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?
I thought my laptop was done for but it isn’t! Yay! Because I wasn’t about to drop money for a new one, in this economy lol. So I was struggling using my son’s PC which has the biggest screen and was giving me a headache and my ipad, which is small and was also a struggle to type a lot of things. So I, for some random reason, removed a usb/ubc cord that was plugged into my laptop and I started it up and that fixed it! I’m so happy and now I can go back to blogging. As for reading, it’s slow going still…sigh.
What a week. My kids started school so there were first day jitters, especially for my new middle schooler but he has done SO good. He is walking home from school since it’s closer to our house and let me tell you the first 2 days I was nervous but tons of kids walk in this area, and now he has a cell phone I can track. But it’s HOT at 2pm – and can someone please tell me how kids walk in hoodies and jackets at 91 degrees out? But my son needs a neck fan, and an umbrella and lots of breaks when he walks? lol…I’m so proud of him. His school is about 1.4 miles away and we’ve finally figured out our schedule. I pick his sister up first and then on our way back I pick him up at our pool area parking lot because by the time he is there, we are driving by it. So yay – it took some trial and error this week but I think we figured it out. I’m proud of both of them for having a good week. Unfortunately, my daughter has her first school cold – it only took 2 days of school for her to catch something. Boo!
And of course with everything happening this week, my Macbook Pro of 11 years finally kicked the bucket! I noticed a strange white screen situation happening on Monday and I was like, eh, maybe it’s nothing. NOPE. Now it’s dead…so I had to do some posts from my ipad but typing a lot is so tedious so now I’m using my son’s desk PC and the screen he has is like 24 inches long and it strains my eyes and gives me a headache. So I ordered a new laptop because I can’t live like this lol.
Let’s hope my daughter’s cold goes away and doesn’t get worse and we have a good second week of school.
House of Dragon – finished the last episode and honestly felt this whole season was a filler. There was one good episode I think. Anyway this last episode is a cliffhanger and I love the music that comes in at the end that foreshadows what is going to happen next. I hope the third season is filled with a lot more action.
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!
Categories: Contemporary, Serial Killers, Horror, Dark Romance, Crime
Every serial killer needs a friend. Every game must have a winner.
When a chance encounter sparks an unlikely bond between rival murderers Sloane and Rowan, the two find something elusive—the friendship of a like-minded, pitch-black soul. From small town West Virginia to upscale California, from downtown Boston to rural Texas, the two hunters collide in an annual game of blood and suffering, one that pits them against the most dangerous monsters in the country. But as their friendship develops into something more, the restless ghosts left in their wake are only a few steps behind, ready to claim more than just their newfound love. Can Rowan and Sloane dig themselves out of a game of graves? Or have they finally met their match?
Butcher & Blackbird is the first book in the Ruinous Love Dark Romance trilogy of interconnected stand-alone dark romantic comedies. This dual POV novel ends on a HEA.
Content Warning: gore, killing, accidental cannibalism, torture, voyeurism, body horror
Well, I finally read this book and wow yes it is dark as advertised and I’ll remind you to read all the trigger warnings for it before you go into it. I didn’t cover it all in my content warning above, but it is in the book.
I was so curious how I would find this one because my fascination with true crime and serial killers. But there is such a clever twist where these serial killers actually hunt and kill actual bad guy serial killers! And yes there is romance thrown into the gory mess of the killing happening in this story. Was a bit too gory for me yes but there is humor and romance to help balance things out!
Speaking of the romance, it happens actually over a few years, which I thought was interesting and I don’t know if that worked for me because they will meet once then it will be months before they interact again. They met up for these competition games between one another to see who would get the serial killer first. They do a lot of texting but I did love how Rowan was patient about it all. Once they get together though it gets very spicy and kind of sweet with how these two serial killers fall for one another.
I enjoyed seeing how this concept came together in the story though and found it very unique but again, it was a bit too gory for me.
My Final Thoughts:
If you like gore, serial killers, crime stories, spice, humor and romance, then definitely give this one a chance.
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!
“The day my husband moves out of our apartment is also the day Resident Evil Village releases for PlayStation, and you might be surprised which of these things lands with a greater emotional impact.”
A clever con woman must convince a skeptical, sexy farmer of his property’s resident real-life ghost if she’s to save them all from a fate worse than death, in this delightful new novel from the author of Mrs. Nash’s Ashes .
Fake spirit medium Gretchen Acorn is happy to help when her best ( wealthiest) client hires her to investigate the unexplained phenomena preventing the sale of her bridge partner’s struggling goat farm. Gretchen may be a fraud, but she’d like to think she’s a beneficent one. So if “cleansing” the property will help a nice old man finally retire and put some much-needed cash in her pockets at the same time, who’s she to say no?
Of course, it turns out said bridge partner isn’t the kindly AARP member Gretchen imagined—Charlie Waybill is young, hot as hell, and extremely unconvinced that Gretchen can communicate with the dead. (Which, fair.) Except, to her surprise, Gretchen finds herself face-to-face with the very real, very chatty ghost that’s been wreaking havoc during every open house. And he wants her to help ensure Charlie avoids the same family curse that’s had Everett haunting Gilded Creek since the 1920s.
Now, Gretchen has one month to convince Charlie he can’t sell the property. Unfortunately, hard work and honesty seem to be the way to win over the stubborn farmer—not exactly Gretchen’s strengths. But trust isn’t the only thing growing between them, and the risk of losing Charlie to the spirit realm looms over Gretchen almost as annoyingly as Everett himself. To save the goat farm, its friendly phantom, and the man she’s beginning to love, Gretchen will need to pull off the greatest con of her being fully, genuinely herself.
Content Warning:
A con woman, a goat farmer and a ghost? I thought this would be a quirky read and I was not disappointed! Gretchen is a fake spirit medium, that’s how she makes a living but when one of her clients asks her to do a job for her because a ghost is haunting a house, she has to take it because the money is good. But what happens when she becomes a real spirit medium and can see Everett, the ghost who is haunting Charlie’s house? Well I didn’t expect them to become besties, but they do and it is a lot of fun.
I loved the banter between Everett and Gretchen, the two of them together are so funny. As for Charlie and Gretchen – I can totally see why he didn’t trust her, but he calls her on it and once the trust builds and the walls come down, they tune into one another and things get steamy! But I did find Everett and Gretchen’s relationship more fun than hers with Charlie.
My Final Thoughts:
This was a fun, paranormal, rom-com story. I loved Gretchen’s interactions with Everett and seeing her break down her walls, make friends, get close to people and fall in love. This is the first book I’ve read from this author but definitely look forward to reading more from her!
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?
I think I’m in a struggle reading fantasy books right now which sucks because I have a lot of arcs that are fantasy. 🤔 It’s been slow going! I find myself grabbing a contemporary romance to just help myself finish one book and get my motivation.
Disclaimer: **I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**
Thank you to Delacorte Press for giving me a chance to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review!
From the author of The Cheerleaders comes another dark YA thriller set in the same town of Sunnybrook. When a mysterious accident befalls a member of the all-star high school football team, the town’s deadly history stands to repeat itself—and the price of discovering the truth is higher than anyone could imagine.
It was the deaths of five cheerleaders that made the town of Sunnybrook infamous. Eleven years later, the girls’ killer has been brought to justice, and the town just wants to move on. By the time Hadley moves to Sunnybrook, though, the locals are more interested in the Tigers, the high school’s championship-winning football team. The Tigers are Sunnybrook’s homegrown heroes–something positive in a town with so much darkness in its past.
Hadley could care less about football, but shortly after she gets assigned to cover the team’s latest championship bid for the school newspaper, one of the Tigers is poisoned at a party, and almost immediately after, Hadley starts getting strange emails warning her to stay far away from the football team.It’s becoming clear Sunnybrook’s golden boys have secrets, and after a second player is mysteriously killed, Hadley’s beginning to suspect that someone wants the team to pay for their sins. Or does this new target on the football team have something to do with what happened to the cheerleaders all those years ago?
As an outsider in Sunnybrook, Hadley feels like she’s the only one who can see the present clearly, but it looks like she’s going to have to dig up the darkness of the past to get to the bottom of what’s happening now. Luckily, there are still some Sunnybrook High grads who never left–people who were around eleven years ago—and if she can just convince them to talk, she might be able stop a killer before another Tiger dies.
Content Warning: underage drinking, death, mention of hazing, mention of rape
I never read The Cheerleaders but always wanted to and then I got the arc for The Champions and thought I could jump into the story without reading the first book and I think I caught up with everything pretty good.
Hadley is an outsider at Sunnybrook high school which has a winning and popular football team. She’s new to the town so she wasn’t there when the five cheerleaders died there in the past but of course she’s heard of it. She wants to go into the journalism and belongs to the school newspaper when she gets a chance to interview the football team but gets embroiled in something deeper.
This is a story about a school covering up the bad deeds of some of the popular boys in class and how things get unravelled and Hadley being in the middle of it all even if she is an “outsider”. She’s not best friends with any of the popular kids but they know her and talk to her so she’s not ignored at school.
I liked that the story moved fast and I didn’t get lost even though I didn’t read The Cheerleaders. It is the typical story of a cover-up in the athletics department of a popular school and kids getting hurt or killed because of this secret. I do think at times there were too many names for me to follow and I kept having to remind myself who was who.
My Thoughts:
This is a pretty solid, quick read! I was invested in finding out what the football team was covering up and it’s pretty bad but I’m glad in the end there was some justice.
This week was just us having some simple fun before school starts and to make sure I got all the school supplies. We went to my daughter’s meet and greet on Friday and dropped off all her school supplies. I have to remind the kids that it’s time to wake up early again lol…they don’t like that but at least it’s still August and not dark outside in the morning. So goodbye summer! Hello school days again.
Why do I love this color combo right now in the titles I’m reading?! The pink and green? Love!🥰
Shadows of Perl by. J. Elle
Fear the Flames by. Olivia Rose Darling
Butcher & Blackbird by. Brynne Weaver
Isabel and the Rogue by. Liana De la Rosa
Happy Medium by. Sarah Adler
Shows/Movies/Music I Watched/Listened To:
House of Dragon –
Olivia Rodrigo Guts (Spilled) – I just added this vinyl album to my collection! 💜 I love it.
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!
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!
“It was always a gamble, dropping off a body at Birdsall & Son, Undertakers, but this morning, the Bride of FOrtune favored Hart Ralston.”
Disclaimer: **I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**
Thank you to St. Martin’s Griffin for giving me a chance to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review!
Two viral break-ups. One fake relationship. Five sparkling, heart-pounding dates.
June and Levi were best friends as teenagers – until the day they weren’t. Now June is struggling to make rent on her beachside tea shop, Levi is living a New York cliché as a disillusioned hedge fund manager and failed novelist, and they’ve barely spoken in years.
But, after they both experience public, humiliating break-ups that spread like wildfire online, a photo of them together has the internet convinced they’re a couple. With so many people rooting for them, they decide to put aside their rocky past and make a pact to fuel the fire by pretending to date. After all, that will help June’s shop stay open and make Levi’s ex realize what a mistake she made.
All they have to do is convince the world they’re in love, one swoon-worthy photo opp at a time. Then they can happily go their separate ways with no regrets . . . right?
Content Warning: grief, death of friend
I usually love Emma Lord books but I have to say this might be my least favorite of her books. Let’s start off with the things I did love. I loved when June and Levi finally get intimate with one another – the steamy scene was good. I also like this little beachside community that June, Levi and their friends grew up in – most of them stayed, some left and came back like June. But I liked that whole issue about leaving your hometown and maybe coming back after you’ve been out there in the world. Also, yes these people are in that time of their lives where they are settling down, or trying to figure out what their careers will be and all that, so that is relatable.
It’s got some fun tropes like fake dating and friends to lovers.
What I didn’t enjoy was the miscommunication between June and Levi which just created this huge riff between them. Life comes between them, they date other people, coincidentally they both get humiliated online and it goes viral – not sure how relatable that is, but Levi is still holding out for the girlfriend who cheated on him. That’s the current state of things in the story for most of the story which was frustrating. There is some fake dating, which gives us a chance to see the chemistry between them grow but honestly, I wasn’t feeling the fake dating and didn’t connect to the characters.
My Thoughts:
I’m bummed I didn’t love this one but I just wasn’t connecting with the characters and something was missing for me. I just wanted more from Levi at some points. The miscommunication trope has to be one of my least favorite in any book and it frustrated me in this one for sure. The story had some cute moments and even a good steamy scene but everything around that was complicated. Not my favorite but I’ll still be reading any books she writes!
Past Midnight Book Reviews & More 