February 10, 2026

The Calling

The Calling
by Kelley Armstrong
 
Book: Darkness Rising #2
Publisher: HarperTeen
Pub Date: April 10, 2012
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal
Format: Print
Source: Bought
Book Links: Goodreads  Amazon  Bookshop
 
Maya Delaney's paw-print birthmark is the mark of what she truly is - a skin-walker. 
She can run faster, climb higher, and see better than nearly everyone else. Experiencing intense connections with the animals that roam the woods outside her home, Maya knows it's only a matter of time before she's able to Shift and become one of them. And she believes there may be others in her small town with surprising talents.

Now Maya and her friends have been forced to flee from their homes during a forest fire they suspect was deliberately set. Then they're kidnapped, and after a chilling helicopter crash, they find themselves in the Vancouver Island wilderness with nothing but their extraordinary abilities to help them get back home.
 
My Review: Welp. Things are pretty much getting predictable at this point and it kind of takes away from what the book could have been.  

Maya is a skin walker. She is learning more about who she is, how it came to be, her parents and so much more. It might be a lot but things are only just starting. 

Maya and her friends all have some sort of ability. They are what this organization wants and will do anything to get a hole of them and keep them captive. 

A fire was set on purpose, forcing the entire town to vacate. Maya and her friends thought they'd be getting into the helicopter to get to the safe point and all will be well. They didn't expect to lose someone, crash, go into hiding/on the run and everything just got chaotic. 

The story is pretty predictable . You can tell where this is all going to go before it's even mentioned. I'm also seeing that Kelley basically writes the same book in her series. It all follows the same pattern and ideas that make all the series so predictable that it doesn't make you want to go grab them. 

My Rating:
✪✪✪✪

February 09, 2026

Weekly Spotlight - Darkest Powers


 “You know children, always playing with the forces of darkness.”
― Kelley Armstrong, The Reckoning


The Summoning
Chloe Saunders used to have a relatively normal life.

But now she finds herself in the middle of some really strange situations because:
~She suddenly starts seeing dead people.
~She gets locked up in a group home for unstable teens.
~The group home isn't what it seems.

My name is Chloe Saunders and my life will never be the same again.

All I wanted was to make friends, meet boys, and keep on being ordinary. I don't even know what that means anymore. It all started on the day that I saw my first ghost—and the ghost saw me.

Now there are ghosts everywhere and they won't leave me alone. To top it all off, I somehow got myself locked up in Lyle House, a "special home" for troubled teens. Yet the home isn't what it seems. Don't tell anyone, but I think there might be more to my housemates than meets the eye. The question is, whose side are they on? It's up to me to figure out the dangerous secrets behind Lyle House... before its skeletons come back to haunt me.

My Review


The Awakening
If you had met me a few weeks ago, you probably would have described me as an average teenage girl - someone normal. Now my life has changed forever and I’m as far away from normal as it gets. A living science experiment - not only can I see ghosts, but I was genetically altered by a sinister organization called Edison Group. What does that mean? For starters. I'm a teenage necromancer whose powers are out of control: I raise the dead without even trying. Trust me, that is not a power you want to have. Ever.

Now I’m running for my life with three of my supernatural friends - a charming sorcerer, a cynical werewolf, and a disgruntled witch - and we have to find someone who can help us before the Edison Group finds us first. Or die trying.

My Review


The Reckoning
 
Chloe Saunders is fifteen and would love to be normal. Unfortunately, Chloe happens to be a genetically engineered necromancer who can raise the dead without even trying. She and her equally gifted (or should that be 'cursed'?) friends are now running for their lives from the evil corporation that created them.

As if that's not enough, Chloe is struggling with her feelings for Simon, a sweet-tempered sorcerer, and his brother Derek, a not so sweet-tempered werewolf. And she has a horrible feeling she's leaning towards the werewolf...

Definitely not normal.

February 08, 2026

On the Brink of Bliss


On the Brink of Bliss
by A.L. Jackson
 
Book: Moonlight Ridge #5
Publisher: Author
Pub Date: February 10, 2026
Genre: Adult, Romance
Format: ARC
Source: Author
Book Links: Goodreads  Amazon  Bookshop
 
A sizzling single mom, fake marriage, heroine in danger romance from New York Times & USA Today Bestselling author, A.L. Jackson
The last thing I expected when I found the trespasser bathing in my river was for it to be her…

Daisy Adair has always been my dream girl. From when we were best friends in high school to finding her now.
A gorgeous mother who shows up on my property with three kids in tow.

But I became a recluse for a reason.
The life I chose is full of wickedness and peril. The last thing I need is the object of my every fantasy invading my space and risking her life because of me.

Only when she tells me she’s on the run from her ex, I promise to do anything to keep them safe, even marry her to protect her kids.
That single kiss at the altar rips through every barrier, our passion unleashed.
Now, living under the same roof blurs the lines I’ve drawn.
Each glance of her down the hall and I am splintering.
Each brush of her hand and I am brought to my knees.
Our future—bright, hopeful, and almost within reach—hovers on the edge of becoming real…

Until we discover the threat surrounding her is grimmer than either of us imagined.
Now I’m fighting to save her and her children before our second chance at forever is burned to the ground…

 
My Review: WOAH, this book wasted no time in pulling me in. Just two pages in and you have Cash and Silas talking about Silas's sister and how they are gonna get to her and away from someone they once dealt with back in their MC days.  

Yup, I'm a sucker for these books. Well, really anyone A.L. writes cause I've yet to meet a character I don't love nor a story I wish I could read again for the first time because its always just that good. 

Anyway...

Cash and his dog Duke are walking through his massive property to survey the are as he does when he gets this feeling that someone is there on his property. When he comes to it, he never expected it to be a woman and her kids camping out on his property let alone that women to be Daisy. 

Daisy needs help. She is worried about her ex coming after her and needs help and to be somewhere safe. Leading herself back to Cash, the one she feels safe with, the one she was always meant to be with. She took a scrap of info he mentioned once and used it to find him and now here she is. 

The initial interaction wasn't exactly how she planned it out to be and Cash is well being a grump aka grumpy giant. Cash agrees to help Daisy and her kids. He eventually even agrees to her request that needs of him. Daisy and her kids are now safe and can take a moment to breathe. Cash who never has anyone over now has a home full of people and his grumpy exterior is going to melt if Daisy and the kids have any say.

When a family outing went from a perfect day to ambush, things change and they change fast. Cash is emanating everything you can think of after that, but mainly his protectiveness over Daisy and the kids. How he wont let anything happen to them and after this, he is going to need to reveal himself to Daisy. He needs to open up more and finally let her in all the way. 

Cash has been loved in all the other books and always this grumpy, mystery, recluse kind of guy. But the way Daisy and those kids changed all of that. He finally let's it happen, he finally lets her love him and be given a family again. Not just what he already had with the guys but now his own into the mix and now all of guys have their families and this grumpy giant is the softest giant you'll meet.

I LOVED this entire series with everything I have. There is nothing that a book by A.L. can't fix. You'll have an emotional rollercoaster that was worth every moment. A bad day, week or year? Grab her book to lift you back up. Just in a reading slump? Yup her books will fix that right up.

Seriously love the guys in this series and I'll be thinking about them for years to come. Now go and get your hands on these books and get ready to meet some of the best characters ever written.

 
My Rating:
✪✪✪✪✪

February 05, 2026

The Gathering

The Gathering
by Kelley Armstrong
 
Book: Darkness Rising #1
Publisher: HarperTeen
Pub Date: April 12, 2011
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal
Format: Print
Source: Bought
Book Links: Goodreads  Amazon  Bookshop
 
Sixteen-year-old Maya is just an ordinary teen in an ordinary town. Sure, she doesn't know much about her background - the only thing she really has to cling to is an odd paw-print birthmark on her hip - but she never really put much thought into who her parents were or how she ended up with her adopted parents in this tiny medical-research community on Vancouver Island.

Until now.

Strange things have been happening in this claustrophobic town - from the mountain lions that have been approaching Maya to her best friend's hidden talent for "feeling" out people and situations, to the sexy new bad boy who makes Maya feel...different. Combine that with a few unexplained deaths and a mystery involving Maya's biological parents and it's easy to suspect that this town might have more than its share of skeletons in its closet.
 
