We've been having email issues for... a year? Hopefully this gets to folks.
Time to play Review Catch Up! It's a (hopefully) fun game for you and a memory exercise for me. This edition includes reviews of Ravenous, Reap & Sow, Grim Tidings, It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Murder, and Broken Rival.
Ratings are based on whether or not I recommend them to fellow readers - DNF (Did Not Finish), Pass, YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary), Read It, Read It Soon.
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Ravenous (Immortals Untold, #1), by Kresley Cole
My Verdict: YMMV
We waited so long for this book, and it's a confusing reboot/not reboot. This cast is HUGE, with at least 14 POV characters. I did a full Immortals After Dark reread before picking this up, so I was fully immersed in The Lore. I'm not sure if that helped or hurt here, because the ways the different supernatural groups function physically and socially are much the same, but different enough to be confusing. It's an alternate universe, with a different character standing in for Nyx, vampires with an (awful) monarchy, etc. It's also pretty grim. I can't get into specifics without spoilers, but readers should know that this isn't a capital R Romance. There are many relationships formed, but it's clear that not all will or can have an HEA by the end of the book. I'm hoping that the upcoming books will look more like IAD and focus more on a specific pairing during concurrent events. As it is, this is a somewhat disorienting book that I would recommend only to fans of IAD.
I received temporary access to this book courtesy of the publisher.
Reap & Sow (Reap & Sow, #1), by Charlotte B. Plumb
My Verdict: Read It Eventually
This debut was everywhere in the weeks leading up to its October 2026 release, so I gave it a try. From the publisher: "Rich with gothic atmosphere, sharp wit, and simmering romantic tension, Reap & Sow is a fantasy debut and the first in a duology, perfect for fans of Rachel Gillig, Hannah Whitten, and Heather Fawcett." If you can explain to me how those three authors write the same type of books, I will listen. This, however, is not that. The worldbuilding and atmosphere--demons, pacts, some politics--take the prize in this one, with the romance an underdeveloped add-on. It's difficult to balance fantasy with romance, and in this particular case, I think the author would have done better to push much of the romance into the concluding volume of the duology. As it is, it feels rather abrupt. The demon paramour is funny, campy, and apparently sexy, but the actual connection between the MCs is missing. She's desperately trying to save her family and he's being silly and trying not to jump her. I liked a lot of this book, including the sibling relationships, the demon's best friend, and the world overall. I just wanted more from the romance. I'll read the concluding volume, and that will probably determine how I feel about this one.
Audio narration is mostly good, but I did want a little more from the male narrator, Owen Hall, and I'm not sure he and Elloise Thomson were synced up on how the characters' would handle their dialogue.
I received temporary access to this audiobook courtesy of the publisher.
Grim Tidings (Ghosted, #2), by B.K. Borison
My Verdict: YMMV
Having enjoyed the first in this series, Good Spirits, I fully expected to come away with a warm, fuzzy feeling at the end. Instead, I was mostly just sad the entire time. There's a place for loneliness and melancholy in romance fiction, but either I wasn't in the right headspace, or this one is a miss on giving us enough happy to balance the sad. Darcy is a Grim Reaper who doesn't want to do the job, and Gabriel is a Guardian Angel who also doesn't want her to do the job. The animosity he has for her is understandable but eventually rather off-putting. They bond over wanting to have a real, human life, something taken from Darcy far too soon. Like in Good Spirits, the magic system is pretty easy to follow and humorously bureaucratic. That's about all the humor, however. The romance between the MCs feels sort of like the romance in a Kate Clayborn novel. It's well-written, but too sad for me. All that to say, your mileage may vary.
Audio narration was good! Stephen Dexter and Angelina Rocca matched the somber, occasionally playful tone of the novel.
I received temporary access to this audiobook courtesy of the publisher.
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Murder (Kiss, Marry, Kill, #2), by Ally Carter
My Verdict: Read It Soon
This series is so much fun. I don't know if I liked this as much as the first one, but it still scratches an itch I didn't know I had. If you like cozy mysteries but wish the romance arc didn't drag out for 15 books, try these. The two books have featured different couples and fun in their own ways. This is a Knives Out style mystery with lots of family drama and class differences. Carter is a fun writer and this is a low heat (closed door) story with more yearning than action, which is a plus for readers who prefer not to read explicit sex scenes or are looking for a break. The narrators, Brittany Presley and Will Damron, did a great job. Highly recommend if you want a vaguely Christmas-y mystery with a romance on the side.
I received access to this audiobook courtesy of the publisher.
Broken Rival, by Tessa Bailey
My Verdict: Read It
I'm as surprised as you are to be giving a Tessa Bailey book this recommendation. It's been years since I actively enjoyed one of her books, and to be honest, this is probably just a right book, right time situation. Who would have known that a stand-alone time travel dystopian romance from an author who usually delivers bland with some incongruent intense sex scenes would hit for me this year? This won't be for everyone, and some of the plot is wrapped up in a too-convenient way, but I was curious enough to keep the audio playing to the detriment of my real life. The MC's parents designed a tech that allows for time travel in the not-too-far future, and the planet is environmentally degraded to the point that time travelers were harming the past by stealing untold resources to bring to the future with them. (Many, of course, were staying in the past.) It got bad enough that the tech was destroyed and the MC's parents were executed. Now someone (near past) is rounding up the "takers" (time travelers) and executing them to finish the process of protecting the past. The MC is a special unicorn, so she finds and fixes the last of the pods her parents made and travels into the past to prevent this awful future. Then, as The Doctor would say, we get a bunch of timey-wimey, wibbly-wobbly. Two brothers, one who's nice and one seems to hate her, both are Very Hot. If this sounds appealing, go get it.
I received temporary access to this audiobook courtesy of the publisher.
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