Tag: 3 Stars Reviews

Review: King & Conqueror by Alesana Nuusila

Posted July 9, 2025 by Chloe in Reviews | 0 Comments

King & Conqueror by Alesana Nuusila

Reviewer: Chloe
Main Leads: King, Toafa
Setting: Latu
Genres: Fiction, Fantasy
Tags: The Chosen One
Published On: February 4, 2025
Publisher: Self Published
Format: e-Book
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Pages: 139
Purchase It: Amazon

Born of the land but raised by the sea, King and TOAFA—two Lupe warriors—grew into legends, known for their unmatched skill and restraint in battle. Though feared and revered, they never sought conquest—only protection. Yet, whispers of their power spread across kingdoms, drawing both admiration and fear.

When King is summoned back to his birthplace, the island of Latu, he faces an identity he never knew. The people welcome him as Peau—the tide that returns—but his presence awakens long-buried tensions. His mother, Tupou, refuses to let him claim the land, while his forgotten grandmother, Selu, sees the truth in his eyes.

As King dedicates himself to saving the starving islanders, he defies the ancient warnings and leads a mission into the forbidden Sea of Leanga. There, he finds an abundance of fish—but no Anga warriors, as he had been led to believe. Had he been deceived?

Meanwhile, Tupou, driven by grief and pride, launches an attack on the Anga, seeking to eradicate them before they can retaliate. But the battle is not a victory—it is a massacre. The Anga are nearly wiped out.

Devastated, King realizes that he cannot deny the people who would die for him. He bids farewell to the Tangata, promising to return to his grandmother, and embraces the weight of his destiny.

As the tides pull him home, King is no longer just a warrior.

He is Peau. The tide that returns. The King who will reign beneath the waves.

This book was very short. I like the story and feel there’s so much potential. The writing felt a little everywhere and more like bullet points than a story telling. I just wanted more detail. Wanted more depth. Just MORE. The book is supposed to be about the King and his brother Toafa (the conqueror), but we only ever really got the King’s story. And for some reason I pictured the Lupe and the Anga as the sea creatures from the movie Luca. 😅

Overall, I didn’t hate it, didn’t love it. It was just different for me.

Final Rating

3 out of 5

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Review: The Perfect Son by Freida McFadden

Posted June 9, 2025 by Brenna in Reviews | 0 Comments

The Perfect Son by Freida McFadden

Reviewer: Brenna
Main Leads: Erika Cass, Olivia
Setting: United States, Massachusetts, Boston
Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Suspense
Tags: Family Drama, Psychological Thriller, Missing Girl, Mother and Son
Published On: October 18, 2019
Publisher: Hollywood Upstairs Press
Format: Tradeback
Source: Purchased
Pages: 373
Purchase It: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

“Mrs. Cass, we were hoping your son could answer a few questions about the girl who disappeared last night…”

Erika Cass has a perfect family and a perfect life. Until the evening when two detectives show up at her front door.

A high school girl has vanished from Erika’s quiet suburban neighborhood. The police suspect the worst–murder. And Erika’s teenage son, Liam, was the last person to see the girl alive.

Erika has always sensed something dark and disturbed in her seemingly perfect older child. She wants to believe he’s innocent, but as the evidence mounts, she can’t deny the truth–Liam may have done the unthinkable.

Now she must ask herself: How far will she go to protect her son?

The Perfect Son is a story that follows Erika, a mother whose seemingly ideal son becomes the prime suspect in a girl’s disappearance, forcing her to question everything she thought she knew. McFadden explores themes of maternal love, trust, and denial, crafting a chilling portrayal of how far a parent will go to protect their child. It had me side eyeing her but the shifting perspectives and slow unraveling of secrets made for a tension filled read.

I have been a Freida McFadden fan since I started reading and so I was super excited about this book. It started off great by setting up the plot with the backstory on Erika Cass and her family, but gave us a little more detail on her “perfect” son Liam.

The two POVs that we got were interesting because I was curious about why these were the POV’s chosen to tell this story. Getting the story from Erika (Liam’s Mom) and Olivia (Liam’s crush) gave us interesting perspectives and as I continue to read, it was easy to keep up with what was going on.

There were a few instances when I was annoyed with the Mom because she had a lot of inner thoughts that she never shared and to be honest, if she would have spoken up, they probably would have realized that Liam was not a suspect a lot sooner so that dragged the storytelling a bit for me. It was also annoying to hear how much she loved her son, but continued to accuse him of being this psycho boy who preyed on girls. How someone could love their son so much if they thought them capable of really bad stuff didn’t make sense to me but maybe that was the point? When she started to believe all the bad stuff and started going against her son?? I wanted to smack her cause when even is all of this??

