Moonward Society

The Prince and the Player is a fun, lighthearted romance book, with vibes similar to the movie The Prince and Me as well as Red White and Royal Blue. We get dual alternating POVs from the two main characters, Farron and Tore. Farron is a senior in college from Ohio and captain of the soccer team. Tore is a prince of Norway who enrolls in the same university as Farron and joins the soccer team. With Tore quickly becoming a rising star on the team, the two clash almost instantly. Farron immediately seems to dislike Tore, both because of Tore’s talent on the field and Farron’s perception of Tore’s wealth and privilege. I inhaled this book, reading it pretty much in one sitting. I thought both main characters were well written, and I particularly liked Tore, who just seemed so sweet and thoughtful. Farron, while grumpy at times, was also likable as a character and I think we get a lot of depth from them both beyond just grumpy/sunshine. Though they both act like idiots at certain points ...

I’m a big fan of Casey McQuiston’s work and this one did not disappoint! In The Pairing, we follow Theo and Kit, a former couple who by chance have ended up on the same food tour of Europe. They were previously supposed to go on this tour together, but broke up right before the tour started. This was their last chance to use the funds from their original tour and not have them be wasted. The two end up overcoming some of their differences, start talking again, and eventually start a competition of who can hook up with someone else in each of the cities they go to. The descriptions of the food and the cities make me want to go on this food tour so badly. I read the majority of this book on a plane and it made me want to immediately hop on another plane to go do a European food and wine tour. It just sounds so fun! I thought the two main characters Theo and Kit were very relatable and I would want to be friends with them in real life. They were so cool, but they were also flawed and I ju...

Faebound by Saara El-Arifi is an excellent start to what I think will be an incredible series! This is a fantasy story told in dual points of view between two sisters- Yeeran, a colonel in the Elven army who can wield drum battle magic and Lettle, a diviner who uses the deaths of magical creatures called obeah to tell the future. Yeeran is exiled from the Elven lands after disobeying orders and getting soldiers killed. Yeeran asks a loyal captain of hers, Rayan, to watch out for her sister as she is exiled but Lettle instead follows her sister into exile with Rayan tagging along to protect her. As they try to hunt a huge obeah so that Yeeran may return with honor to the Elven lands, the group is captured by the fae. The fae were previously thought to be extinct and the group is thrust into their mysterious world. I really enjoyed this book! The amount of diverse, queer representation is phenomenal! I thought the world building was also excellent- really immersive, but not overwhel...

An Education in Malice is a queer dark academia book that takes place in the 1960s. We follow Laura and Carmilla as they attend a women’s college in Massachusetts. Carmilla is a senior, while Laura is just starting out there as a freshman. Carmilla is the prized star student of the poetry professor De Lafontaine, but newcomer Laura is also talented poet and the two become academic rivals, striving constantly to impress their professor. The relationship between Laura and Carmilla was very compelling to read about. The rivals to lovers is played out so well here, and you really feel the tension between the two. This is the queer gothic academia book I’ve been looking for. S.T. Gibson has a way with words, and I absolutely love the prose in this book. There are so many great lines such as: “I often felt like a wolf wearing the skin of a girl, balancing on two legs and hoping no one would notice.“ This story is a retelling of Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu. I have not read the original ...

The Baker and the Bard by Fern Haught is a YA graphic novel in which we follow a baker, Juniper, and a bard, Hadley, as they embark on a quest to find a missing ingredient for a very important bakery order. Along the way they come across a town with mysterious monster problem and try to help solve the mystery. I thought this book was a very quick and cute read. If you’re into the cozy fantasy genre, this is definitely of that realm. I like the colorful and lovely illustration style. The plot is simple, but I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. This book will make you smile and I don’t think it needs to go really any deeper than that! I received this book from NetGalley as an ARC. All opinions are my own. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Rating: 3.75 stars

Most Ardently: A Pride & Prejudice Remix by Gabe Cole Novoa is a very enjoyable take on a classic! I’m a big Pride and Prejudice fan and also a fan of classics retellings. This one kept quite a few of the pivotal scenes and lines from the original with it’s own twist which I definitely appreciated. We follow Oliver Bennet, a gay trans teenager, who is known to most of the world as ‘Elizabeth’. Only a trusted few know his true self, so he is expected to wear dresses, attend dances and eventually marry and become someone’s wife. He meets Darcy first at a ball where he sees how poorly Darcy treats ‘Elizabeth’, but then later meets Darcy again as himself, and gets to see a different side of Darcy. I’ve been following along with the classics remixed series, and this one is probably my favorite so far. I enjoy Oliver as the main character and his interactions with not only Darcy, but his family and friends ring true to the character of Elizabeth Bennet from the original series. I though...

That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Human is the third book in the Mead Mishaps series by Kimberly Lemming. If you’re a fan of the series, I think you’ll enjoy this latest edition. This one might be my favorite of the series, I liked it even better than the first one. The series as a whole is so fun, and this one is no exception. We are following Dante, a dragon and side character in the previous books, on his quest to find his mate. Along the way, we get to see some of the characters from the previous books, which was nice. I like how connected everything is in the series. There’s a lot of the funniness of the previous books as well as the spice. However, there’s also a lot of miscommunication between our two main characters which got to be annoying at some parts. This audio book was narrated by Hazel Addison. This is the same narrator who did the first book which I also listened to as an audiobook. I really like this narrator and think she does a good job with doing the different chapt...