Book Review: Hexy Beast by Avery Flynn
🐾🐾🐾🐾 — Chaotic witch. Grumpy werewolf. Inconvenient fated mates. Absolutely no chance of keeping their hands—or their magic—to themselves.
Review Date: August 30, 2026 | Release Date: September 8, 2026
A chaotic witch, a grumpy werewolf, an unexpected fated-mate situation, and enough supernatural shenanigans to make everything delightfully complicated? Hexy Beast was exactly the kind of paranormal rom-com I wanted it to be.
Effie Sherwood may be the eldest daughter in a powerful magical family, but responsible eldest-daughter energy is definitely not her thing. She’s impulsive, unpredictable, and more likely to leap before she looks—which is exactly how she ends up on the back of Darius Aetos’ motorcycle and tangled in werewolf pack politics she absolutely did not sign up for.
Darius, meanwhile, is pretty much Effie’s opposite. As the head of the Aetos pack, he’s controlled, serious, grumpy, and used to carrying the weight of everyone else’s expectations. So naturally, when a pack elder announces that Effie might be his fated mate, neither one is particularly thrilled about being told destiny has already made their romantic decisions for them.
And that is where the fun really begins.
I loved the contrast between Effie and Darius. She brings chaos wherever she goes, while he desperately tries to maintain order, and watching them collide again and again makes for some fantastic banter. Their chemistry is immediate, but their relationship still has room to grow beyond attraction as they navigate pack expectations, magical complications, and the increasingly inconvenient realization that maybe being stuck together isn’t actually so terrible.
There’s also something especially fun about a fated-mates romance where the characters aren’t immediately willing to accept fate’s opinion on the matter. Effie and Darius have to figure out whether what’s happening between them is because some supernatural force says they belong together or because they’re actually choosing each other. That push and pull gives the romance a little more heart underneath all the snark, steam, and supernatural chaos.
Avery Flynn delivers a fast, flirty paranormal romance filled with witches, werewolves, forced proximity, opposites-attract chemistry, pack politics, and plenty of spice. Effie is wonderfully messy, Darius is deliciously grumpy, and together they’re an absolute disaster—in the best possible way.
If your ideal romance involves a heroine who embraces chaos, a growly werewolf who absolutely does not know what to do with her, and fate deciding to meddle where it wasn’t invited, Hexy Beast belongs on your TBR.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Book Review: Fury in Death by JD Robb
🐾🐾🐾🐾 — Dark, twisty, and fueled by rage—another gripping Eve Dallas investigation.
Review Date: August 30, 2026 | Release Date: September 8, 2026
Fury in Death delivers another dark and compelling Eve Dallas investigation, this time centered around a murder fueled by an almost unimaginable level of rage.
When wealthy biotech executive Larry Chu is brutally beaten to death inside his highly secure home, the crime immediately raises questions. How did the killer get inside—and how could one seemingly unarmed person inflict that much damage? What initially looks deeply personal soon becomes much more complicated as Eve uncovers suspicious money, corporate secrets, and another victim.
I especially enjoyed the way this case explores anger and the line between understanding someone’s fury and excusing what they choose to do with it. Eve’s own history gives that theme additional weight without taking the focus away from the investigation.
With biotech intrigue, corporate secrecy, futuristic technology, an increasingly complicated mystery, and the familiar characters I love returning to, Fury in Death is another absorbing addition to the In Death series. And after all these books, Eve and Roarke are still one of my favorite parts of coming back to this world.
Dark, twisty, violent, and difficult to put down.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Book Review: The Hocus Pocus Handbook by Ann Aguirre
🐾🐾🐾🐾 — A magical, tender slow burn with wildcraft, found family, and perfect grumpy/sunshine chemistry.
Review Date: August 30, 2026 | Release Date: September 1, 2026
Review copy received in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
The Hocus Pocus Handbook is exactly the kind of cozy fantasy that makes you want to disappear into the woods, befriend a few questionable magical creatures, and absolutely fall in love with the brooding man you were definitely not supposed to fall for.
Thea Winter was such a fun heroine to follow. Raised in the wildlands by a hobgoblin, she’s capable, curious, warm, and just chaotic enough to continually find herself in situations she probably should have avoided. Her knowledge of wildcraft and the fae world gives the story so much personality, and I loved how naturally the magic was woven into her everyday life.
And then there’s Kerboros. The Winter’s Hound is quiet, intimidating, painfully controlled, and very firmly in the category of grumpy men who are secretly enormous softies. His history with the Winter Court gives his character an underlying sadness that made the moments when Thea started breaking through his defenses even better. Their sunshine-and-shadow dynamic was easily one of my favorite parts of the book.
This is a true slow burn, and the romance benefits from it. Thea and Kerboros have time to travel together, learn each other’s rhythms, and gradually become something neither of them expected. Their relationship feels especially meaningful because Kerboros has spent so much of his life believing that wanting things—or people—is dangerous. Watching him begin to imagine something beyond duty and survival gave the romance a surprisingly emotional core.
I also loved the whimsical side of the story. Between the wildcraft magic, strange fae rules, dangerous courts, magical bargains, and wonderful found-family elements, the world feels cozy without ever feeling completely safe. There’s always that reminder that these are fae: charming and magical, yes, but also unpredictable and potentially dangerous.
