First a quick explanation!
Due to some severe health issues over the last few years, and a lingering chronic condition, my planned review schedule went right out of the window and I have been scrabbling ever since to get it back on track.
In an attempt to try to regain some lost ground, I have been scrunching some of my (overdue) reviews together into one or two posts each week: shorter reviews, but still covering all of the points I intended to.
That’s the plan anyway, so let’s keep the 2025 momentum up with some more indie book love!
Title: The Italian Fake Date
Author: Stefania Hartley
Publisher: The Sicilian Mama
Blurb: Escape to Calabria with this ‘terrific tale of mystery and romance, set in Italian sunshine’.
The Calabrian Coast books are standalone stories that intertwine with recurring characters.
When Alice Baker discovers that she’s been adopted, she knows she won’t have peace until she’s found her Italian birth mother. But all she has is a letter written twenty-five years ago and an old address.
Jaded about love and unable to forgive his ex-fiancée and his brother, Paolo Rondino is struggling to find inspiration for a sculpture that will make or break his career. Hoping that a trip home will help him find his muse again, he decides to return to Italy, even if this means confronting the two people who betrayed him.
Alice and Paolo strike a deal: he will help her find her birth mother and she will pretend to be his girlfriend to please his mother. It looks like the perfect exchange, until real feelings start to grow…
Review: As with Stefania Hartley’s short story collections, this sweet romance is set in Italy (unsurprising from an author also known as The Sicilian Mama).
The story follows main characters Alice and Paolo, from both viewpoints alternately, as she heads to Calabria to search for her birth mother and he returns there to search for artistic inspiration. And, naturally, while searching for other things they might just find each other along the way!
Along with the Fake Dating trope and lots of soul searching and miscommunications (more on that last in a minute), the reader is treated to a lovely taste of Italy – the landscape, the people and, of course, the food. It had me constantly wishing to hop on a scooter and drive the coast road to the nearest trattoria!
In terms of the company though, I did find some of Paolo and Alice’s insta-assumptions about each other a little frustrating. Why wouldn’t they just ask, or at least reserve judgement, rather than than both letting their erroneous imaginings run away with them?! Luckily the author takes them in hand and their communication improves the closer they become.
Despite that minor quibble, this is a really sweet and engaging romance – light and easy to read, and ideal for slipping in your beach bag this summer.
Purchase Link: The Italian Fake Date on Amazon
Title: Eggs for the Ageless
Author: Kyle A. Massa
Publisher: Independently published
Blurb: Religion is a funny thing. Especially when you accidentally create your own.
Eccentric young writer Zeggara “Egg” East has done just that, much to the chagrin of her devout mother. Egg’s new religion is called “Penguinism” and it’s proving far more popular than anyone—even the immortal Ageless—could’ve imagined. And the thing about deities is, they don’t appreciate a rival dogma.
Now everyone’s choosing sides in the coming conflict, including a tea-slurping tyrant, a guy with 12 gifts, and the God of Waste Management. So when Egg and her mother pick opposing factions, Egg has to wonder…can they reconcile, or will religion keep them apart forever?
Perfect for fans of Terry Pratchett, Christopher Moore, and Douglas Adams, Eggs for the Ageless is a comic fantasy novel about family, faith, and waddling—not necessarily in that order.
Review: This book is completely different to any others I have read by the author, as the whole novel is a light-hearted comic-fantasy adventure on the surface and a scathing satire of religion, crowd-think and insta-fame that poses some interesting questions beneath the humorous facade.
The story focuses on main character Egg, who writes a novel satirising organised religion via penguins and becomes an accidental and reluctant prophet at the head of a religious war… sandals and gourds, anyone?! Meanwhile, the actual gods (Flor, Lira and their numerous offspring) are involved in their own battle, against lack of faith and perhaps each other.
It all makes for a funny, light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek read, with plenty of action and some suspense, and a few thoughtful lessons along the way.
I definitely agree that fans of writers such as Sir Terry Pratchett, Tom Holt and Rupert Stanbury are likely to enjoy this humorous take on gods, religion and human nature in general.
Purchase Link: Eggs for the Ageless on Amazon
Title: Blanco and The Starry Night
Author: Calvin Clay
Publisher: Swift Publishing LLC
Blurb: On the streets of Los Angeles, Blanco is a graffiti god. Well, maybe not a god exactly, but certainly more talented than anyone else in foster care. Despite this, Blanco still doesn’t have a family to call his own. That is, until the young artist discovers a magical workshop hidden beneath the city. There, along with other teenage outcasts, Blanco learns the extraordinary ability to bring artwork to life—as in honest-to-goodness, swear-on-your-mother’s-grave life. While studying the secrets of his new craft, Blanco realizes that somewhere in the dark reaches of the workshop lurks a truth about his past.
Blanco and The Starry Night is the first book in the young adult fantasy series The Masterpiece Saga.
Review: I really enjoyed reading this book, but rather than it feeling pitched at a young adult market, it felt like the book had a bit of a weird mismatch between tone and content – some aspects felt more aimed at readers as young as middle-grade, while others definitely tilted more towards the older teen/young adult side of the market.
Within the fantasy-action plot there is lots of interesting information about art and artistic styles, some touching insights into an adolescence lived ‘in the system’, and lots of technical worldbuilding jargon about the ability to “spoof” things – creating real, working copies of art and objects/scenes within art. These different threads are all pulled together by the overarching mysteries surrounding The Architect, The Shadow Master and Noah, and main character Blanco’s mysterious master taglia – none of which are resolved by the end of the story but lead us tantalisingly towards future (as yet unreleased) books in The Masterpiece Saga series.
