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.
Rules:
Mention the creater (Leslie @ Books Are the New Black) and link back to her so she can check out your post
Pick 5+ books covers that match the current month’s birthstone
HAVE FUN!
Nominate people if you want!
April had one birthstone: Diamond.
This one’s usually a little tougher for me, but this time around I didn’t really have any trouble. Anyway, I always go with white book covers, or at least have a fair amount of white on them.
Among the Beasts and Briars by Ashley Poston
The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
The One by Kiera Cass
The Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne
What are your favorite books with white book covers? If you participated in Birthstone Books, which books did you choose this April?
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have the most amazing day/night!
I’m posting this a bit later than I wanted, but it’s sooner than last month, so I’m taking it as a win. Let’s get into my reading wrap-up for April 2025.
So far, April is the best I’ve been with reading books, so I’m therefore the happiest I’ve been all year with my reading. I know I can still do better, though, and would’ve still liked to have read an additional novel or two than the three books I ended up reading.
Anyway, let’s just start talking about my StoryGraph statistics from last month!
April Reading 2025
I read 3 books and 1,019 pages
😐 MOODS: I had four Moods in April, which is the same amount as the month before. The Moods from this past month were: Adventurous, Tense, Mysterious and Funny.
👢 PACE: All three of the books I read last month were fast-paced.
🔢 PAGE NUMBER: The novels I read last month were between 331 and 352 pages.
📖 FICTION/NONFICTION: It was once again all fiction. As usual.
🎭 GENRES: There were two Genres in the books I read in April. They were Fantasy and Young Adult.
📄 FORMAT: This pie chart was correct for once (but I admittedly did meddle a bit when I noticed it was slightly off, lol). All of the novels I read last month were on my e-reader.
⭐ RATING: My median star rating for last month was 3.42, as I rated the three books I read 3.0, 3.5 and 3.75 stars.
📉 PAGES READ DAILY: My reading for April was a little sucky throughout the month, but with high peaks occasionally, as I read each of these books over three days but one day per whole book. It spiked the most on the 4th because that was the day I read the longest of the three novels. The other two spikes were the 15th and the 19th.
So yeah, even though April was definitely an improvement compared to the other months of the year so far, I think I still could’ve done better. I think I could’ve done better with my blog activity last month either, but that’s neither here nor there. Here’s hoping I manage to do better in May, though. 🍀🤞
For May, I already have two books ready to go on my immediate To Be Read Pile. The first is Impossible Creatures, because I have other family members interested in reading it so I have to read and finish it pretty soon. The other book is The Ashfire King, which I’ve had since it came out last month but still haven’t gotten around to reading yet, but I’ve really wanted to.
After those two, I’m not as sure. There are a few books this month that I’m pretty interested in, so there’s a good chance I’ll read one of those. But I’ve also been really meaning to continue with One Piece for a while now, so hopefully I’ll get around to reading the next arc of that later this month.
Anyway, as always, thank you for joining me in checking out my StoryGraph stats for my April reading in 2025. Thank you also for reading, and I hope you have a great day/night!
Well this is just the most abysmal thing ever. What am I doing posting a Weekly Wrap-Up on a Wednesday night?! Ugh! This week just started off a little rough, I guess…
Anyway – last week! I’m actually really happy with parts of last week. Not my blogging activity, really, but I read a lot compared to previous weeks. And I’m very happy about that. This year has just started with a really crappy reading slump.
Anyway, I’ll shut up now. Without further ado, let’s get on with the weekly wrap-up!
Tuesday 4/1: The Most Interesting Looking New Books of April 2025
Last Tuesday, I posted a list of the books that I’m looking forward to this month. Or, at least the ones that I think look the most interesting. It was the Most Interesting Looking New Books of April 2025. As always, it’s basically only fantasy and science fiction, as those are the two genres I primarily read. This time I had four books on my list.
On Friday, I finally posted another book review. This time, I read and reviewed Dark Moon, Shallow Sea by David R. Slayton. It’s a novel that’s been on my TBR for a while that I finally got around to reading. It was pretty decent. I gave it ★★★✯☆.
So yeah. This past week wasn’t the best for the blog, activity-wise, but I did do more reading in a week than I have been doing for the past couple of months. So I’m counting that as a win. I’m hoping to do better with the blog this week however, even though I got a late start. 🤞🍀
Regarding this coming week, I’m definitely going to post my reading wrap-up for March 2025. It’s later than I wanted to, but oh well. I’m not totally sure what other posts I’ll do – probably just some of the normal weekly stuff. For reading; I’ll probably read the sequel to The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen, The Runaway King. Even though I don’t think I really liked the first one, I’m gonna give it one more shot, cuz it’s middle grade and I have to up my book count. My reading of books has been terrible so far this year.
Anyway, I’ve talked more than enough here. As always thank you for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day/night!
Hey there everybody! Another month, another bunch of new books that are coming out! Yep, it’s The Most Intriguing New Books of April 2025.
This used to be a quarterly post, but I’ve recently decided to do it monthly instead. Also, even though this post is about new releases, it’s primarily focused on fantasy and science fiction, as those are the genres I tend to prefer to read. (Not to say other genres won’t ever appear on these lists – it just isn’t super likely; it’s likely to be a very rare occurrence if it happens at all.)
If you’ve seen this post by me before, you know the drill; I’m only interested in these books – there’s no guarantee that I’m gonna read all of them. There’s not even a guarantee that I’m gonna read even half of them. We shall see. Anyway, let’s get going!
RELEASING: April 8th
Irish mythology collides with Gilded Age New York in this sweeping debut enemies-to-lovers historical romantasy, perfect for fans of Outlander and A Fate Inked in Blood.
Manhattan, 1870. Rua knows only two things: her name, and that she has no memories. So when the wealthy Harrington family mistakes Rua for their missing daughter, Emma, Rua goes along with the charade, hoping for answers about who she really is. As she tries to blend into a society she doesn’t remember, she’s drawn to a firmly off-limits man: the Lord of Donore, a newcomer to Manhattan society who is somehow familiar to Rua.
Finn is new to this side of the Atlantic and knows that the best way to fit in as Lord of Donore is to make friends in high places and play by the rules of society. He knows he shouldn’t become involved with a mysterious, recently missing debutante, but he’s intrigued by Emma Harrington, and Finn has an uncanny feeling that this isn’t the first time they’ve met.
With societal pressures mounting on both sides, Rua is determined to discover the truth about the missing Harrington daughter and her own past. But when her memories begin to return, they’re of a world far stranger than New York and traced in dark magic.
As ancient secrets unfurl in Rua’s memory, Rua and Finn are forced to uncover the mystery of their past and try to save their future. In this gritty and glittering romantasy, nothing and no one is as they seem.
RELEASING: April 15th
A thief and a prince trapped in the crumbling, magical realm of the jinn must figure out how to save one world in order to return to their own in The Ashfire King, the second book in this epic series of myth and magic, perfect for fans of The City of Brass and The Bone Shard Daughter.
Neither here nor there, but long ago…
After fleeing a patricidal prince, legendary merchant Loulie al-Nazari and banished prince Mazen bin Malik find themselves in the realm of jinn. But instead of sanctuary, they find a world on the cusp of collapse.
The jinn cities, long sheltered beneath the Sandsea by the magic of its kings, are sinking. And amid the turmoil, political alliances are forming, and rebellion in the jinn’s capital city is on the rise. When Loulie saves the life of a dissenter—one of her bodyguard’s old comrades—she puts herself in the center of a centuries-old war.
Trapped in a world that isn’t her own and wielding magic that belongs to a fallen king, Loulie must decide: Will she carry on someone else’s legacy or carve out her own?
RELEASING: April 29th
From Axie Oh, the New York Times-bestselling author of The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea, Final Fantasy meets Shadow and Bone in this romantic fantasy reimagining the Korean legend of Celestial Maidens.
Sunho lives in the Under World, a land of perpetual darkness. An ex-soldier, he can remember little of his life from before two years ago, when he woke up alone with only his name and his sword. Now he does odd-jobs to scrape by, until he comes across the score of a lifetime—a chest of coins for any mercenary who can hunt down a girl who wields silver light.
Meanwhile, far to the east, Ren is a cheerful and spirited acrobat traveling with her adoptive family and performing at villages. But everything changes during one of their festival performances when the village is attacked by a horrific humanlike demon. In a moment of fear and rage, Ren releases a blast of silver light—a power she has kept hidden since childhood—and kills the monster. But her efforts are not in time to prevent her adoptive family from suffering a devastating loss, or to save her beloved uncle from being grievously wounded.
