Week 1 Reviews: Landry Park, Jubilee Manor

From Goodreads:
Sixteen-year-old Madeline Landry is practically Gentry royalty. Her ancestor developed the nuclear energy that has replaced electricity, and her parents exemplify the glamour of the upper class. As for Madeline, she would much rather read a book than attend yet another debutante ball. But when she learns about the devastating impact the Gentry lifestyle—her lifestyle—is having on those less fortunate, her whole world is turned upside down.  As Madeline begins to question everything she has been told, she finds herself increasingly drawn to handsome, beguiling David Dana, who seems to be hiding secrets of his own. Soon, rumors of war and rebellion start to spread, and Madeline finds herself at the center of it all. Ultimately, she must make a choice between duty—her family and the estate she loves dearly—and desire.

Fans of Ally Condie, Kiera Cass, Veronica Roth, and even Jane Austen will be enthralled by this breathtaking read. 

From Goodreads:
The thrilling conclusion to Landry Park is full of love, betrayal, and murder--perfect for fans of Divergent, The Selection, and Pride and Prejudice.

In Landry Park, Madeline turned her back on her elite family, friends, and estate to help the Rootless. Now, in Jubilee Manor, she struggles to bring the Gentry and the Rootless together. But when Gentry heirs—Madeline's old friends—are murdered, even she begins to think a Rootless is behind it, putting her at odds with the boy she loves and the very people she is trying to lead. If she can't figure out who is killing her friends and bring them to justice, a violent war will erupt and even more will die—and Madeline's name, her estate, and all the bonds she's forged won't make any difference.

My Review:


Author: Bethany Hagen
Series: Landry Park #1, 2
Read: December 28th, 28th, 2025
Source: Ebook.bike
Reason Why: Sounded really great, and they're 2025 Dystopia Books and Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2025 Books! And Landry Park is a DAC Book and a RR Book, and Jubilee Manor is a End of Series 2025 Book and Sophomore Challenge Book!
Publisher: Dial
Published: February 4th 2014, August 11th 2015

Landry Park:

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Jubilee Manor:

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Week 45 Review: Throwaway Girls

From Goodreads:
Caroline Lawson is three months away from freedom, otherwise known as graduation day. That's when she'll finally escape her rigid prep school and the parents who thought they could convert her to being straight.

Until then, Caroline is keeping her head down, pretending to be the perfect student even though she is crushed by her family and heartbroken over the girlfriend who left for California.

But when her best friend Madison disappears, Caroline feels compelled to get involved in the investigation. She has her own reasons not to trust the police, and she owes Madison — big time.

Suddenly Caroline realizes how little she knew of what her friend was up to. Caroline has some uncomfortable secrets about the hours before Madison disappeared, but they're nothing compared to the secrets Madison has been hiding. And why does Mr. McCormack, their teacher, seem to know so much about them?

It's only when Caroline discovers other missing girls that she begins to close in on the truth. Unlike Madison, the other girls are from the wrong side of the tracks. Unlike Madison's, their disappearances haven't received much attention. Caroline is determined to find out what happened to them and why no one seems to notice. But as every new discovery leads Caroline closer to the connection between these girls and Madison, she faces an unsettling truth.

There's only one common denominator between the disappearances: Caroline herself. 

My Review:


Author: Andrea Contos
Read: November 7th, 2025
Source: Edelweiss
Reason Why: Sounded really great, and it's a DAC Book and a SAC 2025 Book!
Publisher: Kids Can Press
Published: September 1st 2020

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Week 45 Review: Alchemised

From Goodreads:

In this riveting dark fantasy debut, a woman with missing memories fights to survive a war-torn world of necromancy and alchemy—and the man tasked with unearthing the deepest secrets of her past.

"What is it you think you're protecting in that brain of yours? The war is over. Holdfast is dead. The Eternal Flame extinguished. There's no one left for you to save."

Once a promising alchemist, Helena Marino is now a prisoner—of war and of her own mind. Her Resistance friends and allies have been brutally murdered, her abilities suppressed, and the world she knew destroyed.

In the aftermath of a long war, Paladia's new ruling class of corrupt guild families and depraved necromancers, whose vile undead creatures helped bring about their victory, holds Helena captive.

According to Resistance records, she was a healer of little importance within their ranks. But Helena has inexplicable memory loss of the months leading up to her capture, making her enemies wonder: Is she truly as insignificant as she appears, or are her lost memories hiding some vital piece of the Resistance's final gambit?

To uncover the memories buried deep within her mind, Helena is sent to the High Reeve, one of the most powerful and ruthless necromancers in this new world. Trapped on his crumbling estate, Helena's fight—to protect her lost history and to preserve the last remaining shreds of her former self—is just beginning. For her prison and captor have secrets of their own . . . secrets Helena must unearth, whatever the cost.

