🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷 #Review of Broken Prince by Erin Watt

Title: Broken Prince

Series: The Royals #2

Author: Erin Watt

Format: 352 pages, Paperback

Published: October 17, 2023 by Berkley

Links: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N 

Source: NetGalley

Reviewer: Crystal

Rating: 🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷/ 🌶️🌶️

From wharf fights and school brawls to crumbling lives inside glittery mansions, one guy tries to save himself.

THESE ROYALS WILL RUIN YOU...

Reed Royal has it all—looks, status, money. The girls at his elite prep school line up to date him, the guys want to be him, but Reed never gave a damn about anyone but his family until Ella Harper walked into his life.

What started off as burning resentment and the need to make his father’s new ward suffer turned into something else entirely—keep Ella close. Keep Ella safe. But when one foolish mistake drives her out of Reed’s arms and brings chaos to the Royal household, Reed’s entire world begins to fall apart around him.

Ella doesn’t want him anymore. She says they’ll only destroy each other.

SHE MIGHT BE RIGHT.

Secrets. Betrayal. Enemies. It’s like nothing Reed has ever dealt with before, and if he’s going to win back his princess, he’ll need to prove himself Royally worthy.

Crystal's Thoughts:

"He told me to stay away. He told me I didn't belong. If only I'd listened to him."

🍷🍷🍷🍷.5 #Review of Bring Me Your Midnight by Rachel Griffin

 

Title: Bring Me Your Midnight

Series: n/a

Author: Rachel Griffin

Format: 402 pages, Hardcover

Published: August 1, 2023 by Sourcebooks Fire

Links: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N 

Source: NetGalley

Reviewer: Crystal

Rating:  🍷🍷🍷🍷.5 

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Nature of Witches and Wild is the Witch comes a lush romantic fantasy about forbidden love, the choices we make, and the pull between duty and desire.

Tana Fairchild’s fate has never been in question. Her life has been planned out since the moment she was born: she is to marry the governor’s son, Landon, and secure an unprecedented alliance between the witches of her island home and the mainlanders who see her very existence as a threat.

Tana’s coven has appeased those who fear their power for years by releasing most of their magic into the ocean during the full moon. But when Tana misses the midnight ritual—a fatal mistake—there is no one she can turn to for help…until she meets Wolfe.

Wolfe claims he is from a coven that practices dark magic, making him one of the only people who can help her. But he refuses to let Tana’s power rush into the sea, and instead teaches her his forbidden magic. A magic that makes her feel powerful. Alive.

As the sea grows more violent, her coven loses control of the currents, a danger that could destroy the alliance as well as her island. Tana will have to choose between love and duty, between loyalty to her people and loyalty to her heart. Marrying Landon would secure peace for her coven but losing Wolfe and his wild magic could cost her everything else.

Crystal's Thoughts: 

"I would set the world on fire just to see your face."

"Then we can burn together."

🍷🍷🍷🍷.5 #Review of Bride by Ali Hazelwood

Title: Bride 

Series: n/a
Author:  Ali Hazelwood
Format: 410 pages, Kindle Edition

Published: February 6, 2024 by Berkley

Links: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N 
Source: NetGalley

Reviewer: Crystal
Rating:  🍷🍷🍷🍷.5 / 🌶️

A dangerous alliance between a Vampyre bride and an Alpha Werewolf becomes a love deep enough to sink your teeth into in this new paranormal romance.

Misery Lark, the only daughter of the most powerful Vampyre councilman of the Southwest, is an outcast—again. Her days of living in anonymity among the Humans are over: she has been called upon to uphold a historic peacekeeping alliance between the Vampyres and their mortal enemies, the Weres, and she sees little choice but to surrender herself in the exchange—again...

Weres are ruthless and unpredictable, and their Alpha, Lowe Moreland, is no exception. He rules his pack with absolute authority, but not without justice. And, unlike the Vampyre Council, not without feeling. It’s clear from the way he tracks Misery’s every movement that he doesn’t trust her. If only he knew how right he was….

Because Misery has her own reasons to agree to this marriage of convenience, reasons that have nothing to do with politics or alliances, and everything to do with the only thing she's ever cared about. And she is willing to do whatever it takes to get back what’s hers, even if it means a life alone in Were territory…alone with the wolf.

