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!
For the first time ever (I’m pretty sure at least), I’ve been tagged to do a post! So well, I guess I gotta do it, huh? 😁 Thanks Leslie @ Books are the New Black for tagging me!
I’m a bit of a Swiftie myself, so I don’t mind at all! I’ve been a fan of Taylor Swift’s music since 2008 – maybe even 2007, I can’t really remember. Which is… Over 15 years. Uh, wow.
Anyway, 1989 isn’t my favorite Taylor Swift album, but I still love several of the songs on both of them. My favorite songs from 1989 in album placement order are: “Welcome to New York”, “Blank Space”, “Out of the Woods”, “All You Had to Do Was Stay”, “Wildest Dreams”, and “Wonderland” (this was on the special edition version also released in 2014 with the original 1989 album, so it counts!). Concerning the previously unreleased tracks from the vault, the ones I like best are: “Sweeter than Fiction” and “Now that We Don’t Talk”.
The song prompts on this book tag I got from Leslie’s blog, who got them from Elli @ AceReader. So, let’s get to it!
🗽 “Welcome to New York” 🗽
❃ a book with LGBT themes ❃
Mooncakes was such an adorable graphic novel, and the LGBT romance were cute. Yeah, Nova and Tam were okay, but I was personally super invested in Niva’s lesbian grandmas, lol.
◻️ “Blank Space” ◻️
❃ a book that hit you right in the feels… but was totally worth it ❃
This book made me cry – more than once – and if you know anything about the book or the hell that Jeanette McCurdy went through, then you know why.
❃ a book that you hated but you loved the cover ❃
Ugh, this book. Nightbane was easily the worst thing I read last year. I HATED it. But the Lightlark Saga book covers are, unfortunately, very pretty.
❃ your latest book boyfriend/girlfriend ❃
Wendell. Brambleby. He’s mischievous and pretty and has a silver tongue, and I couldn’t help falling head over feet for this man.
💇♀️ “Style” 💇♀️
❃ a timeless classic that you love ❃
People will be remaking this book into a movie or TV series until the earth explodes. And I can’t help loving this book either. Sure, the writing is a bit archaic, but it was written in the 19th century, so you can’t expect too much modernity. Plus, it’s pretty short. And it truly is a bonafide classic.
🌳 “Out of the Woods” 🌳
❃ a book with vivid world building ❃
I stopped reading A Song of Ice and Fire about a third of the way through book two, but I still remember how absolutely vivid the world building was for this series. Too vivid, actually. (For me personally.) I got bored with how slow it was and opted out.
❃ a book where things weren’t exactly how they seemed ❃
I’m not going to say anything about the story, as I don’t want to give even the smallest iota away, even if no one that reads this post is ever going to read The Other. But I will say this: when you get to The Part, it completely recontextualizes everything you read before it.
💧 “All You Had to Do Was Stay” 💧
❃ a book you were eagerly anticipating but ended up being disappointed by ❃
I was so, so, so looking forward to Witch King. Like, you don’t even know how much. It was my most anticipated book for ALMOST A YEAR, and it wasn’t as good as I hoped it would be. Ugh. I was so disappointed.
🧂 “Shake It Off” 🧂
❃ a book/series that everyone seems to love but you can’t help but hate ❃
Ah, The Name of the Wind. I didn’t like it, and I DNF-ed. And I absolutely haven’t regretted it. I didn’t like Kvothe and I didn’t like the way he narrated the book. And seeing as Patrick Rothfuss might never even finish book three at this rate, I’m doubly glad I stopped when I did.
❃ a book series you love but everyone else seems to hate ❃
The Inheritance Cycle seems to get a lot of hate now, for being as derivative (and shameless – mostly/particularly in Eragon) of other works as it is. But it was huge when I was growing up, and I enjoyed the series well enough when I read it (though I’m not sure if it would hold up for me today upon a reread).
🌟 “I Wish You Would” 🌟
❃ a book/series you know you will always love ❃
I love The Book Thief so much. And I know that I always will. I have nothing else to say on the matter.
