As a guild bartender, I can handle pretty much anything–mages, sorcerers, witches, the occasional demon. But show me anything family-related and I’d rather run for the hills. It doesn’t even have to be my family.So I have no idea why I thought spending the holidays with Aaron’s mom and pop was a good idea.Meeting his famous parents is already terrifying enough, but I’ve got a bigger problem. … got a bigger problem. Students of his family’s renowned mage academy are being attacked on the grounds–and somehow no one has seen a single assailant? Unexplained tracks litter the nearby woods, rumors of forbidden alchemy are circulating the campus…and Ezra has been acting strangely since we arrived.
Something deadly is brewing in the shadow of Sinclair Academy, and the longer we take to uncover it, the more dangerous it becomes. But no matter the risk, we’ll protect the students.
And Aaron’s parents too, I suppose. If we have to.
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THE GUILD CODEX
Spellbound Series:
Three Mages and a Margarita (#1)
Dark Arts and a Daiquiri (#2)
Two Witches and a Whiskey (#3)
Demon Magic and a Martini (#4)
The Alchemist and an Amaretto (#5)
Druid Vices and a Vodka (#6)
Demonized Series:
Taming Demons for Beginners (#1)
Slaying Monsters for the Feeble (#2)
more
The Alchemist and an Amaretto
The Guild Codex: Spellbound Series, Book 5
By: Annette Marie
Narrated by: Cris Dukehart
This continues the story with the gang all going to Aaron’s family’s home for the Christmas season. There had been trouble with animal attacks and it happens at the private school for gifted teens. ( Paranormal gifts.) Not only do they have to fight the strong werewolves but find who made these. They are Not natural. Tory also may have found a way to help Ezra with the demon his body is forced to host.
Excellent narration!!!
This is a great series!
Meeting parents is always terrifying
It’s exciting to see Tori’s chosen family coming together and evolving. I love Tori and Ezra as a couple and hope to see more of them developing together, the group cannot lose one of the wheels.
I loved it. Every one of these books is special. Each book peels more layers from each character. It’s easy to see everyone’s personality and than there’s always something new and unique added. I can’t wait to read the next one
3 & 1/2 stars rounded up.
Well, this book just didn’t pull me in like the first 4 did. In fact, it almost felt predictable to me, I knew who was the bad guy from the start, and guessed at the situation pretty easily, so nothing really came as a surprise. I didn’t like Aaron, Kai, & Ezra very much in this book either, not only as friends, but as main characters. Tori wasn’t her usual wise cracking self either. She came across as an unlikable character without her wisecracks. But it was good to see she had feelings for someone finally, where she seemed to not really connect with anyone else for romance before. I will probably read book 6 when it comes out, but it needs to be better than this one to keep my interest in continuing with the series.
4.5
Book source ~ Kindle Unlimited
Tori Dawson is a bartender extraordinaire. But her place of employment is no ordinary pub. The Crow and Hammer is a guild for magic wielding people and Tori is human. But only a few people know that. Because otherwise she’d be booted to the curb. The mythical community believes she is a witch and, come Hell or highball, she’s going to keep it that way.
It’s nearly Christmas and Tori has been invited to visit Aaron’s family estate. Tori doesn’t particularly like family events, but Aaron’s one of her best friends and Ezra and Kai, her other best friends, and Sin are going, so she allows herself to be dragged along. Good thing, too. There’s evil shenanigans going on at Sinclair Academy and family mansion and Tori is essential to putting a stop to it. However, things are also busting loose regarding Ezra and Tori will never be the same.
Wow. There is so much going on, but it’s never overwhelming. Tori and her buddies are going up against something really nasty with big sharp pointy teeth. And then there’s the thing with Ezra. You know, the demony thing. Needless to say, it’s quite an eventful Christmas. Lots of action and danger and magic as well as the usual humor. I love this series so much and this edition to it does not disappoint.
Disclaimer: I received an Advance Reader Copy at no cost from the publisher/author. All opinions in my review are my own.
There are not any words in any language, in the mythic world or otherwise, that can convey or express the feeling that is sitting in my chest right now. Absolutely none. Annette Marie has made me hope, has given me feels, has teased me, and then she has taken it all away again leaving me in a numbish state. This book is everything, ya’ll. It’s going to knock your doors down and slaughter innocent bystanders. Things are really starting to happen. If this is a precursor then I don’t know if I’m going to be able to handle more. Just saying.
