Happy Tuesday everybody! Can’t believe it’s been a month since I last participated in this!
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly post currently hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. It celebrates lovely lists, wonderful books and the bookish community. This week’s topic is Books on Your Spring 2026 To-Be Read List. It’s pretty self-explanatory, so I’m not gonna elaborate this time.
Anyway, without further ado, let’s get into it! Here are ten books currently near the top of my ever-shifting TBR! From most likely to least likely to be read.
One Piece (Volumes #73 – #78) by Eiichiro Oda
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
A Widow’s Charm by Caitlyn Paxson
Proven Guilty (Dresden Files #8) by Jim Butcher
The Subtle Art of Folding Space by John Chu
Aurora (Volume #2) by Red
Platform Decay (Murderbot Diaries #8) by Martha Wells
The Rainshadow Orphans by Naomi Ishiguro
Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawsett
The Last Sun (The Tarot Sequence #1) by K.D. Edwards
What books are on your spring TBR? Which ones are you most excited to read? Are they upcoming releases, books that have been around awhile, or a mix of both?
As always, thanks so much for reading, and I hope that you have an amazing day/night!
It’s almost no longer Tuesday, but I was determined to do this this week. (I have to get better about my time management in regards to blog posts.) Anyway, it’s time for Top Ten Tuesday.
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly post currently hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. It celebrates lovely lists, wonderful books and the bookish community. This week’s topic is Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the First Half of 2026.
There’s quite a few new releases coming up that I’ve got my eye on, but I’ve decided to pick two books from each month of the in the first half of 2026 to make it even. Anyway, let’s get into it!
Strange Animals by Jarod K. Anderson – Releasing February 10th
Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawsett – Releasing February 17th
Green & Deadly Things by Jenn Lyons – Releasing March 3rd
Brighter Than Nine (Darker By Four #2) by June CL Tan – Releasing March 10th
The Subtle Art of Folding Space by John Chu – Releasing April 7th
Deathly Fates by Tesia Tsai – Releasing April 14th
Platform Decay (Murderbot Diaries #8) by Martha Wells – Releasing May 5th
The Rainshadow Orphans by Naomi Ishiguro – Releasing May 26th
Nemesis Mine by Amy Archer – Releasing June 9th
Letters from the Last Apothecary by Bita Behzadi – Releasing June 9th
What books are you most excited about that are coming out the first half of 2026? Do we share any of the same ones?
As always, thanks so much for reading, and I hope that you have an amazing day/night!
Hello everyone, and Happy Tuesday! It’s been a couple of weeks.
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly post currently hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. It celebrates lovely lists, wonderful books and the bookish community. This week’s topic is Books Set in Another Time. It can be any book that’s historical, futuristic, is an alternate universe, or even in a world where you’re not sure when it takes place you just know it’s not right now.
This one was interesting. I think I kind of ended up going the alternate universe route, because the books I chose ended up being fantasy or sci-fi with magic or advanced technology, whether they take place in the past or future. Anyway, without further ado, on with the post!
All Systems Red (Murderbot Diaries #1) by Martha Wells
A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic #1) by V.E. Schwab
The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking #1) by Patrick Ness
Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles #1) by Marissa Meyer
Winterspell (Winterspell #1) by Claire Legrand
Sheets by Brenna Thummler
The Ghostkeeper by Johanna Taylor
The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennett, Witch by Melinda Taub
Ordinary Monsters by J.M. Miro
This Monstrous Thing by Mackenzi Lee
What books do you like that take place in a different time period? Do you prefer stories set in the past or the future?
As always, thanks so much for reading, and I hope that you have an amazing day/night!
This tag looked awesome and was a ton of fun. I’m so glad that Leslie @ Books Are the New Black tagged everyone. Welp, here I go!
Rules:
📚 Mention the creator (one’s peculiar) 🏷️ Answer the questions 📚 Tag as many people as you like 🏷️ HAVE FUN!
👸 The Lost Princess 👸 A book/series you lost interest in halfway through
So, full disclosure: I went into Serpent & Dove kind of planning to hate-read it. But then I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. Sure I had a lot of problems with it – and it was a bit of a trashy romantasy novel – but I had fun with it. Enough to continue with the sequel, at least. No, Blood & Honey is where the real problems lie. I despised that book, and it completely turned me off from finishing the trilogy.
🛡️ The Knight in Shining Armor 🛡️ A hyped book/series you were swept up by
The Emily Wilde series sank its claws into my with Encyclopaedia and I fell further in love after reading Otherlands. I’m absolutely frothing at the mouth waiting for book three, I’m so excited. I absolutely adore this series.
