Sneak Peek Wednesday: Coming Up for Air by Jessica Natalie Reino

22 October, 2025 8:59 pm , Leave a Comment ,

Coming Up for Air
Jessica Natalie Reino
Publisher: Fire & Ice Young Adult Books
Publication date: Sept. 28, 2025
Genre: YA Fantasy Paranormal

As if the rumors and whispers from the people of her seaside town, Oceanbrook, weren’t bad enough, 17-year-old Sarah D’Antonio is troubled by the whispers from the forest. It’s not her fault that she hears voices, that she sees auras, and that she has been sleepwalking along the shore. The townspeople, and Sarah’s parents among them, claim that it is all in response to stress, including her chronic migraines and panic attacks. They believe that she can’t come to grips with the fact that her cousin, Lena, is dead. But Sarah knows that the things she is experiencing are real and not something she is bringing on herself. She also knows that Lena is not dead, only missing. She believes that there is something more supernatural going on and that the town is hiding secrets.

Sarah’s feelings are validated when she suddenly becomes thrust into a world in which she has always sensed but never seen. A world of fairy witches, shape-shifters, and legendary creatures. The world of the astral plane. And now, it will be up to her to form alliances to save the magic, fix the astral plane, and most importantly, to bring her cousin home.

 
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Posted in: Excerpt

Review: The Vampire’s Mail Order Bride by Kristen Painter

20 October, 2025 8:23 pm , Leave a Comment ,

The Vampire’s Mail Order Bride
Nocturne Falls #1
Kristen Painter
Publisher: Sugar Skull Books
Publication date: June 1, 2015
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Rating:

Welcome to Nocturne Falls, the town where Halloween is celebrated 365 days a year. The tourists think it’s all a show: the vampires, the werewolves, the witches, the occasional gargoyle flying through the sky. But the supernaturals populating the town know better.

Living in Nocturne Falls means being yourself. Fangs, fur, and all.

After seeing her maybe-mobster boss murder a guy, Delaney James assumes a new identity and pretends to be a mail order bride. She finds her groom-to-be living in a town that celebrates Halloween every day. Weird. But not as weird as what she doesn’t know. Her groom-to-be is a 400-year-old vampire.

Hugh Ellingham has only agreed to the arranged set up to make his overbearing grandmother happy. In thirty days, whatever bridezilla shows up at his door will be escorted right back out. His past means love is no longer an option. Not if the woman’s going to have a future. Except he never counted on Delaney and falling in love for real.

Too bad both of them are keeping some mighty big secrets…

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Posted in: Paranormal Romance

Excerpt: Black Rose by Frances Paul (Giveaway!)

15 October, 2025 7:23 pm , Leave a Comment ,

The Black Rose
Frances Paul
Publisher: Self-published
Publication date: Oct. 14, 2025
Genre: Psychological Thriller

Some weapons are born. Others are made.
She is the perfect operative.
A discarded orphan, remade by the very hands that broke her.
Trained to seduce. Conditioned to kill. Reborn as Elara Everhart.

They gave her new names. New faces. New identities—whichever the mission required.
Now, they call her Raina.
And they’ve sent her into the lion’s den.

Her Axel Voss. Billionaire. Powerbroker. Threat.
He’s everything she was trained to dismantle.
But he sees too much. Speaks too little.
And when he touches her, he wakes something she was never meant to feel.

She is the weapon they created.
But he’s the variable they never planned for.

What begins as a mission spirals into obsession.
And survival will cost more than her cover.
Because the most dangerous thing isn’t failing the mission—
It’s forgetting who the real enemy is.

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Posted in: Excerpt, Thriller

Review: Phantasma by Kaylie Smith

13 October, 2025 7:36 pm , Leave a Comment ,

Phantasma
Wicked Games #1
Kaylie Smith
Publisher: Forever
Publication date: Sept. 3, 2024
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Rating:

When Ophelia’s sister disappears, there is only one way to save her. Ophelia must enter Phantasma, a deadly contest inside a haunted mansion, and claim its prize—a single wish.

Phantasma is a maze of twisting corridors and lavish ballrooms, of demons and temptations. Ophelia will face nine challenges, each more dangerous than the last. There can only be one winner, and the other contestants will stop at nothing to eliminate their rivals.

Every day the house creates new monsters. But just as Ophelia’s fears threaten to overwhelm her, a mysterious stranger offers her a bargain.

Charming, arrogant and infuriatingly attractive, Blackwell claims he can guide her through the lethal trials ahead. All he asks in return is ten years of her life.

Ophelia knows she shouldn’t trust him. Blackwell doesn’t seem dangerous, but appearances can be deceptive. Worse still, she feels a dark and irresistible attraction drawing them closer and closer.

Her life is on the line. But in Phantasma, the only thing deadlier than losing the game is losing your heart . . .

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Posted in: Fantasy, Paranormal Romance

Review: Bride by Ali Hazelwood

10 October, 2025 7:24 pm , Leave a Comment ,

Bride
Bride #1
Ali Hazelwood
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: Feb 6, 2024
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Rating:

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 from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love, Theoretically and The Love Hypothesis.

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.

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Posted in: Paranormal Romance

Review: Quicksilver by Callie Hart

8 October, 2025 7:10 pm , Leave a Comment ,

Quicksilver
Fae & Alchemy #1
Callie Hart
Publisher: Forever
Publication date: June 4, 2024
Genre: Fantasy romance
Rating:

Do not touch the sword. Do not turn the key. Do not open the gate.

In the land of the unforgiving desert, there isn’t much a girl wouldn’t do for a glass of water.

Twenty-four-year-old Saeris Fane is good at keeping secrets. No one knows about the strange powers she possesses, or the fact that she has been picking pockets and stealing from the Undying Queen’s reservoirs for as long as she can remember.

