1st Light - Dawn Reads and Reviews

Grim Tidings by B.K. Borison My rating: 4 of 5 stars The story about a Grim Reaper and a Guardian Angel falling in love sounds campy and trite. It sounds like it's going to be full of stereotypes. But it couldn't be farther from this. What really sold this for me was an interview I read about regarding where B.K. Borison came up with the idea. She mentioned it was an idea that had been floating around in her own life. Her husband works in palliative care dealing with terminally ill patients. She wrote about watching him grieve people he barely had time to meet. What if death got tired of dealing with their job, just like her husband? Darcy, a Grim Reaper, has spent a century collecting souls and is exhausted by the constant presence of death. Gabriel has devoted his existence to protecting human lives as a Guardian Angel. When Darcy's newest assignment brings her into Gabriel's orbit, he immediately sees her as the exact opposite of e...

The Enigmas by Emilia Hart My rating: 5 of 5 stars I love speculative fiction with philosophical questions at its core. Questions like: If you were given the chance to go back and undo the worst moment of your life, how far would you go before changing the past became more dangerous than living with it? The plot: The Enigmas follows Beatrice, a woman living in wartime England whose life has been shaped by family expectations, loss, and the sense that her sister Clemmie has always been freer and braver than she. When tragedy changes everything, Beatrice finds herself drawn into the possibility that time may not be as fixed as she once believed. Running alongside her story are sections from her mother Alice’s past, revealing her experiences as a young woman and doctor during the First World War and slowly uncovering how the women in this family are connected across generations. I loved learning about the Endell Street Military Hospital, a pioneering Fi...

Child of Ashes by Elizabeth Hunter My rating: 5 of 5 stars I own and read each Elizabeth Hunter's books as soon as I hear that another one is coming out. Am I biased? Yes. Is she a favorite author? Yes. Would I read an Ikea instruction manual she wrote? You better believe I would. They need someone to make them fun and interesting. So whether it's about romance, contemporary fantasy, paranormal mystery, or time travel, I'm there for it. Whether we have vampires, shape shifters, mages, or fairies, count me in. I love the way she handles speculative fiction. She makes it easy to jump in and understand, and that is especially true for her latest, Child of Ashes. Time travel is complicated enough. In this second book in the Seba Segel series, someone kidnaps the most powerful child anyone has seen in generations and takes him into the past. The continuation of "The Thirteenth Month" finds Narine building her life around protecting...

Threshing Day by Rebecca Yarros My rating: 4 of 5 stars I did not realize how badly I needed to return to Basgiath until thirteen different Threshing Days reminded me exactly why I love this world. Threshing Day revisits one of the most important moments in a rider’s life through multiple familiar perspectives, giving us the chance to experience the day cadets enter the Vale and either bond with a dragon or fail trying. Rather than centering one character, the novella moves among thirteen different cadets and dragon pairings, revealing pieces of the relationships, fears, motivations, loyalties, and grief that eventually shape the characters we know from the main series. I loved this. Some chapters are funny (Ridoc & Aotrom), some are heartbreaking (Sloane & Thoirt), and several quietly add new meaning to moments or relationships from Fourth Wing , Iron Flame, and Onyx Storm. Ridoc’s perspective was exactly as entertaining as I expected, while...

The Time of My Afterlife by Lucy Mitchell My rating: 4 of 5 stars Florence and Clark have been irritating each other since they were six, so when a freak accident leaves them stranded together in the afterlife, neither is thrilled with the arrangement. That premise had me intrigued from the start. I loved the idea of having the main characters wake up in the afterlife with the person they've disliked since childhood. They are then given a chance to return to their lives, but only if they can figure out what they are supposed to change. With very little guidance, they begin looking outward, helping friends, neighbors, and people carrying grief of their own while slowly realizing they may have misunderstood each other for years. I really enjoyed the mix of enemies-to-lovers, magical realism, and second-chance themes. Florence and Clark’s bickering gives the story plenty of humor. I especially loved watching their assumptions about each other gradua...

Burn of the Everflame by Penn Cole My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is the book I've been waiting for, the book I've been yearning for, and it did NOT disappoint. After four books of war, prophecies, impossible choices, and two main characters that I can't get enough of, Burn of the Everflame finally brings everything crashing together. This book picks up where the previous book left off. Emarion is at war on multiple fronts. The Descended face annihilation; rebellion is spreading; the Crowns are forced into alliances that once seemed impossible; and Diem and Luther are caught at the center of a conflict where personal love and the fate of an entire world have become inseparable. What worked best for me was the scale. This feels like a finale. The politics expand, the magic deepens, familiar characters finally step into roles the series has been preparing them for, and the multiple perspectives give the conflict a much broader emotional reach...