eARC Review: Deathly Fates by Tesia Tsai

Deathly Fates
by Tesia Tsai
Publication Date: April 14th 2026
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Find This Book: Deathly Fates
Source: NetGalley eARC
Rating: 3/5

As a priestess paid to guide the deceased home, Kang Siying has never feared death. However, when her beloved father collapses, Siying realizes that even she is not free from the cruel grasp of mortality. Desperate to provide her father with the medical aid he needs, Siying accepts a dangerous job that promises a generous commission, and travels to a hostile state to retrieve the corpse of a missing prince.

But the moment Siying places her reanimation talisman on the dead prince's head, rather than make the corpse obedient to Siying's commands, the talisman brings the prince back to life. Worse, he won't stay alive for long—not unless he absorbs enough qi, or life force, to keep his soul anchored to his body.

In return for a reward worth twice her original commission, Siying agrees to aid the frustratingly handsome prince in finding and purifying evil spirits for their qi. As they journey across the countryside, encountering vengeful ghosts and enemy spies alike, they gradually uncover dark secrets about the prince's death—secrets that could endanger both Siying's father and their entire kingdom.

I was hoping this book would completely hook me and make it impossible to put down, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. The execution felt lacking overall, and I found myself pushing through a story that never fully grabbed my attention.

I ended up loving Siying in the last few chapters, but for most of the book I struggled to feel invested in her goals or emotional journey. The dynamic between her and the back-from-the-dead prince had potential, but it needed far more development. I was told they were falling in love, but I never really felt that chemistry on the page. Their relationship lacked emotional depth, and both characters could have used stronger personalities.

The MMC especially frustrated me — he’s often an idiot and a coward, and while I appreciated that Siying actually calls him out on it, I couldn’t fully buy into her feelings for him. She spends so much of the book pining after him long before he shows meaningful character growth, which made the romance hard for me to invest in.

The most interesting part of the book was Siying’s role as a priestess of death, but ironically, the story barely explores that aspect. I kept wanting more of the worldbuilding, lore, and moral complexity tied to her position, and it felt like a missed opportunity.

Overall, this wasn’t a terrible read, but it never lived up to its premise for me. There were interesting ideas here, but the characters, romance, and execution didn’t fully deliver.

Review: This Woven Kingdom

This Woven Kingdom
by Tahereh Mafi
Publication Date: February 1st 2022
Publisher: HarperCollins
Find This Book: This Woven Kingdom
Rating: 3/5

**A finalized copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.**

This Woven Kingdom contains beautiful prose and descriptions, but unfortunately very little plot. It comes with the territory of an almost 500-page book that spans about 3 days of in-book time. 60% of This Woven Kingdom is the main characters’ inner monologue, 20% is setting/food/clothing description, 10% is verbal dialogue, and the last 10% is where the actual occurring events happen. I prefer to be shown actions to back up character motivations and thoughts, but this book heavily relies upon the reader being told what to think. The whole experience made it hard to connect with, or even like, either of the two main protagonists.

I was hoping for a lush Persian mythology read, but This Woven Kingdom is essentially a Cinderella retelling with cosmetic Middle Eastern inspirations regarding food and clothing. A dual-POV read, we alternate between Alizeh a long-lost princess of the Jinn who is currently hiding as a lowly servant, and Kamran the heir to the human empire of Ardunia. Their lots in life place them at odds, for Alizeh was prophesized to end the reign of the current king of Ardunia, Kamran’s grandfather. Of course, Alizeh and Kamran happen to cross paths on the street and become an insta-love forbidden romance. As I mentioned, this book is about 10% plot. Over the course of about 3 days, Kamran and Alizeh think about the other non-stop and their inner thoughts take up the majority of the writing of this book. All of this builds up to a ball, (Yay, an event is finally occurring!) so you have that to look forward to in the last 100 pages or so. Check out my book recap for a more thorough summary.

