Crescent City: The House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J Maas (2020)

Crescent City Book #1

Fans of SJM will find this series a jarring departure for the world she created for ACOTR. Crescent City is no magic woodland glen, but a gritty, sleazy City of the future; complete with cell phones, hi-tech surveillance, party drugs, and gun violence.

In this world, all of the magical creatures and humans have forged a bloody co-existence on a planet they must inhabit together. Of course, that means that the most powerful of the creatures — angels, shape-shifters (including werewolves,) and fairies — rule with absolute power over the others, enslaving many of the species, including humans and lesser magical peoples.

Bryce Quinlan has carved out an uneasy life for herself in the City. Part human and part fairy, she is allowed to live as a free woman, but the laws of the land mean she is limited in the options available to her. Furthermore, she has almost no powers to speak of, so she also lives in constant threat of dying at the hands of the blood-thirsty creatures that share her home.

Content to live life on her own terms — wild, free, sexy, and unencumbered — Bryce keeps to the edges of a group of more magically gifted friends. But when those friends a slaughtered in a horrific attack by a demon-wielding serial killer, Bryce’s hopes for her future vanish.

Although she tries to keep going, without her friends and with the loss of her reputation in the wake of the very-public trials after their murders, her life is shell of what it once was. What had seemed like a life filled with friends and loved-ones has become lonely and dark for Bryce.

Years pass. Bryce continues to get up each day and try to make a life for herself, but she hovers on the edge of a very dangerous depression that never lifts. Her hopes for a bright future for herself have vanished.

Until another series of murders take place, murders that are exact mirror of those that killed her friends, and she finds herself a person of interest by City investigators. In fact, she is the only link between all of the victims and the Ruler of the City has decreed that she will participate in the investigation and help find the killer.

Although she has no choice, having a mission (one that might bring her some solace) lights a fire in Bryce and she throws herself into her new role as detective. It doesn’t hurt that her body guard-/partner in crime is a super-sexy, very deadly assassin named Hunt.

This book is as much a detective/murder mystery as it is a romance/fantasy and I really loved it. Some the the signature SJM flourishes but a nice departure from her more familiar settings and plots.

The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King by Carissa Broadbent (2023)

Crowns of Nyaxia (Nightborn Duet) Book #2 –– SPOILER ALERT: This review discusses book 1!!

After the dramatic rise and fall (and rise) of the fortunes of our two star-crossed narrators — Oraya and Raihn — in the first book in the series, that tale ended with them as the new rulers of the most powerful kingdom in the land.

The action in book two — TA&TSCK — resumes just months later. Oraya has become a prisoner in the home she was raised in, hated and feared by everyone around her. In her haze of grief over the death of her father and the shocking end to her relationship with Raihn, she can hardly bring herself to care about her imprisonment.

Raihn clings to his precarious throne and is well aware that many are plotting against him, and he fears that soon Oraya will be one of those who challenges his legitimacy to rule. As the kingdom tries to find its footing after the violent and shocking over-throw of its last king, the men and women who wanted the throne for themselves get increasingly desperate to regain power. This includes delving into some very dark and dangerous magic.

Oraya soon realizes that she cannot passively let her future be dictated by anyone. After all, she is no longer the weak and powerless pet of the former king, but a goddess-anointed, magic-wielding queen.

She and Raihn will need to decide if they can set aside their heartache and face their enemies together.

The Clinic by Cate Quinn (2024)

Haley and Meg grew up with a famous but vicious mother whose hatred of them made their childhood — although lavish and star-studded — a nightmare. Haley became a child-star and an actress herself; Meg a professional poker player. Both women were miserable and numbed their heartache and depression with alcohol and drugs.

When Haley dies while recovering in a rehab facility, Meg knows almost immediately the media reports of her sister’s suicide were wrong. Meg is certain Haley was murdered. Without any way to get information from the police, Meg decides to go undercover at the rehab center and get answers for herself.

There is only one problem: Meg is an addict too, and being in the rehab center means she will have to give up her own crutches and face her own demons in the process of investigating Haley’s death. While Meg tries to question suspects and look for evidence, she also must contend suppressed memories resurfacing and deal with the horrors of her past.

Making things much more precarious, Meg’s detox and withdraw cause her emotional and physical agony, and she begins to suspect the staff at the clinic are using unethical, possibly even illegal, measures to help their patients get clean.

The Serpent and the Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent (2022)

Crowns of Nyaxia Book #1

If you were a fan of The Hunger Games, you will most likely enjoy this sexy, grown-up story which also features a fight-to-the-death competition — the Kejari — which pits fifty vampires and one, bad-ass human woman against each other. The prize: one wish granted by an all-powerful goddess.

Oraya was orphaned at the age of eight, her family slain during a violent battle between two warring vampire clans. Alone, injured, and bleeding, she was trapped and being hunted by blood-thirsty vampires. When he found Oraya, the king of the Nightborn clan did something unexpected: he did not kill her, he adopted her and raised her to be a mighty warrior and the heir to his throne.

