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Meri's Corner

~ A Writer's Thoughts and Reviews

Tag Archives: published work

Windycon Wednesday

17 Wednesday Nov 2021

Posted by MBenson in Personal Thoughts

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balancing, creativity, life, musings, original fiction, original work, published work, ramblings, real life, thoughts, update, Windycon, writing

So, this last weekend in the Windy City known as Chicago (and believe me it was super windy this weekend. We had trouble opening the hotel doors a lot of the time we were in and out) every November we have Windycon. A Science Fiction and Fantasy convention that hosts a dealer’s room, an art show, and guests of honor. As well as a host of panels to attend.

It’s a lot of fun, and I know that well because I’ve grown up attending it, as well as a few other cons around the area. My dad used to sell at cons when I was little, so I’m not kidding about growing up attending the conventions. I learned to handle room issues, like the tv not working, when I was small enough I couldn’t be seen over the hotel front desk. I’ve corralled the kids at the conventions to make sure no one was left out when we had fun. And as a teen, I learned how to use the gopher option to my advantage so I could get half my registration back as dealer’s room spending money by doing a few hours of badge check work at the door without my parents’ knowing that I got half the reg they paid back to spend on that artwork or book I walked out of the dealer’s room with.

If you haven’t attended a SciFi /Fantasy Con and you read the genres? You should totally try to see if there’s one in your area to attend. Hearing people’s takes on why fantasy is the way it is, or the history of urban fantasy is always an interesting panel to take in. The Dealer’s room itself always has some incredible finds – this year there was a person selling handmade pottery (his stuff is beautiful) and another person had handmade wood pieces like dice trays and towers.

Most of my time was spent in the Dealer’s Room this year because I was pushing the book I wrote with my co-author. The table just couldn’t be considered complete without a plushie to represent a lot of people’s favorite character from the novel – the black cat, Ada. =)

But I also had some of my art on the table for sale as well because I do paintings, necklaces (though someone did suggest trying to do earrings in a similar fashion that I need to look into), and inspired by the book – handmade and painted rune sets and individual rune keychains.

I will say that attending the Convention as a full-fledged dealer is a lot different than attending as just an attendee. Mainly because as an attendee you have the ease to flit from place to place and see all the things, attending all the panels, and you aren’t really tied down to anything. As a dealer, you want to be at your table so you can sell your wares, talk to people who might be interested in them, and meet new people that way.

I really enjoyed talking to the people I met as a dealer. We had some interesting conversations about covers, about paint (because of my paintings), and about crafting as a whole. Plus I made a few new contacts that also do book things, so that was really cool. I can’t wait to be able to jot the dates down on the vacation schedule for next year once Windycon releases the 2022 dates and snag a dealer’s table again.

Do you attend conventions in your area? Are they big or small? Did you before the pandemic that you’re hoping to get back to but just haven’t yet? Let me know down in the comments!

Hardback Abound

30 Saturday Oct 2021

Posted by MBenson in Personal Thoughts, Writing

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fantasy, goals, Hotel Fen, musings, online presence, original fiction, original work, published work, real life, update, Urban Fantasy, what do, writing

There is just something incredibly adorable about being able to have my cat in any of the photos that I take either on purpose or on accident. I set the books down to grab a shot of them and he just flopped right down next to them. He also tried to chew on one and catch one of the keychains as well.

I almost had the perfect shot lined up, but my mom opened the door and it ended up getting him distracted and this was the only shot I was able to capture of him. But that’s also the joy of trying to photograph pets, they never completely do what you want them to do.

The books were supposed to look a little more whole in the shot. Like the below.

This shot came out well too. All to show off the beautiful new Hardbacks of Hotel Fen. It came out lovely in the hardback matte finish. So yes, it’s now available in hardback on Amazon as well! While the photo is of the proofs, because the proofs came out lovely, they’ve been pushed through to publication.

Do you have any pets? Any cute photos with them? I always love seeing other people’s pets.

And time vanishes

12 Tuesday Jan 2021

Posted by MBenson in Personal Thoughts, Writing

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10kWritingChallenge, amblogging, amediting, amwriting, balancing, books, co-author, creativity, discoveries, enjoy, fantasy, goals, inspiration, life, musings, Nine, online presence, original fiction, original work, possible wip, Project Norse, published work, ramblings, real life, thoughts, time, time management, update, Urban Fantasy, what do, WIP, word count, writing

So I lost my weekend to the best reason possible. All the words. All the words is definitely a good thing to lose time to though. My co-author on Project Norse and I decided to try and do a 10K words in a day challenge for our respective Saturdays.

As a whole, the challenge went well. We realized fairly early on that our time zone difference made for an interesting addition to the challenge, because with her in the Philippines and me in the United States, being fourteen hours apart means we can’t just boomerang the novel back and forth between us all day. For a good chunk of the writing time, one of us was sleeping while the other was writing.

We made it work though by working on different scenes in the novel at once. Like, I think we were working on four or five different areas to go back and forth with each other, but then also we had a couple areas where one of us took the lead on a certain scene and ran with it.

Neither of us hit 10,000 words on Saturday, but both of us got a little more than halfway through. She finished her 10,000 words on her Sunday. I didn’t, because I ran into a secondary challenge for a long da like that. So back in May 2019 I had my dominant hand’s wrist in a cast. And ever since that accident I’ve had serious problems with my wrist when I over work it.

Well apparently it feels that 6,372 words it decided was over working it. My morning went super well and I was able to get a little over 2,000 words before breakfast, but it had started to ache after that and just get progressively worse through the day as I tried to alternate between resting it and working on more words as I could.

Sunday was pretty much a get nothing done, only rest it day. Also, all the grocery shopping and things I had meant to do that I pushed off from Saturday, so no real other words happened over the weekend. But still, we were able to get about 16,000 words collectively on our novel over the weekend, which is awesome! Since we have that July deadline for publishing, it’s great that we’re able to make so much progress on it as a whole for draft one. As well, when we were awake at the same time and not writing, we were able to flush out our outline to really hone into the timeline of what we what to happen when and how we kind of want it to go so we have guiding things to get us there. Overall, it’s a super productive weekend.

And then yesterday I also realized part of the problem with my wrist is that when I have to work on campus and cover the front desk, that the angle the desk is at compared to the chair is part of my problem. We’ll see if anyone complains about the chair, because I lowered it by like a TON, but I’m hoping since it’s just a little lever, that they’ll just shift it for them when they’re on campus and no one will complain. But the angle was not okay for me anymore. within the first hour of working at the desk my wrist felt like it did after writing 6K words from Saturday, only worse. So yeah, something had to change. I also shifted how the monitors were set on the desk, but those were put back after my shift so no one had to worry about them.

I’m hoping my work week goes fairly quiet as a whole, and I can continue to get words in on the novel. I really want to continue this momentum that we’ve found on getting things done on the different chapters. I’d personally love it if we could have draft one finished by either the end of January or the really early beginning of February so we can get those edits in hard and fast.

Hope your week goes well, readers! And if you did anything you’re proud of, drop a comment and let me know!

Also, if you’re wondering what the image has to do with this post, well, it’s partially just because it’s my kitty and I love him. And partially because that’s legitimately how tired I feel right now.

2021 – Forward We Move

04 Monday Jan 2021

Posted by MBenson in Personal Thoughts, Writing

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2021, 2021 goals, amblogging, amediting, amreading, amwriting, balancing, books, creativity, discoveries, enjoy, fantasy, goals, inspiration, life, looking forward, musings, new goals, online presence, original fiction, original work, possible wip, published work, ramblings, real life, thoughts, time, time management, update, what do, WIP, word count, writing

Can you believe that we’re already four days into the new year? Hopefully your New Years celebrations, even if quiet, was good. Mine was mostly quiet with some Star Trek Discovery watching with my mom and some Among Us with some friends before that.

