NEW FANTASY BOOKS 

Seeing Luna in outro makes me say "AWWWW" every time 🤣🐕😉

So excited to read Dragonfruit, and now even more excited knowing that it's not a romantasy, I'm here for the worldbuilding and the adventure, romance can be a subplot but not the focus.

Dragon fruit is soooo good!!!! I am glad you enjoyed it and happy to see it getting more attention it deserves.

I do agree that the marketing will definitely be heavily emphasizing the romance of stories where it's not actually a central theme. Dragonfruit may not have been the most thrilling story, but I loved the setting SO much, especially since there's nothing I've found like this. I loved the fairytale and whimsy of it!

In Dragonfruit with the animal companion familiars, with the way tattoos on your body summon your creatures, almost exactly reminds me of the middle grade book series Spirit Animals by Brandon Mull, (and other authors collaborating) That’s so cool! I love to see magic systems like that

I really hope the marketing of books with a smidge of romance doesn't push the romance hard to trick the Romantasy audience into picking them up. A romance-focused story has its own set of expectations from the audience and it's a real gamble if you mislead them. For example, my understanding is that a Happily Ever After (which they often shorten to HEA) is pretty much mandatory for romance stories that advertise themselves as romance stories, unless you don't mind a tide of negative reviews.

Dragonfruit is my next book and I'm now so excited to read it. I do like stories that feel like they are being told to us(not all the time). I also adore Princess Mononoke. I love bats too, so seeing that bat on the cover made me happy. I really liked What Moves the Dead and What Feasts at Night. To me they are the perfect kind of creepy, since you don't know if it's paranormal or not. There's some coziness to it but it's an uneasy coziness, if that makes sense. I really liked The Book of Tea books and am looking forward to Song of the Six Realms.

I was curious about Dragonfruit when I heard about it (mostly because the cover is so good than because of anything I saw in marketing), but I only picked it up because it was a BOTM selection. I just don't gravitate to YA these days, nor do I really care about romantasy, but I literally read this in one sitting because I couldn't stop myself, lol. It just surprised me so much and it's definitely going to be one of my favorites of the year. The setting was incredible, I loved the characters, and I thought the writing had a good balance of familiar beats with some unique twists.

Since I’m not drawn to romantasy books, this trend might keep me from picking up books I would enjoy. I wish they would stop this misleading advertising. On another note, I’m kinda surprised we have not seen a review for Sunbringer since you enjoyed Godkiller so much. Have you read it yet?

Thank you for the reviews. I put Dragonfruit on my TBR

I loved Dragonfruit! And it also reminded me of Untethered Sky, which I also really enjoyed.

I appreciate you saying that the books are written like you’re being told the story so it’s feels kind of distant. And that the romance isn’t a prominent part of the story, I get really annoyed when people will talk about a book and make it seem like the romance is prominent when its not, or when the description of the book does that too. So I really appreciate you mentioning that 😊

You’ll find similar familiar situation in The Dark Elements trilogy by Armentrout.

I don't want books that are supposed to be fantasy and it turns out it's romantacy. I was pissed about the fate marked book because it wasn't marketed that way, so I had to deal with the annoying thirsting the main female character did the whole time. I won't continue the series because of it. So it goes both ways.

Great Video!

I just finished five broken blades, a new fantasy release about five of the most deadly assassin's and thieves all working together to try and kill the king. But only one can take the crown. And what. The. Hell. It was freaking incredible. I was obsessed from chapter one all the way to the end. 5⭐️ but I thought it was a standalone. It is not 😭 so now I am very much unwell.

I just bought Song of Six Realms today!

You sold me on Dragonfruit, and I was definitely going to give it a pass as I usually don’t connect to YA.

I have an e-arc of six realms 👀

Dragon fruit is wonderful book and the cover is pretty and I enjoy the main Character 💜💜💖💞💞💖💜💜💜🩵💕🩵💚📖📚❤️💘💛💘📚📙🩷🌼🌼🌺🥀🌞🌞🫶🏻🌸🪻🌸❣️🍄🍄🌹❤️💘❤️🌻📚🧡🩵💛💛🌈🌈🌈💗🫶🏻🫶🏻🍄🌹📚📚📚📖📖📚🌞📙🌼🌺🥀

I had just finished dragonfruit as a buddy read it was so sweet! Edit* definitely agree with you about the marketing being a bit misleading. Still highly enjoyable but wasn't exactly what I had imagined going into the story. Seems these days they like to market the subplots more heavily than the overarching plot 😂😅 probably to throw out buzzwords hoping to reach more ppl

3 Books I'm interested in :) Thanks for the reviews :)

As a person living in a country that's currently at war, I felt so seen when you were reading this excerpt from the book🥲

Dragon Fruit is a real fruit :D

I'm looking forward to Dragon Fruit. I guess I don't look too much at promotions so I didn't know about the romantic angle. The summary made me think it's not really the focus, which I prefer.

If you want to see the original idea of bonded animals coming off of peoples body through tattoos, read the Spirit Animal series! One of my favorite middle grades. It has a unique world and concepts, iconic characters, peak story, and major found family vibes. High recommend for anyone who likes a good journey story with relatable kid characters who are forced to make hard decisions and grow up fast.

I really enjoyed dragon fruit but I wished that they had spent more time with the story and less time developing the characters UNLESS there’s going to be a follow up, then the character building makes sense. But the princess side character (I don’t remember her name) , she was amazing, I wanted more of her. I did a little review of it that I think like ten people watched, lol

I also really enjoyed Dragonfruit. I didn't love it, but I am glad I read it and will recommend it as a good, short read. That T.Kingfisher passage was amazing! I am definitely picking this up sooner. I read the first one, but hadn't gotten around to this one yet. Thx!

Personally I was left feeling a little disappointed with Dragonfruit. I did not hate the book, but I did not love it either. I loved certain aspects like the: unique setting, premise, themes, close family bonds, and the dragons, BUT I found the book incredibly predictable and lacking. I wished the book was longer (or executed better) so that we could have had more of the aspects that were so intriguing and unique of the story. Like more about the dragons, digging deeper into the themes, and the characters. The conflicts the characters faced (again my opinion) were too easily resolved. Dragonfruit felt more middle grade than YA at times but trigger warning the animal deaths make me hesitant to recommend it to anyone who hates seeing animals die in books. Again, I would still recommend the book due to the pros, but I advice those who cannot deal with animal death to be cautious and maybe avoid it altogether.

I would suggest you to add Alien From Earth in your TBR. It's mind blowing.

no timestamps ):