I’m going to start this February post at the end of March by stating that I had this post more or less finished on the 29th February, all I had to do was take some photos of the two none Psy-Changeling books I read this month and post them with their reviews below.

I did not do that one small thing!

I blame lighting and outright laziness, I just went with some generic pictures from Unsplash instead!

So here is my February wrap-up 21 days late!

I did a Psy-Changeling reread this month because, well must be February! 😀 I usually need to do a reread this time of year. I didn’t do a full reread this time around though, just the main books, my post from last February, Quick February 2023 – Wrap-up, has a list of all the books, novellas and short stories from this series.

Can you tell I adore this series?

I still haven’t done my big Psy-Changeling post that I I’ve been talking about for about 3 years now! Will this be the year? Who knows!!

What I do know is that I will always come back to this series so I’ll have plenty of opportunity to do the big post! 😀

Psy-Changeling/ Season I:

Slave to Sensation (Psy-Changeling #1) – 5⭐
Visions of Heat (Psy-Changeling #2) – 4⭐
Caressed By Ice (Psy-Changeling #3) – 5⭐
Mine to Possess (Psy-Changeling #4) – 5⭐
Hostage to Pleasure (Psy-Changeling #5) – 5⭐
Branded By Fire (Psy-Changeling #6) – 4⭐
Blaze of Memory (Psy-Changeling #7) – 5⭐
Bonds of Justice (Psy-Changeling #8) – 5⭐
Play of Passion (Psy-Changeling #9) – 5⭐
Kiss of Snow (Psy-Changeling #10) – 5⭐
Tangle of Need (Psy-Changeling #11) – 5⭐
Heart of Obsidian (Psy-Changeling #12) – 5⭐
Shield of Winter (Psy-Changeling #13) – 5⭐
Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling #14) – 5⭐
Allegiance of Honor (Psy-Changeling #15) – 5⭐
Wild Embrace (Psy-Changeling 2.5, 5.5, 11.5, 12.25) – 5⭐

Psy-Changeling Trinity/ Season II:

While I was making my featured image for this post one of the suggested grids looked really cool and a bit serial killer-y, thought it was worth a share.

None Psy-Changeling reading:

Under Fortunate Stars by Ren Hutchings – 5⭐

“I don’t want to accept it.”

“And yet, as with all things we lose… as with all things that break our hearts… eventually, we must.”

I adored this, I’ve read a few reviews that didn’t love the neatness of it and I totally get that but I just enjoyed how everyone on the Jonah and Gallion needed to be in the same place at the same time to help bring peace to the masses. Is it luck? Is it faith? Both?

I will say that there isn’t a huge amount of mystery in who the ‘Fortune Five’ was going to be BUT I loved the journey. I would have liked some more insight into Charyne and Keila though. We didn’t really get to ‘know’ them and it felt a bit like the ‘Fortunate Three’. I loved Shann, Keevan and Leeg though so the lack of character development for Charyne and Keila wasn’t a massive problem, just feel it would have added more to the overall story.

One other thing, this is listed in tags as LGBT and Queer and it does have queer characters but one couple are minor characters and the two main characters (Uma and Keevan) relationships are only referenced as part of their history. So just keep that in mind if some queer space opera is what you’re after!

At the end of the day though this had all the things I enjoy in a space opera and I had a lot of fun reading it. In a world that feels kind of hopeless this book felt hopeful. Maybe one day everything will align in real life like this story did? That would be lovely! I also really appreciate the playlist Hutchings provided and I’ve been enjoying listening to it since I finished. Even has an original song about the Jonah which is not amazing but I still love it! 😀

This is totally a standalone but a sequel would absolutely work and I would LOVE one.

When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo – 5⭐

“Is not a good thing to disappoint dead people. They does take it hard.”

I don’t know how to review this, it was such a stunning read and I don’t know the best way to articulate how stunning it was.

Beautiful prose, wonderful characters and a story that stays with you long after you’ve finished reading.

This took me a little longer to read than usual as it’s written in the Trinidadian accent so it took me some time to get into the flow, but it just added to the overall experience. Also, once the flow started I noticed that the syntax mimicked the Irish accent at times.

I enjoyed every minute of my time with Darwin and Yejide and if I had any complaints it’s that I would have loved more time with them and maybe Darwin going home to his mother with Yejide, that’s just because I’m morbidly curious about how that would go and really, ending on the letter from Darwin is perfect. I mean it made me cry so that’s a good way to end a book!

“He never leaves us, Ma. And I never leave you.”

ALSO…

I think this would make a visually stunning movie. I’m sure they’d manage to mess up the story in some way because movies/tv often do but visually I think it would be impossible to mess up!