Book Review | I BET YOU’D LOOK GOOD IN A COFFIN by Katy Brent

I BET YOU’D LOOK GOOD IN A COFFIN
BY KATY BRENT | PUBLICATION: April 29, 2025
HQ DIGITAL | GENRE: WOMEN FICTION
RATING: ★★★★

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Our favourite anti-heroine, Kitty Collins, is back! Expect more wit, sass, and, of course, murder…

My name is Kitty Collins and I'm a serial killer.

I don't want to kill. It's just so hard to resist. Some men really, really deserve it.

Men like Blaze Bundy, an anonymous influencer spreading misogyny online. He's making it very hard for me to control my murderous urges.

Meanwhile I'm in the South of France to watch my mother marry a man I've never met. I should be drinking cocktails and focusing on my tan, not plotting a murder.

But a woman's work is never done. Surely one more teensy little kill wouldn't hurt, would it?

Fans of How to Kill Your Family and Bad Sisters will love this wickedly witty novel from the author of How to Kill Men and Get Away With It and The Murder After the Night Before.

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Justice Served Cold (and in Couture)
Kitty Collins, Book 2

Let me start with this: murder-sobriety is apparently a thing. And somehow, in Katy Brent’s fierce, blood-splashed world, it makes perfect, razor-sharp sense.

Book two in the Kitty Collins series doesn’t just raise the stakes—it arms them with stilettos and sends them marching into the night. Kitty joins Angry Women Anonymous, a group of rage-fueled, justice-starved women who’ve been victimized and are sick of turning the other cheek. It’s not therapy. It’s a powder keg. And Kitty? She’s the match.

The plot is absurd in all the right ways—think Fleabag meets Dexter on a very bad hair day. It’s British dark humor at its finest: twisted, fast-paced, and just grounded enough to make you squirm. It’s like if Batman was an influencer with a killer wardrobe and a moral compass that spins like a lazy Susan. Think vigilante justice, but make it fashion.

What really hit me is how this book flips the murder-mystery genre on its head. As someone who adores traditional mysteries (hi, Alex Cross, Sebastian St. Cyr), Kitty is everything I’m not supposed to root for—and yet I do. Wildly. She’s not your polished detective. She’s your revenge fantasy in designer boots. She’s chaotic, unapologetic, and terrifyingly effective. She doesn’t solve crimes. She finishes them.

The murders? Unapologetically graphic. Weirdly satisfying. And somehow laced with the kind of warped empowerment that makes you question your own moral compass. Which is… unsettling. And brilliant.

Katy Brent’s writing is unrelenting in the best way. Her pacing is surgical, her dialogue could cut diamonds, and her sense of justice is as warped as it is strangely cathartic. You’re not just reading a thriller—you’re reading a manifesto in lip gloss and blood splatter.

“A family that slays together, stays together”

—that’s not just a line. It’s a vibe.

And when the laughter fades and the blood dries, the true wound is somewhere quieter—where love meets consequence, and neither walks away unscathed.

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About the Author:
KATY BRENT is a freelance journalist and has been in the industry for over fifteen years. She started work in women’s magazines back in 2005. In 2006, Katy won a PTA award for New Journalist of the Year. More recently she has focused on television journalism. Writing a book has always been her dream and lockdown finally gave the time she kept using as an excuse for not doing it.

*HarperCollinsCA provided the ARC
in exchange for this unbiased review.
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BBNYA Blog Tour | THE FALL IS ALL THERE IS by C.M. Caplan

About the Book:

THE FALL IS ALL THERE IS
6th Place Finalist, BBNYA 2024
BY C.M. CAPLAN | NOVEMBER 7, 2022
GENRE: FANTASY/ SCIFI

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All Petre Mercy wanted was a good old-fashioned dramatic exit from his life as a prince. But it's been five years since he fled home on a cyborg horse. Now the King - his Dad - is dead - and Petre has to decide which heir to pledge his thyroid-powered sword to.

As the youngest in a set of quadruplets, he's all too aware that the line of succession is murky. His siblings are on the precipice of power grabs, and each of them want him to pick their side.

If Petre has any hope of preventing civil war, he'll have to avoid one sibling who wants to take him hostage, win back another's trust after years of rivalry and resentment, and get an audience with a sister he's been avoiding for five years.

Before he knows it, he's plunged himself into a web of intrigue and a world of strange, unnatural inventions just to get to her doorstep.

Family reunions can be a special form of torture.

AMAZON | GOODREADS | THE STORY GRAPH

"The world that Caplan has created for this story is a fascinating one and the descriptions we are given make it that much more wondrous."
-Melissa @ Never Enough Books
"This book grabs you by the collar and doesn’t let go, making it a standout in the competition."
-GirlLovesToRead

[BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists (16 in 2024) and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.]

TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | PINTEREST | TUMBLR | BLOGLOVIN | GOODREADS

About the Author:

C.M. Caplan is the author of the SPFBO 9, BBNYA, and Indie Ink Awards Finalist, The Fall Is All There Is. He's a quadruplet (yes, really), autistic, and has a degree in creative writing. If you enjoy his books, you can rate them on Goodreads and Amazon.

*Content sent by @TheWriteReads for this blog's publication.
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Book Review | PALM MERIDIAN by Grace Flahive

PALM MERIDIAN
BY GRACE FLAHIVE | PUBLICATION: JUNE 10, 2025
AVID READER PRESS | GENRE: FICTION / LGBTQ+
RATING: ★★★★✬

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A rollicking, big-hearted story of long-lost love, friendship, and a life well-lived, set at a Florida retirement resort for queer women, on the last day of resident Hannah Cardin’s life—for readers of Less and The Wedding People.

It’s 2067 and Florida is partially underwater, but even that can’t bring down the residents of Palm Meridian Retirement Resort, a utopian home for queer women who want to revel in their twilight years. Inside, Hula-Hoopers shimmy across the grass, fiercely competitive book clubs nearly come to blows, and the roller-ski team races up and down the winding paths. Everywhere you look, these women are living large.

Hannah Cardin has spent ten happy years under these tropical, technicolor skies, but after receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis, she has decided that tomorrow morning she will close her eyes for the very last time. Tonight, however, Hannah and her raucous band of friends are throwing one hell of an end-of-life party. And with less than twenty-four hours left, Hannah is holding out for one final, impossible thing…

Amongst the guest list is Sophie, the love of Hannah’s life. They haven’t spoken since their devastating breakup over forty years ago, but today, Hannah is hoping for the chance to give her greatest love one last try.

As Hannah anxiously awaits Sophie’s arrival, her mind casts back over the highs and lows of her kaleidoscopic life. But when a shocking secret from the past is revealed, Hannah must reconsider if she can say goodbye after all.

Spanning the course of a single day and seventy-odd years, and bursting with irresistible hope, humor, and wisdom, this one-of-a-kind novel celebrates the unexpected moments that make us feel the most alive.

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"DESPEDIDA"

Some books don’t just tell a story—they unearth something. Like they reach into your ribs and tap your heart in a way that lingers, quietly messing with your perspective.

PALM MERIDIAN has that kind of undercurrent. There’s a strange and beautiful ache that lingers after finishing it. It’s the ache of witnessing a life unfold in quiet, intricate loops—of following Hannah Cardin through her final chapter, and all the ones that shaped it. The way time folds in on itself, how memory and desire blur, and all those silences between the lines that say so much more than the dialogue ever could. When something like that lands hard, it can leave you feeling sort of… hollow and hyperaware at the same time. The novel’s heart is anchored in 2067 Florida, yet it drifts freely through time, memory, and meaning. Hannah’s decision to meet death on her own terms, refusing to let cancer dictate her ending, is not presented as tragic—but as an act of radical love and clarity. She is surrounded by beautiful people with stories as tender and fierce as her own. Every one of them deepens the texture of this novel like brushstrokes on a canvas.

The pacing is slow, but it’s never aimless. It feels like a constellation drawn deliberately, each moment orbiting the next with intention. The narration is a kind of map —not the kind that gets you from A to B, but one that asks you to stop, look, and feel your way forward.

Despite its melancholic premise, the novel hums with life. Friendship, memory, love found and lost and found again—it’s all here, brimming and bittersweet. In this quietly dystopian future, people still choose to love, to dream, and to walk forward. And when love moves mountains to reach you at the end, what do you do with that? How does the one left behind continue?

PALM MERIDIAN didn’t leave me hollow —it left me full. Of ache, yes. But also, of warmth. Of light. Of a kind of peace.

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About the Author:

Grace Flahive was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. She studied English literature at McGill University in Montreal before moving to London, UK, in 2014, where she’s lived ever since. Palm Meridian is her debut novel. © Robin Silas Christian

*Simon & Schuster CA provided the ARC
in exchange for this unbiased review.

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Blog Tour | THE LIGHTS OF SHANTINAGAR by Nidhi Arora

About the Book:

THE LIGHTS OF SHANTINAGAR
BY NIDHI ARORA | PUBLICATION: JUNE 5, 2025
UNBOUND | GENRE: CONTEMPORARY

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The Lights of Shantinagar is a warm and lively portrait of family life set in modern India where new philosophies are reshaping old traditions, and one woman’s astute observations can change everything.

Aspiring quantum physicist Sumi is newly married and has moved into her husband’s family home. Here she observes that the beguilingly tranquil middle-class town of Shantinagar is not very different from her beloved quantum world: the happenings in one house are cryptically entangled with things next door, objects mysteriously disappear and unexpected interactions reveal surprising truths.

As the line between right and wrong begins to blur, new discoveries force the residents of Shantinagar to reflect on what they truly know about themselves and the ones they love. Meanwhile, Sumi must blend logic with love to make sense of her new circumstances.

AMAZON | GOODREADS | STORYGRAPH

"For me the characters just jumped off the page in their own quiet manner, and I quickly established some favourites who I wanted things to come out right for."
-Andrew-Proud Former Head Teacher
"It also dives into perceptions, secrets, traits and being human, how our own biases change how things are remembered and recalled."
-MysticMoon (HIPSTER)
"Social expectations and their weight, changing traditions, family bonds, growing up and being true to oneself are all themes that emerged for me when reading this book, and I was fascinated by how the author chose to explore them."
-Beatrice (Book for Thought)


TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | PINTEREST | TUMBLR | BLOGLOVIN | GOODREADS

About the Author:

Nidhi Arora’s stories and essays are featured in international journals and anthologies including Best New Singaporean Short Stories, Out of Print, The Hooghly Review, QLRS, Cha, and Popshot. She has self-published two books on Secure Attachment: A parent-child bonding series and edited a third. More at www.nidhi-arora.com

*Content sent by @TheWriteReads for this blog's publication. This is a free ad.

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BBNYA Blog Tour | GLUNDA THE VEG WITCH by Keith W. Dickinson

About the Book:

GLUNDA THE VEG WITCH
7th Place Finalist, BBNYA 2024
BY KEITH W. DICKINSON | OCTOBER 2, 2023
GENRE: FANTASY

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“A witch’s boots told the story of her life. They showed you where she’d been, where she was going, and what kind of a witch she would be when she got there. And, most importantly, they were proof that said witch was not someone to be trifled with. She was to be listened to, and obeyed, and yes sometimes even feared, because her wisdom was hard earned and her wrath swift and mighty. They would have to be, for her to have lived in such boots for so many a year. No one trusted a witch in brand new boots, and rightly so as far as Glunda was concerned.”

Glunda Ashwillow is on top of the world. About to become head witch, and the youngest ever Guardian of the Golden Key, the only thing standing in her way is her old enemy, the Drupe Mages. They have the key, and they're not willing to give it up without a fight.

With a coven of quarrelsome witches to contend with, and a fief full of farmers on the verge of revolt, can Glunda beat the mages and get the key before she runs out of veg? Or is there a cold, hard, carrot-less winter ahead for all concerned?

A tale of heroism and hotpots, Glunda The Veg Witch is a fun fantasy adventure everyone can enjoy.

AMAZON | GOODREADS | THE STORY GRAPH

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"Glunda is one of those characters you can’t help but root for as she suffers one setback after another but never gives up."
-Sarah Reads
"The tone is light-hearted and fun, making it the perfect weekend read for when you need something cozy and different."
-Tessa Talks Books
"For a short novel, it packs all the essentials for a lovely story: lighthearted adventure with witty dialogue and endearing characters."
-Just Book Talk

[BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists (16 in 2024) and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.]

TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | PINTEREST | TUMBLR | BLOGLOVIN | GOODREADS

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About the Author:

Born a stone's throw from the Lake District, Keith studied film making at university before moving to London to work in film and TV. After twenty years of doing other people’s bidding he went around the world, trained as a yoga teacher, rode a camel, got a tattoo he doesn't regret, and was finally able to publish his first novel, DEXTER & SINISTER: DETECTING AGENTS, something he has dreamed of since he was eight years old and asked for a typewriter for Christmas.

Currently residing in Leeds, when he’s not up a mountain Keith can be found trying to get his foot behind his head. He hasn’t managed it yet, but he’ll get there one day.

Keith has four books out, THE HAMMERSMYTH TALES, a steampunk series that includes two novels and a collection of short stories, and GLUNDA THE VEG WITCH, his first foray into cosy fantasy.

*Content sent by @TheWriteReads for this blog's publication. This is a free ad.

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Book Review | SKIPSHOCK by Caroline O'Donoghue

SKIPSHOCK
BY CAROLINE O'DONOGHUE | PUBLICATION: JUNE 3, 2025
WALKER BOOKS US | GENRE: YA FANTASY
RATING: ★★★★★

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Set in a universe where time is key to power and privilege, this dazzlingly inventive, genre-defying fantasy romance is the first in a duology by best-selling author Caroline O’Donoghue.

Margo is a troubled schoolgirl. After the death of her father, she’s on her way to a new boarding school in a new city.

Moon is a salesman. He makes his living traveling through a series of interconnected worlds on a network of barely used train lines.

They never should have met. But when Margo suddenly appears one day on Moon’s train, their fates become inextricably linked. If Margo wants to survive, she has to pass as a traveling salesman, too—except it’s not that easy.

Move north on the train line and time speeds up, a day passing in mere hours. Move south and time slows down—a day can last several weeks. Slow worlds are the richest ones: you live longer, your youth lasting decades. Fast worlds are sharp, cruel, and don’t have time for pleasantries. Death is frequent. Salesmen die young of skipshock. That is, if they’re not shot down by the Southern Guard first.

As Margo moves between worlds and her attachment to Moon intensifies, she feels her youth start to slip between her fingers. But is Moon everything he seems? Is Margo?

Told through the eyes of both naive Margo and desperate Moon, the unforgettable realm of Skipshock will shake the way you think about love, time, and the fabric of the universe. The first in a planned duology from the best-selling author of the Gifts series, this utterly original epic is a must-read.

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"TRAIN TRACKS"

This book consumed me. Every world, every moment, every emotion—I’m still recovering. I tried to read slowly. I really did. But SKIPSHOCK refused to let go.

Caroline O'Donoghue’s storytelling is nothing short of genius—Skipshock is a masterclass in world-building, emotional depth, and intricate character development. This book is brilliant in every way.