While this is an interesting, quick fantasy adventure read with some really great ideas, I didn’t feel it quite came together by the end of the book, reading it as a standalone. As long as you view it as part 1 of a wider story, though, I think it works well and teen-ish aged readers would be likely to enjoy this mash-up of graffiti with classical art, and Oliver Twist style shenanigans with a touch of more modern magic.
Purchase Link: Blanco and The Starry Night on Amazon
Title: Rufus in Rabitannia
Author: Suzanna Welby
Publisher: Horrid & Hare
Blurb: Rufus Wesley is a rude and spoilt little boy. Powers beyond his control have decided he needs to be taught a lesson so that he might become an acceptable member of the human race. Magically he is whisked into the extraordinary world of Rabitannia where, to his great distress, he is turned into a rabbit. He is tasked by no lesser entity than the King of Rabitannia himself with finding and returning the long-lost Crown Princes, sole heirs to the Rabitannian throne. Assisted by the brave and heroic warrior rabbit Capuchin, Rufus finds himself catapulted into a dangerous and mysterious world of enchantment, wizards, worgs, weasels – and treachery and loyalty beyond imagining.
Review: This book really harks back to classic children’s stories in tone and content: a rather nasty little boy is transported to a magical kingdom where he is taught a few lessons and eventually becomes much nicer (Eustace Scrubb, anyone?!).
Babybows was planning to review this story for me, as it feels about right for his age (9) or younger, but we hit upon an unexpected snag when he attempted to do so independently – the type is a little small and faint on the page and some of the vocabulary was beyond his understanding (he can independently read the average middle-grade book), so he had to keep checking what was meant as he read.
In the end, we re-started the book together, with me reading it to him at bedtime and him asking questions and commenting as we went along, and for this purpose this story works beautifully! There is plenty to discuss in Rufus’s adventures – from his rudeness at the start of the story, to the strange creatures he meets along the way, and the sudden deliciousness of nettles and carrots for a boy who would only eat sweet treats. The illustrations are also quaintly old-fashioned and perfectly complement the style and content of the story, adding to the enjoyment of the experience.
Babybows (9): It’s a really good story! I was really cross with Rufus for kicking the rabbit, because I hate people who hurt animals, so he definitely deserved what he got! I’m glad though that he did learn not to be so mean and spoilt, and to be kinder. My favourite character was the King Rabbit though and I think Rufus should have been more respectful to him – I would be because I don’t want to be turned into a rabbit!
If, like us, you enjoy family reading with your children – especially stories like Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales for Children, C.S. Lewis’s The Silver Chair, Gerald Durrell’s The Talking Parcel, or anything by Enid Blyton – then Rufus in Rabitannia is likely to become another favourite story alongside those golden-age childhood greats… definitely one that benefits from the interactions between adult and child while reading.
Purchase Link: Rufus in Rabitannia on Amazon
Title: A Bond of Thread
Author: Allegra Pescatore & J.P. Burnison
Publisher: AO Collective Publishing
Blurb: Enter the Nine Lands of the Mountain Fell.
Skye has only ever known pain and solitude since waking up with neither memories or magic. Hunted for being a Ruler in a time when they are scarce, she has survived in the wilds near the Rim, always on the run from the rest of her kind. Only starvation could draw her close to a village, but when a chance encounter and a bit of bad luck launch her into the arms of a man whose soul is bonded to hers, hiding who she is may no longer be possible.
Ilyas is a hunted man. Wanted for killing the last High Queen of Vine, he is plagued by his past of wholesale slaughter. He never wanted another Queen, and certainly not a half-feral, distrustful girl who gave up on the Fae a long time ago. Unfortunately, Soulbonds are not so easily walked away from, no matter how hard they both may want to, especially when trapped together in a cave with a pack of Feral Fae right outside.
With long-held enmities breaking out between the besieged villagers and all their lives on the line, Ilyas and Skye must learn to work together and trust each other if they want to survive.
Review: Part fantasy and part romantasy, this is one of the only books I have read that can take one small, cramped location and set almost the entire novel within its confines without the story feeling constricted.
Secret “queenling” Skye and battle-scarred, bitter warrior Ilyas find themselves accidentally bonded against both their wills, then trapped in a cave together with a full village-worth of High and ‘Low’ fae folk who don’t exactly get on. With Feral Fae prowling constantly outside, and rising tensions between factions inside, Ilyas and Skye are forced to set aside their personal traumas to do the right thing by those for whom responsibility has been thrust upon them.
The exploration of racial tensions is carefully handled and brings into play interesting questions about what it really means to rule wisely, and whether we can ever shed our past mistakes through present deeds.
The romance is classic enemies to lovers, sweet romance and I loved both main characters. Skye especially felt like she was neurodivergent-coded to me and I really identified with her social struggles. I did feel a little uncomfortable with their dynamic at times, as Ilyas tended to feel very much older than his years from his experiences and knowledge, whereas Skye was almost childlike at times in her innocence and naivety, so often felt younger than her actual years. At times, they seemed more like a young apprentice and aged master than a romantic couple! So, I was a bit unsure about whether I fully bought into their chemistry together.
That aside, the worldbuilding here is really great – I was desperate for more and more about the different regions and races of this world, the Elder Fae, the Rim. And I am eager to find out what happened to Skye’s memories and her magic, and who the rest of her soul-bond Ring might be. So I can’t wait to read on and bring you my review of Book 2, A Peddler of Chains, very soon!
Purchase Link: A Bond of Thread on Amazon
Five indie books here with one thing in common – they are all on the shorter side and make for quick, easy reads. Perfect, in fact, to slip into your beach bag for a quick fiction fix on these warm spring, summery days!
Happy reading and keep shining! 🙂