The biggest plot twist of this book being who it ended up being? Come on! Insert eye-roll here. So while this book did keep me on my toes, it wasn’t the best thriller that I’ve read and to be honest, that’s okay because the story was still solid.

Final Rating

3 out of 5

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Review: Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score

Posted June 2, 2025 by Wena in Reviews | 0 Comments

Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score

Series: Knockemout #1
Main Leads: Knox Morgan, Naomi Witt
Setting: United States, Virginia, Knockemout
Genres: Contemporary, Romance
Tags: Damsel in Distress, Grumpy Hero, Single Mom
Published On: January 12, 2022
Publisher: Indie Published, That’s What She Said Publishing
Format: Audio
Source: Purchased
Pages: 572 | Length: 16h, 1m
Purchase It: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Bearded, bad-boy barber Knox prefers to live his life the way he takes his coffee: Alone. Unless you count his basset hound, Waylon.

Knox doesn’t tolerate drama, even when it comes in the form of a stranded runaway bride.

Naomi wasn’t just running away from her wedding. She was riding to the rescue of her estranged twin to Knockemout, Virginia, a rough-around-the-edges town where disputes are settled the old-fashioned way…with fists and beer. Usually in that order.

Too bad for Naomi her evil twin hasn’t changed at all. After helping herself to Naomi’s car and cash, Tina leaves her with something unexpected. The niece Naomi didn’t know she had. Now she’s stuck in town with no car, no job, no plan, and no home with an 11-year-old going on thirty to take care of.

There’s a reason Knox doesn’t do complications or high-maintenance women, especially not the romantic ones. But since Naomi’s life imploded right in front of him, the least he can do is help her out of her jam. And just as soon as she stops getting into new trouble he can leave her alone and get back to his peaceful, solitary life.

At least, that’s the plan until the trouble turns to real danger.

Things We Never Forgot About is the first book in the Knockemout Series by Lucy Score. The series follows two brothers and their best friend as they find their one true love. This book is the first Morgan brother’s book, Knox. Knox is the grumpy rich guy that just wants to be left alone to run his businesses and hang out with his dog but that peaceful life that he’s made for himself goes out the window the minute that Naomi Witt comes into his life. She blows into his life with daisies in her hair and before he knows whats what, she’s planted herself right into his life.

Naomi Witt escaped being the wife of an asshole when she fled her wedding under the guise that her sister needed her. She did receive a note from her sister saying she needed her and jumped at the chance to run from her wedding. She wasn’t expecting to stay in the small town of Knockemout, Virginia and she wasn’t expecting her sister to steal her car, her clothes, her purse, and leave her with an eleven year old niece that Naomi didn’t even know existed. She also wasn’t expecting to meet the grumpy Knox Morgan who seems to have his hand in everything in Knockemout. Stepping up for her niece, Waylay was a no-brainer for Naomi. She would never walk away from a family member that needed her and Waylay needed her like nobody’s business so it looked like Naomi was staying in town a lot longer than she anticipated.

I’m going to start with my thoughts on what I liked in this book and then end on what I didn’t like. Naomi and Waylay are highlights of this book for me. I loved seeing them navigate getting to know each other and fall in love with each other. The way that their relationship blossomed into the relationship that they had in the end made my insides all warm and squishy and I just really loved being apart of their story. I loved how Naomi came to love and depend on Waylay the same way that Waylay came to love and depend on Naomi. I love how they became a family and when Naomi’s parents show up, I love how they all uprooted their lives to be apart of Waylay’s life. I also really loved the support system that Naomi had in Steph. He was the best kind of friend and he added more to love when he was around.

I also really liked the friends that Naomi made in Knockemout. Sloane and the friends from the bar were all great additions to this cast and I also really liked Nash and I’m lowkey curious about Lucien. Nash and Knox’s grandma was great too and I really loved seeing her come to love Waylay like she was her own. Oh and I also really liked Waylay’s friends. Chloe was such a cutie patootie.

