Sravika's Books - Reviews and Other Trivia

 Rebel Witch  (The Crimson Moth #2) By Kristen Ciccarelli  Published Year: 2025 Page Count: 464 pages  Medium Used: Kindle Scribe  Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Romantasy, Adventure, Magic and Sorcery, Witches, Witchcraft, 2025-read.  Rating : 3.5/5  I usually take a detour between books of a series but with this Crimson Moth, I liked the first one well enough to pick up the second one right away. This book started on great promise for me but then got to the point of me desperately trying to not DNF it. The romance angle between the lead pair, Rune and Gideon, felt distracting and after a while, I have had enough. This is one of the main drivers of  the narrative and I felt exhausted with all the repelling misunderstandings and attracting sexual tension between them. In this book we see their non committal, suspicious bonding evolve into trusting and selfless love. The other important thing is Cressida,the evil witch from book 1 who is revealed to have...

 Heartless Hunter  (The Crimson Moth #1) By Kristen Ciccarelli  Published Year: 2024 Page Count: 410 pages  Medium Used: Kindle Scribe  Genre: Romantasy, Romance, Fantasy, High Fantasy, Witches, Witchcraft, Witch Hunters, 2025-read.  Rating : 4.25/5  I finished this book under two days. It felt so easy to read and connect with the main characters. I could sympathize with Rune for her vulnerabilities and applaud her for her bravery. I could understand what drives Gideon to hunt her kind and put them to death. The pacing is fast and the world building is flawless. Only towards the end, I thought the author took logic into her hands and twisted it so that it ceased to make much sense. At one point, Gideon wishes Rune to be the Crimson Moth so that it would be more of a intrigue and romantic challenge for him. But when he finally learns the truth, he doesn't hesitate to surrender her to death. Alex,Gideon's brother and Rune's bestie one moment feels like t...

 Dissolution  By Nicholas Binge Published Year: 2025 Page Count: 384 pages  Medium Used: Kindle Scribe  Genre : Science Fiction, Memory Travel, Time Travel, Time Looping, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Prose, 2025-read.  Rating : 5/5 😀😀😀😀😀 This is a very easy and compulsive 5 pointer story. The prose is so good that I kept reading past the last page into acknowledgements. Despite being a story about time/memory travel and fighting a hungry force of nature, this story felt wholesome and soothing. The deep commitment and enduring love the main characters share over their decades of marriage with each other brought happy tears to my eyes. Even if they have now become old with rickety bones and batty minds, they and their love is something to cherish! So getting into the story. Stanley, Raph and Jacques are three students under a nearly blind, old, eerie professor Waldmen in their university. Stanley comes from a poor background and always felt an outsider i...

 Manacled  By Senlinyu Published Year: 2018-2019 Page Count: 957 pages  Medium Used: Phone  Genre : Romantsy, Romance, High Fantasy, Harry Potter Universe, Alternate Theory, Hermione Granger, Dark Magic and Sorcery, 2025-read.  Rating : 5/5  I have a habit of reading multiple books at a time. This book! This book has knocked me off my mind. I was glued to my phone reading and sticking to this one till the end. Even though this is a long book and had some of the actions mentioned on repeat, - like the multiple times the main characters meet and rescue or heal each other, the many times they spend together as a host and surrogate - it didn't feel boring. I never once said 'enough'. I wanted to keep reading.  This book is so so good. It recounts an alternate version to Harry Potter series. In order to fully understand and follow the book, one must also possess a knowledge - even if only very brief and vague - of the original series. In this book, Hermione...

 Black Sun Rising  (The Coldfire Triology #1) By C. S. Friedman  Published Year: 1991 Page Count: 516 pages  Medium Used: Kindle Scribe  Genre: High Fantasy, Sorcery, Magic, Dark Fantasy, Vampires, Adventure, Action, Horror, 2025-read.  Rating: 5/5 🌟 😎 😀  👌 🌟  Spine tingling. Mind lickingly good! Some of the scenes are so enshrined within my mind - they are incorrigible. I have been reading this book for a while - shuffling/switching among other books and other work - and when I got back to this one, its like I have never left. So uncanny! The world building is great and reminiscent of beautiful, older times fantasy fiction. It brought the world of Erna to life in my mind's eye. The characters are flawed -  they have their reasons and personal motivations for setting out on this adventure but they abide by their promises and oaths - which made them all noble in my eyes.  A priest of the church, Damien, who is also a sorcerer that ca...

 The Incandescent  By Emily Tesh  Published Year: 2025 Page Count: 394 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre: Fantasy, Magic, Sorcery, Multiple Planes, Demons, Action, Lesbians, 2025-read.  Rating: 4.75/5  This is my first book by the author and I find her prose good, logic sensible and acceptable. This story revolves around a centuries old Magic school, Chetwood, which houses six hundred students learning and practicing magic, teaching staff and other management. The school is carefully warded against demons that are always on the look out to cross over from a parallel demonic plane and possess objects, eat the enormous amount of magic that is here, all concentrated in one place. Among the people that are keeping the school and students secure is the Director of Magic, Sapphire Walden. She is the protagonist of this story. She is a thoughtful, compassionate teacher and a spectacular magician. She has spent all her career learning how to combat demons a...