Review: The Hero and the Hactivist

The Hero and the Hacktivist by Pippa Grant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Once upon a time, in a sort of quiet Canadian suburb, there lived a frazzled single mom who was dying for it to be November 9th so that she could read the next book written by her favourite dirty rom-com author. This FSM (since we're looking to save time and space here people, please!) was not like other damsels in distress quietly awaiting the next release. Oh no! She was yelling it from the rooftops and trying to convert all her friends to Pippa Grant story loving fools because she needed more people to commiserate with that it still wasn't November 9th so she could devour The Hero and the Hacktivist in a single sitting.



She was starting to despair, flailing around in rereads of some of her favourites (which may or may not have included Beauty and the Beefcake just because Ares Berger is EVERYTHING) when she opened her email to find something beautiful. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the FSM got an ARC!



And she lived happily ever after….

The En….

Scratch that! This is most definitely not the end of my love for this story, but it is the end of Story Time so that I can tell you about everything I loved in Pippa Grant's latest release The Hero and the Hacktivisit.

Could there be a better title for this one? No, I don't think so, and if you've read any of Pippa Grant's amazingly hysterical romances before, you know what you're getting in to here when faced with Eloise and her badassery!

Eloise Jayne is, as always, the perverted smartass with a heart of gold she tries so desperately to hide. She's a badass in every sense of the word and even though she doesn't express this will brute force, she does it with her brain and her amazing ninja hacking skills. Her brain kills me - no, really, she slays me with every twisted piece of pervy bravado that comes out of her mouth. Even though this is her love story, please don't think that her propositioning of her best friends' brothers/husbands/lovers has gone anywhere!

So long as his dick's not a disappointment - the brother, not the pirate - we're good, and for once, I'll go home to my cats with an orgasm glow.

Man-made orgasms aren't so easy to come by.

Heh.

Come by. You get me all book, folks.

What a pleasure it was to have her all book too!!! Pippa never disappoints with her fourth wall breaks, and this one took the cake! I had to stop because at this point I realized I loved her more than Deadpool.



DEADPOOL PEOPLE!!! And that's really saying something because hellooooo Ryan Reynolds!!!!!



I think you all see my point… *Ahem*

If you didn't figure it out before you picked it up, Rhett Elliott is our hero. Sexy SEAL badass and protective big brother of Knox's lovely Parker from Stud in the Stacks (he makes a cameo there and if you haven't read it yet, what the hell are you waiting for?????), Rhett's got himself a hero/god complex but, he's built and tatted up so there's that. He's everything I could have wanted for Eloise just like she is for him.

I think I pulled a muscle reading Chapter 10. This book is full of hilarious moments, but the Elliott family text group is the icing on the cake. Parker's autocorrect fails, the mentions of random GIFs (which is my language spoken so well by one Ares Berger, but I digress) and the raging "I'm gonna tell Mom" threats from the brothers - I'm laughing just thinking about it! I felt like I couldn't breathe. COULD. NOT. BREATHE. I couldn't stop laughing, and every time these make an appearance I fall a little more in love with Parker's phone and even more in love with this family. I can't wait to see what each new family member added will bring to the mix as Pippa helps them find their true loves.

If you want to laugh, cry (usually from laughing too hard, but there are a couple of real AWWWWWW moments) and fall in love with love, then you need the story of the Elephant (thank you Parker!!!) and the Ass of Glory! Hit the button and buy this one TODAY!!!!!

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Review: The Assassin's Blade

Review: Heir of Fire

Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"You cannot pick and choose what parts of her to love"

This is what I wanted to scream in my review of Crown of Midnight! This truth tea that precious cinnamon roll Dorian Havillard spilled all over Chaol. You cannot pick and choose what you love about someone, that isn't an option. When you love someone, truly love them, you love them despite the things that you do not/cannot accept.

Oh Chaol, you should have just listened to your friend - to your King before it was almost too late!



Yes, before reading this book I was a Chaolana shipper - but I fell in love with that buzzard Rowan right along with Aelin - and it will be glorious!!!



