June Wrap-Up & July TBR

We're officially over halfway through 2025. Wow. I thought June would be a quiet month, but like March and April, it decided that quiet was overrated. I had to get unexpected dental surgery, so I've been recovering from that, which pretty much just means taking pain pills and relaxing more than usual. I still have to go to work, though. Lame. Hopefully July is an easier month, but I expect not, given some family activities we have planned.

In this wrap-up, I’ll list the books I read, the books I reviewed, the books I bought/received, and my TBR for next month. Now, let’s get this bookish party started!

Books Read in June

The Scarlet Veil: 3.5 stars

Nectar of the Wicked: 3 stars

Heart of Defiance: 2.5 stars

Arcane Academy: 3.5 stars (review to come)

The Shadow Bride: 3 stars

The Night Ends With Fire: 3 stars

Prince of the Arena: 4 stars 

Wrath of the Damned: 2.5 stars

Maneater: 3 stars 

I read nine books in June, which is the same as last month. That's surprising since I lost two days of reading time during my lazy recovery. However, I did manage to sneak two novellas in towards the end of the month, so I counted those as two "books." Overall, though, I read six physical books and three ebooks this month. The physical books include The Scarlet Veil and The Shadow Bride by Shelby Mahurin, Nectar of the Wicked by Ella Fields, Heart of Defiance by Eva Chase, The Night Ends With Fire by K.X. Song, and Prince of the Arena by Elizabeth Helen. The ebooks included a NetGalley ARC of Arcana Academy by Elise Kova and two Kindle Unlimited reads: Wrath of the Damned by Ella Fields and Maneater by Emily Antoinette. I read Nectar of the Wicked and its sequel, along with The Night Ends With Fire to decide if I liked them enough to purchase the special edition sequels going on sale soon. I think I'm going to pass. They were decent reads, but they weren't favorites, and I have to save my shelf space for things I love.

Books Bought/Received in June

I thought June would have fewer books than May. Ha! I should know better by now. I have a problem. I'm now like 20 books behind on my goal to read as many books as I bring in. Sigh. I need to read some short books to catch up, but, unfortunately, I requested a bunch of large tomes to read and review. Silly me. Overall, though, I bought 26 books in June, and I received 22 books.

The 22 books I received in June that I didn't pay for in the month consisted primarily of preorders that arrived. I did have one Orbit ARC arrive, though. It was Voidwalker by Sara MacLean. I got a NetGalley e-ARC too, Our Vicious Oaths by N.E. Davenport. The preorders included Slaying the Vampire Conqueror by Carissa Broadbent, the Green Creek Eternal Embers set 1-4 by TJ Klune, the Covenant Books for Days Crate 1-5 set by JLA, The Devils by Joel Abercrombine (FairyLoot's May Epic sub book), Blood of Hercules by Jasmine Mas LitHaven edition, books 2-4 of the FairyLoot editions of the Beasts of the Briar series by Elizabeth Helen, and the Acrylipics set of the Flesh & Fire series by JLA. My sister also gave me a copy of Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.

Now, for what I bought. I only received 16 of the 25 books I purchased. Those included The Rivers of Zadaa by D.J. MacHale (eBay), The Butcher and the Blackbird by Brynne Weaver (local used bookstore), Phantasma by Kaylie Smith (local used bookstore, purchased with trade credit, not pictured), Cursed and The Dead List by JLA (JLA Shop), What Fury Brings ARC (I just paid for shipping my trade book), Prince of the Arena by Elizabeth Helen, Echo Fort and Fated Throne by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti (B&N), The Summer Palace by C.S. Pacat (Amazon), Psycho Shifters by Jasmine Mas, and the Hunger Games five-book boxset (B&N).

 As for the remaining seven books, some of them should be on their way soon and others will be a little bit from now. The ones on their way include Rose in Chains by Julie Soto, the June FairyLoot Romantasy book. Others that might take a bit longer include my order of The Chaos Wielder by A.E. Cosby omnibus from Yo Leo Sola, Arcane Society's Penn Cole set, the FairyLoot edition of Between These Broken Hearts by Lexi Ryan, and Feathers from the Sky and Thorns from the Fall by Jess Wisecup.

Currently Obsessed With

There isn't too many new things to talk about. The biggest things I watched this month include Wicked, which I watched at my parents' house with my mom, and Karate Kid: Legends, which my dad randomly decided to watch in theaters one day. Other than those, I've just been re-watching Home Improvement episodes.

July TBR

I'm making progress on my TBR, but I keep adding review copies to it. That needs to stop. I have too much to read, and it's stressing me out. I just want to read fun KU books at this point. Lol. The biggest thing I need to get to is The Jasad Crown by Sara Hashem. It's releasing soon, so I need to get my review ready ASAP. I also need to read and review Voidwalker by S.A. MacLean and Our Vicious Oaths by N.E. Davenport. I also need to read and review Megan E. O'Keefe's new book, The Two Lies of Faven Sythe. I don't know if I'll get to it this month. I'm going to try, but no promises. Now, some things I would like to get to for my own enjoyment include What Fury Brings, The Foxglove King by Hannah Whitten, and the last book in Kingdom of Lies series. Oh, and my sister wants me to read Project Hail Mary.

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Okay, well, that's the month of June, plus some July sneak peeks, all wrapped up into one post. Do you have a wrap-up post for last month? If so, share in the comments!

Stacking the Shelves: The Flesh & Fire Edition

 "Stacking the Shelves" is a weekly haul meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews and Reading Reality. It allows book buyers to share their accumulation of books with the online book-loving community.

Well, it's been an icky week. I had oral surgery last Friday, so I'm a bit of a mess right now. The mouth is sore. Boo. That's pretty much been the main event of my life at the moment. I have been reading a lot, since I can't work out very much. It's always nice when I have an excuse to relax and read instead of sweating at the gym. It's also been super hot outside, so staying in the AC to read is another plus. While my personal week has been icky, my book collector life is thriving, as you'll see in this haul.

First up, I have the main event for the week. It's the Acrylipics set of Jennifer L. Armentrout's Flesh & Fire series. I honestly forgot I ordered these. They weren't a set I was super excited for, as the F&F series isn't as dear to me as the Blood & Ash one, but I still enjoy F&F. But yeah, these just said they were out for delivery this week, and I was like, "Alright. Heck yes." They're pretty books, but now I have to find a place for them on my B&A shelves. Ugh. The set came in a really pretty box, which you can see below. It has character art on the sides. It also came with some page overlays. 

 

 

Next, I have more F&F stuff. Are we surprised? Probably not. The JLA/ApollyCon shop released acrylic standee versions of their Coronation event cardboard character cutouts, which I had begged them for. Therefore, I had to buy them. They're not as cool as previous years' versions, but there are a couple that I really like the artwork for, like Nyktos, Nektas, and Nektas with Reaver and Jadis. I'm just a bit upset that Sera is bigger than the Nyktos one. It's annoying. I'll have to put them away from each other on my shelves so you can't see the height difference. 

 

And here I have everything else I got. I was too lazy to separate it all out. What can I say? It's been a tough week. Ha ha. My Barnes & Noble preorders of Echo Fort by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti and Prince of the Arena by Elizabeth Helen arrived, as well as my LitJoy To Bee Read edition of Blood of Hercules by Jasmine Mas. This is like my fifth copy of this book. I have so many versions even though I didn't love the story. Once I read the sequel, I'll decide which version(s) to keep, though. as I can't actually hoard them all. The LitJoy edition has pretty character art on the naked hardcover, but the dust jacket is the same as the regular edition, if you were curious. My preorder of the Owlcrate edition of Slaying the Vampire Conqueror arrived too, along with the JLA Shop editions of Cursed and The Dead List.

 

 

Here, I have something that arrived right after I thought I was finished getting this post together. These are the FairyLoot editions of books two through four of the Beasts of the Briar series. They're stunning. I'm so happy to have them. The endpaper art is glorious, though I am disappointed Farron, the guy on the first cover pictured here, isn't on more of the endpaper art. That's probably my only nitpick. I hope he's in more of the future sequels' endpaper art. Now, the sad thing is two of these books arrived damaged. Woven by Gold and Forged by Malice both came with crunched up/wrinkled corners on the spine of the dust jackets. I've emailed FairyLoot about replacements. I've had to email them about a lot of damaged books lately. They had been doing so well, so I'm wondering if their shipping process changed.

 

 

And finally, we have another order that arrived when I thought I was done writing up this post. I had two B&N preorder deliveries come in on Friday. The first is the sixth book in the Zodiac Academy series with the new foiled covers, and the other is the repackaged version of Jasmine Mas's Psycho Shifters. It's such a small paperback, but the edges are actually really cute. Now, hopefully, that's actually all of the stuff I'm getting. Because if that's it, I don't have to edit the wrap-up post I'm writing right now, either.

Well, that's all for me. What books have you bought/received lately?

ApollyCon 2025 Recap: Day Four

It's the final 2025 ApollyCon recap post! Right on time for 2026 tickets to go one sale next week. Woo! Actually, not woo. Trying to buy tickets to ApollyCon is always stressful. I've gotten lucky every year except one so far, so we'll see how everything goes this time. I swear this event likes to give readers ulcers. Why does it have to be so insane?

 

So Saturday, the fourth day of the convention, is all about signings. It starts super early, like 8 a.m., so lining up is even earlier. After the previous day, we were too tired to get up super early. We got up just early enough and managed to hop in line at a decent time/place to get fairly okay tickets for ticketed authors. First up on our stop once we got in was Amanda Bouchet. We see her every time we go, with the exception of the year we volunteered. She's always super nice. 

Next up was an author I hadn't read before, but I kept hearing about the book Servant of the Earth. So, I bought the UK cover, since it has a dustjacket, and had her sign it. She was also very nice. Her line was pretty quick too, which is always a bonus when the feet start hurting from too much standing/walking.

 

 

After that, we went to Clare Sager's line. Clare is actually British, I think, which I wasn't expecting. Her accent is amazing! I brought a copy of A Touch of Poison for her to sign, since I technically had the first book in her series signed by her last year. I just didn't get to meet her because my friend picked it up for me when I was volunteering.

 

We stopped at JLA's table to take pics with her decor, since we didn't get a pic of it with her at her table from the previous day. The room she signed in after hours was just a bland hotel conference room. Her actual table area had the dragon (draken) from the Coronation event along with some nice backdrops. 

 

Emma Hamm was next. She had a wonderful standee of her new troll male main character. It was pretty great getting pics in front of it. Emma seemed to recognize us a bit from the previous time we'd met her in 2023's signing, so that was cool. I had her sign the second book in her dragon series. I still need to read her books, though. She's awesome, so I need to get on it.

 

 

We went to Juliette Cross's table after that. We'd preordered a special copy of her The Wraith King book. It has a gorgeous cover. I haven't read this book or Firebird yet, but I've heard Firebird is very controversial, for reasons I completely understand. I need to read it, though, as I'd like to know if I even want to keep my copies. I have the FairyLoot and the regular hardcover.

 

 

Next, we went to Abigail Owens, and she signed our copies of The Games Gods Play. I started reading this one, but put it down for one reason or another. I need to get back into it soon before I forget everything Luckily, I think I'm only about 30 pages in if I do choose to restart it.

 

 

Here we have Stacia Stark. We picked up our preorders of the entire Kingdom of Lies four-book set. This was a special event exclusive set, and it's very pretty. I hope Stacia does a matching set for the spinoff book(s). Stacia also has a cool accent. She's from New Zealand. Oh, and like with Callie Hart, Stacia's table was another one that I decided to leave behind my yearbook at. Again, I didn't get very far before someone reminded me, but it just kept happening. Ha ha.

 

 

We got to take pictures with Rhage from the Black Dagger Brotherhood series! It was so cool! Look at the set up Art by Stefani had! It's so cute! The stars for each brother! The red carpet. Gah! I love it. I'm glad I got to have a miniature Rhage sticker to take home with me. I need to get this and the JR Ward pics framed so I can have them all together. That'd be cute. 

And then, we went to Zoey Draven's table. We'd received a copy of her book, Desire in His Blood, in a previous ApollyCon bag, and we were finally able to meet her and get it signed this year. Huzzah! She was very nice. I was super glad her line had died down, because it was pretty full when we went to check a few times.

Up next, we have the actor who plays Zsadist on the Passionflix show, Andrew Biernat. He was nice. He talked a lot about his process for getting into Zsadist's character. He was also tall, as you can see here. Totally not used to taking pics with guys attending ApollyCon, as normally the authors are around my height or shorter. I think Amber V. Nicole is the only one who's really wowed me with her height.

 

We were able to stop by Olivia Rose Darling's table to get our books signed by her. Once again, I haven't read her book. My friend did, though, and she really wanted to get Olivia's signature, even though we were running short on time. Actually, this may have been the point when we came back from lunch for the next signing, as the floor is different here, meaning we were in the other signing room. Well, lunch shenanigans consisted of packing boxes to ship them via UPS and dropping the boxes all along the way, and then blocking traffic briefly when they toppled. I also bruised myself pretty well on that trip. It was a great time. 

 

 

 

 

At some point, I picked up my L.J. Andrews preorder of Curse of Shadows and Thorns. I wasn't able to meet her because her line was too long, but she'd presigned the books, so that was convenient. I think she's coming back in 2026, so hopefully I can see her then, if I get tickets.

 

 

K.A. Knight was the last author we saw during the signing hours. We were totally dead by this point, even though we'd taken more breaks and only stayed like an hour or two for each signing session. It had all just been a lot. But, we got her signatures. Then, it was off to get some food. We ate at a barbecue place nearby, it wasn't great. Last time we'd gone there, we just got appetizers, so I think that's the plan if we ever have to eat there again.

 

 

Oh, and I wanted to mention some of the authors that we saw that I didn't take pics with. Max Walker was one. Jennifer Estep, Elise Kova, and Mai Corland were the others. Two of those authors I'd seen before, so I was fine not taking photos. The other two, I just hadn't read their books yet and I was too tired to get a pic. Once the signing was over and food had been eaten, we went back to our rooms to pack our bags, as we had to be at the airport very early and we still had one event left.

 

The last event of ApollyCon is always the After Party. This year, it was sponsored by 1,001 Dark Nights/Blue Box Press, and they had the Coronation event decorations all throughout the room. The theme was masquerade, hence the masks in the pic, and most people dressed in gowns. We were too tired to put our dresses on, so we just went in t-shirts and comfy pants. We couldn't stay the whole time anyway, so it was fine. When we got in the event after watching the young cheerleaders who were also at the convention center leave and tumble their way down the hall we were lined up in, there were free books on tables inside. Some jerks were taking stacks of books, but I just took two Kresley Cole ones. Because I love Kresley Cole. There were also books in the goodie bags we received on entry. I didn't keep them, though. I let someone else take mine. So, after that, we basically just sat and swayed to the music. Eventually, we decided to get up and take pics at the photo booth. We were going to take pics with the cardboard cutouts, but the staff started taking them down because people kept touching them. I don't see why the staff didn't just have the DJ announce not to touch the cutouts. Instead, they just took them down. It was weird and disappointing. We stayed a bit after that to see if JLA would come by to give her usual end-of-event speech, but I guess she never did. We had to leave for our flight in the morning, though, so we gave up waiting about an hour before the event ended anyway.

Well, that was all for the fourth day. It was chaos and pain, but after it was over, we slept for a few hours before we had to head to the airport very, very early to go home. We got conned by the hotel into paying for an expensive cab ride instead of using a Lyft or Uber, but at least our suitcases fit. That's all that mattered. We can cry about the extra price later while I cry about how much I spent too. Ha ha. Overall, 2025 ApollyCon may not have been my favorite of the past years' events, but there were some nice moments. I hope 2026 is better, though. Fingers crossed I get tickets. You can see all the books I added to my shelves up above, along with all the swag I got. The crazy thing is, I didn't even keep it all. I got rid of some of it. And this is definitely less than what we got last year, thankfully. There were way too many pens in last year's bags.