Hello everyone! It is time once again for me to post a few mini reviews!

A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping is perfectly adorable. This book is all about love, what we will do for those we love, and finding the people we love. Just so much love. There is also some very villainous villains in this one too, a zombie rooster, a talking fox who is really a witch who has been cursed by her own curse, and various other magics at play. The characters are all those who have been hurt by others, whose existences were not deemed acceptable, for being different or “other”. The inn is a place whose real magic is love and healing, and it is just such a cozy, heartwarming read.

Yay for book one for me this year in the Books in Translation challenge! The Amberglow Candy Store was a very cute, simple, and quick read. I wasn’t in love with it, and I felt like it read pretty young. I actually even looked it back up to see if it was maybe middle grade but it isn’t. However, it wasn’t a bad book. It is split up into different little stories, like most of these healing fiction style books, and I definitely had my favorite stories. I loved the story of Ayumu, and I loved the story about Kogetsu, the han-yu who runs the shop. His story was probably my favorite. This story also made me want to try the types of treats mentioned in this book! All of them are unknown to me, and now I want to try them myself!

I do love this cover immensely as well.

I picked this up as a blind date with a book and it was an amazing read! This is a fictional thriller, murder mystery book, and I literally didn’t want to put it down. The mystery was well done, but even more so the depiction of social media. The ups and downs, the reality and the facade. What is authentic, what is not. And how even when we know that, we are still drawn in by the images and stories we see. I loved too that this was all juxtaposed against investigative journalism and social media, and research vs. opinion. It was all fascinating and I couldn’t stop reading. This is not to say either that all stories and images we see online are inauthentic or fake; just that maybe we all need to realize that everyone no matter how perfect they seem online, is still human.

I also really enjoyed the author pointing out that these women influencers are very powerful, rich women, some of them billionaires behind the scenes from their work as influencers, yet they are under the radar or not acknowledged as such. They might have a different sort of job, but at the same time are CEOs of their brands, which can pull in the big money. Why are they not acknowledged as highly as other powerful CEOs, or even acknowledged at all? I thought this was a very interesting viewpoint.

J0 Piazza spent five years down the rabbit hole, doing research, and is in fact a journalist herself. When she had her baby in 2020 (I think) she began a deep dive behind the moms behind the blogs and Instagrams that always looked so perfect and had it under control, and began the podcast Under the Influence which is all about this topic. I of course started listening and it is just as fascinating as this fiction thriller!