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 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.

January 22, 2026

The Awakening

The Awakening
by Kelley Armstrong

Book: Darkest Powers #2
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pub Date: April 28, 2009
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal
Format: Print
Source: Bought 
Book LinksGoodreads  Amazon  Bookshop 
 
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: Welp, I will say book two was better and got mem more interested in the series, but I still think it would've been more of a hit if I read it closer to when it released than have left it sitting on my shelf for so long. 
 
Chloe is slowly becoming more knowledgeable about who and what she is. While not exactly in control right now, she is more powerful than people may think. 
 
Right now, the main point is to escape with her friends (Tori still questionable on the friend scale at first) and somehow venture back into the normal world. Even if that means living on the streets for now. Though normal doesn't have the same meaning anymore, but together they can make it work. 
 
I still can't get over the way Chloe is constantly talking to herself, more than what a possible person might do and was just too much for me and would have wanted more maturity but then again it's been a while since I read YA and so the younger immature characters are kinda hard for me to like these day. Overall, I did like this one better and finally more glued into this world and can't wait to read the next one.

 
My Rating:
✪✪✪✪

January 20, 2026

The Summoning

The Summoning
by Kelley Armstrong

Book: Darkest Powers #1
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pub Date: July 1, 2008
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal
Format: Print
Source: Bought 
Book LinksGoodreads  Amazon  Bookshop
 

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: I'm finally catching up on the older books on my TBR and this was a series that I probably should've read when it came out. I might've been more hooked than reading it at a much older age.

I liked the book enough to finish the series but have a lot of mixed feelings about this book. 

The main character, Chloe, is annoying and that's the nicest way to put it. She is constantly talking to herself in the most annoying and immature way possible. It almost makes it seem as if she really is crazy, despite her episode in school being something real. 

Chloe is a good average kid. Goes to school, studying film in art school and just going day by day really. Nothing super special for a HS freshman. She's had to move numerous times, had a few nannies since her dad is constantly away for his business.

However, normal is about to go out the window the second she is screaming and school staff is trying to hold her down and calm her. She saw a ghost, a real actual ghost. But, that can't be right, they aren't real and she just had a mental breakdown. 

Welp, that's how it looked from every angle anyway. So the school wants her to get some help before returning and thus off to a group home she goes for treatment. 

Her diagnosis is a fake one. She is more than meets the eye. The people at this home all have secrets. Nothing is what it seems and Chloe is about to find that out and then some.  


My Rating:
✪✪✪✪