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?
Hi all! My week started with an MRI biopsy which was as uncomfortable as it sounds. But it had to be done, so I’m dealing with some tenderness on my right side and have to refrain from any strenuous activity or heavy lifting. I’m hoping for good results. In the meantime, I’m trying to finish some arcs and library books.
What are you currently reading?
What have you just finished reading?
Painted Devils by. Margaret Owen ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Seven Percent of Ro Devereux by. Ellen O’Clover ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Let’s get one thing straight—Vanja Schmidt wasn’t trying to start a cult.
After taking down a corrupt margrave, breaking a deadly curse, and finding romance with the vexingly scrupulous Junior Prefect Emeric Conrad, Vanja had one great mystery left: her long-lost birth family… and if they would welcome a thief. But in her search for an honest trade, she hit trouble and invented a god, the Scarlet Maiden, to scam her way out. Now, that lie is growing out of control—especially when Emeric arrives to investigate, and the Scarlet Maiden manifests to claim him as a virgin sacrifice.
For his final test to become a prefect, Emeric must determine if Vanja is guilty of serious fraud, or if the Scarlet Maiden—and her claim to him—are genuine. Meanwhile, Vanja is chasing an alternative sacrifice that may be their way out. The hunt leads her not only into the lairs of monsters and the paths of gods, but the ties of her past. And with what should be the simplest way to save Emeric hanging over their heads, he and Vanja must face a more dangerous question: Is there a future for a thief and a prefect, and at what price?
I loved the first book Little Thieves so I had to read the sequel. My favorite part of this story is Vanja and Emeric and their journey with one another in the relationship they have which is wrought with trust issues, insecurities, sexual exploration but done with such patience, care, and both of them really falling in love with one another. They are definitely one my new favorite book couples.
The story telling is wonderful, just as it is in book one, I got swept up into the adventures of this dark fairytale life that Vanja lives. And Vanja is my favorite little thief. I love how she is a survivor, a child abandoned by her mother who had to do what she had to do to survive in a cruel world. She’s clever, brave and funny, and all she needs is love and she gets it in this sequel which made my heart melt for her. The story is emotional also because Vanja is letting people in, it made me heart happy for her.
The adventures and challenges that Vanja go through is something she things she has created, but after a lot of investigating, then end reveals a bitter and sad truth. I think because there was a bit of mystery to uncover, the book moved slower for me than book one did but I felt like there was enough Vanja and Emeric content to keep me happy. I did like the investigation but there are a lot of things going on with it and I had to concentrate to keep up. It took me a few days to read.
Favorite quotes from the book:
“There’s a saying here in the north: ‘A child’s eye fears the painted devil, but an elder wields the brush.’ We fear what we’re taught to fear, not necessarily because it’s worth fearing.”
Tropes: found family
Why you should read it:
You loved Little Thieves and want more of that dark fairy tale world
Vanja and Emeric and the journey of their relationship
Vanja’s personal journey and her finding her worth
Why you might not want to read it:
There is a lot going on with the investigation so the story feels slower than book one.
My Thoughts:
I wasn’t sure what to expect with this sequel but I did go in with lower expectations absolutely loved all the time Vanja and Emeric had together in this book. We see them grow in their romantic relationship and as partners in an investigation. I thought the characters in the story were full of personality and it’s got that dark fairy tale vibe that was present in the first book. There was a lot going on in the story and it took me a few days to finish but I still enjoyed it. It was an emotional journey for Vanja and I look forward to book three and hopefully the happy ending that she deserves.
Happy book birthday to these new releases! Check out this list today:
Love isn’t blind, it’s just little blurry.
Sadie Montgomery never saw what was coming . . . Literally! One minute she’s celebrating the biggest achievement of her life—placing as a finalist in the North American Portrait Society competition—the next, she’s lying in a hospital bed diagnosed with a “probably temporary” condition known as face blindness. She can see, but every face she looks at is now a jumbled puzzle of disconnected features. Imagine trying to read a book upside down and in another language. This is Sadie’s new reality with every face she sees.
But, as she struggles to cope, hang on to her artistic dream, work through major family issues, and take care of her beloved dog, Peanut, she falls into—love? Lust? A temporary obsession to distract from the real problems in her life?—with not one man but two very different ones. The timing couldn’t be worse.
If only her life were a little more in focus, Sadie might be able to find her way. But perceiving anything clearly right now seems impossible. Even though there are things we can only find when we aren’t looking. And there are people who show up when we least expect them. And there are always, always other ways of seeing.
Bellegarde reimagines the 90s romcom classic She’s All That in 18th-century Paris, France.
The lush pastel world building of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette meets the modern twist of Bridgerton in this YA historical romcom debut.
