It’s once again another month, which means it’s time for another wrap-up! This is a few days later than I had wanted – I’d originally wanted to get this out last weekend. Buuut… I was out of town, you know? Anyway, this monthly wrap-up regarding my reading for April 2024 features my reading stats from The StoryGraph, as per usual.
My reading has been much better than the previous few months – even March. I read 6 books! Which is such a big improvement compared to one or two or none at all. So yeah, I’m kind of satisfied with my reading last month.
Anyway, let’s get on with the reading wrap-up!
April Reading 2024
I read 6 books and 2,658 pages
😐 MOODS: The reading Moods were varied this past month. Adventurous was of course the biggest chunk of the pie in April, but Lighthearted, Mysterious and Dark were also pretty big slices. Tense and Funny were the smallest parts though.
👢 PACE: My books from last month were all three kinds of paces: fast, medium and slow.
🔢 PAGE NUMBER: I read a lot of books with different page numbers. But everything I read was between 100 and 650 pages.
📖 FICTION/NONFICTION: It was once again all fiction this month.
🎭 GENRES: So many Genres in April. Of course, Fantasy was the biggest one – it was the only Genre that was applied to every book I read. Manga surprised me at being the second biggest one, though I probably shouldn’t have been. The third biggest Genre was Young Adult, and then the rest of them were all applicable to one book each and were therefore the smallest lines.
📄 FORMAT: This little StoryGraph pie chart is almost correct for April. I only read one ebook though.
⭐ RATING: My median star rating for last month was 3.42. The ratings I gave were between 2.25 stars and 4.25 stars, with two of the ratings being 4.0 stars.
📉 PAGES READ DAILY: I didn’t read as much as I’d have liked during the first week or so of April, but I really started reading after that. My highest reading peak was during the 9th thru the 16th, but I had little reading spikes after that for the rest of the month.
So yeah, I improved my reading stats for April! Just like I had intended to do. I’m hoping I read even more this month, and the months that are coming up the rest of 2024 too.
May has a couple of books releasing that I’m interested in, but I still have a couple new releases from April that I haven’t read yet that I still might check out as well. My spouse and I are still making our way through One Piece, and are planning on reading the next arc this month too. I’m so glad we started reading it again – it’s a fun and easy read and it got me out of my slump! Though… I’ve had a bit of a mini-slump happening for the past few days, but I’m chalking that up to reading two 2.5 star novels in a row plus the going out of town thing last weekend.
So yeah, thank you to everyone for reading, and I hope you have an awesome day/night!
In the middle of a collection of cornfields, in the middle of the country, in the middle of nowhere, a weathered wooden post marked the intersection of two roads:
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.
My Review
“Have you fallen asleep?” Knox whispered.
Ellery smothered an unhinged laugh. “No. I’m thinking.” “About?”
“You need a tether.”
“I do.”
“A bargain.”
“Yes.”
“To keep the shades from dragging you back.”
“That would be ideal, yes.”
“And I need information. I need this winter to end.” Knox sat up straight. “What are you suggesting?”
Ellery licked their dry lips. “I suggest we make a deal.”
So far, this is the best F.T. Lukens novel I’ve read yet. It brings all the best parts of their previous three novels together – the snappy dialogue, the found family, the creative fantasy elements – yeah pretty much all the best parts!
Otherworldly is another duel POV book, similar to last year’s Spell Bound, but this time it’s in third person. It follows Ellery Evans, a snarky human teenager, and Knox, a supernatural being from the Other World. And I think their Lukens’ best written POVs yet – I was more invested in the resolution of these two’s story than any of the other three books.
I also really liked the side characters here, just like in So This is Ever After. Ellery’s cousin Charley was my favorite character in the novel – she was just so ridiculous and completely unhinged! And her girlfriend Zada was simultaneously an excellent foil for her, but also Charley’s biggest enabler and I loved it. And them as a couple. (Which is something I’m starting to notice with these F.T. Lukens novels – I’m waaayy more interested in the side romances the whatever reason.)
The magic and mythology and worldbuilding was also one of my favorite things about this novel. I love how incredibly intertwined the magic system and the world were with one another. And I called it all being Greek mythology inspired super early on (as the goddess that Knox serves is basically a combination of Hades and Demeter, and the other two “major gods” are of the sea and sky, so I think that speaks for itself). It was really satisfying to see that I was definitely right by the end of the book with a certain character’s “special journey.” (*cough*Orpheus&Eurydice*cough*)
I will say that there were a few things that I thought were a bit lacking. Ellery jumps into danger far too often here, and I never felt like we got a satisfying explanation as to why. Sure, characters are constantly harping on about how Ellery works too hard in trying to make their family and friends happy, but there is a difference between that and putting themself in deadly danger to save a complete stranger. And this is something the novel doesn’t seem to understand.
I also thought that Knox and Arabelle didn’t get enough moments together before Arabelle (who it was clear was going to get fridged from the get-go) kicked the bucket. Knox is extremely emotional about her passing, but I had trouble believing it because they have two scenes together. The first is when they meet at the very beginning of the book, and the second is when they finish making the McGuffin together and she gets offed. It would have been nice to have at least one scene where we are shown Knox and Arabelle’s relationship in between this, instead of reading Knox’s internal monologue after the fact.
But those are pretty much my only major gripes with Otherworldly. Like I said, it’s F.T. Lukens’ best novel yet.
I definitely recommend this to fans of Lukens’ previous works, as well as fans of YA fantasy in general. It’s a fun story, and a quick read, so I encourage anyone interested to at least give it a try.
As always, thank you to everyone so much for reading, and I hope that you all have a fantastic day/night!
See ya ~Mar
Some of My Favorite Quotes Out of Context
“Have you asked them yet?” Zada said, tapping her fingernails on the laminate.
Charley shook her head. “Not yet.”
“Whatever it is,” Ellery said, removing Charley’s grip from their wrist, “the answer is no.”
“The dishwasher.”
“Hot weird guy?”
“What?”
“What–“
“I love the way you think, my darling dearest. Your brain is as sexy as your body.”
“Babe,” Zada said, drawing out the vowel, “not in front of the kid.” Ellery frowned. “I’m seventeen.”
“You’re right. Their poor innocent ears cannot handle the depth of our love and longing for each other.”
“I’m literally only four years younger than Zada.”
“Four significant years, El.”
“I’m not human,” he said. “Well, I may be more human now than normal because of the missing magic.” He waved his hand lazily. “But in my limited experience, I think you can feel unhappy about your situation and still acknowledge the challenges others have. It’s not one or the other.”
“I hope this isn’t too frightening,” Knox said with a grin. “I don’t know if I can handle it.”
“We’ve seen worse. I think we’ll be fine.”
“Maybe,” he said, catching Ellery’s hand in his. “As long as you’re brain. here, I’m sure I’ll be okay.”
“Didn’t you have enough rowdy adventures at the ice hockey game? There was blood.”
Knox blinked. “Is there blood at frat parties?”
“Only the good ones,” Charley said, wistfully.
“You need help.” Ellery said, deadpan.
He wanted to remember.
But he was not created to do so.
“Not that I’m complaining,” Charley said, twirling A pencil through the red strands of the ponytail she’d gathered to keep it out of her flushed and freckled face. “Because it’s great that the spring or summer or whatever we’re in has returned. But it’s so hot in this kitchen, I could die.”
She fanned herself with her hand.
“You’re literally complaining.”
“This must be it,” Charley said, leaning over both Lorelei and Hale to look out of the window.
“Did the warning sign give it away?” Hale snapped. “Or was it the literal magic radiating from that spot?”
Happy Monday (and April Fools Day) everybody! I’m super early with this post this time. It’s April 1st – you don’t get any earlier in the month than that! So yeah, second quarter SFF releases let’s gooooo!
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. And they’re pretty much only gonna be science fiction and fantasy. Because that’s mostly what I read.
Anyway, this time I have a list of eight books that I’m interested in. Eight. Never have I had a number so high on one of these. (…I think.) But yeah, you know the drill; I’m only interested in these books – there’s no guarantee that I’m gonna read all of them. We’ll see.
RELEASING: April 2nd
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.
RELEASING: April 2nd
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.
RELEASING: April 2nd
The Shadowhunter Chronicles meets Chinese diaspora folklore in Darker by Four, the first in an epic contemporary fantasy duology from Jade Fire Gold author June Tan.
A vengeful girl. A hollow boy. A missing god.
Rui has one goal in mind—honing her magic to avenge her mother’s death.
Yiran is the black sheep of an illustrious family. The world would be at his feet—had he been born with magic.
Nikai is a Reaper, serving the Fourth King of Hell. When his master disappears, the underworld begins to crumble…and the human world will be next if the King is not found.
When an accident causes Rui’s power to transfer to Yiran, everything turns upside down. Without her magic, Rui has no tool for vengeance. With it, Yiran finally feels like he belongs. That is, until Rui discovers she might hold the key to the missing death god and strikes a dangerous bargain with another King.
As darkness takes over, three paths intersect in the shadows. And three lives bound by fate must rise against destiny before the barrier between worlds falls and all Hell breaks loose—literally.
Perfect for fans of This Savage Song and Only a Monster, Darker by Four will pull readers into a world of love and desperation and revenge—a world where every deal has a catch, no secret stays buried, and no one is exactly who they say they are.
RELEASING: April 16th
She has power over death. He has power over her. When two enemies strike a dangerous bargain, will they end a war… or ignite one?