🧙♂️ The Wise Old Wizard 🧙♂️ An author who amazes you with his/her writing
V.E. Schwab. Every book I’ve read of hers, from like three separate series and one standalone, has been a book that I enjoyed.
♍ The Maiden in Distress ♍ An undervalued character you wish had a bigger storyline
When reading The Girl With No Reflection and writing its review a couple weeks ago I felt that Prince Zhang was somewhat underutilized as a character, and that the narrative of this novel would have benefited if the POVs were split between him and Ying. I still feel this way now. Also, Ying’s handmaidens may as well have not been there for all their storylines mattered to the plot.
🗡️ The Magical Sword 🗡️ A magical item/ability you wished authors used less
Hmmm… This one is a bit tricky. I can’t really think of any specifically that bother me, but when stuff like time travel isn’t done right or written well, it pisses me off. So I guess magical items and abilities that are written badly.
😈 The Mindless Villain 😈 A phrase you cannot help but roll your eyes at
There are a couple. “Like calls to like” got to me a bit after some time while reading ACOTAR, “a breath she didn’t know she was holding” makes me almost physically angry, and I absolutely cannot stand the phrase/descriptor “pillowy lips.” I. Hate. That. Phrase.
🐉 The Untamed Dragon 🐉 A magical creature you wish you had as a pet
The Flames (Aries, Leo and Sagittarius) from the Charlie Bone series. Three adorable, hyper intelligent, immortal, magical fire cats? I mean come on, who wouldn’t want them? And there’s three of them.
🥠 The Chosen One 🥠 A book/series you will always root for
Murderbot was a character I fell for instantly and was immediately rooting for. I absolutely devoured this series when I first discovered it, and I think it’s something that I’ll continue to follow for a long time.
Sooo… Since I don’t really know anyone or have any blogging connections, everyone who reads this gets tagged! The fantasy tropes book tag was a fun one, so if you’re interested, you should totally do it!
As always, thanks to everybody so much for reading, and I hope that you have an awesome day/night!
So it’s been some time since my last weekly wrap-up. It wasn’t very weekly, was it?
But hear me out! I only skipped last week’s because I was only able to post once the week before. And I didn’t think that that really warranted a weekly wrap-up post just for that. It seemed… overkill.
So I’m doing the past two weeks in this one post. That’s it, that’s what I really wanted to say. On with the wrap-up.
Thursday 11/23: Thanksgiving Day
I didn’t do a post this day, or on the day after, so here’s a very, very late Happy Thanksgiving!! 🦃🥧 I hope that everyone who celebrated enjoyed good food and good company!
Sunday 11/26: Books I’m Thankful For
Two Sundays ago was the only post I managed to do the week of Thanksgiving, unfortunately. But seeing as it was said week and I hadn’t done my Books I’m Thankful For post of the year yet, I decided to do that one.
This past Thursday, I finally got my book review posted for System Collapse by Martha Wells. It was a perfectly fine addition to the Murderbot Diaries. I gave it ★★★★✯.
On Friday, I participated in another First Line Fridays for the first time in a while. First Line Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers (formerly) hosted by Wandering Words.
Sunday 12/3: November 2023 Monthly Reading Wrap-Up
Yesterday, I posted my monthly reading wrap-up for November 2023. For those who don’t know, monthly wrap-ups are when I go over the books I read over the past month, as well as my stats over on The StoryGraph.
So yeah, that’s it. This time I wrapped up not one, but two, weeks. And since both these past weeks are finally done and acknowledged on the blog, my conscious is now clear.
This coming week I’d like to do a Tasteful Tuesday, seeing as it’s been a few weeks since I last did it. I promise, I really do want this to be a weekly thing! It just… hasn’t worked out that way lately.
I’m also definitely going to be posting my book review for Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett later this week. It’s been a long time coming, and I’ve been dying to talk about this book since I read it. I had originally hoped to post the review for it last week but… yeah. Oh! And I’ll probably participate in Spell the Month in Books this coming weekend, too. I’m not sure what else I’ll do this week, however.
Also, speaking of stuff I did last week that didn’t have anything to do with reading books or the blog, I changed the home decor. Yup, I put the Christmas decorations up! And decorated the tree! And changed the scents around the house. So now everything’s all festive and perfect for the season at Mar’s!
But yeah, as always, thank you all so much for reading and I hope you have an amazing day/night!
I gained interesting insights, ART- drone said. You should stop worrying.
Yeah, I’ll just code a patch to stop feeling anxiety, wow, why didn’t I think of that earlier. (That was sarcasm, I have too much organic neural tissue for that to work.) (Of course I’ve already tried it.)
