We’ve completed one more week of February, and we’ve got a little less than one more still to go before this month is over. I read two books this week while enjoying my daughter’s week-long break from school with her. It made for a great week. Both books were fantastic!

1. House of Night – Celia Aaron (ARC)

CW: Blood, Enslavement, Forced Captivity, Torture, Child Death, Mutilation, Vomit, Human Taxidermy, Graphic Depictions of Violence & Injuries, References to/Threat of SA, Genocide, Suicide, Self-Injury, Depression, Panic Attacks, Body Horror, Graphic Depictions of Medical Procedures

A very big thank you to The Nerd Fam for the advance reader copy (ARC) of the eBook for this title! It will be out everywhere on March 4th, and can currently be preordered on Amazon.

As I said last week when I’d started the book, my initial interest for this ARC was largely due to the title. I had read a series that used the same name almost twenty years ago. This book is unrelated to that series aside from the fact that they’re both vampire fiction, albeit of very different strains. I’ve always been a big fan of vampire stories from literature to folklore. That’s why I am so excited to see that vampire horror is back.

For a long time in popular vampire media, they weren’t being portrayed as scary monsters. They were sex appeal with some fangs. I don’t necessarily mind that occasionally, but I was missing that element of fear. The vampires that Celia Aaron has created in House of Night are truly terrifying. They are the stuff of nightmares, and yet the romance isn’t lost. It is still just as easy to be drawn to them. This is absolutely a story that will get your heart racing and leave you craving more at the end.

I also really enjoyed seeing the diversity in the cast of characters. Humans and vampires alike came from a wide variety of backgrounds and demographics, giving the world an authentic feel that’s missing from a lot of vampire fiction. The characters really bring the story to life. Their realism makes everything so vivid it’s impossible not to fall into the narrative. I was very relieved to see that the release date of the sequel is already scheduled, and not terribly distant.

2. The Hemlock Queen – Hannah Whitten

CW: Blood, Forced Captivity, Mutilation, Graphic Depictions of Violence & Injuries, References to SA, Suicidal Ideation, Depression, Body Horror, Graphic Depictions of Medical Procedures, Parental Death, Domestic Violence, Heavy Drinking, Substance Abuse/Addiction

This is the second installment of a series called The Nightshade Crown. The first installment, which I read back in December, is called The Foxglove King. I enjoyed the first one, but walked away feeling like it was longer than it needed to be while still leaving some areas with great potential unexplored. This time around, I had no such complaints. The edition that I read had 464 pages and Whitten used every one of them to the fullest.

I really enjoy the worldbuilding of this series, most especially the magic system. Even with how robust those details become, this installment remains a very fast-paced adventure the whole way through while tensions continue to build the entire time. While there was a full story arc in the novel, there is clearly much more yet to come in the series. I am looking forward to finding out where it goes from here.

There are more questions that I have about the world created and aspects I hope the author gives focus to in the next book. However, that’s stemming from a place of curiosity and interest rather than a feeling of potential missed. The third and final installment will be coming out in July. It has definitely earned a place on my TBR list now. It’s titled The Nightshade God.

One More Week of February

We’ve now got a little less than one more week of February left. I’ve got another couple of ARC eBooks queued up and an ever-growing physical TBR pile. I’ll be doing a lot more reading, and I hope that you will be too. Please remember to support your local libraries and independent bookstores as much as possible. They are extremely valuable places that offer their communities so much more than many people realize.

Keep an eye out on my YouTube channel or the main updates page here to follow along on all our bookish adventures. My reading recaps go out on Mondays and our bookstore adventures go out on Thursdays. As always, I want to hear from you! What have you been reading lately? Are you having fun with it? Have you read any of these titles, and if so, what did you think of them? Tell me everything, and follow along for more!