My Review: Maya is your average teenager. She just happens to live in a small town, constantly dealing with the wildlife and goes to school where everyone attends in one building. Yes, the town is that small that all grades fit in one school building. 

Her birthday is coming up and her main request is getting a tattoo. She just wants to better fill out her birthmark, the only thing connecting her to where and who she came from. 

A simple birthday tattoo becomes this big massive thing. An older woman says so many things that they had to leave. But what if this woman wasn't wrong, what if her tribe's story and legends are true? 

As the first book in the series, it's a good start into this new world. It could've been a bit faster paced for me. Some things dragged out a little bit too long, but overall I'm excited for this series. This series also might have come off better if I had read it when I first got it instead of leaving it on my TBR for so long. Now that I'm older, YA books aren't my main age group anymore. 

My Rating:
✪✪✪✪

February 02, 2026

Weekly Spotlight - February Anticipated Reads


The Astral Library
From New York Times bestselling author Kate Quinn comes a gorgeously written fantastical adventure which poses the question: Have you ever wished you could live inside a book? Welcome to the Astral Library, where books are not just objects, but doors to new worlds, new lives, and new futures.

Alexandria “Alix” Watson has learned one lesson from her barren childhood in the foster-care system: unlike people, books will never let you down. Working three dead-end jobs to make ends meet and knowing college is a pipe dream, Alix takes nightly refuge in the high-vaulted reading room at the Boston Public Library, escaping into her favorite fantasy novels and dreaming of far-off lands. Until the day she stumbles through a hidden door and meets the Librarian: the ageless, acerbic guardian of a hidden library where the desperate and the lost escape to new lives...inside their favorite books.

The Librarian takes a dazzled Alix under her wing, but before she can escape into the pages of her new life, a shadowy enemy emerges to threaten everyone the Astral Library has ever helped protect. Aided by a dashing costume-shop owner, Alix and the Librarian flee through the Regency drawing rooms of Jane Austen to the back alleys of Sherlock Holmes and the champagne-soaked parties of The Great Gatsby as danger draws inexorably closer. But who does their enemy really wish to destroy—Alix, the Librarian, or the Library itself?

Get it Here


Throne of Nightmares
'Beware of waking the gods, their dreams are often our nightmares . . .'

A book of dangerous magic draws two readers into a perilous quest to find it - and their own happy ending - in this action-packed standalone fantasy romance from Sunday Times bestselling sensation Kerri Maniscalco.

A prince who prefers games of the head to those of the heart.

Prince Sloth hates leaving his enchanted library, but when a forgotten deity threatens the very fabric of the Underworld, he's thrust into a race against time. He must find the Book of Nightmares - an ancient artifact that has the power to break worlds - before it unleashes a deadly game to free its master, the Goddess of Night. When a betrayal leaves him marked, and desperate, his path collides with a young woman who possesses the legendary Phoenix Tear - a portal stone unlike any other.

A librarian who is all sweet sunshine . . . until she burns.

Lore Brimstone has always loved getting lost in a book - but she never meant literally. Yet, after visiting a traveling caravan, she quickly finds herself transported to a terrifying but oddly familiar world - with a calculating prince at her side. Realizing they are living out her favourite novels one by one, they face off against an increasingly dark magic as they try to survive the story.

A twisted tale that means they can't trust themselves - or their hearts.

As Lore and Sloth navigate the pages of her beloved novels gone wrong, she must channel her inner main character to defeat the Book of Nightmares before the wall between the gods and mortals comes crashing down, dooming them all.

Get it Here

 

Wicked Onyx
In a ruthless magical academy where she's cursed and powerless, the last Onyx must unravel dark family secrets and navigate dangerous alliances to reclaim her legacy and make those who betrayed her pay.

You don't graduate Nightbridge Academy—you survive it.

Born into a sorcerer bloodline, cursed, and cut off from my power, I was accustomed to being an outcast. For generations, my bloodline carried the weight of a crime committed by our ancestor. But my mother’s death changed everything. She left a clue that could prove our an ancient text hidden deep beneath Nightsbridge Academy.

