So last week was, uh… Yeah, it wasn’t the best. I didn’t read or post as much as I’d have liked. So this wrap-up is gonna be one of the shorter ones.
Anyway the Weekly Wrap-Up is a bit late again, as you can see. I dunno what was up with me last week. At the very least, I had planned to get one more post out (the April Reading Wrap-Up), but that didn’t end up panning out. And I read a lot last week, but I didn’t read any novels. Ugh. I’m so annoyed with myself.
Anyway, I’ll shut up now. Without further ado, let’s get on with the weekly wrap-up!
Tuesday 4/29: Top Ten Tuesday
Last Tuesday, I participated in a Top Ten Tuesday for the first time in a few 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. The prompt for last week was Books With “[Insert Word Here]” in the Title.
Saturday 5/3: The Ascendance Series Books 1, 2 & 3 Review
On Saturday, I finally, finally, posted my review for the first three books in the Ascendance Series. This review was really hard for me get out for whatever reason, and is probably the reason why my activity on the blog took a dive last week. Because I had trouble getting into the writing of it.
As a whole, I thought that what I read of the series was pretty decent. I found it to be a decently written middle grade fantasy-adventure trilogy of books (and it was originally a trilogy, before the author went back and wrote a couple more books for it several years after it was first published). I have the three books altogether ★★★✯☆.
So yeah, my productivity concerning the blog as well as reading books was pretty shot last week. I’m really hoping to do better this week.
Regarding the coming week, for the blog I want to publish my April Reading Wrap-Up for 2025, and I definitely want to get out my list of most interesting new book releases for May 2025, the latter as soon as possible. I’m also hoping to do at least one of my other weekly posts, as well as a book review.
For books and reading, I have a book that I’m borrowing from my mother-in-law to read – Impossible Creatures – and I have to read that like right now. Cuz there’s kind of a waiting list in the family (my spouse wants to read it after me, and then my sister-in-law and my father-in-law), and I don’t want to hold it up. Then I’ll finally read The Ashfire King – I would’ve been reading it already if not for the family waiting list for the other book.
For the stuff outside the blog and reading, nothing else is really going on except for my diet. Which has been going on for almost a month now, which I’m happy about. Oh! My sibling did get a house a few weeks ago and is closing on it this week. So that’s cool.
Anyway, I’ve talked more than enough here. As always thank you for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day/night!
BOOKS:The False Prince, The Runaway King, The Shadow Throne
COLLECTIVE LENGTH: 1055 pages
GENRES: Fantasy, Middle Grade, Fiction
PUBLISHER: Scholastic Press
RELEASE DATES: 1 April 2012 – 25 February 2014
DESCRIPTION ON BOOK #1:
New York Times bestseller The False Prince thrills with wild twists and turns, danger and deceit, and the revelation of hidden identities that will have readers rushing breathlessly to the end.
In a discontented kingdom, civil war is brewing. To unify the divided people, Conner, a nobleman of the court, devises a cunning plan to find an impersonator of the king’s long-lost son and install him as a puppet prince. Four orphans are recruited to compete for the role, including a defiant boy named Sage. Sage knows that Conner’s motives are more than questionable, yet his life balances on a sword’s point — he must be chosen to play the prince or he will certainly be killed. But Sage’s rivals have their own agendas as well.
As Sage moves from a rundown orphanage to Conner’s sumptuous palace, layer upon layer of treachery and deceit unfold, until finally, a truth is revealed that, in the end, may very well prove more dangerous than all of the lies taken together.
My Review
“Don’t make this a fight.”
“I won’t, but you make everything a fight.”
The Shadow Throne
I’m finally posting this book series review. Yay! Getting this review written took so long. I dunno what it was about it, I just had a bunch of trouble getting myself together and sitting down to get this review done. But I’ve finally done it, so here it is!
Anyway.
I first read part of The Ascendance Series several years ago, back when it was still The Ascendance Trilogy. Back then, I read the first two books and the first few chapters of the third. And then I stopped reading for some reason; I’m not actually fully sure of the reason why at this point anymore.
But about a month ago, I found out there were new books in this series and felt the urge to go back and finish at least the first three books. So I did that. And now I’m reviewing the original trilogy of this series as one whole review. I’m also really considering reading the last two books in this series sometime as well, maybe even later this year (I just wanted to take a break after book three and stuff – I was getting slightly burnt out on this series). Anyway, without further ado, here’s the review for The Ascendance Series Books one, two and three!