There are so many revelations in this newest addition to the Spellbound Series. So many things come to light that the reader is left reeling. I am still trying to work this series out in my mind so that my darlings all end on a happy note. There are really so many ways Marie can take this series and I am genuinely excited to see her genius at work in future books. The way that Marie builds her plots in her stories is nothing short of masterful. I love that it is so obvious how much planning and thought went into the creation of her stories- from the plots in individual books, the overarching series plots, the characters and their backgrounds and personalities, and her atmospheric world-building. It is so easy to see that a bit of her soul is imprinted on and woven into each book that she writes. The quality is astounding.
In this particular book of the series, I was able to guess who the villain of the story was from the start even though I have honestly never found any of her books predictable before. It certainly didn’t take anything away from my reading experience. Even though I was able to guess the villain, I wasn’t able to guess how things would play out. I love how Marie is able to keep the reader guessing when it comes to the events and situations in her books. This book had plenty of action, as her books tend to have. I think that she is quite skilled in choreographing her action and fight scenes. They are always concise, impactful, and serce a purpose in the story.
There is a lot more character development in this book for both Aaron and Ezra. We get a few more bits and pieces of them. We even get some more background on Sin, which I loved. I adore her character and I was just waiting for Marie to give us more of her. I don’t really want to give anything away about any of the characters so I’ll leave it at that.
Overall, this book is going to change the pace for the series to come. By the end, it will have you drowning in an ocean of feels. You won’t even know how to proceed with your day once you finish that last page. I am so grateful to have discovered an author that really gets me. One that makes me feel every emotion imaginable through her breathtaking stories. These characters have been ingrained into my soul and their stories are my stories too. I think that all readers feel that way. There has never been another author that can make me feel so much. This is a book, a series, and an author that I cannot praise enough! I recommend this book so much. Just pretend that I am standing on a rooftop screaming my lungs out because I totally would for this author. Annette Marie is a breath of fresh air when it comes to the fantasy genre and I will follow her until the end of days. (Which I can only imagine will happen the day that she decides to retire from writing books. Seriously, the entire world…scorched earth.) Have fun with Annette’s newest release and I’ll see you all for the next book!
Simply fantastic! Another exciting addition to this action-packed series. I loved it! I really enjoyed not only the story itself and seeing our fearless heroes in action but also I loved discovering more about them and who they are.
The story includes an extra little short that introduces a new series with new characters that I can’t wait to learn more about.
Wow, Aaron’s parents are real pieces of work! I am not sure I would ever go home if I had to go through all the stuff they put him through! Who needs an itinerary to visit their family? Aaron does. They even expected him to fly to Another city to interview for something on his Christmas trip home. (Honestly, I lost track of everything they were trying to make him do). Give me parents who are lower middle class to poor any day. At least mine had feelings/emotions. Anyway while at the school that Aaron’s parents run they come across the fact that something has been taking students. There are thousands of acres of forests on the property. So far they haven’t figured out what the threat is. Get ready for epic fight scenes as always! And once again Tori finds out something she keeps secret. Will it help or hurt, that won’t be answered until the next book.
Wow, what a great story! Lots of action, a good mystery with a bit of a twist at the end. Here we learn more about Aaron’s background: where he grew up and the high expectations his parents had for him. We dive deeper into a dark secret that’s riding Ezra, Kai is his usual capable, handsome self, and Tori? I love Tori’s character. She cares so much about her friends and the Guild. She’s getting stronger, yet sill blunders into situations that seem a little bit too much to handle. Yet with her training, a few tricks up her sleeve, and the friends who love her and have her back, she manages to survive. I love this series, the world created by Annette Marie, and the characters. You can read this book by itself, but you’ll enjoy it more and have so much more fun if you read the series in order. Bonus that it’s on KU.
EZRA!!! I love this guy so freaking much! This book was all his, I swear so much else goes on but my heart and all the feels just keeping coming back to this poor guy. Give him some love Marie!
Anywho this book follows our favorite trio of Mage with Tori to Aarons family home and academy. Along with Sin, Tori is mesmerized by the Sinclairs castle, yes its a castle. The students and staff are prudish and Tori must hold back as much as she can so that she doesn’t punch a kid in the face. But the snobbishness isn’t the only problem, there are beast scaring and attacking people around the castle and when one of their own is threatened Trio and the gang get ready for battle one of their strongest foes.
There was so much I loved about this book, this series is one of my top three favorite paranormal series to date. I love the sass of Tori, the girl power bffness with her and Sin. How much the friendship Aaron, Kai and Eza mean to each other, these guys will do anything to protect strangers but each other they will go through hell and back. Plus those boys adore Tori to pieces, friend goals!! I liked seeing more about how much Aaron has grown, how his family always seems to trigger something in him. The team works together to fight his “demons” and Ezras. But what captured me the most about this book was Ezra, Marie is getting deep into his demon side this time around and also showing the connection he and Tori have. I’m a big shipper for this two, I have wanted them together since the beginning so I’m holding out hope for these two.
The big bads are crazy dangerous and I felt were even scarier that the demons and crazy mages they have fought. I liked the plot twist and the scary moment the group has because, boy the close calls had me cleaning on the my kindle hard. It’s all action packed, family drama and friendship goodness. I can’t wait for the next one, I need me some more Ezra!
I received a free copy from the author and voluntarily reviewed it.
I’ve been enjoying this series so far and once I received my copy of this book I quickly jumped into this story. At first I wasn’t quite sure what the problem of this book would be as it starts off with everything going well, but slowly it becomes clear what the characters are dealing with in this book. And it was a gripping adventure from start to finish. It also was an important book in terms of the characters and had some well done reveals and twists.
After a short few scenes back in their home town, Tori, Sin and the three mages leave for Sinclair Academy where they’ll be spending Christmas with Aaron’s parents. The Sinclair Academy is quite famous and so are Aaron’s parents. The different setting worked for this book, it was a nice change of setting, but at the same time I missed the guild dynamics and bar tending scenes a bit. It did have as added benefit that the focus was much more on Tori, Sin and the three mages as those are the only familiar characters.
It’s an important book for getting to know more about the characters. Seeing Aaron interact with his parents and how he is at the academy, gives more insight in his character and also his friendship with Kai. It becomes obvious how Kai can ground Aaron and we see Aaron’s more elitist and arrogant side peek at out times and how he struggles to be the best version of himself. We also find out more about why Aaron didn’t join his parents guild. There are also some great scenes of Tori and Ezra. I like seeing how they interact after what happened in the last book and there is still the possibility of romance here. There is another big reveal that hits at the end of the book.
This was another great read in this series. I enjoyed following Tori along, seeing the character interactions and also that little hint of potential romance. There is plenty of action and I love seeing how Tori fits in the world of the mythic even though she isn’t a mythic herself and how she slowly grows more effective in combat as well. In fact she makes some big advancements in her battle skills in this book. With her potions, artifacts and the training she’s receiving. I like how she doesn’t become super good instantly, but you see her gradual increase throughout the series.
The storyline in this book was interesting as well with the strange happenings around the academy and how slowly things come together. There was a nice twist at the end which I figured out at about the same time the characters did. The title for this book is very fitting too and the cover fits the story perfectly. It’s fun how each adventure gets wrapped up in a book, but there are continuing storylines as well.
There is still more we learn about this whole world with each book. We get a glimpse of the mythic world a bit more with the academy and we hear about various other guilds and get to see more of members of other guilds. There is also some paranormal creatures we see more of in this book as well as more about alchemy with Sin being pretty present here and a famous alchemist in a town close by who plays a role in this book.
This is the first book after the spin-off Demonized started and I was excited to see how these two series would interact, but as I mentioned before the characters aren’t at the guild a lot in this book and well Robin from the other series is at the guild. So except for one scene in the book they actually don’t interact. It was fun to have that one scene with both main characters in the same room and to see what Tori thinks of Robin. With something that happens later in the book I have a guess of how the two series might interact, but guess we’ll see how that goes in future books.
To summarize: Another solid read. The main trouble of this book takes a bit to get started, but it was quite interesting. The pacing is done well and the new setting in this book worked well. There’s quite some focus on the characters and I feel like this book really deepened what we know of some characters. There are some reveals and twists in this book as well and I am really curious how the ongoing storylines will play out. I liked getting more insight in Kai and Aaron’s friendship in this book. There’s also a less likable side of Aaron we see in this book and we get a better understanding of some of the choices he made and his personality gets rounded out more due to what we learn. I liked seeing Tori slowly become more capable in combat and how this is a gradual increase throughout the series. There is more we learn about the world, a paranormal creature we see more of as well as more about alchemists. All in all this was another great read and I am already looking forward to the next book.
This is the fifth book in this series, Guild Codex: Spellbound. Tori and her guys, along with Sin (!), are on a visit at Christmas time with Aaron’s parents, but as always, something happens to ruin their fun…besides Aaron’s parents trying to rule his life. I just loved the glimpse into the group dynamic, and I love that Tori now has a girlfriend. Many authors don’t do that, and I think it’s a waste. Most girls need another girl to do girly stuff with, or to help to do girly stuff with. Not only that, we learn more about Ezra’s demon, and Ezra and Kai’s past with Aaron. There were many great moments, but the mystery was the least of it. I kinda figured it out pretty quick. However, this was still a great book, and I really can’t wait to see what’s going to come next…and to see more of Alice and Tori together at some point! I highly recommend this book! I was provided a copy which I voluntarily reviewed.
Such an adventure! Tori sure is attracting trouble what should have holidays become a hunt with a limited time to save a friend the whole added with arrogant bunch of elitist mages with ego bigger than mountains. I really loved to learn more about Aaron as we meet his family but i also really wanted to punch him when we saw his darker side..;i still wonder why Tori kept cool about it and didn’t punch him, Aaron is sure lucky to have friends like Kai and Erza.
This time we focus on shifters and we learn more about what they are in this universe…but we also discover other side of magic and how some mages are elitist and putting their kind of magic above other. We get to see more of Sin as well and it was good to see how she became real friend with Tori; both are out of their world in the Aaron’s family home and it’s not that easy for them.
What i loved even more was learning more about Erza…..he is lucky to have Tori watching over him especially since it’s putting her in difficult situation. And of course Tori does find some interesting items along teh way ( even if this time she may not have a use for them herself)
This story is full of action and information , it’s a real page turner as the characters have a limited time to succeed you can’t stop you need to se what happen as you get completely immersed in this addictive series. There is the action, the humour as Tori can’t stay silence in front of injustice and also cute moment when she interacts with fae ….but also some moment filled of emotion … which will make you the next book as soon as possible.
It’s a must read for sure but following the series in order.
An excellent book to recommend
t you have read the other guild cortex book this is the book you have been waiting for.. a better look into our favourite three sexy mage’s as Tori becomes even more intergraded into the family. Tori taking her training to another level and if it’s possible becoming and even stronger MC. I was laughing by the 10th page and that where there emotional rollercoasters starts, the alchemist and an amaretto has EVERYTHING humour, heart ache, you will hold you breath A LOT. As always it is rammed with action and adventure, watching out favourite characters grow as well as new characters to love and hate… truly amazing read I can’t recommend this book and this hole series enough, it is a must read.
*voluntarily and honestly reviewed the ARC I received from Dark Owl Fantasy*
The story was entertaining. It didn’t give away too much (though I guessed the bad guy correctly when they came up) but it wasn’t so obvious that the mystery was ruined. A lot of other things occurred, keeping me occupied, and I liked seeing Aaron’s childhood. Despite me always whining about the lack of C&H, I actually didn’t mind that this book didn’t focus on Tori’s guild. The characters who were focused on was what I really wanted, and who doesn’t wanna see her with her guys?
I enjoyed it all. It left me emotionally confused and yet I couldn’t stop fangirling over my personal ships. Some heady stuff occurred, more dark, more frightening, and I was so there for it. There’s nothing to complain about considering a got a lot of juicy things I didn’t think I’d get this time around, and it’s only made me want the next installment that much harder.
Annette Marie is the proverbial pot of gold: an author who consistently delivers high quality well written, well edited, grammatically correct, original, entertaining stories. She invites you into her worlds and you never want to leave.
Every time I finish one of her books, my first thought is to read it again, to savor the characters, their development, and their relationships. The relationships developed in her books, both friendships and romantic, develop gradually, revealing layers and connections that strengthen over time. She creates people, not tropes.
Her plots are strong, complex, and keep you riveted. The worlds she creates are internally consistent and vividly imagined.
I realize this is a generic sort of review, but I plan to leave it for all her books. From the Red Winter series (mythic Japan); to the Steel & Stones series, including Piper and Ash, and the Lyre and Clio books; and the Guild Codex series, now including the Robin Piper demon-training: I have yet to find anything less than pure enjoyment, and great respect for her talent.