Lakesedge is everything I hoped it would be: a romantic dark gothic fantasy novel with an intriguing magic system. 'Tis the Spooky Season and this is a great pick for those of us who want something horror-lite. Lakesedge pairs an anguished boy who feeds his blood to a cursed lake once a month and a girl who's haunted by the lord of death and desperate to save her brother from said anguished boy. If that's the right level of spooky for you? Read on.

I adore the Primas of Power and Alexis Daria's writing, so it's no surprise that A Lot Like Adiós was a quick, fun read for me.

October is the best month because

1) it's my birthday month

2) all the spooky and spoopy books come out

3) apples

Turns out, publishing is (mostly) on my side here. If only we could keep all the Christmas books out of my Halloween time...

*

This post contains affiliate links.

Gena Showalter starts a new series with Heartless, a paranormal romance that gave me the Immortals After Dark vibes I've been missing.

The Love Hypothesis pairs a 26 year-old grad student/researcher with a 34 year-old faculty member/researcher in a fake dating relationship for the ages. I flipping loved this book. Everyone told me I'd like it, but I couldn't stop picturing the male love interest, Adam Carlsen, as Adam Driver (this book started as Reylo fic) and I knew, just knew I wouldn't like it because of that. I was so wrong.

I'm going to join the chorus here and say that I should have loved Witch Please and instead I found it to be "fine." The setup is fun! A bisexual baker who's chronically unlucky in love and the fix-it witch next door who's sworn off relationships fall for each other. If this had been a sweet novella, I would have loved it, but apparently there wasn't really enough plot here to keep the story going for a whole novel without Aguirre throwing in an evil grandmother and an inadvertently harmful mother.

I feel this every month, but this time I fear it's more true than ever: what follows is a list of books coming out in September, of which I will read very few.

I started graduate school at the end of August and between that, my job, my kids and my other commitments, I'm going to be reading a lot less fiction. And even less writing about it. We'll see how this goes for Love in Panels.

The best thing though, is that books don't expire! I'm going to continue making these lists because hey, I still want to know what's coming out... and adding to TBR Mountain.

*

This post contains affiliate links.

More mini-reviews! Reviews of Phantom Heart, Fables & Other Lies, Too Good to Be Real, Not Your Average Hot Guy and A Touch of Darkness. This is a YA gothic romance, an adult gothic romance, a contemporary romance and two paranormal romances (sort of?).

Rating refresher! Categories are based on whether or not I recommend them to fellow readers -  DNF (Did Not Finish), Pass, YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary), Read it Eventually, Read it Soon.

More mini-reviews! Reviews of The Nightborn, A Not So Lonely Planet: Italy, Serving Sin, One Week to Claim it All, The Dead and the Dark and Hideaway. This is pretty much all romance, with the exception of one that doesn't have an HEA and a horror that does. The rest are: one fantasy romance, one f-f romance and two f-m contemporary romances.

Rating refresher! Categories are based on whether or not I recommend them to fellow readers -  DNF (Did Not Finish), Pass, YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary), Read it Eventually, Read it Soon.

I don't have any pithy for August, so let's just get into some books releasing this month!

*

This post contains affiliate links.