So far, I’d say my year is progressing well as a whole. I’ve been getting some writing in, but then my co-writer and I have set a very ambitious goal for our joint book so can’t take too many days wtihout touching it.

Let’s just get right into my goals for 2021!

  1. Finish, edit, market, and publish the book I’m working on with my co-author. Our ambitious deadline for it all is July. Six months. We’re that ambitious. But we’re also extremely motivated to get it done!
  2. Finish editing and publish faerie novel.
  3. Finalize and publish at least two shot story/novellas
  4. Read 24 books – this is two books a month. Which, if I carve out a little time occasionally, should be more than doable.
  5. Be more active on both Instagram and Twitter.
  6. Work on both Esty shops to get them up and going a little better.

They’re fairly ambitious goals for the most part, but they’ll keep me going through the year. And they’ll hopefully mean that I’ll get all the things done. Though for the first six months of the year, my main focus is definitely going to be on that first goal. I’m super excited to both work on it but also get it out in the world. We both are. Closer to it’s release, I’ll share a little more details about it.

To keep up with visuals of my progress, be sure to check out my Instagram account! You can find both my Instagram and my Twitter in the left side bar on this blog.

Do you have any goals for the new year? If so, please let me know in the comments below!

Book Review: Twisted Devotion by Jessi Elliot

22 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by MBenson in Reviews

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amblogging, amreading, amreviewing, books, creativity, discoveries, enjoy, fantasy, Jessi Elliott, musings, New Adult, paranormal romance, published work, review, reviews, Romance, thoughts, Twisted Desire, Twisted Devotion, Twisted Fate, Twisted Gift, Twisted Series, update, Urban Fantasy

Author: Jessi Elliot
Publisher: Jessi Elliot
Series: Twisted #4
Genre: New Adult Paranormal Urban Fantasy Romance
Release Date: April 21, 2020
Rating: 5 Stars

Find Twisted Devotion on GoodReads

Warning – There will be Spoilers for Twisted Fate (#1), Twisted Gift (#2), and Twisted Desire (#3). It’s recommended to pick up copies and read those before you continue with this review!

It was really nice to return to Rockdale and the cast of the Twisted series while getting a whole new level of understanding for a few of the side characters from other books.

While the war between the human and the Fae is over and The Experiment has been ended, there is still a lot of healing and settling to be done in the Fae world. And with the science that the humans have created that allow a Fae to be turned human, there’s a world of possibility left open to Fae who may not want to live for eternity.

Lucky for them Jackson Hawthorne is ensuring that those who might want to become human again have that choice should they want to take it – after being told the full extent of the risks that come with the procedure. But even knowing full well how things might fall, that a Fae might not survive turning human, surviving family members don’t stop from threatening him and his life in the face of their loss.

Which is why Kelsey Young is tasked with keeping him safe. Offered substantial compensation to keep Jackson alive as his personal bodyguard, Kelsey puts her plans to leave Rockdale in the rearview on hold to protect the arrogantly charismatic entrepreneur.

The ups and downs as Kelsey and Jackson spend several months together throughout the book keep the book moving. We learn a lot more about Kelsey’s past, how that has affected her now and why she really just can’t stay in Rockdale. And the budding romance between Jackson and Kelsey is a sweet contrast to the heat that they have between each other fro the moment he greets her at the door of his rather large home.

While this book focused on Kelsey and Jackson, it was great to be able to see the cast from the first three books weaved throughout to not just bring more life to this wonderful world that Jessi’s created, but also give us sneak peeks as to how they’re doing without taking over the story to do so. The world lives, breaths, and is this magically vibrant place that I would love to visit whenever Jessi wants to invite us back to it. The characters are just as strong developmentally as they were in the last three books, and my heart is all the warmer for reading Kelsey and Jackson’s journey.

