The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter by Brionni Nwosu

November 12, 2025 By Leave a Comment


The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter by Brionni Nwosu
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Romance, LGBTQ, Paranormal, Historical, Contemporary
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Most humans cower in the face of Death. Not Nella May Carter. She sees him. She doesn’t hide. Instead, she bargains.

Born enslaved in eighteenth-century Georgia, Nella still believes in the will to survive amid the most untenable of conditions, in the glory of life, and in the ultimate goodness of the human race. She asks that Death, doubtful and curious, allow her to live long enough to prove it. He’s giving Nella all the time in the world.

Challenged, Nella embarks on an epic journey across the globe and centuries. Each new incarnation records the joys and losses, and the friendships and heartbreaks, throughout her lifetimes. When she meets handsome and passionate professor Sebastian Moore―the first man to whom she has ever revealed her secrets―Nella yearns for the mortality that escapes her. She can’t bear to leave this love behind.

As Death keeps watch, has Nella’s journey come to an end? Or is a new one just beginning?

Love is eternal.

Some of my favourite passages in this book were the ones that debated the true nature of humanity and whether our collective good deeds make up for the horrific things we’ve done to one another throughout the generations. While I tended to agree more with Nella, both protagonists made intelligent points with their arguments, and it was quite interesting to see them go back and forth with evidence for their positions. This is something I’m saying as a reader who generally shies away from philosophical works. Ms. Nwosu did a wonderful job of blending philosophy into an exciting story in ways that made those scenes feel natural and encouraged me to think critically about every argument that was made and refuted.

I would have preferred to see stronger world building in this novel. Some of the settings were easy to visualize, especially the first one in 1774 as well as Nella’s experiences during World War II, but other ones like France didn’t include enough descriptions for me to easily imagine what the main character’s life was like there. Had this been included, a five-star rating would have been a strong possibility from me!

The complex relationship between Nella and Death made it difficult for me to stop reading. It was delightful to see how her reactions to him evolved over the centuries as she grew accustomed to her immortality and began to question some of the rules that Death had put into place about what she could and couldn’t do during her quest. Without sharing too many spoilers, these developments made the last hundred pages or so incredibly rewarding for me as a reader.

The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter was beautiful.

Filed Under: Reviews, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

I’d Rather Kiss You Goodnight by Christine Columbus

November 5, 2025 By Leave a Comment


I’d Rather Kiss You Goodnight by Christine Columbus
Surf, Sand, and Romance #5
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Genre: Romance, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Sally has sworn off relationships. At forty-seven, she finds herself stuck in a rut and feels as if she s going nowhere. Until her mother needs help to fix up her house, now Sally spends her weekends driving three hours to plaster and paint walls. Ty is also lending a hand with the repairs, and their attraction simmers just beneath the surface. As the house takes on a new life, so does Sally s heart. By day, they work on the house, but in the evenings, they escape to a local campground, overlooking river sunsets and diving into a summer romance. What does Sally do when summer fades to fall, and Ty prepares to leave?

Summer is the perfect time for some romance.

Sally’s character development was handled well. Sometimes her passivity irritated me a little bit, but I also came to understand why she was so reluctant to make any major changes to her life given her recent relationship trauma. Honestly, I would have done the same thing if I were in her shoes, and I soon found many other parts of her personality I deeply loved such as her creativity and her compassion for others. There is definitely something to be said for creating such a relatable and well-rounded protagonist.

I struggled with the pacing in the beginning and middle of this novel. There wasn’t much conflict to begin with, and every new development in these sections felt slower than I would have preferred to see. While things did eventually pick up in the last fifty pages or so, it was noticeable enough for me to take note of it for my review given how I sometimes had trouble remaining invested in what was happening in the non-romantic subplots.

With that being said, this was a good example of how to slowly build romantic tension between two characters. I appreciated the amount of time the author spent exploring how Sally and Ty felt about each other and why they were so attracted to one another. That’s exactly what I like to find in the romance genre, and it made for a solid read.

I’d Rather Kiss You Goodnight was playful and filled with love.

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Shhh! A Flash Fiction Library by Matthew Roy Davey

October 2, 2025 By Leave a Comment


Shhh! A Flash Fiction Library by Matthew Roy Davey
Publisher: Chapeltown Books
Genre: Romance, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Contemporary, Historical
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Welcome to the flash fiction library where the shelves are groaning with bitesize fiction.

Libraries are quiet places, ordered places, places of intellect, culture and civilization. But hiding inside are words that can explode like bombs, words to anger and appall, to titillate and tease, words to amuse and entertain. Which will you choose to read first?

