I struggled with this review, no lie. Because “Iron Widow” is a vibe I love. You have this exciting sci-fi fantasy world with incredible mecha fights that, visually in my minds eye, are just incredible. I love visually exciting action and “Iron Widow” delivers on that front. But I wouldn’t call this book a feminist powerhouse that breaks the patriarchy. Or, I guess it does break the patriarchy through the easiest means necessary: annihilating everyone in the way until the only power left is Wu Zetian (their words, not mine). What this book is, is pure female rage. I love female rage. Punish the boys that hurt the girls, all day every day. But when a book is, supposedly, meant to be this strong female character that breaks a system that benefits from young girls’ ultimate sacrifice, Zetian doesn’t do any of that. Female rage cannot be the only personality trait for a main character, and yet, here we are.

This is one of those true crime books I recommend reading alongside something else. Not because the stories included in “American Murder Houses” is particularly gruesome or detailed, but because it’s just not that engaging otherwise. I’m not saying that the selected houses aren’t worth talking about, some are genuinely interesting and I learned a lot about the lore surrounding places that have since become legend (like the Amityville House and The Gardette-LaPrete House). And while most of the houses are famous either because of the serial killer who lived there, or the fame the murders themselves garnered (either because of the celebrities involved or the media circus around the crime) the selection of the homes and crimes included was… odd. Meaning, the house itself was an afterthought and not really involved in the crime the way you’d expect from “murder houses”.

Seems like enemies-to-lovers is all the rage for most romances these days, and while it has never been a favorite of mine, I do want to read more of this trope to see if the problem I have is a me thing, or if the enemies-to-lovers’ books I have read simply haven’t done it for me. I’m sad to say that this book doesn’t get me closer to those answers. But, oddly, my issues with this steamy, sapphic enemies-to-lovers’ fantasy romance wasn’t the trope itself, but the world building. Set in a semi-urban fantasy, you have a kingdom torn in two (literally) where magic is determined by if a certain sentient house likes you enough to gift you magic. There’s a magic house for everything, and if you are gifted said magic, you’ll be given a tattoo so everyone knows you have Assassin guild magic, or mechanic magic, or rune magic, or herbal magic, or well, pretty much anything I guess because the world building never gets that defined. Everything felt a bit vague, and hurried, sacrificed mainly so we could be told more just how much our rivals turned enemies want to fight, and f*ck each other.

It’s been a while since I read the first book in the Witchlands series, and as such, a lot of the fine details were lost to me when I started “Windwitch”. Silly me thinking there would be some kind of recap in this book to start. “Windwitch” starts pretty much the moment that book 1 ended, so we’re being plopped right back into the center of a really explosive (heh) scene. If you’re like me and can’t remember a lot, will be left to play catch up for a while in terms of remembering all the various characters and their political alignments. Good news is, not much gets progressed in terms of the overall series plot that was semi established to begin with. “Windwitch” felt like its own contained story separate from everything else in this series, which I have… mixed feelings about.

Continuing in the footsteps of its predecessor’s epic fantasy, with its robust political machinations and warring factions, “Kinship of a Dragon” follows up almost immediately after “A Dragon Called Blood”, the first book in the Blood History series. And, just like the first book, the second book in the series is a chonky boy! Understandably so given the several plot lines the author continues from the first book, but the strongest plot points this time around barely involved our main characters, Corbin and Blood, at all. Corbin’s story is rather simple in comparison: he and his dragon are still trying to exist despite the hatred aimed at them for what they are, and keeping their lady love and her mother from being kidnapped. They fend off assassins sent after them, but the big, sweeping world changing events that occur in this book are handled by one of the (many) side characters this time around.