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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
I give this book a 4.5/5 stars because I really enjoyed it! The whole book had the perfect blend of romance and mystery/ suspense. I never knew what would happen around each twist and turn. The pacing was very well done because Jenn Bennett paced Winter and Aida's relationship throughout the book. Even in the last 50 pages it was still not certain if they would be together and I loved that. It made it very interesting and suspenseful. She also handled the plot very skillfully. I never felt that the book was dragging on, so it was a joy to read.
The book was set in the 1920's in San Francisco and I felt fully immersed in this time period. The characters felt real to me. The title of the book was also very clever. At first I didn't notice the double meaning, but as I read, it made sense. Bitter Spirits could mean ghosts or alcohol because Aida is a spirit-medium and Winter is a bootlegger. As this is a new book series, I can't wait to read Grim Shadows (book #2 in the Roaring Twenties series).
The book was set in the 1920's in San Francisco and I felt fully immersed in this time period. The characters felt real to me. The title of the book was also very clever. At first I didn't notice the double meaning, but as I read, it made sense. Bitter Spirits could mean ghosts or alcohol because Aida is a spirit-medium and Winter is a bootlegger. As this is a new book series, I can't wait to read Grim Shadows (book #2 in the Roaring Twenties series).
4.5 stars
I really enjoyed the unique characters Bennett presented in Bitter Spirits. Aida is strong, talented, naïve and brilliant. She is not your typical beauty. She is freckled and endowed. I adored how independent she was, and the things that came out of her mouth made me laugh. Winter is a tortured soul and yet fearless when it comes to business and those he loves. Again he is not your typical hero. He is scared both physically and emotionally. The attraction they feel for each other is immediate, and I loved how Bennett made us privy to their initials thoughts. Despite the attraction, the romance develops slowly, allowing the characters to be fleshed out first. As we grow to love them, their relationship becomes heated, complicated and positively yummy. Other characters, such as Bo, Winter’s right hand man and his sister, Astrid, add to the tale. Already I am eager for their stories. The Chinatown community and those of the prohibition outlaws make for some colorful and interesting scenes.
Bitter Spirits is at its heart a romance but Bennett weaved in paranormal elements and an intense mystery that kept me completely enthralled. She does a wonderful job of bringing 1920’s San Francisco, and the prohibition era to life. I loved how accurate her portrayal was from the culture to the terminology. I completely fell in love with Aida and Winter. Their banter, heat and interaction were fantastic. I found myself laughing, swooning and cheering them on. The romance is steamy and well crafted, with just the right amount of details. The mystery was an equally compelling thread and Bennett beautifully balanced the two. At no time did I feel the urge to skim as the pace and flow of the tale was seamless. After finishing I immediately researched book two. I am delighted these will work as standalone and cannot wait to continue. The next book focuses on Winter’s brother an archaeologist and the third on Astrid his sister.
Copy received in exchange for unbiased review. Full review originally published @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer
I really enjoyed the unique characters Bennett presented in Bitter Spirits. Aida is strong, talented, naïve and brilliant. She is not your typical beauty. She is freckled and endowed. I adored how independent she was, and the things that came out of her mouth made me laugh. Winter is a tortured soul and yet fearless when it comes to business and those he loves. Again he is not your typical hero. He is scared both physically and emotionally. The attraction they feel for each other is immediate, and I loved how Bennett made us privy to their initials thoughts. Despite the attraction, the romance develops slowly, allowing the characters to be fleshed out first. As we grow to love them, their relationship becomes heated, complicated and positively yummy. Other characters, such as Bo, Winter’s right hand man and his sister, Astrid, add to the tale. Already I am eager for their stories. The Chinatown community and those of the prohibition outlaws make for some colorful and interesting scenes.