My Review:


Author: SenLinYu
Read: November 3rd, 2025
Source: Bought  
Reason Why: Sounded really good, and it's a DAC Book, SAC 2025 Book and a WoW Book!
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: September 23rd 2025

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Week 44 Review: A Most Agreeable Murder

From Goodreads:

When a wealthy bachelor drops dead at a ball, a young lady takes on the decidedly improper role of detective in this action-packed debut comedy of manners and murder.

Feisty, passionate Beatrice Steele has never fit the definition of a true lady, according to the strict code of conduct that reigns in Swampshire, her small English township--she is terrible at needlework, has absolutely no musical ability, and her artwork is so bad it frightens people. Nevertheless, she lives a perfectly agreeable life with her marriage-scheming mother, prankster father, and two younger sisters-- beautiful Louisa and forgettable Mary. But she harbors a dark secret: She is obsessed with the true crime cases she reads about in the newspaper. If anyone in her etiquette-obsessed community found out, she'd be deemed a morbid creep and banished from respectable society forever.

For her family's sake, she's vowed to put her obsession behind her. Because eligible bachelor Edmund Croaksworth is set to attend the approaching autumnal ball, and the Steele family hopes that Louisa will steal his heart. If not, Martin Grub, their disgusting cousin, will inherit the family's estate, and they will be ruined or, even worse, forced to move to France. So Beatrice must be on her best behavior . . . which is made difficult when a disgraced yet alluring detective inexplicably shows up to the ball.

Beatrice is just holding things together when Croaksworth drops dead in the middle of a minuet. As a storm rages outside, the evening descends into a frenzy of panic, fear, and betrayal as it becomes clear they are trapped with a killer. Contending with competitive card games, tricky tonics, and Swampshire's infamous squelch holes, Beatrice must rise above decorum and decency to pursue justice and her own desires--before anyone else is murdered.

My Review:


Author: Julia Seales

Series: Beatrice Steele #1
Read: October 27th, 2025
Source: Library
Reason Why: Sounded really good, and it's a DAC Book, Historical Fiction 2025 Book and a Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2025 Book!
Publisher: Random House
Published: June 27th 2023

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Week 43 Review: Where the Dark Stands Still

From Goodreads:

Raised in a small village near the spirit-wood, Liska Radost knows that Magic is monstrous, and its practitioners, monsters.

After a deadly mistake, Liska delves into the dangerous spirit-wood, guarded by a demon to steal a mythical fern flower. Pluck it, and she can use its one wish to banish her own power.

Everyone who has sought the fern flower has fallen prey to the horrors of the Czantory, so when Liska is caught by the demon warden of the wood - The Leszy - a bargain seems better than death: one year of servitude in exchange for the fern flower and its wish.

Whisked away to his crumbling manor, Liska soon makes an unsettling discovery. She is not the first person to strike this bargain. And If Liska wants to survive the year and return home, she must unravel her taciturn host's spool of secrets and face the ghosts—figurative and literal—of his past.

Something wakes in the woods, killing off villagers one by one. Something that Frightens even The Leszy … something that cannot be defeated unless Liska embraces the monster she's always feared becoming.

My Review:


Author: A.B. Poranek
Read: October 24th, 2025
Source: Bought 
Reason Why: Sounded really good, and it's a DAC Book and a SAC 2025 Book! 
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Published: February 27th 2024

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Week 41 Review: The Hacienda

From Goodreads:

Mexican Gothic meets Rebecca in this debut supernatural suspense novel, set in the aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence, about a remote house, a sinister haunting, and the woman pulled into their clutches...

In the overthrow of the Mexican government, Beatriz's father is executed and her home destroyed. When handsome Don Rodolfo Solórzano proposes, Beatriz ignores the rumors surrounding his first wife's sudden demise, choosing instead to seize the security his estate in the countryside provides. She will have her own home again, no matter the cost.

But Hacienda San Isidro is not the sanctuary she imagined.

When Rodolfo returns to work in the capital, visions and voices invade Beatriz's sleep. The weight of invisible eyes follows her every move. Rodolfo's sister, Juana, scoffs at Beatriz's fears—but why does she refuse to enter the house at night? Why does the cook burn copal incense at the edge of the kitchen and mark its doorway with strange symbols? What really happened to the first Doña Solórzano?

Beatriz only knows two things for certain: Something is wrong with the hacienda. And no one there will help her.

Desperate for help, she clings to the young priest, Padre Andrés, as an ally. No ordinary priest, Andrés will have to rely on his skills as a witch to fight off the malevolent presence haunting the hacienda and protect the woman for whom he feels a powerful, forbidden attraction. But even he might not be enough to battle the darkness.