❃ an upcoming release you wish you could have right now ❃
First of all: the cover? 👨🍳💋 It immediately caught my eye. Second of all: the summary? It sounds amazing and fantastic and romantic and I really wanna read it.
I’ve been reading more Asian inspired fantasy throughout the past year or so, and I’ve been loving a lot of it. This one looks really good, too.
🩸 “Bad Blood” 🩸
❃ a character you once loved but grew to hate ❃
Serilda. I really liked her as a protagonist in Gilded, but she got so annoying in Cursed. I hated every decision she made here, and her personality just started to irritate me in general.
❃ an author you haven’t forgiven for what they did to your favorite characters/books ❃
How dare you kill off Han Alister, Chima!! How dare you make him one of your two co-protagonists in your Seven Realms series and make him my favorite character, and then murder him in the first chapter of the first book in your Shattered Realms sequel series!!!! How dare you!!!!!!
This is the reason I DNF-ed Flamecaster! And after I was super anticipating this for weeks and bought this release day! This is the reason I can’t bring myself to try this series, even though every once in a while I kind of want to!
💭 “Wildest Dreams” 💭
❃ a book that was far too predictable ❃
This was a retelling of The Nutcracker, so I wasn’t surprised to predict a lot of stuff. The story had certain plot points to hit, after all. And honestly? I actually really enjoyed this book.
❃ a book/series that you wish could have gone on forever ❃
I adored this story, and I loved Cerys and Fox. I could bask in this world that Ashley Poston created forever, and I still wish that a sequel would pop up sometimes.
👩❤️👨 “How You Get the Girl” 👩❤️👨
❃ one of your favorite books where they ‘got the girl’ ❃
Yeah, I know, I’m kind of stealing my answer for this one from AceReader, but I honestly would’ve picked this if I hadn’t seen their post.
I’ve never read a book/series where I’ve been more satisfied with the relationship at the end of it than with PJO and Percabeth. They were just so perfectly written as friends and then as a couple. This series established the way that I like my romance in books, and the standard I kind of hold romances to.
💞 “This Love” 💞
❃ a book that completely shocked you ❃
I didn’t expect this book to go at all the way it did after A Court of Thorns and Roses. I thought this series was gonna go in an entirely different direction than it did. And the ending of A Court of Mist and Fury also surprised me – I didn’t expect it either!
🌍 “I Know Places” 🌍
❃ a book you thought you loved but quickly came to hate ❃
Speaking of derivative and shameless – I think Divergent is even moreso than Eragon ever was. Not only did it come out in the midst of the Hunger Games trilogy craze (so it was immediately shameless as opposed being shameless decades after the fact). But it also continued the ‘YA dystopian novels that are adapted to movies’ craze, and prompted a bunch of these to be shameless as well.
I didn’t love this book when I read it. But I liked it well enough and thought it was okay. However, my feelings for this book and series have since turned into a burning hatred. It hate the plot, I hate the characters, and I especially hate how the world building DOESN’T MAKE SENSE.
❃ a book you didn’t want to be seen reading ❃
Now, I wouldn’t mind if someone caught me reading this nowadays, but when I was a young teenager when I thought I was too old for middle grade? Yep, that was me. And that was the reason I never read it when I was fourteen.
🧹 “Clean” 🧹
❃ when the wait between books made you forget everything that happened ❃
So I read The Stardust Thief last year, and when I looked it up originally, the Internet said that The Ashfire King was coming out in 2024. Because of this, I was like: ‘Oh cool, that’s kind nine months away from how, shouldn’t be too hard for me to remember all the stuff from the first book.’
That date has since shifted.
Now, this book’s slated release date is next year – 2025. And I’m a little worried that I might forget stuff from book one in that time.
❃ a book/series you wiped from your memory ❃
Um, I think this was about witches that were Wiccan and folklore inspired? And the main girl’s parents die immediately, and she’s sent to live at a house with two other girls? And I’m pretty sure theirs three guys from a rival coven or something?
I barely remember anything from this series, even though I’m pretty sure I read the entire thing. In a day, or something. But yeah, it’s basically all gone.
So yeah, thanks again to Leslie for tagging me. This was a really, really fun post! I love Taylor Swift’s music, and am definitely gonna continue this with her other albums at some point. (And release Reputation already Taylor! ‘Cause then I know you’re gonna cap this all off with the rerelease of your debut album and I need “I Heart Question Mark” to be on it!!)
As always, thank you so much to everyone for reading, and I hope you have a fabulous day/night!
This is a bit later than I had wanted to post this, but it’s better than last month, so I’m taking that as a win! As usual, this wrap-up for March Reading 2024 features my reading statistics from The StoryGraph.
I met my goal from February’s wrap-up – to read more than one book. But I know that I can still do better, and had hoped to read about a book a week, so it isn’t quite what I was hoping for. But I still read more than February, January and especially December, so I don’t feel that irritated with myself.
So yeah, let’s get on with the wrap-up!
March Reading 2024
I read 2 books and 797 pages
😐 MOODS: All the slices of pie were equal this time! The Moods that I had in March were: Adventurous, Funny, Mysterious, Dark, Lighthearted and Tense.
👢 PACE: My books from last month were two different kinds of paces: medium and fast.
🔢 PAGE NUMBER: Everything I read was between 300 and 499 pages. A nice blue pie!
📖 FICTION/NONFICTION: It was once again all fiction this month.
🎭 GENRES: Of the two novels that I read, neither of them shared any Genres. So I didn’t have any predominant Genres at all, but I did have seven of them. The Genres I did have, though, were: Fantasy, Horror, Manga, Romance, Short Stories, YA and LGBTQIA+.
📄 FORMAT: This little StoryGraph pie chart is, in fact, correct for March. I read one ebook and one physical print novel.
⭐ RATING: My median star rating for last month was 4.25. The ratings I gave were either 4 or 4.5 stars so it makes sense.
📉 PAGES READ DAILY: I didn’t read as much as I’d have liked in March, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes. I read a little bit at the beginning of the month, but most of my reading happened during different points of the last week.
So yeah, March reading for 2024 wasn’t as strong as I’d have liked, but it was better than the three preceding months, so I’m still happy with myself. I wish I was able to read a couple more books, though.
April has a bunch of books that I’m interested in, several that have already come out, so we’ll see what I read. I’m also still interested in continuing with One Piece, so I’m planning on reading the next arc this month. I’m hoping that I get out of this reading slump soon. It’s miserable.
Also, it’s a bit late, but Happy Eclipse Day!! 🌑☀️🌕🌙 I hope that anyone in or near totality was able to see it that was interested. We were pretty close where I live, and it was still really cool, even though we weren’t in the path of totality.
So yeah, thank you to everyone for reading, and I hope you have an awesome day/night!
Carry On meets Arthurian legend in this funny, subversive young adult fantasy about what happens after the chosen one wins the kingdom and has to get married to keep it… and to stay alive.
Arek hadn’t thought much about what would happen after he completed the prophecy that said he was destined to save the Kingdom of Ere from its evil ruler. So now that he’s finally managed to (somewhat clumsily) behead the evil king (turns out magical swords yanked from bogs don’t come pre-sharpened), he and his rag-tag group of quest companions are at a bit of a loss for what to do next.
As a temporary safeguard, Arek’s best friend and mage, Matt, convinces him to assume the throne until the true heir can be rescued from her tower. Except that she’s dead. Now Arek is stuck as king, a role that comes with a magical catch: choose a spouse by your eighteenth birthday, or wither away into nothing.
With his eighteenth birthday only three months away, and only Matt in on the secret, Arek embarks on a desperate bid to find a spouse to save his life—starting with his quest companions. But his attempts at wooing his friends go painfully and hilariously wrong…until he discovers that love might have been in front of him all along.