Set in a universe where time itself dictates power and survival, Skipshock introduces a world so uniquely crafted, it feels like stepping into a dimension where time is both an ally and an enemy. Each world has its own time cycle—some offering only two hours of daylight before darkness takes over. And as you move north, time dwindles, shortening not just days, but lifespans. The result? The skipshock illness—a devastating consequence of a world where time is never enough.

Yet, beyond the brilliantly immersive world-building, Skipshock carries something even more profound—a romance that is both fierce and humbling. It’s not just about passion. It’s about survival, understanding, and building something unbreakable. Before love, there is friendship. Before desire, there is trust. And amidst trauma, oppression, and the constant weight of death, two souls fight for each other in ways that make every moment feel raw, real, and earned.

Even the secondary characters are meticulously crafted, each adding depth and complexity to the story. No one feels like a mere side character—everyone has a purpose, a presence, and a story that enriches the world.

The adventure is gripping, the stakes are high, and the emotions hit deep. And then—the cliffhanger. The agony of waiting begins. I need the next book. I need it now.

TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | PINTEREST | TUMBLR | BLOGLOVIN | GOODREADS

About the Author:

CAROLINE O’DONOGHUE is the New York Times best-selling author of All Our Hidden Gifts, her YA debut fantasy, which has been published in more than twenty territories around the world. She has written for The Times and The Guardian, and is the host of an award-winning podcast, Sentimental Garbage. She was born in Ireland and lives in London. The Rachel Incident is her first adult novel to be published in the U.S.
Photo: © Jamie Drew

*Penguin Random House CA provided the ARC
in exchange for this unbiased review.
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Blog Tour | BIRTH OF THE STORM by Valerie Storm

BIRTH OF THE STORM
SERIES: DEMON STORM (8 BOOKS)
BY VALERIE STORM | PUBLICATION: JUNE 9, 2022
SHADOW SPARK PUBLISHING | GENRE: YA FANTASY
RATING: ★★★★

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A bolt of lightning. And a dream of vengeance.

For wolf-demon Kari, these define her every waking moment. Her parents are dead, slaughtered by human hands, forcing their only daughter to masquerade among their killers to save her own skin. Now she dwells among them, hiding her lightning-based abilities and plotting a terrible revenge, believing her schemes are all she's good for now. But when she discovers unexpected solace among a group of humans who look past her monstrous nature, Kari finds herself questioning everything. Her mission. Her dreams. Even the hatred festering in her heart.

Is it possible for a creature like Kari to find happiness in a world that despises her?

Or will the specters of her past force her down the path of vengeance in the end?

AMAZON | GOODREADS

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"Demon Storm Book #1"

BIRTH OF THE STORM is an electrifying start to the Demon Storm series, introducing readers to Kari—a girl with unfathomable power, capable of destruction beyond measure. But behind her strength is a deep loneliness, a yearning to belong while being feared for what she is.

The world-building is expansive, filled with rich details and diverse locations that bring the story to life. Every character, from allies to enemies, adds layers of intrigue—even the antagonists are fascinating in their own way. The fast-paced storytelling grips you from the first page, pushing the stakes higher with every chapter.

This book isn’t just action-packed—it’s emotionally intense. The highs soar, the lows hit hard, and every moment pulls you deeper into Kari’s journey. As the first installment in the series, Birth of the Storm delivers a powerful introduction, setting the stage for an unforgettable adventure.

The final book in the series, Fate of the Storm was released on May 13, 2025.
A must-read for fantasy lovers looking for a thrilling, deeply emotional ride!

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About the Author:

Valerie Storm was raised in Tucson, Arizona. Growing up, she fell in love with everything fantasy. When she wasn’t playing video games, she was writing. By age ten, she began to write her own stories as a way to escape reality. When these stories became a full-length series, she considered the path to sharing with other children & children-at/heart looking for a place to call home.

She can be found on Twitter @Valerie_Storm

*The Write Reads provided the ARC
in exchange for this unbiased review.
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