This is the relationship that I was waiting for her to have - the relationship that I have to say I have come to expect from Sarah J. Maas because of how beautifully she gave us Feyre & Rhysand or Cassian & Nesta if she ever decides to yank her head from her ass and stop being such a newly made Fae baby. Yes, I know they haven't got there yet… but Rowaelin is my new ship of dreams!

Their hands clasped between them, he whispered into her ear, "I claim you, too, Aelin Galathynius."

I am a sucker for a man that is there not to just play those gender associated games of protect the damsel, but to empower her and have her feel that equality - that partnership. Rhys does it for Feyre, are any of you surprised that Aelin has now found it Rowan? I'm not.

This book is about acceptance. This was about Aelin accepting herself, who she really is and that things can be beyond her control. The pain and guilt that she carries at the deaths of those she loved - her parents, Nehemia, her people - that she hasn't been able to deal with. She needed this, to see and feel and deal with the other side of her heritage and the other side of herself - her magic - before she could come to terms with what she could and could not do.

The visions of the past, where you hear her father recounting that her dearest friends were the characters in books because others were afraid of her and the power that dwelled within her… Heir of Fire wrecked me when thinking of little Aelin and all that she had dealt with in her life. Only Aedion, whom we were coming to know through his interactions with Chaol, had been there for her. There was and always will be a bond between them that will run very deep and not because they are cousins, but because they understand each other. They understand what it is like to hold even the tiniest shards of immortal power in their blood and to know that others react out of fear rather than attempted understanding. When they finally see each other again… I can't even continue on that thread because I know how it was and I … *gross sobbing*



Manon & Abraxos

HOLY HANNAH! I can't even deal with Manon, with Abraxos and that he is teaching her that she does have a heart. That that Crochan witch her grandmother made her kill spilling truth tea all over the floor before her death.

Manon, they made you in to monsters - I can't wait until you accept that you are not what they made you to be.

Abraxos - you beautiful baby wyvern who is so protective of his rider, his Manon. I can't wait to watch you fly to glory!

This book brought me so much in the feels department - so, so much! I will continue to torture myself over and over again until Aelin burns down the whole fucking world.

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Review: Crown of Midnight

Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Believe me, Celaena," he snarled, his eyes flashing, "I know you can look after yourself. But I worry because I care. Gods help me, I know I shouldn't, but I do. So I will always care what happens."

Gods help me, Chaol, so will I!

This book broke me in so, so many ways! There is so much here that shows that this is not just the story of Celaena - Aelin - but it is the story of those who believe in freeing the world, even if it goes against everything that has been training and bred into you for your entire life. Crown of Midnight was about so much more than just Celaena winning her freedom it was about truth and consequences and that the ending should bring Chaol the answers to what, to who had truly been the King's Champion. Not just Adarlan's Assassin, but something so much more dangerous which means that Sarah J. Maas ended this book with the most perfect line where the truth hit home, made the most sense to hit and break and shatter a person in to so many bits that it left us all trying to pick ourselves up.

Chaol sank to his knees.

This was so important because the world had just broken around him. He had been loyal to King and country for so long that seeing the truth of the disgusting actions of the King - the truth - was going to break him. This was the moment that even though he continues to hope somewhere in the back of his mind, Chaol realizes that whatever there ever had been between him and the King's Champion was truly over. He knew that she wasn't going to be an enemy, even if he didn't want to admit it, but the love and adoration that they had shared… That was gone forever.

What's happening with Dorian, what's happening with everyone else is just as important but this book, this book was mainly about Celaena and Chaol to me and not just about their relationships with each other but the way the truth impacts their relationships with the world.

He pulled back, but didn't let her go. "Why are you crying?"

"Because," she whispered, her voice shaking, "you remind me of how the world ought to be. What the world can be."

