The idea is pretty simple, every week you dedicate a post to the three W’s:
What are you currently reading?
What have you just finished reading?
What are you going to read next?
It’s the last Wednesday in September and I’m having a tough time wrapping my head around it. I don’t think I AM ready for the holidays like I thought I was lol. I know it’s officially Fall, but the weather in Hawaii says nope, it’s not. I saw a house with Halloween decorations out already and I’m like…wait….it’s not even October. 😆 But I guess it’s close enough since October is next week. I had such a busy weekend that I didn’t really have time to read, but I’m hoping for some quiet time during the week so I can catch up on reading.
What are you currently reading?
Stranger Skies by. Pascale LaCelle – 1% – still no progress because I’m reading other things but I will be getting to this one very soon!
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Please check out her website for more TTT topics!
This week’s topic is:
Books on My Fall 2024 To-Read List
I’m so grateful I got an arc to most of the Fall books I wanted to read. But here are some of the ones I would like to read this Fall…
SEPTEMBER~~ September 3: Books Involving Food (That are Not Cookbooks) (Submitted by Cathy @ WhatCathyReadNext and Hopewell’s Public Library of Life) September 10: Books That Provide a Much-Needed Escape (bonus points if you tell us why!) September 17: Ten Characters Authors Surprisingly Redeemed (which characters did you not like at first, but grew to love by the end of the book?) (submitted by Deanna @ A Novel Glimpse) September 24: Books on My Fall 2024 To-Read List
OCTOBER~~ October 1: Books I Read/Avoided Because of the Hype (and did you make the right choice?) October 8: Bookish Brags (or Confessions!) (what are you proud of or… not-so proud of in your bookish life?) (submitted by Lydia @ https://lydiaschoch.com) October 15: Books I Was Assigned to Read in School (These can be books you loved or hated. Or just tolerated. Bonus points if you give us a tiny review of your thoughts!) October 22: How My Reading Habits Have Changed Over Time (submitted by Lydia @ https://lydiaschoch.com) October 29: Halloween Freebie
This is the story of Hazel, a young healer navigating a ruthless court to save the life of the king, grappling with a pantheon of gods with questionable agendas as she fights for agency and true love in her own life as the goddaughter of none other than Death himself.
All gifts come with a price.
Hazel Trépas has always known she wasn’t like the rest of her siblings. A thirteenth child, promised away to one of the gods, she spends her childhood waiting for her godfather—Merrick, the Dreaded End—to arrive.
When he does, he lays out exactly how he’s planned Hazel’s future. She will become a great healer, known throughout the kingdom for her precision and skill. To aid her endeavors, Merrick blesses Hazel with a gift, the ability to instantly deduce the exact cure needed to treat the sick.
But all gifts come with a price. Hazel can see when Death has claimed a patient—when all hope is gone—and is tasked to end their suffering, permanently. Haunted by the ghosts of those she’s killed, Hazel longs to run. But destiny brings her to the royal court, where she meets Leo, a rakish prince with a disdain for everything and everyone. And it’s where Hazel faces her biggest dilemma yet—to save the life of a king marked to die. Hazel knows what she is meant to do and knows what her heart is urging her toward, but what will happen if she goes against the will of Death?
From the astonishing mind of Erin A. Craig comes the breathtaking fairy tale retelling readers have been waiting for— what does a life well-lived mean, and how do we justify the impossible choices we make for the ones we love?
An explosive new novel brimming with love, secrets, and enchantment
The Fall siblings live in hot Northern California wine country, where the sun pours out of the sky, and the devil winds blow so hard they whip the sense right out of your head.
Years ago, the Fall kids’ father mysteriously disappeared, cracking the family into pieces. Now Dizzy Fall, age twelve, bakes cakes, sees spirits, and wishes she were a heroine of a romance novel. Miles Fall, seventeen, brainiac, athlete, and dog-whisperer, is a raving beauty, but also lost, and desperate to meet the kind of guy he dreams of. And Wynton Fall, nineteen, who raises the temperature of a room just by entering it, is a virtuoso violinist set on a crash course for fame . . . or self-destruction.