Disclaimer: I did receive an arc of the book in exchange for my honest, unbiased opinion. All thoughts are my own and were not colored by receiving the arc.

Remember to find Twisted Devotion on GoodReads

Official Synopsis

Being responsible for the survival of someone you loathe really dwindles all hope for a fresh start.

Kelsey Young is ready to leave Rockdale—and the darkest parts of her life—in the past. After barely escaping the massacre of her foster family and taking down the evil behind The Experiment, she wants nothing more than to relocate and start over.

That is, until the fae leaders offer a reward too good to refuse, derailing her plans in the process. Kelsey agrees to put her future on hold to protect an arrogant creature with far too much charisma for his—or her—own good.

While she’s no stranger to the rumors of Jackson Hawthorne, she is new to his charm. And soon, she finds it nearly impossible to resist—especially when he makes no effort to hide his blatant desire for her.

Tensions run high as Jackson’s well-being is threatened by angry fae and humans alike with a mission to destroy his business—and him.

But temptations run even higher after Kelsey swears to safeguard his life—even on the days she wants to kill him herself. And what about his heart—or hers? When they find common ground in new territory, lines blur, defenses crumble, and devotion begins to outweigh duty.

Available Now!

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iTunes | Signed Paperback | Google Play

Get the rest of the Series

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iTunes | Signed Paperbacks | Google Play

About the Author


Jessi Elliott is a law clerk and author of both young adult and new adult romantic fiction. Her love of writing was born after many years of reading and reviewing books on her blog.

She lives in Southwestern Ontario with her adorable cat, Phoebe. Yes, named after the Friends character.

When she’s not plotting her next writing project, she likes to spend her time hanging with friends and family, getting lost in a steamy romance novel, watching Friends, and drinking coffee.

You can find Jessi at www.jessielliott.com, on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can join her newsletter to stay up to date on book news and upcoming releases.

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Things are getting Crafty

20 Monday Apr 2020

Posted by MBenson in Personal Thoughts, Reviews, Writing

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amblogging, amediting, amreading, amwriting, balancing, books, creativity, discoveries, enjoy, fantasy, goals, inspiration, Jessi Elliott, life, musings, online presence, original fiction, original work, possible wip, published work, ramblings, real life, review, reviews, Romance, thoughts, time, time management, Twisted Desire, Twisted Devotion, Twisted Fate, Twisted Gift, Twisted Series, update, Urban Fantasy, what do, WIP, word count, writing

So, if you’ve been following my Instagram at all (meriscorner), you’ve seen this already. If not, check out my Instagram, I’m always posting food and cat pictures over there as well as all the interesting crafty things that I’m doing in my life. It’s not all books with me, especially when words are being hard to find.

This week, I’ve dived into the world of acrylic pour painting. The image above is from the pour I did on Sunday, still went so I’m still waiting to see how it fully dries and how everything shifts as it finishes finding it’s level place. This is only my second pour and I’m trying to figure out if I had too much paint in the cup when I did the pour or not. While there’s a lot of paint on the bottom of the container I am doing this in, I had a little trouble at first getting it to the corners – trust me not from lack of it being too thick.

My first pour was WAY too thick. And I know that because after waiting like ten minutes it was still very textured. Though it thankfully leveled itself out and dried flat.

This time, I was able to get the recipe right for the paint, so it flowed really well, it was just happy chilling not in the corners, which from the videos I’ve watched of people doing this isn’t uncommon.

On top of playing with paint I have been writing a little bit. Like around 500 words little this month so far. It’s small but it’s something, for which I’m incredibly happy with.

As well, I’ve got a couple reviews coming up. One will be up on Wednesday for a book that’s coming out tomorrow, Tuesday April 21st. I was lucky enough to receive an arc copy of Twisted Devotion by Jessi Elliott – who is doing a Release Day Party on her Youtube channel Tuesday, so be sure to check it out her party. And then come back here Wednesday for the review to see what I thought of the book!

Link to her Release Party HERE

Life – It’s Winding Road

17 Monday Feb 2020

Posted by MBenson in Personal Thoughts, Writing

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amblogging, amediting, amreading, amwriting, balancing, cat life, cat mom, creativity, discoveries, enjoy, fantasy, goals, life, musings, online presence, original fiction, original work, possible wip, published work, ramblings, real life, thoughts, time, time management, update, what do, WIP, word count, writing

resin

So, not an excuse, but holy cow how are we already halfway through February?!

In the last month and a half since I wrote a blog post – my apologies by the way – I have participated in two write 10K in a day challenges, done a crap ton of resin (the photo), design & get to the printers the flyers for a festival I’m helping with, fix printers issues with said flyers because they couldn’t do things the correct way on the first go, talk to corporate about things because yes, corporate got involved, and also my cat ended up in an emergency visit to the vet that is still ongoing healing wise.

Let’s start with the 10K in a day challenges. So on Jan. 18th and Feb. 9th Mandi Lynn hosted a write 10,000 words in a day challenge. And, because I’ve been super lax on my words the last year or so, I decided to participate. I was able to pull off a win both times!

January’s day ended with a total of 10,771 – it’s a respectable start to a Horror short that I had originally planned to be about that length and who promptly told me ‘ha! I’m going to be longer!’. I’m estimating that it’s about half done because this one ended up needing to be a slower burn horror.

February’s day ended with a total of 10,556 – which I was able to finish my mermaid story, Treasure of the Deep, which if you didn’t know is my newest release.

So yeah, so far so good for getting writing done this year. I just need to continue writing between the 10K challenges, and also if possible continue to participate in said challenges.

As you can see in the picture above, I’ve also been playing with resin. I’ve found it super therapeutic to be able to play with it and create some fun magnets and keychains. I need to pick up some more though because I have maybe one more run of the molds before I am totally out of it.

The print job I’m not really wanting to go into much detail on, partially because I want to leave it in the past now that it’s over. The short of it is, I lost four days to this issue and had to go to the same store five different times, talk to corporate about it, before it was for the most part resolved, though after a small preliminary count it also looks like we were shorted 25 copies. And I’m just kind of done with it. Flip a table, let me break something done. Corporate kept saying they didn’t want to lose me as a customer, but I just can’t trust the company after this. So I’ll be trying a different company for next year, one that I’ve been working with through my 9-5 job that has great customer service and delivery so I don’t have to constantly run back and forth to a store.

And lastly, and most recently, my cat ended up with an emergency vet visit Tuesday night. Mom and I came home Tuesday night to find him not stable on his left front paw and his head tilted so his left eye was nearly on the ground when he stumble-walked. Naturally, I panicked and we found the closest emergency vet we could take him to. After they ran some preliminary tests on him the prognosis was ear infection which is why the dizzy and stumbly from him. The infection is pressing on his vestibular nerve, which controls balance in both humans and cats. Nothing that can’t be fixed with some meds. So that night, despite choking on the bill, mom and I went home with a sign of relief.

Dex stayed at the vet because the specialist wanted to take a look at him, the emergency vet had called her that night to get a recommendation on meds, so he stayed overnight and I was called Wednesday with the official prognosis. Basically, the infection was caused because he had build-up of wax and bacteria in his ear due to a mass in the canal that’s stopping it from self-cleaning itself the way it normally does. In 3 out of 4 cats, when masses appear in cats of his age (17) it’s usually aggressive (read cancer). Right now our focus is healing the infection and getting him better on that end because that’s faster fixable, just meds to heal him slowly.

