It’s been a few weeks, but here I am again, participating in another First Line Friday.
First Line Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers (formerly) hosted by Wandering Words, but I saw it over at One Book More.
What if instead of judging a book by the cover, author or most everything else, we judged it by its content? Its first lines?
If you want to join in, all you gotta do is:
📚 Take a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open it to the first page 📝 Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first 📙 Finally… reveal the book!
Here’s the first lines:
The thing about fucking off to the woods is that unless you are a very particular, very rare sort of person, it does not take long to understand why people left said woods in the first place.
Any ideas on what the book is? Here’s another hint if you don’t know.
Still don’t know what it is? Here’s some gorgeous photos of books to look at while you think…
Annnd the book is… 🥁🥁 A Prayer for the Crown Shy by Becky Chambers!!
A Prayer for the Crown-Shy is a story of kindness and love from one of the foremost practitioners of hopeful SF.
After touring the rural areas of Panga, Sibling Dex (a Tea Monk of some renown) and Mosscap (a robot sent on a quest to determine what humanity really needs) turn their attention to the villages and cities of the little moon they call home.
They hope to find the answers they seek, while making new friends, learning new concepts, and experiencing the entropic nature of the universe.
Becky Chambers’s new series continues to ask: in a world where people have what they want, does having more even matter?
What books have you been reading lately? What’s on your TBR that you’re currently the most excited about?
As always, thank you for reading, and I hope you have an great day/night!
Happy Thursday everybody! How’s everyone’s May been going? What books have you been reading lately? Any with green covers?
Leslie @ Books Are the New Black created a fun monthly post called Birthstone Book Covers. Each month, she features book covers that are either the same color of that month’s birthstone or include the color in the title.
March has one birthstone – Emerald. Which means books with green covers!
Rules:
📚 Mention the creator (Leslie @ Books Are The New Black ) and link back to her so she can check out your post. 📚 Pick 5+ book covers that match the current month’s Birthstone. 📚 HAVE FUN! 📚 Nominate people if you want!
Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
“Remnants are powerful things. Hard to ignore. But you have the sense and the tools to avoid getting sick from that water. And I… I know that the world I’m headed to is not the world the originals walked away from.”
In A Psalm for the Wild-Built, bestselling Becky Chambers’s delightful new Monk and Robot series, gives us hope for the future.
It’s been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.
One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of “what do people need?” is answered.
But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how.
They’re going to need to ask it a lot.
Becky Chambers’s new series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?
My Review
If you ask six different monks the question of which godly domain robot consciousness belongs to, you’ll get seven different answers.
I’ve read very few books in my life that I’ve considered perfect (or near-perfect, honestly), but A Psalm for the Wild-Built was absolutely one of them. Some might not consider it so, but this one really resonated with me, and it was a bit of an eye-opening read for me.
The journey itself and the basic plot was sweet. I really like how this whole thing was driven by Dex’s need to hear crickets – which are uncommon are living quite a distance from human civilization in A Psalm for the Wild-Built’s world. But as the novella goes on, you as the reader, begin to realize that this isn’t exactly what Dex really wants or needs. And it was beautiful and heartbreaking and so, so relatable when everything comes to light.
Also, I really found Dex to be very relatable. Their thoughts and feelings, which slowly came to light through their conversations with Mosscap (the co-protagonist), really felt like stuff I’ve had running through my head at several points in the last couple of years. Particularly the need to feel like you’re fulfilling a purpose or doing something to benefit other people or the world as a whole. That… was something that really resonated for me. I’ve never felt this much on the wavelength of a character I followed in a novel before, or said novel in general. It made me feel a lot better about myself, and also that I’d read this book sooner.
I also really enjoyed Mosscap and it and Dex’s slowly growing friendship. The character moments and growth was fantastic. It all almost felt slice-of-life. This was a very character driven story, which is not something I always like, but if it’s written well (which it was) and it hits just the right spot (which it did), then it’s amazing.
If you haven’t read this novella yet, I recommend you do so. It isn’t very long, and it’s a very sweet and relatable story. It’s a great little soft sci-fi experience, and I think that everyone should at least give it a shot.
Anyway, as always, thank you everyone so much for reading, and I hope that you have a fantastic day/night!
See ya ~Mar
Favorite Quotes
It was an odd feeling. Any other day, the act of going through a door was something Dex gave no more thought to than putting one foot in front of the other. But there was a gravity to leaving a place for good, a deep sense of seismic change.