Knox got on my hot damn nerves. I just never warmed up to him. I normally love me a grumpy “Get off my lawn!” hero but there was something about Knox that made me want to kick him in the dick every time he opened his mouth or did something else that I thought was dumb as hell. The reason behind him and Nash’s falling out? Stupid. The reason he broke up with Naomi? SO STUPID. And don’t even get me started on the way that he talked to Naomi. Sure, his intentions are good from the jump. He loves to help others and he’s got the means to help everyone but the way that he was mad at Nash for the way that Nash spent the money he gave him? Ehh. The way that he hated the way that Warner talked and treated Naomi even though he talked to Naomi the same way? Se ki’o. I just felt like his love and help came with stipulations and if you didn’t do or act the way that he wanted you to then it was a problem. Why help anyone if you were going to dictate what they did with your help? That’s like love with conditions. Why bother loving anyone at all? Sure, I knew that he was one of the good guys and that his personality was just grumpy but he still rubbed me the wrong way a whole lot of the time and I thought he was too old to be acting so dumb…and that’s why I struggled so much with his romance with Naomi. He set her up and then dropped her on her face when things got to be too much for him but…he was the one that pursued Naomi. He was the one that changed the rules so the way that he broke up with Naomi but still wanted a say in the choices she made and how she took care of Waylay just pissed me off. Everything about him pissed me off and I wouldn’t have been mad if Naomi fell in love with someone else, haha.

Even though I didn’t like the hero and because I didn’t like him, I wasn’t a big fan of the romance. I did love everything else though. I thought the writing was compelling and kept me wanting to continue even when I wanted to knee Knox in the balls. I’m not sure that I enjoyed this book enough to want to continue the series. I do like Nash and Lucien but enough to continue? Probably not, especially cause I’m scared they’re like Knox.

So yeah, the hero sucks but everything else was good stuff so 3 out of 5, would recommend with reservations, but if you don’t care about heroes acting like idiots for most of the book and like small towns and family relationships made stronger through the raising of abandoned children then this is probably the book for you.

Knockemout Series

3 out of 5

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Review: The Name Drop by Susan Lee

Posted May 14, 2025 by Wena in Reviews | 0 Comments

The Name Drop by Susan Lee

Main Leads: Jessica Lee, Elijah Ri
Setting: United States, New York, New York City
Tropes: Chaebol Male Lead, Office Romance, Mistaken Identity
Genres: Romance, Contemporary, Young Adult
Published On: September 12, 2023
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Format: e-Book
Source: Purchased
Pages: 304
Purchase It: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

When Elijah Ri arrives in New York City for an internship at his father’s massive tech company, Haneul Corporation, he expects the royal treatment that comes with being the future CEO—even if that’s the last thing he wants. But instead, he finds himself shuffled into a group of overworked, unpaid interns, all sharing a shoebox apartment for the summer.

When Jessica Lee arrives in New York City, she’s eager to make the most of her internship at Haneul Corporation, even if she’s at the bottom of the corporate ladder. But she’s shocked to be introduced as the new executive-in-training intern with a gorgeous brownstone all to herself.

It doesn’t take long for Elijah and Jessica to discover the source of the mistake: they share the same Korean name. But they decide to stay switched—so Elijah can have a relaxing summer away from his controlling dad while Jessica can make the connections she desperately needs for college recommendations.

As Elijah and Jessica work together to keep up the charade, a spark develops between them. Can they avoid discovery—and total disaster—with their feelings and futures on the line?

This is the second book that I’ve read by Susan Lee and this time, it’s Hoshi’s book. When I first saw the cover of this book, I immediately thought of Kwon Soonyoung aka Hoshi from Seventeen. I can’t say that anything else about Elijah Ri reminds me of Hoshi. Their personalities are different and Hoshi is more goofy than Elijah was and as much as I like Elijah, I didn’t like him nearly as much as I like Hoshi. Oh well.

So this story follows Jessica Lee as she travels to New York City for an internship with her father’s company. Things are hopping right from the very beginning because Jessica’s trip goes a lot different than she thought. She’s in first class, she arrives and gets an entire brownstone to herself and she gets her own housekeeper too. When she shows up at work to start the internship, she realizes that her trip got swapped with Elijah Ri, the son of the CEO of the company. Jessica and Elijah share the same Korean name so she got everything that he was supposed to get and she’s determined to come clean and fix the confusion but Elijah asks her to keep the charade going. Nobody knows any better and his father doesn’t pay attention to minor details like these so he’ll never know and surprisingly, Jessica agrees to not swap spots. Elijah gets the break he needs and Jessica gets to put herself out there and prove that she’s got what it takes to be an Haneul Corporation employee.

Jessica was a go getter who is determined to make the most of her internship so that she can get good recommendations for her college applications. Elijah is not the son that his father thought he’d be and he struggles with the pressure that his father puts on him. Elijah doesn’t want to run the company after his father retires and thinks that his older sister should get the company cause she works tirelessly for the company and should be rewarded for her efforts…but their father is a real piece of work and only sees the future of the company with a man at the helm.

