Saturday, March 9, 2024
Stacking the Shelves: The Shades of Red Edition
Tuesday, March 5, 2024
February Wrap-Up & March TBR
Another month down, and I read twice as many books as I did in January. Which, unfortunately isn't saying a lot. Ha ha. But as for the personal life, I just did the same ol', same ol'. I read a little, scrolled a lot, worked, worked out, and slept. Yay.
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 February
I read two books in February. To be fair, one was an obnoxiously long book. House of Flame and Shadow had no reason to be over 800 pages. Honestly, at least 200 pages could have and should have been cut. And while I thought the third book was slightly better than the second one, I definitely put emphasis on slightly. I am just really disappointed in the direction the CC series has gone, and I'm not really excited about the next installment. I also read Danielle L. Jensen's new book, A Fate Inked in Blood, which I very much enjoyed.
Books Bought/Received in February
Okay, so this month I let myself get a bit carried away. I bought a total of 20 books this month and received 12. And boy, are a lot of the books I bought some expensive preorders.
As for the 12 books I received, a majority of them were preorders. The orders included House of Flame and Shadow, Gothikana by RuNyx, and five copies of Visions of Flesh and Blood (two BN editions, one regular hardcover edition, one Kindle edition, and one Nook edition). I also received my preorder of the Lux series from Imagine Books, but I had to send three copies back because they were slightly damaged, so I only got to keep Opal and Onyx right now. And my FairyLoot January book, The City of Stardust by Georgia Summers, was delivered to me in February, along with my February FairyLoot book, A Fate Inked in Blood. My Bookish Box edition of Between Despair and Hope finally arrived as well. All in all, I got ten physical books this month, and two ebooks. And thankfully, I've already read four of the books, so that's nice.
I paid for six of the 12 books that I received in February within the month of February. Those include the February FairyLoot book and all my VOFAB copies. Other than those, I had 12 other preorders, including five ApollyCon author preorders: A Kiss of Iron and Slaying the Shifter Prince by Clare Sager, Between Wrath and Mercy special author edition by Jess Wisecup, and Broken Bonds and The Crown of Oaths and Curses by J. Bree. I also had one Blackwell's order, the UK edition of Empire of the Damned, which arrived in March. As for special editions, I preordered the Chest of Fandoms German edition of A Soul of Ash and Blood, the Illumicrate editions of the Silver Under Nightfall duology, the FairyLoot edition of The Atlas Complex, and the Bookish Box editions of the Daevabad trilogy. And I have a BN preorder for Fate Breaker by Victoria Aveyard that I completely forgot about until just now.
Currently Obsessed With
I haven't been watching a lot of stuff lately. I've mostly been rewatching The Office reruns. As per usual.
Other than The Office reruns, I've been watching a lot of TikTok. And honestly, I think that's it. It's still the Taylor Swift x Travis Kelce videos. They're cute. I can't help it. It's like a real-life romcom.
March TBR
I don't have any must-reads, just a couple of things I'd like to read. Most of which are repeats and have been on my TBR for sooooo long now. That includes Charm by Tracy Wolff and The Last Sun by K.D. Edwards. I'd also like to read Visions of Flesh and Blood, the FBAA compendium book. It's not a real story, though, just a bible of the world, so it's not something that will take super long or be super interesting. There are a few diary entries and short snippets, but that's it. I also want to finish A Ferry of Bones and Gold by Hailey Turner. I downloaded it on Kindle Unlimited earlier this month, and I'm almost done with it.
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Okay, well, that's the month of February, plus some March sneak peeks, all wrapped up into one post. Do you have a wrap-up post for last month? If so, share in the comments!
Saturday, March 2, 2024
Stacking the Shelves: The Visions Edition
Tuesday, February 27, 2024
Review: A Fate Inked in Blood
Bound in an unwanted marriage, Freya spends her days gutting fish, but dreams of becoming a warrior. And of putting an axe in her boorish husband’s back.
Freya’s dreams abruptly become reality when her husband betrays her to the region’s jarl, landing her in a fight to the death against his son, Bjorn. To survive, Freya is forced to reveal her deepest secret: She possesses a drop of a goddess’s blood, which makes her a shield maiden with magic capable of repelling any attack. It was foretold such a magic would unite the fractured nation of Skaland beneath the one who controls the shield maiden’s fate.
Believing he’s destined to rule Skaland as king, the fanatical jarl binds Freya with a blood oath and orders Bjorn to protect her from their enemies. Desperate to prove her strength, Freya must train to fight and learn to control her magic, all while facing perilous tests set by the gods. The greatest test of all, however, may be resisting her forbidden attraction to Bjorn. If Freya succumbs to her lust for the charming and fierce warrior, she risks not only her own destiny but the fate of all the people she swore to protect.
