Minty Marie's short story To Lie With Monsters was just published on October 15, 2024. It is available for purchase on Amazon, and also can be read through Kindle Unlimited.
This was my first time reading any of Minty Marie's books. She has a couple other stories out, notably her Shifters in Paradise series. I received an ARC through BookSirens. Here's my review!
It was a fun, creative read. I love super quick stories that I can read in under an hour. The world was cute; I loved the whole concept of the Bog and the forest was full of dark mystery and magic. I can relate to needing to get away from a stuffy family, so I enjoyed Minty's juxtaposition of the wildness of the woods to the pretentious superficiality of 'civilized' life.
As I read it, I got cult vibes, which is totally my style for spooky Halloween reads. I don't know why; even though there was nothing all that nefarious about the story, I kept on thinking something very menacing was on the periphery, just lurking out of the FMC Samantha's awareness. Wasn't very into Horace as the MMC; I personally found him a little creepy, but maybe that's intentional. It's not like it's a love story; it's a story about a virgin's sexual awakening.
I do think there were parts of the spice that were a bit lacking, especially what happened (or rather didn't happen) between Samantha and Horace, but Minty did leave that open-ended for a potential sequel. I personally prefer dubcon/reluctance themes, so that probably skews my taste. The spice was slower to build, but consensual so it was a sweet monster smash. I really liked the effects of the fog and mist. There were also other spicy scenes that I was inspired by and that got my imagination rocketing off.
I wasn't particularly attached to any of the characters by the end of it, but it is a short story. There were some lyrical descriptions, which attests to Minty's writing ability. Overall, probably a 3.5/5, but rounded up for Goodreads.
I received an advance review copy for free, and am posting my thoughts voluntarily.
Check out my Goodreads profile here.
About the Author: Minty Marie
You can follow Minty on her Instagram.
To read what others think about To Lie With Monsters, check out the book on Goodreads.
You can purchase To Lie With Monsters on Amazon.
Note about ARCs:
I was not paid for this review; I simply signed up on BookSirens, and was able to choose which books I wanted to check out in exchange for a review. It was my first experience writing a review for an ARC, and I'd love to keep supporting authors like this. After this first experience, I realized that I should probably try to message the author directly for an ARC or sign up for their ARC on other channels because BookSirens charges the author $2 per reader sign-up. That obviously adds to their expenses.
If you'd like me to review an ARC for you, please message me! As long as it's a short spicy story that involves some magic or is set in the college world, and therefore is related to my own genre/blog, I'm happy to read it and post a review to my website and Goodreads! :)
You can check out my full ARC Review Policy here.
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