Far from a refuge, San Isidro may be Beatriz's doom.

My Review:


Author: Isabel Cañas

Read: October 10th, 2025
Source: Ebook.bike 
Reason Why: Sounded really great, and it's a DAC Book, Historical Fiction 2025 Book and a SAC 2025 Book! 
Publisher: Berkley Books
Published: May 3rd 2022

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Week 39 Review: In My Dreams I Hold a Knife

From Goodreads:

Six friends.

One college reunion.

One unsolved murder.

Ten years after graduation, Jessica Miller has been invited back to her university for a reunion and she is obsessed with dazzling everyone with her beauty and success. This time when they see her, it has to be perfect because she is perfect. Not the girl she was when she left campus, back when Heather Shelby's murder fractured everything, including the tight bond linking the six friends she'd been closest to since freshman year.

But there's more at stake than the delicious envy of her peers—not everyone is ready to move on. Not everyone can let Heather's murder go unsolved. In fact, someone has orchestrated the whole weekend to trap the real killer. As the weekend unfolds and they get closer to the truth, the group finds there was more than murder hidden amongst them on campus.

Told in racing dual timelines, with a dark campus setting and a darker look at friendship, love, obsession and ambition, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife is an addictive, propulsive millennial thriller you won't be able to put down.

My Review:


Author: Ashley Winstead 
Read: September 26th, 2025  
Source: Ebook.bike 
Reason Why: Sounded really good, and it's a DAC Book and a SAC 2025 Book! 
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Published: August 3rd 2021

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Week 39 Review: Bitten

From Goodreads:

Crescent City meets Fourth Wing in this fast-paced and romantic debut, in which a teenage girl must survive ruthless werewolves, a glittering court, and deadly politics to exact revenge on the monsters who destroyed her.

After a vicious werewolf attack on the night of her seventeenth birthday party, Vanessa Hart loses everything she loves in a split second. Her best friend, her father, and even her home.

Bitten and imprisoned without explanation, Vanessa endures an agonizing transformation into the very beast that maimed her, and her captors make it clear she cannot escape: she will either swear her life to the Wolf Queen's Court, or she will die.

With no other choice, Vanessa joins their enchanted Castle Severi—where flowering vines grow through the walls, gifts are bestowed by the stars, and a claw can break through skin as easily as silk—but she hasn't forgotten what they stole from her.

Vanessa still seeks vengeance, scheming in the shadows even as she finds herself mesmerized by the golden prince Sinclair Severi, who threatens to steal her heart though he is promised to her nemesis. And by his brooding, disgraced cousin, Calix, whose smoldering gaze hides even darker secrets. Immersed in the magic of their whimsical yet cruel society, Vanessa soon learns not all is as it seems.

The Court is at war, and she may simply be a pawn in its lethal game.

My Review:
I enjoyed reading this book so much!

Author: Jordan Stephanie Gray 
Series: Bitten #1
Read: September 23rd, 2025  
Source: NetGalley 
Reason Why: Sounded really good, and it's a DAC Book and a Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2025 Book! 
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Expected Publication: September 30th 2025 

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Week 39 Review: Heavenly Bodies

From Goodreads:

A runaway TikTok sensation, Heavenly Bodies is the first book in a dazzling new romantasy series that blends mythology and shadow magic with a tantalizing enemies-to-lovers romance that will rewrite the stars.

"You know the most dangerous kind of villain? A woman with nothing left to lose."

In a world ruled by the cruel and merciless Stars, Elara has been cursed by fate. A prophecy promises she will fall for a Star, but that it will kill them both.

So when Ariete, Star of Wrath, War and Chaos, descends to wreak havoc on Elara's kingdom, she flees her home—the Kingdom of Night—for the neighbouring Helios, Kingdom of Light.

And strides straight into the arms of an enemy prince.

Fearing that Ariete might turn his sights to Helios next, Prince Lorenzo is forced to train Elara as a weapon—one worthy of battling against the tyrannical reign of the Stars. But there are shadows even within the Kingdom of Light—and they threaten to reveal the darkness in Lorenzo's past and the ancient magic that slumbers in Elara's veins.

And with it all comes an undeniable, star-crossed pull between Elara and Lorenzo that neither can seem to resist...

My Review:


Author: Imani Erriu
Series: Heavenly Bodies #1
Read: September 22nd, 2025  
Source: Library/Bought 
Reason Why: Sounded really great, and it's a DAC Book and a Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2025 Book!
Publisher: Random House Canada
Published: January 14th 2025 

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Week 39 Review: Lore of the Wilds

From Goodreads:

A library with a deadly enchantment.

A Fae lord who wants in.

A human woman willing to risk it all for a taste of power.

In a land ruled by ruthless Fae, twenty-one-year-old Lore Alemeyu's village is trapped in a forested prison. Lore knows that any escape attempt is futile—her scars are a testament to her past failures. But when her village is threatened, Lore makes a desperate deal with a Fae lord. She will leave her home to catalog/organize an enchanted library that hasn't been touched in a thousand years. No Fae may enter the library, but there is a chance a human might be able to breach the cursed doors.

She convinces him that she will risk her life for wealth, but really she's after the one thing the Fae covet above all: magic of her own.

As Lore navigates the hostile world outside, she's forced to rely on two Fae males to survive. Two very different, very dangerous, very attractive Fae males. When undeniable chemistry ignites, she's not just in danger of losing her life, but her heart to the very creatures she can never trust.

My Review:

Author: Analeigh Sbrana 
Series: Lore of the Wilds #1
Read: September 21st, 2025  
Source: Bought 
Reason Why: Sounded really good, and it's a DAC Book and Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2025 Book!
Publisher: Harper Voyager 
Published: February 27th 2024

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Week 38 Review: The Glittering Edge

From Goodreads:

Penny Emberly is caught in a magical feud in order to save her mother's life – perfect for fans of Tracy Wolff and Maggie Stiefvater.

 

Rumors are the lifeblood of Idlewood, Indiana. The locals whisper that the De Lucas are witches, and that decades prior they cursed the wealthy Barrion family as revenge for a love gone tragically now, if a Barrion falls in love with you, you'll die. If this isn't reason enough for wallflower Penny Emberly to stay away from both families, she doesn't know what is. But when Penny's mom is in an accident that leaves her on the brink of death, Penny can't ignore the rumors anymore—because the Barrion curse is real. And her mom is its latest victim.

 

In order to save her mom's life, Penny must bring together two bitter enemies on either side of the feud and work with them to break the curse. For star quarterback Corey Barrion, doing so would mean finally saving his family from the magic that killed his mom. And for misfit witch Alonso De Luca, it would mean convincing everyone in Idlewood—especially Penny—that he isn't the villain they believe him to be.

 

But as the trio navigates Alonso's unpredictable magic, the tangled web of Barrion-De Luca history, and an increasingly chaotic group chat, it soon becomes clear that the curse is not what they expected. Did a De Luca really curse the Barrions in a fit of jealousy, or is something even more sinister afoot? Penny will have to conquer her anxiety, wrestle with her budding feelings for Alonso, and delve into dangerous, forbidden magic to find the truth and save her mom -- even if it means putting her own life at risk.

For Fans Slow-burn romance Found family Small town angst He falls first Misunderstood heroes

My Review:


Author: Alyssa Villaire 
Series: The Idlewood Duology #1
Read: September 18th, 2025 
Source: Ebook.bike 
Reason Why: Sounded really good, and it's a DAC Book and a SAC 2025 Book!
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: May 6th 2025

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Week 38 Review: The House of My Mother: A Daughter's Quest for Freedom

From Goodreads:

From eldest daughter Shari Franke, the shocking true story behind the viral 8 Passengers family vlog and the hidden abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, and how, in the face of unimaginable pain, she found freedom and healing.

Shari Franke's childhood was a constant battle for survival. Her mother, Ruby Franke, enforced a severe moral code while maintaining a façade of a picture-perfect family for their wildly popular YouTube channel 8 Passengers, which documented the day-to-day life of raising six children for a staggering 2.5 million subscribers. But a darker truth lurked beneath the surface—Ruby's wholesome online persona masked a more tyrannical parenting style than anyone could have imagined.

As the family's YouTube notoriety grew, so too did Ruby's delusions of righteousness. Fueled by the sadistic influence of relationship coach Jodi Hildebrandt, together they implemented an inhumane and merciless disciplinary regime.

Ruby and Jodi were arrested in Utah in 2023 on multiple charges of aggravated child abuse. On that fateful day, Shari shared a photo online of a police car outside their home. Her caption had one word: "Finally."

For the first time, Shari will reveal the disturbing truth behind 8 Passengers and her family's devastating involvement with Jodi Hildebrandt's cultish life coaching program, "ConneXions." No stone is left unturned as Shari exposes the perils of influencer culture and shares for the first time her battle for truth and survival in the face of her mother's cruelty.

My Review:


Author: Shari Franke
Read: September 17th, 2025
Source: Library 
Reason Why: Sounded really good, and I saw some video's talking about her family, and it's a DAC Book and a SAC 2025 Book!
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published: January 7th 2025

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars