Author: Celeste

ARC Review: Sugar and Snow by Irene Davis

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Author: Irene Davis
Publisher: Skookum Creek Publishing
Publish Date: November 18, 2021
Format: E-book

Buy a copy of Sugar and Snow on Amazon!*

*This is not an affiliate link and I do not make a commission from any purchase made using this link.

Official Synopsis
The Nutcracker is back—but so is the Mouse King, and now she must choose between them…

No one believes Marie’s story about her magical journey with the Nutcracker Prince. She’s even started to doubt it herself. But then her brother Fritz brings his fellow cavalrymen home for the family’s annual Christmas party—and one of them demands she return the Mouse King’s seven crowns to him. The Nutcracker finally reappears, and the familiar battle lines are drawn, but is Marie on the same side she was before? How can the Mouse King be so intriguing, and the Nutcracker so disappointing? And when Marie’s niece Clara disappears, can she trust the Mouse King to help get Clara back—or is he still set on revenge?

If you’re into villain redemptions and fairy tale retellings, if you find Labyrinth to be a very intriguing film, if a book needs to have fencing, fighting, revenge, giants, chases, escapes, true love, and miracles in addition to kissy bits to hold your attention, then you’ll love this fantasy novel. Revisit everyone’s favorite holiday fantasy, and learn who the real heroes and villains are!

My Review
I received a free, digital, advanced reading copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. My review is my own and reflects my honest opinion about this book.

Ever since I was a kid The Nutcracker has been and remains my favorite ballet. I eventually signed up for ballet classes and this was always my favorite production to be in. So I was thrilled when I saw this ARC on NetGalley and equally excited when the publisher approved my request.

As the official synopsis indicates, this is a unique retelling and continuation of The Nutcracker story. I admit I am mostly familiar with the ballet adaptation and not E.T.A. Hoffman’s original work, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. Hoffman’s story actually continues beyond the moment Marie awakes from her dream and has a more complex plot. (And now I want to read the original work!) The Nutcracker ballet is actually an excerpt of part of Hoffman’s story and Alexandre Dumas’s adaptation of Hoffman’s work. Davis’s retelling transports the reader to 10 years after Marie travels to the Land of Sweets.

I thought the writing in this is good, if not a bit formal. But consider that this story is set in the 19th century when conversation and descriptions are a bit more stuffy; so, I think the writing style appropriate. Though not uncommon, there are a lot of descriptive passages compared to time devoted to dialogue. These passages don’t bog the story down, but I feel that this stole time away from character development. I also feel that the excuses and explanations Marie gave her mother were a little weak. On both of these accounts, I have conflicted opinions.

On one hand, this is a retelling of a story, a fairy tale, if you will. So I don’t necessarily think all characters need to be deep or develop significantly. Nor does all dialogue need to be strong and logical. On the other hand, I think I would have enjoyed reading it even more if there had been more character development. I wouldn’t go so far as to say the characters are two-dimensional. But I think if Marie had more and/or longer interactions with others, they’d read as more substantive characters. For example, I would have loved more dialogue with the Nutcracker prince. Marie finds him disappointing; I think additional dialogue with him could provide an opportunity to explain himself and provide another point of view.

However, overall, I enjoyed reading this retelling. It was a quick read and a great choice for the upcoming Christmas season. Davis throws in a slow burn YA romance (enemies to lovers), which is a nice plot pace setter. Marie is a strong female character, which is always something I appreciate. She can’t do everything herself, but she certainly takes an active role in rescuing her niece. I also loved the descriptions of the Land of Sweets. The world-building is confined to Marie’s home and the Land of Sweets, but there’s still plenty of imagination–giant swans, a rose water lake, a monster who eats sweets. Not to mention Davis brings in the complexities of Hoffman’s original story, causing Marie to question who she believes and whose side to take.

This was definitely a nostalgia read for me. It looks like this is book one of a trilogy, and I do think I’ll continue with it. I’m intrigued to see where Davis will take the story after the recovery of her niece. I am not familiar enough with Hoffman’s original work to know if there are more elements from it to incorporate; whether or not there are, I look forward to Davis making this story even more her own.

