I tend to turn to McMaster for my romance reads when I’m on vacation. It’s not planned, it just always tends to happen that way. Her books are always fast, rather light despite the fantasy elements, and always enjoyable. “Heart of Fire” is no different on the score. We follow Freya, an outcast amongst her people for her mismatched eyes and the power she hides, who is desperately trying to care for an ailing father when the dreki, a type of dragon native to Iceland folklore, steals a ram she needs to survive. As the only person to ever challenge the dreki in his lair, he’s instantly intrigued and goes about pursuing Freya. McMaster uses their pursuit as a way to show the reader this new world she is introducing for her series. And, for the most part, she does a great job of teasing out the world building amongst a lot of steamy angst and tension. Until she just… stops?

Harrow does a lovely job making the actual house that is Starling House become a living, breathing entity that seems to care for the unwanted things in Eden, like Opal and Arthur. Coiled up within the house is a mystery as to who the Starling’s are, and why they are so steadfast on never ever letting the coal company, run for generations by the Gravely family, have access to their land. But loneliness is an insatiable beast of its own, and when two lonely young adults find themselves in the same orbit, one small act of kindness unleashes the very thing the Wardens of Starling House have been tasked with keeping at bay for generations.

This book took me a lot longer to get through than the other two. Maybe because of the bible-like pages where this book was just so much longer than the others, or maybe it was because of the pacing this time around… Regardless, here we are, in the third book of the series, the final one of this particular story arc before we switch to a new POV with Nesta. And honestly, after “A Court of Wings and Ruin”, I’m very ready for another POV. Well, I want Nesta’s POV. I don’t necessarily care for any more of spooky Elain, either. Perhaps it’s this time in my life where the way Nesta processes her grief and trauma sings to me much more clearly than Feyre’s, but I am so hype for more of my mean girl Nesta after so much of Feyre using/needing her friends and allies to run a distraction for her so she can do something useful.

The dark, coastal vibes, the Welsh inspired fairy tale, the feminist commentary (down with the patriarchy), and the mystery around “what is real? Am I going crazy?”, are all immaculate in “A Study of Drowning”. In this dark academia story, our main girl, Effy, is struggling with PTSD around a sexual assault while attending a prestigious architecture college. The only problem is she doesn’t want to be there, she’d rather be in the literature school but no women are permitted into the school of her dreams. When an opportunity that looks too good to be true pops up that allows her to design a home for her favorite, recently deceased, author, Effy jumps at the chance without looking. She’s so desperate to escape a place full of snide whispers, to prove that she’s not “crazy” to an emotionally abusive mother, that Effy doesn’t question why she was selected to design this house until it’s too late. Even writing that has me so in love with the concept of this story. And yet…

What happens when a murder occurs in the afterlife? That, in a very broad nutshell, is the premise of “Valhollywood” where an up-and-coming actor suddenly finds himself to be a resident of the afterlife, where the populace are the famous and infamous. The story is an homage to the authors love of Golden Era film wrapped up in a noir murder mystery with a very heavy sprinkling of spiritualism—maybe too much, but more on that in a second. Jake, still grappling with the fact that he’s dead and rubbing elbows with Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, and Ava Gardener, finds himself suddenly thrust in a whodunit murder mystery when one of Valhollywood’s residents actually dies ahead of fading as her fame dwindles to nothingness. Solving that murder and unraveling how it happened was where this novel truly shined! Unfortunately, the detour this book makes left something to be desired.