Sometimes, a person reaches a point in their life when it becomes absolutely essential to get the fuck out of the city.
The robot noted this. “Did you just apologize to the bloodsuck for killing it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It didn’t do anything wrong. It was acting in its nature.”
“Is this typical of people, to apologize to things you kill?”
“Yeah.”
“I can go a hundred miles, give or take.”
“So, that’s… sorry, I’m slow at math.”
Dex frowned. “What?” How was the robot slow at math?
“Hush, I can’t multiply and talk at the same time.”
“We don’t have to fall into the same category to be of equal value.”
“I am made of metal and numbers; you are made of water and genes. But we are each something more than that. And we can’t define what that something more is simply by our raw components.”
“But that’s… that’s immortality. How is that less desirable?”
“Because nothing else in the world behaves that way. Everything else breaks down and is made into other things.”
“It’s pretty here,” Dex said. “I wouldn’t have imagined I’d say that about a place like this, but—”
“Yes, it is,” Mosscap said, as if making a decision within itself. “It is. Dying things often are.”
Dex raised an eyebrow. “That’s a little macabre.”
“You keep asking why your work is not enough, and I don’t know how to answer that, because it is enough to exist in the world and marvel at it. You don’t need to justify that, or earn it. You are allowed to just live. That is all most animals do.”
“Then how,” Dex said, “how does the idea of maybe being meaningless sit well with you?”
Mosscap considered. “Because I know that no matter what, I’m wonderful,” it said.
It’s once again another month, which means it’s time for another wrap-up! This is a few days later than I had wanted – I’d originally wanted to get this out last weekend. Buuut… I was out of town, you know? Anyway, this monthly wrap-up regarding my reading for April 2024 features my reading stats from The StoryGraph, as per usual.
My reading has been much better than the previous few months – even March. I read 6 books! Which is such a big improvement compared to one or two or none at all. So yeah, I’m kind of satisfied with my reading last month.
Anyway, let’s get on with the reading wrap-up!
April Reading 2024
I read 6 books and 2,658 pages
😐 MOODS: The reading Moods were varied this past month. Adventurous was of course the biggest chunk of the pie in April, but Lighthearted, Mysterious and Dark were also pretty big slices. Tense and Funny were the smallest parts though.
👢 PACE: My books from last month were all three kinds of paces: fast, medium and slow.
🔢 PAGE NUMBER: I read a lot of books with different page numbers. But everything I read was between 100 and 650 pages.
📖 FICTION/NONFICTION: It was once again all fiction this month.
🎭 GENRES: So many Genres in April. Of course, Fantasy was the biggest one – it was the only Genre that was applied to every book I read. Manga surprised me at being the second biggest one, though I probably shouldn’t have been. The third biggest Genre was Young Adult, and then the rest of them were all applicable to one book each and were therefore the smallest lines.
📄 FORMAT: This little StoryGraph pie chart is almost correct for April. I only read one ebook though.
⭐ RATING: My median star rating for last month was 3.42. The ratings I gave were between 2.25 stars and 4.25 stars, with two of the ratings being 4.0 stars.
📉 PAGES READ DAILY: I didn’t read as much as I’d have liked during the first week or so of April, but I really started reading after that. My highest reading peak was during the 9th thru the 16th, but I had little reading spikes after that for the rest of the month.
So yeah, I improved my reading stats for April! Just like I had intended to do. I’m hoping I read even more this month, and the months that are coming up the rest of 2024 too.
May has a couple of books releasing that I’m interested in, but I still have a couple new releases from April that I haven’t read yet that I still might check out as well. My spouse and I are still making our way through One Piece, and are planning on reading the next arc this month too. I’m so glad we started reading it again – it’s a fun and easy read and it got me out of my slump! Though… I’ve had a bit of a mini-slump happening for the past few days, but I’m chalking that up to reading two 2.5 star novels in a row plus the going out of town thing last weekend.
So yeah, thank you to everyone for reading, and I hope you have an awesome day/night!
From the #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Stalking Jack the Ripper series comes a new blockbuster series…
Two sisters. One brutal murder. A quest for vengeance that will unleash Hell itself… And an intoxicating romance.