Crystal's Thoughts:

"Isn't that what any relationship is in the end? Meeting someone and wanting to be with that person more than with anyone else, and trying to make it work?"

🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷 #Review of Paper Princess by Erin Watt

Title: Paper Princess

Series: The Royals

Author: Erin Watt

Format: 384 pages, Paperback

Published: September 19, 2023 by Berkley

Links: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N 

Source: NetGalley

Reviewer: Crystal

Rating:  🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷/🌶️🌶️

The TikTok sensation Paper Princess , the first in the #1 New York Times bestselling The Royals series, now in a new special edition with bonus material!

From strip clubs and truck stops to southern coast mansions and prep schools, one girl tries to stay true to herself.

These Royals will ruin you…

Ella Harper is a survivor—a pragmatic optimist. She’s spent her whole life moving from town to town with her flighty mother, struggling to make ends meet and believing that someday she’ll climb out of the gutter. After her mother’s death, Ella is truly alone.

 

That is until Callum Royal appears, plucking Ella out of poverty and tossing her into his posh mansion among his five sons who all hate her. Each Royal is more magnetic than the last, but none is as captivating as Reed Royal, the boy who is determined to send her back to the slums she came from.

 

Reed doesn’t want her. He says she doesn’t belong with the Royals.

 

He might be right.

 

Wealth. Excess. Deception. It’s like nothing Ella has ever experienced, and if she’s going to survive her time in the Royal palace, she’ll need to learn to issue her own Royal decrees.

Crystal's Thoughts:

"I feel the need to warn you that, we Royals are pretty f*cked up. We're good in bed, but out of it? We're like a stage for hurricane."

🍷🍷🍷🍷 #Review of The Rebel King by Gina L. Maxwell

Title: The Rebel King 
Series: Deviant Kings, #2
Author: Gina L. Maxwell 
Format: 352 pages, Paperback

Published: 
Links: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N 
Source: July 25, 2023 by Entangled: Amara

Reviewer: Crystal

Rating:  🍷🍷🍷🍷 / 🌶️🌶️🌶️

All work and no wicked play makes Tiernan a very unsatisfied king…

Of all the Verran brothers, Tiernan is the least suited to wear the Night Court crown. The Rebel Prince is happy with no responsibilities or accountability―just the freedom to pursue his own dark, lush pleasures in Sin City. Including his secret hunger for a certain smart-mouthed, fiery redhead.

Only, the possibility of having Fiona is stripped away when Tiernan is thrust into the one role he never king . As king of the Dark Fae, wanting―let alone pursuing―anything with a lower-caste fae like Fiona would shift from fun…to forbidden.

Now war is emerging from the shadows of Vegas, and Tiernan is caught between who he’s meant to be and who he wants . And somewhere in this maelstrom of lust, love, and rebellion is the key to the Dark Fae’s survival…even if the cost is more than he can imagine.

Crystal's Thoughts:

🍷🍷🍷🍷 #Review of The Scarlet Veil by Shelby Mahurin

Title: The Scarlet Veil
Series: The Scarlet Veil, #1
Author: Shelby Mahurin 
Format: 640 pages, Hardcover
Published: September 26, 2023 by HarperTeen
Links: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N 
Source: NetGalley
Reviewer: Crystal

Rating:  🍷🍷🍷🍷

This dark and thrilling vampire romance—set in the world of the New York Times bestselling Serpent & Dove series—is perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas!

Célie Tremblay has always been a good girl: kind and beautiful, a daughter of whom every parent would be proud. She surprises the entire kingdom when she defies tradition to become the first huntswoman—including her new captain and fiancé, Jean Luc, who rules the huntsmen with an iron fist. He isn’t the only one concerned for Célie’s safety, however. Though her friends try to protect her from the horrors of her past, mysterious whispers still haunt her, and a new evil is rising in Belterra—leaving bodies in its wake, each one drained of blood.

Determined to prove herself in her new role, Célie tracks the killer to the lair of Les Éternels—ancient creatures only spoken about in nursery rhymes—and catches the attention of their king, a monster who hides his plans for her behind beautiful words and sharp smiles. Now Célie has new reason to fear the dark because the closer he gets, the more tempted she feels to give in to his dark hunger—and her own.

Crystal's Thoughts: