June Reading Club

Hi, it's me again! Reminding everyone I've teamed up with Edway Taphouse to host a Reading Club every Tuesday in June, except for June 30th, because I'll be out of town. It's a super low-stress evening filled with quiet mindling with other book lovers, and working on 'to be read' pile. All you have to do is bring yourself and the book that you're currently reading. We'll kick off reading at 6:30 pm to give everyone time to get settled, grab a drink, or even food at the Trio Food Truck. After an hour of reading, we'll wrap things up for the night. You can stay and drink and mingle, and take part in the book stack photo of what we read that night. 

I hope to see some butts in seats next Tuesday. If you have any questions about the Reading Club or Edway Taphouse, feel free to drop me a comment. Or, you can pop over to Instagram and DM at @bookish_whispers. 

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.

SUMMER 1983. A blood-soaked summer camp counselor is found staggering down a country road. The sole survivor of a horrific massacre, Mary tells a nightmare of a masked maniac wielding an old skinning knife. Arriving too late to help, her boyfriend Tom Bailey is plagued by guilt.

SUMMER 1992. The camp reopens as Camp Summer Fun. Now a sheriff’s deputy, Tom doubts this is a good idea, but the camp has been refurbished, the counselors hired, and the little campers are on the way. Responding to reports of a blood-curdling howl near the camp, he again arrives too late to save anyone except a single brutalized teen. The killer nowhere to be found.

Hoping to catch the killer and finally right his mistakes, Tom reconnects with Mary. She's convinced that the killer is not human but instead a rural legend known as the Hungry Hare.

The sheriff wants the case closed, but refuses to believe in folklore. Mary dreams of revenge for her friends. And Tom hunts for any traces of the real or fictional. But the murderer could be closer to home than anyone expects.

The Hare is coming and is so, so hungry…

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

The year is 1635.

Sister Ursula, a young nun fleeing the ruins of her convent, and Elsebeth, a sharp-witted peasant, escape a band of marauding soldiers and disappear into the Bavarian forest. War scorches the land, and no one survives it alone. Amid the devastation, they find something in the arms of a dying the gilded skull of a saint.

It is said that if you reunite the saint's skull with her body, a wish will be granted. Desperate for salvation, and each with secret desires of their own, Ursula and Elsebeth follow a ragged map across the blighted countryside. But darkness follows them. A necromancer, drawn to the relic's power. The saint herself, whispering at night. And as the lines between blessing and curse blur, the women must face a harrowing the magic they seek comes at a cost.

At the journey's end, they'll face an impossible choice—one that could tear apart everything they know… or bind them to each other forever.

HAPPY READING!!

Mini Reviews

This is a fun little series. Seigi is adorable with the best intentions, even if his mouth kind of runs ahead of his brain a little. Though I'm with him, I think we all want to know a little bit more about Richard. We're three books into this series, and I feel like I know Seigi inside and out. The only thing I know about Richard is where he's from, and that's good at what he does. I also liked the info dump on each of the gems in the books. I don't know much about precious stones, but I'm learning something new with each book. 

OMG! I shouldn't feel bad for Lewellyn because he had killed people. Then again, they were bad people, and he is kind of the creature they created. So there's that. Also, I can't decide if I want Shavonne to get his memories back or not. On the one hand, I think something terrible happened to him, and that's why he forgot. On the other hand, I want him to remember Lewellyn. But also, I need Lewellyn to get into that man's house because I do not trust him. He's a problem, and he's going to touch something that doesn't belong to him. I'm not happy to wait the handful of weeks until the next volume comes out. Because I'm so invested in these two little weirdos.

When I tell you I became obsessed with this book, it was almost instantaneous. I picked this up because the live action has popped up on my Instagram FYP, and I wanted to read before watching either that or the anime. I devoured this book. DEVOURED! I've already put the second volume on hold at the library, and honestly, if it wasn't for my end-of-month budget, I'd buy the whole series. Because, just this. Do I know this book is going to rip my heart? Yes, I can already see how much this book will heart, but both of these two are so cute, and I just need more, right now.

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 take a closer look at a book. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday, I'll post some of my favorite book covers. Coming soon!

Lucy isn’t a normal girl. Ghost. Victim. Killer. She’s a doll on a mission—to find the man who killed her and return the favor.

Lucy McQuinn has been murdered, but she’s not about to go quietly.

If she doesn’t get to keep breathing, then neither does Kyle, her killer. Possessing the body of an antique doll, she sets out on a quest for revenge. But it’s hard when you’re eighteen inches tall and made of porcelain.

For help, she turns to Nicola, a human and fellow outsider with her own reasons to hate Kyle. But in their small idyllic town, no one wants to hear the truth, especially not about such a promising young man. If they can’t expose his crimes, Lucy will have to roll up her lacy little sleeves and teach him a lesson the old-fashioned way—as slowly and painfully as possible.

HAPPY READING!!

June Edmonds SBC

I'm so bummed I missed this month's Silent Book Club, but I know Michelle is a wonderful hostess! I will be back next month for the June SBC. As always, we'll be meeting at 7 pm at Leftcraft! Come a little early and grab something to eat and drink. I can't wait to see all the photos of what everyone was reading on Wednesday, and I can't wait to see what everyone is kicking off their summer reading!

A few things to remember about the Edmonds SBC. We are totally kid-friendly. Leftcraft not only has a kids' menu but also root beer on tap! The restaurant is open while we read, so feel free to bring headphones if needed. If you're listening to audiobooks and want to work, they also have public wifi! Lastly, I'll have a few fun announcements next month that I'm still ironing out the details of! So hopefully I'll see everyone next month!!

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 the Girls accept a very strange invitation to a lavish party on a remote island estate, they find that murder has a way of ruining even the most glamorous of evenings.

The invite delivered to 6151 Richmond Street was short on details, only promising to celebrate “the greatest artist of the century” and accompanied by a jewel-encrusted brooch—the whole package a brand of mysterious opulence that another Saturday night of gin rummy just can’t match.

Blanche Devereaux’s passionate dalliances are as plentiful as hot Southern nights, and surely one can’t be expected to remember all of one’s suitors. But when the Girls disembark the party’s ferry at a small Biscayne Bay island and meet their secretive host, the memories come flooding she a Radio City Rockette in her twenties, he the poor artist who could offer her nothing but his love. Fate drove them apart, but Declan, now a famous artist El Toro, professes that Blanche has always been his muse.

Featured prominently in his artworks and central to El Toro’s return to the apex of the art world, Blanche is thrilled to have been such an inspiring figure to this man. But looking around at a party filled with those who have made their livings off the artist’s fame—his assistant, his art dealer, his greatest critic, and more—Dorothy isn’t so sure they’re welcome on the island after all.

When a tropical storm knocks power out across the island, an optimistic Blanche proclaims that everyone looks better by candlelight anyway. But when Declan is found dead the next morning, all eyes are on her, his supposed muse of thirty-plus years. Trapped at the estate with the other guests—suspects all—the Girls must band together to find the true killer and get back to pleasant evenings of card games and cheesecake.

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

 

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!!

Mini Reviews

This series is gross, and creepy, and weird, and I'm loving it. Seriously, I can't believe I slept on this series for so long. I love that it's a serial with each volume introducing new characters and new scenarios, but it's all connected with old characters coming into play. This episode was a little different because it could be read normally, or you could read it back to front. I think this might be the weirdest volume to date. Though I'm liking the fact that the timeline is also not straight, issues fit into the timeline differently. So there's a bit of background on characters from issue one, or more of the story in later issues. Honestly, the only reason I'm not jumping into volume 5 right now, I need to read some of the books I own. So I need a library break. But I'll be putting the next volume on hold the second I jump back into the library. 

This was great! I will admit that I have not seen the original movie from Universal Monsters. So I cannot compare it to that. I've only seen the movie from the 90's, which would be like comparing apples and oranges. Which is a dumb turn of phrase because I hate both. ANYWAY! Despite not having seen the original, I did thoroughly enjoy this. The pace was quick, and the story was something we've all heard before about people way back when studying ancient Egypt. Yelling, 'Do not read from the book,' is one of my favorite things. So, a bonus point that I did get to yell that while reading this. Extra points for weird deaths, possession, and creepy mummy deaths at the end! I enjoyed this from start to finish!

Hellraiser is one of my favorite series, from the books to the movies to the graphic novels. I saw the movies first (probably way younger than I should have), and only after did I realize they were based on books. This series was the first time I was introduced to body horror. Reading this, I realized two things: one, I need to read The Hellbound Heart again because it's time, and two, I have never read The Scarlet Gospels. So, to do the former, I need to reread the first book. The Toll falls in between those two books. There were parts of this that I really liked and that I found interesting. There were also some parts that sort of fell flat for me. As a whole, it was an interesting filler between books one and two. And I love that it was a way to jump back to the literary version of this universe. I'll be adding the first book to my summer TBR!

 

This was the perfect audiobook for my job, filled with vignettes of Texas women who committed some crazy crimes. So not only was this filled with cases I've never read about before, but Skip Hollandsworth was able to interview most of the women in these stories. So they were able to tell their own stories to him. Not just second or third-party accounts, but primary sources able to tell their own tales. Which made them harder to listen to in places, but more real. It's just something different since most of the true crime books I listen to were from so far back there's no one alive to speak to. So facts get distorted. But in She Kills, so many of these women were able to tell their own stories, and honestly, a few times you couldn't really blame them.

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 take a closer look at a book. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday, I'll post some of my favorite book covers. Coming soon!

A spirited look at Sleepy Hollow’s haunted corners, local lore, and its connection to one of America’s most famous ghost stories.

National best-selling and Edgar Award–winning travel writer J. W. Ocker investigates the town that inspired Washington Irving’s famous short story, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” Ocker dives into the storied history of the Headless Horseman’s stomping grounds, visiting the village’s graveyard where Irving himself is buried and exploring all the present-day spookiness of one of the strangest towns in the country.

Blending travelogue, cultural criticism, and behind-the-scenes reporting, Ocker uncovers the tensions between tourism and tradition, profit and preservation, fiction and fact. With wit and curiosity, Chasing the Headless Horseman tells the story of how one small town reinvented itself as America’s Halloween capital, complete with statues, street signs, and an 18-foot-tall Headless Horseman. A must-read for anyone who loves ghost stories, Halloween, or small-town drama, Ocker’s new book does for Sleepy Hollow, New York, what his A Season with the Witch did for Salem, Massachusetts.

HAPPY READING!!

Summer TBR

Is it too early to announce my summer TBR? We're still two weeks away from June and a month away from the Solstice. Still, my summer does kick off in June when I start living solo for three months. My roommate is off to their summer job. And I'm so looking forward to reading outside at the park, at the beach, and by the pool. I'm also really excited to see our new pool; my apartment is giving it a once-over. I'm also hosting a summer reading event at a taphouse with a cute little outside area!

Also, have you seen these books I put together? Some of them are probably not the best to read when you're living alone. It's not going to stop me; I have an air mattress and free will. This also feels like a lot to read in the course of three months. Because I am a slow reader. One way I plan on helping myself next month is with a reading challenge. There will be a post on that later.

A personal reading challenge, SBC, and a reading event every week, I should be able to put a huge dent in this list. Maybe even a dent in my library TBR. Maybe I'm dreaming big. I do still have work through all of this and things to do. Tickets to baseball games, movies to see, TV shows to finish, and random other things I want to do while the weather is nice. 

So yeah, I'm really long-winded way of saying, I picked books to read this summer. It's a big list for a slow reader, probably even longer for a mood reader. So you know, good vibes on this!

 

HAPPY READING!!