Emilia and her twin sister Vittoria are streghe – witches who live secretly among humans, avoiding notice and persecution. One night, Vittoria misses dinner service at the family’s renowned Sicilian restaurant. Emilia soon finds the body of her beloved twin…desecrated beyond belief. Devastated, Emilia sets out to find her sister’s killer and to seek vengeance at any cost–even if it means using dark magic that’s been long forbidden.
Then Emilia meets Wrath, one of the Wicked–princes of Hell she has been warned against in tales since she was a child. Wrath claims to be on Emilia’s side, tasked by his master with solving the series of women’s murders on the island. But when it comes to the Wicked, nothing is as it seems…
My Review
“There are seven demon princes, but only four di Carlos should fear: Wrath, Greed, Envy, and Pride. One will crave your blood. One will capture your heart. One will steal your soul. And one will take your life.”
Hey all. Sorry for the somewhat late review and post. I had intended to have this out by last Friday before we went out of town, but that unfortunately didn’t happen. I also struggled to find a moment to work on it this weekend (while out of town), so I just decided to post it this week. Sorry about that.
Anyway! I didn’t really care for Kingdom of the Wicked. Not that I expected to really like it a ton, but I did expect the writing to be better. Just because it’s YA doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have to have standards! Like, how was this published in the form it was? I definitely needed a couple more rounds of edits.
This book also made me hungry, which wasn’t super appreciated either. I did however, really enjoy the talk of cooking and ingredients and restaurant stuff. I also love to cook and bake, so it helped me immerse myself in this world bit. It’s also the reason this book is rated so high – otherwise I might’ve rated it two stars or probably less. But that was where the immersion ended.
This wasn’t the book for me. I hated Emilia not just as a protagonist, but as a character in general. I was prepared to like her – or at least, I didn’t mind the character that she was at the beginning. She was kind and quiet, and she loved to read. Emilia was also a bit of a dreamer. She’s also pretty cautious, which I don’t see very often in the MCs of the novels I read, which felt like a breath of fresh air. (I didn’t last. Trust me.) Though not on the level as her sister, Vittoria, whom I honestly ended up preferring by the end. Even though she was dead.
But these established aspects of Emilia’s personality and character are completely obliterated almost entirely when Vittoria is murdered. Then she immediately turns into an angry, bitter person, entirely obsessed with revenge. Like it becomes her whole personality. Which is stupid. She also forgets that she has an entire family whom she (allegedly) loves unconditionally, and who loves and cares for her unconditionally. Which is also stupid. Like, the book even tells us – in Emilia’s voice no less! – that even though she and Vittoria used to be close when they were eight years old and younger, they’ve since grown apart, and aren’t really close, anymore. So Emilia’s very sudden and very extreme reaction didn’t make sense to me. Oh, and that cautiousness, that refusal to take risks until she had more information about stuff? Utterly gone. Maniscalco could’ve done so much with this and other aspects of her character without making the established person the protagonist started out as becoming completely unrecognizable. Such bad writing.
I also hated Wrath, both as a love interest and as a portrayal of one of the seven deadly sins. He doesn’t even act all that wrathful! Heck, whenever he’s with Emilia, he acts more lustful than anything else. You’re supposed to make me believe that this guy is supposed to be a hundreds, probably thousands, of years old nonhuman who’s that horny?!? And that he has some completely different agenda and goals of his own? I don’t see it. Whatever character you were trying to push isn’t what ended up on the page. Also, his and Emilia’s banter was annoying and their dialogue wasn’t that natural (and I’ll talk about the dialogue in general soon, don’t worry), and they had no chemistry. At. All. I hate them both.
The last big, and probably most important thing – in terms of a good book, that is – that I didn’t like about Kingdom of the Wicked, was the dialogue. And the way that the narrative in general was written. The dialogue sounded a bit too modern, which is something I don’t always hate, but in this case it was too much and it took me out of the story. Emilia’s POV in general – AKA: the narrative – also had this problem. (It was kind of the opposite problem I had with Children of Ragnarok, which I DNF-ed.) Not to mention they had plumbing. What year is this, author? You left it entirely ambiguous.
So yeah, I didn’t end up liking this book. Sorry for the review being a bit rant-y, but so much of this book bothered me, I just couldn’t help it. I’ll probably never read another of Maniscalco’s works again, and I’m definitely not interested in continuing with this series. That’s how much I didn’t like it.
As always, thanks to everyone so much for reading, and I hope that you have a wonderful day/night!