The next step will be discussing where to go from here for the mass. Ideally, the simple but expensive route is removing it. But that involves putting him under to take a biopsy so they can 100% tell what it is and based on that how to deal with it. Then, putting him under again for the actual surgery. In a healthy cat, this would still be fairly stressful. But we’ve found he also has a heart complication because he has a heart murmur. This means we have to be careful about putting him under at all because it could be too much stress on his heart and if it’s too much of a risk then the surgery just isn’t worth it either. If the surgery isn’t worth it, it means that we’ll just triage his symptoms as we can for the duration of the rest of his life and make sure he’s the happiest, most spoiled lap snuggle cat he can be.

It’s been some hard news to take in, and because we’re only a few days into the meds he’s still walking like he just stumbled out of the nip’bar at 3am after a hot night with the girls, and while thinking of it that route makes me giggle a little it still makes me sad that he’s not as stable on his feet as he should be. He’s got a lot more energy since we got the meds for him and are keeping up with them, and even though he’s stumbling, he’s not letting it slow him down much so it helps to know that he’s feeling a lot better. I did notice that he’s not touching the dry food as much but will gobble the moist, so I’m going to have to pick up more moist for him. Normally the moist was a every so often treat, but if that’s what he’s happier eating, I want to make sure it’s now a daily meal for him. Right now it’s day by day as I try not to think about the more serious parts of his prognosis because right now it isn’t the focus for getting him better and honestly there’s nothing we can do about that part of it now.

That’s been my life the last month and a half. Hope yours has gone well! alk to you soon!

New Release – Treasure of the Deep

15 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by MBenson in New Release

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amblogging, amreading, amwriting, books, creativity, discoveries, enjoy, fantasy, goals, musings, online presence, original fiction, original work, Paranormal, paranormal romance, published, published work, self publishing, update, Urban Fantasy

Treasure of the Deep

Treasure of the Deep

Kari is a headstrong Princess who loves to explore the ocean floor around her. Treasure is always something she loves scouring for in the shipwrecks, but will it be her heart that ends up the treasure when she saves a diver from a shark attack?

You can find the book HERE for purchase or free to read with the Kindle Unlimited program.

Happy New Year!

02 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by MBenson in Personal Thoughts, Writing

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amblogging, amediting, amreading, amwriting, balancing, books, creativity, discoveries, enjoy, fantasy, goals, inspiration, life, musings, new year, online presence, original fiction, original work, possible wip, published work, ramblings, real life, resolutions, thoughts, time, time management, update, what do, WIP, writing

It’s not only a New Year, but a New Decade.

I’m personally hoping that 2020 is a fantastic year. It’s only the second, but I’m being hopeful. There were a lot of things that kind of fell to the wayside in 2019 and I want to make sure that they don’t continue to be sidelined this year.

Namely, my writing and reading. Everything kind of stalled after that fall I took in May where my wrist ended up in a cast, well that and gaining more responsibility with my work about the same time. But I’m finding a balance with my work, which means that reading and writing balance is coming very soon.

If you’re wondering about the picture, my aunt gifted mom and I tickets to the Morton Arboretum’s Illumination show and that’s one of the shots I was able to take during it. It’s an evening walk along some paths and they light up all the trees in really cool and interesting ways.

Anyway, back to the important topic at hand, as is the habit with new years, I also have some resolutions, or goals if you will.

  1. Publish a minimum of 2 short stories this year. I have one that I was hoping to get done and out before the new year came to an end, and unfortunately, it just didn’t happen. But, I’m hoping to not only get that one out but a second one. The second one isn’t written but I have several that are stetch outlined out to pull from and write.
  2. Finalize and publish at least one full-length novel. I have several that are in various states of completion and my goal is to finish one and get it out into the world.
  3. Read 50 books in 2020. I didn’t hit this goal in 2019, I only read/listened to 32 books. But just like my writing things kind of derailed in May and I didn’t really touch a book either. But my goal is to see that not happen this year.
  4. Relaunch and run my jewelry shop. This kind of ended up on hiatus in 2018 due to too much on my plate with mom and I so we stepped back to focus on things that were a little more important. But both of us feel better and ready to get the shop back up and out there.
  5. I’m also making stickers for my planners, because I find that I don’t use a lot of the stickers that happen to be in the packs other people sell. And since I’m making them for myself, I thought why not offer them, for sale, to others. So my goal this year is to launch a sticker shop as well.

