February Wrap-up

Time for another monthly wrap-up! I feel like I outdid myself this past month! I read EIGHT books! Now granted, last month I read three books that were 500+ pages, so those were time consumers. This month I read some significantly shorter books! Two were under 300 pages and the rest were under 400. I didn't do any "other" posts this month. I guess I am still a bit burnt out from last year. But there is one coming this week!

TBR READS:

A Dream So Wicked by Tessonja Odette (6/30/23) 
We Won't All Survive by Kate Alice Marshall (7/29/25)
Wild Card by Rachel Vincent (12/25/17)
Fat Cat by Rachel Vincent (4/17/23)
Brave New Girl by Rachel Vincent (5/9/17)
Strange New World by Rachel Vincent (5/8/18)
Fallen Gods by Rachel Van Dyken (12/2/25)


ARC READS:

West of Wicked by Nikki St. Crowe (4/14/26)--Review to come at a later date

Stacking the Shelves--The Super Spectacular Mega Haul!

 

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 even was this week? Lol. I know I keep saying that lately, but the weeks have been a bit dull lately. Which again, not too much of a bad thing, I prefer calm instead of chaos anyway. Although, as I write this I am running on low fumes. I got very little sleep Thursday night. Tried to go to bed early Friday but it got to that point where I was SO exhausted, I still could not fall asleep and then I still woke up in the middle of the night and then again a few times after that. And that horrible, awful, dreadful, no-good DST is next week and I just know I will be EVEN MORE TIRED after that. Perhaps this is my body already rejecting losing the hour of sleep/life. Lol. The week was pretty uneventful until yesterday when I went to see Kate Alice Marshall again! I think she's come here three years in a row now? Which is just awesome as she was always one author I thought I'd never get to meet after I read and adored Rules for Vanishing! I got quite a lot more books than expected this week, as my Amazon order from weeks ago was FINALLY shipped and delivered. Of course, one random bookmark was separated from the herd, so now I have to hope they don't damage it in whatever envelope it was put in! Fingers crossed!

Here's what I did get this week:

The Light Under the Shadow Wing by Amanda Bouchet--had a panic attack when I saw B&N shipped this in a paper envelope instead of the usual cardboard one as the mail carrier shoved it into our mailbox haphazardly like and I couldn't get it out of the box right away! Luckily it survived but that was the worst 2 minutes of my day by far! Lol.
The Beasts We Raise by D.L. Taylor--still need to read the first book, but as it's a duology (I think) I was likely wise to wait! Lol.
Make Me a Liar by Melissa Landers--been on my Amazon list for ages and when I was creating an order to get the next book listed here, I threw this in for my shipping!
Living Dead Girl by Rachel Vincent--been on my list for 3+ years now, always meant to download it but never got around to it. But since Rachel is coming next month I decided to treat myself to the actual book!
The Girls Before by Kate Alice Marshall--SIGNED!

And while all my special edition Fairy Loot books keep getting lost somehow, I did receive my February monthly box. This was another one that I was a little meh on, but might give it a read at some possible point.

Now I just need FL to respond to my follow-up email regarding my second lost order. I guess you can say "luckily" I am not the only one who is missing the latest two orders that I am missing, as a friend of mine who lives in the same area of states is waiting on hers too. So it's like their shipping partner lost a great big batch of boxes for these particular books. And yes, my anxiety is SKY HIGH as one of these missing orders is my Caraval set!

Then I won a contest on Instagram from Bramble and it arrived super quick and I am SO excited to read this one:

A Curse of Beasts and Magic by Jeaniene Frost (ARC)

THANK YOU Bramble!!

Then a surprise review book also popped up in my mailbox this week:

A Thousand Perfect Lies by Monica Murphy (ARC)

THANK YOU Mayhem Books!

Then this week I received other books for review that I had put requests in:

East of Envy by Nikki St. Crowe (ARC)--was super stoked to get this one as I just finished the ARC of the first book! 
It Came from Neverland by Cynthia Pelayo (ARC)
The Wretched Divine by Adalyn Grace (ARC)

THANK YOU Bramble, Crooked Lane Books, & Feiwel!

Then I ended up being one of the lucky readers to get the pin for The Wolf and the Crown of Blood! I remember this preorder offer seemed more like a contest and I was shocked to find that I won!!

THANK YOU Bloomsbury!!

Then I got these fun stickers at the Kate Alice Marshall signing:

And then finally, here's one of the bookmarks I bought in my Amazon order! Just have to hope the second one arrives unscathed!