The Characters
“Have you come here to kill me?” I asked. “Because I’ll scream when you do and it’ll wake up the princess and probably a whole lot of other people and you’ll get into trouble.”
“You’ll be dead.”
“Yes, but you’ll be in trouble.
The False Prince
The characters in the Ascendance Series were okay. There were really only a few standouts, and only what I’d consider to be a couple really strongly written members of the cast; but I’ve also long conceded that this is also a middle grade series of books, so there was never gonna be anything like that anyway.
Let’s discuss the characters a little bit…
Sage 🧩 is the main character, throughout the entire series. He starts going by another name after the first book, but I’m not gonna tualk about it here ’cause it’s a spoiler. Anyway, he kind of irritated at first, but he really grew on me as the story went on, though. He really starts to shine as a character in book two. Sage is a sassy teenager with a strong heart. Though he did continue to do something in all of the books that continued to irritate me throughout my time reading trilogy – however I will say that this is more of an issue with the writing than Sage himself. (We’ll get to this specific issue in a bit.)
He starts to show his true colors as the novels go on, and even from early on it’s established that he’s brave and determined and highly intelligent, and he’ll do anything for those he cares about. This is when he started to be more compelling for me to follow as I read the books. Anyway, I think kids will really enjoy following him – and I actually did start to enjoy his personality and character more in the second book.
Sage’s friends Tobias 📚 and Roden 🗡️ are also pretty important. They don’t have a lot to them though, and I didn’t find myself interested in either of them really. I also didn’t really understand why they bonded and became friends, as everyone is constantly flip-flopping on everything in book one when they first meet and do the bulk of their interactions with one another. Out of the two, I guess that Roden is the more compelling character, however. I really wish we got to see more of their characterizations.
Bevin Conner 💰 is the one who sets the events of the series in motion and he’s definitely one of the more interesting characters here. Even though I kind of had him and his allegiances figured out pretty early on, I’m an adult reading middle grade, and I think younger readers will be questioning his motives throughout the trilogy. His servant Mott 🛡️ is a bit less interesting, but I still liked him and the familial bond he and Sage started to forge. Mott is also the most rational character in the series, and it was always refreshing when he’d interject his perspective on things.
And yes, there are also female characters in this series, although only two of them matter. Imogen 💞 is the first of these, and unfortunately her only purpose is to be a motivation for Sage. She doesn’t get that much page time, and I couldn’t take her and Sage’s budding romance seriously at all throughout any of the three books. I’ll get into it more in a bit, in another section. Anyway, the other relevant female character is Amarinda ✨ , who I liked a lot more than Imogen and thought was far more interesting, even though neither of them had that much of a personality aside from being kind and brave. I felt like Amarinda had a bit more to her character, though – probably because she wasn’t stuck in Middle-Grade Protagonist Love Interest Hell like Imogen was.
The Story
What’s the point of gaining peace if it costs us our freedom? I won’t trade the one for the other.
The Runaway King
I think that the plot – especially for the first book – is pretty intriguing and will draw people in, as it did me like seven years ago when I first read part of this trilogy. The False Prince 👑🔷 has a very compelling premise and the way the writing is keeps readers pretty engaged. Even if you know the big twist ahead of time, there are still little nuggets carefully placed throughout the novel that hint at it and make a reread interesting, too.
My favorite of the first three books of The Ascendance Series was The Runaway King. ⚔️💚 I don’t really know why, I guess because I already knew the big twist of book one ’cause I’d read it years before (though I figured it out almost immediately when I read The False Prince the first time as well). I also preferred Sage’s character during the second novel – he was far less of an annoying brat, though he definitely still had his moments that really irritated me.
The Shadow Throne 🗝️🔴 is also pretty good, and works well as the second half of the story set up in The Runaway King as well as an engaging climax. Almost all of the loose ends in the trilogy were also all tied up by the end – there were basically no hanging threads left over – which is always really nice to see. I love it when series do that.
The Romance
Villains and plots and enemies are simple things to me. But friendships are complicated, and love is harder still. It has wounded me deep.
The Shadow Throne
Even though it wasn’t a big focus in this series – the adventure was the main thing here – I still gotta talk about the romance. Because I don’t think any it was really that great.
There were two couples that have focus so far in the first part of The Ascendance Series, but one doesn’t really happen until the third novel, so I’m not really gonna talk about that one. That’s not the one I’m really annoyed with either, as it’s more of a side pairing and both of the characters in this relationship get equal screentime. No, the romantic relationship I’m talking about is the main one, between Sage and Imogen.
I don’t like this romance. For one thing, Imogen is barely a character, and for another, her and Sage only have like one or two interactions before they’re suddenly extremely protective and interested in one another. And this felt really weird to read, both times I went through the books. Not to mention, particularly in The False Prince and parts of The Runaway King, Sage makes Imogen uncomfortable quite a few times and that kind of made me uncomfortable to read.
I want to stress that he wasn’t being weird or anything – he was being pretty kind actually! – it just seemed like he overwhelmed her and would pile a lot of changes on her shoulders. Their relationship definitely moved too fast for two barely fifteen year-olds, though. Not to mention, Imogen didn’t really show up that often in any of the books, which didn’t help their relationship feel like it was evolving. So yeah, their romance basically never felt like it got any development, really. I do understand and acknowledge that this is a middle grade fantasy-adventure series that is likely primarily targeted towards boys, and that I’m definitely not the audience intended for these books though, so it doesn’t bother me that much.
The Writing
Nobody gives you respect in this life. You must take it, you must earn it, and then you must hold it sacred, because no matter how hard respect is to attain, it can be lost in an instant.
The Shadow Throne
I think that the actual prose itself in The Ascendance Series – as well as the dialogue – was pretty good. I felt that it was great for middle grade novels. Nielsen is a pretty good writer, and her writing really starts to shine in the second and third books.
I don’t like the way that the author has Sage narrate the books, however. Yes, I understand that Sage is meant to be an unreliable narrator… in the first book. And the way that he’s an unreliable narrator bothers me the same way that Gen is an unreliable narrator from Megan Whalen Turner’s The Thief – I’m not gonna say how because that would spoil the twist of both novels. But anyway, I don’t think that Sage should still be as unreliable (but in a different way) as he is in the subsequent two books that I read.
In books two and three, Sage is unreliable in the same way that I’ve heard Bryce Quinlan from the Crescent City novels is unreliable: they both do stuff off screen. Yeah, Sage basically always makes plans without telling the reader what he’s doing and then it almost always comes together in the end. And I hate that, when characters are written like this, because I think it’s a way that authors use when they’re trying to make their characters seem smart and clever, but they either aren’t skilled enough to do this in a better way and/or are lazy. So yeah, I’m not fond of this at all, and it’s the main thing that annoys me about Sage in the second and third novels.
Final Thoughts
With introductions out of the way, Erick got down to the business of having abducted me.
“Why were you asking Fink about the priest?”
“I have some sins to confess,” I said. “For ruining the life of the last man to kidnap me.
The Runaway King
All in all, I think that The Ascendance Series is a pretty solid middle grade fantasy series. Again, as I mentioned earlier, I’m definitely not the target audience for this series, but I was able to get some enjoyment out of it as an adult.And though there were some writing decisions that bothered me, they probably won’t bother middle schoolers – heck, they likely won’t even notice them! I think that kids in the intended age group will really enjoy it, actually.
And though there were some writing decisions that bothered me, they probably won’t bother middle schoolers – heck, they likely won’t even notice them! I think that kids in the intended age group will really enjoy it, actually.
Anyway, with everything in mind, my star rating for this series as a whole is:
Anyway, as always, thank you so much for reading, and I hope you have an amazing day/night!
See ya ~Mar
My Star Ratings for Each Book
Some Other Quotes I Enjoyed That Have Spoilers (for the First Book)
“From all I’m told, the prince they sent away was selfish, mischievous, and destructive. The king who returns is courageous, noble, and strong.”
“And a fool,” I added.
Mott chuckled. “You are that too.”
The False Prince
“You should thank me for tolerating you. I had hoped that becoming a royal would cure your foul manners.”
“That’s interesting. My father hoped that stripping me of royalty would do the same thing.”
The Runaway King
“It’s your storm, and the future of us all depends on you now. So who are you? Sage, an orphan boy who cares only for himself? Or the undisciplined, rebellious prince your father sent away? Life has tested your resilience and strength and willpower, and you have succeeded in ways nobody ever thought possible. But the storm has never been worse, and it will either destroy you, or define you. When everything is taken from you, can you still stand before us as Jaron, the Ascendant King of Carthya?”