This book showcases a lot of the issues that I see in k-dramas. South Korea has real issues with women in positions of power and that is reflected in this story. Jessica deals with it by having some piece of shit bosses who made her do “girl jobs” that they wouldn’t ask the men to do and she struggled with trying to stand her ground while at the same time not pissing anyone off and getting yanked out of the intern program.

Elijah, on the other hand was learning how the poor folks live and realizing that it’s a lot more social than the way he lives his life. If he had returned to the brownstone that he was supposed to stay at, he wouldn’t have made friends, he would have been cooped up all by himself the entire time that he was in New York City and he’s grateful that Jessica kept to the switch. As they get to know each other and work together, they develop a friendship that of course blossoms into more and everything was fine until it wasn’t.

I liked both Jessica and Elijah but there just wasn’t anything that really had me hooked. I couldn’t even tell you much about the supporting cast of characters, the other interns, or even Elijah’s sister because they were like background music. I read about them but I didn’t know any of them. I certainly don’t remember much about them either. This was a quick read so it didn’t take long to read the entire thing but after all was said and done, I liked it but I didn’t love it and I know that I won’t remember it so that’s a bit of a let down.

3 out of 5

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Review: Seoulmates by Susan Lee

Posted May 7, 2025 by Wena in Reviews | 0 Comments

Seoulmates

Main Leads: Hannah Cho, Jacob Kim
Setting: United States, California, San Diego
Tags: Best Friend Love, Second Chance Romance, Hate to Love
Genres: Romance, Contemporary, Young Adult
Published On: September 20, 2022
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Format: e-Book
Source: Purchased
Pages: 314
Purchase It: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Hannah Cho had the next year all planned out—the perfect summer with her boyfriend, Nate, and then a fun senior year with their friends.

But then Nate does what everyone else in Hannah’s life seems to do—he leaves her, claiming they have nothing in common. He and all her friends are newly obsessed with K-pop and K-dramas, and Hannah is not. After years of trying to embrace the American part and shunning the Korean side of her Korean American identity to fit in, Hannah finds that’s exactly what now has her on the outs.

But someone who does know K-dramas—so well that he’s actually starring in one—is Jacob Kim, Hannah’s former best friend, whom she hasn’t seen in years. He’s desperate for a break from the fame, so a family trip back to San Diego might be just what he needs… that is, if he and Hannah can figure out what went wrong when they last parted and navigate the new feelings developing between them.

Her ex-boyfriend wants her back. Her former best friend is in town. When did Hannah’s life become a K-drama?

This book came on to my radar when I learned that the author is a Carat (a fan of the k-pop group Seventeen) and the boy in this book was inspired by Mingyu..who is my bias in Seventeen. I’m all about supporting a fellow Carat so I bought this book and was eager to read it.

This book follows Hannah Cho into summer after she gets dumped by her boyfriend Nate who broke up with her because he was more into her culture than she was. He legit broke up with her because she didn’t know what a bias was so Hannah plans to win him back by getting into k-pop and k-dramas. Her plans are derailed when her childhood best friend, Jacob Kim returns to San Diego for the summer and his family is staying with her family for the summer. He hasn’t been back to San Diego since he moved to Korea and because Hannah has abandonment issues, she’s got issues with Jacob.

Jacob is going through his own struggles and he’s in San Diego for the summer because he needs to take a break from his job and from the immense pressure he feels surrounding his job. Jacob is a k-drama actor and the drama that he’s working on is pressuring him to be in a fake relationship with his co-star to garner interest and appease avid fans of the show. On top of being in a fake relationship with a girl he doesn’t even like, he’s got some family drama with an uncle trying to horn in on his fame and capitalize on Jacob’s fame. When he became the man of the house, Jacob had to find work to support them and working in the industry is taking a lot out of him. Add to that, he’s back in his hometown with the girl he left behind and she kind of hates him now.

Seeing these two bicker their way toward their happy ending was good but it wasn’t anything that I was head over heels in love with. I think I struggled with Hannah’s attitude toward everything and everyone the most. It is absolutely a mature thing. I get that she’s young and she’s immature and the obvious reason for the story was to see her growth in character but holy shit, she made it hard a lot of the time. Jacob was better but I don’t know, I didn’t absolutely love him either. I thought he was just okay…which sucks to say because I really love the guy that inspired his creation. I also struggled with the writing style. I felt like I was talked at, not really connected to the story and the characters. I felt like I was watching a tv show but it was more background noise and I just wasn’t as invested in what happened.

I will say that the ending was better than the beginning and when Hannah does her growing and Jacob gets his shit together, they were a lot better to take but that’s about it.

3 out of 5

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