Waiting on Wednesday

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about that we have yet to 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 at Breaking the Spine.

From the easily disproved to the wildly speculative, to  straight-up hucksterism, Pseudoscience is a romp through much more than bad science—it’s a light-hearted look into why we insist on believing in things such as Big Foot, astrology, and the existence of aliens. Did you know, for example, that you can tell a person’s future by touching their butt? Rumpology. It’s a thing, but not really. Or that Stanley Kubrick made a fake moon landing film for the US government? Except he didn’t. Or that spontaneous human combustion is real? It ain’t, but it can be explained scientifically.   

Pseudoscience is a wild mix of history, pop culture, and good old fashioned science–that not just entertains, but sheds a little light on why we all love to believe in things we know aren't true. 

Why I'm Waiting: This sounds like a lot of fun, even with an alien on the cover.

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

A murderess becomes the guardian of two very unusual girls in this mesmerizing gothic novel from acclaimed author Camilla Bruce.

Clara Woods is a killer—and perfectly fine with it, too. So what if she takes a couple of lives to make her own a little bit better? At the bottom of her garden is a flowerbed, long overgrown, where her late husband rests in peace—or so she always thought.

Then the girls arrive.

Lily and Violet are her nieces, recently orphaned after their affluent parents died on an ill-fated anniversary trip. In accordance with their parents' will, the sisters are to go to their closest relative—who just so happens to be Clara. Despite having no interest in children, Clara agrees to take them, hoping to get her hands on some of the girls' assets—not just to bolster her dwindling fortune, but also to establish what she hopes will be her legacy: a line of diamond jewelry.

There's only one problem. Violet can see the dead man at the bottom of the garden. She can see all of Clara's ghosts…and call them back into existence. Soon Clara is plagued by her victims and at war with the gifted girls in her care. Lily and Violet have become a liability—and know far more than they should…

   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!

Five high school friends are bonded by an oath to protect one another no matter what.

Then, on a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something a mysterious staircase to nowhere.

One friend walks up—and never comes back down. Then the staircase disappears.

Twenty years later, the staircase has reappeared. Now the group returns to find the lost boy—and what lies beyond the staircase in the woods. . . .

HAPPY READING!!

Book Haul

I rarely have a reason to use this GIF, so I take it when the opportunity arrives. This is one of my favorite books and my favorite adaptation of it. But that's not why we're here. At least, I assume that's not why you're here, but I shouldn't assume these things. Still, I'm here because I was left to my own devices on Sunday with a whole day off and access to a car. So errands! 

Errands that are never complete without a stop at a bookstore. This time I popped into the comic book store. I've been on the hunt for the Universal Monster graphic novels, my favorite of the Monsters (The Creature of the Black Lagoon) has a full volume on shelves, and I was hoping to snag the last two House of  Slaughter books. Alas, I did not snag any of those because they were sold out. I did however snag the next Something is Killing the Children because eventually, I will need to catch myself up on the series. So why not keep collecting them so I can just spend a whole afternoon in the fetal position not being emotionally ready for anything about to happen 

Being a huge Skottie Young fan, I was excited to see The Me You Love in the Dark. This one has been on my want list for a couple of years, but I've never seen it in the wild, so it went immediately into my bag. I also added a couple of other Christmas horror graphic novels to my TBR for 2025 Christmas TBR. What I needed was more books on any TBR, whether physical or virtual, but here we are.

So more books on my shelves to read!

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about that we have yet to 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 at Breaking the Spine.

A young woman forced to live with ghosts in a mansion frozen in time must decide between forbidden love and the price of freedom in this gothic fantasy where Jane Eyre meets The Haunting of Bly Manor, perfect for fans of Starling House.

At Thorne Hall, a grand estate nestled in the Berkshires, fifteen restless spirits roam, bound within the mansion’s walls since the Gilded Age. Elegy Thorne bears the weight of her family’s curse to preserve the mansion as it was in the 1890s, using ancient folk songs to keep the spirits secret and silent in order to avoid deadly consequences.

When a mischievous child spirit wreaks havoc on the manor, the Thorne family calls upon their trusted preservationist to restore the mansion. He brings along his son, Atticus – a vibrant man full of life and ideas of modernization – and Elegy is captivated by him, igniting a longing for freedom she’s never dared to embrace.