The Academy is a fortress of power, housing the most dangerous incantors and sorcerers, conscripted to keep Horrors and Echoes at bay. And as the last surviving Onyx, I’m owed admission.

My plan is simple—find the book and expose the Imperium as the liars they are.

But I didn’t plan for the whispers that haunt my dreams. Or the complication of feelings I shouldn’t be capable of—stirred by two men bound to the very institution I’ve come to destroy. One sees too much yet says too little. The other is steady, protective, and always in my corner.

I can’t have either.

Yet when I’m in their presence…my curse begins to crack.

If they discover my true purpose, I’m dead.

But some truths are worth dying for.

The Imperium cursed my bloodline. Stripped us of our magic. Branded us as traitors. And now they will pay.

Get it Here 

 

Cleopatra
Queen, Legend, Cleopatra tells her own story in this evocative and sensuous historical epic Cleopatra, from the bestselling and award-winning author of Faebound and The Final Strife .

YOU KNOW MY NAME.
BUT YOU DO NOT KNOW ME.

Your historians call me seductress, but I was always in love's thrall.

Your playwrights speak of my witchcraft, but I was gifted my talents by the gods.

Your poets sing of my blood-lust, but I was protecting my children.

They cannot credit that a mere woman could be powerful, strategic, divinely blessed to rule.

Death will silence me no longer.

Get it Here



A Secret in the Garden
From USA Today bestselling author Jeneane O'Riley comes the first in a series of deliciously dark and whimsical standalone romances.

Some secrets were never meant to be unearthed.

Perched on a windswept cliff, Blackwood Manor looms like a dark monument to a mysterious family. Behind its grand iron gates, one part of the estate has been left to rot since the tragic death of Hester Blackwood: the once-glorious conservatory, now choked by vines and shattered glass. The rest of the family is gone—only her brooding son, Jasper, remains, the heir to a weapons empire.

Desperate to save her job and out of options, botanist Eliza Arnold makes a bold gamble—drive to the manor and beg the elusive millionaire for a donation. Jasper agrees...on one chilling condition: restore the conservatory. Alone. No help. No leaving.

But the manor is not empty.

As Eliza battles thorns and secrets, a magnetic tension builds between her and Jasper—dark, dangerous, and impossible to ignore. And something else stirs among the roots and ruins...whispers in the walls, confusing disturbances, and a presence watching her every move.

The deeper Eliza digs, the more she uncovers a garden of grief, longing…and desire. Because in Blackwood Manor, even buried things can bloom again.

Get it Here

February 01, 2026

February Reading Challenge

 

Let's get reading! February Reading challenge is here!  

Here is a list of books to help you get started:

Romance is in the Air :
Book Lovers by Emily Henry
Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood
 
Anti Hero Trope:
Rhapsodic by Laura Thalassa
Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge


We welcome you to comment with your suggestions and tell us which bingo spot you’re most excited about this month!


January 27, 2026

The Reckoning

The Reckoning
by Kelley Armstrong

Book: Darkest Powers #3
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pub Date: April 6, 2010
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal
Format: Print
Source: Bought 
Book LinksGoodreads  Amazon  Bookshop  
 
Chloe Saunders is fifteen and would love to be normal. Unfortunately, Chloe happens to be a genetically engineered necromancer who can raise the dead without even trying. She and her equally gifted (or should that be 'cursed'?) friends are now running for their lives from the evil corporation that created them.

As if that's not enough, Chloe is struggling with her feelings for Simon, a sweet-tempered sorcerer, and his brother Derek, a not so sweet-tempered werewolf. And she has a horrible feeling she's leaning towards the werewolf...

Definitely not normal.

 
My Review: The final book was by far the better one in the series. 

Chloe and her friends are once again planning a way out. The ones meant to help them have been secretly behind many of the things going on, like the rouge werewolves causing Derek and Chloe trouble. 

Oh and if that wasn't enough, they get betrayed yet again by them when they knock them out and bring them RIGHT back to the very place they are running from. They are all too powerful ans difficult to handle and so the best thing was betray them and send them right into the enemy. 

Welp, we've seen this movie already. Everyone must work together to break out yet again and hopefully this will be the last time they get caught and have to escape because this is just a bad repetitive cycle.

