Horse Talk Reviews

You're a Mean One, Matthew Prince by Timothy Janovsky My rating: 4 of 5 stars Expected publication: October 4 2022 This was a cute and a little emotional cheesy Christmas romance. Matthew was a shallow and pretty mean guy in the beginning, but every time he starting grating on me he’d drop some intensely sad backstory snippet that had me 100% on his team. The saddest boi! This really made it work for me - it explained why he was a defensive jerk in the beginning, literally a defense mechanism. But he works through it! Look at this!! Hating Christmas is the one way I get to manage my familial expectations. I don’t get my hopes up over silly traditions or false illusions of togetherness. It’s safer than admitting that as a child I used to bleed red tinsel for this entire month. he’s only grinch because his parents suck! so sad!! i’m glad christmas was returned to him because i too love christmas He also had a well done redemption arc I felt like. It was gradual thro...

 another month o' suffering My DNFs for August 2022 i am so tired reading the virtuous sinners multiauthor series was not a good idea Day of Judgement by Briar Kearny and Aurora Crane  (Virtuous Sinners) DNF at 56% Look, I tried. I tried very hard (medium hard). It’s just not working. • This book has about 50% too many pages. There is so much extraneous description - instead of setting the scene, they are just distracting and pointless. Do I care what type of oven they have? Only if someone gets baked in it. I also don’t need every single action described. Most things are repeated in triplicate, especially in the inner monologues. Once is enough. I felt like I was getting beat over the head with every thought. I promise your readers can infer plenty! Or understand the sentence the first time. • The pacing left a lot to be desired. There’s a lot of floating plot pieces (the relationship, the murder investigation, the assassin company thingy, the rival assassins, the missing bro...

Stargazing with a Ghost by K.L. Hiers My rating: 3 of 5 stars This was a book, kinda cute, kinda annoying. It felt to me like it had trouble deciding what kind of book it wanted to be. The ghost fucking plot and the Evil Staircase plot are sort of chunked together, and it lacked flow. It seemed like its goal was to be cute and funny but then the Evil Staircase plot would try to be ominous at times and it didn't work for me. Or maybe it wasn't trying to be ominous. Maybe I was expecting more spooky vibes than there were ever meant to be (none). I struggled a bit to connect with the writing - it's sort of choppy? I'm not sure, but I didn't get hooked into the story. All the characters spoke the same as well, with the exception of Sip, who still managed to speak the same as the Hollywood starlet ghost. The romance is just instalust plus a whole lot of sex. The extended discussion of The Walking Dead, a show I know nothing about and care nothing about, wa...

  Imitate the Dawn   by   M.A. Grant Expected publication: September 13 2022 erratic's review: 4 of 5 stars Another action-packed book and a fitting conclusion. This book picks right up where book 2 left off so definitely read these in order and probably back to back too. The intensity is high the entire time with this one and there are a lot of reveals and characters and callbacks from the previous two books. The romance between Christian and Atlas seemed to take a step back and then propel really far forward in the space of a few chapters and their relationship could have used some more space to breathe in between the relentless action. And similar to book 2, some things were glossed over a bit too much and needed more explanation in the narrative - particularly what was going on between Christian and Atlas and their scheming. The ending of the book was very interesting. A fresh take on the vampire lore and I appreciate when books try new things out. And of course the e...

  Crooked Shadows   by   M.A. Grant Crooked Shadows on Amazon erratic's review:  4 of 5 stars Well this certainly wasn't a standalone book! It picks up right where book 1 left off and then ends on a cliffhanger. Highly recommend starting at the beginning and reading all three books in the trilogy. Even though it begins where book 1 ended and continued a lot of the story lines it still managed to feel like a whole new (albeit not standalone) story. The change in setting from New York to Romania and the bloody vampire road trip vibes were fun. I also enjoyed seeing Christian and Atlas grow closer and take care of each other more. My main gripe is there is far too much that is glossed over and not explained enough. For example, there is an emotional feeding between Christian and Atlas which goes bad but it's never explained why it goes bad or what exactly it means??? It seemed to be going fine to me? Maybe it's because I am not educated in all the ways of the vampire an...

Textual Relations by Cate Ashwood My rating: 3 of 5 stars A cute little novella with the worlds most oblivious man ever, plus a bi-awakening. Generally a sweet fluffy read, with absolutely no angst. The main issue I had was that I had a little trouble connecting with this, and buying into the emotions between the MCs because I felt like I never got to know Asher. It's all Henry's POV, and Asher stays sort of...perfect? They say he's a player, but he gets hooked onto Henry immediately so we never seen any evidence of that (novella problems I suppose). But that leads to not much depth in the connection since he doesn't have much depth himself. A small issue, but the main one I had. Anyway, still sweet. Good for a quick palate cleanser type fluff read. Textual Relations on Amazon View all my reviews

In the Shadow Garden by Liz Parker My rating: 5 of 5 stars A lovely and atmospheric little book. The tea, the shadow garden, the bourbon, the small southern town, and the magic were all woven together masterfully in a well-paced and compelling story. The use of memory and healing from trauma gave the book some roots (hah see what i did there) in realism. There are chapters from several different points of view and a lot of family and other relationships between the characters but I was never lost or confused. I especially enjoyed the chapters from the shadow garden's point of view. Overall a delightfully cozy autumnal read. I received an ARC copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own. View all my reviews