Am I making it worse? I think I’m making it worse.
Everyone’s favorite lethal SecUnit is back.
Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonized planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there’s an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can’t have the planet, they’re sure as hell not leaving without something. If that something just happens to be an entire colony of humans, well, a free workforce is a decent runner-up prize.
But there’s something wrong with Murderbot; it isn’t running within normal operational parameters. ART’s crew and the humans from Preservation are doing everything they can to protect the colonists, but with Barish-Estranza’s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams, they’re going to have to hope Murderbot figures out what’s wrong with itself, and fast!
Yeah, this plan is… not going to work.
My Review
I am not meant to function without multiple simultaneous inputs. If this was what being a human was like, it sucked massively.
Sooo… this review is like, extremely late. I had fully intended to post this review sometime early last week, before Thanksgiving, but I just ended up being too busy and stressed out.
But I’m back at the blog, and finally here with my review of System Collapse by Martha Wells. This was probably my most anticipated book of 2023 and it was… fine. Pretty good even. It just turned out a little differently than I expected. Honestly, I’m still on the fence about my rating for this novel – I’m torn between four stars or four and a half.
Let’s just get into it…
• The characters
ART- drone reached out a limb to Iris. My function is impaired, Iris. So is SecUnit’s.
Will you shut the hell up? I said.
You shut up, it replied.
“Let’s everybody shut up and get in the flyer,” Iris said, and shouldered ART- drone’s limb, taking part of its weight.
I’ve always felt that the characters were the strongest part of the Murderbot Diaries, particularly its titular character, and the same is still true here. But this story focused more on an internal conflict that Murderbot is dealing with. So the other characters I love from this series took a backseat in this book.
SecUnit also didn’t seem to be nearly as sassy as it usually is. There weren’t all that many fantastic and funny quotes and dialogue compared to the rest of the series that I noticed. And that’s one of my favorite things about this series – I love how sassy and fun it is. And yeah, I understand that Murderbot was working through something, but everything seemed to matter a lot less than its thoughts on what it was going through. Constantly.
But when other characters did feature, and SecUnit did interact with them, it was fantastic. These were my favorite moments reading and I wish there were more of them. ART actually had more pagetime than I initially gave it credit for, now that I think about it, and its banter with SecUnit is always a treat.
• The plot
“I’ve fucked everything up,” I’d told ART.
ART had said, That’s nothing new.
I didn’t really care about it. It was about saving the descendents of the colonists that were found on the planet in book five. But I never found myself caring about these people, then or now. They just felt like a motivation or a plot device in order for SecUnit and ART and its crew and Preservation to do stuff.
Honestly, the A plot just felt like it was stalling in order for the B plot to happen. Which was Murderbot’s inner conflict – that its organic neural tissue is starting to exhibit signs of PTSD. Which was far more interesting to me than the thing with the colonists.
• Other favorite quotes
I didn’t say anything. (I know I get pissed off when humans don’t acknowledge my work, but why is too much acknowledgment also upsetting? Sentience sucks.)
and
You’re stalling, ART- drone said. I am not. I can stand here and be useless without any ulterior motives, thanks.
and
So the next time I get optimistic about something, I want one of you to punch me in the face.
and
I was not even going to respond to that. ART had told Mensah it wouldn’t push me. Just because its MedSystem was certified for emotional support and trauma recovery it thought it knew everything.
and finally
Wow, you don’t think it can get any worse, and it always does.
• Final Thoughts
This review is a little shorter than usual, but I’m honestly struggling with stuff to say about it. I think that’s another reason why this review took so long. I just don’t have too many opinions on it.
But System Collapse is still a solid addition to the Murderbot Diaries. It was still fun and sassy, even if it was less so than usual. This is a must read for anyone who enjoys the rest of the series, especially since the ending sets up a new arc for the series.
Thank you so much for reading, and have an awesome day/night!
It’s Monday, so here I am with another weekly wrap-up.
I feel good about last week. I know I said that the week before, too, but I think things have been going well for this little blog. I got two book reviews our, and participated in two weekly posts. November’s been going pretty good so far.
Anyway, let’s get on with it.
Wednesday 11/8: Can’t-Wait Wednesday
Last Wednesday, I posted another Can’t-Wait Wednesday for the first time in a while. Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa @ Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. For this one, I highlighted System Collapse by Martha Wells.
On Thursday, I posted another book review. This one was for Nightbane, the sequel to Lightlark, by Alex Aster. It’s a YA romantasy series. I gave Nightbane ★✬.