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?
RELEASING: April 30th
When her best friend is sacrificed to the devil, she’ll go to hell and back for him.
Plain, poor, plus-size, and autistic, Alesta grew up trying to convince her beauty-obsessed kingdom that she’s too useful to be sacrificed. Their god blessed their island Soladisa as a haven for his followers, but to keep the devil at bay, the church sends a child sacrifice to hell’s entrance every season―often poor or plain girls just like Alesta.
With a head full of ideas for inventions, Alesta knows her best shot at making it to adulthood is to design something impressive for the festival exhibition so she might win a spot in the university―acceptance could guarantee her safety. But Alesta’s flying machine demonstration goes awry, a failure that will surely mean death. What happens is worse: Her best friend and heir to the throne, Kyrian, takes the blame expecting leniency but ends up sacrificed in her place.
To stop the sacrifices forever, Alesta plans to kill the monster that killed her friend. Prepared to save her kingdom or die trying, she travels to the depths of hell only to find Kyrian―alive, but monstrously transformed.
There is no escaping hell or their growing feelings for one another, and the deeper they descend into hell, the closer they come to uncovering a truth about the sacrifices that threatens to invoke the wrath of not only monsters but the gods as well.
RELEASING: May 7th
In a country divided between humans and witchers, Venus Stoneheart hustles as a brewer making illegal love potions to support her family.
Love potions is a dangerous business. Brewing has painful, debilitating side effects, and getting caught means death or a prison sentence. But what Venus is most afraid of is the dark, sentient magic within her.
Then an enemy’s iron bullet kills her mother, Venus’s life implodes. Keeping her reckless little sister Janus safe is now her responsibility. When the powerful Grand Witcher, the ruthless head of her coven, offers Venus the chance to punish her mother’s killer, she has to pay a steep price for revenge. The cost? Brew poisonous potions to enslave D.C.’s most influential politicians.
As Venus crawls deeper into the corrupt underbelly of her city, the line between magic and power blurs, and it’s hard to tell who to trust… Herself included.
The Poisons We Drink is a potent YA debut about a world where love potions are weaponized against hate and prejudice, sisterhood is unbreakable, and self-love is life and death.
RELEASING: June 4th
In this queer reimagining of an Arthurian legend, Knights of the Round Table Lancelot and Tristan set out on a quest to find the missing magician Merlin but instead discover an unexpected romance perfect for fans of The Prince and the Dressmaker and Squire.
When Merlin goes missing and Camelot falls under attack, King Arthur sends his estranged half-sister, Morgan le Fay, and esteemed Knights of the Round Table, Tristan and Lancelot, to find him. As the reluctant trio travels through Albion saving towns from treacherous foes and battling fae, their bonds deepen, and sparks fly between the two knights. Before they can sort through their complicated feelings, an unexpected dark force appears, bringing what just might be the end of Camelot.
From debut author James Persichetti and new talent L.S. Biehler, Tristan and Lancelot: A Tale of Two Knights will sweep readers away with an epic quest and a love story for the ages.
RELEASING: June 18th
Mulan meets Iron Widow in this thrilling silkpunk fantasy about a girl who must disguise herself as a boy and enter the famed and dangerous Engineer’s Guild trials to unravel the mystery of her father’s murder.
Eighteen-year-old Aihui Ying dreams of becoming a world-class engineer like her father, but after his sudden murder, her life falls apart. Left with only a journal of her father’s engineering secrets and a jade pendant snatched from the assassin, a heartbroken Ying follows the trail to the capital and the prestigious Engineers Guild—a place that harbors her father’s hidden past—determined to discover why anyone would threaten a man who ultimately chose a quiet life over fame and fortune.
Disguised as her brother, Ying manages to infiltrate the guild’s male-only apprenticeship trial with the help of an unlikely ally—Aogiya Ye-yang, the taciturn eighth prince of the High Command. With her father’s renown placing a target firmly on her back, Ying must stay one step ahead of her fellow competitors, the jealous guild masters, and the killer still hunting for her father’s journal. Complicating everything is her increasingly tangled relationship with the prince, who may have mysterious plans of his own.
The secrets concealed within the guild can be as deadly as the weapons they build—and with her life and the future of her homeland at stake, Ying doesn’t know who to trust. Can she avenge her father even if it means going against everything he stood for, or will she be next in the mastermind’s line of fire?
So yeah, these are all of the books coming out in the next three months that I’m interested in possibly reading. What books are coming out soon that you’re looking forward to? Do we share some of the same ones?
Thank you all so much for reading, and I hope you have an amazing day/night! I also hope that everyone who celebrates had a great Easter yesterday – and here’s a late Happy Easter!! 🐇🐥🥚🧺
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!
