this was a DNF at 10% for me! I was really excited to go into this book because IPB was super fun. this lacked the "pizazz" to suck you into the story.

I have really enjoyed the last few ruby Dixon books I read, so I jumped into this one excitedly. That being said... it was so, SO dull. The characters, the issues... I did appreciate the found family aspect but the romance felt so forced with no real affection.

When I requested this book it was solely based on the description and cover. I had no idea who Ruby Dixon even was until after I finished the book and looked to see if she had written anything else. Boy oh Boy, I was not disappointed when I saw her bibliography.

Anyway, I am here to review Bull Moon Rising, not talk about the Ice Planet Barbarian hole I fell down after I finished this one. This is not the first minotaur book that I have read (and hopefully will not be the last), but it is one of the best. I loved the Indiana Jones vibe of the story, and I thought the spiciness was perfection. I cannot wait for more books to be written in this series, and the cover is so beautiful I will definitely be on the lookout for a physical copy of this one.

I had very high hopes for this book, and found it… okay?
Overall it was a good story, but I wasn’t particularly attached to the characters or the way the author presented the plot. The bullet point synopsis had so much promise but overall I found it flat.
It’s not a book that I would reach for again and again. But it was a charming read!
Thank you for the opportunity to read this ARC!

If you would’ve told 2022 Ari that she’d be blushing over a MINOTAUR in a romance novel, she would’ve totally laughed in your face. I would like to say that 2024 Ari fucking loved this book. It had spice, a unique plot, a world with some actual DEPTH (which is hard to find in most romances for me) and a Minotaur (that made me blush). 10/10 would recommend! Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC access!

Bull Moon Rising is a fun, spicy monster romance. It follows noble Aspeth as she seeks to become a magical archaeologist and minotaur Hawk who serves as her advisor. They get married for convenience so she can enter the Artifactual Guild and he can have a partner when he goes in rut in a month. The story was fun and the world felt very developed. The slither skin characters were especially fascinating and I'd love to see more of them in the future.

However. For all the fun and spice, ethically Bull Moon Rising is a hot mess. I am a trained anthropologist, which includes archaeology, and reading the actual excavation and artifact scenes was basically painful. Archaeological ethics basically isn't a thing in this world. Respect for the dead? Nonexistent. They are effectually a society of tomb raiders, in many ways similar to Victorian era Europe. The main character realizes this to some extent, but even she rationalizes it that if she didn't take things, someone else would. I see that it is the first in a series, so I'm going to hold out hope that there's an overarching plot about improving the guild and ethics of artifact usage.

This book was not what I expected. I wouldn't call it a bad book, I just didn't connect with any of the characters and found myself putting the book down with no real urge to pick it up again. I'm sure there are those who will adore the book and think I'm crazy for not getting into it, but it just wasn't for me

I have to admit, this book was a little slow to start for me. But once it picked up, around 15% in, I was hooked hooked! Loved the history touch, the "grave robbing", the artifacts everything about this world was so great! Ruby Dixon has once again made characters come alive. I loved Aspeth and her attitude and her determination. Spoiler: I was ready for her father to be mean and arrogant and everything bad, but he ended up kind of saving the day and I loved that. And the spice factor was perfect! 5 stars!

🐂arc review🐂

🌟🌟🌟🌟/🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

Bull Moon Rising by Ruby Dixon was such a fun romantasy read. Coming from reading her typical monster romances, I thought I knew what I was in for. However, her approach to romantasy was different than Iced Planet Barbarians (in a good way).

She did a fantastic job with building the Lore of the world and the characters. I mean, I just want to join the guild society and rob tombs for the rest of my life now.

You easily connect with our FMC, Aspeth and her desire to join the guild to save her people and become something greater than a Holders daughter. Our MMC, Hawk is grumpy personified. I was absolutely drawn by their apprentice dynamic and could not get enough. Also marriage of convenience, say no more!

Read if you love:

🌝 Forced Proximity
🌝 Marriage of Convenience
🌝Apprentice x Apprentice
🌝 Monster Romance
🌝 Found Family
🌝 knotting/ruts

Thank you to the publisher for the chance to read this book early. I really enjoyed this new tale and am excited that it'll be a new series. Love the archaeology angle. Also, though I get that this is another not-Earth place, what is the deal with the knot? I truly worry about the anatomy of these ladies and their well-being.

What an incredible read filled with twists, turns and well put romance. I hope the author releases more books within this realm. The book captured me from start to finish; it didn't start off slow or require build-up--there was immediate annoyance with Aspeth's plight and I was rooting for her and her fellow fledglings the entire time. Surprise twists of fates were brilliantly rendered. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and know that fantasy readers will enjoy this, as well

Ruby Dixon is for sure an acquired taste but I love her books and this was no exception. It is unique and wild and just a really good time. Interesting characters and the plot kept me entertained the entire way. Will be recommending and adding to our library!

I think I’ve just fallen in love with monster romance books. It’s not a genre I’ve really explored before, but seeing the humanity in Hawk (our main male Minotaur character, or MMMC for short) has made me want to explore more of this genre.

Aspeth, our main female character, is a 30 year old spinster who needs money and/or magical artifacts to help protect her homeland. Through a turn of events, she ends up under Hawk’s tutelage in artifact hunting.

The romance was a delicious slow burn and is one I’ll definitely recommend to my podcast listeners. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an arc of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Wowowow this book was amazing!! I love everything by Ruby Dixon but this was so new and fresh in terms of plot and characters! Hawk was so sexy and caring and protective and Aspeth was smart and funny and together they had great chemistry. Unlike her IPB series, pregnancy is optional, and Aspeth chooses her career over babies for the time being, which I appreciated. This was also virgin FMC done the right way, in my opinion. I really liked this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and Edelweiss for the ARC! I love you Ruby Dixon!

If there is one author I can trust to never let me down, it’s Ruby Dixon. Whenever you think “I wonder if she will go there…” she does, and 9 times out of 10 goes beyond there.

🌑🌘🌗🌖

Synopsis:

Taking place in a post-magic realm where power resides in ancient relics, and the elite "Holders" thrive on their acquisition. Within this world, the Royal Artifactual Guild stands as a beacon of exploration, its members tasked with delving into buried ruins to unearth these mystical treasures.

Aspeth, a sheltered Holder's daughter, after spending all of her life researching and learning everything she can about the Guild, finds herself seeking this dangerous world when her father's reckless gambling jeopardizes their standing. With their legacy and lives on the line, she sneaks out with the intent to join the Guild recruits with hopes to secure a valuable artifact and save her family from ruin, all without revealing her identity.

Amidst the guild's hierarchy, Hawk, a Taurian minotaur, grapples with his own challenges. Despite his exceptional skills in the tunnels, he faces discrimination and is relegated to a menial role within the guild. His mentor is an alcoholic with no interest in training the recruits, he assumes the role to attempt to keep up his Guild Master’s legacy, while also trying to keep her from losing her position. This year’s recruitment is particularly strenuous as it falls within weeks of the upcoming Conquest Moon: an event that happens once every five years where all female Taurians go into heat and all males go into rut. Essentially rendering them mindless sex machines (and yes … there are 🪢).

While he tries to grapple with how he will balance training his misfit gang of recruits in order to keep his old mentors guild from being disbanded, while also not going completely insane with the upcoming Conquest Moon, a woman eager to join the guild shows up to his door with a shedding orange cat and a proposition: marry her so he can act as her chaperone and give her permission to join the guild, and she will see him through his Conquest Moon rut.

🌑🌘🌗🌖

Going into this book, I had not read the blurb. All I saw was a gorgeous standard first edition book with a minotaur and human on the front alongside Ruby Dixon’s name and knew I had to have it. When I tell you the squeal I let out when I realized a few chapters in that this was a marriage of convenience driven by an upcoming rut... FERAL (Chloe has the voice notes to prove it). I got to that point at 11:00 PM and subsequently stayed up till 5 AM devouring the rest of this book.

Some highlights for me:
- Aspeth is 30, and has lived an extremely privileged life, and it shows!!! She is not some athletic superstar when she joins the training, nor does she become one over night. She instead relies on her other skills to help her through her journey. So refreshing!!
- RD said in their authors note that the tunnels and guilds drew inspiration from games such as Stardew Valley and I 100% got those vibes and loved every minute of them.
- The element of found family between the “misfit” recruits, while definitely not as focused on as the marriage-of-convenience plot, was very endearing. And there are definitely lots of doors left open for some of the other characters stories to continue.

My initial thought is that if you enjoyed Bride by Ali Hazelwood, but felt like you wanted more (in every sense of the word), I think this is perfect for you. It has it all, lots of steamy scenes, but still gives heart wrenching romance and angst, all set in this treasure hunting/explorer back drop that just hits so good.

I genuinely can’t wait to reread this, multiple times. Pretty sure this is my top read of 2024 thus far …

I have only one request. My dearest Ruby Dixon, pretty, pretty please, provide us with a bonus novella of the ring ceremony. I am on my knees.🧎‍♀️

Aspeth Honori is in a bind, she's a noble but her prospects are limited because her father has gambled everything away. Their money, the priceless artifacts that support their noble standing are all gone, plus the man she was supposed to marry only wanted her for her money. Well, joke's on him. Aspeth runs off to the city with her Lady's Maid turned best friend and her round orange cat, to join the Royal Artifactual Guild. Her problems only seem to increase as the guild won't admit her to train until she has a chaperone, so she marries a Taurren (see minotaur) who is also to be her teacher. The icing on the cake is when he agrees but only if she "helps" him during the upcoming rut he will be going through, how could her carefully laid plans have gone so quickly off the rails?

The wonderful Ruby Dixon can world build and create a magic system and provide the most unspeakably hot spice like no one can! Bull Moon Rising was a delightful read. The plot had me hooked from chapter 1. I was so into the story and the characters that I forgot about the spicy scenes until they were happening and I was not disappointed. I do hope there will be more novels set in this world because it felt like there were more stories to be told. I really enjoyed Aspeth as a character because she's the sweet hurricane of mess that we all are at times, and having a big heart is not a bad thing. I highly suggest if you enjoy and of Ruby Dixon's other books you give Bull Moon Rising a read ASAP!

I am a HUGE Ruby Dixon fan and this one did not disappoint! Aspeth was such a relatable and driven character! I loved the found family aspect and I hope to see more of this world from different perspectives!

3.5 stars

This was my first time reading a Minotaur romance. And that’s a sentence I never thought I would write.

For what it’s worth, I honestly forgot at times that the guy was a Minotaur, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. But when I was reminded about it, it was usually during the very *ahem* descriptive scenes, if you know what I mean.

Will I ever read another Minotaur romance? No. But I also think you won’t find a better one than this one. The characters are pretty well developed, there’s an interesting cast of secondary characters, and the plot I actually found to be interesting because it surprisingly had little to do with the central romance. This is definitely more FANTASYromance instead of fantasyROMANCE, which is what I prefer. So think about picking this up, especially if you have already read and liked her other alien romance books.

Side note to those who have read this book:
If someone could please draw me a picture of a slitherskin and its house, I’d appreciate it because that was just one thing I couldn’t picture in my mind.

I received a free ARC of this book through NetGalley, but this didn’t impact my rating or review.

𝔸ℝℂ ℝ𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕖𝕨 𝕠𝕗 𝔹𝕦𝕝𝕝 𝕄𝕠𝕠𝕟 ℝ𝕚𝕤𝕚𝕟𝕘, 𝔹𝕪: ℝ𝕦𝕓𝕪 𝔻𝕚𝕩𝕠𝕟


⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌶️🌶️🌶️

𝕋𝕣𝕠𝕡𝕖𝕤:
♉️ marriage of convenience
🌙 monster romance
✨ found family
🐦‍⬛ cinnamon roll mmc
🌘 one bed
💫 strong, relatable fmc

Synopsis: Aspeth, a daughter of nobility, runs away from home to join the Royal Artifacts Guild, an expedition group who scour ruins for magic arcane artifacts, in an attempt save her home. She learns she is only able to join with chaperone supervision so enters Hawk. A marriage of connvience later and so the plot plays out.

Ok so monster romances are not my thing. I requested this one with the expectation I would review a rejection email within a few minutes. But the opposite occurred so here I am reviewing a Minotaur romance 😬

There was wit, interesting plot, humor, relatable fmc, a surprisingly swoon worthy romance. I appreciated that the relationship was not instalove. The found family trope within the group of misfits of Aspeth’s class was one of my favorite aspects of this read.

Some descriptions were repetitive, world building was a bit fantasy/paranormal generic and was left wanting to learn more. Overall the pacing was excellent with an interesting character driven plot.

I don’t know how the author combined cozy/fantasy/and monster smut in one, but it worked. This is generally not my cup of tea but I finished all 416 pages in 24 hours so I am taking it as a sign that I enjoyed it.

Thank you Berkeley Publishing Group and NetGalley for an eARC copy of this book in exchange for a honest review.

Pub date: 10/15/24

Aspeth's journey takes her through treacherous lands and dangerous encounters as she navigates the intricate web of alliances and rivalries between the guilds and tomb raiders. Despite her initial reluctance, she finds herself drawn to the enigmatic Minotaur, whose gruff exterior hides a kind heart and a deep well of knowledge.

As they work together to uncover the secrets of the ancient tombs and unlock the mysteries of the guilds, Aspeth and the Minotaur forge a bond that transcends their differences. But as the Minotaur's mating season approaches, tensions rise and their relationship is put to the ultimate test.

Caught between duty and desire, Aspeth must confront her own feelings and decide where her loyalties truly lie. Will she be able to save her family's estate and find love in the most unexpected of places, or will the forces of politics and tradition tear them apart before they can truly be together? Only time will tell as their story unfolds in a world where danger lurks around every corner and love knows no bounds.

I loved their romance! It was so sweet and this book quite a fun time! Definitely recommend it for fans of monster romances!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc!