Amethysts & Alchemy

De: Rachel Rener

Narrado por: Lia Langola

I used to eat rocks as a child.

The family doctor diagnosed me with pica, dooming me to years of intensive therapy and extensive dentistry work. It wouldn’t be until much later that I would understand the all-consuming, insatiable craving that spurred me to eat a variety of rocks and minerals wasn’t a mental disorder, but an innate gift that allows me to extract the magic contained inside them: tourmaline for speed, celestite for strength, augite for a powerful laxative effect (that I had to discover the hard way).

Twenty years later, I’ve hidden my abilities beneath a white lab coat, working as a small-town pharmacist who creates proprietary “naturopathic” tonics that treat everything from memory loss to erectile dysfunction. Those tonics, in turn, fund my expensive lifestyle of solo flying around the world to search for more rocks. What more could an airplane-loving, mineral-munching, magical alchemist want?

Unfortunately, my arch nemesis, Heath Spencer, has recently taken it upon himself to single-handedly ruin my life. No longer content with annoying me from afar with his overpriced, tacky rock shop, Heath has decided to further antagonize me by dangling the opportunity of a lifetime right in front of my face: traveling to an ancient copper mine in China, which is home to some of the rarest and most stunning minerals on Earth.

It’s not until after I’m trapped halfway across the world with my least favorite person on the planet that I’m forced to come face-to-face with three terrible realizations: everything I thought I knew about Heath Spencer is wrong, some minerals were never meant to be ingested, and – worst of all – I’m not the only one who’s been keeping secrets...

©2024 Lightning Conjurer Books LLC (P)2025 Lightning Conjurer Books LLC

Absolutely brilliant

I love it when a narrator captures exactly how a main character should sound. And this narrator ABSOLUTELY NAILS the voice and heart and soul of Delaney.

enjoyed such a different main character

It's great to read a book with an original idea. A neuro-spicy heroine is a refreshing change and the book was enjoyable to listen to. A few times the details got to me and what sometimes seemed like pushing the characters differences but with it being a first in a series there has to be a lot of world building. I'll definitely pick up future books.

Solid read

Some light spoilers:

I like that the main character is autistic, and I liked her perspective on things. The pig was pretty cute but a little too anthropomorphised for my tastes - him "shrugging" and "smiling" and things like that is too much for me, because I just can't picture a pig shrugging. Same with him like somehow opening vials and pouring them down an unconscious person's throat? Felt a little strange.

I enjoyed the magic system, though I wish she'd gone into more detail about it, as I found it fascinating. I haven't read anything quite like that, it was unique and cool.

I LOVE that neither of the main characters turned out to secretly be a godd***ed prince, princess, king or queen. Like thank GOD. I am so over reading books about royalty, so this had a lot going for it that these were, for the most part, regular people. I could've done without the hero somehow having a million connections and tons of money, but I guess that's a thing that a lot of people want from romances.

Unfortunately her smut scenes aren't really for me. She does a great job building anticipation, but I don't love the sex scenes she writes. I'm not sure why. They're not bad, they're just not very exciting for me. There's a lot of tongue kissing description that I found to be over-the-top, not enough description when you want it and too much when you don't, too much talking but not in a fun dirty talk kinda way. Not enough focus on how the character was feeling or what the hero was doing to her. I found myself wanting to get back to the plot - which is fine, I liked the plot, and personally prefer plot to smut if I had to choose.

Overall I enjoyed it! Fair warning that this is a Fantasy Romance, NOT a Romantic Fantasy (I. E. This book focuses on the romantic plotline as the main plot, with the rest of the plotlines being subplots, not the other way around.). I notice people, including audible, mix those two up very frequently. Fantasy Romance is not my preference of the two genres, but this book is a solid read for the Fantasy Romance genre.

Loved how 'real' this story felt

It's a new and unique magic system.
And the author sounded very knowledgeable about a wide range of topics.
I found the main character very interesting to read.

Another favorite

Anything by Rachel Rener is an instant hit with me. The spice level is always believable and proportionate which I greatly appreciate (a lot of authors way over do it and it takes me out of the story!). Her character development is perfect. I like that she doesn't droll on about insignificant details but I still get a good feel of who I'm reading about. The world building is sufficient, not very detailed but she does transport the reader with her words.

I would love to see the sequel in audio format and I'll be regularly checking for that. I'd also very much like her other series (a certain lightning conjurer comes to mind) in this format as well. Thanks again for a beautiful book. Only thing I would change is to have the artwork attached as a PDF <3