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?

August is upon us and I cannot wait to see the back of Summer!!! Bring on falling leaves, pumpkins, jumpers and cooler temps!

Back to work for me after a week off and we also had the utter joy of school shoe shopping. Every time it’s a joy to behold (my sarcasm gets stronger every year too!)

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What I’ve Read

Cornucopia by Alek L Cristea
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
See my review here

Mindwalker by Kate Dylan (arc)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
See my review here

🎧 Redemptor by Jordan Ifueko
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
See my review soon!

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New arrivals

I’ve put myself on a book/merch buying ban until November so let’s see how long I last 😅

You might have missed…..

Review – Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
Review – Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
Review – The Merciless Ones by Namina Forna
Unboxing – Fairyloot Adult: July 2022

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What have you read lately?

Fairyloot Adult – July 2022

Demigods and Doughnuts

The featured book is filled with laugh out loud moments and a romance that will tug on your heartstrings apparently…..

THE UNDERTAKING OF HART AND MERCY BY MEGAN BANNEN

Exclusive cover
2 coloured stencil sprayed edges
Foil embossing – hardcover
Artwork on the endpapers @eklixio
Signed

Title: The Merciless Ones

Series: Deathless #2

Author: Namina Forna

It’s been six months since Deka has freed the goddesses and discovered who she really is. There are now wars waging across the kingdom. Otereans now think jatu are traitors to the nation. Deka is called a monster.

But the real battle has only just begun and Deka must lead the charge. Deka is tasked with freeing the rest of the goddesses. Only as she begins to free them, she begins to see a strange symbol everywhere in places of worship and worn on armor. There’s something unnatural about that symbol; just looking at it makes Deka lose her senses. Even worse, it seems to repel her powers. She can’t command or communicate with the new deathshrieks. In fact, she can’t even understand them when they speak.

Deka knows freeing the goddesses is just the beginning. She can tell whatever dark force out is powerful and there is something sinister out there threatening the kingdom connected to that symbol–something merciless–that her army will need to stop before humanity crumbles. But Deka’s powers are only getting stronger…and her strongest weapon could be herself.

I absolutely loved The Gilded Ones and was lucky enough to read early in my Fairyloot box so it’s felt like a long wait for The Merciless Ones! I found it easy to jump back in and this brilliant world all came flooding back.

So we have Deka and her friends and they are on a quest of sorts. Deka is getting stronger as the group begin to question what they have been told from all sides.

The writing was good and descriptive, the pacing was a bit slow in places but it’s the relationships here that I absolutely loved! Deka’s friendships, sisterhood and Keita (love him!!!) It was truly beautiful.

Ixa was another huge favourite for me. He was so cute! Another fave animal companion!!!

There were twists and betrayals everywhere! Just who to believe??!!!

For some reason I thought this was a duology but it’s not, it’s a trilogy so now I have to wait for book 3!

Title: Black Sun

Series: Between Earth and Sky #1

Author: Rebecca Roanhorse

A god will return
When the earth and sky converge
Under the black sun

In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world.

Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain.

‘A god will return
When the earth and sky converge
Under the black sun.’

I did wonder if this was going to be my ‘thing’ but it was so good I don’t even know where to start reviewing it! I am a bit gobsmacked!

Ok, so this book follows:

~ Xiala, a ships captain who can control the water with her Song,
~ Nara, the Sun Priestess,
~ Serapio, a man who has been told he will be a god,
~ Okoa, the Crow Clan matron’s son, trained warrior.

Our journey with them takes us from the early part of Serapio’s life, to the Tova city where Nara is, to Xiala given her next shipping route complete with cargo, to Okoa who finds himself back where he belongs.

The build up was slow setting the scene, the world building exquisite and the story line absolutely perfect. I was absolutely hooked!

Okoa was one of my fave characters and I really hope to see more of him in the next book!

Serapio, omg loved him. His innocence, what he is learning about life, his wants. I could cry!

I also found Xiala’s chapters to be the most enthralling. Down to earth, never judging and just loved and got on with life!

Would totally recommend this read and, if you’re like me and didn’t think it would be your thing, give it a go and you’ll hopefully be pleasantly surprised!

Title: Red, White and Royal Blue

Author: Casey McQuiston

First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz is the closest thing to a prince this side of the Atlantic. With his intrepid sister and the Veep’s genius granddaughter, they’re the White House Trio, a beautiful millennial marketing strategy for his mother, President Ellen Claremont. International socialite duties do have downsides—namely, when photos of a confrontation with his longtime nemesis Prince Henry at a royal wedding leak to the tabloids and threaten American/British relations. The plan for damage control: staging a fake friendship between the First Son and the Prince.

As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?

Omg. Fabulous. Why didn’t I read this sooner! This will be one that I reread and relisten to over and over again!

The banter,
The humour,
The turkey bit,
The dancing at the new years party,
The wet spot,
The emails,
Alex and Henry,
Son of the president and an English Prince!

Apart from the beautifulness of everything Alex and Henry, all I can say is politics and this world is an utter disgrace if this is what people have to go through.

‘I love him. On purpose.’

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: Books Set In a Place I’d Love to Visit (real places or fictional)

📚 Velaris – A Court of by Sarah J Maas
📚 Prague – Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
📚 Italy – Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco
📚 Nevermoor – The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend
📚 Vlads Castle, Romania – Hunting Prince Dracula by Kerri Maniscalco

📚 New Zealand – Lord of the Rings
📚 Marsyas Island – House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
📚 Katmere Academy – Crave by Tracy Wolff
📚 Hawkvale – Fantasyland by Kristen Ashley
📚 Victorian England – The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare

Where would you choose?

Just a little post to wish you a happy August!

“Leaving any bookstore is hard, especially on a day in August, when the street outside burns and glares, and the books inside are cool and crisp to the touch.” ―Jane Smiley

“Breathe the sweetness that hovers in August.” ―Denise Levertov

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?

We’re back from our holiday and we had such a great time (but now the size of the washing pile is making me want to cry!!!)

The weather was so so but at least it didn’t rain! We went to a water park and then different beaches each day. The sea was so cold one day that I couldn’t feel my knee caps 🤣

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What I’ve Read

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
See my review soon!

Ten Thousand Stitches by Olivia Atwater
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
See my review soon!

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New arrivals

The Darkening by Sunya Mara
The Drowned Woods by Emily Lloyd-Jones

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What have you read lately?

Title: Air Awakens

Series: Air Awakens #1

Author: Elise Kova

A library apprentice, a sorcerer prince, and an unbreakable magic bond…

The Solaris Empire is one conquest away from uniting the continent, and the rare elemental magic sleeping in seventeen-year-old library apprentice Vhalla Yarl could shift the tides of war.

Vhalla has always been taught to fear the Tower of Sorcerers, a mysterious magic society, and has been happy in her quiet world of books. But after she unknowingly saves the life of one of the most powerful sorcerers of them all—the Crown Prince Aldrik—she finds herself enticed into his world.

Now she must decide her future: Embrace her sorcery and leave the life she’s known, or eradicate her magic and remain as she’s always been. And with powerful forces lurking in the shadows, Vhalla’s indecision could cost her more than she ever imagined.

So it appears I’m starting a new series but this is on audio and I do have the complete series so it doesn’t really count!!!

Vhalla works in an old library and helps the arrogant, mostly hated, Crown Prince Aldrick back to health and finds she has powers. And serious powers at that!

Her journey takes us on Val accepting who she is and maybe finding someone who is much like her but it’s difficult. Isn’t it always!

I loved the world created here and absolutely loved the cover! I really liked the story line and I did love the romance, can’t wait to see this blossom to more although I may have just jinxed them here however!

On to book 2!