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Reviews From This Past Week
Stealing The Trolls’s Heart by Lyonne Riley
Release Date: May 31, 2023
Content Notes
She wants to kill him.
He thinks it’s hot.
Enemies to lovers
Foreign language miscommunication
Grumpy/Grumpier
Wartime setting
Wartime violence
Magic Mating Bond
Lyonne Riley is one of the best erotic flash fantasy fiction writers I’ve found so far on the Internet. Stealing the Troll’s Heart read to me what a short-form storyteller can do with the monster romance genre. They can jam big things into small packages.
Yes, that was indeed a dumb sex joke.
This book is only about 140 pages so most readers will finish it quickly. Yet, Riley makes her words count. So I didn’t feel like I was reading a novel squeezed tightly into a novella. It even had a sense of being epic against a wartime backdrop and a constant sense of survival in a harsh society.
I could see some wishing it was longer because the writing and the adventure are entertaining. Yet, I still felt satisfied.
The Hanging City by Charlie N. Holmberg
Release Date: August 1, 2023
Content Notes
Fade-to-black
Social Inequalities
Forbidden Love
Found Family
Abusive Birth Father
Post-apocalyptic Fantasy
Journey of personal acceptance
Charlie N. Holmberg has written up a story in The Hanging City that I’m definitely recommending to any reader who is interested in Monster Romance but without the spicy stuff. It is a fun story that I think will engage many readers. I think Holmberg cuts herself off from fully working with what she gave herself but it did not stop me from having fun.
It may be that one of my favorite things about the Hanging City is simply that it exists and it’s a fun story. I have a low-key desire for YA monster romance and this checks off the necessary boxes. My teen self would have eaten this up like a hot fudge sundae. My adult self wanted to shake my fist at the fade-to-black scenes, but honestly, I’m plenty cool with that in the YA section.
I felt like Holmberg had her strongest storytelling at the story’s front end. By the end, the plot path read like she was fighting against her own world, relying on luck and rushing the pace to make sure her leading lady gets a happy ending.
Tamed by the Troll by Tracy Lauren
Release Date: May 2, 2019
Content Notes
Trauma Survival
Roadtrip!
Forced Proximity
Enemies to lovers
Grumpy/Grumpier
Misogyny
Don’t mess with goblin cum.
Seriously. Don’t.
Tamed by the Troll is a journey Tracy Lauren takes us on. I mean that figuratively and literally. A significant chunk of this plot is a road trip. While I didn’t enjoy where it starts, I love how Lauren sticks the landing.
For full transparency, I wouldn’t say I liked the FMC. That is the core of why the beginning was rough for me to read. I just couldn’t tell if she was so traumatized she lost all survival instincts or if that was just her personality. She insists Brom, the MMC, is awful and cruel at the start. I just couldn’t buy it from his actions and reactions.
It isn’t until Adelaide actually calms down and opens herself to self-healing does she become more sympathetic a character to me. That is a point though that I really don’t want to be lost in this review! This story is an inner self glow-up! You just need to hang on for the whole ride.
To Be Read
Okay, yes. I’ve got to read the rest of The Perish Woods series. Then I’ve got some of the spoookiest shit coming for me. And then Lyonne Riley has me in her thrall for later down the road.
Housekeeping
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I wish I could say I'm surprised by the fade to black in The Hanging City, but after reading the Paper Magician it feels pretty spot on for their brand. Holmberg is a great storyteller, but I wish that they would go *just a bit* further with that aspect of their writing. I don't need smut for smut's sake, but just take it all the way and commit to the bit.
…and The Salt Road... I'm 50% through. Wow. Just Wow.