Matthew Roy Davey offers us a wealth of bijou tales in his perfectly formed Shhh!

If one can’t decide what to read, why not read a little of everything?

One of my favorite tales in this collection was “A Tent on a Hill.” It showed what happened to a student named Henry who kept staring at a tent on a nearby hill instead of listening to his teacher. He had good reasons for his attention difficulties that were revealed later on, but what I really enjoyed about his days at school was how curious he was about the world around him. What a sweet and imaginative kid he seemed to be!

Some of these pieces were so short and sparse that I struggled to connect with them. This is something I’m saying as a reader who enjoys flash fiction in general, but I do need something vivid or unusual for my mind to latch onto for stories that are only a few paragraphs long. “All That I’ve Done” was one example of this. It was written from the perspective of a serial killer who had an unusual regret in life. If only he or she had more time to explain to the reader why this was so important to them!

“Ball Bag Stew,” which followed a group of scientists who had just received a message from extraterrestrials living on a faraway planet in another solar system, was another good read. I was intrigued by how these characters reacted to the news that other intelligent beings exist in our universe as well as by what they decided to do with this information. This could have easily been a much longer piece, but I was satisfied by what was shared.

Shhh! A Flash Fiction Library was an interesting mixture of genres.

Filed Under: Mystery/Suspense, Reviews, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Hotel Spacious by J.S. Frankel

September 2, 2025 By 2 Comments


Hotel Spacious by J.S. Frankel
Publisher: Extasy Books
Genre: Young Adult (14 – 18 y.o.), Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Romance
Rating: 5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

An asteroid in a distant galaxy, a secret recipe, and an animal that has a certain magical quality to it. For Vern Nilsson, working as a bellhop at a hotel on that asteroid is one thing. Risking his life to find that recipe is another story altogether.

Vern Nilsson needs a summer job, and he finds one on Hotel Spacious, a hotel on a manmade asteroid in a distant galaxy. Built by the Borne, a benevolent race, Hotel Spacious offers a place for aliens of all sorts to relax.

Except Vern, who’s on call as a bellhop, dishwasher, and all-around gofer twenty-four-seven. The only saving grace from his job is meeting Dinarra—nicknamed Dee—a tiger-woman who has the same job that he has. Never mind that her parents are against it. Interspecies relationships rock.

Relationships aside, murder rears its ugly head. It seems that the murderer is after a secret recipe and a rare animal. If the animal is prepared correctly, it can confer God-like powers upon the eater.

Vern and Dee begin their own investigation, but by the time they discover the truth, it may be too late.

Not every summer job is as exciting as this one.

There were exactly enough details shared about the setting to keep my interest levels high. I especially appreciated how the author trusted his audience to fill in the smaller details about what it was like to visit, stay, or work at this hotel filled with aliens of all shapes and sizes. It made it easier for me to daydream about this topic during reading breaks because not all of my questions were answered. When done with care, ambiguity is a wonderful invitation for a reader to help create their own unique version of the author’s world and characters.

I enjoyed the fact that so many different genres were included in this book. The plot was romantic in some scenes only to switch to the fantasy, young adult, or mystery genres in others. This kept me on my toes as I was reading as I was never quite sure which direction it would meander into next. It takes courage and skill to play around with writing styles and reader’s expectations like that, and it’s one of the many reasons why Mr. Frankel is on my list of authors whose stories I automatically request every time he submits something new to Long and Short Reviews. A storyteller has to be quite knowledgeable about the genres they write in order to pull this off successfully, after all.

If I had to make a guess about Mr. Frankel’s personal life, I’d say that he has probably worked in the service industry at some point. Vern’s wide variety of experiences with the hotel guests and employees made me smile and nod my head as I read because of how true to life these scenes were. Some guests were perfectly sweet and gentle while others could be rather challenging at times…or worse! The main character never knew how he would be treated from one moment to the next or what hijinks might be happening just out of his view, and this made it tricky to find good stopping points while I was reading. It was engrossing from beginning to end.

Hotel Spacious had something spectacular for many different types of readers in his tale.

Filed Under: Mystery/Suspense, Reviews, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Pop Tarts and Mistletoe by S.L. Sterling

September 1, 2025 By Leave a Comment


Pop Tarts and Mistletoe by S.L. Sterling
The Happy Holidates Series Book 1
Publisher: Self Published
Genre: Contemporary, Holiday, Romance
Rating: 5 stars
Reviewed by Mistflower

Being stuck at the airport wasn’t part of my holiday plans.

I was on my way to stay with my best friend and his family for the holidays when a freak snowstorm hit. Now I’m stuck, all planes are grounded, and there are no hotel rooms available. I also have no clue of when I’d be able to get on another plane, so here I sit.

Then I saw her.

She stood in front of a vending machine, scrounging through her purse. When she found her last bit of change, she carefully made her selection. A disappointed look came over her face and she began to punch and kick the vending machine trying to get whatever she’d selected to drop. When it did, she threw her hands in the air as if she’d just made the winning touchdown. Then she bent down and pulled out a package of pop tarts. Pop tarts? Who buys pop tarts from a vending machine?

She was feisty and cute, and I knew I needed to meet her. So, I invited her to sit with me. The night passed quickly, with flights heading out the next morning. It was then I realized I’d missed an opportunity as I watched her disappear into the airport crowd.

However, Father Christmas smiled down on me once again when I discovered that the beautiful holiday angel, I’d met earlier was my best friends sister, and I only had a few days to make her mine.

Oh, my cuteness—Pop Tarts and Mistletoe was a wicked fun holiday treat! This short novel made my heart feel all gushy and left a goofy smile plastered on my face. I totally want to re-read it just to get that happy-ever-after glow all over again. A Pop-Tart! As a plot thread! So unique, so unexpected—and so perfectly delightful. If the synopsis pulls you in like it did me, go ahead and start reading. Just be warned: it’s too delicious to put down until you finish it.

Maya, the heroine, was laugh-out-loud hilarious. I could totally relate to her—I’ve beat up a vending machine or two in my college days myself. And yes, strawberry frosted Pop-Tarts are the best! Also, who drinks eggnog without rum? (Not me.) I won’t spoil anything, but her brother gave her a childhood nickname that had me howling when I read why. It reminded me of my own brother, and the family dynamics were spot on and so much fun.

Now Liam—the leading man—was 100% my kind of book boyfriend. I adored him from the moment he met Maya at the airport, but I fell head over heels at the Christmas festival. (You’ll know why when you read it.) He’s sincere, romantic, and totally transparent—no mind games, just honesty and heart. The chemistry between Maya and Liam? Hot enough to warm an entire horse-drawn sleigh ride in the dead of winter. Forget coats, the steam between these two was more than enough.

It took Maya a hot minute to realize Liam was the one, but when she did…? Chef’s kiss. I felt so completely satisfied and happy. I also loved the setup for book two—it’s a romance between Maya’s brother and her best friend, and now I have to know how that story plays out.

This was my first read by S.L. Sterling, and it definitely won’t be my last. I don’t think I’ll ever forget Pop Tarts and Mistletoe, and for that reason alone, I whole pop tart-ly recommend it!

Filed Under: Reviews, Romance Tagged With: , , , , ,

Tome of Stars by Stargazer

September 1, 2025 By Leave a Comment


Tome of Stars by Stargazer
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Romance, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

“Tome of Stars” is a poetic odyssey chronicling a tragic romance, told through 100 interconnected sonnets. The pages explore love and loss, belief and apostasy, trauma, madness, reason, myth, and memory. While written in classic Shakespearean form, its voice and vision are contemporary. It was written with the hope that it might resonate with those who have loved and lost on a transformative scale.

Sometimes love has thorns.

I enjoyed the fact that these sonnets followed the rules of this style of poetry so closely while seeing the characters through the course of their relationship. Normally, contemporary poetry does not include so much space for character and plot development, much less strict expectations about rhythm and rhyme, so it was interesting to watch the characters learn and grow as a result of their positive and negative experiences with love in this format.

With that being said, I did struggle to make sense of what I learned about the protagonist at times. Their mood shifted so rapidly that I found myself wondering how Stargirl, their love interest, would have described the same scenes. Did she find those moments as sweet and romantic as he did, or was this a case of a possibly unreliable narrator? While I wouldn’t expect the author to spell everything out directly for their audience, I did wonder if these other interpretations of the text were something that were intended or if I was reading too much into it. Having more guidance in this area would have gone a long way to encourage me to choose a higher rating as the writing style itself was beautiful.

The inclusion of various myths were a nice addition to this collection. They gave it a timeless feeling, especially once the author went into even further detail about these metaphors and how they were related to Stargirl. While I can’t go into a lot of detail about this without sharing spoilers, do keep an eye out for those lines and sonnets as they appear. They were well done and interesting no matter which myths they were referencing.

Tome of Stars was an adventure to read.

Filed Under: Reviews, Romance Tagged With: , , , , ,

From The Other Side by Julia Harrison

August 29, 2025 By Leave a Comment


From The Other Side by Julia Harrison
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Romance, Paranormal, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Alyssa wasn’t ready to die. Snatched from her life and unable to access her most recent memories, she is cast into an afterlife that is very different from anything she expected. She is stuck on Earth, invisible to the living, and she is being hunted. Cornered by a malevolent being, Alyssa is saved by new friends who show her how to survive this strange world she never knew existed. A chance meeting leaves her inexplicably drawn to the enemy, and she starts to question if the line between good and evil is as clear cut as she’d been told. When she suspects her new family are lying to her, who can she trust?

Death was the beginning, not the end.

I enjoyed the ambiguity of this novel. There were many shades of grey in the characters, and few if any of them were purely good or bad individuals regardless of what my first impressions of them might have been. This meant that my allegiances shifted as I read and I changed my opinions about certain characters multiple times as I either learned new information about them or revisited old clues about what they were truly like.

There were some pacing issues that made it difficult for me to remain highly interested in what would happen next despite how excited I was when I first began reading. I liked the fact that so many different genres were included, but this did mean that some scenes needed to be stretched out in order to incorporate multiple themes and tropes, not all of which are necessarily easy to blend together. Patience was key while reading this, although there were times when I wished the next action scene would show up more quickly as certain sections included a lot of dialogue before and after these moments.

The ending fit the tone and themes nicely. While there were a few twists in it that I can’t discuss here for spoiler reasons, I enjoyed seeing how everything was woven together in the last few scenes as Alyssa learned a few more key pieces of information that helped to explain some moments that had been rather mysterious to this reader up until that point. It was satisfying to finally know why some characters behaved the way they did and why others sometimes made choices that didn’t always seem to fit what I already knew about their personalities.

From The Other Side was a wild ride.

Filed Under: Mystery/Suspense, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Haunting Melody by M. Flagg

August 21, 2025 By 1 Comment


Haunting Melody by M. Flagg
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Genre: Young Adult (14 – 18 y.o.), Paranormal, Romance, Contemporary
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Melody Marie sees ghosts. Just her luck that they see her as well.

Not even Melody’s mother knows her secret. Already tagged aggressively anxious won’t help Melody at Pinedale High, either. She’s the overweight walking disaster who desperately wants to fit in. No chance of that.

Hammer and his biker buds tragically died on Pinedale’s campus in the 1970s. He is drawn to Melody’s compassion for him. When her friendship with classmate Justin deepens, Hammer’s menacing antics turn dangerous. Every school day becomes a nightmare, and Melody’s desire to fit in fizzles out.

Now, she encounters nonstop clashes with ghosts, her meddling mom, a nosey school counselor, and even the law because of Justin, a known troublemaker. Can she rise above everything going wrong to help Hammer or Justin…or find a way to help them both?

There’s more than one way to get an education in high school.

Melody’s personality captured the angst and drama of being a teenager nicely. She genuinely felt like a sixteen-year-old to me, from her rapidly shifting mood on certain days to the way she analyzed social situations for every possible morsel of information she could get out of them. It’s not easy to make the transition to adulthood, especially for someone like her who was not only grieving the loss of her father but also dealing with bullying, moving to a new town, and adjusting to a different school. That’s a lot of change and conflict for anyone to deal with!

It would have been helpful to have more development for the romantic subplot, especially given how often Melody was warned not to pursue this possibility. While her interest in him made sense due to her attraction to bad boys and her understandable resistance to well-meaning but unsolicited advice, I would have liked to know more about why she found him so appealing when there were hundreds of other guys to choose from at her new school.

I enjoyed the parallels the plot made between how certain characters were treated in modern times and how some of the ghosts were mistreated fifty years ago before they died. Human nature never really changes, and it doesn’t always lead people to being kind to those who don’t fit into the group in some way. There is definitely something to be said for keeping this in mind when reacting to someone one might not understand for whatever reason and withholding judgement until all of the facts have been revealed, so it was nice to see some examples of both how to do this and how not to do this here.

This is the fourth book in a series that doesn’t need to be read in order, although I sure am curious to go back and check out the earlier instalments now.

Haunting Melody was filled with supernatural secrets.

Filed Under: Reviews, Romance, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Portrait of a Ghost by Betty Ann Harris

August 18, 2025 By Leave a Comment


Portrait of a Ghost by Betty Ann Harris
Publisher: Books We Love, Ltd.
Genre: Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Romance, Paranormal, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

The quaint New England coastal town of Mystic Port is steeped in history, and has more than its fair share of restless sprits. Prudence Trivit, the town’s librarian and historian, is on a mission to exonerate her great Aunt Alexandra, who in 1897 was accused and arrested for the murder of her husband, the mayor. Prudy is certain of her great aunt’s innocence.

A handsome young journalist, Dylan Monroe, is sent to Mystic Port to interview Prudy for the town’s 250th anniversary celebration.
Dylan notices Prudy’s uncanny resemblance to her great aunt in the large portrait of Alexandra that hangs in the museum. He is stunned by her beauty and quite intrigued by the story of Alexandra.

Prudy and Dylan become quite the investigative team. There are mishaps and mayhem as the spirit of Alexandra try’s to point them in the right direction and an opposing spirit tries to dissuade them.

True love never dies.

The romantic subplot was sweet and complemented the mystery and paranormal storylines nicely. While I didn’t have a lot of time to get to know the characters involved in it, I had a good feeling about them given how kind they were to each other and how many hobbies they shared in common. They seemed to have a decent foundation for possibly building something beautiful together, and this is something I’d love to see expounded upon if the author ever decides to write a sequel as there was still plenty of space to explore the possibilities between them.

I found myself wishing for more details as I was reading this piece. There simply wasn’t much time spent describing the characters or settings, and this made it hard to imagine what anyone or anything looked like. Given the fast pace, I definitely wasn’t expecting pages of descriptions for everything, but more attention paid to this would have made me feel comfortable choosing a higher rating as the plot itself was exactly the sort of story I like to pick up.

The genealogy subplot piqued my interest. I sometimes wonder about a few mysteries in my own family tree, so books that explore characters who have similar questions about their ancestors are always interesting to read. It’s difficult to go into much detail about what Prudy learned without giving away spoilers, but I liked all of the clues she discovered, how she pieced them together, and how hard she worked to figure out the portions that didn’t quite make sense to her. There’s something so satisfying about a character who cares this much about her ancestry and wants to uncover the truth.

Portrait of a Ghost made me smile.

Filed Under: Mystery/Suspense, Reviews, Romance Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Movie Review: 3 Bed, 2 Bath, 1 Ghost

August 18, 2025 By Leave a Comment


3 Bed, 2 Bath, 1 Ghost
Directed by: Kevin Fair
Writers: Gregg Rosen, Brian Sawyer, Joie Botkin
Starring: Julie Gonzalo, Chris McNally, Madaleine Arthur
Distributed by: Hallmark Studios
Genre: Contemporary, Romance, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Paranormal
Rating: 4 Stars (8 on IMDB)
Reviewed by Dicentra

The house that Anna, a new real estate agent, has listed has a spirit from the 1920s that won’t go. Even worse, the ghost is afraid she won’t be able to “pass over” unless she reconciles Anna with her ex.

“I’ve taught you the steps, sister. Now it’s up to you to dance them.”

While I’m already a lifelong fan of Hallmark movies, it’s always a treat when the writers come up with a storyline that I haven’t seen before. The romance is surprisingly not the main plot in 3 Bed, 2 Bath, 1 Ghost, which follows Anna Vasquez (Gonzalo), a newly minted realtor fresh off a painful breakup with her ex-fiance Elliot (McNally, who is actually Gonzalo’s partner in real life). When she is handed her first property to sell by her father, she runs into Ruby Barker (Arthur), a now ghost and former 1920s socialite who’s been haunting her family’s property since she died.

While the two women clash initially (see crazy occurrences during a house showing), after a tentative truce they realize they have more in common then not. Both are suffering from a case of lost first love, or the one that got away. As a wealthy socialite in the 1920s, Ruby had previously fallen in love with Charlie but was unable to be with him due to the difference in their station. Anna fell in love with Elliot in college, started a business with him, and struggled to find her passion after they broke up. The sisterhood that Ruby and Anna find in each other was very compelling, and I really loved the dynamic of having 3 lead characters in the movie. I commend McNally for what must have been some difficult scenes of ignoring Arthur’s ‘ghostly’ presence, especially as she strutted around in typical flapper wear (and even dropped a love note in his presence, in the name of playing cupid).

Overall, this was an excellent movie. Hallmark writers at their finest. I recommend it to those who love guaranteed happily ever after romance stories with a bit of historical flair.

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Musings, Movie Review, Television Show, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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