Booking Ahead/Weekly Wrap Up
I’m trying to get back into the habit of doing a round-up of the week just completed and also take a look at my plans for the forthcoming week. I rather got out of the habit of doing so but I would like to reinstate this type of post as I feel it keeps me on track. So, I’m linking up to The Sunday Post over at Kimberly’s Caffeinated Reviewer. Without further ado:
Books read this week:
I was shocked to realised that I didn’t post a wrap up last week – whoops – I was obviously getting carried away with the holiday festivities. Plus my daughter came to stay which was lovely so less time for reading and blogging. In other news I’ve finally shaken off the lurgy, I still feel tired if I over exert myself but otherwise I feel good. That being said my dad has just gone into hospital which is very worrying. Hopefully he will be better soon but in the meantime it’s a bit distracting so if I go missing on here that’s probably why.
So, firstly, Happy New Year to everyone. In reading news I managed to complete The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes. I also managed to fit in The Ivory Tomb by Melissa Caruso which is the third and final book in the Rooks and Ruin series and was a very dramatic conclusion. The past week I’ve been reading Episode Thirteen by Craig DiLouie which is very good and also listening to what is perhaps a strange choice for me, the Vanishing Act of Margaret Small by Neil Alexander. It’s an easy listen that I hope to complete soon.
Next Week’s Reads:
Hopefully I’ll complete my two current reads fairly quickly as I’m close to the end of both and then I have three books that I’m very excited to get to. All The Blood We Share by Camilla Bruce, The Drift by CJ Tudor and The Whispering Muse by Laura Purcell. Literally, I’m so excited for these three books. Fingers crossed they live up to my lofty expectations.
Reviews Posted since my last Sunday Post:
None for the past week – I need to catch up.
- Love Will Tear Us Apart by CK McDonnell
- SPFBO No.1
- SPFBO No.2
- Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries
- How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
- The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes
- The Ivory Tomb by Melissa Caruso
I shall be trying to fit in a few reviews more than usual in the next couple of weeks in a bid to catch up. Wish me luck
Friday Face Off : Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries
6 January 2023
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries, Friday Face off, Heather Fawcett
Today is the start of a new Friday Face Off (a meme originally created by Books by Proxy) – similar in many ways to what came before but different going forward. From 2023 I will no longer be posting prompts or themes to guide your cover choices. Instead, having noticed that many of my most recent reads have had more than one cover, I thought instead it would be a change to highlight something that you’re keen to shine the focus on. So, from today onwards come up with one of your reads that has alternative covers, highlight them and choose your favourite. If you’re taking part it would be great if you leave a link so I can take a look at what you’ve chosen.
This week the book I’ve chosen was one of the very last books that I crammed into the end of the year and I loved it, it even made my favourites list of the year. I’ve not posted a review yet but that will soon be happening. For now, let’s take a look at the book, and more importantly the covers.
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde #1) by Heather Fawcett.
Here are the covers:
These are all lovely covers. The last cover is the one I’m must familiar with and it is a gorgeous cover that really drew my eye. However, my favourite this week is :
The reason I’ve chosen this one, apart from it’s a beautiful design of course, but at the same time if you look closely enough it clearly makes reference to some of the darker elements in the story, and given this is a book about tricksy fae, I like that this one has a more ominous feel.
Which cover is your favourite?
Join me next week in highlighting one of your reads with different covers.
The Good Intentions Book Tag
Last year, about this time, I came up with my Good Intentions Book Tag. Put bluntly I’m not very good at sticking to resolutions so instead decided to come up with a tag based around the most popular ‘resolutions for this time of year. Today I’m going to look back at that list and also come up with some new intentions for the next twelve months. This is my Good Intentions Book Tag – after all you can have good intentions at any point in the year:
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Exercise more : This is a book that is a real chunkster, in fact you will need help to even pick this book up:
Last year I came up with a great chunky book for this prompt. Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff – and unfortunately I still haven’t got round to picking this one up. Whoops. I did squeeze in a backlist read that was also something of a chunkster though so I’m going to say that things even out. Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky. Guess I’ll have to make Empire of the Vampire this year’s book.
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Lose weight : A book that is not a chunkster; a short story or novella. A book you could probably read in one sitting:
Last year I read Comfort Me With Apples by Catherynne M Valente. This year I’m going to go with a book that I really enjoyed by an author that I really like. Western inspired with demons and angels. Tread of Angels by Rebecca Roanhorse. I would be overjoyed if this is a world that the author decides to revisit.
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Eat healthy : A book that is good for you. This is a book that made you feel so happy that you wanted to give it a big hug:
The book I highlighted last year for this prompt was The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow which I will say, one more time at least, is a beautiful book. This year, one of my reads that gave me all the gooey vibes (well I did have more than one but have decided to go for just the one) Miss Percy’s Pocket Guide to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons by Quenby Olson
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Fulfill your ambitions : A book that has a lot going on. Plenty of different threads, points of views and action but everything eventually comes together in a very satisfactory fashion:
For this prompt last year I went with The Empire’s Ruin by Brian Staveley (#1 Ashes of the Unhewn Thrown). Which was a fantastic read and on my ‘best of‘ list and likewise the book I’ve chosen this year was also one of my favourite reads of 2022. Sea of Tranquility by Emily St John Mandell
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Spend more time with the family : A series of books that you love and that has developed more than you ever anticipated:
I used the Mercy Thompson books by Patricia Briggs for this prompt. It’s a series that I’m loving although I need to check and see if I’m uptodate or not. The latest series that has a great ‘found’ family feel and I just love it is the Stranger Times Series by CK McDonnell. I am adoring this series and can’t get enough of it.
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Tick off an item from your bucket list : Reduce the tbr. Choose a book from Mount TBR that you would like to read this year:
Well, I admit I failed with this particular prompt. Last year I highlight two books – and to be perfectly honest I’m going to choose the same two books. I’m absolutely determined to read both of these. T
These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant. I’ve seen some excellent reviews for this one and I’m excited to read it.
And, December Park by Ronald Malfi because I read and loved his latest book Come With Me (in fact it’s on my ‘Best of’ list this year and so I wanted to check out some of his earlier books.
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Save money : A book that was an absolute bargain – you would have to be crazy in fact not to have bought this book:
I bought The Hollow Places by T Kingfisher last year for the bargain price of £1.99 for kindle. I’m loving this author and so would like to pick this one up this year.
This year I managed to snag a few bargains and one that I’m very keen to pick up is Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
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Get Organised : A book with a glossary, maps, useful words, lists of people – this book is one helpful book, it wants you to know ALL the things and it’s not afraid to use footnotes and other devices to help you do so:
I choose a great book for this last year and one that I heartily recommend Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. This year I’ve gone for the second in series. The Hunger of the Gods by John Gwynne – not only a fantastic second instalment but it also includes a list of characters and a map.
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Start a new hobby : A book that is outside your comfort zone. Perhaps everyone was raving about this book, maybe it was over-hyped, you hesitated to pick it up in fact, but when you did – you loved it:
Finally, a book that is outside of my comfort zone. To clarify, for the most part I read SFF, I also like to read a little crime/thriller/horror and also some history. So, I’m not really going to include those in books that fall outside my usual reading zone. I’ve gone for romance. Last year I chose The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons. I loved this book when I read it and still have lovely memories of it – it would be interesting to reread it actually to see if I still feel the same way.
This year I chose a lovely book, A Restless Truth by Freya Marske. I loved this, and whilst I’ve chosen it for the romance elements it also has fantasy and murder mystery with it’s pages.
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That’s my top ten Good Intentions Book Tag which compares last year to this.
Can’t Wait Wednesday : The Only One Left by Riley Sager
4 January 2023
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Can't wait Wednesday, Riley Sager, The Only One Left, Wishful Endings
“Waiting On Wednesday” is a weekly meme that was originally created by Breaking the Spine. Unfortunately Breaking the Spine are no longer hosting so I’m now linking my posts up to Wishful Endings Can’t Wait Wednesday. Don’t forget to stop over, link up and check out what books everyone else is waiting for. If you want to take part, basically, every Wednesday, we highlight a book that we’re really looking forward to. This week my book is : The Only One Left by Riley Sager. The description for this one is fantastic.
Bestselling author Riley Sager returns with a Gothic chiller about a young caregiver assigned to work for a woman accused of a Lizzie Borden-like massacre decades earlier.
At seventeen, Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope
Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.
Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother’s happy life
It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer—I want to tell you everything.
“It wasn’t me,” Lenora said
But she’s the only one not dea
As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know. But when new details about her predecessor’s departure come to light, Kit starts to suspect Lenora might not be telling the complete truth—and that the seemingly harmless woman in her care could be far more dangerous than she first thought.
Expected publication : June 2023
2022 Recap
I read some great books in 2022. Here’s my ‘Best of‘ list for the year where I finally managed to choose 10 absolute favourites. Today, I want to take a look at some of my other reads from last year and spread the love. Let’s take a little backtrack month by month:
January got off to a great start. My first read for 2022 was The Maid by Nita Prose which I loved. Quirky and unusual. A bit out of my usual reading zone but it was such a lovely read that I highly recommend.
January was a great month but obviously I’m not going to simply list all my books. That being said I have to give a little shout out to The Great witch of Brittany by Louisa Morgan and The Haunting of Las Lagrimas by WM Cleese. Check out my reviews, witchy goodness and may I say I love the way Louisa Morgan writes and the ghostly Las Lagrimas is a little more of an old style story that gave me the creeps.
Skipping ahead to the shorter month of February I had a few good reads, one of which is already on my Best Of list. On top of that I read another Lucy Foley book that I thoroughly enjoyed. The Paris Apartment This is a great read where the apartment block itself is almost like one of the characters. I look forward to seeing what this author comes up with next.
Next up I have to mention one of my SPFBO books from the month of March, Shadows of Ivory by T.L. Greylock and Bryce O’Connor was such a good read (note to self to check out if book 2 is out!). I also read Sundial by Catriona Ward – an author who is simply on fire at the moment. I love her dark imagination.
April was a very quiet month for me with family issues taking over and leaving me little time to read or blog. I managed to squeeze in three of my SPFBO books and I also made a start on the latest John Gwynne book – again this has already been highlighted on my Best Of list so I won’t go over the same ground here. May was a crazy hectic reading month and in fact four of the books I read were favourite reads. On top of that I also loved The House with the Golden Door by Elodie Harper,Elektra by Jennifer Saint ,Black Tide by KC Jones and The Last Stand of Mary Good Crow by Rachel Aaron.
June was another lovely reading month and two books in particular that I’d like to highlight are The Path of Thorns by AG Slatter which is a gorgeous gothic read with fairytale vibes. Stringers by Chris Panatier was my second book by this author and I think it’s definitely cemented him as an auto read for me. I loved Stringers. So original and a lot of fun.
July and August were again fairly quiet months but still with some excellent reads. Old Country by Matt Query – this is a very creepy story indeed – gave me a case of the heebie jeebies. Black Mouth by Ronald Malfi another fabulous book by this author who I first discovered through Come With Me. Highly recommended. Finally, a wonderful debut novel by Mitriel Faywood called A Gamble of Gods (to be honest I read this earlier in the year but I held onto my review to be closer to release date) A wild combination of fantasy, sci fi, romance that takes place in an eclectic bunch of settings ranging from off planet to contemporary.
September was a busy month with some excellent reads. Two of my SPFBO books stood out in particular, The Blood of Crows by Alex C Pierce and Between Ink and Shadows by Melissa Wright.
I tried to fit a few dark books in for October plus a few what I’d call Halloween reads. Cackle by Rachel Harrison was a great witchy read that makes me want to pick up more books by this author.
I don’t know how I managed it but I was on a roll during November managing to squeeze in 12 books. I’ve already highlighted a number of these during my Countdown to 2023 so would give mentions now to The Ghost Woods by CJ Cooke and The Creeper by AM Shine.
Which brings me to the final month of the year. December. I managed to read the last in the Rooks and Ruin series by Melissa Caruso which was a very dramatic and satisfying finale (review yet to follow) and The Cloisters by Katy Hays, I loved this, gothic, dark academia – just my cup of tea.
Don’t forget to check out my best of list and here’s to another great year of reading in 2023. My complete list of books read in 2022 is here (although it needs some updating).
Happy 2023 to everyone 😀
