Book Review: All of Us Murderers by K.J. Charles

My thanks to Netgalley, Poisoned Pen Press and K.J. Charles for the eARC in exchange for a review of this book.

I'll start by saying this is the first book by K.J. Charles that I have tried to read. I will also be honest that the comparisons to Crimson Peak and Knives Out both had me hooked on trying this book out. I'm happy to report that I LOVED this book. Zebedee Wyckham is wonderful and along with his partner, Gideon Grey, they were sweetness personified and the mystery was intriguing and I'm so glad I saw this cover and thought WAIT, what is this beauty?

First of all, YES, those comparisons definitely work to describe this book. This book reminded me of several other works, movies and books, but I worry about spoiling too much of what comes about in this story, so I won't mention any other titles just yet. I think it's safe to say that if you are a fan of the mystery genre and gothic romances, this is the perfect book to try. It fits right in and yet stands apart thanks to the sweetest, most earnest lead I've had the pleasure to meet in recent memory.

All of Us Murderers follows Zeb Wyckham, a young man recently let go from his job, who has finally decided to accept his cousin's invitation to come to Lackaday House for a visit. Zeb usually avoids his family but after his cousin insisted on Zeb coming to stay for a couple of weeks, Zeb thought it would be okay to go. When he does arrive, Zeb is horrified to find his estranged brother, sister-in-law, a couple of cousins and his ex-boyfriend are all in attendance. Turns out Cousin Wynn has invited everyone to the house for a reason: Wynn has decided to change the terms of who is set to be his heir. He wants to leave his fortune to whoever marries his ward, Jessamine, who is staying in Lackaday House. They all try their best to get her to agree to marrying them, except for Zeb, who wants nothing to do with the Wyckham family money. But as time passes, strange things start happening in Lackaday House. There are phantom footsteps in the halls, strange messages left on the walls, and what appears to be the ghosts of an old monastery scaring the staff and the guests. Zeb has to find a way to avoid the scheming machinations of his family and figure out how to resolve the issues that led to his break-up with a man he still cares for, all while trying to find a way to leave the property. Because the Wyckham family has a lot of skeletons in their closets and with all of them together in one house, tensions between family members is the least of Zeb's worries.

Zeb, my dear sweet Zeb, how I loved you. Honestly, Zeb is an absolute sweetheart, a young man living with ADHD in a time where it was not understood, who has been cast aside by his family and sneered at for so long, the fact that he's being forced to be in their proximity for so long made me want threaten all of them with bodily harm. I also wanted to take Gideon by the ear and give him a good shake because really, how could he believe that Zeb wanted anything to do with the fortune after repeatedly stating that he would have nothing to do with the marriage scheme? Come on, give Zeb some credit, the man is goodness and honesty and genuine compassion all mixed together. All the details given about the way his mind worked, the methods he used to keep himself focused, were all so detailed, that Zeb felt like people I know and I wanted him to get out of that house and go back home and be happy. And fine, after Gideon finally got his head on straight, I could see why Zeb cared for him and their scenes together were so sweet they nearly made my teeth ache. I sighed wistfully and smiled so much with their scenes, it was probably a ridiculous thing to witness.

As for the rest of the family, oh good grief, they were horrible. I wanted to bash brother Bram in the head, I wanted to hit cousin Hawley with a crow bar, and I wasn't sure what cousin Dash's deal was, but the fact that he was in the house too made me wary of what could be hiding behind his reasonable, affable front. Elise was the typical scheming wife, able to control her husband and be cruel at the drop of a hat. Don't get me started on Jessamine and Wynn, who were just questionable enough to keep me guessing about what side they were really on. The writing made the house feel like a separate character, filled with horrible paintings and owned by despicable people, that I felt the tension of being in that space keeping my shoulders hunched as I tried to figure out who the villains were and waited for those deserving to get what was coming to them. If I had to make one quibble, it would be that I feel like one character out of the ensemble seemed to get away with what they wanted and I really hoped that the epilogue would have turned around and given them a grisly end. I also feel like there are still a few loose threads with the character, like were they truly who they claimed they were or just someone roped in to the plot that decided to take advantage of the situation? If it was in the book, I must have missed it because I'm still trying to figure it out. Guess I'll just have to read this all over again and take some notes so I can see everything I might have missed the first time I raced through this book.