It doesn't take long before Chloe reached out to the demon hanging around and together they come up with a plan for everyone to escape and get what they want.

A very long day of escaping, fighting and destroying the place, we finally get an ending that everyone deserves. Yes, they might have to be on the run for who knows how long. But they are together, they are family and they will make the best of this.

Plus Chloe and Derek finally have their moment.

Overall, it wasn't a bad series at all. If you're closer in age to these characters, then you will probably love this on a whole different level. If you're like me and had these books sit on your TBR for 10 years before diving in, well, we should have read it sooner. It's a little bit harder to enjoy and relate when you're no longer in a similar age group as the characters.
 
My Rating:
✪✪✪✪

January 26, 2026

Weekly Spotlight - Books Set at Sea

 
The Woman in Cabin 10
In this tightly wound, enthralling story reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s works, Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, has just been given the assignment of a lifetime: a week on a luxury cruise with only a handful of cabins. The sky is clear, the waters calm, and the veneered, select guests jovial as the exclusive cruise ship, the Aurora, begins her voyage in the picturesque North Sea. At first, Lo’s stay is nothing but pleasant: the cabins are plush, the dinner parties are sparkling, and the guests are elegant. But as the week wears on, frigid winds whip the deck, gray skies fall, and Lo witnesses what she can only describe as a dark and terrifying nightmare: a woman being thrown overboard. The problem? All passengers remain accounted for—and so, the ship sails on as if nothing has happened, despite Lo’s desperate attempts to convey that something (or someone) has gone terribly, terribly wrong…


 
 
The Amalfi Curse
Powerful witchcraft. A hunt for sunken treasure. Forbidden love on the high seas. Beware the Amalfi Curse…

Haven Ambrose, a trailblazing nautical archaeologist, has come to the sun-soaked village of Positano to investigate the mysterious shipwrecks along the Amalfi Coast. But Haven is hoping to find more than old artifacts beneath the azure waters; she is secretly on a quest to locate a trove of priceless gemstones her late father spotted on his final dive. Upon Haven’s arrival, strange maelstroms and misfortunes start plaguing the town. Is it nature or something more sinister at work?

As Haven searches for her father’s sunken treasure, she begins to unearth a centuries-old tale of ancient sorcery and one woman’s quest to save her lover and her village by using the legendary art of stregheria, a magical ability to harness the ocean. Could this magic be behind Positano’s latest calamities? Haven must unravel the Amalfi Curse before the region is destroyed forever…

Against the dazzling backdrop of the Amalfi Coast, this bewitching novel shimmers with mystery, romance and the untamed magic of the sea.


 
 
From Below
No light. No air. No escape.
Hundreds of feet beneath the ocean's surface, a graveyard waits...

Years ago, the SS Arcadia vanished without a trace during a routine voyage. Though a strange, garbled emergency message was broadcast, neither the ship nor any of its crew could be found. Sixty years later, its wreck has finally been discovered more than three hundred miles from its intended course...a silent graveyard deep beneath the ocean's surface, eagerly waiting for the first sign of life.

Cove and her dive team have been granted permission to explore the Arcadia's rusting hull. Their purpose is straightforward: examine the wreck, film everything, and, if possible, uncover how and why the supposedly unsinkable ship vanished.

But the Arcadia has not yet had its fill of death, and something dark and hungry watches from below. With limited oxygen and the ship slowly closing in around them, Cove and her team will have to fight their way free of the unspeakable horror now desperate to claim them.
Because once they're trapped beneath the ocean's waves, there's no going back.


 
 
The Last One
When Caz steps onboard the exclusive cruise liner RMS Atlantica, it’s the start of a vacation of a lifetime with her new love, Pete. On their first night they explore the ship, eat, dance, make friends, but when Caz wakes the next morning, Pete is missing.

And when she walks out into the corridor, all the cabin doors are open. To her horror, she soon realizes that the ship is completely empty. No passengers, no crew, nobody but her. The Atlantica is steaming into the mid-Atlantic and Caz is the only person on board. But that’s just the beginning of the terrifying journey she finds herself trapped on in this white-knuckled mystery.