Horse Talk Reviews

In the Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune My rating: 5 of 5 stars Anticpated Publication Date: April 25, 2023 5 stars because holy crap, y'all If you go into this expecting a funny little book because it's a Pinocchio re-telling but with robots including a talking Roomba with anxiety you will definitely get that but you will also get an epic, emotional, and wonderful story about humanity, loneliness, forgiveness, and love. Like what the crap I don't know how it happened but it is a real journey. All the characters are fully developed and complex, even the robot vacuum. Or maybe especially the robot vacuum. There were lines which made me laugh and then a few pages later it was deep thoughts and emotions. I appreciated the levity because otherwise it would be Too Much. As it is, I will probably be thinking about these characters for a while. I should have expected a book about robots to do this to me since this is the same author who thought ...

Naked Ambition by Lisa Henry My rating: 4 of 5 stars Horse rating: 🐴 of 5 horses He was drowning, all right, and Taylor had just thrown him a lifeline. And next he was going to tighten it around his pretty little throat and pull. This was a very well done dark MMM(ish?i don't know, it depends how you count) retelling of the Emperor's New Clothes. I would not consider it a romance. Maybe it's erotic horror. I tried to write down things that should have been in the content warnings since I couldn't find any for the book: Content warnings: dubcon, noncon, sexual assault, drug use, drug addiction, noncon drug use Characters: Taylor: All his life Taylor had wanted to create, and it turned out that his masterpiece was going to be destruction. There was probably something profound in that, maybe even a lesson, or at least something that someone with a more philosophical bent would have pondered for a while, but Taylor wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it. .....

False Feathers by Adara Wolf My rating: 4 of 5 stars Horse rating: 🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴 of 7 horses My original opinion was based on expecting more of an HEA, or perhaps something slightly less horror. Innocent(ish lol) me, having never read Adara Wolf or this series before.  Upon reflection, and having read much more Wolf, this is delightfully bleak. I had the wrong expectations going in originally, but it works for me now. My original review text, formerly a 3/5: This is kind of hard to review. First, it’s a retelling of a Grimm fairytale, which hedges it in for both plot and resolution. Extra challenge for a dark romance, which I think are especially difficult to pull off a HEA (or HFN, or a subjective HEA) in the first place, let alone when the end is already written for you. The kinks - they were a little matter of fact almost. It seemed to be more of a focus on humiliation than eroticism, which was fine, just not what I expected when I started this book. Aidan - poor bab...

Shards of Ice by R. Phoenix My rating: 4 of 5 stars Horse rating: 🐴🐴 of 5 horses Avery smiled that funny little smile. “Eat it,” he coaxed. “Such things are made to be eaten. Beautiful or not, some things are meant to be devoured. Sometimes, that’s what they’re designed for.” This was a pretty enjoyable retelling. It kept the magic in the fairytale, which I always like. This was based off of the Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen. I looked up the original tale before I started, and it was neat to see how R Phoenix worked those elements in. Given the magic being present, it followed very closely which was fun. The fae were very ominous, and the formal and loaded way of speaking was well done. The slow descent of Kai's mental state, being irritable and pulled away from Tristan, was gradual and had me anxious to see how far it would go. Extra sad due to the dual pining!  The epilogue was unexpected, yet creepy and good. Definitely a solid read overall. This is one of thos...