This book brings us one of a multitude of betrayals, and as The Assassin's Blade proves they were not the first in a long line that have been dumped at the feet of Celaena Sardothian. It brings us love, it brings us passion, death, and it brings us the spark of a rebellion. The spark of a rebellion that has been hinted at since the beginning of the series, though this spark of rebellion that was being fanned by Nehemia Ytger, that knowing and wonderous beauty *gross sobbing*, doesn't ebb out and die - NO! That spark is going to grow… And it's moments like that above with Chaol where she sees the good, the honour of him and his actions and she sees what the world should be. What the world free of the markings of pain brought by that tyrant on the throne of Adarlan could be. It's a world that I hope she can create, cause that's what the whole series is about right? Freeing the world from the tyranny and corruption?

Sidebar - You know, it's so hard to write reviews for things you've read in the past for this reason… You KNOW where it's going, you can think of so many wonderful quotes to prove points and yet they don’t come from this one they come from Heir of Fire or they come from Queen of Shadows and you just want to drop them all along the page to prove your point but you can't because OMG…

That these betrayals break her… Well, that's an understatement! I had been all for Chaol and Celaena from the very beginning. The attraction with Dorian was good, but it was something else. There was some other kind of bond between them right from the start. Chaol though.. He was what she needed in that moment. That strength and solidarity, the stability that she needed after Endovier and she found that in the Captain of the Guard. So when Nehemia dies…

She stared at him, panting through gritted teeth, her breath coming quicker and quicker before she roared, the sound filling the room, his blood, his world: "You will never be my friend. You will always be my enemy."

That she cannot forgive what he knows, at least not in that moment is not surprising in the least. There is so much I want for Chaol but I think this was the moment that told us there was something better, something deeper for Celaena Aelin . It doesn't mean that the heartbreak that she feels in that moment, losing her best friend the way she had…



Gods how she even managed to come back from that! I don't… I don’t even know, because it was so hard for her to make friends up until that point and then to lose her best friend… Even if that friend had manipulated the situation so that it would spark her into action, spark her into taking up her mantle as the rightful Queen of Terrasen and that she needed to fight back… They've awoken the monster, and they will pay the price. The first is Archer Finn and believe me, for everything… He pays the price.

Hell hath no fury…



Oh yes, you woke the monster and, she will not be afraid!

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Review: A Court of Frost and Starlight

A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I have read this twice and listened to the Audible recording once. I sobbed through some scenes, through the breathtaking beauty and of the domesticity that Feyre and Rhys are discovering.

We eased through the densely packed heart of the Palace, passing beneath a latticework of faelights just beginning to twinkle awake overhead. From a slumbering, quiet place inside me, the painting name flitted by. Frost and Starlight.

It's Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year (Christmas or whatever holiday like it that us mere mortals celebrate in this world!) and the anniversary of our wonderful High Lady of the Night Court's birth. Feyre is against the celebration of it - and I completely understand! I would be too if I were only turning 21 when my mate and my family were all over 500 years old - but the love they show Feyre, the same unwavering love that they have always had (excuse me while I wipe the tears away from my eyes as I remember her reunion with them in the beginning of A Court Of Wings And Ruin). Yes, I wasn't expecting this to be something that would tug at me quite so much - that it would pull on my heartstrings and make me hungry for more from this world quite as strongly as it did.

"Because you're the foundation, the one who lifts us. You always have been."

This was beautiful perfection! If you have enjoyed the series, and you love Rhys and Feyre, you owe it to yourself take this in and bask in its glory.

Thank you Sarah J. Maas for not putting these precious babies through more pain - oh come now I know that Cassian, Nesta, Elain and the rest of the Inner Circle have some coming to them… You wouldn't have so many companion novels planned if they didn't (please just give them their happiness in the end too!). It was beautiful to see this - to see moments that we've always wanted to see like (view spoiler)[Rhys' reaction to that dark haired child the Bone Carver showed Feyre (hide spoiler)] and the precious promise of something more for Amren and Varian because she's the precious cranky old aunt who's lost her heart to the male. Anyone who says fans won't read something like this, something without much conflict and just some pure unadulterated fluff (yes with some smut dropped in, how could you not ;) ) has not seen just how many people spent their well-earned coins on numerous copies of this Novella.

Thank you, as well, for that taste at the end of the ebook, just that little TASTE of what Cassian and Nesta will go through in the next installment. I NEED IT LIKE I NEED AIR!

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