Author Archives: Kristin

Sneak Peek Wednesday: His Beautiful Game by Peyton Lux

19 August, 2026 8:00 pm , Leave a Comment ,

His Beautiful Game
(Lanark Soccer Club, #1)
Peyton Lux
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication date: Aug. 11, 2026
Genre: Sports Romance

My childhood crush is my injured captain… and I’m the physio secretly keeping him on the pitch.

Rafe Calder is everything I learned not to want: flashy, reckless, adored, and far too beautiful. He is also hurt, lying about it, and somehow mine to fix.

I catch the limp no one else sees, then make the dumbest deal of my life. Private rehab, locked rooms, my hands on him daily, and one rule I keep pretending still matters.

At first, he pushes because he hates being handled. Then he listens when pain scares him, lets me see the lonely man under the captain’s armband, and looks ready to break when Donovan Reid makes me smile.

Somewhere between treatment lights, late-night checkups, and one reckless after-hours mistake that turns into more, I fall. Not for the fantasy I used to worship, but for the man who finally stops performing.

Then his injury truth explodes, and protecting him could cost me everything.

Worst of all, loving him might end his career.

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Posted in: Excerpt

Review: So F*cking Special by Raye Murphy

14 August, 2026 7:55 pm , Leave a Comment ,

So F*cking Special: 1996
Raye Murphy
Publisher: RupertBossier
Publication date: March 15, 2024
Genre: Young Adult
Rating:

A 90’s Friday Night Lights meets Fifty Shades… only the town is the sadomasochist and the two young lovers its pawns.

July Elizabeth Edwards is stuck in the existence her pretentious, rural East Texas town has allotted her. A shift in social status junior year provokes unlikely ride or die friendships, others’ secrets she’s not allowed to tell, and an unexpected crush on the ambitious Adrian Reed. The result is far more insatiable than anyone anticipated.

Before cell phones and social media, walk the halls of Pure Pines High as they are set figuratively to a Soundtrack of Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Counting Crows, R.E.M., The Cranberries and Radiohead… When the preps were challenged by the grunge phase, and polo shirts and loafers were traded in for flannel shirts and name brand combat boots. Their world was changing, and it was hard to remain CLUELESS.

She’s known and competed with him her entire life. He was conceited and arrogant. She was treading water to survive Pure Pines. When circumstances strip them of cheerleading and football, the odds throw a replacement neither of them expects, and something the halls of Pure Pines High are certain to reject. One touch, an out of ordinary lingering stare, and something ignites that won’t die down, only does it count if it’s a secret? How long will it stay behind closed doors? When love is denied, lust becomes unapologetic.

 

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Posted in: YA Contemporary, Young Adult

Review: Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

7 August, 2026 8:00 pm , Leave a Comment ,

Dungeon Crawler Carl
Dungeon Crawler Carl #1
By: Matt Dinniman
Narrator: Jeff Hays
Publisher: Dandy House Publishing & Sound Booth Theater (audiobook)
Genre: SciFi
Rating:

The apocalypse will be televised!

A man. His ex-girlfriend’s cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible.

In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth—from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds—collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground.

The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe.

Only a few dare venture inside. But once you’re in, you can’t get out. And what’s worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it’s game over. In this game, it’s not about your strength or your dexterity. It’s about your followers, your views. Your clout. It’s about building an audience and killing those goblins with style.

You can’t just survive here. You gotta survive big.

You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that “it” factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That’s the only way to truly survive in this game—with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy.

They call it Dungeon Crawler World. But for Carl, it’s anything but a game.

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Posted in: Sci-fi

Top Ten Books with Handwriting on the Cover

4 August, 2026 6:00 pm , 4 Comments ,

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

 

It seems like lately the font for book titles is more whimsical, but I didn’t just want to showcase new books that everyone is seeing on their social media accounts. I wanted to show off some of my favorite books from throughout the years. Some of these books may be over a decade old – books that a lot of people might not have heard of.

