2026 ApollyCon Recap: Part 2

Here you have it, Part 2 of my ApollyCon recap posts for this year. I'm making my way through these posts one by one. Sigh. Not that I'm not excited to go through the memories of the events, it's just tedious gathering all of the information for it after I've waited for so long. But, that's my own fault. I should've written this up months earlier. Work was just overwhelming, so I delayed it. Anywho, Part 2 is just going to cover the Welcome to the Capital event during night two of ApollyCon. It's the signature JLA panel event where she discusses all things Blood and Ash and/or her writing in general.

  

When we walked in to the Welcome to the Capital event, they were handing out poppy flower crowns. I didn't put mine on because I didn't want to mess up my hair and it didn't match my green outfit. It turns out, that was a mistake. JLA specifically mentioned how cool it was to see all the flower crowns in the audience and wanted a pic of everyone with theirs on. Oops. Oh well. As usual with these events, there are so many things to take pics of. There are cardboard cutouts of the characters, large dragons, fancy decor, it's all very cool. On the walk in, there were even revenenants that we had to follow. I think you can see me in the original video, but I don't know if I want to watch it back. I'm sure I looked swell after waiting over an hour for the event to start.

 

A lot of the decor was from previous events, like the cutouts of the Flesh & Fire characters from 2025. However, they had an awesome spoilery image of Cas as the backdrop behind JLA and the Blue Box Press ladies, Jillian and Liz. There was also a more 3D cardboard version off to the side. It was super cool. JLA even took pics with attendees before the event started, which was great as my Friday signing day photos ended up being blurry and terrible, so at least I got these.

 

 

 

And here is where I start the photo dump of all the cool decor and cutouts. I don't have  much to say about them at the moment. Because I, once again, don't remember much since I let so much time slip by before writing this up. I also didn't take pics of some of the things that were there in previous years. I was trying to make good use of my limited time before the event started. I also had to take some selfies, which was difficult. Normally, my friend (who didn't attend this year) takes pics with me. The friend I did attend with took pics, but, understandably, she had to rest after we waited in line for so long. I must say, even with it being a selfie, the pic with shirtless Reaver is pretty great. Oh, there were also free macarons.

 

The panel itself didn't really consist of any new information. I think the biggest piece of news was that the final Blood & Ash book, The Throne of Bone and Ash, wasn't finished yet and probably wouldn't release in 2026 due to JLA's health and also because of how stressful the world currently is, which is definitely understandable. It was also mentioned that JLA designed the FBAA endpapers/edges and the A Crown of Ruin edition. 

 

As Ascended ticket holders with panel passes, we received a free Lug bag with the ApollyCon exclusive paperback of The War of Two Queens. My friend said the Ascended Lug bag looks like a lunchbox, and I can definitely see it. To me, it looks like a freezer bag or a sci-fi tote bag. I ended up giving mine to the friend I usually attend ApollyCon with. I thought about keeping it, but I have so many totes and there just wasn't any point. The Primal ticketholders received a mug and something else in their fancy silver bag. I was fine with what I got, though. I don't even use the Lug bag they gave out in 2025. I will say that trying to exit this event was a nightmare. People did not listen to the announcement about how/when to exit. It was chaos.

 

Well, that was all for the JLA event. This event is typically my favorite part of ApollyCon, followed by the signings, so I'm always taking more pictures than I probably need to. I felt like I didn't get as many good ones this year, though. My usual friend wasn't there to force me to pose better or make sure the pics weren't blurry. But, oh well, I still got some good ones. Stay tuned for the next recap post. Part 3 should cover Friday panels and a majority of the Saturday signing time.

Stacking the Shelves: The Vampires Four 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.

This week was fairly quiet and lazy. I haven't done much. I was saving all my doing for the weekend, but I forgot I have something to attend this weekend, so there'll be very little doing besides that. Honestly, I'm mostly going to be reading when I'm not at the event. It's a concert my sister is dragging me to. Well, not dragging, as I do like the band. I just was excited for the weekend to catch up on things and totally forgot I'd agreed to go. Big surprise there. My brain is not braining lately.

 

As for the books I received this week, I have a lot. I'm not sure what happened. I guess all the preorders just decided to arrive at once. That plus a couple of random purchases really added up. It's a grand total of 13 books, including the lone ebook of the week. Wow. And I'm very much out of shelf room right now. I guess I'll have to do something about that. But anyway, the first book is a paperback copy of Swordheart that I bought from Books-a-Million. I originally ordered it from Barnes & Noble, but for some reason, my order was canceled. I didn't trust them to get it to me on time after that, and I needed to read it ASAP because I accidentally requested the sequel/spinoff on NetGalley. Sigh. I'm reading it now, though, and it's pretty good. I don't know if I would have bought it originally. It feels more like a library read. (Side note: I need to get my library card renewed so I can start requesting books again.)

 

 

 

Up next, I have four books that are all from different sources. Defiant by Brandon Sanderson is a local use bookstore purchase. Or, well, technically it's a trade credit purchase. The Temptation of Magic by Megan Scott was the second book in my Books-a-Million order. I wanted to make the $6.99 shipping charge worth it, so I got a book I'd been meaning to order that wasn't super expensive. My Barnes & Noble preorder of Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson also arrived. I honestly forgot about this one. And then, I have The Winged Game by Sophie Kim, FairyLoot's July Adult book.

 

 

 

The next haul is where the title of this post comes in. I ended up receiving four vampire books in a single day. I laughed when I realized that. Three are B&N preorders: Vow of Eternal Night by Lily Crozier, The Lion & the Deathless Dark by Carissa Broadbent, and A Bargain So Bloody by Vasilisa Drake. I also got Bitten and Bound by Amy Pennza, Moonlight Book Box, edition via Mercari. I think you can tell that I'm very glad vampires made a comeback in the romance/fantasy space.

 

 

 

This is definitely my most expensive set of books for the week. It's probably tied for my most expensive set of the year. I ordered The Locked Library editions of the Nevernight Chronicles by Jay Kristoff. The Locked Library doesn't ship to the US, so I went through a Facebook group, even though I knew it'd cost me. I was going to hold off, but the artwork was sooo pretty, so I caved. Do I regret it? A little bit, as the dustjackets are very thin and flat, meaning the artwork doesn't have a lot of texture, but it's still a very beautiful set. 

 

And lastly, I have the lone ebook I bought. It's The Thorns we Inherit by Lindsey A. Hart. I saw that it was on sale for $0, so I decided "Might as well," and I downloaded it. I know absolutely nothing about the book, other than the cover is pretty and it's likely romantasy. I feel like that's all I need to know for a free book, right?

 

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

July Wrap-Up & August TBR

July was a nice month. I miss it already. I was on vacation, my place was nice and clean, and I could read whenever I wanted. Now, we're back to the same ol' grind. Ugh. Being an adult is the worst. There's not a ton going on in August. I think I might get some furniture, but that's about it for excitement. There are also a few cleaning tasks I haven't completed, so I'll get to those sometime too. Maybe. 

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 July

Tempting Venom: 3 stars

Kill the Beast: 3 stars

Mistress of Lies: 3.5 stars 

Fake Shot: 3 stars

The Shadows that Listen: 4 stars (review to come)

Starside: 4 stars

Unrelenting Winds: 3.5 stars

The Aspect of Essence: 4 stars

Stolen by Shadows: 3 stars 

Like I said, I was on vacation in July, so I was able to read a lot. I read eight books and one novella in July, which was great. I got seven books off my physical TBR. Most of them were added in 2026, but still, they're read! The physical books included Kill the Beast by Serra Swift, Mistress of Lies by K.M. Enright, Starside by Alex Aster, Unrelenting Winds (the novella) by Melissa K. Roehrich, and The Aspect of Essence by Samantha Amstutz. However, Tempting Venom by Rina Kent is also a book I own a physical copy of. I just downloaded the Kindle Unlimited version so I could read it on release day instead of waiting for my preorder. I also read The Shadows that Listen by Louisa Carmody, which I received as an ARC from Orbit. My review will be posted on release day, August 18. As for the ebooks, I finished Fake Shot by C.E. Ricci and then later in the month read Stolen by Shadows by Elizabeth Helen, both on KU.

Books Bought/Received in July

July was not a low-quantity book month, unfortunately, I piled books high. I did get rid of some, though, so at least I'm making room. In total, I purchased 22 books and received 12 titles for review or from preorders that I'd already paid for in previous months. The dollar amount wasn't as insane as previous months, but it was a lot of books, with 33 physical books added to my shelves and 22 I have to add to my ever-growing TBR.

The 12 books I received mostly consisted of the preordered books that all decided to arrive in July along with a couple of review copies. The Shadows that Listen was the only physical ARC I received, but I did get a NetGalley ARC in July: Kiss of the Black Flame by Helen Scheurer. Orders from previous months that arrived in July included Tempting Venom, The Proposal by Meg Cabot, books 1-2 of the Blood and Ash series Inked Pages editions, The Mortal Trials by Megan Shunmugan Allurial edition, and the FairyLoot editions of Broken Dove, The Tapestry of Fate, and the first two books in The Shards of Magic series. I also got Furysong by Rosaria Munda from my local used bookstore with trade credit.

Now, for what I bought in July. Of the 22 books I bought, 14 arrived in July. Those included a bunch of books from Barnes & Noble: Ravenous by Kresley Cole, Daggermouth by H.M. Wolfe, City of Souls and Sinners by Kayla Edwards, The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy by Brigette Knightley, and the Spanish edition of A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire. I also got one book in-store: Hopelessly Necromantic by Shiloh Briar. As for non-B&N orders, I have the Kindle edition of The Justice of Kings by Richard Swan, Swordheart by T. Kingfisher from Books-a-Million, Duskbound Waterstones edition by Bree Grenwich and Parker Lennox, What Fury Brings by Tricia Levenseller UK paperback, and the Silk & Steel books 1-3 from eBay. I also got the FairyLoot Romantasy book, The Lure of Whispers and Wolves.

 As for the remaining eight books, they include preorders that didn't arrive in August or won't arrive until even later in the year. The FairyLoot preorders were for Heir of Twisted Lies, The Sea Spinner, Daggermouth, and the Adult FairyLoot book. Other orders that are coming eventually include Born of Blood and Ash Bookish Box edition, The Temptation of Magic, Warbreaker, and the Lilac Library Brimstone edition.

Currently Obsessed With

It's House of the Dragon season. This is the third season in six years, which is crazy to think about. It feels like the first season happened yesterday. I think there are only two episodes left, which means another two-year wait for the fourth, and possibly last, season. Boo. Other than that, I watched the finale of The Vampire Lestat, the last few episodes of Daredevil: Born Again season two, and I'm continuing to watch The Middle. 

August TBR

My TBR is primarily review copies. I'm so behind right now. I have four review books to read by September 22. Two need read and reviewed by August 25. Yikes. I don't think I'll make it, but I'm going to try to get at least two of the four read and reviewed on time. Three would be great. Those include: A Viper Among Kings by Sydney Olivia, Turncloak by L.K. Steven, Daggerbound by T. Kingfisher, and Kiss of the Black Flame by Helen Scheuerer. I have to read Swordheart before I can read Daggerbound, though, which is my own fault for accidentally requesting a sequel to review when I haven't read book one. I also need to read The Drakon King by Terry J. Benton-Walker for review, but it's due in November, and then To Cage a Wild Bird by Brooke Fast is one I'm like four months behind on. I'm also trying to start Kiss of Iron by Clare Sager, finish the fourth book in The Aelfyn Archives by Samantha Amstutz, and finish This Monster of Mine by Shalini Abeysekara.

***

Okay, well, that's the month of July, plus some August 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 Green + Mauve 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.

My vacation is over and I'm back at work and life is stressful again. Ugh. I need a job that lets me sit around and read all day. Anyone know any jobs like that? Other than work, there's not much going on this week. It's still hot out, so I'm spending a lot of time in the air conditioning. I've also been reading like five different books at the same time, so that's interesting. I have multiple NetGalley and Kindle Unlimited copies in progress. I don't particularly like that reading method, but, what are you gonna do? That's what happens when you request too many ARCs that all need reviewed in a one-month span.

As for the books I received this week, I have some very pretty ones. I'm not sure exactly what color combo these four books are, but I like to think it's a green and mauve combo. My FairyLoot set of the first two books in Sarah Hawley's The Shards of Magic series arrived and so did my July Romantasy book, The Lure of Wolves and Whispers by Amanda Conolly. I'd also preordered Duskbound by Bree Grenwich and Parker Lennox from Waterstones. It's very pretty. This one is more of a light purple, but with my terrible lighting, it looks mauve in person.

 

 

 

Next up, I have three black covers. Not sure how that worked out, but it did. Two were Barnes & Noble preorders: Ravenous by Kresley Cole and Daggermouth by H.M. Wolfe. I'm a little nervous about the Kresley Cole book. I haven't read a new non-Immortals After Dark series by her in years, so I'm hoping it doesn't disappoint. I also received my FairyLoot edition of The Tapestry of Fate by Shannon Chakraborty. It's book two in the Amina al-Sirafi series. 

 

And next, I have the lone ebook I received. I was looking at the half a dozen Kindle books I'm currently in the middle of and saw that The Justice of Kings by Richard Swan was on sale for $1.99 or $0.99. I can't remember which. I decided to just go ahead and buy it. It was one of my most anticipated books a few years ago. I just never got around to it or had the drive to purchase it. Now, I can get to it one day whenever I feel like picking it up.

 

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

2026 ApollyCon Recap: Part 1

Yikes. This post is late. Like late late. I thought 2025's ApollyCon recap post was delayed, but at least I managed to get that up in June. I didn't even start this one until the end of July. Terrible. So terrible. And this is just Part 1. There will be at least 2-3 more. Sigh. It might be hard for me to remember some details, since I waited so long to write this, but at least it'll be done. I don't even know if anyone reads these recaps, but I like to go back and look through the memories every once in a while.

 

First, I need to mention the whole ticket fiasco. I was planning to go as an aid for a friend of a friend, but I ended up getting an Ascended-level ticket literally a day before the ticket sales closed. It was insane. I was ecstatic, though! And I got to help my other friend out as an aid while still having a ticket, so that was nice. I hadn't planned on bringing that many books when I was just going as an aid, but once I got a ticket, I threw together every book I had that I could reasonably get/wanted to get signed. I decided to take Sweet Peril by Wendy Higgins; The Traitor Queen indie paperback and the new hardcover; the Aurora Crate edition of Speak of the Demon by Stacia Stark; Prince of the Arena by Elizabeth Helen; the hardback, UK ARC, and US ARC of What Fury Brings by Tricia Levenseller; Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros; and the 2024 ApollyCon Arcane Society edition of From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout. I also took the Arcane Society editions of Wicked and Torn by JLA, but I think I only managed to get one signed. Maybe. I should probably go check... You can also see the books I brought back with me in this pic too, but I'll get to those throughout the recap posts. 

This year was a lot different than previous years, since my usual friend I attend with didn't go. I ended up sharing a room with three other attendees, one of whom was the friend I was aiding for. It was wild. I'd never stayed with that many people before. Everyone was cool, though. It was just a crazy time with a lot less space. The first event for the convention is always registration on Wednesday. Because I was an aid, I got to stand in the shorter line, so we got out of there a lot faster than others. I got my two lanyards, one for my ticket tier and the other for my aid status (the red one). My Ascended bag also came with some swag, five random books, and, of course, the From Blood and Ash special edition hardcover. JLA also surprised everyone and put a paperback edition of A Crown of Ruin in the bags as well. That was amazing! I loved that so much, especially since JLA said there were no plans to put this novella in paperback any time soon. Of the five other books I received in my bag, I only kept two: A Darkness So Sweet by Emma Hamm and The Midnight Arrow by Zoey Draven.

 

After registration, we waited in another line for the JLA and J.R. Ward opening panel. I don't remember everything they discussed, but I do know J.R. Ward talked about how Lover at Last ended up going #1, even though it was a MM paranormal romance book. It was the first one to do so. I didn't know that. J.R. Ward also made fun of the name Roth, and of course, JLA let her know that she has a character named Roth, so that was a funny moment. Those are the two major things I remember, other than the event starting late because registration took so long. J.R. Ward stalled for time by asking attendees why they were there or why they liked romance or something like that, so of course she was running around in the audience with the mic, as she does.

 

I almost forgot that after the event, volunteers/staff handed out goodie bags. The bag came with a teal/blue water bottle and set of the Prettygal Pins Black Dagger Brotherhood cards. I was ecstatic to get these! I already head Rhage and Wrath, but I didn't have Zsadist. And of course, Vishous and Phury were new. Funnily enough, we got like two more of these goodie bags during the con. I guess they had ordered too many of them, so they were just handing extras out to everyone throughout the con. Our hotel room ended up leaving like eight bottles lined up on the table of our room. I took one back to give to my friend who couldn't attend, but I couldn't keep the others. I had no space in my suitcases. I did keep a second PGP card set, though. The third bag I got didn't come with extra cards. I don't know what I'll do with the extra set yet.

 

For Day 2 of ApollyCon, we attended panels in the a.m. The first panel we went to was the Forged in Fire & Fate: Romantasy panel at 9 a.m. Gina Maxwell, Rebecca Yarros, Morgan Gauthier, Jen L. Grey, Sariah Wilson, Amanda Bouchet, and Stacia Stark were the attending authors. I only remember that Amanda Bouchet made a comment about killing, but not really killing, the animal companion in her new book. We all gasped when she first said it. I think Rebecca also teased her Threshing Day book as well, but that's old news at this point.

Panel number two was Horns, Hearts & HEA's: Monster Romance. The authors on that panel were J.R. Ward, Regine Abel, Kait Ballenger, Jenna Wolfhart, Kalista Neith, Juliette Cross, Lexi Foss, and Emma Hamm. I don't remember much from this one except that the mics went out. I think. Once that was over, I think we got some food and just kind of hung out until the JLA Welcome to the Capital event that evening, which I'll share in Part 2. It deserves a full post.

 

I almost forgot to mention that I took pics with the Jemlin Cas and Kieran cutouts that were set up in the hall. I ended up taking pics multiple times throughout the event. I just wanted to make sure I got good ones in different outfits. Honestly, I just wish I could have taken these two cutouts home with me. I would've paid for them. Lol. Speaking of that, I did end up trading with another attendee so I could get her Cas and Kieran Jemlin cards. The cards only came in the Primal bag, so I had to figure out a way to get my own set. Luckily, I have a friend who loves helping people with trades and was able to hook me up. If that hadn't happened, I think my con might have sucked. At least, it would've sucked until I could go home and purchase a set online for high resale prices. I totally would've done it if I had to. I'll share a pic of those with my Jemlin/Gremlin Gates signing day stuff. 

 

Well, that's all for the first day and a half of ApollyCon. Above is a pic of me with my lanyard and another when my roommates and I took a walk around the hotel area. Part 2 will be the JLA event recap and Part 3 will be the signing day. I'm hoping I can get all the signing stuff in one post, but I think I'll have to split that up if I want to include the Friday night and Saturday morning stuff too. I'm planning to schedule a part every week, so stay tuned!