Reviewed by Kat
TITLE: Peppermint Potions and Tentacles
SERIES: Tinsel and Tentacles 3.0 Multi-Author series
AUTHOR: Kota Quinn
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 203 pages
RELEASE DATE: November 1, 2025
BLURB:
A determined kraken shifter and a sassy witch.
After losing the only family I’ve ever known, all I want is a fresh start. What I get instead is the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen, claiming he’s some kind of magical tracker. And now, he’s telling me that not only am I a witch, but that I come from an elite coven. A magical family who have been searching for me for years.
Oh! And did I mention I just walked in on him and all his glorious tentacles?
Yup. Merry Christmas to me.
Welcome to Heart’s Hollow, a magical small town where paranormals and humans alike can walk around openly and be true to themselves.
Peppermint Potions and Tentacles is a sweet and steamy MM romance with cozy monster-romance vibes. It features a handsome and powerful Mer-kraken and a witch who never knew real magic existed. This story is a standalone in the Tinsel and Tentacles 3.0 series.
REVIEW:
I will admit that I’m kind of a newbie to tentacle books in the paranormal world.
Darius Storm is many things. He is a tracker for the Elite Guard serving with Zero. And now he is settled in the same sanctuary town, Heart’s Hollow, as Zero. He has even opened his very own tea shop. Life is good now that he’s settle in. So when Zero and Rook come to visit him he’s not surprised. That is until he realizes it’s not their mates accompanying them but two very powerful witches. (Darius is a mer-kraken hybrid, aka half merman/half kraken shifter and his special ability is his ability to sense magic in other paranormals.) So when Zero and the couple, who are the patriarch/matriarch of the Dumas family and founding members of their hometown, ask for his help tracking down their son that had been kidnapped when he was six, twenty years ago. Recent developments have allowed them to sense him again after all these years.
Kaleb Dumas is still reeling from his beloved foster mom Elizabeth’s recent death. Thankfully he and his foster sister Stacy are still together and roommates. But these strange visions/premonitions are getting stronger and more often. They are in his dreams even. And they strike at any moment without warning. And this last one just cost him his job! But Stacy insists that they are going to Club Sip on Halloween and they are going to party. When a gorgeous stranger buys him a drink his life is looking up. That is until his body starts acting up and weird green electric sparking energy sends his dancing partner sailing into the wall and he runs in horror. But fate has designs on these two and fated mates is definitely a real thing here.
I can’t imagine finding out at twenty-six years of age:
- That paranormal magic is real and surrounding you, hidden in plain sight.
- That you know “people” who have hidden their “magic”.
- That you have hidden magic.
- That you are really a witch and the kidnapped heir of one of the most powerful witch families.
- That the dreams and premonitions you have been having have been and continue to be transmitted to your fated mate.
- That you have a fated mate!
- That you weren’t an abandoned orphan but a kidnapped child your loving parents have been search for the last 20 years for.
- That your mate is a mer-kraken paranormal and has a mating tentacle 😳
- That his mate’s tattoos become tentacles and he likes it!!!
- That his mate has tentacles!!!
I loved that these two men completed each other. After Darius’s mother kicked him out of his childhood home, he had always felt lacking. He wasn’t good enough. That there was something wrong with him because of his parent’s coupling. And he never allowed anyone to see him in his partially shifted form. But Kaleb embraced his mate’s difference and wanted to be with him. And I loved that Darius risked himself, helping with Kaleb’s uncontrolled and unknown magic he possessed, to care for his mate. And what a lovely word that was for him.
There seemed to be a few common things in this series. Mating tentacle is one. Tattoos seems to be another. Tattoos that moved and became tentacles happened here. I felt so bad for Darius. He lived in a sanctuary town that not only allowed, but encouraged paranormal’s to take on their true form. However, Darius never felt comfortable with that because of all he went through with his mother and her family. That was just so sad. Your mother mates with something that she can’t stand afterwards so she takes it out on the child is just wrong. No matter how much it reminds her of a bad choice she made. She got something great out of it, but didn’t appreciate it, her son.
RATING: 
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