If you come into this with the right mindset, I think it can certainly be an enjoyable read, but it was very different than how it was marketed and you have to be ready for it to be a slow-paced read, very trope-heavy and descriptor-heavy.

Review: Stone Secrets by Jordan Scott

Stone Secrets

by Jordan Scott

Publication Date: May 4^th 2013

Publisher: Ravendahl Publications, Inc.
Source: Author

Find This Book: Stone Secrets

Rating: 3/5

I was provided a copy of this book by the author in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely adored the concept of this book when it was offered to me, and unfortunately I suck at focusing on ebooks which is why this review has come a couple years after I was originally given I copy. I apologize profusely! When I got an ereader for my birthday this Wednesday, I easily finished the book in a couple days. The writing was a little awkward in some parts, mostly with the family talking to each other, but over all there were not too many errors. I personally wouldn’t call my siblings “Brother” or “Sister”. I’d probably call Kaia ‘Kai’ and Aiden “Addi” or something like that. Cute sibling nicknames. I also thought calling their father by his first name was a little weird? And there were a couple times in the beginning of the book when the father called Kaia sister when she is his daughter (though this is an older version of the book and perhaps this has been edited since 2013).

So this book is about a Celtic family (Kaia and Aiden who switch POV’s) and their fantasy adventure in Ireland. I don’t know too much about Celtic culture or the Druids, so it was super cool to read about it. I feel like it’s not a popular topic. This was certainly the first time I had encountered it in my readings. I do wish there had been more world/mythology build/explaining in that regard because I didn’t know too much about it. Seers, Bards, Finn and Aiden’s weird ‘force’ abilities, Kendra’s ability to travel to the underworld, the feud between the druids and the knights- all that could have been better explained I think. The action-packed approach was cool, but left me with too many unanswered questions in my opinion.

It was also not quite clear why the bad guy was the bad guy in my opinion. He was part of the druids and his ‘turning to the dark side’ wasn’t really shown or explained? Kaia (the main character) just magically knew that this person wasn’t on their side anymore? I was totally confused why she was running away from them for awhile until they later clearly chose the Knights side of the fight.

There was a lot of magic and island-hopping in this book which was pretty cool. It just felt a bit rushed and underdeveloped. Again, not a lot of world building in the description area which I think would have been a nice touch. All in all, this had a lot of potential- but I was a bit disappointed with the end result. The book could have gone so much deeper (and maybe the other books in the series do) but this just left me wishing for what it could have been!

Review: Reboot by Amy Tintera

Reboot

by Amy Tintera

Publication Date: May 7^th 2013

Publisher: HarperTeen
Source: Bought

Find This Book: Reboot

Rating: 3/5

           

            I’ve owned this book for awhile, I actually don’t remember when I bought it, and I finally got around to reading it the past week! I’ve got to admit, I originally bought it for the aesthetic of the cover- it’s so cool. Besides, a book about a badass girl and a hopeless boy? Yes, please.

            SO. Reboot is about a girl named Wren who died, and 178 minutes later she woke up. When you die and come back you’re no longer human, and no you’re also not a zombie. You ‘Reboot’. You become stronger, faster, able to heal, and become less emotional. The longer it takes a person to Reboot, the less human they are. Our main character is the deadliest Reboot in the known universe (though it does only take place in a couple locations in Texas in some sort of post-apocalyptic world). She trains the newbies to be tough like her, except when she’s training a boy who’d only been dead for 22 minutes; her task is more than a little difficult. Our novel is a gripping story about friendship, love, and freedom and since it doesn’t end in a cliffhanger I’m not that interested in reading the sequel.

            178 and 22 have an interesting relationship. Callum is sweet and human-like, and honestly reminds me of one of my own relationships. It takes awhile but that cutie wins Wren’s affections and they decide to escape their government holding cells when she is ordered to exterminate the troublesome 22! I’d say their relationship was pretty well-written and adorable. It has a happy ending which was a pleasant surprise. Too many books that I’ve read recently have ended either bitter-sweet or full on tragedy so this was a nice change-up. Like I said before, the story ends on a pleasant note, not a huge cliffhanger or anything so I’m kind of content where the story is right now and might not read the sequel… 

            I don’t particularly have anything to nitpick at, there’s nothing that I disliked about this book and would totally recommend it to anyone interested! At the same time it was a bit underwhelming. The concept of Reboots is interesting and I think it could have been explored a bit more in this first book with some more background details. Specifically, What happened to the rest of the world? What is bringing these people back to life? Why is it that kids adapt better to being Reboots; does the government kill every adult Reboot? The book didn’t make me passionate by reading it, which is why I feel pretty “meh” about the book as a whole.

Review: Our Souls to Keep by Gary A. Caruso

Our Souls to Keep

by Gary A. Caruso

Publication Date: April 11^th 2013

Publisher: Inertia Publishing
Source: Author

Find This Book: Our Souls to Keep

Rating: 3/5

I was provided a copy of this book by the author in exchange for an honest review.

The concept of this book revolves around the rules of Heaven and Hell. Particularly around the idea that Heaven and Hell work together and that Satan picks up God’s “trash”. Anyone who commits murder or suicide goes to hell and the tortures included. With the depression and suicide we see in society I thought this was a bit distasteful, but it made for an interesting notion. Even the purest soul will be tainted and damned just because they took their own life. This brings us to the plot of our story. Demons go around manipulating people into taking their own life in order to collect their souls for Satan. A demon named Nevin collected Wake’s (our main character) mother’s soul and Wake made a deal with the demon to kill himself in exchange for his mother’s soul’s safety. This leads us to Wake the half human half demon collecting other human’s souls for Satan in order to keep his mother safe. However, the game completely changes when he falls in love with his biggest target yet. Annemarie, the pregnant girl with a sacred child.

Keep in mind that I was not originally drawn to the story, however I certainly found myself enjoying it even with my criticism below.  

One thing I didn’t particularly like but didn’t really affect the story too much was how quickly Wake reverted back to acting like a human. He’d had all memories taken away from him as well as human emotions, but at the slightest doubt in his contract he started acting human again? I think it would have been better if Wake was swamped by the emotional overload and struggled between the human that he was and the demon life he has now. Instead it seemed more like a “whelp, I’m human now and my mother can’t be saved so I’m just going to let her rot in the fiery pits of hell while I fall in love and try to live my own life, no biggie.” It just seems like he made these huge life-changing decisions too fast and never looked back to doubt his choice.

The description in this book was quite interesting to say the least. For example, the “sunset clouds thick like boiling carrot soup”. I’ve never had carrot soup so I can’t testify how thick it is but comparing clouds to soup to begin with I just found odd, but in a good way. Descriptions like so led to a certain unique charm.

Another good quality of the book was its humor. The budding friendship between Wake and the angel Gabriel was quite amusing and gave the book a little hope. Even with the heaven/hell battle happening in the background the character’s had their light-hearted cute scenes as well. Our Souls to Keep had a Romeo & Juliet feel to it, including an unnecessary (in my opinion) romantic scene right before the climax. About to be attacked by demons, Annemarie and Wake decide to have their first kiss? They need to straighten their priorities.

Lastly, I want to brush on the topic of character development. While I thought some of Wake’s decisions were a bit rushed, his character and defining personality were well thought out and developed. Satan, Nevin and Wake seemed to be the only characters who weren’t shallow. Everyone else only made extremely brief appearances to aid Wake or give him important information before they died (Wake’s brother and the girl hunter for example). There were so many minor characters killed off I can’t even tell you all of their names. Yes, it’s a demon-killing book, but as a reader I can’t become attached and car about somebody dying when they’ve only been on a couple pages. The same thing happening multiple times just made it kind of bland. Annemarie wasn’t as bad, but her constant description was being innocent and pure. I just wish we’d gotten to see more about her and her backstory instead of her just being a pure love interest for a damned demon.

