Susan Stradiotto > Recent Status Updates

Cool creepy vibes! Love these lines: "The curse skittered across my skin like a thousand scorpions wanting to burrow into my marrow..." and "Their essence thrummed within my mark and coursed through my veins like silky, barely there spiderwebs."

Love this quote:
"These emotions were not my own, but somehow, they also were. They tore and pecked at the shield I’d built around my soul like unrelenting ravens with razor-sharp talons."

[LOVE] “It’s changing,” she whispered, not intending to say the words out loud.
A voice answered from above. “Because you are.”
...
“I don’t want to be like you,” she called.
“You already are.” His words hit her like a slap.
She stood, her voice rising. “No! You hide behind that mask.”
Instead of flinching, he stepped down from the archway, slow and deliberate. “And you wear yours so they’ll love you.”

Love the imagery in this one: "At the far end of the sanctuary, beneath the towering stained-glass window sat a piano. It was the only thing in the room that didn’t shine. The wood was dark, its surface dull with age. Maya stared at it for a long moment, her breath barely leaving her lips. The stained glass cast strange colors across the lid in deep reds, bruised purples, and dull ambers."

An Empire of Monsters ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
by Vanessa Thurgood
This one was epic. Classic fantasy with politics and high stakes. Love the dragon aspect as well as the Kizotz (spelling?).

Love this line: "The longer he studied the portrait, the more it felt as if she were fading, becoming an object on a canvas to be analyzed rather than his flesh-and-blood wife."

Echoes of the Depths ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Loved this epic parable. It's got D&D vibes with Nagas, which isn't something I see a lot of in Fantasy right now, but adore. Strong female lead and decent stakes.

Iolani and the Cave of Many Paths ⭐⭐⭐⭐
A multi-dimensional, self-discovery journey steeped in Hawaiian legend. Light and feel-good vibes.

“Hello? Is someone up there?”
No answer.
Cold air seeped down from the studio, prickling over her skin.
It’s not heated up there, she reminded herself, waiting a moment, listening for sounds of movement.
She closed the door and ran back to her room like someone was chasing her. She...crawled into her bed, pulling the covers tight around herself.
Glancing at the portrait, she hissed, “Was that you? Knock it off.”

Love this gothic imagery:
Paintings lined the high walls of the second floor, fitting together like puzzle pieces in golden arabesque frames. Stern faces with hands folded in laps bumped against swirling landscapes and modern pieces with no rhyme or reason. Dozens of paintings, maybe more. Nora gaped at them. The quantity alone was stunning, the quality even more so.

"Kiera’s brows climbed her forehead. “Uh, for?”
“Soft tissue repair is a pretty easy spell with a bit of venom.”
“What?” Kiera jerked her leg back. “N-n-n-n-n-n-no, no. I
don’t think it’s safe to put venom in me.” "
Yeah... Kiera is really freaking out.

Advance Reader Copies (ARCs) are available NOW on BookSirens: https://booksirens.com/book/U62G9NF/G...

"He seized her mouth, hard and without mercy, plunging his tongue inside. He needed to taste so much more of her tonight. He needed her to feel him. Everything about him. Every desire he’d had for her from that first night he saw her in the alley. He poured every protective instinct he had for her into her into the kiss, his arms circling about her as the
shields he wanted them to be for her."

Reading Kiss of the Fey Duelist
by Christopher D. Schmitz

This set will only be 99 cents for the remainder of this week. Grab your copy while it's still a steal of a deal.



Link to buy: https://www.books2read.com/hellodarkness

Current Read: The Fate in the Flames

Complete
Charm & Mayhem-Sky Sommers
Splitting Dawn-Katherine D. Graham
Fight for Darkness (obv)-Moi & S. Johnson

This one has a lot more positioning than the first. I wish I had the time to sit down and really read a lot at one shot. Still has my interest, but it's taking forever.

The setup is underway. Waiting for the next big exciting thing to happen, but I have a feeling some of this maneuvering is key to the plot. Have I mentioned how much I love historical fantasy?

This is even better than book 1. I'm sadly not getting enough time to just sit and read it, but I'm pretty sure it's going to rank at the top of my 2022 reads.