Top Ten Tuesday is featured by That Artsy Reader Girl. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
Topic: Love/Valentine’s Day Freebie
Ooo I do love a freebie but I do find it hard to come up with a subject…..but I’ve chosen my favourite romances as it’s Valentines day!
Ride Steady by Kristen Ashley Rock Chicks by Kristen Ashley Cash’s Fight by Jamie Begley The Three Series by Kristen Ashley The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
Fear Me by BB Reid Untouchable by Sam Mariano Sinners MC by Bella Jewel Hook, Line and Sinker by Tessa Bailey Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer It’s a chance to share news, a post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received.
Hi everyone, hope you’ve had a good week?
It’s been a normal type of week! School has now broken up until the 20th Feb but I still have to work (boo!) so I’ve told my son that we’ll do something together on Wednesday on my day off (and I’m hoping whatever he chooses won’t be too expensive!!!!)
We had a pneumococcal vaccine on Friday for the first time and I woke up Saturday feeling ok…..but then had the shivers all afternoon and ok today so I call that a win!!!
I’ve had a really good reading week with a new release, an arc and a tbr book read!
What I’ve Read
Chain of Thorns by Cassandra Clare ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🎧 Dead Romantics by Ashley Postin ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
New arrivals
Spice Road by Maiya Ibrahim
The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty
You might have missed…..
Review – One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig Review – A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman Review – Spells for Forgetting by Adrienne Young Unboxing – Fairyloot YA January 2023 Feature – Books I want releasing March
Have you ever wondered what secrets the world is hiding? It’s time to uncover them… This box is dedicated to our favourite fictional worlds and the secrets hidden within them.
🖤 Book of Secrets designed by @chattynora 🖤 Hair Scrunchie designed by @blanca.design 🖤 Qadir Pin designed by @no0nedesigns inspired by The Stardust Thief 🖤 Sleep Mask designed by @blanca.design inspired by the book of the month 🖤 Tarot Cards – Jack and Evangeline illustrated by @arz28
BOOK OF THE MONTH
Spice Road by Maiya Ibrahim
Exclusive cover Digital sprayed edges Endpaper art by @merwildandco Reversible dust jacket by @merwildandco Hardcover foil by @blanca.design Signed
A deeply atmospheric story about ancestral magic, an unsolved murder, and a second chance at true love.
Emery Blackwood’s life changed forever the night her best friend was found dead and the love of her life, August Salt, was accused of murdering her. Years later, she is doing what her teenage self swore she never would: living a quiet existence on the misty, remote shores of Saoirse Island and running the family’s business, Blackwood’s Tea Shoppe Herbal Tonics & Tea Leaf Readings.
But when the island, rooted in folklore and magic, begins to show signs of strange happenings, Emery knows that something is coming. The morning she wakes to find that every single tree on Saoirse has turned color in a single night, August returns for the first time in fourteen years and unearths the past that the town has tried desperately to forget.
August knows he is not welcome on Saiorse, not after the night everything changed. As a fire raged on at the Salt family orchard, Lily Morgan was found dead in the dark woods, shaking the bedrock of their tight-knit community and branding August a murderer. When he returns to bury his mother’s ashes, he must confront the people who turned their backs on him and face the one wound from his past that has never healed—Emery.
The town has more than one reason to want August gone, and the emergence of deep betrayals and hidden promises spanning generations threaten to reveal the truth behind Lily’s mysterious death once and for all.
‘The island always calls you back.’
A masterpiece. Yes I said it!
Well this was a fab read! I didn’t want to put it down and was so sad when it was over!
Emery and August. Saiorse. The orchard. All linked.
August comes back to Saiorse, a small eerie island where he grew up and left on bad terms to sort some unfinished business. Emery, his ex is still on the island.
It was eerie, spooky, atmospheric and full of old traditions and island folklore.
Hands down this is my fave book of this authors (and that’s saying something because Fable was my absolute fave!)
A grumpy yet loveable man finds his solitary world turned on its head when a boisterous young family moves in next door.
Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon, the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him the bitter neighbor from hell, but must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?
Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents’ association to their very foundations.
Oh this book. This book. This was something I didn’t know I needed!
I love Ove, I think I’m a Parvaneh type of person and would’ve been exactly the same as her towards Ove but I am incredibly sad for him, not that he’d want me to be, he wouldn’t care what I thought!
Ove’s wife, Sonja, is a 1st class woman. Someone I would love to meet. Her and Ove are literally chalk and cheese….but it worked and it worked well.
‘People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was colour. All the colour he had.’
The morning check, the cat, the snow shovelling, the Saab love, the Residents Association, the relationships, the love that spilled from these pages. I absolutely loved every word, every sentence, every paragraph and every chapter.
I don’t cry at books but did have a little tear at the end of this because it was heartbreaking and so, so heartwarming.
Top Ten Tuesday is featured by That Artsy Reader Girl. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
Topic: 2023 Debut Books I’m Excited About
This was actually hard! I don’t really know which authors are debut or not so I had to consult a Goodreads list and pick out titles I want to read!!!
Anyway, without further ado, here is my list!
A Ruinous Fate by Kaylie Smith Seven Faceless Saints by MK Lobb Lies We Sing to the Sea by Sarah Underwood Together We Rot by Skyla Arndt Spice Road by Maya Ibrahim Unseelie by Ivelisse Housman The Sun and The Void by Gabriela Romero-Lacruz Forget Me Not by Julie Soto The Davenports by Krystal Marquis
Elspeth needs a monster. The monster might be her.
Elspeth Spindle needs more than luck to stay safe in the eerie, mist-locked kingdom of Blunder—she needs a monster. She calls him the Nightmare, an ancient, mercurial spirit trapped in her head. He protects her. He keeps her secrets.
But nothing comes for free, especially magic.
When Elspeth meets a mysterious highwayman on the forest road, her life takes a drastic turn. Thrust into a world of shadow and deception, she joins a dangerous quest to cure Blunder from the dark magic infecting it. And the highwayman? He just so happens to be the King’s nephew, Captain of the most dangerous men in Blunder…and guilty of high treason.
Together they must gather twelve Providence Cards—the keys to the cure. But as the stakes heighten and their undeniable attraction intensifies, Elspeth is forced to face her darkest secret yet: the Nightmare is slowly taking over her mind. And she might not be able to stop him.
‘There once was a girl clever and good, who tarried in shadow in the depths of the wood. There also was a King – a shepherd by his crook, who reigned over magic and wrote the old book. The two were together, so the two were the same: The girl, the King…..and the monster they became.’
I cannot begin to tell you how much I loved this book because I don’t have the words for the absolute amazingness of this book (that’s a word isn’t it!!!)
~ Marvellous ~ Superb ~ Out of this world ~ Yes it was the cats pajamas
The world, the writing, the characters, the plot…. everything…..it was just the best ever!
Ravyn, Elspeth, Elm, Jespyr = loved. The Nightmare loved him more than anything that sarcastic monster!
I really can’t string a sentence together so I think you can gather I loved it, would 100% recommend and I’m off to see when book 2 is coming out!
CJRTB Books 