The true mystery of the book was a surprise. I enjoyed the tidbits about the original owner of the house being a writer who wrote stories about horrible villains and the heinous things they did. I was not expecting the way it all came together in the end but I will say I loved the motivations behind it. If I was in that position, I would not have taken the path that was revealed BUT I can understand the urge to do what happened in this book. In the end, this is a book about the horrible things people can do and what they decide to do about their pasts and how it affects everyone around them. I enjoyed every reveal and now I'm working out which K.J. Charles book to start next. Thankfully, there is quite a bit to choose from so I'll be a happy reader hoarding new books and adding them to my towering TBR stacks. It's a wonderful feeling to have when you finish a book you really loved, the fact that there is already more to find without waiting years for a new release.

Rating on my scale: 10 Stars for Zeb and Gideon and that plot. I hope the rest of Charles's books are just as good as this one. This one is going to have a place of honor on my favorites shelf, which let's be honest, is starting to get a little cramped, but hey, who cares? Having too many favorite books is a good thing, if you want my honest opinion.

Book Review: Graceless Heart by Isabel Ibañez

My thanks to Netgalley, St. Martin's Press/ Saturday Books, and Isabel Ibañez for thr eARC in exchange for a review of this book.

This is the first book by Isabel Ibañez that I've tried to read. As much as I enjoyed the world, the desciptions and writing, I'll admit, it took me too long to read this book. I wanted to love it but within the first couple of chapters, the FMC, Ravenna, just started to make me grumble.

Graceless Heart follows Ravenna, a young sculptress who helps her family run an inn. When her brother ends up imprisoned, Ravenna decides to enter a contest hosted by an immortal family. Her prize would be to have her brother released and all his charges dropped. Except, in order to win the contest, Ravenna decides to reveal her magical ability, something she has only told her family about and has kept a secret for years. Her reveal makes her a target and she is kidnapped by the Luni family, taken to their home in Florence, and told they expect her perform a miracle for them, using her ability as a sculptress and her magic.

It all sounds so good, honestly. I was hooked on the cover art, the synopsis, the info at the beginning of the book about the "Pietra Magiche." I thought, definitely, absolutely going to like this book. But then Ravenna starts making some foolish decisions. The book opens with Ravenna sneaking through her hometown, carrying a ladder, so she can try to break her brother out of his cage. There's a curfew and she's not supposed to be outside at all. She also decides to enter the contest, which is frowned upon because she's a woman. At the contest, she gets ready to blurt out to the people around her about something she saw the night before and I just thought, WAIT, you are actually going to admit in front of everyone snarling at you for your audacity of entering the contest that you were out past the curfew?

But it was early pages, no bother, right? Except this continued with Ravenna. She was impulsive in a way that made her seem childish. I double-checked the synopsis and I'm not sure I would call this an "adult" book. The more I read, the more I felt that Ravenna came off as a teenager. Maybe this would have been better marketed as a "New Adult" story but I don't think that distinction really exists in Fantasy Romance. In the end, this felt more like a young adult release, which is not meant as a slight to the book. It just doesn't seem to fit with the characterization given to the main female lead and I had certain expectations for the character that did not fit with what I thought this book was going to be.

To make matters more frustrating, once Ravenna starts to interact with Saturnino, the eldest son and heir of the Luni family, most of her thought process becomes "he's so handsome, he's a killer, he's seducing me to get what he wants, but he has to care for me, even just a little, I'm such an idiot for believing his lies," etc., ad nauseum. Which again, made me think she's just a kid. Besides that, Saturnino is given barely any characterization outside of he's a knight, he's ruthless, he's in charge of keeping Ravenna in line. It takes too long to see anything more than that facade for the character and it left me feeling unimpressed by him and his connection to Ravenna. Their "love story" felt like it needed more development, more actual interactions that didn't feel like a game of cat and mouse. For a large part of the book, I truly believed that Saturnino was just stringing Ravenna along so when everything started rolling and their love story ended up being true, I was left feeling like it didn't work for me.