Yes! I finally posted a Weekly Wrap-Up on time again! Woohoo!
Last week my blog activity wasn’t too bad. I’m pretty happy about it honestly, even though it was only three posts and I didn’t do a book review. I didn’t really read any books though, and I’d really like to post another book review (it’s been almost four weeks!), so those are my main goals for the coming week.
Anyway, I’ll shut up now. Without further ado, let’s get on with the weekly wrap-up!
Wednesday 4/23: Can’t-Wait Wednesday
Last Wednesday, I did another Can’t-Wait Wednesday for the first time in a couple of weeks. There’s been a lot of new books coming out lately that I’ve been interested in.
Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme currently hosted by Tressa @ Wishful Endings. It focuses on books you’re looking forward to reading, usually new releases.
Last Friday, I participated in First Line Fridays again – two weeks in a row for the first time in a while. First Line Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers (formerly) hosted by Wandering Words.
Yesterday, I posted another Bewitching Book Covers for the first time in a while – I think it’s been almost two months, haha. Bewitching Book Covers (formerly known as Majestic Mondays and Tasteful Tuesdays), is when I gush over a book cover that I like as well as analyze it (sometimes).
So yeah, even though I didn’t get to posting that book review that I really wanted to finally get to or read any books really, I’m still happy with my blog activity from last week. Yeah, I would have rather been able to do four blog posts (and have one of those be a review), but I’m still content with at least doing three.
As for this coming week, I have two main goals. Firstly, to finally finish that freaking review for the first three books in Jennifer A. Nielsen’s Ascendance series and post it. And secondly, to start and finish a new novel (specifically The Ashfire King by Chelsea Abdullah). My smaller goals for the week are just to do some of my usual weekly blog posts.
Concerning stuff outside the blog… I don’t really have anything going on. I’m still continuing with my diet, but that’s really about it, honestly. I don’t really have anything to really bring up.
Anyway, I’ve talked more than enough here. As always thank you for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day/night!
Hey all, happy Wednesday! It’s been a couple of weeks since I last participated in this post. But I’m here again with another new release 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.
This week’s book is:
The Floating World by Axie Oh!! 🗡️✨
I really liked The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea when I first read it – when it came out, in early 2023. This novel is by the same author and it also looks interesting, so I’m intrigued. It also looks like it’s the start of a series as well!
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…
Are you looking forward to the release of The Floating World? What other books are coming out in the next few weeks that you’re looking forward to?
As always, thank you all so much for reading and have a fantastic day/night!
The first in a new epic fantasy series from David R. Slayton, Dark Moon, Shallow Sea is a powerful story of divine betrayal, ghosts, and self-discovery, perfect for fans of the Dark Souls series or Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson.
When Phoebe, goddess of the moon, is killed by the knights of the sun god, Hyperion, all who follow her are branded heretics. With Phoebe gone, the souls of the dead are no longer ferried to the underworld, and instead linger on as shades who feast on the blood of the living.
Raef is a child of the night. He lives in the shadows, on scraps, eking out a meager existence as a thief. But when an ornate box is sequestered in the Temple of Hyperion, the chance of a big score proves too great to resist. What he finds within propels him on an odyssey across the sea and back again, altering the course of his life forever.
Seth is a knight of the sun. But unlike the others of his order, the fire of Hyperion only brings him pain. He believes he deserves this penance, exacted for his unknown origins. Tasked with recovering the contents of the box, Seth must also venture beyond the horizon if he’s to learn the truth about himself.
In a dying world divided by the greed of those in power, Raef and Seth find their destinies intertwined–and learn they might have more in common than they ever imagined.
My Review
Dark draws dark as light draws light, but only one may cast the other out.
So… Clearly Dragonfall didn’t work out for me. Haha. Moving on.
Dark Moon, Shallow Sea has been on my TBR for a while. Like, over a year type of a while. I gave rsr discovered it in November of 2023. I almost read it then too, but decided to read one of the author’s earlier works first, to try to get a feel for the writing style and see if I liked it. And… I did. White Trash Warlock was generally a pretty enjoyable reading experience for me. There were a couple of things that I was kind of “meh” on, but it was a positive experience for the most part.