Torn between her desire to follow her heart and her duty to her family and its legacy, Elegy begins searching for a way to release the spirit collection back to the afterlife and set both herself and the ghosts free. With century-old secrets, peculiar magic, and spirits both whimsical and deadly, Thorne Hall will haunt and enrapture readers—and you might just not want to leave.

Why I'm Waiting: You had me at a house full of ghosts.

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

The couple that kills together stays together...

Hazel and Fox are an ordinary married couple with a baby. Except for one small thing, they're ex-serial killers.

They had it all. An enviable London lifestyle, five-star travels, and plenty of bad men to kill. Not many power couples know how to get away with murder.

Then Hazel fell pregnant and they gave it all up for life in the suburbs; dinner parties instead of body disposal.

But recently Hazel has started to feel that itch again. When she kills someone behind Fox's back and brings the police to their door, she must do anything she can to protect her family.

This could save their marriage - unless it kills them first.

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!

Everyone knows the legend of Fairport twenty years ago, a shocking murder closed the place down. This year, the ruins will be bulldozed at last. But tonight, it's not too late to die.

All her life, Eden Stafford has heard the lore about the abandoned beach resort at the edge of ever since the notorious murder there, anyone who sets foot on the property is cursed to die, It's more than just a over the years, two high school students who dared to explore the ruins of Fairport Village were killed there.

Eden is no stranger to notoriety, having endured a family scandal that's made her a target at school. So when she reluctantly attends an overnight party at the ruins, she's on edge—not because of some legend, but because the clique that has made her life hell for years is there, too, including Caleb Durham, the worst of them all.

Yet out of all the things Eden expected to happen that night, finding another student dead at Fairport Village wasn't one of them.

Though the death is ruled an accident, Eden knows she saw something suspicious at the ruins—and Caleb and her other longtime tormentors did too. Now they're all being followed by a deadly stranger, and to save themselves, they must work together to uncover the truth about Fairport Village. But after all that's happened, can Eden really trust Caleb and his friends? Or will they leave her to face a killer alone?

HAPPY READING!!

How to be a Saint - Review

Author: Kate Sidley

Genre: Humor / Nonfiction

Format: Kindle

Pages: 224

Huge thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks for a chance to read this early! How to Be a Saint by Kate Sidley will hit shelves on August 19th, 2025!

This was absolutely hilarious! It was kind of funny to laugh out loud and make faces while I read in public. It was kind of funny to read passages out loud to my roommate while we read together in the living room because I had to share what was just said. How to Be a Saint was everything I wanted it to be when I first saw it on NetGalley and smashed the request button. I cannot wait for its official release day so I can get my hands on a physical copy and get on my shelf with the rest of my favorite silly nonfiction books.

Satire nonfiction is one of my subgenres of nonfiction. For me it's a fun way to learn without feeling like I'm stuck in a lecture hall from hell. Kate Sidley was an absolute riot to read, and this book was so much fun. So if you want to learn something about sainthood while having a little laugh (more like a big one) this book is for you.

How to Be a Saint is filled to the brim with facts, photos, and amazing footnotes. You can tell that Sidley put a lot of time and love into this book to create something not only fun but hilarious as well. Listen, I know I'm fangirling all over this book, but it's only January, and this is on my list of favorite books of 2025. I thoroughly enjoyed this from start to finish. And, what's really great about this book, was I had to put it down for a bit as life got a little hectic, but I was able to pick this one up again, with no problem. I jumped right back in with no feet like I just set it down before. Not two weeks ago.

It is a short and quick read when life doesn't hand you the chance for quite a bit of overtime. This is easily a fun beach read, vacation read, and right before bed to unwind from the read, I could go on and on. I really did enjoy this book and Sidley's comedy style in the writing. I loved the little fourth wall breaks. As a whole, it's a solid book and lots of fun. The quiz was hands down my favorite part because of the answer key at the end.

My only issue with this book is one I've had with many of the advanced Kindle copies. The format is not the greatest and at times makes the book hard to read. I ran across that a couple of times with this book, where the picture ended up in pieces or split between two pages, or in a weird case the photo format had affected the page as a whole, and broke apart the chapter in a weird way that I had to jigsaw back together. And, I realize that has nothing to do with the author, and probably also the publisher, it is just the downside of getting early before it's been formatted correctly. So I assume those changes will be made to the final copy closer to pub day!

It only means I'm more movitated to see this book in the wild, and get a better look at the photos and caption in the final copy!

Once again, How to Be a Saint by Kate Sidley will be released officially on August 19th, 2025!

HAPPY READING!!

February Silent Book Club

A huge thank you to everyone for joining us on Wednesday for an hour of reading! Winter is finally with us, so thanks for braving the cold to come to eat and read with us. If you couldn't join us, no worries, we'll be back in February! We meet every third Wednesday, so our next meet-up is February 19th. As usual, everything will kick off at 7pm at Leftcraft, and we're easy to spot. They put us right in the middle of the restaurant at the long tables! 

All readers are welcome, no matter how you read or what you read! Yes, even audiobooks are still considered reading at our Edmonds Silent Book Club. So, if you're looking for something warm to do in February, come reading with us! If you have any questions about the location, the menu, or anything at all, feel free to reach out to me here (or my Instagram @Bookish_Whispers) or the Edmonds Silent Book Club Instagram, @silentbookclubedmonds.

HAPPY READING!!

Book Mail

So way back in December, I was flipping through NetGalley to see if anything tickled my fancy. You know like you do when you're bored, but also trying not to request too many things then overwhelm yourself. It's a delicate balance, that I usually manage these days. But, while I was trying to maintain that balance, I saw what I thought was amazing! I wouldn't call myself a Disney Adult (for many, many reasons) but I have a few movie favorites, one of which is Brave. So when I was dinking around on NetGalley and saw that the movie was turned into a small comic I was super excited and immediately added it to my TBR.

While adding it to my Goodreads TBR, I realized that the publishing company Papercutz had a whole series of turning Disney movies into comics. Two of which are my absolute favorites. So at the start of December, I went through and added the three that I needed to add to my library. Because both Atlantis and Sword in the Stone are two of my top favorite Disney movies. They are also two of the most underrated Disney movies. Mad Madame Mim is still one of my favorite Disney villains.

I was as patiently as I could be waiting for these to arrive. Not only had I added them to my pre-order, but their publishing dates were all Christmas Eve. So, I knew staff were gone for the Holidays, but I was itching to get my hands on these. Finally, they arrived. They are amazing, and now I need to find someplace to display them. Which means another craft project on my list because I'd like to display two of these covers out on my wall.

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about that we have yet to 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 at Breaking the Spine.

Breaking away from history as told through the lens of kings, queens and nobles, this book instead lifts the lid on 24 fascinating stories of little-known underdogs, mavericks, trailblazers and oddballs. Through these stories you will meet characters such as: 

• The Chevalier d'Eon – a fencing master, spy and diplomat who came out as a woman in 18th-century London
• Ellen and William Craft – a married couple who made a daring escape from slavery in the American south 
• Peter the Wild Boy – a child found living in the woods in Germany who was taken to the royal court in England
• Caroline Herschel – the first British woman to be paid for scientific work, and a discoverer of comets
• William Buckland – the man who wrote the first account of a dinosaur – yet who also ate the heart of a French king
• Eleanor Rykener – a gender-bending sex worker from medieval England who spilled juicy gossip about her clients in the clergy Juliana Popjoy - a society beauty who lived in a tree for years
• Paul Robeson – athlete, singer, actor, polyglot, activist... and handsome to boot
• The Rebecca Rioters – a roving crowd of Welshmen who destroyed tollbooths dressed in skirts and bonnets.

These poignant and often hilarious true stories show us that the world as we know it was built by a wider array of historical figures than we experienced in our schoolbooks.

Why I'm Waiting: This sounds like a lot of fun!

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

There’s power in a book…

They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to the Wellwood Home in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened.

Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone. Under the watchful eye of the stern Miss Wellwood, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. There’s Rose, a hippie who insists she’s going to find a way to keep her baby and escape to a commune. And Zinnia, a budding musician who knows she’s going to go home and marry her baby’s father. And Holly, a wisp of a girl, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who.

Everything the girls eat, every moment of their waking day, and everything they’re allowed to talk about is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it’s never given freely. There’s always a price to be paid…and it’s usually paid in blood.