The only problem: as a human Oraya could not claim the throne (or at least, could not keep her throne for long since it would take very little for her vampire usurpers to murder her). The solution: she will enter the Kejari competition and fight like hell to win, and upon winning, use her wish to grant herself immortality and unmatched power.

The contestants who enter the Kejari are locked away for the months-long tournament and, away from her power-hungry and vicious father, Oraya’s worldview starts to tilt. The immortality that she has coveted suddenly doesn’t seem as appealing and the thirst for power she thought she shared with her father begins to dim. Worst of all, she meets a man — Raihn, a vampire and fellow competitor — and starts to develop feelings for him.

Falling for a vampire from another clan and making him her ally is exactly the sort of thing her father would forbid her to do, but Oraya cannot seem to stop herself. Together the pair form a partnership that makes them a formidable match in the battle arena.

As the days pass, Oraya tries to ignore the reality of the competition and her deepening feelings for Raihn, because on the last day of the competition there can be only one survivor. If they are the only two left standing, one of them will need to murder the other to win.

Murder Road by Simone St James (2024)

April and Eddie are newlyweds headed out on their honeymoon, driving through the night to reach the tiny cabin on Lake Michigan where they will stay a few nights. Turned around in the dark, the pair get lost and find themselves along a two-lane highway that is absolutely deserted: no houses, no lights, no street signs, and not one single other car. At first, the couple is not too worried, but then they see a series of strange lights in the woods and just a few yards further along the road they see a woman struggling to walk upright.

Scared and shocked to find her, April and Eddie gather the woman into the car and race towards the next town hoping there is a hospital or police station they can take her. When they enter Cold Lake Falls (at a high speed, panicked) they pull into the hospital only to find the young woman unconscious and drenched in blood.

Within moments of turning the woman over to doctors, the couple is met by police officers who seem keenly interested in the pair and how they found the woman. It doesn’t take long for them to realize that they are suspects in her stabbing. When she dies, they become murder suspects.

Not exactly under arrest, but not allowed to leave the town either, the pair are told to stay put while the police “check out their story.” Scared and completely bewildered by the course of events, April and Eddie do as they are told.

It only takes a few hours in the tiny town to learn that young people turn up injured and murdered rather frequently along the stretch of highway where they found the woman. Some residents think it’s a ghost, others think it’s a serial killer, and the cops seem to think it is April and Eddie.

In order to get out of the town without being arrested for murder, the pair decide to solve the murder themselves.

If you like this book, check out her amazing 2020 novel The Sun Down Motel.

A Grave Robbery by Deanna Raybourn (2024)

Book #9, Veronica Speedwell Mystery Series

After much stress and heartache, our beloved pair of biologists-turned-detectives Veronica and Stoker have resolved their romantic differences (see A Sinister Revenge for more details); their love and commitment stronger than ever. Nestled back in their cozy home in London, the pair are basking in their newly-restored bliss when yet another murderous plot unfolds right under their noses. What else can they do but roll up their sleeves and solve it?

When a large crate arrives at the museum where the pair work as co-curators, they are curious what it could be. They are told it is a life-size replica of a human woman, sculpted of wax and made for medical school students to learn anatomy. Nearly immediately the two deduce that this is a real woman, and it appears she was murdered and her body disguised as a wax-work to conceal the crime.

Out of their depths, Veronica and Stoker do something they usually hate: they ask their friends for help. A team of old friends and new acquaintances come together to learn about body preservation, missing women, grave robbing, and a vast assortment of other oddities that they will need to understand better in order to solve the crime.

A Sinister Revenge by Deanna Raybourn (2023)

Book #8, Veronica Speedwell Mystery Series

After years of a passionate, but at times uneasy, romantic relationship, the two heroes of this series — Miss Veronica Speedwell and her partner Lord Revelstoke Templeton-Vane — have had a falling out during the course of their last adventure (The Impossible Impostor) that they both fear is irreparable.

More than six-months have passed since they last spoke, each traveling the world alone and worrying over the state of their once passionate affair. Is it possible for them to build a modern relationship — a relationship that is met with disapproval from every direction — without either compromising the things that they value? For Veronica it is her freedom, For Stoker, it is loyalty and monogamy.

The pair might have never seen one another again if Stoker’s brother, Tiberius, had not brought the pair together to solve another mystery. This time, the danger lies very close to home: someone is killing off Tiberius’ friends and he might be next. He asks the pair of amateur sleuths to come undercover to a weeks-long house party in the English countryside and deduce who there might have murdered three times with the intent to murder again.

Blessed Water: A Sister Holiday Mystery by Margot Douaihy (2024)

Book #2 : A Sister Holiday Mystery series

In this wild follow-up to one of the best books I read last year — Scorched Grace — our favorite punk-rock lesbian turned Catholic nun, Sister Holiday, returns to solve another set of mysteries.

Easter weekend rolls into New Orleans with relentless rain, high winds, flood warnings, and general unease across the city. Sister Holiday and her fellow members of Sisters of the Sublime Blood — now just 2 nuns and 2 priests — are still trying to rebuild from the horrors of the previous year when fires tore through Saint Sebastian’s church and school, killing several people and resulting in Sister Holiday’s first ever mystery solved.

Alive with the thrill of solving cases, Sister Holiday has apprenticed herself to a local PI and plans to work cases between her duties at the church and school. Easter weekend brings with it her first real case: not the cheating husband investigation she thought she was set to begin, but the murder of one of the priests in her church and the disappearance of the other.

Over three breathless days, as the rain pounds the city and the waters rise threatening the levees and panicking residents, Sister Holiday and her motley crew hunt down a murderer and unearth a horrific string of seedy crimes and shady cover-ups.

The Hunter by Tana French (2024)

Sequel to The Searcher

In the two and a half years since his arrival in the tiny Irish village of Ardnakelty, American Cal Hooper has settled into a quiet life. Far from the chaos of his years as a Chicago police detective (and the madness of his early days in the village helping solve a missing person’s case with his young neighbor, Trey) Cal savors the calm predictability of his days. He and Trey have built a carpentry business, he has deepened his romantic relationship with Lena, a woman in the village, and he has even made friends with the local farmers who share the mountain with him.

As the summer grows hotter and drier, the town grows restless and fearful. Will their farms survive another month without rain? How will they make enough money to live if the heat kills their sheep and their crops? Tension builds and builds. Cal tries to ignore the heat, the tempers, and the fear and staye focused on Trey, Lena, and his tiny business.

Then, Trey’s dead-beat father shows up in town and upsets the entire balance of the village. Missing for four years — gone without a word or a penny for with his wife and six children — Johnny Reddy turns up in brand new clothes, flashing cash around, and telling tales that stir up a lot of interest in the pub.

From the minute Johnny arrives, Cal knows that trouble is coming: for him, for Trey, for the Reddy family, and perhaps the entire village. Johnny has arrived with a purpose: he is determined to get the local farmers to invest in an outrageous get-rich-quick scheme. Maybe its the boredom or the heat or the fear that their farms will fail, but Johnny convinces some of them to buy-in and things go off the rails almost immediately.

As far as Cal is concerned, Johnny Reddy can get himself into as much trouble as he’d like. But when Johnny involves Trey and it looks as if the gains the young girl has made in the last few years might be undone, Cal knows his must intervene.

The trouble deepens and the tension in the town stretches to the breaking point and Cal knows that Johhny’s plans are going to hurt more than one person he cares about before the summer ends.

A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J Maas (2021)

A Court of Thorns and Roses, Book #5

After the disappointingly short fourth book in the series, A Court of Frost and Starlight, Maas is back with 800 pages of spicy sex, patriarchy busting, battle-training montages, and lots of great story-telling. (This book is easily the second best in the series, after A Court of Mist and Fury.)

Instead of Feyre and Rhysand, our narrators throughout this story are Feyre’s cold, furious, magically powerful older sister Nesta and Cassian, the Illyrian war general and Rhys’ best friend and military advisor. As we open, the Night Court has decided that Nesta will no longer be allowed to get drunk all day, sleep around, and run up outrageous bar tabs across the city. She is brought to face Feyre and Rhys and given two choices. One: stop drinking, move out of the city and into the House of Wind where it will become her job to learn to fight with Cassian and where she must pay the family back by working in the sacred library under the mansion. Two: be sent to live in the Human lands with no money and no protection from the humans who would happily hunt and kill her.

Furious and determined to make everyone pay for humiliating and controlling her, Nesta agrees to move, but she makes sure that she makes life miserable for those around her in the process. On the outside Nesta is raging at the injustice of being told how to behave; on the inside she is panicked at how she will silence the traumatic memories of war without alcohol.

Cassian knows training Nesta will be a challenge, but he is determined that she will honor the sacrifices Feyre made to keep her safe and respect the Night Court and its High Lord, Rhys. He has no idea the lengths Nesta will go to get around the rules of her new life and no idea how much her cruelty and anger will hurt him. Even though he is deeply attracted to Nesta, he knows that his feelings for her make him vulnerable to her manipulations.

Although Nesta admits it to no one, her new life — with its structure, its exercise, and its luxuries (it is a magic mansion, after all) — is much better than the miserable, drunken haze she existed in. To her astonishment, she soon finds that battle-training and the hours in the library help keep those terrible memories from overwhelming her.

She also finds something else to distract her: seducing Cassian. What starts out as a game to Nesta — driving Cassian mad for her, using him for sex and then pretending he means nothing to her — soon becomes something much more serious. Beneath her armored exterior, Nesta finds that her (very spicy, sexy) relationship with Cassian has become the most important thing in her life.

A fantastic read with lots of wonderful new characters, more trouble to overcome for the Night Court, and with lots and lots of sex. I cannot wait for book six to come out and see where these characters go next.