If you click on the covers it will take you to my review for each of the books. 

 



Posted in: Ramblings

Review: The Cursed King by Abigail Owen

3 August, 2026 8:00 pm , Leave a Comment ,

The Cursed King
Inferno Rising #4
Abigail Owen
Publisher: Entangled
Publication date: Oct. 25, 2021
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Rating:

Airk Azdajah, the rightful King of the White Clan of dragon shifters, spent half a millennium being tortured by the false High King Pytheios. The only reason he’s alive is a the man who kills Airk will be consumed in his own fire. So Airk was kept alive—barely—and unable to shift in his prison cage, driving the creature half of him into madness. Airk escaped, but he’ll never be truly free. Because what good is a king who can never let his feral dragon loose, never fly, and never lead his people?

Angelika Amon is the last unmated phoenix. The problem? She has no powers. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Angelika hates being dormant, especially now that her three sisters are blissfully mated to powerful dragon shifter kings and are very much part of the fight to take down the rotting king Pytheios. What good is a completely powerless phoenix in a battle to save the dragon kingdom?

Desperate to find some way to help, she offers herself to Airk as a mate—just for political leverage. Now a dormant phoenix is mated to a dragon who can’t shift. But the balance of power is about to change when Pytheios decides to claim Angelika for himself…

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Posted in: Fantasy Romance

Typhoons & TBRs

2 August, 2026 8:01 am , 9 Comments ,

This post is linked to Sunday Post, Staking the Shelves, Sunday Salon, and #IMWAYR

 

As I predicted, it’s been a very active summer. We’ve already had 3 typhoons head our way since June 1st, with another heading our way this weekend. The incoming typhoon was listed as a Cat 5 level typhoon. So this week will be spent watching the weather, and preparing the house. Needless to say, due to the high temperature and humidity, the choppy waters, and the constant vigilance of what’s developing out in the ocean, we haven’t done much of anything this summer. We already had one trip cut short when we tried to travel right before typhoon season started, only to have a typhoon arrive on opening day. So, this summer may be less fun in the sun, and more indoors with a book. Not that I’m complaining. After taking a few years off due to school, I have enjoyed catching up on all the books I’ve been wanting to read.

This month I took a break from going through my TBR on Goodreads. I read The Cursed King and Kamisama Kiss, but that was about it. I was starting to get burnt out because the books were just not bangers for me. I can’t say it was because I wasn’t in the mood for them, because I was. I just had a hard time with the characters, the writing style, or sometimes the story as a whole, and in the end it left me wanting more. So, instead of completely burning out and needing a break from reading all together, I decided to shift my focus to my summer reading challenge, catching up on my book club reading, and took a walk through the library and snatched up a few books that caught my eye. Oh and I also signed up for a couple of ARC’s that I’m excited to read. So, thankfully, I was able to divert myself away from a reading slump.

 

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Posted in: Ramblings

Review: Gladiator by Anna Hackett

31 July, 2026 8:00 pm , 1 Comment ,

Gladiator
Galactic Gladiators #1
Anna Hackett
Publisher: Self-published
Publication date: Oct. 23, 2016
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Rating:

Fighting for love, honor, and freedom on the galaxy’s lawless outer rim…

When Earth space marine Harper Adams finds herself abducted by alien slavers off a space station, her life turns into a battle for survival. Dumped into an arena on a desert planet on the outer rim, she finds herself face to face with a big, tattooed alien gladiator…the champion of the Kor Magna Arena.

A former prince abandoned to the arena as a teen, Raiden Tiago has long ago earned his freedom. Now he rules the arena, but he doesn’t fight for the glory, but instead for his own dark purpose—revenge against the Thraxian aliens who destroyed his planet. Then his existence is rocked by one small, fierce female fighter from an unknown planet called Earth.