Last Friday, I participated in another First Line Fridays for the first time in a long time. First Line Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers (formerly) hosted by Wandering Words.
Ah, a rare Saturday post. On Saturday, I posted a little review for the short story Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory by Martha Wells. It’s part of the Murderbot Diaries, and the only MD thing I hadn’t read until yet. I gave it ★★★★★.
So yeah, I read quite a bit last week, and I was pretty decent with my posting. I’m hoping to do even better this coming week, though.
This week, I’m gonna finish Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, and I’m gonna read System Collapse when it comes out. I’m also planning on continuing with One Piece and starting the first book in Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive – The Way of Kings.
Concerning non-book stuff and non-blog stuff that I’m gonna be doing this week, well, I’m gonna be cleaning up around the house in preparation for Thanksgiving next week. I’m also going to be making sure that everything is in order for the food and baking and stuff.
But yeah, here’s hoping that I get all I’m planning on done. I’m looking forward to so many things to read, and I don’t want as much work next week. 🤞🍀
As always, thank you to everyone for reading, and I hope that you have an awesome day/night!
As Ephraim gets up and Ayda can finally walk out of this damn room, she replies to SecUnit’s latest requisition form. It’s for a gunship nearly the size PortFreeCommerce’s transit ring: I think you made this one up.
Knowing what would happen, she wouldn’t choose a different planet, a different bond company. Because then SecUnit would still be someone’s property, would be waiting for the contract where the negligence or greed or indifference of its clients got it killed.
This short story directly follows the events in Exit Strategy and is told from the point of view of Dr. Mensah, who is still recovering from the events of that novella.
My Review
SecUnit is looking down at her. “You can hug me if you need to.”
“No. No, that’s all right. I know you don’t care for it.” She wipes her face. There are tears in her eyes, because she’s an idiot.
This review is gonna be pretty short, as Home – being a short story – is naturally short. Like, it’s only like 20 pages or so. So none of my section/heading breaks today.
Seeing as System Collapse’s release is imminent, I finally decided to read and review the only Murderbot Diaries thing I hadn’t yet. I don’t know why I never read it when I read the others – I guess that’s just life?
So yeah, this is a little Murderbot story – but instead of our favorite SecUnit narrating it, it was a 3rd person POV from Dr. Ayda Mensah. The story takes place very soon after the fourth novella, Exit Strategy, and is probably best read then.
I rather liked it – Martha Wells always has good prose, and it’s nice to hear from another character in this universe who isn’t SecUnit for once – as much as I love that construct. Mensah is also one of my favorite characters, and I really enjoyed seeing her relationship with Murderbot from her perspective. It was also interesting to see more of the PTSD that we heard about in Network Effect, but didn’t really see – at least Dr. Mensah’s since she wasn’t present much.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
It’s looking down at her still, and she could meet its gaze to make it look away, but that won’t make it retreat. “Is that a bribe?”
She can’t help a smile. It does sound like a bribe, just a little. “Depends. Will it work?”
“I don’t know. I never had a bribe before.”
So my final verdict is: If you have access to ebooks and stuff, and enjoy the other books in The Murderbot Diaries, then definitely pick this one up. It’s a quick and wholesome little read.
Thank you for reading, and I hope that you have a wonderful day/night!
Good morning/afternoon/any other time of day everyone! It’s been a almost a month since the last time I made it for Can’t-Wait Wednesday. But I’m really excited for a novel coming out next week, so I thought it was more than time to do it again.
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:
System Collapse by Martha Wells!
This is my most anticipated book of 2023. Ever since I first read All Systems Red, I’ve been a huge fan of The Murderbot Diaries. It’s probably my favorite sci-fi series. And this one’s another full novel to boot, like Network Effect, as opposed to a novella like the rest of the series.
Am I making it worse? I think I’m making it worse.
Everyone’s favorite lethal SecUnit is back.
Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonized planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there’s an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can’t have the planet, they’re sure as hell not leaving without something. If that something just happens to be an entire colony of humans, well, a free workforce is a decent runner-up prize.
But there’s something wrong with Murderbot; it isn’t running within normal operational parameters. ART’s crew and the humans from Preservation are doing everything they can to protect the colonists, but with Barish-Estranza’s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams, they’re going to have to hope Murderbot figures out what’s wrong with itself, and fast!
Yeah, this plan is… not going to work.
Are you a fan of The Murderbot Diaries? Do you like any of Martha Wells’ other works? What books are coming out that you’re looking forward to?
Thank you so much for reading and have an excellent day/night!
So, this post is a few days later than I’d planned, but once again, I was super busy this past week as well as ill. But I’m posting it today.
