Tag: occult

Do Your Worst by Rosie Danan

- Stephanie Leave a comment

“…I don’t owe you a career you admire or a partner you approve of. I need you to hear me, really hear me, when I say that I’m through having my life measured and weighed against your ambition.”
― Rosie Danan, Do Your Worst

Riley Rhodes is an American occult expert, aka curse breaker, wanting to turn her family’s supernatural gifts into a legitimate business. Her clients in the past have been small, but when she is hired to break the curse on an infamous Scottish castle, Riley can’t help to get her hopes up. She usually works alone, relying on internet research and her grandma’s journals. Her choice of career as a curse breaker has the ability to put people on edge, especially the skeptics who think she exists to swindle people out of their hard-earned money. When Riley arrives in town, she meets a handsome stranger at the local pub, who matches her banter and knows how to kiss. Starting the next day at work sleep-deprived after thinking of the stranger all night, imagine Riley’s surprise when the stranger ends up working at the same site as her.

Clark Edgeware is hoping for professional redemption. His last archaeological project ended in scandal, leading Clark to rely on his father’s good name to land this latest job. He may be disgraced, but when he learns that someone else has been hired, particularly a self-proclaimed ‘curse breaker’, Clark is livid. He cannot have this charlatan ruining his chance to get back in the good graces of the world of archaeology. He tried to get Riley fired, but unfortunately for him, she overhears and decides to get even. All Clark wants to do is avoid her, but that is not to be so.

Riley needs Clark’s help researching the curse, while Clark discovers that Riley has an annoyingly easy ability to find artifacts, despite the fact that he has been searching the castle for way longer than she has. Riley has high hopes that the curse will work its magic and scare Clark away from the castle, and from her, but sadly the two of them keep finding themselves in closer and closer proximity. The two have an undeniable attraction though, one they can’t seem to avoid. Teaming up to break this curse might end up breaking the two of them.

This was a fantastic romance read with some of my favorite tropes: forced proximity, enemies to lovers/enemies with benefits, instant lust, and opposites attract, to name a few. Do Your Worst, while not the spiciest book I have read, does have some spice on the page (this is definitely NOT a closed-door romance). The spice was well-written, but the instant love/attraction did seem a bit too instantaneous to me. All in all, I did enjoy the plot, but would have loved more information about the world of curse breaking as a whole.

“We all hurt the ones we love,” he said, softly, pointedly. “It’s why we must learn to make amends.”
― Rosie Danan, Do Your Worst

Young Adult Series: The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater

- Stephanie Leave a comment

‘There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,’ Neeve said. ‘Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.’
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven Boys

The Raven Boys is the first book in The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater. Stiefvater has created a gorgeously written world for her characters that will leave you wanting to learn more. She leaves hints in books that you pick up later that will leave you wondering at the way that Stiefvater constructs these books.

Blue Sargent has grown up in a family of clairvoyants. For as long as she can remember, her house has been full to bursting with random cousins, aunts, and friends of her mothers who all have some version of clairvoyance. Blue, however, doesn’t have any abilities. Instead she is like a battery – she makes other people’s talents stronger. Blue amplifies the powers of others. That’s why her mother takes her with to the churchyard on St Mark’s Eve to note the names of the soon-to-be dead walking past. In that freezing churchyard, Blue meets Gansey for the first time and her life is changed.

Blue discovers that Gansey is one of the rich students who attends Aglionby, a local private school. She has no desire to learn what is going to happen to that Raven Boy, what they call the Aglionby Boys, as her association with them can only mean trouble.

Despite her declaration to stay away from Gansey and the other Raven Boys, their paths continue to cross. When Blue realizes that Gansey is more than his good looks and family money, she finds herself drawn into a quest that has consumed Gansey and his friends for years. The problem: for as long as she can remember, Blue has been told that she will cause her true love to die. If she kisses her true love, he will die. This has never been an issue for Blue until she starts hanging around with the Raven Boys. Their life is strange and sinister and full of more mystery than she ever thought possible.

This book is also available in the following formats:

The Raven Cycle series

  1. The Raven Boys (2012)
  2. The Dream Thieves (2013)
  3. Blue Lily, Lily Blue (2014)
  4. The Raven King (2016)
  5. Opal (2018) – a novella that takes place after the events of The Raven King

Related to The Raven Cycle series, Stiefvater has written the Dreamer Trilogy which delves more into Ronan Lynch:

  1. Call Down the Hawk (2019)
  2. Mister Impossible (2021)
  3. Greywaren (2022)

The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson

- Stephanie Leave a comment

2021 is the year that I read outside my comfort zone. This means reading more horror and science fiction. My latest read is a mix of fantasy, occult, and paranormal fiction called The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson. This book lays a solid foundation as the first book in the Bethel series.

In The Year of the Witching, Henderson indulges in her love of witchcraft, dark fantasy, cosmic horror, and ghost stories by telling the story of a rigid puritanical society that shuns and abhors dark powers and the witches that tried to ruin the town.

The Prophet’s word is law in Bethel. Immanuelle Moore struggles with this proclamation, despite being raised in the faith. Her mother conceived her out of wedlock with a Bethel outsider of a different race. Immanuelle’s once proud and highly revered family was cast into disgrace when she was born. Her very existence is blasphemy to the Prophet and his followers. Despite of, and perhaps because of, the disgrace her family is in, Immanuelle works hard to follow Holy Protocol, worship in the faith, and lead a life of conformity, devotion, and utter submission. All the other women in the settlement follow these rules, so Immanuelle shouldn’t have a hard time doing so.

Out one day, Immanuelle is lured into the Darkwood that surrounds Bethel. The Darkwood is forbidden as it is the place where the first prophet had chased and killed four powerful witches many years ago. The Darkwood is haunted by the spirits of the witches and people who stumble in are never seen again. This forbidden place gives Immanuelle an extraordinary gift: the diary of her dead mother.

The diary holds the secrets of her mother’s life as well as the history of the Prophets and the Church. The more Immanuelle reads and digs into the mysteries, the more she understands what she has to do. Immanuelle has always known that there is something extra inside her. Both fascinated and fearful of what she finds out, Immanuelle discovers why her mother once worked with the witches. She must do something to save Bethel from its own darkness. Bethel must change.

This book is also available in the following format:

The Diviners by Libba Bray

- Ann Leave a comment

divinersOne of my favorite Young Adult books that I’ve read recently is The Diviners by Libba Bray.  Set in the Roaring ’20s, it’s about a teen girl named Evie O’Neill who is sent away from her Ohio hometown after an incident at a party.  Shipped off to live with her uncle in New York, Evie is secretly thrilled at the prospect of life in the big city.  The excitement begins immediately when the police seek out the help of her uncle, the curator of the Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult, in the hope that he can help solve a series of disturbing occult-related murders.  The possessor of secret supernatural gifts, Evie gets more than she bargained for when she is quickly tangled up in the investigation and begins to suspect that the killer is no ordinary man.

Despite all the glowing reviews I read, I was hesitant to pick up this book at first because it is HUGE.  Luckily we had a copy of the audio book on shelf, which seemed less daunting, and I am so glad that I decided to give it a try. I really enjoyed the setting and thought that Libba Bray did a great job of making the time period come to life for the reader.  I’m not usually up for creepy stories at all, but from minute one I was completely hooked on this engrossing tale couldn’t wait to find out what happened to the compelling characters next.  The Diviners is the first book in a planned quartet, and I can’t wait for the next installment in the series!  While I’m waiting, I think I’ll have to pick up a few of her other books like A Great and Terrible Beauty, Going Bovine, or Beauty Queens.