Beau Bellegarde, a second-born son, makes a deal: if he can turn Evie Clément, the unapproachable baker’s daughter, into the winner of the Court Ball, making her the most desired bachelorette in Paris, he inherits the family fortune, but his target has plans of her own.
From the author of The Sound of Stars and The Kindred comes a YA space opera about a reincarnated god and a grumpy pilot on a mission to save a beloved space DJ and stop an intergalactic war.
Zaira Citlali is supposed to die. After all, she’s the god Indigo reborn. Indigo, whose song created the universe and unified people across galaxies to banish Ozvios, the god of destruction. Although Zaira has never been able to harness Indigo’s powers, the Ilori Emperor wants to sacrifice her in Ozvios’s honor. Unless she escapes and finds Wesley, the boy prophesized to help her defeat Ozvios and the Ilori, once and for all.
Wesley Daniels didn’t ask for this. He just wants to work as a smuggler so he can save enough money to explore the stars. Once he completes his biggest job yet—bringing wanted celebrity Rubin Rima to a strange planet called Earth—he’ll be set for life. But when his path crosses with Zaira, he soon finds himself in the middle of an intergalactic war with more responsibility than he bargained for.
Together, Zaira, Wesley, and Rubin must find their way to Earth and unlock Zaira’s powers if they’re going to have any hope of saving the universe from total destruction.
Don’t miss these reads from Alechia Dow: The Sound of Stars The Kindred
Iris Collins is the messy one in her family. The “chaos bunny.” Her sisters are all wildly successful, while she can’t balance her budget for a single month. It’s no wonder she’s in debt to her roommates. When she unexpectedly inherits a house from her great aunt, her plan to turn it into a B&B fails—as most of her plans do. She winds up renting rooms like a Victorian spinster, collecting other lost souls…and not all of them are “human.”
Eli Reese grew up as the nerdy outcast in school, but he got rich designing apps. Now he’s successful by any standards. But he’s never had the same luck in finding a real community or people who understand him. Over the years, he’s never forgotten his first crush, so when he spots her at a café, he takes it as a sign. Except then he gets sucked into the Iris-verse and somehow ends up renting one of her B&B rooms. As the days pass, Eli grows enchanted by the misfit boarders staying in the house…and even more so by Iris. Could Eli have finally found a person and a place to call “home”?
An ambitious wedding planner must work with her grumpy florist ex, whose heart she broke, on the most high-profile wedding of her career, in this spicy and emotional romance from popular fanfic author Julie Soto.
He loves me; he loves me not…
Ama Torres loves being a wedding planner. But with a mother who has been married more times than you can count on your fingers, Ama has decided that marriage is not the route for her. But weddings? Weddings are amazing. As a small business owner, she knows how to match her clients with the perfect vendor to give them the wedding of their dreams. Well, almost perfect…
Elliot hates being a florist, most of the time. When his father left him the flower shop, he considered it a burden, but he’s stuck with it. Just like how he’s stuck with the way he proposed to Ama, his main collaborator and girlfriend (or was she?) two years ago. But flowers have grown on him, just like Ama did. And flowers can’t run off and never speak to him again, like Ama did.
When Ama is hired to plan a celebrity wedding that will bring her business national exposure, there’s a catch: Elliot is already contracted to design the flowers. Things are not helped by the two brides, who see the obvious chemistry between Ama and Elliot and are determined to set them up, not knowing their complicated history. Add in a meddling ex-boss, and a reality TV film crew documenting every step of the wedding prep, and Ama and Elliot’s hearts are not only in jeopardy again, but this time, their livelihoods are too.
Cowritten by #1 New York Times bestselling author Julie Murphy and USA Today bestselling author Sierra Simone–a steamy second chance Christmas in July rom-com.
After Angel and Luca connected on the set of Duke the Halls and had a whirlwind romance in the literal snow globe of Christmas Notch, Vermont, Luca found himself falling in love. Hard. He’d never been one to believe in fate or true love, but one thing was certain: Angel was his person. He knew it as well as he knew the history of American figure skating. But when Angel left for an art school semester abroad without a word, Luca’s already brittle heart was broken. No one ghosted Luca. Unless he was in a haunted house.
But with the spring semester long over, Angel is back home in Los Angeles for the summer, and unfortunately for Luca, this big town is turning out to be smaller than either of them ever expected.
The sun is dying…and it’s happening way too damn fast.
With the clock ticking, the Nine Planets’ only hope of survival rests on a fancy space station and the alien artifact it’s carrying. Which is why it really sucks when some jackass doesn’t want the universe saved and blows that station up-while you’re still on it.
So if your only choices are flaming death or stealing a flying hunk of space junk-you pick that busted-ass spaceship. Even if it leaves seven strangers with deadly secrets trapped together: a princess, a prisoner, a con artist, a warrior, a priestess, a mercenary, and an asshole in charge of us all.
Now every faction in the galaxy is hunting this ship-from the Sisterhood to the Corporation, and the rebellion’s joining in on the fun, too. We just need to stop drinking, fighting, and screwing long enough to evade them all and save the freaking universe…somehow.
Because apparently the only thing standing between a dying sun and ultimate salvation is seven unlikely misfits…ahem, heroes.
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!
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.
Gideon the Ninth meets the Game of Thrones White Walkers in this dark young adult fantasy about a disgraced ghost-fighting warrior who must journey into a haunted wasteland to rescue a kidnapped prince.
Ready your blade. Defeat the undead.
In the Dominions, the dead linger, violent and unpredictable, unless a bonesmith severs the ghost from its earthly remains. For bonesmith Wren, becoming a valkyr—a ghost-fighting warrior—is a chance to solidify her place in the noble House of Bone and impress her frequently absent father. But when sabotage causes Wren to fail her qualifying trial, she is banished to the Border Wall, the last line of defense against a wasteland called the Breach where the vicious dead roam unchecked.
Determined to reclaim her family’s respect, Wren gets her chance when a House of Gold prince is kidnapped and taken beyond the Wall. To prove she has what it takes to be a valkyr, Wren vows to cross the Breach and rescue the prince. But to do so, she’s forced into an uneasy alliance with one of the kidnappers—a fierce ironsmith called Julian from the exiled House of Iron, the very people who caused the Breach in the first place…and the House of Bone’s sworn enemy.
As they travel, Wren and Julian spend as much time fighting each other as they do the undead, but when they discover there’s more behind the kidnapping than either of them knew, they’ll need to work together to combat the real a dark alliance that is brewing between the living and the undead.
Do you have plans to read this book? Let me know in the comments below!
Well it was kind of a chill. My kids had a dental appointment (no cavities! Yay, I’m so surprised lol, especially with how my daughter loves treats) and I had my breast ultrasound and was hoping for a biopsy BUT, the doctor wasn’t 100% sure she caught the nodule on the screen and would rather me do the MRI biopsy. So I’m doing that tomorrow. 😕 I’m just hoping it’s a quick procedure and not too uncomfortable. And hope my results come back with good news.
I’ve been slowly working my way through Painted Devils by. Margaret Owen. I love Vanja and Emeric! Anyway I’ve been noticing I take awhile to finish hardcover books because I can only find time to read at night. Using my ipad to read is much easier to do that, but I have to finish 2 more library books before their due in 2 weeks! I’m almost finished with my August arcs, at least I only have 2!
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!
There are some exciting releases coming up this month! This is what I’m looking forward to:
The titles above are book I haven’t read but I think I also should showcase the arcs I read that are releasing this month and I enjoyed a lot! So here they are:
What is your most anticipated book release this month?
Categories: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary, Coming of Age, Grief
A clever, charming, and poignant debut novel about a girl who must decide whether to pursue her dreams or preserve her relationships, including a budding romance with her ex-best friend, when an app she created goes viral.
Ro Devereux can predict your future. Or, at least, the app she built for her senior project can.
Working with her neighbor, a retired behavioral scientist, Ro created an app called MASH, designed around the classic game Mansion Apartment Shack House, that can predict a person’s future with 93% accuracy. The app will even match users with their soul mates. Though it was only supposed to be a class project, MASH quickly takes off and gains the attention of tech investors.
Ro’s dream is to work in Silicon Valley, and she’ll do anything to prove to her new backing company—and the world—that the app works. So it’s a huge shock when the app says her soul mate is Miller, her childhood best friend with whom she had a friendship-destroying fight three years ago. Now thrust into a fake dating scenario, Ro and Miller must address the years of pain between them if either of them will have any chance of achieving their dreams.
Fans of Emma Lord and Alex Light will love this stand-alone contemporary novel with a masterful slow-burn romance at its core.
Content Warning: parental abandonment
I saw really good reviews of this book earlier this year when it first came out. I saw it on sale on Book Outlet so I got it and decided to read it by the pool and I was hooked!
I love the childhood best-friends to lovers trope in this one especially because Ro and Miller knew each other so well before something came between them. I love the fake-dating trope that brings them together. I had all the teenage romance feels with this book.
And this isn’t only a romance because Ro is dealing with a few things like her grandmother dying from cancer, her mom who left and never bothered to build a relationship with her, and the biggest thing – making an app that goes viral and trying to capitalize on it. Ro has lots of emotions to deal and tries to bury it all by keeping busy but she eventually realizes she can’t do things alone. Miller is there, her best friend Maven is there, her dad and Vera are there – she is not alone and when she realizes that, she grows.
Speaking of her app, I love how this story explores the role of choice and free will during a person’s life. Ro’s app finds your match but not only in love but also in life overall like your future career and how many kids you will have. But are we supposed to let an app decide our lives? The story reminds us that just because we think we love something or will be one thing or see one path forward, it is never absolute.
This book even made me shed a tear. I wasn’t expecting this book to take me on an emotional ride, but it did.
Favorite quotes from the book:
“I hope you’ll remember that the brain is malleable. That your answers to the survey questions will change, because what you love, and what you want, and who your are will change, too. These unpredictable shifts are supposed to happen. They are the good kind of scary.”
“Usually, when we think no one sees us, we’re still looking at each other…”
“The not knowing is the pain and the joy and the whole damn thing of it. We were never, ever supposed to know.”
Tropes: friends to lovers
Why you should read it:
this one tugged at my heart strings
Ro and Miller ❤️
great coming of age story and questions about our future/paths in life
Why you might not want to read it:
My Thoughts:
I loved this one and I’m glad I went in without knowing what to expect. It’s kind of got everything I want in a young adult contemporary book: a thoughtful and meaningful coming of age story that has emotion, depth and romance. I’m definitely going to be looking forward to reading more books from this author.
The Book Blogger Hop was originally created by Jennifer @ Crazy-For-Books in March 2010 and ended on December 31, 2012. With Jennifer’s permission, Billy @ Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer relaunched the hop on February 15, 2013. Each week the hop will start on a Friday and end the following Thursday. There will be a weekly prompt featuring a book-related question. The hop’s purpose is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, befriend other bloggers, and receive new followers to their own blogs.
Question: Which character do you identify with and why?
I’m going to say Zahru from The Sweetest Betrayal because it’s a recent read and she stands out. But what I like about her is how complex she is as a character. She’s not perfect and she has to work through a lot of stuff, she makes mistakes, but she grows.
We are in July so let’s take a look back at the first half of the year!
BEST BOOK YOU’VE READ SO FAR IN 2023
I love these 2023 releases! Fourth Wing is a very hyped book right now but if you like dragons, you may enjoy this one also. Divine Rivals made me cry and The Sweetest Betrayal was the perfect conclusion to an underrated series.
BEST SEQUEL YOU’VE READ SO FAR IN 2023
This is a great sequel and brings all the gothic, creepy vibes from House of Sea and Salt, but on another level! I love the story telling.
NEW RELEASE YOU HAVEN’T READ YET, BUT WANT TO
I’m waiting for a library copy to be available but I hope to read it before the summer ends because it’s Emily Henry and should be read in the summer right?
MOST ANTICIPATED RELEASE FOR THE SECOND HALF OF THE YEAR
There are a few more…
BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT
This cover is gorgeous but this was a DNF for me. I kept trying to get into it but I just couldn’t.
BIGGEST SURPRISE
I read this as an arc but it will be coming out this month which is the later half of the year BUT…this surprised me because I thought it was going to be a DNF by chapter 2 and by the end I was shocked at the wild finish of this book. I can’t wait for book 2 but I do wish sometimes Chloe Gong books were easier to get into, don’t get me wrong, I love her books, but there can be a lot of info dumping. Once you get past that it’s usually a wild ride!
FAVORITE NEW AUTHOR (debut or new to you)
I just read this one and loved it!
NEWEST FICTIONAL CRUSH
I mean come on…Xaden.
NEWEST FAVORITE CHARACTER
Wren in Bonesmith because she’s a fighter and fights the dead..
Zilan from The Scarlet Alchemist because the love she has for her cousins and she can raise the dead.
Channi from Her Radiant Curse because the love she has for her sister.
BOOK THAT MADE YOU CRY
This one made me shed a tear or two – Rebecca Ross just knows how to pull on those heart strings.
BOOK THAT MADE YOU HAPPY
Even the covers make me happy because the colors are so bright but yes these definitely left me feeling happy inside.
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BOOK YOU’VE BOUGHT SO FAR THIS YEAR (or received)
I’m surprised there hasn’t been as many book covers this year that has wowed me. But I think this one is pretty.
WHAT BOOKS DO YOU NEED TO READ BY THE END OF THE YEAR?
I bought the ebook for From the Grave so I can finish that at anytime but want to read it this year if possible and complete the series. Painted Devils I have as a borrowed hardcover so I would like to finish that before the month is through. The Bone Shard Emperor because I’d love to finish the series.
FAVORITE BOOK TO MOVIE ADAPTATION YOU’VE SEEN THIS YEAR
I actually never read the book but I thought the Amazon Prime series was so good! I hope I can read the book this year!
And that’s what I got half-way into 2023! I think it’s funny how I’m already requesting arcs for first half of 2024 on NetGalley – like wait….the holidays aren’t here yet. 😅 It’s kind of exciting and nerve wracking thinking 2024 is just around the corner! Anyway, how was your first half of 2024?
Past Midnight Book Reviews & More 