So overall, the novel had a great concept, the writer had an interesting writing style, but it just seemed under developed. I would have liked more depth to the characters and plot, but it was a fine read the way it was.

Review: The Reluctant Knight by Doug Glener

The Reluctant Knight

by Doug Glener

Publication Date: Jan 15^th 2013

Publisher: Paladin Publishing
Source: Author

Find This Book: The Reluctant Knight

Rating: 3.5/5

This book was provided to me by the author in exchange for an honest review.

My overall impression of this book was that it was quirky and new. The concept really had a lot of potential. The book is about ninth grader Percival Adler and his adventure in the course of a week. He gets bullied by Huey, Dewey, and Louie, but the author never really says anything about them. Someone just tells them that it’s pathetic to pick on a freshman, implying that the bullies are older I suppose. The book seems a bit underdelevoped as a whole that I’ll get into later, but it also showed great potential.

It starts off with Percival running into the woods behind the school to escape his torturers where he comes across a door, which of course he goes through. These scene immediately reminded me of The Chronicles of Narnia when Eustace and Jill run through a strange door into Narnia in their attempt to escape bullies. Maybe that scene was inspiration? Or just a really suspicious coincidence... I hope it's a tribute because I enjoyed that parallelism.

Through the door, Percival meets Lord Arwain and his 7 knights. The knights each knelt before a reflecting pool and whispered words of hope to people. They’re basically all the angel of the conscience (you know, the stereotypical angel/devil on the shoulder?). On the other side of the coin is Raeben and his 7 followers. They each sat next to a pool of polluted water and encourage people to do bad things. In my comparison they are clearly the devil on one’s shoulder.

Percival, with the help of his two friends Chaz and Dillon, his older sister Guinevere, and a badass samurai (named Tesshu) must stop Raeban’s goonies from the dead and his plan to destroy… well the tri-state area really, though he’ll probably expand his vision eventually. I don’t want to say too much about the plot because pretty much everything is a spoiler, but I do want to say that I thought the historical figures and weapons were researched well enough. The characters were satisfactorily described (though I’m pretty sure Tesshu’s sword was never specified which was odd considering the author wrote the specific clothes that Tesshu was wearing. So I just assumed a Katana?) Anyways, King Alfred, Raeban’s minions and the myth of Raeban’s old home was really well gone and extremely enjoyable. The plot itself was absolutely great but the writing could have been more developed, which I hope will improve in the future :)

There were cons to the book though. As mentioned above, the main characters didn’t really develop. Sure they learn to band together and Guinevere actually stands up for her brother, but they seemed very flat and unrealistic. How are things really supposed to go back to normal after a week adventure like that? And Guys/her phone can't seriously be the most important things to Guinevere, what kind of girl is she?? The kids just seemed pretty 2-demensional and forgettable when could have been so much more. The fact that Percival’s parents just happen to take him out of school for the week but don’t confront the school about his bullies- Not very realistic. On top of that these “high schoolers” acted extremely childish and came across to me as elementary students at the oldest. Even the cover makes Percival look like a 5th grader. I mean, I know guys were immature in school, but no one was THAT bad in high school. The way their age group acts doesn't seem realistic at all.

Just one more thing that really ticked me off, the fact that Percival daydreamed about vanquishing the bullies to win the affections of the prettiest girl in class. She doesn’y even come back into the book, so it’s not even that big of a deal, but why “prettiest”? That’s demeaning! She couldn’t have been the funniest? Smartest? Anything that has to do with personality or talent instead of something you can’t control like looks? I mean, the whole point of THIS BOOK was that Percival wasn’t the hero type and certainly didn’t look like a hero yet he gets his adventure to prove himself. Yet he’s shallow enough to think like this about others?

In summary though, I enjoyed this books plot and the concept was just great. Obviously I nit-picked at this a lot but these little things honestly bugged me almost the entire book. However, the Pros definitely outweighed the Cons and I hope to see more in the future from Doug Glener.