See ya ~Mar
Quotes I Sorta Liked
Outside, wind rattled the wooden chimes in warning. In the distance, waves crashed against the shore; the frantic whispers of water growing louder as if the sea was a mage summoning vio- lence. On this date for nearly a decade now-the storm followed the same pattern. Next, thunder would roll in quicker than the tide with lightning cracking electric whips across an unforgiving sky. The devil demanded retribution. A blood sacrifice for power stolen.
It wasn’t the first time he’d be cursed by witches, nor would it be the last.
Man had a funny way of blaming the devil for things he didn’t like. It was strange that we were called evil when humans were the ones who enjoyed watching us burn.
Subtlety was an artform lost on the demon, apparently. Though I supposed when he was the biggest, baddest predator around, he had little to fear.
I looked down at my new, finely made dress and frowned at the dark layers. “Why do villains always wear black?”
“Better to hide the blood with, witch.”
“You’re no one’s but your own, girl. Don’t ever forget it.”
May is looking just about as stacked as April was, when it comes to new releases. Heck, this whole quarter is stacked. So many books that look interesting!
Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa @ Wishful Endings (and was previously hosted by Jill @ Breaking the Spine where it was known as Waiting on Wednesday) to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. They’re usually books that have not yet been released.
This week’s book is:
The Sins on Their Bones by Laura R. Samotin! 💀🪻
I actually wasn’t aware of this book (and a couple of others coming out this month) until a few days ago. But the plot intrigues me, and just look at that cover!
Set in a Jewish folklore-inspired reimagining of 19th century Eastern Europe, this queer dark fantasy debut pits two estranged husbands and a daring spymaster on opposite sides of a civil war. Perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo, C.S. Pacat, and Katherine Arden.
Dimitri Alexeyev used to be the Tzar of Novo-Svitsevo. Now, he is merely a broken man, languishing in exile after losing a devastating civil war instigated by his estranged husband, Alexey Balakin. In hiding with what remains of his court, Dimitri and his spymaster, Vasily Sokolov, engineer a dangerous ruse. Vasily will sneak into Alexey’s court under a false identity to gather information, paving the way for the usurper’s downfall, while Dimitri finds a way to kill him for good.
But stopping Alexey is not so easy as plotting to kill an ordinary man. Through a perversion of the Ludayzim religion that he terms the Holy Science, Alexey has died and resurrected himself in an immortal, indestructible body—and now claims he is guided by the voice of God Himself. Able to summon forth creatures from the realm of demons, he seeks to build an army, turning Novo-Svitsevo into the greatest empire that history has ever seen.
Dimitri is determined not to let Alexey corrupt his country, but saving Novo-Svitsevo and its people will mean forfeiting the soul of the husband he can’t bring himself to forsake—or the spymaster he’s come to love.
Are you looking forward to The Sins on Their Bones? What other books are coming out soon that you’re looking forward to?
Thank you so much for reading and have a great day/night!
Happy Tuesday again, everyone! I’m starting to get into a bit of a system with this post, huh?
For anyone unfamiliar, Tasteful Tuesdays (formerly Majestic Mondays – so it’s not new, I just switched days, haha) are when I highlight an awesome looking book cover and talk about what I like about it. That’s it, that’s pretty much the point of this post.
This time I’m admiring the cover art of a book that’s coming out later this month. It’s Sweet Nightmare by Tracy Wolff.
The scariest school on earth… Is about to experience real fear…
Most schools are about being the best. This school? It’s about being the worst. Calder Academy is where the rogue paranormals go. The ones who break the rules or lose control. And when that happens for vamps, werewolves, witches, and dark fae? It gets pretty freaking scary.
I should know. Because I’m trapped here.
Look, every seventeen-year-old girl thinks their mom is a tyrant. But mine just happens to run Calder Academy, which paints a giant target on my back. The way I make it through these dark halls is by steering clear of the things―and kids―who go bump in the night.
Especially Jude Abernathy-Lee.
But when a freak storm hits our isolated island, I’m stuck without a backup plan. The power is gone. The lights are out. And our worst nightmares are suddenly real―and out for blood. Now the only way to survive is to align myself with one evil to avoid the other.
And the only thing worse than the idea of getting close to Jude? Secretly loving every minute of it.
Book Cover Rating: 🍭🍭🍭• 3 1/2 eaten sweets
Though I’ve never read a Tracy Wolff novel, I am familiar with her work – I’ve seen some book vlogs on her Crave series. And they had pretty good covers, that I thought were kind of reminiscent of the Twilight Saga. And Sweet Nightmare is her newest series, and it also has a pretty good cover.
First off, it’s blue. So it’s a given that it’ll catch my eye. I like the swirly leaf-like background as well. It contrasts well with the other stuff on the cover. I also like how the pattern fades around the edges.
The serpent is a bright, eye-catching gold, especially with how it wraps around the sword, which has a silver nose and red hilt. They both stand out really well. I also like the bold, display font used for the title. Making it white was also the right choice – I’m not sure if the title would’ve stood out had it been another color.
I unfortunately don’t really have anything else to say about the book cover art. It caught my attention and I like it well enough, but it isn’t one of my favorite covers that I’ve seen. Still a great cover though!
So yeah, that’s another Tasteful Tuesday. What do you think about this cover art? Are you looking forward to Sweet Nothing‘s release? Have you read any of the author’s other works, like the Crave series? What did you think of it if you have?
Anyway, as always, thank you to everyone who reads my posts. I hope that you enjoyed this one as well, and that you have a wonderful day/night!
John Persons is a private investigator with a distasteful job from an unlikely client. He’s been hired by a ten-year-old to kill the kid’s stepdad, McKinsey. The man in question is abusive, abrasive, and abominable.
He’s also a monster, which makes Persons the perfect thing to hunt him. Over the course of his ancient, arcane existence, he’s hunted gods and demons, and broken them in his teeth.
As Persons investigates the horrible McKinsey, he realizes that he carries something far darker. He’s infected with an alien presence, and he’s spreading that monstrosity far and wide. Luckily Persons is no stranger to the occult, being an ancient and magical intelligence himself. The question is whether the private dick can take down the abusive stepdad without releasing the holds on his own horrifying potential.
My Review
You learn things in this line of work. Like how to read heartbeats. Any gumshoe can tell when a darb’s lying, but it takes a special class of sharper to differentiate between two truths.
Well, I guess it was an inevitable eventuality, though I hoped it wouldn’t have come this early in the year. My first two star rating. Or, two and a quarter star, technically.
I had hope for Hammers on Bone. It was Lovecraftian horror inspired and it was pretty short, being a novella and all. But I didn’t like it.
Part of this was, unfortunately, probably because this was a novella. Even though I’ve enjoyed most of the shorter novels that I’ve read – specifically the Murderbot Diaries. But I have noticed a problem with smaller stories like this, and with this book being a mystery, it was a particular problem here.
The author said that they actually lengthened the novella compared to its initial drafts because they thought that it needed more room to breathe. Well, sorry but there still wasn’t enough room for the book to breathe. The MC jumps to conclusions that end up being correct kind of out of nowhere, though I guess I should have figured it out sooner, considering there are a limited number of characters and places. But this is a mystery book, you should still figure out a way to find time and set your mystery and conclusions up!! It made it very irritating to read.
I also didn’t like any of the characters, not even the protagonist. Yeah, I know it’s a novella, but you can still create compelling characters <150 pages – if you’re a good writer. And yeah, even though I didn’t care for any of the cast, I found the side characters more interesting than the MC. Which shouldn’t have happened given that the protagonist was some sort of eldritch horror. Like, how do you fail to make that your most interesting character?!?
The way that the dialogue was written annoyed me. As was the way the narrative – I didn’t like the way the first person perspective was written. Some of the language the author used came across as either awkward or mismatched. I know that I’m not British and the book and author were, but I’ve read other books by British authors where the dialogue came across as natural and the narrative wasn’t… weird, I guess. I just didn’t like it, okay?
Anyway, I don’t have anything else to say about Hammers on Bone. I guess if you like and know a lot about Lovecraftian horror than you might like it; you’ll probably enjoy it more than me – I’m not particularly knowledgeable about Lovecraft stuff (but I’ve also enjoyed other Lovecraft stuff that isn’t this, so who knows).
So yeah, as always, thank you to everyone so much for reading and I hope that you have an awesome day/night!
See ya ~Mar
Some of the Writing That I Kind of Liked
“How do you know the sky’s blue? It’s like that. Like the knowledge that comes with breathing, with knowing when you’re hungry, when you’re cold. Exactly like that.”
