CBR18 Book 46: "Dominion" by Jean Kwok

Page count: 448 pages

Rating: 4 stars

CBR18 Bingo: 26 (published this year. This month, in fact)

Thank you to G.P. Putnam's Sons and NetGalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own. This book is on sale now.

Rubi is an azure, a group of displaced and badly treated refugees. In this fantasy world, there are four dominions, each with its own specialities. There is the Azure Dragon dominion, which can control plants and all things growing, and many of their people can shapeshift into animals; the Scarlet Phoenix dominion, which controls fire; the Silver Tyger (yes, that's how they spell the name of the magical animal) dominion, which can manipulate metal; and the Onyx Tortoise dominion, which controls water and ice. The various dominions also seem to have very different views on gender equality. The Scarlet Dominion is fully matriarchal; in the Azure Dominion, men and women seem to have been treated as equals; in the Silver Dominion, there is a strong bent towards misogyny, with the current king being extremely dismissive of his only child, a daughter. Finally, in the Onyx Dominion, women are entirely subservient to men, and their magic is used to fuel the male wielders. 

The azures became refugees and had to shelter among the other three dominions after something known as the Annihilation, which was supposed to be a joyous and special event, when the Crown Prince of the Azure Dominion wed the Crown Princess of the Scarlet Dominion in a rare love match. However, demons poured forth from the ground, killing and/or devouring a lot of the guests, including the bride, the Scarlet Crown Princess, and the King of the Onyx Dominion. The whole Azure royal family disappeared and is believed to also have been devoured by the demons. Because of this, all cross-dominion alliances are considered an impossibility, and the Azure people who have had to flee to other parts of the world are mostly seen as second-class citizens and set to do all the hardest jobs. 

Rubi lives in the woods with her foster mum. She was orphaned when fleeing from the Annihilation and has more or less total amnesia. Occasionally she has dreams where a woman's voice sings her a song with a prophecy, but she can never remember the woman's face when she wakes up. Rubi runs into Blake Axefire (yes, that's his name), also known as the Ambush Master, the king's chief enforcer, when he is in the woods near the cabin where she lives, looking for an escaped tyger. When trying to defend herself from said tyger, Rubi stabs it and is promptly arrested because it is a deadly offence to injure one of the king's magical tygers. Not only that, the tyger is basically the queen tyger, the only adult female able to bear cubs. The last queen tyger died after its mate died (they're bonded for life and can't live without their mate), along with its bonded rider, Blake's twin brother Zayden (yes, also that name) during the Annihilation. 

But of course, Rubi is our super special romantasy heroine, so despite the fact that azures can't bond with tygers, and that no female tyger has bonded with anyone for centuries, Flame, the current queen tyger, bonds with her. This does not sit well with a whole bunch of people, including the king, his bruthish nephew and heir, Ire, or the princess, Malissa. They pretty much all want Rubi killed, so Flame can bond with someone else. But queen tyger makes it very clear that she'll refuse to mate and have tyger babies if they kill her chosen mate, so now Rubi has to train to be a fighter with the elite silver tyger riders.

As if that wasn't enough, a divine messenger appears and announces that the Annihilation will seem like a child's birthday party unless all the various Dominions gather a band of champions each and work together to stop a potential apocalyptic event. Despite their differences and enmities, it's very important that all four Dominions are equally represented. There's a big public challenge about it, and obviously Rubi is one of the chosen warriors. So is her best friend, Quinn, who can shapeshift into a wolf. Rubi not only has amnesia, but she also seems to have very weak magic and is not able to shapeshift.

Also, Blake doesn't hate her at all, all his grumpiness at the beginning is apparently because he was trying to fight his attraction to her. He loves her, and Jace, the Captain of the King's guard, seems to be very into her as well. 

I don't like the term romantasy. I don't particularly like the new publishing trend that means so many of these books get churned out, and all feel like they are following the same checklist. In November 2024, my bookclub read Fourth Wing, which felt like it owed a LOT of debts to A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas (heck, this entire sub-genre owes its popularity to Sarah J. Maas and her books. Most of them even have titles along the lines of "A noun of nouns and nouns".) This book had so many tropes from both of these books. Rubi injures a magical creature and is taken away by a brooding man because of it. Her life will never be the same. There is a super special girl who magically and implausibly bonds with the most impressive of all the magical animals. There's a tortured guy with a very dumb name who is obviously crazy about the heroine.

I know a lot of female authors who started writing about a decade or two ago were pretty much forced to market their books as young adult to get them sold, complete with being persuaded to insert love triangles into the plot because that was what sold back then. This felt like the opposite, a YA fantasy where the author just inserted a bunch of sex scenes in the second half of the book because romantasy has to have spicy scenes and fade to black just won't cut it. 

This book felt so derivative at first, and by about 40%, I decided that if the plot hadn't improved by the halfway point, I was going to just skip to the end and read the final chapters to see what happened. As it turns out, it did get a bit better in the second half, but a lot of the plot was still quite predictable, and oh so tropey. I was all set to give this book 3.5 stars, but then in the final three chapters or so, the author suddenly revealed a bunch of stuff that was surprising enough that I was forced to reevaluate my opinion and went from not being very bothered about seeing where this series is going, to suddenly being quite intrigued. Unfortunately, the twists came a bit too late to save my overall opinion of the book. I can't bring myself to rate something 3.75, though, so a grudging upgrade to 4 full stars it gets. I most likely will read the next book in the series, but I will get it from the library, unless I can score another ARC. 

Judging a book by its cover:

Not going to lie, the cover was one of the things that made me request this ARC. The defiant posture of the girl, the blue hair and swirling fabric (which I now know are Rubi's ribbons). The hint of the tiger in the background. The cover intrigued me, so well done, cover designers. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR18 Book 45: "Witch Season" by Julia Bianco

Page count: 320 pages

Rating: 4 stars

CBR18 Bingo: Refuge (The Aestas coven works hard to be a safe haven and refuge for young witches who have snapped and would normally be ostracised by other witches) 

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC. This book is on sale now. 

There are two types of witches (in this world, all magic users are called witches, regardless of gender). The ones who are born from families with established magic, who grew up as part of a coven, and who are therefore guided and helped through the process of manifesting their magic, and then there are "unsettled" witches, who manifest their magic in their late adolescence or early teens in an explosive "snap", usually in a stressful situation or when they lose their temper about something. These snaps can cause immense injury and even death, and tend to be very traumatic for the young witch in question. 

Katherine Barnes, who is now the enforcer for the Aestas coven in Los Angeles, was one such witch, and when she snapped as a teenager, she collapsed an entire wing of her high school, leading to three deaths and countless injuries. Katherine ran from her home, abandoning her family, and ended up helpless and desperate in Los Angeles, where Sylvia, the leader of Aestas, found her and helped her through the very turbulent first years until Katherine's magic settled. Now she has a new name, a magically altered appearance and lives in constant fear and guilt about her past catching up to her. 

Katherine is trying to figure out who is manufacturing and selling magical drugs to regular humans. She's also trying to help a newly unsettled teenage girl named Lily come to terms with her recent snap. On top of everything, Aestas is expecting its annual "audit" from Noctis, the most powerful coven of the United States. Sylvia, Katherine's boss and mentor, is on edge and stressed. She's noticed her own powers fading and is having trouble keeping up with her responsibilities as coven leader. She fears that Silas Khatri, heir to the Noctis coven, is there to replace her (she's not entirely wrong - his parents have sent him to find faults with Sylvia's leadership so he can replace her, but he really doesn't want to take over the coven) and becomes desperate to find a solution that will allow her to retain control.

It's been quite a while since I read any new paranormal/urban fantasy, but this was a very promising start to what seems to be a new series. Katherine, our protagonist, lost her biological family when she snapped and has managed to find a new family among the Aestas coven. She takes her job enforcing the coven's rules very seriously, but her loyalty and sense of gratitude towards Sylvia also make her willing to overlook a lot of very questionable behaviour, which she would clearly not have tolerated from anyone else. 

On the surface of things, Silas Khatri might seem like the antagonist. He's rich, handsome, comes from what basically amounts to witch royalty, and there is clearly bad blood between his parents and Sylvia because of things that went down when Sylvia first discovered her own magic powers (she never snapped, despite coming from a non-magical family). However, Silas has no wish to be the heir to the Noctis coven; he just wants to live a quiet life and teach magically adept teenagers. He has no desire to snoop into the daily workings of the Aestas coven and replace Sylvia as leader. He is immediately attracted to Katherine, but also understands why she is so distrustful of him. She doesn't realise that he is a much harsher critic of himself than she can ever be. 

After there is a massive explosion in a shopping centre in Los Angeles, Katherine and Silas have to work together to figure out whether it was caused by rogue magic or something else. This proves to be a dangerous job, since someone is trying to murder Silas, and Katherine is caught in the crossfire. 

This first book establishes some of the world-building of the series, and the plot developments leave both of our central characters, Katherine and Silas, in new and difficult positions by the end of the book. I'm excited to see how Ms. Bianco further develops the series. 

CBR18 Book 44: "Scandal of the Summer" by Alexandra Vasti

Page count: 352 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC. This book is on sale now.

Lady Ruby Ballimore has tried her very best to be the perfect debutante, but no matter how hard she tries, she can't be quiet and biddable and seemingly empty-headed. After yet another disastrous dinner party, which has shown off her unladylike academic prowess to the Ton and enraged her father, she decides that she needs a change of setting.

Ruby's father is the ambassador to a small European principality, and Ruby happens to know that the Princess has a mansion in Cornwall that's just conveniently standing empty. She forges a letter of introduction from her father, claiming that she and her two best friends are ladies-in-waiting to the Princess and have been sent to prepare the house for her possible visit in the future. 

The ladies are not prepared to find a mostly derelict house full of an odd assortment of supposed staff. Malcolm Archer has, in fact, been hired as the steward of the estate, but none of his former crew, who are basically his family, have been officially hired. They are squatting in the house and running multiple smuggling schemes to make enough money to survive. None of them was expecting the arrival of Ruby and her friends, so they set a number of schemes in motion to try to scare away the ladies. Terrible food, an infestation of beetles, and a made-up sea monster. Nothing works. The ladies keep ignoring the discomforts and work diligently to make the mansion habitable again. Which turns out to be good, because it seems like the Princess may be making an unexpected visit, and her arrival will force the deceptions of both groups of occupants of the house out in the open.

I've been lucky enough to read several of Ms. Vasti's romances as ARCs. They are usually well-researched and very entertaining. In this, we get the unlikely pairing of a bluestocking wallflower and a disgraced naval captain turned smuggler. Both protagonists have found families of sorts. Ruby has her ride-or-die friends, both of whom I'm assuming will be getting books later in the series. Malcolm has a number of former crew members who left the navy when he was dismissed, and while he may be a former privateer and now a smuggler and occasional con man, all his lies and schemes and his considerable charm are used to support his people and create a safe haven for them. Unfortunately, he is so used to lying and tricking people that even when he may be hurting those close to him with his deceptions, he sometimes has trouble being truthful.

Ruby is the eldest daughter of an earl, and no matter what she says or does, she ends up making a mess of things. She has travelled through Europe with her father and younger sister (who is now a viscountess) and is very well-educated, but lacks the necessary social skills to be a hit on the Marriage Mart. One of her two best friends, Alice, is the daughter of a man who was accused of treason and therefore mostly shunned by polite society. She's rather shy and soft-spoken, but also a keen entomologist (and hence is delighted by the bugs, rather than scared off). Ruby's other BFF, Tamsin, is a self-proclaimed sapphist, has cut her hair into a pixie cut and prefers to wear trousers. The aunt she had been living with got married and conveniently moved to Cornwall, so Ruby lied to her father about spending the summer there. 

As well as being rather run-down when the ladies arrive, the manor house is also full of dogs, since Wall, one of Malcolm's former crew members, has begun to specialise in veterinary medicine, and keeps adopting stray litters of puppies. So there's a surprising number of dogs for a historical romance, some even prove central to the second half of the plot. 

If you haven't read any Alexandra Vasti before, this is a good place to start. If you have read any of her books and enjoyed them, this is another delightful read.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR18 Book 43: "Prince of Storms" by Kit Rocha

Page count: 400 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

Thank you to Montlake and NetGalley for this ARC. This book is on sale now.

Naia, Einar and Aleksi return to the ice queen's island to figure out who tried to kidnap them and are soon joined by all the other deities of the High Court of the Sheltered Lands, concerned about them and wondering exactly who is behind this most recent plot. As Naia's powers keep growing and she needs to use them to protect the innocent residents of the island from dangers, it becomes clear that she is, in fact, the ancient goddess of Rahvekya reborn. She can remember an entirely different lifetime, as well as her relationship with the first Kraken.

However, Einar doesn't seem to remember his former life, and Aleksi sees the closeness between the other two and grows concerned about a future where he must let his lovers go, for their own good. Because of dangers from old foes arriving on the island, bent on revenge, Aleksi may not have long to worry about the future of himself or his lovers. The Betrayer wants the power of Rahvekya for himself and to kill Aleksi and now he may have the chance to achieve both. 

I tried to read this so I could finish and review it before the release date, but since NetGalley would only allow me to read the ARC in their own app, which doesn't save your progress, as well as forces me to read on my phone (something I only do in utmost emergencies, if I am stuck without one of my two e-readers or a physical book. It doesn't happen often). So in the end, I waited to start it until after release day, when my pre-ordered digital copy was available to download on my Kindle. Based on how uncomfortable it was to read in the NetGalley app, I may reject any future ARCs that are only available to read in that format. 

I read for pleasure, and for escapism, and I don't like when books feel like homework. Unfortunately, since I really do try to read all the ARCs I am granted and leave honest reviews for them, I had to get through this, but it took me far longer than it should have for a book this length. While I pretty much devoured books in the Bound to Fire and Steel duology in no time at all, this felt like a slog for the first two thirds of the book, and I for a lot of it, I was pretty much reading it out of obligation, not because I was particularly enjoying it.

The action does pick up in the last third, because that's when it basically becomes one very long action sequence, with SOO many different battles and near death-experiences for our heroes. Before that, the plot is very slow, and can't seem to move away from Aleksi worrying that the other two are better off without him, while they keep trying to reassure him that no, they aren't and they don't want him to nobly slink off somewhere to nurse his heartbreak for centuries. There's also the whole Naia and Einar are the reincarnated versions of Rahveyka's goddess and her lover, the god of Storms. I found it very hard to care about any of it. Things did get cooler when both Naia and Einar were fully able to embrace their new powers and truly kick the asses of their supernatural enemies. But with the first two thirds of the book being so boring, I cannot in good conscience rate this higher than 3.5 stars. 

Under the circumstances, though, considering the dystopian hellscape the authors who make up Kit Rocha live under, and the strides they've made to fundraise for democracy and help Americans offer resistance, it's laudable that they were able to finish this novel at all. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR18 Book 42: "The Fatal Unpleasantness at Netherfield" by Claudia Gray

Page count: 336

Rating: 4 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Vintage for this ARC. This book is on sale now.

Jonathan Darcy is getting tired of his parents nervously hovering around him and keeping him from doing anything more strenuous than sitting in front of a fire, reading. So when a letter arrives from his aunt Jane at Netherfield, who is feeling rather inundated with Bingley's sisters and their spouses, and his mother is unable to go, he eagerly volunteers to go in her stead. He has not stopped thinking about Juliet Tilney, but his parents think it is best that they have no further contact.

Poor Juliet Tilney hasn't really been able to leave her home for months, and now it seems unlikely that she'll ever find a husband, certainly not Jonathan Darcy. So when she is unexpectedly called to Netherfield to assist Jonathan in yet another unsolved murder, she knows it's unseemly, because someone (in this case, Bingley's brother-in-law, Mr. Hurst), but she's just so happy to be reunited with him and investigating once more. She refuses to consider her grandfather's suggestion that she entrap the young man to secure her future. She knows she can never be accepted as a suitable daughter-in-law by the Darcys after the scandalous events in London. 

The young investigators find an unexpected supporter in Jane Bingley, however, who sees how much they clearly love one another, and is deeply saddened that Juliet's life has been so negatively affected because of a cruel prank. Jane still remembers the months she was separated from Bingley because of the scheming of his sisters and Darcy, and doesn't want any young couple to ever have to face anything like that. While she may be rooting for the young couple, Mrs. Caroline Allerdyce, Charles Bingley's sister, is still determined that her daughter, Priscilla, will be the future mistress of Pemberley, and keeps trying to push them together at every available opportunity.

I had to catch up with the previous two books in the series before I read this one, and I'm glad I did, as it meant I hadn't forgotten any major details from the previous two books that might be relevant in this story. I would absolutely not recommend anyone start with this book; it is very much a fifth book in a series, and if you haven't read some of the others, especially book 4, The Rushworth Family Plot, there will be plot lines that don't make as much sense.

While the previous book focused on characters from Mansfield Park, here Claudia Grey shows us the lovely and kind-hearted Bingleys many years into their marriage. Their daughters have moved away and are married, and now they are playing host to two of Bingley's sisters, with their husbands. When Juliet comes to help with the investigation of the poisoning of Mr. Hurst, Jonathan is noble enough to surrender his room at Netherfield and goes to stay with his grandparents at Longbourn, a place he has never felt at home, and he's determined that Juliet never realises what a sacrifice he is making for her sake. Even though all her five daughters found husbands (three of them even very well-off ones), Mrs. Bennett is still displeased about all sorts of things in her old age, while Mr. Bennett cares for little other than his books. Neither of them has any understanding of what they see as Jonathan's peculiarities, and he can never be at ease in that house.

Ms. Gray's authorial voice really is very close to Austen's own, and while you are aware that you are basically reading fan fiction about the continued lives of all of these characters, she captures the essence of them so well, and it seems like such plausible lives for these characters to have. Charles and Jane Bingley have clearly had a very happy life together, and still bend over backwards to help all of their various family members, even at the cost of their own comfort. With so many characters early in the series having been disapproving of either Jonathan, Juliet or their relationship, it was a great comfort to have these two characters wholeheartedly supporting the young couple and refusing to judge or blame Juliet in any way for her unfortunate circumstances. 

Having checked Ms. Gray's website, because it was unclear to me how long she was planning on continuing this series, it does seem as if she's contracted for at least one more book about our young sleuths. Without wanting to spoil too much, there was at least SOME romantic development in this book, and while I was frustrated for a while, I am now very excited to see where the next book takes our characters (I'm guessing they may have to solve murders among the characters of Persuasion, that's pretty much the only book that hasn't been featured much). 

Judging a book by its cover: Dare I hope, based on the silhouettes on the cover, that this book will finally have some sort of forward momentum in the glacially slow romance between our protagonists? Or is it a cruel trick from the publishers to fool me into committing to another book? 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

 

CBR18 Book 41: "The Antiquarian's Object of Desire" by India Holton

Page count: 368 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Amelia Tarrant and Caleb Stirling are both history professors at Oxford with a speciality in magical antiques. They have been best friends since childhood, but any hint of affection between them could be ruinous to Amelia's reputation and the careers of both. As a result, they have to appear to be enemies and stage elaborate public fights every so often to make sure all their colleagues believe them to be bitter rivals.

One such fight, involving a volatile magical teaspoon, causes a big enough explosion that their careers may still be on shaky grounds. The head of the history faculty sends them to a manor house in Cumbria to assist a local nobleman in cataloguing his extensive collection of magical artefacts. 

If maintaining their ruse of being enemies is tiresome and occasionally tricky in Oxford, having to do it while secluded in a haunted country manor proves even more frustrating to them. Amelia and Caleb both feel, unbeknownst to the other, rather more than friendly towards the other, but wouldn't dare to presume that the other returns such lustful feelings. 

All the books in India Holton's Love's Academic have been delightful, cosy reads, but this one is probably my favourite. Caleb is another very Howl from Howl's Moving Castle-coded hero (although he is more like the Howl of the original book than the Miyazaki version). He's vain and a bit self-centred, but clearly just worships the ground Amelia walks on. She doesn't seem to realise that all his life choices have been determined by what keeps him close to her. She's the one who actually cares about a career in history; he's just muddling through because it makes it easier for him to spend as much time with her as possible. 