Bitter Spirits is at its heart a romance but Bennett weaved in paranormal elements and an intense mystery that kept me completely enthralled. She does a wonderful job of bringing 1920’s San Francisco, and the prohibition era to life. I loved how accurate her portrayal was from the culture to the terminology. I completely fell in love with Aida and Winter. Their banter, heat and interaction were fantastic. I found myself laughing, swooning and cheering them on. The romance is steamy and well crafted, with just the right amount of details. The mystery was an equally compelling thread and Bennett beautifully balanced the two. At no time did I feel the urge to skim as the pace and flow of the tale was seamless. After finishing I immediately researched book two. I am delighted these will work as standalone and cannot wait to continue. The next book focuses on Winter’s brother an archaeologist and the third on Astrid his sister.
Copy received in exchange for unbiased review. Full review originally published @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer
I originally picked up a copy of Bitter Spirits for my wife as she is the BIG romance reader in the family, but I was intrigued by the setting and the premise so I read it first.
Not normally a reader of romance, I don't have a lot of compare it to, but having said that I enjoyed both the author Jenn Bennett's characters and her style of prose. The pacing was excellent and I enjoyed how much she tortured her characters, bringing them to the brink of figuring out their relationship and then tearing them apart again. The 1920s is well done here and both Winter and Aida are well drawn characters that I was caught up in.
I'll definitely pick up her follow up to this novel - Grim Shadows that is set in this same universe.
Not normally a reader of romance, I don't have a lot of compare it to, but having said that I enjoyed both the author Jenn Bennett's characters and her style of prose. The pacing was excellent and I enjoyed how much she tortured her characters, bringing them to the brink of figuring out their relationship and then tearing them apart again. The 1920s is well done here and both Winter and Aida are well drawn characters that I was caught up in.
I'll definitely pick up her follow up to this novel - Grim Shadows that is set in this same universe.
3.5 stars rounded down. This book was unique with the 1920s setting and connection to mediums. I loved that part of it and now want to read more books set in this era. It made the book sexy with the secrecy around the speak easys and Winter's job. I think I just wanted more steam between the couple since it seemed to be set up for it. I loved the banter back and forth between the two and just wanted more physical stuff between them. I will definitely be checking out more by this author and more set in this era.
05 Feb 2022
1. This review is late by 2 months so everything is based off of half-remembered feelings and my chaotic collection of booknotes and highlights. So take it with a grain of salt.
2. Medium is hired to help get rid of curse on big-time businessman. She does that, and the two of them begin to flirt and fall in love (urgh) while they try to get to the bottom of who actually did the cursing.
3. There are a ton of things I appreciated about this book. The prose is reasonable- which for me means that it doesn't try to be poetic and conveys emotions fairly well. It's also pretty fast, zipping along at a good pace and populated with enough interesting character to make the ride fun. The worldbuilding is also pretty good; I particularly appreciated how the author didn't think 1920s and leap immediately to "oh so everyone is white then." The far east immigrant flavor the whole book had definitely livened things up a bit, and I never felt it was being used as a prop since we had such a variety of East/SouthEast Asian characters. Two months on, it's one of things I remember fondly about the story.
4. What I didn't like was the romance. It's just so maddeningly heterosexual. And I don't mean that in the "there aren't enough gays" kinda way but in the "everything is a such a fucking cliche I'm going to find a pillow and scream into it till i feel better" kinda way. There are like, the seeds of a sweet romance in the story and it comes out occasionally, but the for the most part it's just horny. It's so horny. The two protagonists cannot stand in the same room without immediately wanting to enact an R-Rated scene. They start being horny the first time they meet each other (which, okay- fair enough I understand that is sometimes how horny works) and then spend every other scene where they are near each other being hornier. Stop. Please. I get it. They want to fuck. I got it ten pages ago and now I'm not sure if I'll ever not get it. STOP.
