Flippin' Pages Book Reviews

Tracy’s Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Series: Standalone

Release Date: April 28. 2026

Iris Weyward is the middle sister in a family of witches. For years she has been working together with her sisters Dahlia and Poppy plotting to enhance their villainous natures and hopefully find a way to build an evil empire and take over the realms. But when their magic starts to fail and they begin to turn on each other, Iris has had enough and leaves them. She settles on the outskirts of Fraywell with her familiar, a hedgehog named Quince and starts an evil potion & hex business. Things were going OK, but recently her magic has been getting weaker and her bodyguard leaves and doesn’t return, and she is not sure what to do. But when everything changes when an injured orc bangs on her door and then dies in her backyard. Since she is in need of a bodyguard, she sees this as an opportunity for evil. She casts a spell that lets her interview the dead orc and when she decides that he would be perfect for the job, she casts another spell to “re-alive” him. But the re-alived orc is nothing like the dead orc and she is pretty sure she is going to have to re-unalive him, that is until her sisters show up and chaos ensues.

Talon Gefroy has only vague memories of his life before he woke up in Iris Weyward’s house. But he is immediately smitten with her and dives right into setting her house in order and baking. He accepts his new position and when her sisters show up, he is happy to take care of all of them and help them find a way to regain their powers. He settles in and feels like he is finally happy with life and thinks he might have a future with Iris, but then he learns the truth of how he ended up in her house and he is heartbroken. Can he reconcile the truth of who he is and what he has done with the orc he is now and can he forgive Iris for keeping the truth from him?

OMG! I loved this book, Iris and Talon were so cute together and Iris’s reactions to her feelings had me laughing out loud. This book was a quick, easy read with likable characters, a lot of emotion, wonderful secondary characters, a journey of self-awareness, acceptance, reconnecting with family and finally finding love and happiness. The story is promoted as a romantasy, but it is definitely geared more towards a young adult reader, as there is no intimacy beyond chaste kissing. So, if you are looking for a fun read with amazing characters, laugh out loud dialogue and a low heat romance – look no further – this is that book! I highly recommend this story, and I am hoping that there will be more stories featuring her sisters in the future.

*I am voluntarily leaving a review for an eARC that I requested and was provided to me by the publisher/author. All opinions in this review are my own. *

The Duke’s Got Mail by Samara Parish

Tracy’s Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Series: England’s Sweethearts #2

Release Date: April 28, 2026

Miss Eleanor Wright’s life is just about perfect; she is the premier compositor in London and is in high demand. Thanks to her salary, she is independent and can afford to indulge in all the books she could want, pretty gowns and a spacious apartment. She has also recently begun a new pen-pal relationship with the brother of her secret pen-pal and they have really connected. Life is good, until it isn’t… She is blindsided by the Linotype machine, a new technology that will forever change the publishing industry and will make her obsolete and costing her job and her self-worth. And the man responsible for her misery? Peter, The Duke of Strafford and the primary investor of the Linotype.

Peter, The Duke of Strafford has not been having the best year, he was jilted by the woman he planned to marry, when he was in a coma and she fell for his younger brother and now he has been roped into acting as his sister’s personal secretary as she is recovering from eye surgery. But there are bright spots, first after years of worrying about providing for his family and his estate, he has finally found an investment that will secure his finances for years to come, the Linotype and he has been corresponding with an amazing woman. Everything is going great, until it isn’t… the woman he has been falling in love with is the same woman whose life has been upended by the Linotype. He knows that there is a price to be paid for progress, but he never imagined it would cost him the love of a lifetime.

I am not a huge fan of movie adaptations, but I will give credit where credit is due – Ms. Parish didn’t just rewrite the plot of the hit 90’s Rom-Com “You’ve Got Mail” and call it a day – she took the idea of that story and made it her own. Yes, there are a lot of similarities to the movie, but there are also a lot of original ideas that give this adaptation its own flair. Unfortunately, I think one of the biggest changes was in Eleanor’s character, who is plagued with atychiphobia (the fear of failure) and is a perfectionist who is unwilling to try anything new and be deemed less than perfect, something that she has struggled with all her life, seemingly thanks to her parents. I tried to feel sorry for her, but unlike her movie counterpart, her dislike of Peter came off as nasty and shrewish, and I felt like she was being unfair to blame Peter for everything. So overall, it was a good read, but it did seem overly drawn out and the romance was bland. I did enjoy the story and appreciated the new twist as well as the cute epilogue, making it a book that I would recommend, but I probably wouldn’t read again. This is the second book in the series, but each book can easily be read as a standalone title.

*I am voluntarily leaving a review for an eARC that I requested and was provided to me by the publisher/author. All opinions in this review are my own. *

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