Then add to that Ravenna's driving motivations for everything she does, the salvation of her immortal soul and the love of her family. Seems reasonable enough for motivation except that nothing given in the book made me like her family. Ravenna has spent YEARS making herself indispensable to her family, doing absolutely anything and everything she can with running the inn and taking care of her siblings so that her parents will love her in spite of her magic. Which right away raised so many red flags for me. But then, on the morning of the contest, Ravenna goes to give her mother a kiss goodbye because it is highly likely she won't see her again any time soon and the woman flinches before Ravenna touches her. NO, just no, I don't see family devotion, in any way shape or form. Later in the book, Ravenna claims that she and her brother Antonio are "best friends" and I thought, since when? You have literally never spoken of him like that. There have been no reminiscences about childhood antics, about how he spent time with you, helped you with chores, encouraged your sculpting. Nothing at all and yet, when Antonio enters the story again, we're supposed to feel Ravenna's anguish at trying to reason with her brother and I thought, nah, I don't buy it. There is just not enough to convince me that this girl should be so motivated by the love she has for her family.

I also had an issue with the pacing of the book. The story felt like it had nothing happening except for the same scenes over and over again. Ravenna tries to do her task, the Luni family threatens her family back home, Saturnino watches her work, and Ravenna struggles with her attraction to him. Wash, rinse, repeat. I had to put the book down and do something else because I was getting tired of the same scenes again and again. Ravenna has a deadline to complete her task, she has multiple people demanding that she work for them OR ELSE and yet I felt no urgency to her dilemma. I didn't care about her family or where she came from, I didn't believe her growing connection to Saturnino, I didn't care for the side plots involving the villains motivations. In the end I was left feeling a bit, I guess underwhelmed, is the word I'm looking for.

I wanted more from the world building, about the magic system but because Ravenna was raised to believe her magic is a sin, readers aren't shown anything more than what we are given at the start of the book. We're told other magical creatures exist, vampires, witches, the fae, but they have no real bearing on the story. Again, I was expecting more than what was given based on the book description. The world is so wonderfully detailed, from the descriptions of the colors to the architecture but it's just background. The characters and their troubles just fell flat on their face. I wanted to like them more than I did and that is not a good feeling to end a book with when all is said and done.

Rating on my scale: 4.5 Stars. This book has so many ingredients that should have worked and for me but it just left too much of a sour taste and a feeling of just being disgruntled overall. So many people were against Ravenna and it left me feeling frustrated and in the end, I'm left analyzing everything I had issues with as opposed to remembering everything I enjoyed about the book. I'm glad Ravenna got everything she wanted, it was the least that could come about for her in the book. I might try another book by Ibañez in the future, maybe, hopefully. Fingers crossed, and all that jazz.

Book Review: The Second Death of Locke by V.L. Bovalino

My thanks to Netgalley, Forever (Grand Central Publishing), and V.L. Bovalino for the eARC in exchange for a review of this book.

You know that feeling, when you are reading/watching/listening to something and the emotions are welling up inside you, just pushing and growing in every passing moment? They're growing so much that you pull your knees up and hug them because you have to do something to hold yourself together before it bursts out of you. Your hands are up over your mouth in case you let out some unseemly sound and alert other people in the room to your presence but at the same time, it is meant to hide the maniacal grin on your face because teeth lit up in a smile in the dark is an unsettling sight. You're ready to hide sniffles in your knees if it comes to it and to wipe tears from the corners of your eyes because *ahem* it's just an eyelash, leave me alone. And when it comes down to it, you lift your arms and CHEER quietly because that is all you can do when that everything becomes too much.

THAT is the overall feeling I had to wrestle with as I made my way through the journey of this book. By the time I got to the last portion of it, I had two reigning thoughts in my head. One: there are more books to come, right? I know I've seen something about it, another two books? Someone confirm this for me as soon as humanly possible. And Two: I immediately pre-ordered both of Bovalino's upcoming releases, which includes this book and a YA release set for January 2026. I also ordered hardcovers of each of the books I do not currently have from Bovalino's backlist of titles. I want to read everything I can find, Bovalino has a reader/fan for life now. This book has cemented that for me.