Harper is determined to find a way home, but when she spots her best friend in the arena—a slave of the evil Thraxian aliens—she’ll do anything to save her friend…even join forces with the tough, alpha male who sets her body on fire. But as Harper and Raiden step foot onto the blood-soaked sands of the arena, Harper worries that Raiden has his own dangerous agenda…

 

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Posted in: Fantasy Romance

Review: Winterbourne by A.M. Blythe

20 July, 2026 7:59 pm , 1 Comment ,

Winterbourne
A.M. Blythe
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication date: July 15, 2026
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Rating:

Three rules keep a memory thief alive.

Rule #1: Don’t touch skin.
Rule #2: Don’t look too long.
Rule #3: Don’t let them see what you really are.

Tonight, I’m breaking all three.

Kira Shadowmere is the best memory thief in Vespera — a city where memories are bottled, sold, and savored like wine, and the people they’re stolen from are left to rot. One touch, one pull, thirty seconds: she can lift the worst night of your life right out of your head. The Guild pays in silver. Her conscience pays in everything else.

But memory thieves don’t live past twenty-four. Tomorrow is her birthday.

One last job should buy her way out. Instead, it binds her — soul-deep, unbreakable, fatal — to Lysander Winterbourne: the last son of a slaughtered house, the lord who executes thieves like her, and the only person in the world whose presence quiets the curse that’s been drowning her since she was three years old.

She should run. He should kill her. Neither of them does the smart thing.

Now the Guild’s master wants her caged, a power no Null should have is waking in her blood, and the deeper Kira digs, the clearer the truth becomes: she isn’t the only memory thief in this story. Someone has been inside her head. Someone has been editing. And what they took will cost her the only family she has left.

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Posted in: Fantasy Romance

Review: Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

17 July, 2026 8:00 pm , 1 Comment ,


Red, White & Royal Blue
Red, White & Royal Blue #1
Casey McQuiston
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Publication date: May 14, 2019
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Rating:

First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz is the closest thing to a prince this side of the Atlantic. With his intrepid sister and the Veep’s genius granddaughter, they’re the White House Trio, a beautiful millennial marketing strategy for his mother, President Ellen Claremont. International socialite duties do have downsides—namely, when photos of a confrontation with his longtime nemesis Prince Henry at a royal wedding leak to the tabloids and threaten American/British relations. The plan for damage control: staging a fake friendship between the First Son and the Prince.

As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?

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Posted in: Romance

Sneak Peek Wednesday: Reaper’s Quest by Debra A. Kristi

15 July, 2026 7:53 pm , 2 Comments ,

Reaper’s Quest
Curse of the Royal Reaper #1
Debra A. Kristi
Publisher: Ghost Girl Publishing
Publication date: July 13, 2026
Genre: Fantasy Romance

Two rival reapers. A century of overdue souls. Revelations sure to crumble foundations.

Raven Gunn blamed herself and the cheat she used on her last job for her team’s assignment to the cursed reaping. Her father even packed the tool responsible for the cheat in her travel bag, silently suggesting the need, while reminding her not to trust her designated coreaper, Chace Badden. A hundred years of accumulated reapings, a prohibited reaper-tool, her born rival tasked as her partner… What could go wrong? She definitely wouldn’t allow Chace’s good looks to compromise her focus. Not. One. Bit.

Chace Badden suspected family connections were to blame for his team’s assignment, and he trusted nothing about the current reaping task. Especially not the Fae bastard showering Raven with unnecessary attention. That pr*ck needed to go. Raven was his coreaper and the pretty boy held no claim. Of course, the same could be said for Chace given Raven was his coreaper and his rival, professionalism and distance needed to remain steady between them.

But as more complications arise and old ones intensify, will Chace and Raven’s rivalry cloud emotions, hinder task success, and pave the road for, not only failure but, something far more concerning than mortal danger? Because the overwhelming number of unreaped souls is turning out to be the least of their worries.

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Posted in: Excerpt

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