Author: Richelle Mead Pages: 332 Overall: 4/5 Setting: 4/5 Characters: 5/5 Plot and Themes: 4/5 Cheers Factor: 4/5 Pairing: Prisoner Red Blend by Orin Swift This is my pairing for the entire series because it’s such a quick read. I read the first 4 books in 2 days because I’m crazy so I literally only have one pairing. Also a good bottle of red is perfect for this series. It’s one of my favorite series and Prisoner is one of my parent’s favorite bottles of wine and is quickly becoming mine. Take a Shot: Rose Hathaway and her best friend Vasalissa Dragomir have been on the run for the better part of a 2 years after running away from their school. Oh and Lissa is a Moroi vampire meaning she’s technically not undead and has magic and Rose is a Dhampir which makes her half Moroi and half human. Upon being captured and brought back to St. Vladamir’s Academy strange things start to happen that scare even Dimitri, the sexy Russian Dhampir that’s Lissa’s new guardian seeing as she is the last Dragomir from one of the twelve royal bloodlines.
0 Comments
Author: Alexandra Christo Pages: 344 Overall: 5/5 Setting: 4.5/5 Characters: 5/5 Plot and Themes: 5/5 Cheers Factor: 5/5 Pairing: Drag Me Under This deep blue cocktail reminds me of the ocean that Lira calls home and I think it feels deep when you look at it which was the goal. Ingredients 1 oz vodka (I used Kettle One) 1 oz white rum (I used Bacardi White Rum) 1 oz Blue Curacao 1 oz raspberry liquor (I used di’ Amore) Lime wedge Ice “That’s what a story is. A bunch of lies.”
Instructions -Fill shaker with ice and combine vodka, rum and blue curacao and shake -Strain over fresh ice in glass -Pour raspberry liqueur over a spoon to layer on top -Garnish with lime wedge -Enjoy “Look at you. My monster come to find me.” Take a Shot: In this little mermaid retelling you get a sexy and dark side of both perspectives. It’s subtle and yet compelling and you want to see what will happen to the prince of gold and the future queen of death. Author: Sarah J Maas Pages: 757 Overall: 4.5/5 Setting: 4/5 Characters: 5/5 Plot and Themes: 4/5 Cheers Factor: 5/5 Pairing: Fire in My Veins If you’re heard anything about this book you know it sets something aflame. So this fun little drink is truly perfect not just in its coloring, but in the kick it brings. Ingredients 2oz silver tequila (I used Jose Cuervo) ¾ oz lime juice ¾ oz grenadine 4-5 dashes bitters Ice “She had the courage to tell me the truth.” Instructions
-Combine all ingredients in shaker with ice -Strain in glass with fresh ice -Garnish with lime wedge -Enjoy “And I have never hated you, Cassian.” Take a Shot: (18+ for sexual content and discussion around mental health) It’s been 18 months since the war and Nesta is on a downward spiral. Her sister doesn’t know what to do with her and no one not even Cassian or Amren can get through to her. So as a form of rehab she’s forced to start training and working in the library. Go along with Nesta as she heals wounds she never thought she could heal and starts to love those in her life and more importantly herself. Author: Sarah J Maas Pages: 700 Overall: 4.5/5 Setting: 4/5 Characters: 5/5 Plot and Themes: 4.5/5 Cheers Factor: 5/5 Pairing: The High Lady This is a really fun little drink that made me feel like a High Lady in all honesty. It’s pretty powerful and still packs a punch but is sweet and pretty to look at. Ingredients ½ oz Blue Curacao ½ oz Midori 2oz vodka (I used Kettle One) ½ oz simple syrup ¾ oz lemon juice Ice Instructions
-Add Blue Curacao to a martini glass -Gently layer the Midori on top using a spoon -Combine vodka, simple syrup, lemon juice and ice to a shaker and shake -Gently layer from shaker using a spoon -Enjoy “When do you come home to me?” Take a Shot: Feyre is in the Spring Court after being taken back by Tamlin so that she could save the Inner Circle and her sisters after Hybern nearly killed them all. Now they all must start preparing for a war that none of them feel all too equipped to fight given all the new wheels that are turning that are setting them behind in a way they weren’t in the previous war. Author: Chloe Gong Pages: 449 Overall: 4.5/5 Setting: 5/5 Characters: 4/5 Plot and Themes: 5/5 Cheers Factor: 5/5 Pairing: Mary Pickford This is a fun drink that comes from the 1920’s which is when our R&J retelling takes place. Ingredients -2oz gold rum (Bacardi) -1 ½ oz