Two curses. One prophecy. A reckoning all have feared.
And a love more powerful than fate. All hail the king and queen of Hell.
Emilia is reeling from the shocking discovery that her twin sister, Vittoria, is alive. But before she faces the demons of her past, Emilia yearns to claim her king, the seductive Prince of Wrath, in the flesh. Emilia doesn’t simply desire his body, she wants his heart and soul—but that’s something the enigmatic demon can’t promise her.
When a high-ranking member of House Greed is assassinated, Emilia and Wrath are drawn to the rival demon court. Damning evidence points to Vittoria as the murderer and she’s quickly declared an enemy of the Seven Circles. Despite her betrayal, Emilia will do anything to solve this new mystery and find out who her sister really is.
Together Emilia and Wrath play a sin-fueled game of deception as they work to stop the unrest that’s brewing between witches, demons, shape-shifters and the most treacherous foes of all: the Feared.
Emilia was warned that when it came to the Wicked nothing was as it seemed. But, have the true villains been much closer all along? When the truth is finally revealed, it just might end up costing Emilia her heart.
Book Cover Rating: 💀💀💀💀💀 • 5 / 5 skulls
So eventually, I think I’d like to give this series a shot, even though it appears to have quite a bit of focus on romance. And I’m gonna be honest here: the covers of this series are definitely part of the reason why I want to try it, though the plot summaries also seem interesting.
Anyway, back to the cover of this book specifically: I really like it for some reason. Black and white and red always look good together and it’s part of what sets it apart for me from the other covers in the series. I also love the crown and how it looks on the skull. The blank backdrop also makes everything stand out so well.
The thing I like the most about the cover, however, are the smoldering roses around the skull, and the rubies glistening in its eye sockets. It just looks sooo good. I love this cover.
What do you guys think of this cover? Have you read any of the books inThe Kingdom of the Wicked series? If you have, what did you think of the book(s)?
Thanks for reading, and have an amazing day/night!
And last week was honestly fantastic for me. Sure, I didn’t quite post as much as I might’ve liked to, but I was feeling waaayy better – which is a huge step up from the two weeks preceding it. And I’ll take that any day.
But yeah, it’s a new week, so it’s time to wrap up the last one. So let’s get to it!
Wednesday 3/8: WWW Wednesday #7
Last Wednesday I did another WWW Wednesday post. WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words, and celebrates the 3 Ws of reading. What are the 3 Ws you might ask? We’ll, you can find out if you check out my post from last week.
Thursday 3/9: The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea Review
On Thursday, I finally posted my book review for The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh. It was a wonderful fairytale-like fantasy novel that I rated ★★★★☆. If you’re interested in my thoughts on it, you can read my review in full here.
Friday 3/10: First Line Friday #6
This past Friday I participated in another First Line Friday. First Line Friday is a weekly feature formerly hosted by Wandering Words, but is something that I discovered over at One Book More. To see what book I highlighted, you can click here.
Sunday 3/12: A Court of Mist and Fury Review
Yesterday (still part of last week though), I did another retrospective book review. It’s where I review a book I read before I created this blog and see if it still holds up for me.
This time, I did A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J, Maas, a very popular fantasy novel in a very popular fantasy series. I originally felt it was ★★★★★, but my feelings have since changed. If you want to know what I think about the book now, my entire review and all, you can read it here.
Goals for 3/13 – 3/19
Once again, I don’t really have any other goal than to post at least as much as or (hopefully) more than last week. So yeah, still nothing fancy, but it’s what I’m able to do at the moment. I only recently got over being sick for a while, and I’m still trying to take it easier and I don’t want to stress myself out.
Annnd that should tie everything out in a nice little bow. As always, thank you so much to everyone for reading, and have a fantastic day/night!
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve done a retrospective book review, and since my next non-retrospective book review isn’t quite ready yet, I thought it was high time I posted another.
Retrospective book reviews are basically book reviews, but they’re on books that I read before I started this blog. So, in order for them to get their day in the sun, I go back through them and see if my opinion when I originally read them holds up. So yeah, that’s basically it.
This time I’m gonna go over another book in a very popular series that I’ve already gone over before. That’s right, I’m going over A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas, the sequel to A Court of Thorns and Roses.
“To the stars who listen—and the dreams that are answered.”
Feyre survived Amarantha’s clutches to return to the Spring Court – but at a steep cost. Though she now has the powers of the High Fae, her heart remains human, and it can’t forget the terrible deeds she performed to save Tamlin’s people.
Nor has Feyre forgotten her bargain with Rhysand, High Lord of the feared Night Court. As Feyre navigates its dark web of politics, passion, and dazzling power, a greater evil looms-and she might be key to stopping it. But only if she can harness her harrowing gifts, heal her fractured soul, and decide how she wishes to shape her future-and the future of a world torn apart.
I have a complicated relationship with the books (that I’ve read) in this series. With ACOTAR, it was that the book started off pretty slow and ended up being just a generic YA fantasy novel. With A Court of Mist and Fury my feelings are a bit more complex than that.
A Court of Mist and Fury is an NA (formerly YA) high fantasy romance novel written by Sarah J. Maas. It is the sequel to A Court of Thorns and Roses and is therefore the second book in the eponymous series. ACOMAF was also originally published on May 3, 2016 by Bloomsbury.
Stuff I Liked
The Court of Dreams.
The people who knew that there was a price, and one worth paying, for that dream. The bastard- born warriors, the Illyrian half breed, the monster trapped in a beautiful body, the dreamer born into a court of nightmares
…And the huntress with an artist’s soul.
Though this book had a similar problem to its predecessor – that being, it started off slow – it didn’t feel nearly as bad to me; likely because it wasn’t slow for as long. And once ACOMAF got going, it got going.
Also, even though Maas doesn’t focus as much on her world building as I’d like (she chooses instead to focus on… other things), I did like the bits of world building that she did decide to show. I also enjoyed some of the strange creatures and monsters she added and opted to give page time to.
I also quite liked many of the characters introduced in this book.Mor was a great friend for Feyre, and I liked Cassian and Azriel. I really liked seeing Feyre’s sisters – Nesta and Elain – again, as I didn’t expect it at all. (Cassian and Nesta’s sexual tension was also amazing.) Amren was the MVP character-wise though. She was so cool.
The new places that the characters travelled too were also really cool. I loved seeing more of the Faerie Courts of Prythian, and I can’t wait to see more.
There you are. I’ve been looking for you.
His first words to me— not a lie at all, not a threat to keep those faeries away.
Thank you for finding her for me.
I’m more on the fence now on the romance than I was when I first read ACOMAF, soon after it was originally released in 2016. I’ve decided to put it in the Stuff I Liked section, however, because when I first read it I absolutely adored it. Rhysand and Feyre had so much more chemistry together than Tamlin and Feyre ever did, and I really liked Rhys and Feyre as a couple at the time.
The climax and the ending were also heart pounding. When I finished this book, I was immediately chomping at the bit for the next book. It was sooo good, and I needed to know what happened next!
But that’s pretty much all that I liked about it, even if this stuff made me rate the book very highly when I first read it (and why I can’t bring myself to rate it that much lower now).
Stuff I Didn’t Like
When you spend so long trapped in darkness, you find that the darkness begins to stare back.
I absolutely despised what Maas did to Tamlin’s character. Now don’t get me wrong – I didn’t particularly like Tamlin in ACOTAR. But I didn’t hate him either, and after his cardboard cutout personality in the first book, I was looking forward to seeing his personality develop in book two, as well as his and Feyre’s relationship.
But that never happened. Because Maas decided to assassinate Tamlin’s character.
Now this is something that I’ve always hated. Even way back when, when A Court of Wings and Ruin hadn’t even come out yet, and everyone was praising A Court of Mist and Fury for being a perfect book and how perfect Rhys and Feyre were for each other and just fück Tamlin. I hated this even then. Because I absolutely hate things like character assassinations – as it indicates bad writing. And I still stand by that.
I also didn’t really, really didn’t like the smut. But I just hate smut in general, so that’s probably just a me thing.
Final Thoughts
Truth is deadly. Truth is freedom. Truth can break and mend and bind.
A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maaswas a fantastic read when it first came out, but its near perfection has definitely weathered some over the years.