Determined to save him from succumbing to the poisoned wound, Ren sets off over the mountains, where the creature came from—and from where Ren herself fled ten years ago. Her path sets her on a collision course with Sunho, but he doesn’t realize she’s the girl that he—and a hundred other swords-for-hire—is looking for. As the two grow closer through their travels, they come to realize that their pasts—and destinies—are far more entwined than either of them could have imagined…
RELEASING: April 29th
Benigno “Benny” Caldera knows an orphaned Boricua blacksmith in 1910s New York City can’t call himself an artist. But the ironwork tank he creates for famed Coney Island playground, Luna Park, astounds everyone, especially the eccentric side-show proprietor who commissioned it. Benny’s work earns him an invitation to join the show’s eclectic crew of performers—his first welcome in the city—and share in their astonishing secret: the tank Benny built is a cage for their newest exhibit, a living, breathing, in-the-flesh merman stolen from the banks of the East River under a gleaming full moon.
The merman is more than a mythic marvel, though. Benny comes to know Río as a clever philosopher, an observant traveler, and a kindred spirit more beautiful and compassionate than any human he’s ever met. Despite their different worlds, what begins as a friendship of necessity deepens to love, leading Benny’s heart into uncharted waters where he can no longer ignore the agonizing truth of Río’s captivity—and his own.
A cage is no place for a merman to survive. Though releasing Río means betraying his new family, bankrupting their home, and losing his soulmate forever, Benny must look within for the courage to do what’s right, and find a love strong enough to free them both.
When the Tides Held the Moon is a beautifully illustrated novel with artwork throughout by Venessa Vida Kelley, known for her stunning romance and fantasy art. This novel includes two different full-color endpapers for front and back, fully-designed chapter headers, and twenty-six pieces of detailed illustrations throughout.
So yeah, these are all of the books releasing in the in April 2025 that I’m at least a little interested in. What books are coming out soon that you’re looking forward to? Do we share some of the same ones?
As always, thank you all so much for reading, and I hope you have a great day/night!
Hey all! How’s everyone been doing? Reading a lot of good books, I hope!
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.
April has one birthstone – Diamond.
Diamond is a weird birthstone to do this post for. A lot of people have trouble with it, I’ve noticed. The norm seems to be picking books with white covers, though even that can be difficult sometimes. I know I had trouble with it last year. But for whatever reason, I didn’t struggle at all with April this time around.
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!
As I neveralways say: another week, another wrap-up!
Haha. Just kidding. In all seriousness though, I’m pretty happy with my blogging last week. Sure, I didn’t read nearly as much as I wanted, but sometimes those things happen.
Anyway, I’ll stop talking now, so that we can wrap-up last week.
Monday 5/1: Majestic Monday
Last Monday, I finally posted another Majestic Monday. The first one in forever. Majestic Monday is when I look at awesome book covers and rate them.
Tuesday, I posted my review of Arch-Conspirator by Veronica Roth. It’s a dystopian, post apocalyptic, science fiction retelling of the Greek play Antigone. I gave it ★★✬☆☆.
On Wednesday, I double posted. First, I participated in Can’t-Wait Wednesday. Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa @ Wishful Endings. Then, I participated in WWW Wednesday. WWW Wednesday is hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words.
Yesterday, I reviewed I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy. It’s her memoir, and it’s about growing up as a child actor and her toxic relationship with her mother. There’s some sensitive themes here, so if you’re wary of TWs like: EDs, emotional abuse, and addiction, maybe stay clear for your health. I gave it ★★★★☆.
This week, I want to read at least two new books and review them. I also want to keep up with the weekly memes that I participate in. I’m also planning on something a little different for Thursday, or as an additional post on Friday. We’ll see which day I post it on.
I don’t know what else I’ll do for sure, though. I guess we’ll all find out together!
Anyway, thank you so much for reading, and have a fantastic day/night!
Sooo… this is later than I hoped it’d be, but here it finally is – the April 2023 Monthly Reading Wrap-Up!
The first of May falling on a Monday really messed with my posting, and I never post a reading wrap up until the month is done, so I had to wait till today to post this. Better (slightly) late than never, I suppose. Then again, I don’t think I got February 2023’s out until the fourth of the month either…
Anyway, talking about April – I’m very happy with how much I read last month. My statistics were great on The StoryGraph. It was the most reading that I’ve done yet this year! I also finished my reading goal for this year! Yay!
But I’ve prattled on enough. On with the stats!
April 2023 Reading Stats
I read 6 books and 1750 pages
😐 MOODS:Adventurous and Emotional were once again the biggest slices in the Moods pie chart. Mysterious, Tense, and Dark were much smaller slices than they’ve been in the past.
👢 PACE: Medium-paced books were once again king this month, but I did read a decent slice’s worth of a fast-paced novel.
🔢 PAGE NUMBER: I read a lot of shorter books in April than I did in March. 300 to 499 was still the biggest part of the pie here, though.
📖 FICTION/NONFICTION: Once again, all fiction. I have a nonfiction book I’m reading right now though, so May’s F/N pie graph will finally look different.
🎭 GENRES:Science Fiction and Fantasy were the two biggest parts of the graph this time, but that’s cuz I was in a sci-fi mood this month. Dystopian and Romance also made their way onto the Genres bar graph, as well.
📄 FORMAT: The little StoryGraph pie chart for this is wrong once again. (At this rate, I don’t think I’ll ever fix this, haha.) 50% were printed copies, and 50% were digital. (And this is even counting the manga I read, which I didn’t add to my StoryGraph reading stats.)
⭐ RATING: My median star rating for the month of April was 3.54. I was even more all over the place with my enjoyment of the books that I read last month than I’ve been all year so far.
📉 PAGES READ DAILY: I read quite a bit during the first week and a half, but dipped down in the middle. During the last third of April though, I read a ton.
April was my most successful month for reading so far, and I’m so happy about that. I hope to read even more in May if I can, however. That’s every bookworm’s dream, though, isn’t it? Haha.
The goal for May 2023 is to read more (as I just mentioned), and to blog more. Cuz the latter could’ve gone better. However, I’m having a very good start to the month, so far. Here’s hoping I can keep it up! And the April 2023 Reading Wrap-Up comes to a close.
Thank you so much for reading, and have a wonderful day/night!
It’s later than I usually post it, and definitely later than I intended, but here’s the weekly wrap-up for last week. I was just so gosh darn busy yesterday, that I forgot to do my final once-over and post it. Whoops.
Anyway, it’s here now, and I’m happy with the stuff I posted last week, even if I’m not happy with how many days I posted last week. This week, even though I’m not off to the best start, I’m going to do better.
But that’s enough of a preamble. Let’s get into the wrap-up.
Last Wednesday, I participated in Can’t-Wait Wednesday for the first time. Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa @ Wishful Endings. I also posted for (and also participated in) WWW Wednesday, which is hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words.
Friday 4/21: Antimatter Blues Review / First Line Friday
On Friday, I posted my review of Antimatter Blues by Edward Ashton, the sequel to Mickey7. I gave it ★★★★☆. I also participated in First Line Fridays, a weekly feature (formerly) hosted by Wandering Words.
Saturday was when I finally posted my contribution to Birthstone Book Covers, a really fun monthly thing created and hosted by Leslie @ Books are the New Black. April was just really hard, okay? I needed to think about it a little more.
I binged the whole thing last week – this rating is for the entire manga. It’s very, very good.
Goals for 4/24 – 4/30
I just want to keep doing what I’m doing, but this time, definitely up my game from last week. I’m gonna keep up my reading momentum though – last week I read a ton compared to the weeks before, and I want to continue that.
As for posts coming this week: my Chance review will be coming later today, I’ll probably be participating in WWW Wednesday tomorrow, I’ll do a review of In the Lives of Puppets tomorrow or the next day, First Line Friday for Friday, and something else probably. I don’t know that it’s gonna be yet, though.
As always, thank you so much for reading, and have a wonderful day/night!
It’s later in the month than I usually do this, but April. Is. HARD. So, I had to take some time and consider the covers I was gonna pick for this month.
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.
April has one birthstone – Diamond.
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!
This was a difficult birthstone for me, hence why this post is later than usual, as I mentioned above. I finally decided to choose primarily white or silver/gray covers. These are the book covers that I chose.