Then an enigmatic rainbow-haired girl shows up, tipping the Falls’ world over. She might be an angel. Or a saint. Or an ordinary girl. Somehow, she is vital to each of them. But before anyone can figure out who she is, catastrophe strikes, leaving the Falls more broken than ever. And more desperate to be whole.
With road trips, rivalries, family curses, love stories within love stories within love stories, and sorrows and joys passed from generation to generation, this is the intricate, luminous tale of a family’s complicated past and present. And only in telling their stories can they hope to rewrite their futures.
From Michael L. Printz Award winner A.S. King, a weird and insightful new novel about a girl intent on picking the lock of her toxic family with punk rock and opera.Jane’s mother is an artist constantly on tour to earn a living and support the family. While her mother is away, Jane lives in a Victorian mansion with her younger brother and their controlling, mendacious father and aunt, both of whom have conspired to confine Jane and Henry’s mother to a system of pneumatic tubes whenever she’s at home. Pick the Lock follows Jane’s bizarre and brilliant journey to rediscover and reconnect with her mother through punk rock and opera.
New York Times bestselling author Sophie Jordan returns to the high-stakes, sweeping world of dragons, romance, and drama first evoked in her bestselling young adult Firelight series, in a brand-new epic adult romantasy series.
Dragons are extinct. Witches are outcast. Magic is dying.
But human lust for power is immortal.
Dragon fire no longer blisters the skies over Penterra, but inside the lavish palace, life is still perilous…especially for Tamsyn. Raised in the glittering court alongside the princesses, it’s her duty to be punished for their misdeeds. Treated as part of the royal family but also as the lowliest servant, Tamsyn fits nowhere. Her only friend is Stig, Captain of the Guard…though sometimes she thinks he wants more than friendship.
When Fell, the Beast of the Borderlands, descends on her home, Tamsyn’s world becomes even more dangerous. To save the pampered princesses from a fate worse than death, she is commanded to don a veil and marry the brutal warrior. She agrees to the deception even though it means leaving Stig, and the only life she’s ever known, behind.
The wedding night begins with unexpected passion—and ends in near violence when her trickery is exposed. Rather than start a war, Fell accepts Tamsyn as his bride…but can he accept the dark secrets she harbors—secrets buried so deep even she doesn’t know they exist? For Tamsyn is more than a royal whipping girl, more than the false wife of a man who now sees her as his enemy. And when those secrets emerge, they will ignite a flame bright enough to burn the entire kingdom to the bone.
Magic is not dead…it is only sleeping. And it will take one ordinary girl with an extraordinary destiny to awaken it.
Are you getting any new books this week? I need to read Throne of Secrets. I’ve already read The Thirteenth Child, When the World Tips Over and A Fire in the Sky – and enjoyed all of them!
Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme where you chose a random book from your Goodreads TBR and show it off. This meme is hosted by Budget Tales Book Blog.
The breathtaking sequel to the instant New York Times bestseller Night of the Witch culminates with a sweeping romance and an epic battle to determine the fate of magic…and the world.
Fritzi is a champion. After escaping the clutches of Dieter Kirch, the sadistic leader of the witch hunters, Fritzi and Otto have taken refuge among the witches of the Black Forest. Fritzi is finally ready to assume her place on the council as the coven’s goddess-chosen champion. Plagued by distrust and self-doubt, Fritzi throws herself into her duty to serve the goddesses . . . until she uncovers a powerful secret that could mean the very undoing of magic itself.
Otto is a warrior. He swears himself to Fritzi as her bonded protector, certain the peaceful unity of a witch and hunter will heal the wounds he helped make. But as the horrifying plot that threatens the Black Forest’s magic comes to light, Otto will have to face his both his past and what it means to bind himself to a magic he does not fully understand.
Shadows loom. Truths are revealed. And as dangers new and old arise, Fritzi and Otto must stand together against everything that threatens magic—even if the biggest threat might be the very bond they share.
Do you have plans to read this book? Let me know in the comments below!
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers
Categories: Fantasy, Young Adult, Romance, Series
Disclaimer: **I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**
Thank you to G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers for giving me a chance to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review!
Prepare for the action-packed, ruthless, and romantic new fantasy from the #1 New York Times bestselling and National Book Award winning author Sabaa Tahir about love, legacy, and vengeance.
An orphan. An outcast. A prince. And a killer who will bring an empire to its knees.
Growing up in the Kegari slums, AIZ has seen her share of suffering. An old tragedy fuels her need for vengeance, but it is love of her people that propels her. Until one hot-headed mistake lands her in an inescapable prison, where the embers of her wrath ignite.
Banished from her tribe for an unforgiveable crime, SIRSHA is a down-on-her-luck tracker who speaks to the earth, air, and water to trace her marks. Destitute, she agrees to hunt down a killer who has murdered children across the Empire. All she has to do is carry out the job and get paid. But then, she falls for a charismatic and inconvenient fugitive who keeps getting in her way.
QUIL is the crown prince of the Empire, nephew of a famed and venerated empress, but he’s loathe to pick up the mantle when his aunt steps down. As the son of the most hated emperor in the history of his people, he, better than anyone, understands that power corrupts. When a vicious new enemy threatens the survival of the Empire, Quil must ask himself if he can rise above his tragic lineage and be the heir his people need.
Beloved storyteller Sabaa Tahir masterfully interweaves the lives of three young people as they grapple with the burdens of power, the treachery of love and the devastating consequences of unchecked greed. Get ready for a dark and breathless journey that will captivate readers and that may cost these young people their lives―and their hearts. Literally.
Content Warning: violence, death, death of children, war
This is a spin-off of the An Ember in the Ashes series – which was really amazing, but I never read the last book and not because I didn’t want to, but life happened and I kept meaning to get to it. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to read Heir. Here are my thoughts:
Likes:
+ The story-telling and world building is amazing which is nothing less than I expected from this author. I liked how the Kegars had sails (aircrafts) that they built to fly! Helene, Elias and Laia make an appearance which is wonderful because it just brought me back to the Ember series and how much I loved these characters. But now they are older, with Helene being guardian to her nephew, Quil and Elias and Laia having kids together.
+ There are a few characters in this book and they are fun to get to know. Quil is Helene’s nephew and heir to the empire but I think my favorite was Sirsha who is a tracker. She’s tracking down an evil presence, she’s quick on her feet, has lots of personality and there is a romance between her and Quil. And then there is Aiz who is someone I was fascinated with in the beginning and then the story reveals her intentions, actions and her past and let’s just say she’s a very complicated character.
+ I did enjoy the second half of this book more than the beginning but that’s probably because of there is so much action and things being revealed in the second half.
Dislikes:
~ I don’t dislike that this is in the book because it is what shapes the villain but many children are sacrificed in this story and it’s heartbreaking (as it should be) and the author does an amazing job at writing this book that I hate the villain so much.
My Thoughts:
I do wish I finished the Ember series or even re-read the whole thing before reading this one but I think I found my footing in this story even though I didn’t finish the Ember series. I loved the new characters like Quil, Sirsha, Ruh and Sufi. I also loved seeing Helene, Elias and Laia in this book. The writing is fantastic as always and the world-building is detailed and expanded. This book made me feel so many emotions and it’s a dark story but so compelling. This is shaping up to be a really good spin-off and I can’t wait to see what happens in the conclusion!
An Ember in the Ashes (#1) by. Sabaa Tahir – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A Torch Against the Night (#2) by. Sabaa Tahir – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
**I know I read book three of the Ember series but I didn’t rate it on Goodreads just probably forgot to but I feel like I should do a re-read of the whole thing. **
My kids had a 4 day school week, but we did have to go to their annual doctor appointment on their day off and get a flu shot. So it wasn’t all fun, but at least they had a day off of school and we got to meet up with a college buddy of mine who was stopping over in Hawaii from a trip to Japan! It was so much fun to see her again and catch up.
Fall break is in 2 weeks – but that means we are almost in October folks! 🤯 And that means the holidays are here and I am not ready. I should do my Xmas shopping now (which I saw every year and never follow through)…but can you believe how fast this year went by? I can’t!
How was your week? Did you get a lot done? Watch anything good? Read any amazing books or books you didn’t finish? What are you reading?…Leave me a comment below!
Disclaimer: **I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**
Thank you to Forever for giving me a chance to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review!
In this spellbinding rom-com about a wish gone wrong, two opposites might just get a second chance at love, perfect for fans of New York Times bestsellers Payback’s a Witch and The Ex Hex.
Ex-celebrity chef Sirena Caraway has had the wackiest October ever. Her cooking powers are on the fritz, she failed to land a career-saving job, and she embarrassed herself at the town’s Halloween party. Just before midnight, she makes a desperate wish for a second chance to fix her life. The next morning Sirena wakes up and realizes that she’s repeating the entire pumpkin spice-flavored month. Even sweeter, she runs into Gus Dearworth, whose magic leaves her spellbound.
A former reality star, Gus moved to Freya Grove to rebuild his reputation and heal his broken heart, but his restless magic is tempting him to return to the spotlight. And his secret crush on Sirena is making him want to try something dangerous like fall in love again. When Sirena realizes he can help her fix her powers, Gus makes her a deal. If she’ll help decipher a mysterious cookbook in his collection, he’ll help get her magical groove back.
Every encounter offers a new adventure—from tasting menus, harvest mazes, and a growing attraction that’s taking on an irresistible enchantment of its own. But as the month winds down and the wish grows stronger, Sirena and Gus have a decision to make. Will their second chance be their happy-ever-after ending or a bittersweet memory?
Let me begin by saying I did not read the two other books in this series but I loved the cover so much and I wanted to read a Fall romance book. Here are my thoughts:
Likes:
+ This is such a cute Fall romance book! Look at the cover and it totally represents everything about the story. It’s cozy, it has witches, a magician, food, romance, magic and pumpkins! I also like the feel of community in this book.
+ The romance is sweet. Gus and Sirena are friends first and then grow steadily into lovers. It’s a slow burn but I thought their relationship was really cute because he’s a nice guy and she’s a sweet lady and there wasn’t any huge problems between them. The spice is mild but I think it goes well with how the story is told.
+ This can be read as a standalone but it made me curious about the first two books.
Dislikes:
+ I think the romance was cute but I didn’t feel very connected to the characters.
Final Thoughts:
This story is full of FALL vibes and I think it’s definitely something you should add to your reading list if you are looking for something witchy, magical and cozy.
First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?
Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Finally… reveal the book!
“On the morning of her impending death, Life lounged beneath a wisteria tree.”
Disclaimer: **I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**
Thank you to William Morrow for giving me a chance to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review!
#1 New York Times bestselling author Karen Marie Moning is back with a gripping, imaginative, and seductive new series in which a young woman moves to Divinity, Louisiana, to inherit a large fortune and a Gothic mansion full of mysteries and ominous secrets…
Zo Grey is reeling from the sudden death of her mother when she receives a surprising call from an attorney in Divinity, Louisiana, with the news she has been left an inheritance by a distant relative, the terms of which he will only discuss in person. Destitute and alone, with nothing left to lose, Zo heads to Divinity and discovers she is the sole beneficiary of a huge fortune and a monstrosity of a house that sits ominously at the peak of Watch Hill—but she must live in it, alone, for three years before the house, or the money, is hers.
Met with this irresistible opportunity to finally build a future for herself, Zo puts aside her misgivings about the foreboding Gothic mansion and the strange circumstances, and moves in, where she is quickly met by a red-eyed Stygian owl and an impossibly sexy Scottish groundskeeper.
Her new home is full of countless secrets and mystifying riddles, with doors that go nowhere, others that are impossible to open, and a turret into which there is no visible means of ingress. And the townspeople are odd…
What Zo doesn’t yet know is that her own roots lie in this very house and that in order to discover her true identity and awaken her dormant powers, she will have to face off against sinister forces she doesn’t quite comprehend—or risk being consumed by them.
Content Warning: death, violence, death of parent, illness
I was obsessed with Karen Marie Moning’s Fever series so I was very curious to see what this new series would be about. Here are my thoughts:
Likes:
I really enjoyed the world building especially because it’s centered around a town and a monstrosity of a house. There is a lot of mystery about the town and the house itself. It’s dark and fits the vibe of something bad coming. I like the paranormal themes of the story and we have witches and vampires and who knows what else as the series continues. I usually find mysteries slow but I was mostly engrossed in this one.
Zo is a fighter. Her mom just died and it’s turned her world upside down. She’s now supposedly the heir to a fortune, but that’s not all. There are conditions of her inheritance and she finds out there’s is more to the town than what is presented. We learn a lot about her upbringing by her stories of struggle and I don’t necessarily feel like I know a lot about her to like her, but I admire her strength in taking care of her mom. She’s a woman who has learned not to make connections with people, because she never had a chance to do so.
There are a a lot players in this story and I can’t say I have a good grasp on any of them yet. But many of them are intriguing. Este, seems like Zo’s only friend. The rest of the cast is untrustworthy at this point of the story.
Dislikes:
Nothing much happens in this book except it’s building the story for whatever is coming. I didn’t mind that so much until the second half of the book when I wanted Zo to stop wallowing in her thoughts so much. But there are conditions to her will and she has a lot of waiting to do – that makes us wait as an audience too. When Zo sleeps with men, we don’t get any real details, it’s more telling than showing and I hope that changes in book two.
I thought with how the beginning was written that the house was sentient and it would have been cool if it was! But it’s not (at least so far), it’s got weird energy though, that’s for sure, and I have to say there is a lot of detail about the house which I thought was nice. I love the darkness of the atmosphere but yeah, a sentient house would have been very interesting.
My Thoughts:
This book has the best vibes for fall reading and that’s actually what kept me reading. It’s dark, mysterious, and there are plenty of secrets and also so many sexy men. But I feel like not much happened in this book except for laying the groundwork for what’s to come. I feel like Zo is strong which is admirable but she was also about to hurt the one person she has on her side. So clearly she needs help and control and it will be interesting to see who she can actually trust going forward. So I’ll be waiting for book two and hope we get so much more out of this story because it has so much potential to be amazing. I have lots of questions so I hope we get answers in the next book.
**I’m pretty sure I read the whole Highlander series but it was at a time I was not consistently using Goodreads to rate the books so that’s all the info I have on the books I did rate on the site.**
The idea is pretty simple, every week you dedicate a post to the three W’s:
What are you currently reading?
What have you just finished reading?
What are you going to read next?
We are in MID-SEPTEMBER. Ugh…I am tired, but we are near Fall break so that’s something to look forward to and it’s not like we are going on vacation but sleeping in is like a vacation. 🤔 lol…so as if I’m not tired enough I was looking for something creative to do – I haven’t done resin art in awhile and my Etsy shop is pretty slow and something I might close since I haven’t posted new things there and I randomly came across reading journal videos on youtube. And so yeah…I found an extra composition notebook in my kids school supplies box and started one even though it’s almost the end of 2024 🤷🏻♀️. I’ll do a separate post about it and add pics.
What are you currently reading?
Stranger Skies by. Pascale LaCelle – 1% – still no progress because I’m reading other things but I will be getting to this one very soon!
Past Midnight Book Reviews & More 