April End of the Month Wrap Up '24

 

This month is finally over! I can't believe that things have gone by so quickly!! Alas though, I have managed to beat my record from the 2 previous months. I have 13 books read this month!! I want to do better or at least reach the same level this month! I read so many ARCs this month!! I can't believe that I have so many! On top of that May is looking to be another ARC heavy month as well. I can't express how much I appreciate these authors for giving me the chance to read their books. No matter what I rated them, big congrats to them for even making it as far as getting published!! With that being said, I had some books this month that are grappling with each other for the spots that I ended up putting them in. I will explain in my breakdown which ones were battling for which spots. I also wanna say that there are some authors that I will definitely be adding to my follow list! Let's get into it! Here are the books that I read for the month of April!!

Best Voice Actors: Scarred The voice actors did such a fantastic job with this book! I loved that even when they spoke for other characters that it was still unique enough that at times you didn't even need them to say who was speaking because you knew. They were both very well done and had unique quirks for their respective characters! Not to mention they didn't make the spicy scenes feel awkward. Sometimes a voice actor will say a spicy word and you can just tell that it isn't a work that they use normally because it doesn't flow as well as the other words. Not that I think some of the other voice actors roll around using those words on the regular, they just seem more comfortable when they do say them.

Top Book Baddie: Queen Tantii- Midnight Mayhem What can be worse than having your mother hate you so much that you wiped your memory? Not to mention some of the things that she ends up doing to other people in this book. Her OWN FLESH AND BLOOD at that, is insanity. Worst mother of the year award definitely goes to her. Like she was ready to destroy realms for power. She didn't care who she ended up taking down with her. Like she was an equal opportunity killer. I think the only character who came remotely close to her level of baddie in this book was Legions parents in Hunt Me. I mean worst parentals ever. Like enslaving your child for eternity has to rank all the way up there right? 

Best Cover: Ice Planet Barbarians Any iteration of this cover that you run into is just gorgeous. For me, I like the OG cover (the one I have in the image above) for this book. It's hot and you know exactly what you are going to get with this book. The blue man, the human woman and a cold behind planet to get the blood flowing. I love it. It is very visually pleasing. I think the next one for me was Holy Blood and not because it was pretty but because it gives such a barebones representation of what you are getting with this book. The blood is definitely flowing as our characters dived deep into their dark sides.

Favorite Character: Danica- Dance with the Demon I really appreciated Danica because she stuck to her guns and stayed true to herself through out this book. She was able to establish who was loyal to her while also being able to solve the mystery of who killed her mother. There was so many different things happening in this book that she handled nearly flawlessly that I just couldn't help but love her. Of course she has some growing to do but I just loved her character and I look forward to seeing where she goes throughout the rest of this series. I think the runner up for this one was Sara from Scarred. If she was able to do some research on her own and didn't just sit back and let people spoon feed her information then I would have definitely had her as my top. But Danica was the whole package so I definitely had to put her on top!

Spiciest Book: Ice Planet Barbarians This was a tough category for me to choose. I put Ice Planet on top simply because I can't get past that rock scene with Georgie and Vektal. It was hot. BUT Scarred served some top tier spice as well! Tristan and Sara were a spicy couple that I loved. AND Nash and AJ were right there too. These books really had some top tier spice in them. They definitely stand out from the pack for that. So really, the winner here is almost interchangeable. It is either IPB or Scarred.

Best Storyline: Scarred I really liked how things played out in Scarred. Especially the ending. It was just perfect for who Tristan and Sara are to their cores that I just couldn't ignore that. Things flowed so nicely and was believable throughout and there wasn't really too much moments that got bogged down by junk. Next up for me was Dance With the Demon. I can't reiterate enough how much movement in a story is important. When your story gets bogged down with junk it stops the flow of things for the reader. Dance With the Demon had next to no junk in it. I'd put it at 99% story movement. I just wished there was a little more spice in the book to reiterate how much Danica was falling for Samael, before things went to shit.

Author of the Month: Ruby Dixon I gave this to Ruby Dixon because both of her series have me dialed in for my re-read. I remember why I liked these series so much! I'm pretty sure that by the end of the year she will be the author that I have read the most books from. Her series are entertaining and enjoyable. They allow you to ask the question of what if, in a way that you might not have even though to do. Whether it's in Dystopian America with dragons or after you've been captured by aliens and transported to a different planet.

Book of the Month: Reckless Beta After waxing poetic about some of the other books that I passed out awards to, this one may come as a shock. This one didn't for me. There was only one other book that I would have chosen for this award other than this book. I'll tell you why I choose this one though. This book came out of left field and surprised the crap out of me. I really liked it and it made me want to go back and check out this authors backlog. Which there are quite a few books for me to dive into. This gave me the feeling that I had last month after reading Rina Kent's Legacy of Gods series. Not that they are similar or anything but the feeling I got was. I just needed to know more about the characters and this world that she dropped me in. I was not put off by the amount of others books that I would have to read to accomplish that goal either. So shout out to CJ Primer for selecting me to ARC read this book. I really loved it and I can't wait to meet more of their books!