My Review
“The prophecy doesn’t mention true love’s kiss or long hair or guessing names.”
“You pulled it out just to tell us that?” Lila crossed her arms and quirked an eyebrow.
Matt’s lips twisted into a frown. “I’m making a point.”
“Is the point that you’re pedantic?” Bethany asked, fake smile plastered on her face despite looking a little green around the gills. “Because we’re aware.”
“You have vomit in your hair,” Matt shot back, stuffing the scroll into his pack.
Out of the three F.T. Lukens novels I’ve read so far, I think So This is Ever After is my favorite. (When I read Otherwordly hopefully soon, I’m thinking of doing a tier list.) It’s got my favorite tropes of theirs – sassy humor and protagonists, found family, and a reasonably well-developed romance.
I liked Arek. I also think he’s the best of all of the Lukens’ leads I’ve read (so far). He’s kind and a teeny bit sassy, and he has no idea what the heck he’s doing. I also liked that he could hold his own, as opposed to Tal from In Deeper Waters, who frequently annoyed me with some of his whining and incompetence (even though he did get better by the end of the book). But he was also more engaging of a main character to follow than Rook from Spell Bound, who was kind of boring to follow the perspective of.
Matt, following the trend of deuteragonists in these books, was the more interesting character. Yep. Just like Sun and Athlen. I’ve always liked wizard characters though, and I wasn’t more interested in what was going on with him than Arek. Which was a first for me regarding Lukens’ MCs.
The rest of the party was also great. I loved their dynamic with one another, they all had a good rapport, and it was easy to tell from the dialogue how much they all cared about each other. I also really liked how they riffed on D&D party dynamics: there was a paladin (Arek), a mage (Matt), a bard (Bethany), a fighter (Sionna), a tank (Rion), and a rogue (Lila).
My only real problems with So This is Ever After are a couple of smaller things. The first: the stupid communication problems. Just, like, talk to each other? Please?! But this is a YA novel, and seventeen year olds are notoriously bad at communicating IRL, so it made sense and honestly didn’t bother me that much.
My other issue was the pacing. I like a good ol’ fast-paced novel, but parts of this book were almost too fast-paced. Like, it was pretty much action, action, action, with little time relegated to giving the characters moments to breathe and develop. Again, this wasn’t too big a problem for me, but it still irritated me somewhat. Other than these things, I didn’t really have any problems with this book.
So yeah, I totally recommend this book, especially to fans of F.T. Lukens’ other works. If you haven’t read this one yet, definitely pick it up. I also recommend So This is Ever After to people who like medium to fast paced YA fantasy novels with a sense of humor. Also, the LGBTQIA+ rep is pretty good, so if you’re into books with that, what are you waiting for?
But yeah, as always, thanks so much to everyone who continues to read my blog posts. I always appreciate it, and I hope you all have a fantastic day/night!
See ya ~Mar
My Favorite Quotes
I’d been envisioning what it would be like to behead the Vile One since the old wizard had shown up at my door the day after I turned seventeen and told me my destiny- that I would be the person who ended the dark shadow of evil that ruled our realm. Well, okay, not that specific second because who believes a drunken stranger with a crooked hat carrying around a humming staff? No one. That’s who. At least, you shouldn’t. That’s unsafe.
“Yes, um, well, give me a moment.” I pitched my voice low. “What do we do?”
“Opening the door seems like an appropriate action,” Rion said, completely seriously. “It is time for breakfast.”
It took every ounce of my limited restraint not to roll my eyes. Rion’s earnestness didn’t deserve my ire. “Yes. But what if he’s here to kill us?”
“You,” Bethany said brightly. She had her harp clutched in one hand, the other on her hip cocked jauntily to the side. “If he’s here to kill anyone, it’s you. Not us.”
I did roll my eyes at that. “Thanks, oh so helpful.”
“There are thousands of prophecies in the world,” he said. “Not all of them are true. This one happened to be. I’m marking it down in my records.”
“Wait, what?” Matt asked again, his voice a screech. “You keep data?”
Though I echoed Matt’s outrage, I felt like he missed the bigger issue. “Do you mean to tell us there was a chance we could’ve failed?”
I’d never felt more betrayed in my life. The one bedrock of this whole journey was the prophecy, and it could’ve been wrong? My entire world tilted. “We could have died? What the fuck?”
“You didn’t,” the wizard offered helpfully. “This prophetess has a ninety- five percent accuracy rating. It’s quite astonishing.”
“Barthly?” Matt asked, his tone mirroring my own incredulity. “The evil wizard who used dark magic, usurped the throne, and kept our realm in shadow for forty years was named Barthly?” He flailed his hands. “Barthly!”
Harlow squinted. “He did not prefer to use his name.”
“Well, would you? If your name was Barthly?”
“But you continued to work here. Why didn’t you find another job? Somewhere else? Like in the village we stormed through?”
Harlow wrinkled his nose. “Find another job? That pays well? In this economy?”
“You were literally hanging out of a window this morning, trying to escape,” I said.
There are so many books coming out this spring that I’m excited for – particularly this April. I don’t know what it is about this quarter, but there’s several novels that I’m interested in.
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.
Heroes die, cowards live. Daughter of a conquered world, Ruying hates the invaders who descended from the heavens long before she was born and defeated the magic of her people with technologies unlike anything her world had ever seen.
Blessed by Death, born with the ability to pull the life right out of mortal bodies, Ruying shouldn’t have to fear these foreign invaders, but she does. Especially because she wants to keep herself and her family safe.
When Ruying’s Gift is discovered by an enemy prince, he offers her an impossible deal: If she becomes his private assassin and eliminates his political rivals—whose deaths he swears would be for the good of both their worlds and would protect her people from further brutalization—her family will never starve or suffer harm again. But to accept this bargain, she must use the powers she has always feared, powers that will shave years off her own existence.
Can Ruying trust this prince, whose promises of a better world make her heart ache and whose smiles make her pulse beat faster? Are the evils of this agreement really in the service of a much greater good? Or will she betray her entire nation by protecting those she loves the most?
Are you looking forward to this book? What books are coming out that you’re looking forward to?
Thank you so much for reading and have an excellent day/night!
Happy Tuesday everyone! It’s been a bit since I’ve last done this post, but I’m happy to finally be doing it again.
For anyone unfamiliar, Tasteful Tuesdays 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 week I’m gonna be looking at a cover of a new release. It’s Your Blood, My Bones by Kelly Andrew.
A seductively twisted romance about loyalty, fate, the lengths we go to hide the darkest parts of ourselves… and the people who love those parts most of all.
Wyatt Westlock has one plan for the farmhouse she’s just inherited — to burn it to the ground. But during her final walkthrough of her childhood home, she makes a shocking discovery in the basement — Peter, the boy she once considered her best friend, strung up in chains and left for dead.
Unbeknownst to Wyatt, Peter has suffered hundreds of ritualistic deaths on her family’s property. Semi-immortal, Peter never remains dead for long, but he can’t really live, either. Not while he’s bound to the farm, locked in a cycle of grisly deaths and painful rebirths. There’s only one way for him to break free. He needs to end the Westlock line.
He needs to kill Wyatt.
With Wyatt’s parents gone, the spells protecting the property have begun to unravel, and dark, ancient forces gather in the nearby forest. The only way for Wyatt to repair the wards is to work with Peter — the one person who knows how to harness her volatile magic. But how can she trust a boy who’s sworn an oath to destroy her? When the past turns up to haunt them in the most unexpected way, they are forced to rely on one another to survive, or else tear each other apart.
Book Covers Rating: 🌱🌱🌱 • 3 1/2 vines
So, the thing that most attracted me to this book was its cover. It’s just so good. Now let’s get into what I think makes it so gorgeous.
First off, I love the green background. Green is one of my favorite colors, and I just adore the shade used as the backdrop. I also love the entwined hands wrapped in vines. I normally like nature on book covers, and this one is no exception. The vines seem to imply that the two characters are bound together in some way, though not necessarily in a good way. Because vines by their nature can be very intrusive.
I also like the font used for the title. It’s pretty and a bit whimsical, but it’s also in all caps, which makes it seem harsher. It’s also great how the font for both the title of the book and the author’s name are in white. It really makes them stand out all the more on the cover.
All in all, I think that this is some pretty solid cover art. It’s quite eye-catching, and I think it’s gonna get a bunch of people to pick it up and check it out. It certainly caught my eye.
So yeah, here’s another Tasteful Tuesday. Have you read Your Blood, My Bones or any of the author’s other work? What did you think of it? What do you think about the cover art?
Anyway, as always, thank you to everyone who reads my posts. I hope that you have an awesome day/night!
Countless tombstones stand in rows, forming a bizarre town. What fate awaits a brother and sister after a traffic accident in this town of the dead? In another tale, a girl falls silent, her tongue transformed into a slug. Can a friend save her? Then, when a young man moves to a new town, he finds the house next door has only a single window. What does his grotesque neighbor want, calling out to him every evening from that lone window?
Fresh nightmares brought to you by horror master, Junji Ito.
My Review
“What’s this thing in the middle of the road?”
“It looked like… a tombstone.”
“A tombstone? Why would a tombstone be standing in the middle of the road?”
I’ve decided I wanted to get into more horror lately, and that I’ve wanted to read more translated stories (the only one I’ve really read was Another), so what better place to start than the works of Junji Ito? Nowhere, I thought, so I checked out Tombs on Libby and got reading.
And it didn’t disappoint. It was as strange, horrific and unsettling as promised.
The short story collection that I read had eight different stories of varying length, and were all disturbing on different levels. The ones included in this volume were: Tombs, Clubhouse, Slug Girl, The Window Next Door, Washed Ashore, The Strange Tale of the Tunnel, Bronze Statue, Floaters and The Bloody Story of Shirosuna.
I enjoyed them all to some degree, but my favorites were definitely Tombs, Floaters and The Bloody Story of Shirosuna. I’ll be thinking about all of the stories here, though, for a long time.
The thing that surprised me the most about the works in this volume, however, was how much they all gave me Twilight Zone vibes. Like, the way that Ito tells his stories and frames some of his panels really reminded me of The Twilight Zone. The stories are all distinctly unsettling throughout, and the feeling that something isn’t quite right floats around the back of your mind while your eyes take in the material. There’s also just some straight up weirdness I’m some of these that also gave me TZ vibes.
So yeah, I really liked Tombs. I definitely recommend this to anyone who enjoys horror or is a fan of The Twilight Zone. You need to experience this. Or fans of manga and graphic novels that can deal with some gore and disturbing stuff.
Anyway, as always, thanks so much for reading and I hope that you have a lovely day/night!
See ya ~Mar
Creepy Stuff I Enjoyed from This
The area was completely overgrown, but I knew the tunnel was there. It was lying there with its mouth open, waiting for me.
Yes.
That tunnel was waiting for me.
“There’s no indoor plumbing in the village. Please use the well out back. The water turns red sometimes, but it’s nothing to worry about.”
It’s been a bit since I’ve participated in this kind of post. But that’s just ’cause I haven’t been super excited about any books coming out recently. (Or I didn’t think to do a CWW post before a book I was looking forward to came out before it was released.)
Anyways, let’s get into the post! It’s been a while since I’ve participated in Can’t-Wait Wednesday, but there’s a book coming out in a couple weeks that I’m looking forward to, so of course I’m doing it this week.
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:
Otherwordly by F.T. Lukens!! 🩵🪄❄️🧡
I’ve enjoyed every book that I’ve read by F.T. Lukens, so I’m super excited about this one. Ever since I found out about it last year, I’ve been really interested in it.
A skeptic and a supernatural being make a crossroads deal to achieve their own ends only to get more than they bargained for in this lively young adult romantic adventure from the New York Times bestselling author of Spell Bound and So This Is Ever After.
Seventeen-year-old Ellery is a non-believer in a region where people swear the supernatural is real. Sure, they’ve been stuck in a five-year winter, but there’s got to be a scientific explanation. If goddesses were real, they wouldn’t abandon their charges like this, leaving farmers like Ellery’s family to scrape by.
Knox is a familiar from the Other World, a magical assistant sent to help humans who have made crossroads bargains. But it’s been years since he heard from his queen, and Knox is getting nervous about what he might find once he returns home. When the crossroads demons come to collect Knox, he panics and runs. A chance encounter down an alley finds Ellery coming to Knox’s rescue, successfully fending off his would-be abductors.
Ellery can’t quite believe what they’ve seen. And they definitely don’t believe the nonsense this unnervingly attractive guy spews about his paranormal origins. But Knox needs to make a deal with a human who can tether him to this realm, and Ellery needs to figure out how to stop this winter to help their family. Once their bargain is struck, there’s no backing out, and the growing connection between the two might just change everything.
Are you a fan of F.T. Lukens’ works? What have you read by them? What books are coming out that you’re looking forward to?
Thank you so much for reading and have an excellent day/night!
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve participated in this weekly post, but here I am with another First Line Friday! Also, I just wanted to let everyone who wasn’t aware that yesterday was Pi Day (3/14 = 3.14) and that I hope that you enjoyed whatever you were reading yesterday with a slice of pie. 🥧📖
Anyway.
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:
There was a wolf at the gallery door.
I know, I know. That’s less than I usually give. But I feel like if I gave you guys more to work with, it would give the book away instantly. So here’s a couple more hints.
Still have no idea? I’ll give you a little more time to think about it, whilst admiring some photos of books…
Annnd the book is 🥁🥁… 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.
What books have you been reading lately? What’s on your TBR that you’re most excited about?
As always, thank you for reading, and I hope you have an amazing day/night!
I’m a little bit late with the Monthly Wrap-Up again, but thankfully still not as late as last month, lol. I’m not literally posting this on St. Patrick’s Day (unlike February’s prominent holiday). I still didn’t read as many books as I’d have liked last month, but we can’t all get what we want sometimes.
So yeah, even though my reading goal was a measly two books in February, I still didn’t make it, unfortunately. But I still read one book, so I’m still doing this!
So here’s my stats from The StoryGraph from February 2024.
February 2024 Reading
1 read 1 book and 152 pages
So, once again, there’s not a lot here, unfortunately. I only read one book, and my StoryGraph statistics reflect that.
I still have three different Moods though – Tense, Mysterious and Dark. It’s not my usual Mood graph, so that’s pretty cool. My pace was pretty medium, the book I read was sub 300 pages, and it was fiction (as seems to be the usual with me).
Still not a lot here – courtesy of my reading habits last month. But there is stuff here. The novel I read – What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher – had two genres applied to it: Horror and LGBTQIA+.
The format of this novel was digital – as in, an ebook – so the Format chart is once again wrong, as it tends to be. I rated the three and a half stars, and my reading was split between both ends of February.
So yeah. I didn’t really do a lot of reading last month. Again, ugh. (Well, technically I read a lot of fanfiction, again, but I don’t count that here.) The only thing that I really want to do for March is read at least two books. Hopefully one book a week even, but that would be kind of a miracle. Anything’s better than the last few months.
Regarding my poor, neglected reading blog, I’m hoping to post a little better. I’m planning on posting some Tasteful Tuesdays again, hopefully starting today, I’m planning on participating in my monthly posts, and I have a St. Patrick’s Day post I’m thinking about. I’m also hoping to post a few book reviews, if I can manage to read more than one book in a month. Fingers crossed. 🤞🍀
Anyway, thank you to anyone who still checks out my blog. I hope you have a wonderful day/night!