 

    HAPPY READING!!

Night Worms Unboxing

January Theme: Moody Midnights

First Night Worms of 2025! There's been so much book mail this month, but I'm always most excited to see what Sadie and Ashley put together for Night Worms. January's box is a little different for me, I haven't heard of either of these books or their authors. One is more up my alley than the other, I tend to read more Gothics than sapphic thrillers, but anything with an ancient evil attached is worth cracking open. 

I'm super excited for Beneath the Poet's House, it's an interesting take on the Poe story and an unsung person in his past that I've only seen as a footnote. Feast While You Can has been snagged by my roommate for her TBR pile. So everyone was excited about something in this box. The tea will be amazing because my voice is wrecked from all this coughing. It smells so good! And, I need to find a place for the Reading is Sexy sticker. 

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!

After returning to his hometown, Paul, the beleaguered host of a small-time podcast, discovers a longtime friend committed suicide in the dilapidated ruins of Paul’s childhood home. Desperate to find answers, Paul interviews friends and locals hoping to find closure. He finds himself in a chilling downward spiral of his memories and the land he grew up on. Has his past caught up with him or is there something far more sinister at play?

HAPPY READING!!

Mini Review

This was fun. It got bonus points because Grandma got to go along on this adventure, and I think we can all agree she's one of the best characters in the series. It did lose a point because Cricket was nowhere to be seen. Perfect for younger readers and Disney lovers alike.

I love Gert and Larry so much! This second series has been a lot of fun. There is kind of an overall plot if you squint and turn your head to the side. I have been loving all the little mini stories so much, though, the Billy Goats Gruff story was my favorite of this volume. I have my fingers crossed that we're getting a Volume Eight. While I wouldn't say this one ended on a cliffhanger, but I do have some questions. Like is Gert stuck in the form, if yes, are we getting a Kaiju issue? Lastly, how kind of hell is Cloudia raising because she looked like she was about to commit a crime? I just want to know what kind of crime. World domination? Or, just be random bits of crime because she can?

HAPPY READING!!

Book Haul

My place has this community portal where you can take polls, leave reviews, post photos, etc., and earn points. All year, I play all the silly games and post little adorable pictures of my cat or the food I cook. I take every poll and fill out all the reviews. I try to earn all the points I can, and normally at the start of December, I cash out all my points for a Barnes and Noble gift card at the end of the year, or the beginning of the next, so I can do a little haul. For whatever reason that escapes me, I didn't cash any points out in 2023, so there was a lot, which meant I had a pretty hefty sum to cash out this year. On top of reward cash for Barnes and Noble getting ready to expire. 

So because I've been ill and work has been crazy busy with the holidays, I jumped online to do a bit of retail therapy. Listen I have bronchitis and coughing so much my stomach muscles hurt, I needed some joy. Honestly, I didn't go all that crazy. I stuck to books I really wanted from favorite authors, and one I got told by a friend I just had to read on my Manga, Manhwa, journey. So I have a super small haul, with a month left in case I need another little treat later.

Not in the photo is the gem of this haul because it's too thin and wasn't easy to get in the stack, but also because I'd cracked it open. I finally got my hands on I Hate Fairyland, Volume 7! I've already read it and loved it, a mini-review coming tomorrow. The Next stop is without a doubt The Metalhead Next Door. It's a toss-up as to who is going to read Gibson's newest book first, me or my roommate. Sometimes she snipes my shiny new books because she knows I have a whole library (and a stack of actual library books) to read from.

Listen I'm starting this year out right, with buying books that I do not have space on my bookshelf for, and I have two more on the way thanks to Night Worms. Some call it a problem, even hoarding, I call to collecting because I understand that I now own more books than I'll have read. But, if you haven't at least looked at the cover of Evocation in person, you have to. Not only is the dust cover beautiful, but the actual hardback is gorgeous, so even if this book isn't for you, you should bask in its glory. 

Anyone else start their 2025 with a book haul?

HAPPY READING!!

January Silent Book Club

It may be a new year, but nothing has changed about the Edmonds Silent Book Club. We're still meeting at Leftcraft in downtown Edmonds, everything kicks off at 7 pm. All readers are welcome, it doesn't matter what you're reading or how you're reading. Come and join us for good food and meet other readers! The first Silent Book Club meet-up of 2025 is on January 15th! So if you're in the North Seattle area we'd love to see you there!