I mean, how perfect is this? Funnily enough, I do have one that says Introverted but willing to discuss books! Lol. Guess that was before we coined this term!

And that was my pretty spectacular haul this week! What did you get?

Review--Fallen Gods by Rachel Van Dyken

 

They said the Gods were myth. That the Giants were only stories told around dying fires. They lied.

The Gods aren’t dead—they’re only sleeping, locked in mortal bodies, scattered across the world, waiting for the right spark to wake them. And my father is the most ruthless of them all.

He raised me to obey. To bleed. To be his blade when the time came. Now he’s sending me to Endir University, a place filled with ancient bloodlines and deadly secrets, to steal back Mjolnir, the hammer of legend. If I fail, everyone I love dies.

But Aric Erikson wasn’t part of the plan. He’s the enemy’s heir. Distant. Dangerous. And…the one person I can’t afford to fall for. He’s closed himself off completely behind a wall of ice, but the more I’m ordered to unravel him, the harder it becomes to remember where the lies end and I begin.

There's only a mission I never chose—and a man I was never meant to love—standing between me and a war that will decide the fate of the world.

But if I’m the spark, maybe he’s the fuse. And the Gods? They’re about to wake up angry.

Rachel Van Dyken's Fallen Gods was a creative take on Norse mythology. Granted, it's not necessarily any kind of retelling that we know of. Really, there's just the names of familiar faces woven into a completely new and compelling story that had me intrigued from the get-go!

I do love a good mythological based story! Although the few courses I took on the subject were mostly focused on Greek/Roman, we did loosely touch on others like Norse mythology. Of course, we all know bits and bobs of it from the Marvel movies, but it's hard for me to say if anybody got anything right since I have barely any memory on the subject.

But luckily, Van Dyken has an author's note saying she took largely creative input on this one with only a few things ringing true. 

Anyway, our story follows college freshman Rey who is being forced to go to Endir University instead of the college of her choice. Her father, Odin--yes, that Odin--is making her go there in order to find Mjolnir aka Thor's hammer. It's been lost for ages but he believes that Aric, the son of their enemies, knows where it's at and Rey is to do whatever is needed to get the hammer back in their family's possession. 

Rey and Aric have a history, a complicated one as I didn't quite grasp how this rejection came about. They were meant to be together, but then they broke up before they even got together and just went back to being enemies so to speak. But Odin and their family know that Aric and his family are Giants...their mortal (or probably immortal) enemies. Except that Aric and his family's powers and abilities are "sleeping" so they don't really know who or what they are.

Yes, there was quite a bit of complexity happening here within the story. There are secrets galore and secret plots happening all over the place. We get both Rey and Aric's point of view, so we are getting each side to this R&J love affair they have happening. True enemies to lovers as these two loathed one another for about half the book before a change started to happen.

The story moved at a quick pace as Rey only has a week to find Mjolnir and if she fails, Odin will harm her stepmother (his wife). This Odin is basically a bad guy practically as he's always seems to be threatening Rey or someone she loves. Now if this rings true of our Odin of mythology, I can't say as, again, I don't remember much of those tales. I will admit that at times, the pacing did get slow down a bit when it came to searching for this thing and that thing. But otherwise, it was a bit of an up and down rollercoaster!

I did enjoy the dynamic between Rey and Aric. There's also a delicious tension when it comes to enemies to lovers stories and I ate it up! Of course, I was still a little unclear of their past history and what it was that set them apart from one another. It was quite literally a moment and I must have glazed over it. Distracted reading is not advised, my friends! 

But despite a few misses here and there, I was still able to follow the story along well enough and was totally invested in seeing Rey and Aric succeed. There were some shocking surprises at the end of the story which will definitely make for a stellar sequel, that's for sure!

If you're looking for a book with some possibly-new-to-you mythology based, then I highly recommend Fallen Gods! It was an intriguing and engaging start to what's sure to be an epic saga!

Overall Rating 4/5 stars

Book Blogger Hop #400

 

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

This week's question is: When you spot giveaways, do you enter just for fun—even if you’re unsure you’ll read the book—or only when you truly want the title? (submitted by Elizabeth @ Silver's Reviews)

MY ANSWER: I definitely enter the ones where I really, really want to read the book! Other times if it's a book I keep debating about, I'll enter the contest anyway. These days all the contests are on Goodreads and it takes me like 2-3 years to win 1 book. So if it's a book I'm debating about and I win it, I take it as a win and I will still read it. I treat it like a review book (and hopefully I get it in time to read before it releases!). My last Goodreads win was actually last year--so I probably won't win one again until 2027 at the earliest--and it took longer than expected to receive the book. Like it came maybe 2 weeks before the book was set to release.

Books from the Backlog #175

 

Books from the Backlog is a fun way to feature some of those neglected books sitting on your bookshelf unread.  If you are anything like me, you might be surprised by some of the unread books hiding in your stacks. This is a fun meme hosted by Carole's Random Life in Books!

It’s not easy being the son of evil incarnate…

Hunter Teague is the prince of the Unseelie Court, the dark half of Faerie. Raised in an atmosphere of unspeakable cruelty, Hunter has learned the lessons of his mother, the Queen of Air and Darkness, and he’s ready to put them to use. He’s on a mission, one that will shift the balance of power in Faerie forever: he will seduce the Seelie king’s mortal daughter and sire a child upon her—a child who will be heir to both the Seelie and the Unseelie thrones. Hunter has never met a mortal woman he couldn’t seduce...until now.

Kiera Malone is a self-employed web designer and a self-professed cynic. She doesn’t believe in magic or soulmates, let alone her mother’s ridiculous claims to have slept with the mythical Faerie King. But when Hunter hires her to design a website, Kiera finds herself drawn to him in ways that seem almost magical. He’s gorgeous and sexy as sin, the kind of man any woman would swoon over—but her every instinct warns her there’s something dangerous lurking beneath his charming façade.

To succeed in his mission, Hunter must let himself get closer to Kiera than he ever planned. Soon, he finds himself burdened with the one thing a prince of the Unseelie Court can’t afford: a conscience. Now Hunter must betray either the woman who is slowly working her way into his heart, or the Queen of Air and Darkness...who would destroy him and Kiera both.

I used to love reading Jenna Black's books, but then I think she retired from writing at some point and I still have a few of her backlist titles floating around on my TBR pile. Prince of Darkness was one I added in August of 2017. From the looks of Goodreads this one originally published in 2006 and then it looks like it was reprinted in 2011. It must have been a kindle sale that led me to download it and on the kindle it remains, because as I said, I forget I have books on that thing! Lol. I know for sure of one author's series that I still download but always forget to read, but that's another story! This one still sounds like it would be a fun classic Urban Fantasy read so I really ought to charge up the ol' kindle and it give it a read sometime soon!

Can't Wait Wednesday #237

 

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.

From New York Times bestseller Elle Cosimano comes Finlay Donovan Crosses the Line—the highly anticipated next installment in the beloved Finlay Donovan series.

Life hasn’t been easy for Finlay Donovan lately, but it just got a whole lot harder. Her nanny and partner-in-crime, Vero, has been extradited from Virginia to Maryland, where she’s facing criminal charges for a theft she swears she didn’t commit. A prisoner to an ankle bracelet as she awaits her trial, Vero is forced to live with her overbearing mother and nosy aunt. Threatening messages keep arriving on her mother’s door, demanding Vero “turn over the money . . . or else.” And if she doesn’t figure out who really stole her former sorority’s treasury funds, her next home might be a prison cell.

But proving her innocence might be an impossible feat. Vero was the treasurer of her sorority when the money went missing—one of the only people who had access to the cash. And her alibi is a date who ghosted her. With her court date quickly approaching, and her mysterious stalker on her tail, Vero needs to clear her name fast.

Finlay decides a trip to Maryland is in order. After all, Vero stood by her through her darkest moments, and Finlay will be damned if she lets her best friend and children’s nanny be convicted for something she didn’t do. She sets off on a mission to sus out the real thief and bring Vero home.

*Apparently Firefox changed how they do the blockquote here on blogger. It basically messes it up entirely so that you can't do it. Same with Chrome. Not sure what browser I need to switch to now, but it's annoying me. I've tried multiple times going into the HTML format of the post to try to do it manually and it keeps moving the box to the very top of the book and blurb...so I don't know how to get it to listen to me. Lol.

This is one series I still surprise myself by liking. It's probably my most contemporary series that I read! There's still a mystery but it's usually cozy style, but it's still pretty humorous!

TITLE: Finlay Donovan Crosses the Line
AUTHOR: Elle Cosimano
PUBLISHER: Minotaur Books
GENRE: Mystery
RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2026

The night's chaos left us breathless. Now the real nightmare begins.

A second dragon has awoken–her heart tainted and her power commandeered by two ruthless highbloods whose cruelty knows no bounds.

My dearest friend teetered on the brink of death. A dragon saved her, but now she's tied to him in a way I can scarcely understand. What will this new bond do to the woman I've come to love as a sister?

And then there’s Blake. Once my relentless tormentor—he betrayed me again, nearly condemning Nyxaris to a cursed, stone-cold fate. Now something has shifted in him. His gray eyes hide a secret he’s desperate to keep.

I saved Blake’s life, despite everything. Yet now my every heartbeat questions where we go from here.

With Bloodwing Academy in turmoil and a new headmaster no one saw coming, only one thing is This is going to be one hell of a term.

At Bloodwing Academy, power comes with blood, and betrayal is as common as ambition. This dark fantasy series tackles mature themes. Readers are advised to consult the trigger warnings before embarking on this intense, morally gray/black journey through the realm of Sangratha!

I just started reading this series last year and quickly fell in love with it! It's got everything a paranormal fantasy reader could ask for!

TITLE: The Wings That Bind
AUTHOR: Briar Boleyn
PUBLISHER: MIRA
GENRE: Fantasy Romance
RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2026

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.

"Now we've added wizards to the mix. What else will they reveal to me? Talking animals?" p 48*

*Quote comes from the ARC, therefore it and its page number are not final.

TITLE: West of Wicked
AUTHOR: Nikki St. Crowe
PUBLISHER: Bramble
GENRE: Fantasy
RELEASE DATE: April 14, 2026

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 10 Quotes About Books

*in no particular order

10. Books saved me, and I ran away inside the stories I read as a child.
9. I remember wanting to vanish, and books helped me to escape. I longed to disappear inside a dream of the world that was less cold and lonely than the life I lived in. I read more and more, hiding inside my room and my books for hours.
8. Books can take you anywhere if you let them.
7. I have always been a little awkward around real people. I don't l know how to talk to them, and even now, I still prefer the company of characters in books.

6. I thought back to all my time alone, reading, as the world crumbled around me. It was the only thing that gave me solace and hope.

5. ...there is still something different about opening a real book, the scent that emerges, seeing one word at a time and soaking in its shape and nuance.

4. Books had always, always saved me, time and again.

3. The only thing that felt beautiful about my life was the way books let me escape it.

2. Those are valuable artifacts called "books." They're ancient repositories of knowledge bound in a mobile fashion.

1. A good book was its own brand of magic.

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:

Brave New Girl by Rachel Vincent (3.5 stars)

Strange New World by Rachel Vincent (4 stars)

Review That Was Posted:

The Girls Before by Kate Alice Marshall (ARC) (4.5 stars)

Currently Reading:

West of Wicked by Nikki St. Crowe (ARC)

What I Plan to Read Next:

Fallen Gods by Rachel Van Dyken

Other Posts of Interest:

Teaser & Top Ten Tuesdays
Can't Wait Wednesday #236
Books from the Backlog #174
Book Blogger Hop #399
Stacking the Shelves

Stacking the Shelves

 

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.

February is slowly dragging its feet around here. It was another mundane week of nothing exciting. Work wasn't too bad. Not crazy or stressful so that was nice! Lol. I have been stressing out about some of my Fairy Loot orders as I keep getting shipping label notices but then nothing else happens after that. One book I'm almost afraid might be lost as it's not listed on their site anywhere for when it should be received, packed, or shipped so I'm just like where is my copy? I sent an email but am still in the waiting period. Then there's the when will the Caraval sets ship? They said they're shipping in batches and I've received like 3 shipment notifications but they never say what they are, just that Fairy Loot has created a label and there it sits for weeks on end. So yeah, definitely stressing out on that front!

Here's what I got this week:

First Sign of Danger by Kelley Armstrong
Gods Beneath the Ice by Alexandra Kennington
Half City by Kate Golden
Secondhand Luck by Kim Harrison--SIGNED!
Throne of Nightmares by Kerri Maniscalco--B&N edition SIGNED!

Then for review from the publisher I received:

West of Wicked by Nikki St. Crowe (ARC)

THANK YOU Bramble!

Then I got a few preorder incentives this week:

a sticker from Sparking Fire Out of Fate
SIGNED bookplate

THANK YOU Bloomsbury YA!

a postcard
stickers for Books & Bewitchment
SIGNED bookplate!

THANK YOU Isla!

And then finally, my favorite phone case company was having a BOGO sale so my mom and I went in together to each buy a case and this is naturally the one I had been eyeing since the last time I was on the site browsing but with no sale:

And that was it for me this week! What all did you get?