Those are my goals, or resolutions if you want to call them that. Do you have any of your own? Leave them in the comments below.

Book Review: Striking Midnight by Jennifer Ellision

26 Friday Apr 2019

Posted by MBenson in Reviews

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amblogging, amreading, amreviewing, Cinderella, creativity, discoveries, enjoy, fantasy, Jennifer Ellision, musings, published work, reimagined fairytale, review, reviews, Striking Midnight, thoughts, update

Author: Jennifer Ellision
Publisher: Jennifer Ellison
Genre: Fantasy, Reimagined Fairytale
Rating: 4 Stars

Striking Midnight is a Cinderella retelling that is done well with an engaging plot and vivid world building.

The story predominantly follows Cyndria, Princess of the Solian Kingdom, as she enters into the Kingdom of Noctis and becomes one of many eligible women vying for the chance to become the new King’s bride and Queen.

Cyndria’s kingdom of Sol has been blessed by the sun to forever be in daylight, even during the night hours. Without the reprieve from the sun that night can bring, her people have taken refuge in the tunnels below to escape the harsh heat their sun brings as they strive to work the fields as best they can as the warmth scorches the land.

Knox, new King of the kingdom of Noctis, is watching as his people try to stay warm in the forever dark that being blessed by the night and the moon has granted them. But with only the moon, the lands are cold, and little grows without both the warmth and light of the sun.

Both kingdoms are hurting, and both have a lot to lose if they can’t get the other to sign the Daylight Accords, a magical treaty that shares daylight and night equally between the two kingdoms. A balance to cool Sol and warm Noctis.

Overall, I really enjoyed this story. The prose is well written and flows smoothly to keep the reader interested and not really wanting to put the story down. I loved the spin on Cinderella that this author has taken. While she’s still poised and at the whim of her step-mother, she’s also deadly having been trained by assassins from a very young age. The world feels alive as she travels both through her own kingdom and the kingdom of Noctis. I also really enjoyed the internal struggle as facts came to light and hearts started to become involved.

There are only two mild complaints I have when it comes to the book. While this predominantly follows Cyndria’s point of view, it does occasionally shift to Knox’s but it does this without telling you. While not a huge deal because the characters are distinct enough to recognize the change, it would almost be nice to have a little title at the top of the chapter to tell me which point of view I’m currently in. And the story does leave off on a cliff hanger with everything up in the air. While I understand why authors love to use this technique for books, it leaves me feeling like I’m almost not getting the full story. There are ways to wrap up some of the plot to let me feel like I’ve finished a book and am only waiting for the second, instead of making me feel more like this is part one of a book and I’m waiting for part two of that same book.

In the end, I am looking forward to book two to see how everything will unfold in the stories of Cyndria and Knox.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout in exchange for my honest, unbiased opinion. All thoughts are my own, and were not colored for receiving a free copy.

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I have new books for my TBR for 2023! My cousin asked what I wanted so I gave her some of the books I have wanted since sept that I haven’t picked up yet, Ans she was so kind to give me some off my list!
Local Author event at my local library. With my mom as my table helper in the photo! We are ready for all the sales and people! 🐈‍⬛
One year ago today on my birthday, my co-author and I released this lovely book into the wild. It’s full of action, magic, adventure, Norse mythology, and a sprinkle of romance.
As I head into a very busy week, I wanted to ensure capturing the Sunday vibes Becauze over all Sunday was a good day.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the mom’s out there, kiddos and fur babies alike. And for everyone, I hope you have a wonderful Sunday. 🌷❤️🌸
Thank you to everyone that came to our launch party!

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