Amelia is a capable woman in a male-dominated field, and she constantly has to deal with her overbearing and sexist colleagues and superiors. Caleb really is her only friend, and it annoys her to have to pretend to loathe him just so she won't be dismissed as an emotional and love-struck female, who must marry and go tend house. Over the course of the book, Amelia and Caleb realise that their long friendship has mutually developed into something deeper, but they are unable to act on their feelings since it's impossible for them to get some time alone.

Throughout the book, there is a subplot about a magical teaspoon that reacts to strong emotions and tends to cause sudden explosions if tensions are too high. Amelia comes to the conclusion that she mustn't just reevaluate her feelings for and potential future with Caleb, but come to a decision about whether or not she can keep being underestimated and mansplained to by most of her very sexist colleagues, or whether she should quit the history department and do something else. 

The "cosy" label is found all over the speculative fiction genres nowadays, and a lot of the time, it's not entirely earned, or the author tries too hard with quirky characters and tiresome hijinks. However, Holton really does write lovely, low-stakes cosy romances, and as this was one of my more anticipated releases of the first part of 2026, I am happy that it was worth the wait. 

Judging a book by its cover: All the books in this trilogy have had lovely covers, but this is by far my favourite. The midnight blue and the golden yellow, with the lovely, ethereal night sky in the background, with the stars seemingly dancing - it's just so pretty.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR18 Book 40: "Daugther of Tides" by Kit Rocha

Page count: 320 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

Defeat the Goblin TBR: has a dark/stormy vibe

Naia is a very young water nymph, born directly from the Dreaming, but she has the memories and experiences of so many who have lived before her who had any connection to the sea. Einar was once a mortal man before he became the immortal pirate lord known as the Kraken, tied to his magical ship and his equally immortal crew. Aleksi is the most charming and beloved of all the gods; he is literally The Lover. After the events in Queen of Dreams (a book I read and very much enjoyed, but apparently didn't have the energy to fully review, Aleksi is feeling strange and unsettled. He keeps having strange visions, he doesn't instantly heal when he is injured, and he's started to worry that he is dying.

These three individuals are sent on a diplomatic mission to an icy kingdom, trying to broker a peace with Gwynira, the Ice Queen, who was previously one of the now imprisoned Sorin the Betrayer's allies. Einar has secrets he's keeping from the other two about his connection to the icy island kingdom they find themselves in, Naia is welcomed as a reborn version of the old goddess of the natives there, while Aleksi just wants to enjoy himself for as long as possible by hiding his impending death from the other two. 

I loved both the books in the Bound to Fire and Steel duology. I loved the world-building, I loved the pantheon of interesting deities (of which Aleksi and Einar both belong), and I found the tension between Ash, Sachielle and Zanya both interesting and sexy. Since I knew this was going to be a duology, I held off on reading this until close to the release date of the sequel, Prince of Storms (I have an ARC and need to read and review it by the end of this week). Unfortunately, whatever magic made the first two books in this world so incredibly appealing and immersive to me seems to have faded. I found this book slow to start, I found it difficult to really care about the characters or the mission they have been sent on. In addition, I found myself rather exhausted by how horny the three protagonists constantly are for each other. Maybe it would have been more exciting if they actually acted on their feelings until pretty much the very end of the book. Instead, it just felt annoying. 

The book picks up in the second half, but I never got the feeling of not wanting to stop reading, which was frequently the case with the first two books in this world. Maybe it's just that it was hard for me to feel any worry about Aleksi, since it's incredibly obvious that he's not actually going to die. He's part of the triad at the centre of this duology, which is a romance first and foremost, and the next book won't end with him actually dying and leaving the other two to grieve. While the various stakes were really high in the previous two books, I find it hard to get particularly invested this time around. It made me very sad, because I really had been looking forward to revisiting this world. 

I'm crossing my fingers that the sequel, which I will be starting soon, is better and that the duology as a whole works better for me once it's been completed. 

Judging a book by its cover:

We've got the churning sea, we've got a whole lot of tentacles. They seem to belong to more than one creature, so maybe the cover designer thought Einar had a bunch of friends to help him when he goes all Kraken-y?