This week's question is: Who is your favorite "hobbit" from J. R. R. Toliken's Middle-Earth books? (submitted by Snapdragon @ Snapdragon Alcove)
MY ANSWER: I honestly have never read the books or seen the movies. So I don't think I could even name any of them other than Frodo and I say that with the loosest of confidence.
My Hesitancy with Space Books
I feel like one type of book I am always hesitant to pick up are books that take place in space...as in outer space. I feel like it's a mix of reasons. Firstly, space always felt like a complicated subject. That in order to get there, you're going to need a spaceship of some kind and it's going to be all techy and complicated. I feel like there could be too much time spent of explaining the logistics of the spaceship and space itself. Then there's the whole lack of oxygen.
Then you throw in planets and galaxies and things start to get really complicated because we sometimes end up on other planets or universes and then there's the whole explanation of life on this planet. Then we have the people/characters who may not be 100% human but humanoid.
I don't know...it just always felt like these books are bound to be complicated and I always feared they'd be overly complicated. I have read some mix of them, I've had ones that were rather simple and you forget you're even in space, then there were the ones that made my brain hurt because they were so detailed in the descriptions of things and how the ship flew and worked and what life on these planets were like. It was always hard to follow or grasp what kind of world I was in.
I also worried that the books would feel a little "lost" or something? I mean if it takes place in space, you might just be resorted to life on a spaceship. But I have found that even with that kind of limitations these books can still be amazing!
Needless to say that even with my hesitancy to pickup "space" books I have found many delightful ones that have become favorites such as The Lunar Chronicles, The Illuminae Files, and Jessie Mihalik's books! I read one of her trilogies and still have another one on my TBR!
What about you? Have you ever felt some kind of struggle or hesitancy to read a book that takes place in outer space? Is there another type of setting that would make you hesitate to pickup a book if it largely took place there?
Sunshine Griffith can communicate with ghosts. Even more amazing, she recently discovered—with the help of her would-be boyfriend, Nolan—that she’s a luiseach, one of an ancient race of creatures who have lived among humans for centuries, protecting them from dark spirits and helping them move on to the afterlife. Now, Sunshine’s powers are awakening and she feels spirits everywhere—intense and sometimes overwhelming.
Eager to get her supernatural abilities under control, Sunshine agrees to begin training with her mentor, her estranged father Aidan. He takes her to an abandoned compound deep in the Mexican jungle. But what she learns there about her powers, and her family history, turns out to be more terrifying than Sunshine could have imagined. Can anything—Aidan’s experiments, her friendship with another luiseach named Lucio, even Nolan’s research—prepare Sunshine to face the frightening woman who haunts her dreams, and to finally learn the truth about the rift that threatens the future of the luiseach and all of humankind?
The stakes grow ever higher in this sequel to The Haunting of Sunshine Girl, revealing that Sunshine has to protect more than her own friends and family—she may be the key to saving the entire human race.
If memory recalls, I added The Awakening of Sunshine Girl by Paige McKenzie to my TBR pile when I was at BEA in May of 2016! Pretty sure it was one of the freebie reads available so I thought why not? I had picked up the first book because it sounded intriguing, and here was the second one up for the offerings! It was fate! And yet, neither of them are read yet! I still want to read them because they sound like my kind of read!
A richly illustrated and romantic origin story of Mary E. Pearson's Remnant universe, the world of the BookTok sensations Dance of Thieves and Vow of Thieves and the New York Times-bestselling Remnant Chronicles.
Before borders were drawn, before treaties were signed, before wars were waged anew, before the great kingdoms of the Remnant were even born and the world of old was only a hazy slate of memory told in story and legend, a girl and her family fought to survive.
And that girl’s name was Morrighan.
Discover the origin story of the Remnant universe, penned by the New York Times–bestselling master storyteller Mary E. Pearson, in this lush collector’s edition prequel with lavish illustrations, a romance for the ages, and a magic that stirs the heart.
I first read Mary E. Pearson's Morrighan wayyy back in August of 2016, but when this gorgeous illustrated and extended edition released in 2022 I still decided to buy it because I did love The Remnant Chronicles and thought I'd love to have the physical copy as well!
Needless to say that the almost 10 year gap between reading the book and re-reading this extended version was like reading the book for the first time again! I read The Remnant Chronicles and its spinoff so many years ago as well, so even all of that felt hazy. I just remembered that events largely took place in the kingdom of Morrighan and this is the story of who that kingdom was named after.
Morrighan was once just a young girl growing up with the tribe who was her family. Her mother died during childbirth and she never knew her father. Then one day she meets a boy, who she will later learn is Jafir and is a scavenger. Basically the lowest of the low when it came to people like them. He was apart of a group who stole from others because it was easier than doing something themselves. He was one of the best hunters among the group so he was often on his own bringing back food for his family. It is then that the two meet and have sporadic and spread out interactions. It's not until their later years where they would have near daily meetups.
The story is told through Jafir and Morrighan's point of view, but largely the story seems to belong to Morrighan. We learn that Morrighan has a particular gift, one that if it was largely known would have her coveted by all the wrong sorts of people, and naturally, Jafir's "family" is the wrong sort of people. If Morrighan hopes to have any kind of future with Jafir, she will have to learn how to trust him.
Even in its physical format, the book is still relatively short. While it comes in just over 200 pages, there's occasional illustrations throughout the book to take up some of that page count. There's gorgeous artwork throughout as well. I am not sure what the new bonus chapters are as they seem to be melded into the story and are not afterwards like traditional bonus content. So it's hard to say what's new and different about the story, although it did ring a few vague bells with me.
This was once again a fun little story that any fan of The Remnant Chronicles and the Dance of Thieves duology would enjoy! It's basically a new story set in the same world but predates The Remnant Chronicles itself. I continue to love the style of Mary E. Pearson's fantasy reads as they are always enjoyable stories without building an overly complicated magic system and having lovable characters. I enjoyed this little trip down memory lane once again!
Overall Rating 4.5/5 stars
Aodhan and Illium. Adi and Blue. Sparkle and Bluebell. Friends become lovers, their future a wild unknown.
Finally reunited in New York, they must now learn to navigate the monumental shift in their relationship. But for these two members of Archangel Raphael’s legendary Seven, there is no time to rest. As they investigate a case for the Tower that echoes the darkness from Aodhan’s past, they will be forced to confront not only the scars that mark them both, but the promise of a vast power that flickers in Illium.
The threat of ascension has haunted and troubled Aodhan’s Blue for too long, the forces of change immutable and without mercy...and uncaring of Illium’s fierce wish to remain part of the Seven. Change is a constant in an immortal’s life, and this new horizon will bring with it both terrible heartbreak and a joy extraordinary enough to reverberate through time…
A series I am forever behind in! I don't even remember when I last picked one of these books up! I know I loved the series up to when I hit a pause...and yet I still pick up each new release so that I have them at the ready! Trying to track these down secondhand is insanely hard! Think it might just be a MMPB thing.
TITLE: Archangel's Ascension
AUTHOR: Nalini Singh
PUBLISHER: Berkley
GENRE: Urban Fantasy
RELEASE DATE: May 6, 2025
CHALLENGE 1: 2025 Discussion Challenge
I crushed it this month! I wrote 7 discussion posts bringing my grand total to 16/25! I think after April I may decide to go ahead and up my goal! Let's see how things go this month first! Lol.
CHALLENGE 2: Beat the Backlist Reading Challenge 2025
Basically for this one I was thinking some Easter related and as I was eating jelly beans I thought Jelly Bean Book Covers!! So I'm call this...
The Jelly Bean Book Cover Tag!
Nothing hard at all here, I basically looked the Brach's Jelly Bean bag and decided to find a book cover for each of the covers...including black even those are no longer included in the bag, but they used to be! Hence the reason why I decided to keep it here, plus a LOT of my books have black covers! Lol.
RED:
I had just pulled this one out of my storage unit for a signing coming up in May! It's definitely a red cover AND it's a READ book! LOL!
ORANGE:
This is a TBR book, but I remembered it had a lot of orange on the cover what with the fiery look going behind the girl and then the orange flowers!
YELLOW:
Naturally with a book that involves bees and honey (in some sense) there would a yellowish cover! It's a pale yellow with the golden honey, bees, and polle in the flowers!
GREEN:
This is a nice color green that brings to mind classroom chalkboards...if they still have them these days! Lol. This one is still in my TBR pile as well and I am SHOCKED Goodreads still has not put this edition up!
PURPLE:
I know, I know! I WAS going to do Finale, but then I remember Jordan Stephanie Gray's amazing debut cover and all the purple and I couldn't resist choosing it!
PINK:
I mean you can't get much more pink than this one! Loved this book too!
BLACK:
Another TBR book! I was tempted to do Stephanie Garber's adult debut, but since that's not an official cover, I can't with good conscience say it's going to have the same color we see now.
WHITE:
And finally we have this one! It's got a lot of white going on! Pretty sure I might have a book somewhere with less color, but since this was staring at me in the face as I was writing this post, I felt obligated to choose it! Lol.
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.
I am sharing a teaser from my last read which I just finished before the weekend started before we had company come over. I really don't know how much reading I will get done over the weekend, so I thought it better to share a tease here. Plus this one had me LOLing so hard because it is sooo something I would say too!
"Quickly righting herself, she said, 'I am not your angel, but I will be your nightmare. If you sabotage my chance of getting my sister back, I will a find a way to haunt you until every single one of you inner demons looks like me. You will never know a moment of peace again.'" p 278
TITLE: Phantasma
AUTHOR: Kaylie Smith
PUBLISHER: Forever
GENRE: Paranormal Romance
RELEASE DATE: September 3, 2024
Caraval meets Throne of the Fallen in this spicy dark romantasy where a necromancer needs help from a dangerous phantom to win a deadly competition, only to find their partnership puts her at risk of breaking the game’s most vital rule: don't fall in love.
When Ophelia and her sister discovers their mother brutally murdered, there is no time to grieve: Ophelia has inherited both her powerful death-driven magic and enormous debt on their home. Circumstances go from dire to deadly, however, when Ophelia’s sister decides to pay off the loan by entering Phantasma—a competition where most contestants don’t make it out alive and the winner is granted a single wish.
The only way to save her sister is to compete. But Phantasma is a cursed manor, with twisting corridors and lavish ballrooms, and filled with enticing demons and fatal temptations. Ophelia will need to face nine floors of challenges to win... if her fears don’t overtake her first.
When a charming, arrogant stranger claims he can protect and guide Ophelia, she knows she shouldn’t trust him. While Blackwell may not seem dangerous, appearances can be deceptive. But with her sister’s life on the line, Ophelia can’t afford to turn him away. She just needs to ignore the overwhelming, dark attraction drawing them closer and closer together.
Because in Phantasma, the only thing deadlier than losing the game is losing your heart.
I waited too long to read Kaylie Smith’s adult debut, Phantasma! Honestly it was love at first sight once I saw that gorgeous cover! Then I read the description and immediately my brain was getting Caraval vibes, which you all know how much I LOVE that series! And then there are ghosts and I just knew this was a book I had to read!
Ophelia and Genevieve’s mother just died suddenly and now the girls own their family home, but they soon learn their mother had debts and the bank has come calling. If the girls don’t get enough money to buy back their home in a month, they will lose it.
Their mother was also a Necromancer—and don’t worry, Smith provides a hierarchy of the paranormal beings to give you an idea of who’s who and what’s what—and now that power has transferred to Ophelia since she’s the oldest. Her sister, Genevieve has never really shown that she has any gifts, so she’s been free to live her life as she chooses while Ophelia has had a more sheltered upbringing.
But when Ophelia learns Genevieve has run off to enter Phantasma, she makes the quick decision to follow her. Phantasma has always been a deadly game that moves around quite a bit. It will stay in one location for nine nights as players play the nine levels; nine levels that are meant to represent the nine levels of hell. There can be only one winner and that winner will have a wish granted by the end. (Sound familiar?) Clearly, Genevieve is doing what she thinks best to save their home.
Ophelia enters the game but soon learns that contestants are put into groups for the starting levels and she cannot talk or even look for her sister until after she completes level seven. It’s not long before Ophelia meets Blackwell, a Phantom of the manor who makes her a bargain; help him find his heart and key that keeps him bound to the manor and he will help her win the game. If she fails, she owes him 10 years of her life. Ophelia feeling like she will need all the help she can get to win these deadly games, agrees.
This book was so freaking awesome! The Caraval vibes were strong in this story and I loved it! It’s not at all an adult Caraval, so don’t think that. The fact that we have two sisters trying to play a dangerous game to win a wish is what gives it that vibe. But here there be ghosts a plenty from devils to phantoms to the regular evil old human beings! This book will grip you tight and not let go until the very end!
There was a bit of mystery to this book. Mainly with the game itself and Blackwell of course! Blackwell doesn’t have his full memories and by finding his heart and key, he’s hoping those will be restored to him. Then of course there’s the spicy romance! I wasn’t quite expecting the level of spice that we got, but then again, I probably should’ve. But there you go! Needless to say that the chemistry between Blackwell and Ophelia is intense! While things flare up between them rather quickly, I still enjoyed the banter between them that made for a different kind of relationship building.
The ending to this was pretty mind-blowing! I was wondering just how things would eventually wrap up as I saw the second book focuses on Genevieve, so I knew Ophelia’s arc would be concluding and it was astonishing! We do get some answers to the mystery that is Blackwell and it was astounding!
This was the first book I read by Kaylie Smith and it will not be the last! Her writing was a delight to read! Her characters are very relatable and real and don’t feel like overly perfect people. The plot was intense and the romance was spicy, and of course we had a good heaping of paranormal people within the story to make it a positively delightful read indeed!
If you’re looking for that spicy paranormal romance with danger and intensity of all kinds, then look no further than Phantasma!
Overall Rating 4.5/5 stars
Last Week I Read:
The Shadow Bride by Shelby Mahurin (ARC) (5 stars)
Phantasma by Kaylie Smith--review coming later today!
Currently Reading:
What I Plan to Read Next:
The Courting of Bristol Keats by Mary E. Pearson
Other Posts of Interest:
Let's Discuss: Fairy Tales & Retellings
Teaser & Top Ten Tuesdays
Can't Wait Wednesday #189
Let's Discuss: Vampires & Werewolves
Books from the Backlog #128
Let's Discuss: Bookish Would You Rather...
Book Blogger Hop #351
Stacking the Shelves--Boxes of Awesomeness!
Another long week, but I am taking a mini vacation this weekend as I've family in town so that will be fun! I had a book signing this past week AND I have another one tomorrow AND one next week in which my sister AND my cousin have decided to attend, so I am riding a nice little reader high right now! Lol. The work week was the usual blah. It's the slow season and I am totally fine with that, I enjoy our little lull because one we start getting towards July and August it will ever so slowly begin to pick up and then it's chaos until maybe mid-late November! I'd say September-November are our chaotic times with the occasional spurt of busyness here and there in between! You never know really.
This week I went to see Shelby Mahurin and it was yet another awesome signing! I had forgotten about the series Shelby was writing before this vampire duology, she briefly mentioned it that evening and while it's not necessarily dead, it just may not be entirely what we originally thought it would be AND she had another new project that I think is taking priority right now. This week, I'll be seeing Margaret Owen! I'll still have family in town, but everyone knows how much I love my books and author events and I don't think I'll be missing out on anything as I will spend the daytime hours with them, so it's all good! This will be the first time I get to meet Margaret so it should be fun!
Onto this week's haul! Here's what I got this week:
