Night Worms Unboxing

May Theme: Grave Voices

I don't know whose been more excited about this package, me or my roommate. Because we've both been excited about Kylie Lee Baker's new book, and I'm a fan of Clay McLeod Chapman. She thought I was getting this early, so she could read Baker's book before she was gone for the summer. Alas, she might have to wait until she's home in the Fall. Unless, of course, she steals it to take with her, sometimes she's sneaky like that. But we've both been super excited for this month's Night Worms since they announced the books!

I love these stickers! Both of them are brilliant, and this time I actually might have a place for them. The tea is a mystery, but it smells really good. I also really love that label, gonna have to keep that! Now, I need to figure out what to do with all these bookmarks. Because they are really cool, but right now they're just chilling on my bookcard. I'd love to display them somehow. I'm just not sure how yet. So if you have thoughts or ideas, I'm all ears!

HAPPY READING!!

Reading Event

Are you looking for something to do this coming Tuesday, May 12th, at 6 pm? Do you need to work on your TBR? Want to check a family-friendly tap house? I can solve all those problems. Because I'll be hosting a Reading Event, a Reading Club if you want, at the Edway Tap House on that date! It's a low-stress event. Just bring yourself, maybe a friend, come get comfortable, and read your book. It doesn't matter what genre you're reading, or how you're reading it. All readers are welcome.

Edway has all sorts of drinks available, from beer, wine, and cider. They even house non-alcoholic options! Trio Truck will be there starting at 5 pm for anyone wanting dinner! We're going to kick of 6 pm and let everyone get settled, grab a drink, and mingle a bit. Then the reading will start from 6:30 to 7:30 pm! After that, for anyone interested, I'll take a book stack photo to show off what everyone was reading.

The tap house will close at 9 pm, so plenty of time to mingle afterward! I'll also have a book swap basket. So if you have any books you've been looking to get rid of, bring those along! Maybe take home a new book. Also, I'll have Bookish Whispers' Book BINGO if anyone wants to play. It's a super fun way to work through your TBR, or stretch out the types of books you read.

I really hope to see you there! I'm super excited that Edway reached out to me to host this event for them, and the owner, Blair, has been great about allowing me to fill every Tuesday night, with a few exceptions. 

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

 

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we're excited about that we haven't yet read. Generally, they are books that have yet to be released, but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous folks at Breaking the Spine.

When three friends lose their way in a serial killer's old hunting ground, they must fight to survive the threat in the woods—and each other—in this spiky, heart-pounding slasher.

Never turn your back on a friend.

Jade, Stef, and Zoe are hiking Washington's Bones Hollow Trail, braving cougars, black bears, and the storms that roll in without warning. The friends' paranoia isn't helped by listening to a true crime podcast about the serial killer who once roamed this same forest.

Then when Stef twists her ankle—badly—there's no one to hear them scream for help. The only sign of life for miles is a cabin that looks to be straight out of a horror movie, with a man who's all too eager to invite them in.

As things take a chilling turn, the friends must find a way to stay alive together. After all, who can you trust when your back's against the wall? But unfortunately for them, the only thing more twisted than this nightmare is their friendship . . .

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

There are locations in this world where the light doesn’t seem to reach. Where, no matter how illuminated the place might be, shadows creep in too strongly to fight back.

A suspiciously empty gas station rest stop in the middle of the night, littered with googley eyes... A doctor’s office, where a bottle of booze and a tear-stained folder wait on the desk... A tech millionaire’s haunted kitchen... A Bible-quoting ventriloquist’s dingy apartment... A yoga retreat in the middle of the desert, silent except for the screaming...

These supernatural and sinister locations are your destination, and bestselling author Nat Cassidy will be your guide. Featuring the Bram Stoker Award–nominated, critically acclaimed novella Rest Stop (one of Esquire’s Best Horror Books of 2024), along with a number of other original short stories, some which have never been published before, I Know A Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours is a travelogue down twisting side streets and through alleyways where the darkness has eyes...and teeth.

Let’s hope you make it home in one piece—if the ghosts, gory visions, and splatterpunk nightmares don’t get you first.

HAPPY READING!!

April Book Haul

There is a reason why this haul is split into two parts. One haul picture, the one on the left (or top if your screen is small), is the books I bought myself this last month. The second picture is the books I got for free. Overall, it's quite the haul of books I wanted to collect off my TBR. A couple of the books I snagged from the Book Swap at Edmonds SBC. Two I snagged thanks to Indie Bookstore Day freebies. Honestly, I don't know how The Fourth Wife didn't get snagged before I got the chance to look at ARCs one of the local bookstores had for customers. When I say I snagged that so fast, like the freaking wind!

Honestly, I knew I wasn't going to make it all month without buying books because of Indie Bookstore Day. Then add on Book BINGO at Nook and Cranny in UDistrict. I had to support the bookstore, letting us have BINGO in their store. I also bought some books for a friend of mine who works for a summer camp, and they have a free little library for the campers. So while I was out at a second-hand shop, I found some gems for that! But those have already been moved to their new home!

Maybe I can go all of May without buying new books! I have zero plans that take me to a bookstore, but you never know. Though I really need to think about doing a month of reading only the books I own. Which means pausing all my library holds, and maybe using next month to keep working through that current stack. 

HAPPY READING!!

Cover Runway Sunday

       

They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes, the cover initially catches our eye, drawing us to give a book a closer look. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday, I'll post some of my favorite book covers. Coming soon!

Every year, campground manager Kate sends out a pamphlet titled “How to Survive Your Camping Experience.” In it is a list of rules to help campers have an enjoyable experience and hopefully survive any encounters with the campground’s…other…inhabitants.

With the land turning ancient, it is no longer just the campers who are in danger. Kate is the key and every inhuman entity is out for her blood. All the lesser creatures are making attempts on her life, but Kate isn’t willing to let her land go without a fight. If these creatures are going to hunt her, then she’ll hunt them in turn and eradicate everything from her land that cannot coexist with humanity. With the help of both her inhuman and human allies, it looks like Kate might actually have a chance at controlling the campground. But ancient land attracts ancient things, and the town has a bad history with ancient creatures.

A new entity has come to the campground, bearing an old grudge against one of the inhabitants. Its malevolent designs will put the entire land at risk—unless Kate can stop it.

HAPPY READING!!

May Spotlight

 

Be careful what you wish for. It might come true....

In 1910, on a small, remote island that boasts more sheep than people, life does not hold a lot of promise for spirited Charlotte North. Her only escape from both this insular community and a family who does not understand her seems to be through marriage—an institution she is not at all eager to join, given the unhappiness of her parents' own union. Plus, eligible suitors are few and far between, which is why Charlotte has fallen hard for one the few outsiders to join their community in recent the handsome—and likewise unhappily married—new priest.

And then an ancient tower once rumored to have imprisoned a witch—or an unfaithful wife—crumbles, and releases . . . something. A restless spirit that knocks inside the walls and sends household objects flying. A spirit that seems to have an affinity for Charlotte herself. Though many on the island are terrified of this new interloper, Charlotte sees in it potential. Power. And perhaps even a way to get everything she has most wanted out of life.

HAPPY READING!!

April Wrap Up

Happy May! Finally, the days are getting longer. Finally got a taste of some warm weather, and so I'm excited for it. I have a plan to set up my patio to be a little summer reading nook. It doesn't get a lot of sunlight, so it's perfect for reading on when it gets really warm. I'm also excited to drag out my picnic blanket and go to the park and read. And other bookish stuff that comes with the summer. And the non-bookish stuff. I'm super excited about summer baseball and movies. But before all of that, we still have to get through May, one more month of Spring.

Still, before that, here's a look at the April stats:

Books Read: 8
BINGO Books: 2

Pages Read: 1628

Hours Listened: 19.5 hours

Two more BINGOs this month! I crossed off both Published in 2026 and Read Again. I've got one BINGO last month, and I'm so close to a second one. Which would cross off one of the 2026 goals! Something I'm up on across the board, even my page count, which is a goal I seem to chase every single year. 

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

 

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we're excited about that we haven't yet read. Generally, they are books that have yet to be released, but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous folks at Breaking the Spine.

Anna, better known to superheroes as the Auditor, has carved out a name for herself. Any hero unlucky enough to cross her path knows her potential and powers. Surely, success should taste she has an incredible job with lots of perks, and her boss will literally annihilate anyone who crosses her, and her greatest enemy, the former hero Supercollider, has been utterly defeated and literally ground to a pulp.

But Anna still has her sights set on a greater destroying the Draft, the organization that makes, trains, and manages the world’s most powerful superheroes. These “heroes” have shown time and time again that they do more harm than good, and now is the time to stop the damage at its source.

Yet all is not well for the Auditor and her fellow evildoers. Her employer, Leviathan—the world’s most feared supervillain—is not coping well with Supercollider’s defeat at someone else’s hands. Moreover, her unlikely ally and unexpected friend, Quantum Entanglement, has vanished without a trace, leaving Anna to examine all the ways they deceived each other. Tension and uncertainty fill the air, and fear that this moment of triumph is about to crumble looms over all of them.

Anna soon finds herself facing down an opponent unlike any she’s taken on before—not another superhero, but someone like her…someone much more the Draft’s Chief Marketing Officer. This isn’t a test of physical prowess, but ideas, and as the fight spirals deeper and deeper, with new foes popping up every day—she’ll need more than just her superpower—data research—to keep ascending through the supervillain ranks.

It’s guerrilla ad warfare, and the Auditor might have finally met her match.

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

Every year, campground manager Kate sends out a pamphlet titled “How to Survive Your Camping Experience.” It includes a list of rules to help campers have an enjoyable experience and hopefully survive any encounters with the campgrounds other…inhabitants.

With the campground in the throes of a bad year, it will take more than a list of rules to keep everyone safe. Monsters that were previously lying dormant are starting to stir and they’re waking up hungry. Among them is the Lady in Chains, a creature feared by both human and inhuman things alike.

Her reappearance creates an upheaval in the balance of power in the campground by renewing an old grudge with the harvesters, who are willing to sacrifice anyone they get their hands on in order to gain an advantage. On top of all this, the man with the skull cap has started taking an unusual interest in Kate. But with the harvesters on the prowl, the Lady in Chains hunting her down, and a sinister spider infestation, Kate is going to need all the allies she can get, even if those allies aren’t actually…human.

HAPPY READING!!

Cover Runway Sunday

      

They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes, the cover initially catches our eye, drawing us to give a book a closer look. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday, I'll post some of my favorite book covers. Coming soon!

Bait doesn't remember a time before the dungeon. Before the dragon stole her from her cot. She doesn't know what her name was before she was handed over to the monstrous denizens of the dungeon beneath the sorcerer's tower. Luckily for Bait, they decided not to eat her. And so, she grew up in the dark - the goblins her adopted family, a vengeful minotaur her protector, a sentient skull her tutor and a faithful blob of corridor slime her main source of nutrition.

But the labyrinthine dungeon, with its haunted halls, buried temples and forgotten magics, draws treasure hunters like moths to a flame. And as the outside world starts to intrude, Bait will learn what it means to be monstrous, and she will have to decide where she truly belongs.

HAPPY READING!!