But a secret is like a knot. Sooner or later, it is bound to come undone.

When Saeris comes face-to-face with Death himself, she inadvertently re-opens a gateway between realms and is transported to a land of ice and snow. The Fae have always been the stuff of myth, of legend, of nightmares… but it turns out they’re real, and Saeris has landed herself in the middle of a centuries-long conflict that might just get her killed.

The first of her kind to tread the frozen mountains of Yvelia in over a thousand years, Saeris mistakenly binds herself to Kingfisher, a handsome Fae warrior, who has secrets and nefarious agendas of his own. He will use her Alchemist’s magic to protect his people, no matter what it costs him . . . or her.

Death has a name. It is Kingfisher of the Ajun Gate. His past is murky. His attitude stinks. And he’s the only way Saeris is going to make it home.

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Posted in: Fantasy, Romance

Review: My Happy Marriage Vol.2 by Akumi Agitogi

5 October, 2025 7:54 pm , Leave a Comment ,

My Happy Marriage
Vol #2
Author: Akumi Agitogi
Illustrator: Rito Kohsaka
Character Designer: Tsukiho Tsukioka
Publisher: Square Enix Manga
Publication date: Jan. 10, 2023
Genre: Fantasy Romance Manga
Rating:

A “Cinderella”-inspired slow-burn historical romance with a paranormal twist set in Taisho-era Japan!

A browbeaten and mistreated daughter is cast out of her home and sent to audition as a bridal candidate for the heir to one of the most powerful families in the land…

For failing to inherit the boon of unusual power that is the Saimori birthright and bringing shame to the family name, mistreated Miyo is cast out to become another’s problem.

Sent to the Kudo clan—itself preternaturally powerful—as a potential bride for its heir, Kiyoka, Miyo is surprised to experience kindness for the first time in her thus far sad life.

Though the rumors make him out to be cold and haughty, Kiyoka Kudo quickly warms up to the Saimoris’ eldest daughter. Intrigued by the girl who stands worlds apart from the spoiled, social-climbing women who usually vie for his hand, Kiyoka soon comes to regard Miyo with affection.

But though Miyo has found a place—and warmth—in the Kudo household, the fact remains that she is untouched by the power that defines both the Saimori and Kudo clans, making her a failure as a bridal candidate.

Will the small happiness Miyo has found with Kiyoka end as soon as it has begun?

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Posted in: Manga

Review: Pen Pal by J.T. Geissinger

3 October, 2025 7:15 pm , Leave a Comment ,

Pen Pal
J.T. Geissinger
Publisher: Self-published
Publication date: Aug. 16, 2022
Genre: Thriller, Paranormal Romance
Rating:

The first letter arrived the day my husband was buried. It was postmarked from the state penitentiary, and contained a single sentence:

I’ll wait forever if I have to.

It was signed by Dante, a man I didn’t know.

Out of simple curiosity, I wrote back to ask him what exactly he was waiting for. His reply?

You.

I told the mystery man he had the wrong girl. He said he didn’t. I said we’d never met, but he said I was wrong.

We went back and forth, exchanging letters every week that grew increasingly more intimate. Then one day, the letters stopped. When I found out why, it was already too late.

Dante was at my doorstep.

And nothing on earth could have prepared me for what happened next.

 

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Posted in: Paranormal Romance, Thriller

Review: Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

1 October, 2025 7:26 pm , Leave a Comment ,

Iron Flame
The Empyrean #2
Rebecca Yarros
Publisher: Entangled
Publication date: Nov 7, 2023
Genre: New adult fantasy
Rating:

Everyone expected Violet Sorrengail to die during her first year at Basgiath War College—Violet included. But Threshing was only the first impossible test meant to weed out the weak-willed, the unworthy, and the unlucky. Now the real training begins, and Violet’s wondering how she’ll get through it. It’s not just that it’s grueling and maliciously brutal, or even that it’s designed to stretch the riders’ capacity for pain beyond endurance. It’s the new vice commandant, who’s made it his personal mission to teach Violet exactly how powerless she is—unless she betrays the man she loves.

Although Violet’s body is weaker and frailer than everyone else’s, she has her wits—and a will of iron. Leadership forgets the most important lesson Basgiath taught her: Dragon riders make their own rules. But determination to survive won’t be enough this year, because Violet knows the secret hidden for centuries at Basgiath War College—and nothing, not even dragon fire, may be enough to save them in the end.

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Posted in: Fantasy, New Adult

Review: A Cage of Crimson by K.F. Breene

29 September, 2025 6:34 pm , Leave a Comment ,

A Cage of Crimson
Deliciously Dark Fairytales #5
K.F. Breene
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication date: June 27, 2024
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Rating:

Of all the people in the world, why her?

It was supposed to be find the drug maker. Find her, and drag her back to the dragons to deal with. She deserves death for what she’s done.

For someone like Weston, the best alpha in the world, the one who shuts people up just by walking in the room, it would’ve been.

Until he learns what she is…

Finding a fated mate is nearly impossible. Very few are able to do it. But the call of their bond is unmistakable. Against all odds, and in the worst situation imaginable, he’s found his true mate. Her.

Worse? If there could be anything worse than a true mate that has brought the world to its knees – she doesn’t seem to realize what she is. Her animal is suppressed. Locked away, leaving her nearly without magic. She doesn’t know what the feeling is, and she doesn’t care. She claims innocence. She thinks he’s the villain in this story, and she aims to kill him before he destroys her.

It doesn’t change his duty. He must bring her in, nature be damned. Regardless of how much it hurts, he’ll resist the sweet taste of her lips and the heaven between her thighs. She must pay for what she’s done.

He just hopes he doesn’t die inside for the part he’s forced to play in the destruction of his true mate.

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Posted in: Fantasy, Romance