pages_with_panda's reviews
165 reviews

Candace is a witch who's bad at magic, unable to get a job in the "civilian" world or the magical world because everyone has it out for her.

When she was 17, her mother decided to create a sentient pumpkin and give it to her daughter to carve to help her feel better after failing her magical exams. The family kept the pumpkin, named Paul, for 13 years and bring him out every Halloween. Candace begins to confide it after all her failures, and it learns to talk after so many years.

It enlists the help of Candace's brother to give it a voice and a penis (not a body mind you, just a dick), and convinces Candace to "use" him.

Paul becomes Candace's toy/boyfriend and she practices her magic while creating a body for him.

Nothing else really happens; the story is pretty short with about 90 pages. The main character is a Mary Sue with absolutely nothing interesting about her. The writing was dull and the world was boring. The dialogue was awkward and unrealistic. And if I hear about checks stinging one more time....

There were random details added about characters but nothing actually interesting. Why does the 30-year old protag live with her parents? Why did we get a paragraphs about her 17 year old brother but nothing really about her? Why keep a pumpkin around for 13 years and not wonder why it's not rotting?

Also, not really a "shifter" story. More like a Frankensteinian "build-a-boyfriend" story since Paul only exists to be a mate for Candace.

Two sex scenes - one with Paul as a pumpkin and one with his new human body.

0/5.

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Content Warnings

Herald of the Witch's Mark by Kellen Graves

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Lord of Silver Ashes by Kellen Graves

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adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Prince of the Sorrows by Kellen Graves

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

A Little Bit Country by Brian D. Kennedy

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lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Love story between an aspiring country singer named Emmett, and Luke, a country music hating cook. The two end up working at country music superstar’s amusement park and begin their relationship.

The story is told from alternating POVs and we get to see that they have their own aspirations to become more; Emmett wants to make it big as a gay country singer and Luke wants to be chef.

The pacing threw me off between the start and finish. It seemed like we spent a lot of time setting up the conflicts at the beginning and ended the book with an afterwards solving them.

Not enough time was actually spent fleshing out the resolutions between the characters and I would’ve liked to see more time spent on redeeming Luke.

I really didn’t like him, and couldn’t figure out why Emmett did. He had no likable qualities and very little personality.

We also don’t see Luke come to terms with

his internal homophobia

, which was a bit depressing.

The side-plots seemed to take up more space from the main characters, especially with some cheating plot that felt random.

We also didn’t get to see what becomes of our main couple; the ending is completely unresolved.

Do they stay together and work it out to be long-distance? Who knows!?

Overall this was an easy but unsatisfying read within a country music setting.

Content Warnings