You know how they say you never forget how to ride a bike? Magic’s like that. Deeper, even. The knowledge of it inks itself on the inside of your bones, as does the practice, the methodology of execution. You can’t unlearn it any more than you can unlearn the symbiosis of ventricle and aorta.
Night comes. Real night. Not just the chronological byproduct of Earth pirouetting around the sun, but a blackness that shoves the lizard brain nose first into the dirt and hisses for caution.
The noise becomes a whisper, a hiss, a celebration, a roar, a black surf breaking on the glaciers of an old, decaying world. It sutures itself into syllables, strings of sounds that could almost be called words if you’re feeling generous.
It’s been a bit over a month since I last participated in this post, but I’m finally coming out of my reading slump. I’m also feeling rather motivated in general, and I’ve felt better about posting. So here’s another First Line Friday!
First Line Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers (formerly) hosted by Wandering Words, but I saw it over at One Book More.
What if instead of judging a book by the cover, author or most everything else, we judged it by its content? Its first lines?
If you want to join in, all you gotta do is:
📚 Take a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open it to the first page 📝 Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first 📙 Finally… reveal the book!
Here’s the first lines:
“I want you to kill my stepdad.”
I kick my feet off my desk and lean forward, rucking my brow. “Say that again, kid?”
Know what it is? Here’s another hint or two if you’re having trouble.
Still no idea? I’ll give you a little more time to think about it, whilst admiring some awesome pics of books…
Annnd the book is 🥁🥁… Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw!!
John Persons is a private investigator with a distasteful job from an unlikely client. He’s been hired by a ten-year-old to kill the kid’s stepdad, McKinsey. The man in question is abusive, abrasive, and abominable.
He’s also a monster, which makes Persons the perfect thing to hunt him. Over the course of his ancient, arcane existence, he’s hunted gods and demons, and broken them in his teeth.
As Persons investigates the horrible McKinsey, he realizes that he carries something far darker. He’s infected with an alien presence, and he’s spreading that monstrosity far and wide. Luckily Persons is no stranger to the occult, being an ancient and magical intelligence himself. The question is whether the private dick can take down the abusive stepdad without releasing the holds on his own horrifying potential.
What books have you been reading lately? What’s on your TBR that you’re currently the most excited about?
As always, thank you for reading, and I hope you have an amazing day/night!
So. It’s been a… not insignificant amount of time since I last participated in Shelf Control. But let’s not discuss that.
Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books languishing on our bookshelves created and hosted by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies. It’s a whole lotta fun, so if you’re interested in participating yourself, click the backlink above.
This time the book is another one from the MCU – the Maas Cinematic Universe, that is. It’s the first book in the Crescent City series, House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas.
The CRESCENT CITY series begins with House of Earth and Blood: the story of half-Fae and half-human Bryce Quinlan as she seeks revenge in a contemporary fantasy world of magic, danger, and searing romance.
Bryce Quinlan had the perfect life-working hard all day and partying all night-until a demon murdered her closest friends, leaving her bereft, wounded, and alone. When the accused is behind bars but the crimes start up again, Bryce finds herself at the heart of the investigation. She’ll do whatever it takes to avenge their deaths.
Hunt Athalar is a notorious Fallen angel, now enslaved to the Archangels he once attempted to overthrow. His brutal skills and incredible strength have been set to one purpose-to assassinate his boss’s enemies, no questions asked. But with a demon wreaking havoc in the city, he’s offered an irresistible deal: help Bryce find the murderer, and his freedom will be within reach.
As Bryce and Hunt dig deep into Crescent City’s underbelly, they discover a dark power that threatens everything and everyone they hold dear, and they find, in each other, a blazing passion-one that could set them both free, if they’d only let it.
Why It Languishes on My Bookshelf
WHEN I GOT IT: January 2024
WHY I WANTED TO READ IT: I’ve been interested in this series for a while. Especially since a couple of my cousins are planning on reading it.
WHY I HAVEN’T READ IT YET: I’ve had one the worst reading slumps I’ve ever experienced happening for the past few months. It began in December of last year and basically went until about two weeks ago. So the slump, combined with the ridiculous length of the novel, has put me off of it for a while.
WILL I EVER READ IT?: Yes, almost definitely! In fact, there’s a good chance it’s gonna be the book that I read next!
What book has been sitting unread on your bookshelf? Are you planning on reading it eventually?
As always, thanks so much for reading, and I hope that you have a wonderful day/night!