I still like it to some degree, and recommend it to fans of fantasy-romance, but I don’t like it nearly as much as I did when I first read it. It’s not a bad book (though if you’re looking for it, you can see the cracks starting to show in the narrative in ACOMAF).
Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful day/night!
I’m back, and it’s only been a week since my last First Line Friday post! Yay! A reasonable amount of time!
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’re the first lines:
The blade traced a slow line of fire down his face.
He desperately tried to cry out, to jerk away, but the hand over his mouth prevented both. Steel filled his vision, gray and dirty. Warm blood trickled down the left side of his face, onto his neck, under his shirt.
There were only fragments after that.
Laughter. The hot stink of wine on his attacker’s breath. A lessening of the pain, and screams – not his own.
Voices, high-pitched with fear, begging. Then silence. Darkness.
Do you know what book it is? I’ll give you a moment to think about it… (and admire some books)
Annnd the book is 🥁🥁… The Shadow of What Was Lost by James Islington!
A young man with forbidden magic finds himself drawn into an ancient war against a dangerous enemy in book one of the Licanius Trilogy, the series that fans are heralding as the next Wheel of Time.
As destiny calls, a journey begins.
It has been twenty years since the godlike Augurs were overthrown and killed. Now, those who once served them — the Gifted — are spared only because they have accepted the rebellion’s Four Tenets, vastly limiting their powers.
As a Gifted, Davian suffers the consequences of a war lost before he was even born. He and others like him are despised. But when Davian discovers he wields the forbidden power of the Augurs, he and his friends Wirr and Asha set into motion a chain of events that will change everything.
To the west, a young man whose fate is intertwined with Davian’s wakes up in the forest, covered in blood and with no memory of who he is. . .
And in the far north, an ancient enemy long thought defeated begins to stir.
Have you read this book? The rest of the trilogy? What did you think of it (them), if you have?
Thank you for reading, and have an awesome day/night!
Axie Oh’s The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea is an enthralling feminist retelling of the classic Korean folktale “The Tale of Shim Cheong,” perfect for fans of Wintersong, Uprooted, and Miyazaki’s Spirited Away.
Deadly storms have ravaged Mina’s homeland for generations. Floods sweep away entire villages, while bloody wars are waged over the few remaining resources. Her people believe the Sea God, once their protector, now curses them with death and despair. In an attempt to appease him, each year a beautiful maiden is thrown into the sea to serve as the Sea God’s bride, in the hopes that one day the “true bride” will be chosen and end the suffering.
Many believe that Shim Cheong, the most beautiful girl in the village—and the beloved of Mina’s older brother Joon—may be the legendary true bride. But on the night Cheong is to be sacrificed, Joon follows Cheong out to sea, even knowing that to interfere is a death sentence. To save her brother, Mina throws herself into the water in Cheong’s stead.
Swept away to the Spirit Realm, a magical city of lesser gods and mythical beasts, Mina seeks out the Sea God, only to find him caught in an enchanted sleep. With the help of a mysterious young man named Shin—as well as a motley crew of demons, gods and spirits—Mina sets out to wake the Sea God and bring an end to the killer storms once and for all.
But she doesn’t have much time: A human cannot live long in the land of the spirits. And there are those who would do anything to keep the Sea God from waking…
Sooo, I really enjoyed this book. Out of all the fantasy books I tend to read, most of them just end up being western fantasy. That doesn’t mean I don’t like eastern fantasy as much – I absolutely love eastern fantasy! It just doesn’t come up on my radar as much for whatever reason.
The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh is a standalone YA fantasy novel published by Feiwel & Friends on February 22, 2023. It’s also a retelling of a Korean folktale.
Unlike the books that I’ve read and reviewed lately, I didn’t really have a ton of stuff that I liked vs. a bunch of stuff that I didn’t like. It was more that I liked a lot of stuff about the book a lot, but not as much as I could have. Hence why I only gave it 4 stars.
Anyway, let’s get into my review proper.
The Stuff I Liked and Why I didn’t Like It as Much as I Could’ve
Every year the storms begin, and every year a girl is brought to the sea.
First off, I liked the story a great deal. It was fast-paced and it flowed very nicely. I really liked the way that Oh wrote as well.
Sometimes, I did wish the plot had slowed down a couple of times though. I know, I know – I’m usually a lover of completely fast-paced books. But sometimes I’m not. Sometimes I like it when the plot slows down so that I can see and understand how the characters interact with each other and therefore see and understand why they care about one another. And this book didn’t really have those moments.
Continuing with this line of thought, I quite enjoyed the characters. Song Mina was a great lead, as well as a breath of fresh air after Miss Delilah Bard. She was stubborn and brave, but she was also fiercely protective of her loved ones, and I loved reading about how much she loved her family.
I’ve followed so many protagonists just forget about their family and friends – aka: what their initial motivation is – upon meeting the love interest. That is not so here, and I greatly appreciate this novel for not doing that. Mina misses and thinks about her family many times throughout, and it made me tear up a couple of times.
My eldest brother, Sung, says trust is earned, that to give someone your trust is to give them the knife to wound you. But Joon would counter that trust is faith, that to trust someone is to believe in the goodness of people and in the world that shapes them.
Shin was an acceptable love interest and dueteragonist. It was harder for me to get a grasp on his personality though, and I wish that there’d been more pages devoted to building his relationship with Mina. Their romance just felt a bit underdeveloped to me, though I certainly didn’t not like it. I just didn’t really get why they were so ride-or-die for each other as quickly as they ended up being.
Honestly, I felt that Mina had more chemistry with Namgi, an imugi and one of Shin’s – and later Mina’s – loyal friends. Even so, I also would’ve liked to see more pages devoted to their character interactions, as even their (platonic) relationship seemed kinda underdeveloped to me until closer to the end of the novel.
As for the other characters: I didn’t really care for Kirin (because he didn’t get enough page time for me to care about him), I really liked Shim Cheong and Mina’s brother Joon (both as a couple as well as their own characters), the ghost trio was great (of you know, you know), and I really liked Mina’s grandma (the flashbacks with her were very sweet).
My absolute favorite thing about the book, however, is how it handles fate and destiny. The narrative treats it as something that you choose. A sort of No Fate But What We Make type of thing, if you will. I am tired of prophesies and people and things that are destined to be just because it’s been ordained by the universe or whatever. So yeah, I really liked what Oh did here.
Other than all of that, I quite liked the climax and ending. Also, I didn’t notice any loose ends in the plot threads, which is always nice.
Final Thoughts
I found The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Seato be an engaging, fairytale-like fantasy that never overstays its welcome or gets too wordy. Oh has a wonderful way with words, and writing style in general.
I definitely recommend this to anyone who likes fantasy-romance as well as those that like retellings. This one is new and wonderful in the sea of Cinderella retellings.
Thank you for reading and have an amazing day/night!
It’s been a couple of weeks, but I was feeling really under the weather most of the past couple of weeks, and didn’t feel like reading all that much (that’s how you know I’m feeling ill!).
But now I’m back to feeling 100% again, so I’ve gotten some reading done over the past few days! So I can participate in WWW Wednesday this week!
(Also, I’m gonna start titling my WWW Wednesday posts with the date instead of a number. Just cuz.)
WWW Wednesday is a meme that used to be hosted at A Daily Rhythm, but has been taken over by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words. Now, without further ado, let’s get into the 3 Ws!
From bestselling and award-winning author Traci Chee comes a Japanese-inspired fantasy perfect for fans of Studio Ghibli. When a girl who’s never longed for adventure is hit with a curse that begins to transform her into a demon, she embarks on a quest to reverse the curse and return to her normal life, but along the way is forced to confront her true power within.
In the realm of Awara, where gods, monsters, and humans exist side by side, Miuko is an ordinary girl resigned to a safe, if uneventful, existence as an innkeeper’s daughter.
But when Miuko is cursed and begins to transform into a demon with a deadly touch, she embarks on a quest to reverse the curse and return to her normal life. Aided by a thieving magpie spirit and continuously thwarted by a demon prince, Miuko must outfox tricksters, escape demon hunters, and negotiate with feral gods if she wants to make it home again.
With her transformation comes power and freedom she never even dreamed of, and she’ll have to decide if saving her soul is worth trying to cram herself back into an ordinary life that no longer fits her… and perhaps never did.
