Fern's School for Wayward Fae 1

This book was amusingly tiny. Not thin, but the actual book is smaller than books typically are. It's cute. 

Fern's School for Wayward Fae is a school in the nowhere realm, which is between all the other realms. Demifae are taken there by Fern, a mysterious redhead. The students remain at the school until they turn sixteen, which is when they must pick a realm to live in. There's Earth, where several of the students are from, and Faerie, with its warring factions of Seelie vs. Unseelie. There are also a ton of other realms, but those are the main ones. 

Rosemary has the unwanted gift of being able to see when/how people die. She doesn't know the exact when, but if the person is a lot older, obviously it's going to be in the long off future. Naturally, she creeps people out, including her mother, who ends up sending her off to an institution. Thankfully, Fern gets her out of there and she's handed off to her new mentor, Dante. 

There's a whirlwind of getting to know the school and its handful of inhabitants. Some are Seelie, so imagine the fairy tale-type fairies. The nice ones. Some are Unseelie, like Rosemary's new roommate. Trym is a banshee, who screams every night at 3:33am, so her roommates all have to wear enchanted earplugs or...die. One of the Unseelie is half-vampire, another half-ghost. (No, they don't explain the logistics, but at least Rosemary briefly wonders how that works.) Another is something that can travel through shadows. 

Rosemary becomes closest to Essie, who's a djinn and learning his wish-granting powers. When he goes missing, she's determined the adults aren't telling them the truth, so she, Trym and two other students are off to the rescue, which involves a lot of realm-hopping in search of the passage to Earth. 

I really enjoyed this. I like all the different abilities and the faerie politics. It ended on quite the cliffhanger, too. It's a quick read, but not too quick. I'd say it's middle grade, but definitely also adult-friendly. 

Forever Fairies 1-4

I am such a sucker for anything fairy, even teeny little books for 7–10-year-olds. 

The four fairies in these books wake up and climb out of their flowers on the same day. They're referred to as Sprout Wings and they join the older fairies in the Forever Tree. They'll be going through a series of four tryouts to see which pod each fairy will place into. The pods are sort of like Disney Fairies and their talents, only there are only four.

Lulu is the sporty one, so of course the pod for her is the Flutterflies. Lulu is better at flying than the others, so she's a perfect fit. Each of the tryouts features some mishap the fairies have to surpass, often involving troll characters that aren't bad, but tend to cause a lot of trouble. 

Nova is the fairy who loves animals, so she wants to be part of the Shimmerbuds. These are the fairies that make medicines and help heal animals. 

Coco's dream pod is the Twinklestars, who are the bakers. 

Coco and Nova are my two faves, although I like Zali a lot, too. 

And finally, little Zali wants to be in the Sparkleberries, who are the creative fairies. 

The illustrations are cute. The stories are cute. It's no Disney Fairies, but it was a fun read. 

Goddess Girls Super Special 2

After all these years, it's the final Goddess Girls book. Sigh. 

I was pleased the final was another super special. I still love that these are called super specials. Very BSC. However, I was not a fan of the plot. 

The girls argue over what exactly happened on Athena's first day at MoA, so they get the bright idea to travel back in time to see. Athena's spell goes awry and they end up 1,111 years in the future. In Rome. And meet their Roman counterparts. 

The girls have mixed feelings about Rome. Persephone is the most open-minded, interested in learning all she can before they leave. Athena and Minerva clash over how the Romans changed the Trojan War story. Artemis and Diana mostly get along, though Artemis is the most disturbed meeting someone so like her. Aphrodite and Venus like each other a lot, but Aphrodite feels Venus is better than her, as well as Mars being better than Ares. 

The book is mostly them checking out Roman culture, spending time with their counterparts, and then trying to figure out how to get home. 

It's not a bad book, but spending time away from MoA with brand new characters isn't what I wanted from a world I'm going to have to say goodbye to. I would have liked time with each of the past characters, even a brief cameo or mention on how they're doing. Just to wrap things up somehow. I'm going to miss Goddess Girls. It was a really fun series.

Daughters of Shadow & Blood 3

I got really behind on my reviews thanks to the hurricane wiping out our wifi for almost a month. 

I can't remember when I finished any of these, and my memories are a bit fuzzy now, but I wanted to make little posts on them anyway.

This is the final volume of the Daughters of Shadow & Blood trilogy. Three wives of Dracula, three books. 

Elizabeth is the fair wife. Her backstory is set in 1878 when she's visiting Berlin with her husband, who's some sort of diplomat. I think they were English. Elizabeth gets caught up in a murder mystery that seems to have some sort of connection to her missing father. Her backstory is the least interesting of the three wives. 

In the present, the action is heating up. Adam's ex-girlfriend Clara has been abducted by the vampire that has been a presence in the past two books. You know, the one that seems to be Dracula? Yeah, he isn't. He's Jonathan Harker. He and Elizabeth are working together to find the same medallion everyone wants. So we've got Clara stuck with those two while Adam and Arkady are trying to save her and find the medallion. Everyone's all together at the end, including Elena and Yasamin, the first brides. 

Turns out Dracula was trapped in some sort of spell by Elizabeth and Jonathan. They aged him and made him forget his life. I think that's how it went. Adam manages to break the spell and ends up turning vamp himself. I forget how they undo this. Ugh. I shouldn't do book reviews this long after reading. Anyway. I can't remember what happens to Jonathan, but Elizabeth is cursed by Dracula with the same spell. In the past, she was the one who killed her dad and she's easily the most evil of the three brides. Dracula and Yasamin go off together. Adam's spell is undone and I think he and Clara got back together. 

It's much better than it sounds. Even though Elizabeth's backstory wasn't that engaging, the action-packed stuff in the present day makes up for it. I enjoyed this trilogy a lot.