Can't Wait Wednesday

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. It's based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous Jill at Breaking the Spine.

A woman investigates her brother's mysterious death while coming to terms with her own haunting past in this atmospheric novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Unmaking of June Farrow

The only thing James and Johnny Golden have ever had is each other. For as long as she can remember, James’s deep connection with her twin brother, Johnny, has gone beyond intuition—she can feel what he feels. So, when Johnny is killed in a tragic accident, James knows before her phone even rings that her brother is gone and that she’s alone—truly alone—for the first time in her life. 

When James arrives in the rural town of Hawthorne, California to settle her brother’s affairs, she’s forced to rehash the ominous past she and Johnny shared and finally face Micah, the only person who knows about it. He’s also the only man she’s ever loved. 

But James soon discovers that the strange connection she had with Johnny isn’t quite gone, and the more she immerses herself into his world, the more questions she has about the brother she thought she knew. Johnny was keeping secrets, and he’s not the only one. What she uncovers will push her to unravel what happened in the days before Johnny’s death, but in the end, she’ll have to decide which truths should come to light, and which should stay buried forever.

I still need to start Adrienne's adult books but I keep adding them to my TBR list! Lol. This one sounds intriguing too!

TITLE: A Sea of Unspoken Things
AUTHOR: Adrienne Young
PUBLISHER: Delacorte Press
GENRE: Mystery
RELEASE DATE: January 7, 2025

 

Teaser & Top Ten Tuesdays

 

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by Purple Princess of The Purple Booker. 

Here are the rules:

1. Grab your current read
2. Open to a page
3. Pick out 2 lines that are SPOILER FREE
4. Name the title, author, etc.

"'But you are still human,' he said quietly. 'And that means that in here, you are prey. You'll always be prey. No matter how good you are with those fancy weapons.'" p 92

TITLE: The Serpent & The Wings of Night
AUTHOR: Carissa Broadbent
PUBLISHER: Bramble
GENRE: Fantasy NA
RELEASE DATE: August 30, 2022

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. 

This week's topic is: Top Ten Book Covers with a Sword on Them

*in no particular order

10. PROTECT THE PRINCE by Jennifer Estep--fantasy novels and urban fantasy novels love their swords!
9. BRIGHT BLAZE OF MAGIC by Jennifer Estep--swords for teens too!
8. SILVER IN THE BONE by Alexandra Bracken--still need to read this one and ironically it was sitting on my desk as I had won a copy recently when I was drafting this post! Lol.

7. POISON STUDY by Maria V. Snyder--the newest reprint! Which ironically Yelena never wields a sword. She goes with another weapon entirely! *not poison either, ;)
6. PRAY FOR DAWN by Jocelynn Drake--another classic urban fantasy!
5. CHEAT THE GRAVE by Vicki Pettersson--more classics! Which Vicki added a novella and upper YA installment to this series that I need to read still! Not surprisingly! Lol.

4. BLACK NIGHT by Christina Henry--another classic urban fantasy series I loved! They had all the swords as you can tell! Lol.
3. FRIDAY NIGHT BITES by Chloe Neill--Merit pretty much had her sword on every cover!
2. CRYSTAL STORM by Morgan Rhodes--one of my favorite YA fantasy series!

1. ONCE UPON A BROKEN HEART by Stephanie Garber--UK cover! Of course, I'd work a Garber cover into this. You all know me so well! The knight on the left is holding the sword, ;)

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

 

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date. It's a fun meme where we gather to share what we've read last week and our reading plans for this week.

Last Week I Read:

Of Song and Scepter by Liesl West (4 stars)

Currently Reading:

The Serpent and The Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent

What I Plan to Read Next:

Six Scorched Roses by Carissa Broadbent

Other Posts of Interest:

Teaser & Top Ten Tuesdays
Let's Discuss: Travel Reading
Can't Wait Wednesday
Books from the Backlog #107
Book Blogger Hop #330
Challenges Monthly Wrap-up: October
Stacking the Shelves--The Spectacular Edition: Part 2

Stacking the Shelves--The Spectacular Edition: Part 2

 

Stacking the Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts, and of course ebooks! The meme is now hosted by Reading Reality.

What a week! This was a normal week for the most part. Work is finally wrapping up the busy season. Things were calm and mundane for the most part. Of course, I continued to stress over my missing Stephanie Garber book. It's been late for over a week now. Blackwell's was like, it's not late enough, closing ticket, have a nice day. I did talk to my local post office and they were at least able to explain why it looked like it came to them, but didn't. It's basically stuck at the Sorting Center of No Return. So yeah, you can see why I do not like them! Lol. My post office guy was hopeful that maybe it could start moving in the next week, but who really knows how short staffed that facility is. What I don't understand is why this book got stuck in sorting hell when the other book I ordered that shipped with this one came to my PO in a timely manner. It's bonkers.

Anyway, here's what I got this week:

Apples Dipped in Gold by Scarlett St. Clair
Throne of Secrets by Kerri Maniscalco
Throne of Secrets by Kerri Maniscalco--B&N edition, I find it hard to stop buying standards and special editions once you start. Plus pretty colors! Lol. And bonus content!

Trapped by Neverland by Megan Charlie--SIGNED! I've had this one on my wishlist for awhile then I saw the site that sells the hardcover with the gorgeous under the cover art design was having a sale, so I snagged it up!

Wisteria by Adalyn Grace--Fairy Loot Edition

Blood Promise by Richelle Mead--Fairy Loot Edition. Belatedly realize they were stacked out of order, but oh well. Too tired now!
Spirit Bound by Richelle Mead--Fairy Loot Edition
Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead--Fairy Loot Edition

Spectacular by Stephanie Garber--SIGNED UK Waterstones edition with the Gumdrop Palace! 3 down and got a trade going for the final one!!

Spectacular by Stephanie Garber--Owl Crate edition and OMG! This one is sooo pretty! I kept the endpages and hidden cover a surprise just in case others have not received theirs yet, but oh my wow! This is just a stunning copy!

Caraval Holiday Box Set by Stephanie Garber--SIGNED!! And look at these gorgeous sprayed edges!

A Curse for True Love by Stephanie Garber--German edition

Then I got my Fairy Loot book for October! It was nice. I had forgotten this one was the October pick. I don't know, I was excited to see what FL would do for this one and just feel meh. Still a lovely copy, but not what I was hoping for,

And that was it for me this week! Lots of pretty special editions and in the end, I only added 3 books to my TBR as two were special editions that I already had there, and the rest were collectors editions!! What all did you get this week?

Challenges Monthly Wrap-up: October

CHALLENGE 1: 2024 Series Enders Reading Challenge

Spectacular by Stephanie Garber (Caraval)
Where the Library Hides by Isabel Ibanez (Secrets of the Nile)

I'm currently at 14 finished series! I know I got one more done already as well that will be coming up in the next week or two! So that's exciting! Lol.

CHALLENGE 2: 2024 Discussion Challenge

Spooky Books, Not Movies
Cosplaying
Author Swag

Early Cover Changes
Reading Makes Me Happy
Travel Reading

I am literally 1 discussion away from my ultimate goal! Lol. I don't see it being a problem since I've got 2 months! Hopefully something will come to mind eventually! Lol.

CHALLENGE 3: 2024 Beat the Backlist Challenge

Well this is embarrassing! I didn't read any old TBR books! Shocking I know! I was on a roll with this challenge this year. I will say, that it is largely because October was my Caraval re-read month. Since I've read the Caraval books before I couldn't justify adding them to my challenge as they were not TBR. Then I read the newest book which obviously didn't fit and then I read another 2024 book before October ended so I probably should've read at least one older book, but too late now. Lol. Since I'm at 46/25 I say I am okay to skip a month! Would be nice if I could make it 50 before the end of the year but that could be problematic!

Book Blogger Hop #330

 

This meme is hosted by Billy at Ramblings of a Coffee Addict!

This week's question is: Have you ever participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in November, and do you have any favorite books that were born from this writing challenge? (submitted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer)

MY ANSWER: No I have not. Firstly it was usually because I was always trying to edit my current manuscript. I've honestly been ignoring it for so long now that it might be time to blow the dust off, do some editing to it and give a try querying again. I basically always felt like I had stuff going on in my current manuscript and my other WIPs were already at some sort of halfway point that I just didn't feel the need to do this.

Of course, now I have been seeing a WHOLE LOTTA FLACK on this "program" or whatever you want to call it. The gist of what I was seeing was that by participating in NaNoWriMo you are giving permission for your work to be fed to an AI bot to learn about writing or something like that. And I was like hell no, as were many of the authors who I learned this from! It's insane!

Then I was also reading other people's opinions on NaNoWriMo sans AI teaching and even that made a lot of sense. That the abnormality of trying to write 50K in 30 days can be unhealthy. I mean I see that as yes, but then also, I can see how it was good for people in the beginning too. I feel like the point wasn't to get a polished 50K on the page, it's more about getting the words on the page. You don't have to edit or things like that, but then other authors admit that that is apart of their process too, so NaNoWriMo doesn't work for them either.

So basically, no. I don't participate in this and probably never will. Even with my lack of writing over the last couple of years, I don't feel like it's the right fit for me to just get words on the page, as I too feel like I do a bit of editing as I write.