seekerxr

avid mostly fantasy reader, though i'll reach for anything that sounds interesting. least-read genres are historical (too much bigotry) and sci-fi (space freaks me out). Free Palestine.

1218 points

0% overlap

My Taste

The Hands of the Emperor (Lays of the Hearth-Fire, #1)

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seekerxr finished reading and wrote a review...

seekerxr

Nov 12, 2025

4.5

Enjoyment: 4.5Quality: 4.5Characters: 4.5Plot: 4.5

So glad we kept the momentum with this one! I'm still having a super fun time in this world and with these characters. I really liked the journey we went on with Ash struggling to accept that he's full fae now and the sense of an almost lost identity that he was feeling. My heart hurts for him; he's been through so much and forced to deal with so much change. I don't know how he's doing it but he's so strong.

Lonan's POV was probably my favorite in this one though. The absolute YEARNING this man had was genuinely impressive. I love some real, desperate, almost pathetic love. I knew they'd find their way back to each other eventually but the absolute struggle that Lonan was going through was so angsty and heartbreaking.

Loved Gillie and Nua and I'm so glad Nua is actually a good person because there were a few moments in the first book where I doubted it, but I'm glad Ash has some family now. Balor can catch these HANDS and the twist? If you know you know but I was DISGUSTED. I think it fits though and it adds an even more sinister layer to the plot that I wasn't expecting but it definitely made the stakes higher.

HFN ending with a hint of unease that I was eating up! I can't wait to see how we finish this off!

seekerxr made progress on...

Forgotten Vows (Folk, #2)

Lily Mayne

86%

Post from the Lolita forum

seekerxr

nabokov is too good at this!!

i don't have one example in specific but they way Humbert is being the Absolute Worst and he somehow justifies it to himself? like you as the outsider, as the reader, see it objectively but when you're sitting in his head like you are you can also see "yeah i can see how he believes that". no one thinks that they're the villain, and even those who do will jump through hoops to prove they're not EVIL evil. gah. just extremely impressive from a writing standpoint.

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seekerxr

Thoughts from 41%

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Forgotten Vows (Folk, #2)

Lily Mayne

41%

seekerxr started reading...

Forgotten Vows (Folk, #2)

Lily Mayne

My mortal skin is gone. I’m one of them. One of the Folk. And all I feel is anger. I’m going to kill the Carlin and her sons for everything they did to me. It’s all I care about. But first, I have to navigate this new world. My new skin. My new brother. And, when I fall into her clutches, my fae mother—the Brid. The Seelie Queen. I don’t like what I’m becoming, but I can’t stop it. Something’s wrong with me. Something’s missing. There’s a hollow ache in my chest and I can’t fill it, no matter what I do. It’s like I’ve forgotten something vital from my time on unseelie land. Why do I feel so incomplete? Why do I have an oath etched onto my skin, one I don’t remember making? Why is there a tiny black feather nestled in my throat that I can’t bring myself to take off? Why do I feel so much longing every time I see a beautiful black-haired, black-eyed unseelie fae, even though I don’t remember him at all? My life has become yet another game of cat and mouse, but this time it’s not just the Carlin and her sons trying to get me. New threats lurk, and I have to force myself into this new fae skin to be able to fight them. Forgotten Vows is the second in a mm fae romance trilogy about a dark fae assassin prince and a ‘mortal’ who is thrown into the cruel world of the Folk. Warning: This m/m love story contains explicit sexual content and is not suitable for young readers. It also contains depictions of violence, serious injury, death, minor drug use and deals with the death of a close family member. This trilogy follows the same couple who get their HEA eventually, but book two ends on a HFN.

seekerxr is interested in reading...

The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World

Catherine Nixey

The Darkening Age is the largely unknown story of how a militant religion deliberately attacked and suppressed the teachings of the Classical world, ushering in centuries of unquestioning adherence to 'one true faith'. Despite the long-held notion that the early Christians were meek and mild, going to their martyr's deaths singing hymns of love and praise, the truth, as Catherine Nixey reveals, is very different. Far from being meek and mild, they were violent, ruthless and fundamentally intolerant. Unlike the polytheistic world, in which the addition of one new religion made no fundamental difference to the old ones, this new ideology stated not only that it was the way, the truth and the light but that, by extension, every single other way was wrong and had to be destroyed. From the 1st century to the 6th, those who didn't fall into step with its beliefs were pursued in every possible way: social, legal, financial and physical. Their altars were upturned and their temples demolished, their statues hacked to pieces and their priests killed. It was an annihilation. Authoritative, vividly written and utterly compelling, this is a remarkable debut from a brilliant young historian.

seekerxr finished reading and wrote a review...

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seekerxr

Nov 08, 2025

4.5

Enjoyment: 4.5Quality: 4.5Characters: 4.5Plot: 4.5

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Mortal Skin (Folk, #1)

Lily Mayne

56%

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Mortal Skin (Folk, #1)

Lily Mayne

I first saw the Folk when I was a little boy. When they started appearing in my garden, with their unnatural, cruel beauty and honeyed words and veiled taunts. I grew up with big green eyes watching me from the forest. Whispers from the trees. Shimmering skin darting between the bushes. Black creatures always lurking in the shadows. While they were here, I thought nothing of them. It wasn’t until they were gone that I realise it wasn’t… normal. But it isn’t until I’m twenty-one, when my life is in ruins, that they come back to take me away. They say I’m not fully mortal. They say I should be among them. The Unseelie Ruler wants me on her land for reasons no one will explain to me, but it’s her aloof, painfully beautiful son who captures my attention and refuses to let go. The cold, black-eyed assassin prince who strikes fear into the hearts of all Folk. Who I’ve been warned about, repeatedly. Who watches me always. I don’t trust the Folk, so I ignore their fearful advice to stay away from him. I ignore all of them except him, despite everything telling me that he can’t be trusted—that he’s just as bad as the rest of them, that he’s playing games with me, the clueless mortal held here against his will. But I want him. Mortal Skin is the first in a mm fae romance trilogy about a dark fae assassin prince and a mortal who is thrown into the cruel world of the Folk. Warning: This m/m love story contains explicit sexual content and is not suitable for young readers. It also contains depictions of violence and deals with the death of a close family member. This trilogy will follow the same couple who get their HEA eventually, but book one ends on a cliffhanger.

seekerxr finished reading and wrote a review...

Learned Reactions (Higher Education, #2)

seekerxr

Nov 06, 2025

3.0

Enjoyment: 3.0Quality: 3.0Characters: 2.5Plot: 3.0

This is another example of the main 'schtick' of a romance novel not working for me. I don't want to go into specifics as to not spoil but this is just another genre of miscommunication pretty much and it annoyed the hell out of me the entire novel. Not only would that trope in general annoy me but the main characters in this book are 38 YEARS OLD. Almost 40 years old and y'all are acting like TEENAGERS. Ugh.

Other than that this book was cute. Very strong found family vibes and I really admired Carlton and Deion for stepping up and helping his niece and nephew. I also really liked Deion's relationship with his mom; it wasn't all perfect but you can tell they both love each other a lot. Very cute and cheesy ending but I thought it was sweet.

I'm unsure how to rate this because I'm really biased since it uses a trope that I hate but that doesn't make it a BAD book. I'm gonna rate towards my feelings but no hate towards the book or the author. Edit Review

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Learned Reactions (Higher Education, #2)

Jayce Ellis

60%

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Learned Reactions (Higher Education, #2)

Jayce Ellis

Carlton Monroe is finally getting his groove back. After a year playing dad to his nephew and sending him safely off to college, it’s back to his bachelor ways. But when his teenaged niece shows up on his doorstep looking for a permanent home, his plan comes to a screeching halt. Family is everything, and in the eyes of social services, a couple makes a better adoptive family than an overworked bachelor father. A fake relationship with his closest friend is the best way to keep his family together. If things between him and Deion are complicated, well, it only needs to last until the end of the semester.Living with Carlton is a heartbreak waiting to happen, and once the adoption goes through, Deion’s out. He’s waited two decades for Carlton to realize they’re meant for each other, and he’s done. It’s time to make a clean break. But it’s hard to think of moving away when keeping up the act includes some very real perks like kissing, cuddling and sharing a bed.Even the best charades must come to an end, though. As the holidays and Deion’s departure date loom, the two men must decide whether playing house is enough for them—or if there’s any chance they could be a family for real.Higher EducationBook 1: Learned BehaviorsBook 2: Learned Reactions

seekerxr is interested in reading...

When God Was a Woman

Merlin Stone

Here, archaeologically documented,is the story of the religion of the Goddess. Under her, women’s roles were far more prominent than in patriarchal Judeo-Christian cultures. Stone describes this ancient system and, with its disintegration, the decline in women’s status.

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Wuthering Heights

Emily Brontë

You can find the redesigned cover of this edition HERE. At the centre of this novel is the passionate love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff - recounted with such emotional intensity that a plain tale of the Yorkshire moors acquires the depth and simplicity of ancient tragedy. This best-selling Norton Critical Edition is based on the 1847 first edition of the novel. For the Fourth Edition, the editor has collated the 1847 text with several modern editions and has corrected a number of variants, including accidentals. The text is accompanied by entirely new explanatory annotations. New to the fourth Edition are twelve of Emily Bronte's letters regarding the publication of the 1847 edition of Wuthering Heights as well as the evolution of the 1850 edition, prose and poetry selections by the author, four reviews of the novel, and poetry selections by the author, four reviews of the novel, and Edward Chitham's insightful and informative chronology of the creative process behind the beloved work. Five major critical interpretations of Wuthering Heights are included, three of them new to the Fourth Edition. A Stuart Daley considers the importance of chronology in the novel. J. Hillis Miller examines Wuthering Heights's problems of genre and critical reputation. Sandra M. Gilbert assesses the role of Victorian Christianity plays in the novel, while Martha Nussbaum traces the novel's romanticism. Finally, Lin Haire-Sargeant scrutinizes the role of Heathcliff in film adaptations of Wuthering Heights. A Chronology and updated Selected Bibliography are also included.

seekerxr is interested in reading...

Between Two Fires

Christopher Buehlman

The year is 1348. Thomas, a disgraced knight, has found a young girl alone in a dead Norman village. An orphan of the Black Death, and an almost unnerving picture of innocence, she tells Thomas that plague is only part of a larger cataclysm—that the fallen angels under Lucifer are rising in a second war on heaven, and that the world of men has fallen behind the lines of conflict. Is it delirium or is it faith? She believes she has seen the angels of God. She believes the righteous dead speak to her in dreams. And now she has convinced the faithless Thomas to shepherd her across a depraved landscape to Avignon. There, she tells Thomas, she will fulfill her mission to confront the evil that has devastated the earth, and to restore to this betrayed, murderous knight the nobility and hope of salvation he long abandoned. As hell unleashes its wrath, and as the true nature of the girl is revealed, Thomas will find himself on a macabre battleground of angels and demons, saints, and the risen dead, and in the midst of a desperate struggle for nothing less than the soul of man.

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House of Hunger

Alexis Henderson

WANTED - Bloodmaid of exceptional taste. Must have a keen proclivity for life's finer pleasures. Girls of weak will need not apply. A young woman is drawn into the upper echelons of a society where blood is power, in this dark and enthralling gothic novel from the author of The Year of the Witching. Marion Shaw has been raised in the slums, where want and deprivation is all she knows. Despite longing to leave the city and its miseries, she has no real hope of escape until the day she spots a peculiar listing in the newspaper, seeking a bloodmaid. Though she knows little about the far north--where wealthy nobles live in luxury and drink the blood of those in their service--Marion applies to the position. In a matter of days, she finds herself the newest bloodmaid at the notorious House of Hunger. There, Marion is swept into a world of dark debauchery--and at the center of it all is her. Countess Lisavet, who presides over this hedonistic court, is loved and feared in equal measure. She takes a special interest in Marion. Lisavet is magnetic, and Marion is eager to please her new mistress. But when her fellow bloodmaids begin to go missing in the night, Marion is thrust into a vicious game of cat and mouse. She'll need to learn the rules of her new home--and fast--or its halls will soon become her grave.

seekerxr commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

fairyswoo

classic books !

i’ve been really interested in classics lately, does anyone have any recs except frankenstein, p&p, emma, little women, mansfield park? that’d be amazing 🫶🏻

ps: do i need to read pride & prejudice first before sense & sensibility or is it completely okay to read either as stand alone?

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