So when my Kindle told me that Dark Moon, Shallow Sea was on sale about a month and a half ago, I finally grabbed it. And then near the end of last week, I finally got around to starting reading it. And it was perfectly… okay.
Let’s get into it.
Characters and Plot
They’d circled each other for so long. The gods had to have a hand in it, that the two of them, probably the last of their breed, should meet over and over. They’d danced like the moon and sun, like their gods, like night and day.
Our two mains are 🌙 Raef 🗡️ , a former future acolyte to the Moon Goddess Phoebe turned thief, and ☀️ Seth 🔥 , a warrior to the Sun God Hyperion with a lot of issues with his fire powers. They’re also the characters whose point of view we follow throughout the novel. I enjoyed their characters well enough – I really liked how kind Raef was despite all his circumstances and trauma, as well as how soft and awkward Seth was despite everything in his past.
The other major character here was Kinos, whom I hated since and was immediately suspicious of the second he started talking. So the thing later on with him didn’t surprise me too much – I actually figured it out a couple of chapters before it happened – nor did I feel upset whatsoever by what he did. I hated this guy – at the very least, he was annoying.
I also enjoyed Raef’s and Seth’s relationships with the parental figures in their lives. Raef’s relationship with the old lady he lived with – Eleni – was great. I love how they were both snartasses to each other. It felt really genuine. Raef’s past relationship with his teachers when he was still a ward of the tower he grew up in was also wonderful, as well as heart wrenching later on in the story. I loved Seth’s father-son relationship with Father Geldar as well – it was so sweet.
The 📖 plot 📖 itself was pretty engaging and interesting. I always enjoy a good light vs. dark / sun vs. moon motif in stuff; it’s the contrast, I think. Also, the last quarter of the book felt a little rushed with everything that was going on, but it still worked fine.
Romance and World Building
“I, uh-like your mask,” Seth said nervously. It disarmed Raef a little, despite his mounting panic. How could it not? Seth wasn’t trying to burn him. He was trying to what, flirt?
“Thank you,” Raef said. “I like your, uh, helmet.”
I didn’t like the 💘 romance 💘 here. Honestly, I think I just don’t like the way that Slayton writes his romantic relationships, because that was what I felt was one of the weakest aspects about White Trash Warlock as well. They always move way too fast for me.
In this book, I actually didn’t mind at first because I knew the first romance initially introduced wasn’t going to be the endgame relationship. But then the second relationship took forever to get going and then there wasn’t really any time spent on it besides the he fact that the two characters were drawn to each other, and then they pretty much felt like they got together offscreen at the end of the book. Ugh. It was very frustrating to read, especially because I thought that Raef and Seth were especially cute together and had a lot of potential as a couple.
The 🗺️ world building 🗺️ and ✨ magic system ✨ was interesting, but I was having a little trouble determining what the setting was supposed to be emulating. Like, there was clearly a lot of inspiration taken from Greek myths – particularly in some of the names – but the world itself didn’t feel like it was a fantasy land based on Greece itself. The relationships between some of the gods, as well as many of the names of the gods and what they were the god of, were also vague and generally undefined.
Final Thoughts
A lifetime ago, the Knights of Hyperion had been his cousins, worshippers of his goddess’s brother. No one would have batted an eye to see them friends or even more.
All in all, Dark Moon, Shallow Sea was a pretty decent book, even though I think it could have done with a bit more polish. I also didn’t think the book really felt like the games in the Dark Souls series either. Like, I guess because the dead couldn’t move on properly and some of the stuff surrounding that? It didn’t really have the same vibe though, if you get my meaning. Anyway, I guess readers who like high fantasy, really fast romance and LGBT+ rep might enjoy this novel.
As always, thank you so much for reading, and I hope you have an amazing day/night!
Ugh, late again with this one. Oh well. Anyway, hi everyone!
So I’m mostly happy with everything I did last week. I would’ve liked to do one more blog post, and I almost did before I lost track of time on Thursday and Friday last week. I also would’ve liked to have read more books, but well… I’ll explain that a little later.
Anyway, I’ll shut up now. Without further ado, let’s get on with the weekly wrap-up!
Monday 3/17: St. Patrick’s Day / The River Has Roots Review
Last Monday was St. Patrick’s Day!! ☘️🍻🍀🪙 Yay! We didn’t really do anything to celebrate, though. Except eat some St. Pat’s themed donuts, I guess.
I also posted my review for The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar. It’s a new fantasy novella that came out a couple weeks ago. I ended up giving it ★★★✯☆.
On Tuesday, I participated in a Top Ten Tuesday for the first time in a few 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. The prompt for last week was Spring TBR.
Last Friday was the First Day of Spring!! 🌸🌱🌼🌿 Woohoo! Goodbye winter! I was kind of getting tired of the cold – not to mention March has been really nice so far where I live.
I was also planning on posting something on this day as well, but the time got away during part of last week. I’m a little disappointed about that, but it’s honestly fine.
Saturday 3/22: Birthstone Book Covers
On Saturday, I finally got around to joining in on my favorite Monthly post, Birthstone Book Covers. Birthstone Book Covers is a fun little post created and hosted by Leslie @ Books Are the New Black.
Each month, for the post, you feature book covers that are either the same color of the month’s birthstone or include the color in the title. This month was March, and its birthstone is aquamarine. So the colors are aquamarine and light blue.
So yeah, I’m a bit disappointed with my posting for last week. But only a little – I’m actually pretty okay with the stuff I was able to do on the blog overall. Novel reading on the other hand… yeah that definitely could’ve gone way better. And it already is for this week! I’m making my way through another book, finally!
I’m hoping to at least start another book before the end of the week as well. Not necessarily finish another book, just start one. I’m also hoping to do four blog posts this week in addition to this weekly wrap-up. Fingers crossed.
Also, regarding the reading thing from last week… I was actually stressing myself out a little with trying to finish The Dragon Heir. I just didn’t feel like reading that book and trying to force it was getting me all anxious. I guess it’s still not time for me to read it – at this point, I’m not sure when that time is gonna come. Oh well. A similar thing also sort of happened with The Shattered Realms. I just didn’t want to read that major character death again (I actually DNF-ed Flamecaster about nine years ago, about halfway through). I also know that there’s like eight POVs by the last book in this series and that there’s several loose ends… and I don’t think I’m up for that, honestly. So yeah, that’s why I didn’t read anything last week.
Last week I also did some spring cleaning. The third Wednesday of the month is usually Cleaning Day, and that was also the case with March, so that’s what went on. It was pretty productive this time as well – I cleared out a couple of things I’d been meaning to get to, as well.
For this coming week, I’m planning on finishing the book I’m currently reading – Dragonfall by R.L. Lam – unless I decide it’s not for me and DNF it (though I don’t anticipate that happening). I’m hoping to at least start another book after that as well; right now I’m thinking either The Keeper of Lonely Spirits by E.M. Anderson or A Crown of Ivy and Glass by Claire Legrand. We’ll see what happens.
Anyway, I’ve talked more than enough here. As always thank you for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day/night!
The River Has Roots is the hugely anticipated solo debut of the New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award winning author Amal El-Mohtar. Follow the river Liss to the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, and meet two sisters who cannot be separated, even in death.
The hardcover edition features beautiful interior illustrations.
“Oh what is stronger than a death? Two sisters singing with one breath.”
In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family.
There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic. None more devotedly than the family’s latest daughters, Esther and Ysabel, who cherish each other as much as they cherish the ancient trees.
But when Esther rejects a forceful suitor in favor of a lover from the land of Faerie, not only the sisters’ bond but also their lives will be at risk…
My Review
What is a river but an open throat, what is water but a voice?
Nevermind what I said in my last weekly wrap-up, I’ve decided to do a book review today instead! And before I get into it, I just wanted to say to everyone: Happy St. Patrick’s Day!! ☘️🍻 It was a nice day today where I live. Spring really feels like it’s on its way.
The River Has Roots was a pretty good read. The cover is honestly what first caught my eye (it’s gorgeous). But as someone who recently read and loved This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar having written it also contributed to me wanting to read it. And, like I said, it wasn’t a bad read at all.
Ysabel said, fiercely for all that her voice was muffled into Esther’s shoulder: “Promise?”
“I promise,” said Esther, and meant it with her whole heart.
I really liked the focus on the two main characters: 🎵 Esther Hawthorne 🦢 and her younger sister 🎶 Ysabel Hawthorne 🔔 . I haven’t read any sibling-focused books lately, but I always enjoy a good sibling dynamic. And these sisters have one. They do it without having either being exactly the same, or exact opposites. This was refreshing, because siblings in media are usually one or the other.
💍 Rin 🌊 was also an interesting character. I tend to like characters who are fae creatures – mostly when they’re fae creatures written correctly – and Rin is not the exception here. I found their romance with Esther to be sweet, and I was rooting for them as a couple right away. The witch, 🪄 Agnes Crow 🐦⬛ , was also pretty awesome – I think she was the most interesting character to me, honestly.
I enjoyed 🖋️ the plot 📄 well enough, as well. I really appreciated the nods to other fairy stories (like Tam Lin) and some of the references therein. There’s a pretty strong story here too, despite it all being only about 100 pages or so. I will say that the book is noticably shorter than it appears to be. This is because literally a quarter of this book is just a sneak peak for El-Mohtar’s upcoming short story collection. So that’s what the last 30 pages are, if you were curious.
What is magic but a change in the world? What is conjugation but a transformation, one thing into another? She runs; she ran; she will run again.
My favorite thing about The River Has Roots, however, is the way that ✨ magic ✨ interacts with the 🗺️ world 🗺️ and the way it’s described. I loved the way the author used the word grammar, as well as the usage of conjugation. I also adored the singing sisters, and their singing ancestors, and how music framed so much of the novella and its magic. And the puns – the puns were also cool.
And before I close out this review, it would be remiss of me not to comment on the absolutely 🖌️ beautiful artwork 🎨 featured here. Yes, as I mentioned above, the cover art is very pretty, but the interior illustrations are also amazing. Essentially, in addition to being a pretty good novella, this book also has pretty pictures to look at, too.
But that is the nature of grammar-it is always tense, like an instrument, aching for release, longing to transform present into past into future, is into was into will.
So yeah, this was a pretty good book, and I enjoyed it well enough. I definitely recommend it to those who are big fans of This is How You Lose the Time War, and to a slightly lesser extent, those who like faerie stories and LGBT+ stuff in fantasy. Novella fans will probably also find something to like about this book.
As always, thank you so much for reading and I hope you have an awesome day/night!
So… I didn’t post as much last week as I’d planned to – I had wanted to do at least one more post. But what can you do. This weekend kind of got a little busy, so I wasn’t able to squeeze another post or two out.
I have started reading books again! Or, at least, a book. It’s a novella too, but I’m feeling in the mood to read books again, which is so awesome. The past two or three months have been really rough in that regard, unfortunately. I’m really hoping that March will end up differently.
Anyway, I’ll shut up now. Without further ado, let’s get on with the weekly wrap-up!
Wednesday 3/12: Can’t-Wait Wednesday
Last Wednesday, I did another Can’t-Wait Wednesday for the first time in a couple of weeks. There’s a good chance it’s the first of some in a row. There are just a bunch of books coming out lately that look interesting.
Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme currently hosted by Tressa @ Wishful Endings. It focuses on books you’re looking forward to reading, usually new releases.
On Friday, I participated in First Line Fridays for the first time in a few weeks. First Line Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers (formerly) hosted by Wandering Words.
This past Friday was also Pi Day – 3/14. We forgot to get a pie to celebrate last week before Pi Day, and then the weather sucked too much to go out and grab one, so we didn’t do anything for it this year. Oh well. Hopefully next year we’ll be able to do it.
So yeah, last week wasn’t what I was planning regarding posting and it wasn’t as much as I normally would’ve wanted, but I’m actually okay with how stuff turned out. And hey, I’m not only reading novels again, but I’m in the mood to be reading novels again. So I’m counting that as a win.
In relation to books and reading, the things I’m gonna read next are a couple of fantasy series from the ’00s and from the ’10s. Well, the one from the ’10s is actually a sequel series to another quadrilogy that I read and absolutely loved that I’ve never read, but they’re by the same author, so I’m kind of grouping them together because of that.
It’s been about ten years since I read that series – The Seven Realms – and I’m feeling nostalgic. Which is why I think I’m finally ready to read its sequel quadrilogy, The Shattered Realms. I also want to read The Dragon Heir, the third book (and possibly the original final novel) in The Heir Chronicles, before the author added more books several years later. I read the first two books about five and a half years ago, and I want to finish the original trilogy. So March might be Cinda Williams Chima for me this year.
So for blog posts this week: I want to do more of them than last week. I want to do a couple of my usual weekly posts of course, a book review and the monthly post that I usually like to do. I had intended to do this one this weekend actually, but time got away from me – I think I might double post today because of that, actually.
Anyway, I’ve talked more than enough here. As always thank you for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day/night!
Here I am with another Weekly Wrap-Up! And it’s posted on time this week!
So, my posting was way better last week than it was the week before. I’m really happy with the amount of blog posts I was able to get done this past week, especially compared to the week before. Heck, it’s even better than two weeks before that!
I am a bit disappointed that I didn’t have the chance to read a novel, or even a novella or something. I’m definitely gonna do that this week – this is not gonna be a repeat of February. I do not want that to happen again.
Anyway, I’ll shut up now. Without further ado, let’s get on with the weekly wrap-up!
Tuesday 3/4: The Most Interesting Looking New Books of March 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 March 2025. As always, it’s basically only fantasy and science fiction, as those are the two genres I primarily read. This time I had six books on my list.
On Wednesday, I did another Can’t-Wait Wednesday for the first time in a couple of weeks. There’s a good chance it’s the first of some in a row. There are just a bunch of books coming out lately that look interesting.
Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme currently hosted by Tressa @ Wishful Endings. It focuses on books you’re looking forward to reading, usually new releases.
Thursday 3/6: Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales Review
Last Thursday, I finally, finally posted another book review on the blog. It was the first time in like literally a month. It was also stupid that this was the case.
The book was Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett, the third installment of the Emily Wilde fantasy series. I was really excited for this one – it’s one of my most anticipated new books of 2025 – and the novel did not disappoint. I gave it ★★★★☆.
Yesterday, I posted my Monthly Reading Wrap-Up for February 2025. It was once again posted at a reasonable time in the month, though not as early as I posted it last month. 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, I’m very happy with the level of posting I was able to achieve last week. I’m really hoping I can keep it up this coming week, as well as read at least one book. Like I said earlier, I absolutely do not want a repeat performance of February for March.
Concerning the posts I want to do this week… I’ll probably just participate in some of my usual weekly stuff. I also want to post a book review though. That’s something I’m definitely hoping to do.
Regarding the books I’m considering reading next, well, I have a few at the forefront of my mind. Next, I’m planning on reading a new release, something that’s come out in the last week or so. Then after that, I think I’m gonna start reading a series I hauled last summer – the third book is coming out this month anyway, I believe. And then, after this, I think I might read the sequel series I mentioned last week.
Anyway, as always thank you for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day/night!
It’s a couple of days later than last month, but I think I’m posting my reading wrap-up for February 2025 at a pretty reasonable time. The contents I’m gonna be analyzing here… are not so great in comparison.
Yeah. My reading last month sucked. I only read one book, and I didn’t even get to reviewing it until this month. But seeing as in February 2024 I only read one book as well, I guess I didn’t do worse than last year. So I guess that’s something. Technically.
Anyway, without further ado, let’s get into my StoryGraph statistics from last month!
February Reading 2025
I read 1 book and 356 pages
😐 MOODS: I had three Moods in February, which was the same as in January. They were all the same size slice. The Moods were: Adventurous, Lighthearted and Funny.
👢 PACE: The book I read last month was medium-paced.
🔢 PAGE NUMBER: The novel that I read was 356 pages.
📖 FICTION/NONFICTION: It was once again all fiction. But when you only read one book and it’s strictly fiction, it’s impossible to also read nonfiction.
🎭 GENRES: There were two Genres in the books I read in February. They were Fantasy and Romance.
📄 FORMAT: This pie chart was actually correct for once. Or twice, since this is the second month in a row this has happened. The only novel I read was a physical copy.
⭐ RATING: My median star rating for last month was 4.0, and it was my only rating.
📉 PAGES READ DAILY: My reading for February basically sucked until the last week. As in, I didn’t read anything. The only reading I did was between the 22nd and the 28th.
So yeah, my reading from last month really sucked. I’m hoping beyond anything that it improves in March. Like, just about anything would be better than my performance in February.
March has a couple new books that I’m particularly interested in, so there’s a good chance I’ll read at least one or two of them. I might not get to one of them until a later month in the year, though. I also have a bit of a backlog of a TBR I’ve been wanting to get to, as well as a sequel series that I’ve been thinking about continuing with for a while. We’ll see what I end up reading.
Anyway, as always, thank you for joining me in checking out my StoryGraph stats for my February reading in 2025. Thank you also for reading, and I hope you have a great day/night!