Warm, whimsical, romantic, and just a little wild, The Hocus Pocus Handbook delivers a lovely combination of cozy fantasy and forbidden romance. Come for the magical quest and eccentric fae world; stay for the terrifying Winter Hound slowly discovering that maybe he deserves tenderness, freedom, and someone who feels like sunshine.
Book Review: The Roommate Subtext by Elia Winters
🐾🐾🐾🐾 — Sexy, nerdy, playful, and tender—with secret identities, serious chemistry, and one very unexpected plant dad.
Review Date: August 30, 2026 | Release Date: September 1, 2026
Review copy received in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
The Roommate Subtext by Elia Winters is a clever, sexy, kink-positive romance that takes the secret-identity trope and makes it even more delicious: what happens when you’re falling for your roommate in real life while unknowingly falling for him all over again online?
Maggie St. Claire is a freelance journalist who already has a bit of a problem. She’s attracted to her hot, nerdy botanist roommate, Blake Peabody, and living together isn’t exactly helping her get over it. Then she’s hired to write an exposé about the mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel, an anonymous online erotica writer with a very devoted following. Researching his particular brand of content while sitting beside her seemingly wholesome, plant-obsessed roommate? Awkward, to say the least.
Except Blake isn’t nearly as wholesome as Maggie thinks.
Behind the Scarlet Pimpernel persona, Blake has created a private space where he can explore a side of himself that doesn’t fit neatly with the assumptions people make about him. When a mysterious woman calling herself Curious Rose begins messaging him, their conversations quickly become more personal, flirtatious, and intimate. Neither realizes the person on the other side of the screen is sleeping just a few rooms away.
I loved the duality of Maggie and Blake’s relationship. By day, there’s this sweet, increasingly charged roommates-to-lovers dynamic developing between them. By night, Rose and Pimpernel are exploring attraction, trust, vulnerability, and desire in an entirely different way. We know the truth, they don’t, and that dramatic irony makes every interaction between them that much more fun.
Blake was especially delightful. The combination of botanist, devoted plant dad, seemingly wholesome nerd, and secret online kinkster works ridiculously well. I also appreciated that his dominant side isn’t treated as contradictory to his sweetness. He can be caring, nerdy, gentle, and kinky—all of those things are authentically him.
Maggie’s storyline gives the romance another interesting layer because her professional curiosity gradually becomes intensely personal. What begins as research leads her toward discovering things about herself she hadn’t fully acknowledged before, and the relationship that develops between Rose and Pimpernel becomes about far more than an article.
And underneath all the heat, this is really a story about being seen. Maggie and Blake are each getting pieces of the other person without realizing they belong to the same whole. They’re falling for each other twice—once through the comfortable intimacy of sharing a home and again through the freedom of anonymity. Eventually, those two relationships have to collide, and waiting for that moment is half the fun.
Sexy, playful, nerdy, and surprisingly tender, The Roommate Subtext is a great read for anyone who loves roommates-to-lovers, secret identities, online flirting, kink-positive romance, and the delicious tension of knowing something the characters haven’t figured out yet.
Book Review: The Sleeping Sisters by Jennifer Givhan
🐾🐾🐾🐾 — Haunting, feral, and beautifully strange—the desert remembers what families try to bury.
Review Date: August 29, 2026 | Release Date: August 18, 2026
Review copy received in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
The Sleeping Sisters by Jennifer Givhan is haunting, visceral, strange, and deeply rooted in the terrifying lengths we will go to protect the people we love. It begins with the bones of a mystery, but what unfolds is something far more unsettling—a story of motherhood, generational trauma, violence, folklore, and the things that refuse to stay buried.
Fortuna Miércoles has spent her life trying to outrun her family’s history. She wants something better for her children, but moving across the Rio Grande isn’t enough to escape a curse that has followed the women in her bloodline for generations. When a body is discovered in her backyard and a decades-old pattern of murdered and missing women appears to be starting again, Fortuna finds herself at the center of something she can no longer ignore.
Detective Jeanette Palacio brings another compelling layer to the story. Her pursuit of justice isn’t simply professional; the murdered women of the past include members of her own family, and their absence has shaped her life. Watching Fortuna and Jeanette’s stories converge creates a tension that becomes increasingly claustrophobic as the novel progresses.
What struck me most was the atmosphere. The New Mexican desert feels alive throughout the book—beautiful, unforgiving, ancient, and full of memory. Givhan blends mystery and horror with Chicana-Indigenous mythology in a way that makes it increasingly difficult to tell where trauma ends and the supernatural begins. There’s a fever-dream quality to parts of the story that made me feel deliberately unsteady, as though the ground could shift underneath the characters at any moment.
But beneath the murder, mythology, and horror, this is ultimately a story about mothers and daughters. It’s about inherited wounds, the violence women carry forward because no one before them was able to put it down, and the monstrous choices someone might make when love and survival become impossible to separate.
This isn’t neat, comfortable horror. It’s messy, furious, feminine, and occasionally bewildering. The further I read, the more feral the story became, until the mystery I’d started with had transformed into something much bigger and stranger. I won’t pretend I understood every piece of it immediately, but I don’t think this is a book that wants to be easily contained.
The Sleeping Sisters is for readers who like their horror literary, folkloric, emotionally complicated, and deeply rooted in place. It’s unsettling not simply because of what might be lurking beneath the desert, but because of what people are capable of doing to survive—and what mothers might become when protecting their children is the only thing that matters.