It’s quarter three of 2023 now, so it’s time to do that thing I’ve done every quarteragain. I’m gonna go over the books that are coming out over the next three months that interest me the most.
This time I have five. For real this time. I’m genuinely interested in five different books releasing (or re-releasing) this quarter.
Without further ado, let’s be off!
RELEASING: July 18th
NOTE:The physical copy has already been released, but the digital version hasn’t yet, so I’m listing it here on a technicality. 😆😅
Ours is a land of many gods, and we are a people with the ability to pick the worst of them.
Cahan du Nahare is known as the forester – a man who can navigate the dangerous Deepforest like no-one else. But once he was more. Once he belonged to the god of fire.
Udinny serves the goddess of the lost, a goddess of small things; when she ventures into the Deepforest to find a lost child, Cahan will be her guide. But in a land where territory is won and lost for uncaring gods, where temples of warrior monks pit one prophet against another – Cahan will need to choose the forest or the fire – and his choice will have consequences for his entire world.
Gods of the Wyrdwood is book one in an evocative new fantasy trilogy from RJ Barker, the British Fantasy Society Award-winning author of The Bone Ships and Age of Assassins.
RELEASING: August 8th
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six comes Masters of Death, a story about vampires, ghosts, and death itself.
*Now newly revised and edited with additional content, this hardcover edition will include new interior illustrations from Little Chmura and special illustrated endpapers from artist Polarts.*
There is a game that the immortals play.
There is only one rule: Don’t lose.
Viola Marek is a struggling real estate agent, and a vampire. But her biggest problem currently is that the house she needs to sell is haunted. The ghost haunting the mansion has been murdered, and until he can solve the mystery of how he died, he refuses to move on.
Fox D’Mora is a medium, and though he is also most-definitely a shameless fraud, he isn’t entirely without his uses―seeing as he’s actually the godson of Death.
When Viola seeks out Fox to help her with the ghost infestation, he becomes inextricably involved in a quest that neither he nor Vi expects (or wants). But with the help of an unruly poltergeist, a demonic personal trainer, a sharp-voiced angel, a love-stricken reaper, and a few mindfulness-practicing creatures, Vi and Fox soon discover the difference between a mysterious lost love and an annoying dead body isn’t nearly as distinct as they thought.
RELEASING: August 15th
From USA Today bestselling author T. Kingfisher, Thornhedge is the tale of a kind-hearted, toad-shaped heroine, a gentle knight, and a mission gone completely sideways.
There’s a princess trapped in a tower. This isn’t her story.
Meet Toadling. On the day of her birth, she was stolen from her family by the fairies, but she grew up safe and loved in the warm waters of faerieland. Once an adult though, the fae ask a favor of Toadling: return to the human world and offer a blessing of protection to a newborn child. Simple, right?
But nothing with fairies is ever simple.
Centuries later, a knight approaches a towering wall of brambles, where the thorns are as thick as your arm and as sharp as swords. He’s heard there’s a curse here that needs breaking, but it’s a curse Toadling will do anything to uphold…
RELEASING: September 5th
Before Martha Wells captured the hearts of MILLIONS with her Murderbot series, there was Khat, Sagai, and Elen, and a city risen out of death and decay…
The city of Charisat, a tiered monolith of the Ancients’ design, sits on the edge of the vast desert known as the Waste. Khat, a member of a humanoid race created by the Ancients to survive in the Waste, and Sagai, his human partner, are relic dealers working in the bottom tiers of society, trying to stay one step ahead of the Trade Inspectors.
When Khat is hired by the all-powerful Warders to find relics believed to be part of one of the Ancients’ arcane engines, he, and his party, begin unravelling the mysteries of an age-old technology.
This they expected.
They soon find themselves as the last line of defense between the suffering masses of Charisat and a fanatical cult, bent on unleashing an evil upon the city with an undying thirst for bone.
RELEASING: September 19th
A wild girl with sand magic in her bones and a mad god who is trying to fix the world he broke come together in SANDYMANCER, a genre-warping mashup of weird fantasy and hard science fiction.
All Caralee Vinnet has ever known is dust. Her whole world is made up of the stuff; water is the most precious thing in the cosmos. A privileged few control what elements remain. But the world was not always a dust bowl and the green is not all lost.
Caralee has a secret―she has magic in her bones and can draw up power from the sand beneath her feet to do her bidding. But when she does she winds up summoning a monster: the former god-king who broke the world 800 years ago and has stolen the body of her best friend.
Caralee will risk the whole world to take back what she’s lost. If her new companion doesn’t kill her first.
As always, thank you for reading, and have a wonderful day/night!