Deadly storms have ravaged Mina’s homeland for generations. Floods sweep away entire villages, while bloody wars are waged over the few remaining resources. Her people believe the Sea God, once their protector, now curses them with death and despair. In an attempt to appease him, each year a beautiful maiden is thrown into the sea to serve as the Sea God’s bride, in the hopes that one day the “true bride” will be chosen and end the suffering.
Many believe that Shim Cheong, the most beautiful girl in the village—and the beloved of Mina’s older brother Joon—may be the legendary true bride. But on the night Cheong is to be sacrificed, Joon follows Cheong out to sea, even knowing that to interfere is a death sentence. To save her brother, Mina throws herself into the water in Cheong’s stead.
Swept away to the Spirit Realm, a magical city of lesser gods and mythical beasts, Mina seeks out the Sea God, only to find him caught in an enchanted sleep. With the help of a mysterious young man named Shin—as well as a motley crew of demons, gods and spirits—Mina sets out to wake the Sea God and bring an end to the killer storms once and for all.
But she doesn’t have much time: A human cannot live long in the land of the spirits. And there are those who would do anything to keep the Sea God from waking…
Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead nonsense.
Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth unveils a solar system of swordplay, cut-throat politics, and lesbian necromancers. Her characters leap off the page, as skillfully animated as arcane revenants. The result is a heart-pounding epic science fantasy.
Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won’t set her free without a service.
Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will be become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon’s sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.
Of course, some things are better left dead.
Sooo yeah, Gideon is still in TBR Hell, but I can’t help it – interesting standalones keep showing up on my radar! But I definitely still want to read it, so hopefully I’ll get to it next!
What stuff have you been reading lately? Have we read any of the same books lately? Have you been enjoying it?
It’s the start of a new week, and I’m finally feeling better. And I owe it all to last week – I did a ton of research on how to make myself feel better with my chronic illness, and it’s really helped.
Back to the blog, I’m honestly pretty happy with what I was able to post last week. I would’ve liked to get one more post out, but it’s fine. It was more than the week before, after all.
Tuesday 2/28: Weekly Wrap-Up #IDK
I don’t usually highlight my Weekly Wrap-Up from the prior week, but it was late, which was unusual. And it really felt significant to me while getting over being sick. So yeah, that’s what was up last Tuesday.
Wednesday 3/1: Shelf Control #11
Last Wednesday, I finally did another Shelf Control. It’d been a couple of weeks since I’d participated, so I was determined to make it happen last week.
Shelf Control is a weekly feature hosted by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies. It’s a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. If you missed my post and are interested in what book from my bookshelf I highlighted last week, you can read it here.
Friday 3/3: First Lines Friday #5
On Friday, I managed to participate in First Line Fridays. First Line Fridays is a weekly feature (formerly) hosted by Wandering Words. It focuses on judging books by their words as opposed to their covers.
Saturday, I finally got around to posting my reading wrap-up and stats for February 2023. I’m really happy with everything I was able to read and accomplish last month, even if I would’ve liked to read and review more books. I’ll definitely do better in March!
This week’s goal is the same one from last week: just to post more than I did the week before. No specific post goals again. I’d really like to do five posts, though, if possible. And I definitely think it’s possible, seeing as I’m feeling way better this week. I’m excited to see what’s in store for me!
As always, thank you so much for reading and have a wonderful day/night!
It’s March now, and spring is imminent, but it also means that February is over. So I’m gonna go over February’s statistics on The StoryGraph!
I didn’t read nearly as many books as I’d hoped, but I also didn’t read any less than I did in January, so I’m going to count that as a win.
Also, post #100 let’s gooo!!
So, uh anyway, now, on to the stats…
February 2023 Reading Stats
😐 Moods: Lots of moods in the books in February, Adventure of course being the biggest one, as per usual. My other moods were Mysterious, Emotional, and Dark, which also checks as every one of those except Emotional usually appears on my little pie chart.
👢 Pace: Most of the books I read are medium-paced, and that still shows here, but there dud read a book that I felt was fast-paced this month.
🔢 Page Number: I read a lot of longer books than I usually do in February, as 3/4 of them were 500+ page books. My preferred length of books is between 300 and 499 pages, and you can still see that a little bit here.
