the future? Well, the future would stay right where it belonged. Unknown and always ahead of them.”

My Opinion:

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

Talisman feels very much like an old-school science fiction adventure in the best possible way. From the opening archaeological dig on a remote Caribbean island, the novel immediately leans into mystery, danger, and curiosity. When Professor Rutherford and his student assistant John Shaw uncover a strange gold object clutched in the hand of a skeleton, the story quickly shifts from straightforward archaeological fiction into something much stranger involving time distortion, greed, murder, and alternate realities. The pacing moves fast right from the start, and unlike a lot of modern sci-fi that gets buried in technical explanations, this book keeps its focus on suspense and momentum.

What worked best for me was how readable it all was. The writing style is simple and direct, but it keeps the story moving constantly. The early sections involving Rutherford were especially strong because he’s such a morally slippery character. He starts as a respected academic but slowly reveals himself to be selfish, manipulative, and increasingly paranoid once the artifact is discovered. The repeated scenes where reality itself begins shifting around him genuinely create a creepy atmosphere. There’s a strong The Twilight Zone influence throughout the novel, which Catalano openly acknowledges in the front matter, and honestly that comparison fits. A lot of the book reads like an expanded sci-fi mystery episode from that era, complete with moral consequences attached to human greed and ambition.

John ends up becoming a much more likable emotional anchor for the story than Rutherford. He has that classic earnest, intelligent protagonist energy that works well in adventure fiction like this. Hannah was another character I enjoyed because she balances out some of the more arrogant personalities around her and adds a grounded emotional presence to the story. The dialogue can occasionally feel a little theatrical or overly explanatory, but it also adds to the nostalgic feel of the novel. This doesn’t read like hyper-modern sci-fi trying to sound gritty or cynical. It feels intentionally sincere and pulpy in a way that reminded me of older speculative fiction paperbacks.

The biggest strength of the book is probably its imagination. Once the time travel elements fully emerge, the story becomes increasingly unpredictable and ambitious. There’s a genuine sense that anything could happen, and the novel clearly enjoys playing with paradoxes, altered timelines, and questions about fate.

Summary:

Overall, Talisman is a fun, fast-moving sci-fi mystery that feels written by someone who genuinely loves classic speculative fiction. It blends archaeology, suspense, murder, and time travel into an entertaining story that rarely slows down for long. Readers looking for hard science fiction packed with technical detail may want something deeper, but readers who enjoy imaginative, accessible time travel stories with strong mystery elements will probably have a good time with this one. It especially feels suited for people who miss the style of older science fiction where the mystery itself mattered more than realism. Happy reading!

Check out Talisman: A Time Travel Mystery here!

 

Review: A Moment’s Surrender by John Burt

~ likelystory18 ~ 2 Comments

Synopsis:

A Moment’s Surrender follows freshman writing instructor Paul Bishop in the aftermath of the murder of his former best friend, the renowned poet Tom Corbin. Haunted by guilt and bound by a devastating secret, Paul takes it upon himself to care for Tom’s terminally ill widow, Susan. But the truth he withholds — that Tom had planned to leave Susan for another woman, Paul’s own long-ago lover Rachel Lake — draws Paul into a painful triangle of loyalty, betrayal, and unresolved desire. Caught between the two women, Paul must navigate a web of grief and deception that threatens to undo them all.

Favorite Lines:

“In fact, they depended on each other and couldn’t quite be themselves without the challenge of the other.”

“Poetry was not just about feelings. It was not just a representation of something in the world, or an argument, or a short narrative told in heightened language, or a decorated moral proposition. It was an occasion to know something through the poem that you can’t know in any other way.”

“He did not want to want what he wanted, but he wanted it anyway, and every promise he made to himself divided him from himself, so that what he wanted to be and what he actually was faced off against each other.”

My Opinion:

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

There’s a heaviness hanging over A Moment’s Surrender almost immediately, and not just because it opens with a murder investigation. The real weight of the novel comes from emotional paralysis, from the way people spend years avoiding truths they already know about themselves. The story follows Paul Bishop, an adjunct writing instructor whose former best friend, celebrated poet Tom Corbin, is found murdered after secretly planning to leave his wife Susan for Rachel Lake, Paul’s own former lover. Paul knows the truth about where Tom was headed before he died, but instead of exposing it, he starts lying almost instinctively, first to the police, then to Susan, and eventually to himself. What makes the novel work is that it understands lying not as villainy but as cowardice, hesitation, shame, and the desperate hope that maybe reality can somehow be delayed if nobody says it out loud.

What surprised me most about this book is how emotionally layered it is beneath all the literary and philosophical discussion. This is very much a novel about intellectual people trying to think their way out of grief, guilt, desire, and regret, only to discover that intelligence does not make anyone emotionally brave. Paul especially feels painfully real in that regard. He’s someone who once imagined a larger, more meaningful life for himself and now finds himself stuck grading freshman papers in Reno, circling old failures and unresolved relationships. The sections involving Rachel are some of the strongest in the novel because she represents both artistic intensity and emotional danger in a way that still unsettles Paul years later. Susan, though, quietly becomes the emotional center of the book. Her love for Tom, even knowing exactly who he is, gives the novel much of its sadness. There’s a recurring idea throughout the story that the deepest truth about a person may not be the worst thing they’ve done, but the struggle they can never fully overcome, and I think the book handles that idea with a surprising amount of compassion.

The academic setting also feels authentic in a way a lot of literary fiction does not. Burt clearly understands the strange mixture of ego, insecurity, idealism, exhaustion, and performance that exists inside literary academia. The conversations about poetry, philosophy, religion, and aesthetics are not there just to sound smart. They genuinely reveal character and worldview. At times the novel almost reads like a long argument between competing ways of understanding art and morality. Paul wants poetry to mean something transcendent while Corbin increasingly sees art as tangled up in power, ambition, and self-interest. Rachel falls somewhere darker and more dangerous in between. These conversations can be dense, but they rarely felt empty to me because they are always tied back to emotional wounds the characters are carrying. Even the landscape descriptions, especially around Pyramid Lake and the desert highways, feel connected to the emotional isolation of the characters rather than existing purely for atmosphere.

This is definitely a slow, reflective novel. Readers looking for a fast-moving mystery may struggle because the murder becomes less important than the emotional wreckage surrounding it. There are sections where the philosophical discussions and internal reflections run long, and occasionally the book risks becoming too enamored with its own intelligence. But honestly, that excess also feels true to these characters. These are people who intellectualize because they do not know how else to survive themselves. The style fits the emotional world of the story.

Summary:

Overall, I thought A Moment’s Surrender was ambitious, thoughtful literary fiction that trusts its readers to sit with discomfort instead of racing toward easy catharsis. It’s a novel about failed courage, unresolved longing, self-deception, and the stories people construct to make their lives bearable. More than the murder itself, what lingered with me afterward was the sadness of watching people recognize exactly what is broken inside themselves while still remaining unable to change. This will probably work best for readers who enjoy psychologically dense literary fiction, emotionally complicated relationship dynamics, and novels deeply interested in art, memory, morality, and the gap between who people want to be and who they actually are. Happy reading!

Check out A Moment’s Surrender here!