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about that we have yet to 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 at Breaking the Spine.

On Halloween night, Josie and her two best friends, Jackson and Alison, sneak into the infamously haunted Bachelor’s Grove cemetery. They are hoping to prove the existence of a famous ghost to secure coveted editorial spots on the school newspaper. Instead, they are chased out by a security guard before they gather any evidence…or so they think.

Later, a sinister meme appears on their phones. It’s an image of the “phantom farmhouse,” an evil apparition rumored to appear to unlucky visitors at Bachelor's Grove—luring them in…and never letting them out—with the words I’m watching dripping down the screen.

Soon, strange and scary things begin to happen all around them. When a second meme from the same number arrives, this time with a countdown, they realize they have only three days to figure out who is terrorizing them. As they investigate, the trio must use their journalistic skills to uncover the truth, or risk becoming a part of the graveyard’s sinister past forever.

Why I'm Waiting: I know this is geared toward younger readers but does sound super creepy.

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

 

On a cold winter day in 1832, Sarah Cornell was found hanging in a barn, four months pregnant, after a disgraceful liaison with a charismatic Methodist minister, Reverend Ephraim Avery. Some (Avery’s lawyers) claimed her death was suicide…but others weren’t so sure. Determined to uncover the real story, intrepid Victorian writer Catharine Williams threw herself into the investigation and wrote what many claim is the first American true-crime narrative, Fall River. The case and Williams’ book became a sensation—one that divided the country and inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. But the reverend was not convicted, and questions linger to this day about what really led to Sarah Cornell’s death. Until now.

In The Sinners All Bow, acclaimed true-crime historian Kate Winkler Dawson travels back in time to 19th century small town America, emboldened to finish the work Williams started nearly two centuries before. Using modern investigative advancements—such as “forensic knot analysis” to determine cause of death, the prosecutor’s notes from 1833, and criminal profiling which was invented 55 years later with Jack the Ripper—Dawson fills in the gaps of Williams’ research to find the truth. Along the way she also examines how society decides who is the “right kind” of crime victim and how America’s long history of religious evangelism may have clouded the facts both in the 1830s and today. Ultimately, The Sinners All Bow brings justice to an unsettling mystery that speaks to our past as well as our present, anchored by three women who subverted the script they were given.

    HAPPY READING!!

2024 Reading Wrap Up

Nearly a week into the new year, and here is my wrap-up for 2024! Listen, it was a great year for my goals both here on Bookish Whispers and in my outside life. But what matters here is how I am on my 2024 goals. Well, the downside is I didn't read a single book on my 2024 TBR, no surprise there. On that same note, I don't think I really put a dent in my physical TBR this year. I read so much on my Kindle this year. More than  I originally bought the thing. For something I was sure I'd rarely pick up, this was definitely my Kindle era 2024.

I also didn't manage to clear my BINGO board this year. Seriously, we made this card stupid hard in one place. There is not a single one of us managed to hit that page count square. The one square I thought would be easy because I read a lot of books within three to four hundred pages, and I thought I would hit this one quite early. Wrong! So very wrong. I read 82 books this last year and not a single one of them hit that stupid square.

On that note, I did read 82 of the 70 books I wanted to!  I actually hit a lot earlier than I thought, and finished that goal by the end of October. This meant the last two months of the year were all bonus, and thank goodness for that because the end of December got busy and then I got sick, so not too much reading happened the last couple of weeks of the year.

I will say the page count goal is always the hardest for me to hit, but this year was a little more annoying than usual. Because according to my own maths (I keep a reading journal), Goodreads, and Storygraph, I got three different answers to this goal. According to the maths I recorded and Goodreads, I hit this goal. However, Storygraph says I was a couple hundred pages behind. Personally, I'm saying I hit because two of the three ways I track my reading said so. However, I think Storygraph is probably actually correct because it logs my audiobooks as actual hours listed, where my journal and Goodreads count the pages of the published.

So there's that. 

Still, I'm happy with how the year rounded up. It does mean this year that I would like all three ways I track my reading to match on page counts. That doesn't mean I won't use the average to finish out this year if I need to. After all, it's all good fun!

HAPPY READING!!