pineapple juice -⅙ oz maraschino liqueur (Luxardo) -⅙ oz grenadine syrup -ice Instructions -Combine all ingredients in a shaker -Shake and strain into a glass -Enjoy “Memories were beastly little creatures, after all - they rose with the faintest whiff of nourishment.” Take a Shot: We all know Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliette, but we’ve never known them to be from warring gangs in 1920’s Shanghai where a suspicious monster is spreading madness that makes those infected rip out their own throats is killing gangsters and common folks alike. When Roma Montagov and Juliette Cai have to work together to extinguish the madness that threatens their very lives and way of life, memories of their past love resurface and become increasingly hard to ignore. Author: Sarah J. Maas Pages: 626 Overall: 5/5 Setting: 5/5 Characters: 5/5 Plot and Themes: 5/5 Cheers Factor: 5/5 Pairing: Starfall Empress Gin has a stunning color. For this drink there is no substitution on the liquor merely for the color. The light purple you get with this drink reminds me of starfall and the colors that our characters see in the sky. It’s such a hopeful time and it’s truly a wonderful moment for Feyre. I think it’s when she truly begins to forgive herself and I love that a very light drink can represent that. Ingredients -2oz Empress Gin -1oz fresh lemon juice -¾ ounce egg white -ice Instructions -Add all ingredients to a shaker with ice -Shake and strain to remove ice -Shake again without ice -Fine strain into glass “Love- love was a balm as much as it was a poison.”
Take a Shot: After surviving the harrowing events of Under the Mountain Feyre and Tamlin are trying to forget the horrors they both suffered. However, forgetting might not happen as easily as either of them assumed. With their upcoming nuptials Feyre is feeling scared and still so broken from surviving Amarantha’s trials while also adjusting to her new life as a High Fae. Then she has to remember her bargain with Rhys and when he conveniently calls upon their bargain during her wedding day events begin to unfold that will put Feyre on a path that maybe she was meant to be on all along. Author: Leigh Bardugo Pages: 459 Overall: 3/5 Setting: 4/5 Characters: 3/5 Plot and Themes: 2/5 Cheers Factor: 3/5 Pairing: Cherry Crypt Cider by True Brewing This choice comes more from an aesthetic point. It’s super tasty as well, but I just love the dark can and the ominous name. It feels very fitting for a book with dark organizations that are cult like and ritual based using tombs and their own kinds of crypts. "I let you die. To save myself, I let you die." Take a Shot: Galaxy (Alex) Stern is a new student at Yale and the newest member of Leith House. She comes from a troubled past and she found out she was going to Yale when she awoke in a hospital bed after an almost fentanyl overdose and a murder scene that would make any detective squeamish. She is absconded of guilt seeing as the murderer was left handed, she’s right handed and she was nearly dead of an overdose. However, her superior Darlington is missing and she’s been limping along in hopes of eventually bringing him back from wherever he is in the universe after being sucked into a black hole. "A lie isn't a lie until someone believes it."
Author: Sarah J. Maas Pages: 432 Overall: 4/5 Setting: 5/5 Characters: 4/5 Plot and Themes: 4/5 Cheers Factor: 4/5 Pairing: Faerie Wine This is what I imagine the wine Feyre drinks at the Summer Solstice would taste like. Slight warning it uses the whole bottle of champagne so you can share with friends...or not I’m not here to judge you. Ingredients -1 bottle of Champagne chilled (I used Lamarca Prosecco it achieves the same purpose and just depends on which type of sparkling wine you prefer) -1 bottle of ginger ale (2 liter) -2 10oz bags of frozen strawberries Instructions -Combine ingredients in pitcher or punch bowl serve and enjoy "Be glad of your human heart, Feyre. Pity those who don't feel anything at all." Take a Shot: In this Beauty and the Beast retelling follow Feyre as she is taken North of the wall into Prythian, the faerie realm, to pay a debt where no human has gone and come back from. Watch as the secrets of what is happening in this foreign land entangle themselves with Feyre’s life and she finds herself as the one who could potentially save the man she loves and his entire species.
Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout Pages: 634 Overall: 4.5/5 Setting: 4/5 Characters: 5/5 Plot and Themes: 4.5/5 Cheers Factor: 5/5 Pairing: Sippin’ Pretty Tequila Mule I love, love, love Sippin’ Prettys so very much. I recently discovered this fun twist on them and I have not gone back. It is a very quirky and aggressive take on a classic mule and it reminds me of Poppy and her personality. Ingredients -1 ¼ oz Silver Tequila -2 parts Sippin’ Pretty -1 part ginger beer -A lime wedge -Ice Instructions Step one: Measure out all ingredients Step two: Mix all ingredients in a shaker and shake Step three: Pour into a glass or Copper Mule Mug Take a Shot: (18+ for sexual content) Poppy is the Maiden. As the Maiden she is not allowed to speak with anyone, show her face, have close relationships or even be touched. Her entire life she has been sequestered and guarded. Her closest companions are her assigned lady Tawny and Viktor her guard. However, events have been set into motion for some time that will change the course of her life and they start when she ends up in a tavern room alone with the new sexy guard Hawke Flynn. If you love Sarah J. Maas and Game of Thrones this is the book for you. I have seen this book for months on TikTok and I hate to admit that TikTok made me do it, but this book was awesome so I’m not that mad. I saw it on many TikToks for spicy books and boy did it deliver. I don’t want to get too much into it, but it’s great like actually great. The sexual tension could be cut with a knife and I read this one in a day and a half because I was so ready to read what was going to happen to our sweet Poppy. The characters in this title are amazing. Poppy is written to be naive in her lack of awareness because of the seclusion of her position in the world and Hawke is seductive and experienced and is a great counter and adds a good balance. I also really like Poppy’s inability to wrestle her aggressive side into submission. She’s spicy in all the right ways that make it perfect for her not to conform to the role that she is supposed to do. The only problem that I had was with the plot and the setting. They weren’t bad, but there were many moments where I was confused as to what was even happening and why she was the maiden. A lot is explained at the end of the book, but as a forewarning it can be confusing to read a book when you don’t know what is happening and you are purposefully being left in the dark like in this book. That’s the only issue I took with the book, but that’s also typical of 1st books in series and now I feel like I’m prepared to keep reading the series because I’m informed from the first one. Overall though I feel like my new book boyfriend is Hawke and it definitely was worth raising a glass to. It’s a great fantasy world with a good amount of spice that makes it a great read for those who are wanting to get their YA fix with adult themes. Definitely don’t recommend it to your mom...or do I’m not gonna tell you what to do. Take this as a much needed lesson Penallaphe. Some truths do nothing but destroy and decay what they do not obliterate. Truths do not always set one free. Only a fool who has spent their entire life being fed lies believes that.”
Author: Sarah J. Maas Pages: 448 Overall: 3.5/5 Setting: 5/5 Characters: 3.4/5 Plot and Themes: 3.5/5 Cheers Factor: 3.5/5 Pairing: Peanut Butter and Banana Smoothie My roommates and I are currently on a slight health kick so that means no alcohol and I have been good about it. We are holding out until around Christmas because two of us are going to be by the beach soon. This smoothie is one I used to make back when I was on a huge health kick. I make no claims that it’s crazy healthy, but I enjoyed it and used to drink it in the mornings. Plus this seems like something Celaena would drink because she loves food and sugar and all the decadence that is life. Ingredients 1 ½ cup milk (I use coconut so it’s not actually dairy) 1 tablespoon peanut butter 1 banana 1 cup of ice Instructions Step 1: Measure out ingredients and combine in a blender Step 2: Blend until combined Step 3: Enjoy This reminds me more of making flavored milk, but I really like drinking it and you get a serving of fruit and some protein from the peanut butter. Again, I’m making no claims that this is super good for you. There is a lot of sugar in it from the banana and the peanut butter, but it is a nice substitute for things like soda or juice which I drink lots of. Take A Shot: The Assassin’s Blade is a set of novellas that take place before the first book in the Throne of Glass series. There is popular debate about when it should be read and whether reading it entirely before the series is more appropriate or in publishing order. If you read it in publishing order then it comes after book 2, Crown of Midnight. However, the individual novellas were actually written around the same time book 1 was published so to each their own. I read TAB long after I had finished the entire series because I was impatient and wanted to know what happened and I didn’t want to go back in time. However, upon reading it I see how it could be important to read before Empire of Storms in that lots of characters are delved into in TAB that come back in EoS. That being said this series follows Celaena Sardothien who is Adarlan’s greatest assassin trained to be the heir to the Assassin’s Guild of Adarlan. She’s a ruthless character with a penchant for exquisite dresses and jewelry. However, there is so much more to her story than meets the eye and I’m not just talking about the men that fall in love with her. That’s about all I can give without spoiling anything, but just read her books, they are magnificent. I love this entire series.
|
Cheers FactorEach book here at Cheers&Chapters is rated based off of certain categories that are genre specific, however every book will get a Cheers Factor. The Cheers Factor is how much we wanted to raise our glass while reading it. So get your glasses ready and cheers! Archives
July 2023
Genres
All
|