5. And yes, I see those people (very validly) going "you pick up a romance and you expect it to not be horny?" and while that is valid I'd like to note that there are different ways of denoting horniness in writing and Bitter Spirits just uses the most goddamned meaningless cliche nonsense for it. It's mostly a lot of generic adjectives. Once in a while Winter gets really horny about Aida's innumerable freckles and I actually liked those bits because at least the freckles were a genuinely Aida thing. (I support your kinks, sir.) But then there are the really random sex scenes and Aida getting angry because Aiden once slept with some woman like years before she met him and he didn't bother to tell her about it and no. Absolutely NOT. I will not support a romance where people are not allowed their privacy. Jeez.
6. Also, some of the other reviews talk about sex scenes which are objectively hilarious (derogatory) but I skipped every one of those (the non sex horniness was already more than I could take) so no comments there.
7. The thing is, it was not a bad book. Like at all. The world was well-drawn, the characters were fun, the antagonist was kinda predictable but not in a bad way (look, you read enough mysteries, you IMMEDIATELY peg the unassuming helpful guy somewhere in the first act as a suspect), there were some actual sweet moments in the romance, Winter's family and friends were wonderful, and so was Aida's found family. It's a sweet, well-constructed book that was jut too horny for its own good.
1. This review is late by 2 months so everything is based off of half-remembered feelings and my chaotic collection of booknotes and highlights. So take it with a grain of salt.
2. Medium is hired to help get rid of curse on big-time businessman. She does that, and the two of them begin to flirt and fall in love (urgh) while they try to get to the bottom of who actually did the cursing.
3. There are a ton of things I appreciated about this book. The prose is reasonable- which for me means that it doesn't try to be poetic and conveys emotions fairly well. It's also pretty fast, zipping along at a good pace and populated with enough interesting character to make the ride fun. The worldbuilding is also pretty good; I particularly appreciated how the author didn't think 1920s and leap immediately to "oh so everyone is white then." The far east immigrant flavor the whole book had definitely livened things up a bit, and I never felt it was being used as a prop since we had such a variety of East/SouthEast Asian characters. Two months on, it's one of things I remember fondly about the story.
4. What I didn't like was the romance. It's just so maddeningly heterosexual. And I don't mean that in the "there aren't enough gays" kinda way but in the "everything is a such a fucking cliche I'm going to find a pillow and scream into it till i feel better" kinda way. There are like, the seeds of a sweet romance in the story and it comes out occasionally, but the for the most part it's just horny. It's so horny. The two protagonists cannot stand in the same room without immediately wanting to enact an R-Rated scene. They start being horny the first time they meet each other (which, okay- fair enough I understand that is sometimes how horny works) and then spend every other scene where they are near each other being hornier. Stop. Please. I get it. They want to fuck. I got it ten pages ago and now I'm not sure if I'll ever not get it. STOP.
5. And yes, I see those people (very validly) going "you pick up a romance and you expect it to not be horny?" and while that is valid I'd like to note that there are different ways of denoting horniness in writing and Bitter Spirits just uses the most goddamned meaningless cliche nonsense for it. It's mostly a lot of generic adjectives. Once in a while Winter gets really horny about Aida's innumerable freckles and I actually liked those bits because at least the freckles were a genuinely Aida thing. (I support your kinks, sir.) But then there are the really random sex scenes and Aida getting angry because Aiden once slept with some woman like years before she met him and he didn't bother to tell her about it and no. Absolutely NOT. I will not support a romance where people are not allowed their privacy. Jeez.
6. Also, some of the other reviews talk about sex scenes which are objectively hilarious (derogatory) but I skipped every one of those (the non sex horniness was already more than I could take) so no comments there.
7. The thing is, it was not a bad book. Like at all. The world was well-drawn, the characters were fun, the antagonist was kinda predictable but not in a bad way (look, you read enough mysteries, you IMMEDIATELY peg the unassuming helpful guy somewhere in the first act as a suspect), there were some actual sweet moments in the romance, Winter's family and friends were wonderful, and so was Aida's found family. It's a sweet, well-constructed book that was jut too horny for its own good.
4.5 stars
I loved this and can't wait to read the rest of the series.
I loved this and can't wait to read the rest of the series.
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes