Survival story after a plane crash with bonus cartel shenanigans. Slow to medium pace that might have benefited from being a bit shorter for more punchy impact.

Secret society romantic suspense in a collegiate academic setting. Central hockey team and secret societies. I'm pretty sure this was not(?) intended to be YA, but the writing definitely lent that way. Overall, mid for me.

So much fun and cleverly written. Loved going back to see the first in the series and am glad to be able to say that these books truly do work in either order. That being said, the proper reading order clearly is publication order since the events in this book are built upon in the second. The romances truly do function as standalone novels, just not the overarching world-building. Very much looking forward to more from these authors.

Checking off a prompt for an Around the World challenge with Antarctica. Handled alcoholism of the main character with appropriate care, though I somehow stayed as more of an observer to the story than forming any strong character attachments. Overall, I feel positively toward the story, if a bit average.

I think this will work well for the target age demographic. For me, it mostly made clear that I'm out of my YA contemporary era. Happy these stories are available for the tweens and teens of today though.

**I was provided an electronic ARC from the publisher through NetGalley.** Actual rating: 3.5 Daisy Pearce presents Something in the Walls, a horror story centering a girl and a history of witches in a small town. Readers follow Mina, a recent university graduate who specialized in child psychology. Mina has been called in for an expert opinion by Sam, an investigative journalist. Sam is looking into the case of Alice, a teenager who seems to be possessed by the spirit of a witch set free from a broken witch bottle. Sam is burdened with the death of his daughter and Mina is haunted by the death of her brother, and somehow Alice knows. Pearce sets up with an interesting premise and short chapters that keep the pace steadily moving. This book is a slow burn psychological horror that builds uncertainty and instability in Mina and in the whole town. This aspect of the book is done well. My issues come in with the ending. I am admittedly, disappointed with the choice of how to end the book. Not just the aspect of what was happening, but the quick sort of slapdash whirlwind of the end itself. There are a few plot holes that I can logic away for myself in general, but the book doesn't necessarily answer specific questions about how or why scenes came to occur the way they did without me having to come up with some major assumptions. This is probably a me-specific pet peeve, but lack of cohesive explanation for what happened frequently annoys me in horror. We have an answer. Win. But some things simply aren't rationalized by that explanation. Less of a win. That being said, I was never bored and I enjoyed my time with the story. I was happy to have the opportunity to read Something in the Walls early.

I'm usually a hard sell on best friends to lovers and an easy buy in on enemies to lovers. But Xavi and Nate were disgustingly cute and this ended up the best book of the trilogy for me. Definitely will look into Nordika Night's backlist.

This was a perfectly fine book, but I will likely forget a lot of details quickly and will not be continuing in the series since it landed pretty mid for me. Didn't do anything wrong! I'm not the audience for this one.