📖 Fiction/Nonfiction: 100% fiction once again. I swear I have a couple of nonfiction books on my TBR. I swear.
🎭 Genres: I upped the genres I read from last month. All of the books I read were Fantasy, which is my favorite genre so it’s absolutely no surprise. Most of them were also YA, which also isn’t a surprise as most fantasy that I read tends to be YA. Oh and Science Fiction! Hi there, second favorite genre! I read a lot less Romance than I expected to, even though all of the books I read technically featured it, to some degree.
📄 Format: All of the books I read last month were paperbacks.
⭐ Rating: My average rating for the month of February was 4.0 stars exactly. Not surprising – I gave all of the novels I read 4 stars, lol.
📉 Pages Read Daily: Once again, I was kind of all all over the place with the amount I read. I read more pages closer to the beginning of February, which makes sense, as I was able to read about three books in the first half of the month.
So I didn’t read and review as many books in February that I’d wanted, but hey, I got sick in the last week and a half, and when I’m really not feeling well I just don’t want to read. But I finally finished A Conjuring of Light, and I finally finally finished Cress, which I’m really happy about.
What books did you read in February? What did you think of them? Did we read any of the same books?
Thank you, as always, for reading, and have a marvelous day/night!
I know, I know – it’s been two weeks since I did a First Line Friday post. But hey, I was sick for the latter half of last week and the first part of this week, so it isn’t my fault.
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’re the first lines:
Down a path worn into the woods, past a stream and a hollowed-out log full of pill bugs and termites, was a glass coffin. It rested right on the ground, and in it slept a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives.
Any guesses? I’ll give you a sec to think about it…
Annnd the book is 🥁🥁… The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black!
A girl makes a secret sacrifice to the faerie king in this lush New York Times bestselling fantasy by author Holly Black. Set in the same world as The Cruel Prince!
In the woods is a glass coffin. It rests on the ground, and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives….
Hazel and her brother, Ben, live in Fairfold, where humans and the Folk exist side by side. Since they were children, Hazel and Ben have been telling each other stories about the boy in the glass coffin, that he is a prince and they are valiant knights, pretending their prince would be different from the other faeries, the ones who made cruel bargains, lurked in the shadows of trees, and doomed tourists. But as Hazel grows up, she puts aside those stories. Hazel knows the horned boy will never wake.
Until one day, he does….
As the world turns upside down, Hazel has to become the knight she once pretended to be.
Have you read this book? What did you think about it?
It’s been a couple of weeks (again), but I started getting sick (again) last week, so I couldn’t post as often as I might have liked. But here it is – another Shelf Control post!
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 week I’m focusing on the first book in the Stalking Jack the Ripper series, eponymously named Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco.
This #1 New York Times bestseller and deliciously creepy horror novel has a storyline inspired by the Ripper murders and an unexpected, blood-chilling conclusion.
Seventeen-year-old Audrey Rose Wadsworth was born a lord’s daughter, with a life of wealth and privilege stretched out before her. But between the social teas and silk dress fittings, she leads a forbidden secret life. Against her stern father’s wishes and society’s expectations, Audrey often slips away to her uncle’s laboratory to study the gruesome practice of forensic medicine.
When her work on a string of savagely killed corpses drags Audrey into the investigation of a serial murderer, her search for answers brings her back to her own sheltered world. The story’s shocking twists and turns, augmented with real, sinister period photos, will make this dazzling, #1 New York Times bestselling debut from author Kerri Maniscalco impossible to forget.
Why It Languishes on My Bookshelf
When I Got It: 2019
Why I Wanted to Read It: I thought that it looked interesting at the time.
Why I Haven’t Read It Yet: I essentially bought it on a whim and checked out some (spoiler free for the story) reviews, and realized that this book was probably not for me and kind of ignored it. I was distracted by other stuff going on that was more important, too.
Will I Ever Read It?: Probably not. Mostly because I bought it on a whim (as I’ve mentioned) and I lost interest quickly. I’m considering trying out Maniscalco’s other series, though I haven’t bought or even borrowed a copy of Kingdom of the Wicked yet.
Have you read this book or any of the author’s other work? What did you think? Or is it just sitting unread on your bookshelf too?