Rating: 3.75/5
Content warnings: dueling, blood, kidnapping
Reading format: Kindle e-book

Monthly Book Blog Wrap-Up: November 2021

Published on by Celeste2 Comments

Happy December, everyone! Here’s the obligatory, “I can’t believe it’s December already!” commentary. Which is how I feel every time we get to December every year. December also marks nine months since I started this little book review space. So happy nine-month blog-iversary to me! Keep reading for a recap of my November book escapades, or if you might have missed a blog post or two.

Book Reviews
I posted three reviews in November. I decided to skip posting a review the Sunday after Thanksgiving to give myself a break. From earliest to latest, I reviewed:

Book Memes
I posted five book memes in November, in addition to my monthly wrap-up post for October.

Other Book-ish Progress
I finished reading The Girl of Dorcha Wood by Kristin Ward for a Write Reads book tour in early December. My date slot is December 10, so keep an eye out for my review!

I’m still reading Half Sick of Shadows by Laura Sebastian, which I’m really loving so far. I’m savoring it, plus I’ve been busy, which is why I haven’t finished it yet.

With respect to NetGalley reads, I finished Sugar and Snow by Irene Davis. My review will go live on December 6, so again, keep an eye out for it! I’m also 40% through The Prophecy of Love by T. Satterfield and 23% through Immortal Souls by Phoenix Vieira. Naturally, I requested more reads on NetGalley, and received approvals for some, so my review percentage is still quite low. Of my recent approvals, I’m really excited to read The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper, which I’ve been eyeing for months since it hit shelves in the UK earlier this year.

The Last 10 Books Tag

Published on by Celeste3 Comments

And now, it’s time for something a little different! Chris from Biblio Nerd Reflections tagged me in a book tag called “The Last 10 Books.” I’m fairly certain I’ve never done a book tag before, so I thought I’d give this fun one a shot. Make sure to pop over to Chris’s site to see his answers, and keep reading to see mine.

Last Book I Bought
For Thanksgiving I visited my husband’s family near Boston. This meant I had an opportunity to stop by Brookline Booksmith, one of the most well known bookstores in the country. I seem to only ever go there on the busiest shopping weekend of the year; this past Friday was no different. They expanded the store since I last visited a few years ago. Even if you’re not a book person (gasp!), there’s plenty of other fun items to peruse (e.g., puzzles, games, kitchen things).

While there I picked up Uprooted by Naomi Novik. I’m kind of on a kick of retold fairy tales, so I look forward to eventually reading this. I have Spinning Silver as well, but I also have yet to read that. I also wanted to buy Jade City by Fonda Lee due to its overwhelming popularity on book Twitter; but unfortunately the first book was out of stock.

Last Book I Re-Read
Honestly, I don’t re-read books much anymore. I used to when I was a kid. I’m pretty sure the last book I re-read was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone just before the COVID-19 pandemic started.

Last Book I Gave Up On

I used to be Team Never DNF. Lately I feel that life is too short to keep reading a book you’re in which you’re not very invested. The last book I gave up on is Fathoms: The World in the Whale by Rebecca Giggs. I like to switch to nonfiction after a few fiction books, but I just couldn’t get into this book. I think I felt this way because I was in the middle of moving house and because it felt like reading an encyclopedia. It’s easy to see the author is passionate about whales. But it was a slog to get through each page because of the high level vocabulary and dense sentence structures.

Last Book I Said I Read But Didn’t
I don’t think I’ve ever done this before, so I have nothing to say here!

Last Book I Wrote in the Margins Of
I don’t do this anymore. But back in high school when the Harry Potter series was still incomplete I got really deep into looking for clues about what might happen next. So I wrote short notes about my theories in the margins. I can’t remember which book(s) I did this to, but likely one of the later books.

Last Book I Lost
Again, I don’t think I’ve ever lost a book? Sorry to be boring, but I can usually keep track of my things, including books!

Last Book That I Had Signed

Midnight in Everwood is the last signed book I received. When I ordered the gold foil ballerina special edition, I didn’t realize it would be signed. (Or maybe I didn’t read the description very well!) So that was a nice surprise. My goal is to read it before Christmas, which means I’ll pause reading my NetGalley approvals.



Last Book I Had to Replace
I thought really hard on this one, and I have another non-answer. I don’t think I’ve ever had to replace a book. I’ve certainly bought multiple editions of the same book. And I’ve bought books after borrowing and reading them from the library. But I don’t recall ever needing to replace a book.

Last Book I Argued Over

I’ve never argued over a book, but I have discussed books with fellow readers. I don’t get to discuss books often since I’m not aware of many of my offline friends reading a lot. But every now and then we read the same books and it’s fun to have someone to talk to about them. I think the closest I’ve come to arguing over a book, and it wasn’t really arguing, was about Tamlin in A Court of Thorns and Roses. If you know, you know.



Last Book You Couldn’t Find

If this means a lost book, then I don’t have an answer. If this means finding out a book is out of stock in a bookstore, then my answer is Jade City by Fonda Lee. As I mentioned in an earlier prompt, it was out of stock. Though, to be honest, I’ll probably end up checking it out of my local library. I’m running out of space on my fiction bookshelf and the books in the series are a bit thicker than I expected!



ARC Review: The Bone Shard Emperor by Andrea Stewart

Published on by Celeste1 Comment

Today’s review is about THE BONE SHARD EMPEROR by Andrea Stewart, the second installment of The Drowning Empire trilogy. This review contains spoilers for the first book, The Bone Shard Daughter.

Author: Andrea Stewart
Series: The Drowning Empire, #2
Age Category: Adult
Publisher: Orbit Books
Publish Date: November 23, 2021
Pages: 560

Want to support local bookstores? Buy a copy of The Bone Shard Emperor on Bookshop.org!*

*These are not affiliate links and I do not make a commission from any purchase made using these links.

Continue reading “ARC Review: The Bone Shard Emperor by Andrea Stewart” →

First Lines Fridays: November 19, 2021

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First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?  The rules are as follows:

  • Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
  • Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
  • Finally… reveal the book!

If you’re using Twitter, don’t forget to use #FirstLinesFridays!

Without further ado….

“I’m gonna need someone to help me. I’m gonna need somebody’s hand.” Singing along, pretending Nathaniel Rateliff and I were a couple of salty bikers in leather jackets, I sat at my desk with more swagger than self-awareness. Imagining our fat wallets clipped and chained. Both of us worked up. Clapping and stomping, rocking and rolling to a soul revivalist’s pitch. Preparing to break out of some godforsaken prison.

Do you know what book this is?

Still guessing?

Well, the book reveal is…





Prophecy of Love by T. Satterfield

From Amazon:

Good guy Gabe Mendes is certainly passionate. He thinks love will make his life worth living. So he’s made a deal. In exchange for access to the universe of love he agrees to slay the black ram. But soon he learns, being unlucky in love isn’t his only problem. Turns out—love isn’t what he thinks it is.

By the time Gabe stumbles across the website of the alluring, though mature, Pythia—mystic and high priestess—he’s already failed miserably in love yet again. Raised by a hardworking single mom, never having known the full truth about his father, Gabe has spent his life faithful to three beliefs: follow the rules; don’t let anyone get too close; and avoid, at all costs, being honest about how you feel—especially with yourself. If it weren’t for Gabe’s steadfast companion, a cat named Cat, he might not know love at all.

But when the enchanting red-headed priestess dangles the keys that will unlock the secret answers to the long-asked questions of love, Gabe jumps at the chance. Before he knows it, things change—and fast. The entertaining Pythia takes him on a whirlwind journey traveling the portals of time and space. She’s got him questioning everything he’s ever thought about love. And if that weren’t enough, Gabe is beginning to believe this business about the black ram might cost him everything. It might just kill him.