The Second Death of Locke is about a world at war, where Mages wield magic and they have their Hands, people with a well of magic inside them that Mages tether to, working together as two pieces of a whole, side by side through thick and thin and everything in between. Grey Flynn is the dedicated Hand to her Mage, Kier, her childhood friend and her everything now as an adult. Together they have risen in the ranks of their nation's army, to the point that the pair are tasked with an impossible mission: protect a child that the army has taken from enemy forces and return that child to those who want them back. Grey and Flynn put together a small group of soldiers and set out to cross the country, hoping to complete their task and avoid all enemies along the way, all while trying to hide the truth: Grey is the lost heir of Locke, an island nation that was lost to the seas nearly two decades before. It was the source of all magic and it's loss was the catalyst that started the war in the first place. Magic has been fading since Locke was lost and Grey could possibly be able to bring magic back if she could figure out how to bring the Isle back. On the other hand, if Grey dies, all of the magic in the world dies with her.

I'd heard of this book in Bovalino's newsletter so I was already on the lookout for it to pre-order when I had the chance. When I saw it was available on Netgalley, I leapt at the chance to read it. Bovalino's writing style is engaging, showing readers everything they need with character interactions and settings, snark in the dialogue and such depth of emotions from Grey and her companions. I loved all of the characters before the book was over, even characters I didn't think I'd like when they were first introduced. Grey was a force, prickly and snarky and so devoted, my heart ached for her at each turn the story took. I loved her connection to Kier, and how entwined they were and yet so wholly independent of each other, they were pig-headed and brash and determined to save each other even if it meant sacrificing themselves and I cheered them on through every battle.

Each character is given their due, from Brit, Ola and Eron, the soldiers chosen to aid Grey and Kier on their assignment, to Sela, the child they are transporting, to even the leaders of the nations they are fighting for and against. Grey would die for her new friends and I echoed that sentiment. Each time Grey made a decision to keep her people safe, I wanted to take up a sword and fight with her. They are all so unique and pushy, and important to Grey and to us readers that I waited with bated breath as I read this story, hoping my favorites would make it through to the end.

Readers are given little asides at the end of each chapter, whether it be letters from characters that have passed before the events of this story, journal entries or even historical texts about the war and the history of the Isle of Locke. There is so much information that I can't even remember if I had any questions sitting in my head because everything readers need to know is given at the right time for the most emotional impact (I'm not kidding, my emotions feel like they've run a gauntlet, I might need time to recover by returning to page 1 and starting the whole journey over again).

The world is filled in enough to feel how it has changed since war has taken over and a map is provided at the start of the book (love me a map in my books, seriously, I sincerely love when a map is provided). Readers learn about who Grey and Kier fight for and who the enemies are and how each are with the others. We learn about how other nation's use their magic and how Mages have certain affinities that they use magic for on the battlefield. It's all so rich with detail, I wanted to stay in this world longer and I truly hope there are more books to come. I have to know if the characters I came to love in this story get everything they want in the future.

And that ending. Ugh, that ending was everything I could have wanted and yet so much more I never would have thought of and it can't end there, it just can't, there is so much more to come, I can feel it. It might hurt in the long run but I have to know how this will all come together by the last page of the last book. I will stand vigil and wait for the return of Grey and her family, new and old, and hope for the best for these characters.

Rating on my scale: 10 STARS. I loved this book. I want more from this world. I can't wait for it's release and for the sequels that just have to happen, they have to. Read this book so it can have sequels, please and thank you. 

Watching the Weather

It's been sitting in my mind since the holiday weekend started and I just have to put something here to see if I can get it out of my head.

I'm here in the heart of Texas, probably less than an hour south of where the devastating floods have hit with the Guadalupe River. My area has just had weather update changed to a Flood Watch until 7pm on Monday. I'm telling my husband in the morning that in the abundance of caution, I'd prefer that he avoid going in to the office for work this week until all the rain passes. I'm looking up what kind of life vests are the best and where I can get them for my babies. I'm working out what to pack in a flood emergency kit.

I can't control the weather but I can be prepared should the worst come. My oldest is going to be 3 this year, my youngest will be 1. I want them to be safe. I told my husband I'd die saving them if it came to that so if life vests and emergency kits and evacuation plans and knowing which roads to take will help, I'll do all the research and be ready.

Too many are gone because of something simple like rain. We've gone from droughts and water restrictions to buidlings and people being washed away. It's too much.

My thoughts and prayers are with the people who have lost someone or who are still searching. May they all be found.

Stay safe out there, people. Make good choices, think things through. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.