My Review
Do you miss shows like Vikings or The Last Kingdom? Are you craving magical worldbuilding with battle axes, shields, and mischievous gods? Then pick up A Fate Inked in Blood.
A Fate Inked in Blood starts out a bit slow, as it's setting up the main character, Freya's, bleak life as a fishmonger's wife. And boy, is it depressing. But the story picks up pretty quickly when the jarl come to mess things up and expose all of Freya's secrets. And of course, that's when she meets Bjorn, the fire axe wielding son of the jarl.
Freya is a complicated character. She wants to be a warrior, but she's forced into terrible positions by the men around her due to her loyal nature and desire to protect her undeserving family members. Bjorn, meanwhile, is secretive, but suave. He's got that Hawke/Rhysand personality, but he's a tad more patient; he waits to see how things work out before acting on anything. It was quite frustrating when you are constantly hoping he'll come in and save Freya from all of the terrible situations she's put in. But, he just bides his time. His power is pretty cool, though. I want a fire axe. Freya's shield power is cool too, but it's still a bit of a mystery how her power plays into the king-making prophecy, though I do have some theories for book two.
The side characters in this story don't have a ton of dimension to really make them stand out. Snorri is the corrupt jarl. Ylva is the evil, jealous stepmother type. And Geir is the worthless brother. Everyone else is barely in the story enough to really care about them, which is fine. It's a fantasy romance story, so that makes sense.
As for the worldbuilding itself, while Jensen used existing Norse gods and concepts, like Thor, Loki, and Valhalla, I think it could've been relatively easy for her to not use them at all and create her own god system. I would have preferred that, honestly. It was a little jarring seeing Thor mentioned midway through the story. I do love the idea of having people blessed with powers given to them by the gods, though. It's really interesting to learn about the different abilities. And the action that results from those powers is intense too. I hope it gets even more ramped up in the sequel.
All in all, if you like books like Adrienne Young's Sky in the Deep, Jennifer L. Armentrout's Fall of Ruin and Wrath or From Blood and Ash, or Tricia Levenseller's Warrior of the Wild, then A Fate Inked in Blood is the book for you. There's a solid hate to semi-friends to lovers storyline mixed with forbidden lovers and a very chaotic ending. I'm super excited to see what happens next.
Saturday, February 10, 2024
Stacking the Shelves: The Untitled Edition
Tuesday, February 6, 2024
January Wrap-Up & February TBR
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 January
Another month where I only read one singular book. Good grief. To be fair, it was a long one, but I really need to pull myself together. I've just had such a terrible time with finding books that actually interest me. I want stuff similar to Silver Under Nightfall, Crossing Acheron, and/or the Beautiful Monsters series, but there's nothing really like that that I've been able to find. Again, to be fair, I haven't looked very hard, though. I've been too distracted by TikTok.
Books Bought/Received in January
I don't have a ton to talk about this month, thankfully. I've been pretty good at limiting my book orders so far this year. I hope it stays that way, but now that I'm going to ApollyCon, I'm not sure what will happen. I'm volunteering, but still... There's potential for financial disaster. In total in January, I bought four books and received four books, all of which were physical copies.
All of the books I received in January were FairyLoot preorders. They included the Red Rising trilogy and the December Adult book, Faebound by Saara El-Arifi. I didn't receive any of the books I ordered in January within the month of January, however. They either came in February or are set to come at a later date. Those include two Barnes & Noble orders, Gothikana by RuNyx and House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas, and two FairyLoot orders The City of Stardust by Georgia Summers, and Tales of the Celestial Kingdom by Sue Lynn Tan. The City of Stardust was the January monthly book and Tales of the Celestial Kingdom was a preorder. Oh, technically I guess I did receive a copy of Gothikana in January, but it was water damaged, so the replacement version didn't arrive until February.
Currently Obsessed With
I actually have new things to talk about this month! Woohoo! Though I am still watching The Office reruns. No big changes there.
I started watching The Last Kingdom on Netflix in mid-January. I'm on the last episode of season one, I believe. I think there are four seasons in total, so at least I have something to watch for a bit. I also binged the entirety of Netflix's The Night Agent with my parents on a random Saturday. We started episode one in the morning and didn't stop watching until we'd finished episode ten at 8 p.m. that night. Oh, and the night before, I'd watched a bit of Queen Charlotte with my mom. She hadn't watched it, so I just introduced her to the series.
January TBR
Super big surprise, Charm by Tracy Wolff is on this list. Yes, I still haven't finished it even though it's been like six months. Ugh. I'm going to read it, it's just not calling to me right now. I also need to read A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle L. Jensen, as it's a NetGalley review ARC, and I need to read House of Flame and Shadow for my book club. The Last Sun by K.D. Edwards is a book I started during a reading slump that I'd also like to finish. I'm almost 100 pages into it.
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Okay, well, that's the month of January, plus some February sneak peeks, all wrapped up into one post. Do you have a wrap-up post for last month? If so, share in the comments!
Saturday, February 3, 2024
Stacking the Shelves: The HOFAS Edition
Sunday, January 21, 2024
Review: Calamity by Constance Fay
My Review
Constance Fay's Calamity is a good book for fans of Meagan Spooner and Amie Kaufman's Starbound trilogy as well as some of the cheesier Sy-Fy space television shows that are addicting but ridiculous at the same time. Unfortunately, Calamity for me was a bit of a miss, but I could see some people having fun with it, especially for readers who like lighter romances with a decent amount of worldbuilding.
So the main character, Temperance Reed, has been kicked out of her rich family and is now the captain of a ship. Her and her crew take on an odd job involving another rich family, and one of the sons of said family, Arcadio, tags along for the trip. Temperance's personality wasn't super mature. Her inner dialogue and even conversations with other characters just weren't funny. The banter was really juvenile, in my opinion. And I feel like that's what the story and the romance was leaning on: being a light-hearted, funny, space romance. Honestly, it was just kind of weird and awkward. Arcadio also never really got a chance to move beyond "hot solder" designation. The supposedly "romantic" and "sexy" scenes did not hit.
The action for this story was decent. The conflict between the main characters and the cult group and another evil rich family was intriguing, but it didn't make up for the lackluster chemistry between the two leads. There was no real tension between the two; it was a bit insta-lovey/lusty. With some cheesiness thrown in. Some of the descriptions towards the end were also a little hard to follow. The writing got a little clunky.
Overall, Calamity didn't hit like I thought it would. I expected worldbuilding on the scale of The Expanse with a romance story similar to ACOTAR or FBAA, as this is published by a sci-fi/fantasy romance imprint. I think my expectations were too high. However, don't let that stop you from reading it. It could be a nice palette cleanser between heavier romantasy stories.
Tuesday, January 16, 2024
My Most Anticipated 2024 Sequels
Honestly, I had to take The Ashfire King out of the Top 10 when The Relentless Legion was officially announced in December. Literally days after I'd just wrote my Most Anticipated list. Ugh. Why does that always happen? But yeah, I forgot this series is still ongoing. I loved book one, and book two, The Exiled Fleet, was good, but it's been so long, I just hope I remember everything for The Relentless Legion.
This is the only YA book on my list. Wow. That's so weird to think about. But Serpent Sea is the sequel to Spice Road, which I loved back when I read it in 2022. It's taken forever to get the sequel, so I'm excited that it seems like it'll actually release in 2024.
The fourth and fifth books in the Witch Walker series are both supposed to release in 2024. Will they? Who knows. Kingdom of the Forgotten comes out in April, though, so it should release then for sure. I've read books one and two, so I'm just waiting for the rest of the series to come out before re-reading and bingeing.
I'm honestly not sure if this book will release in 2024. Goodreads says it will, but I believe The Midnight Kingdom was also supposed to release within a year of the first book, and it got pushed back. I'm hoping this one won't, because I would like to reread book one and then binge the entire trilogy. No cover yet for The Dawn Throne, FYI.
Book one, The House in the Cerulean Sea, was one of my favorite reads a few years ago, so I'm excited TJ Klune wrote a sequel. I am super nervous, however, that it seems to follow Arthur's POV instead of Linus's. I don't like POV shifts in series unless they're companion stories.
This is the last book in the Plated Prisoner series. Have I read Gold, book five, yet? Nope. Do I know the wait for this one will be hard on my nerves? Yep. I'm fairly sure Raven Kennedy is going to write a spinoff book about some of the characters, from what she hinted at in a livestream once. But I'm not sure which characters that will follow. So yeah, Goldfinch will be bittersweet.
I read the first book, Salt Kiss back in September, and it was absolutely addicting. I couldn't stop reading. I am worried, however, because the first book followed one character's POV, and the sequel switches POV. I hope the other character gets some chapters, though. I don't like the female main character as much as I like the narrator from book one. I'm also worried because I read another series by this author and things started getting wonky in book two, so I DNF'd the entire series after that. I hope that's not the case for this trilogy.
GAH! This series! It's so frustrating and addicting, and I just want more, but I don't want it to end, but I also do want it to end with happily ever afters for everyone. Ugh. This last book is supposed to release in April, so if I can't go to ApollyCon, at least I can read a book in one of my favorite series as consolation.
I'm cheating and putting two books because Visions isn't a full book. It's a compendium of series information. Also, it's my most anticipated book for the first half of 2024, while Primal (no cover yet) will likely be my most anticipated for the last half. If it releases this year. It's supposed to be the final book in the Blood and Ash world through Poppy's POV, but I don't think that'll be the case. JLA said that for the third book in the Flesh and Fire series too, and look how that turned out!