Book Blog #391: On a Quiet Street by Seraphina Nova Glass

 

Title: On a Quiet Street

Author: Seraphina Nova Glass

# of Pages: 302 (ebook)

Genre: Adult, Mystery, Thriller

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis: Who wouldn’t want to live in Brighton Hills? This exclusive community on the Oregon coast is the perfect mix of luxury and natural beauty. Stunning houses nestle beneath mighty Douglas firs, and lush backyards roll down to the lakefront. It’s the kind of place where neighbors look out for one another. Sometimes a little too closely… Cora thinks her husband, Finn, is cheating—she just needs to catch him in the act. That’s where Paige comes in. Paige lost her son to a hit-and-run last year, and she’s drowning in the kind of grief that makes people do reckless things like spying on the locals, searching for proof that her son’s death was no accident…and agreeing to Cora’s plan to reveal what kind of man Finn really is. All the while, their reclusive new neighbor, Georgia, is acting more strangely every day. But what could such a lovely young mother possibly be hiding?

Review: Entertaining enough, but there's nothing mind blowing that On a Quiet Street is doing that hasn't already been done.

There's POV switching between not just two first person perspectives (Cora and Georgia) but ALSO a third person perspective (Paige). Cora's and Georgia's perspectives are also in present tense, so it feels like you're actually in their head. Considering that Georgia is a bit dull/naive, this can get frustrating sometimes. 

There's a slow start, and it quickly becomes obvious that most of these people are insufferable. However, it's a pretty quick and easy read that gets in the latter half of the book as the answer to the whodunnit becomes clearer. I wish the reveal incorporated more hints dropped along the way rather than relying on withholding information from the reader to shock them with it at the end of the story. 

The main message I got from this book is that women are stronger together, and some men can be really horrible. If this doesn't resonate with you, I wouldn't recommend this book. I also would only recommend this book if you're interested in a classic whodunnit rather than something revolutionary. This was a low-mid three star read for me.

Book Blog #390: Manacled by SenLinYu

 

Title: Manacled

Author: SenLinYu

# of Pages: 945 (ebook)

Genre: Adult, Fantasy, Romance

Rating: ★★★★☆

Synopsis: Harry Potter is dead. In the aftermath of the war, in order to strengthen the might of the magical world, Voldemort enacts a repopulation effort. Hermione Granger has an Order secret, lost but hidden in her mind, so she is sent as an enslaved surrogate to the High Reeve, to be bred and monitored until her mind can be cracked.

Review: This is the OG fanfic that SenLinYu later reworked and published as Alchemised late last year. Since I already read, loved, and reviewed Alchemised, I won't repeat those thoughts here since the overall plot is the same and instead do some compare/contrast. 

There's more sex scenes. I was surprised on how non-smutty Alchemised was based on my general impression of fanfics, but in the OG fanfic, there's a lot more (not too graphic) sex scenes, more aligned with what I initially expected.

Draco is sweeter than Kaine. There were moments where I was "kicking my feet and screaming" over Draco x Hermione moments vs Kaine x Helena moments. This might be related to my previous scenes; more sex is a result of having more loving moments between the two main characters. 

Manacled isn't as dark as Alchemised. I was impressed to learn that the world building SenLinYu did in Alchemised is actually gorier than the Harry Potter components incorporated in Manacled. This is most noticeable when comparing the "evil" side's fight strategies and torture methods.

Alchemised is still the best iteration of the story. Both would benefit from more editing (fluff in the beginning that could be slimmed down). In retrospect, you can tell the SenLinYu selected key moments from this fanfic and tried to fit them into the new world they built, but these moments flow more organically in the original fanfic.

- A key example of this is how Harry x Ron x Hermione is already a known tight knit trio, so moments referencing their friendship as a key plot point makes sense in Manacled but feels weaker in Alchemised when they're Luc x Soren x Helena. 

It was fun to be able to experience this story again with the original Harry Potter premise. I would recommend most people to just read Alchemised and to only consider reading Manacled in additon if you loved Alchemised and wanted to read some "deleted" (edited out) scenes.