Most Anticipated pt. 1 Update

 

So back in December, I posted about the books I was most excited to read in the first half of 2023. A post you can find here! We're also only a month away from those six months to be up. This is probably a whole other post about why the time has seemed to speed up. 

This is not that post. This is just a check-in to show if I've managed to read any of those books, or just buy them. Because remember, those are different things! 

• They're Watching You (TBR)
• What Lied in the Woods (TBR)
• How to Sell a Haunted House (Own)
• Pinata (Currently Borrowed)
• The Last Heir to Blackwood Library (Own)
• Episode Thirteen (Own)
• My Dear Henry (TBR)
• The Pledge (TBR)
• The Nightmare Man (Read)
• Battle of the Beast (Read)
• Four Found Dead (Just Released)
• A House with Good Bones (Own)
• Sister, Maiden, Monster (TBR)
• All Hallow (TBR)
• The Grimoire of Grave Fates (Coming Soon)

True to form I've added most of this list to my physical TBR. The two books I've read were good, I enjoyed both. I do need to jump into Pinata soon before it's due back at the library. And, I just added Episode Thirteen to my physical TBR last weekend. That one feels like a beach read.

So without a doubt, I have a ton of great books sitting on my TBR. Not just from this list, but so many I need to pull from the library this summer. Or just added to soon to topple TBR pile here at the house!

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.

Crack open your spell book and enter the world of the illustrious Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary. There's been a murder on campus, and it's up to the students of Galileo to solve it. Follow 18 authors and 18 students as they puzzle out the clues and find the guilty party.

Professor of Magical History Septimius Dropwort has just been murdered, and now everyone at the Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary is a suspect.

A prestigious school for young magicians, the Galileo Academy has recently undergone a comprehensive overhaul, reinventing itself as a roaming academy in which students of all cultures and identities are celebrated. In this new Galileo, every pupil is welcome—but there are some who aren't so happy with the recent changes. That includes everyone's least favorite professor, Septimius Dropwort, a stodgy old man known for his harsh rules and harsher punishments. But when the professor's body is discovered on school grounds with a mysterious note clenched in his lifeless hand, the Academy's students must solve the murder themselves, because everyone's a suspect.

Told from more than a dozen alternating and diverse perspectives, The Grimoire of Grave Fates follows Galileo's best and brightest young magicians as they race to discover the truth behind Dropwort's mysterious death. Each one of them is confident that only they have the skills needed to unravel the web of secrets hidden within Galileo's halls. But they're about to discover that even for straight-A students, magic doesn't always play by the rules. . . .

Contributors include: Cam Montgomery, Darcie Little Badger, Hafsah Faizal, Jessica Lewis, Julian Winters, Karuna Riazi, Kat Cho, Kayla Whaley, Kwame Mbalia, L. L. McKinney, Marieke Nijkamp, Mason Deaver, Natasha Díaz, Preeti Chhibber, Randy Ribay, Tehlor Kay Mejia, Victoria Lee, and Yamile Saied Méndez

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

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

A young squire tackles mysteries, monsters, and magic, but the inept knight he serves takes the credit. Every time.

Squire is brainy, bookish, and terribly under-appreciated by the brawny, inept knight Sir Kelton, who somehow always gets all the glory. So when the two mismatched heroes find themselves in a cursed village plagued by a demonic dragon, Kelton rides off to slay it and Squire stays behind to catch up on some reading. But Squire starts to notice that something isn’t quite right about this town . . . Can he uncover its strange secrets?

HAPPY READING!!

Book Mail

I got a surprise book mail over the weekend. According to my tracking information, it wasn't supposed to arrive until later this week. It was also one of those packages I forgot about because it was preordered and not only had a slept since then, but my work-life balance actually exists. I tend to forget things when I don't have a reminder of them.

So a surprise all around, and gave me something to look forward to coming home to.  

I adore this series, it's so much fun. I stumbled across these comics, I don't even know how long ago, at Emerald City ComicCon. Since then I've jumped on every Kickstarter when a new set of comics in the series came out. Now I have the short story collection!

It's already sitting on my TBR pile next to my bed. Without a doubt, it'll be the next book I pick up after I finish what I'm currently reading!

You can find more about the Major Holmes series here! This series is a lot of fun, and it's time for a reread!

HAPPY READING!!

Cover Runway Sunday

    

They say don't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes it's the cover that originally 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'm going to post some of my favorite covers of books coming soon!

When Francie arrives in Roswell, New Mexico, for her college roommate's UFO-themed wedding—complete with a true-believer groom—she can't help but roll her eyes at all the talk of aliens, which patently don't exist. Imagine her surprise, then, when she gets abducted by one.

Her abductor is not your typical alien—not gray, or a reptilian, or anything else the popular media might have led her to expect. Instead, the creature is more like an animate tumbleweed—a mass of lightning-fast tentacles and unexpected charm, given that it has no apparent ability to communicate beyond pointing.

Worse, the alien’s second abductee—an endearing con man named Wade—only compounds the problem, for Francie was supposed to spend the weekend talking her roommate out of the wedding, not falling in love herself. How can a guy who sells anti-abduction insurance for a living still manage to be the most sensible, decent man she has ever met?

The more Francie gets to know her abductor, however, the more certain she becomes that the alien is in trouble and needs her help—though she has no idea what the problem is, or how to solve it. Especially as the alien’s abduction spree seems far from over.

But with Wade’s assistance, Francie is determined to get their new friend to its destination—wherever that might be. Because who knows what could be at risk should they fail?

HAPPY READING!!

May Spotlight

 

I don't read a lot of nonfiction, I honestly should though, but when I do pick a nonfiction book it's either True Crime or something like Edison's Ghosts. A book filled with random, and most weird, little facts about history. It's why Edison's Ghosts is my Spotlight Read for May!

Overturn everything you knew about history’s greatest minds in this raucous and hilarious book, where it turns out there's a finer line between "genius" and "idiot" than we've previously known. “As Albert Einstein almost certainly never said, everyone is a genius – but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” So begins Katie Spalding’s spunky takedown of the Western canon, and how genius may not be as irrefutably great as we commonly understand. While most of us may never become Einstein, it may surprise you to learn that there’s probably a bunch of stuff you can do that Einstein couldn’t. And, as Spalding shows, the famous prodigies she explores here were quite odd by any definition. For
 
Edison's Ghosts is filled with examples of the so-called best of humanity doing, to put it bluntly, some really dumb shit.  You’ll discover stories that deserve to be told but never the hilarious, regrettable, and downright bafflingly lesser-known achievements that never made it into our history books, until now.

HAPPY READING!!

Favorite April Read

You know when you see a book and you just know you're going to like it. Murder Your Employer was that book for me. There's something about these off-the-wall books that poke fun at certain genres and tropes that I just thoroughly enjoy. For me, this book was hard to put down. I was reading it every chance I got, even it was only five minutes here or there.

I fell asleep reading it a lot both in my chair and in bed. The writing style on this wasn't one I'm used to reading, but once I got into the flow of it, I laughed out loud and sat at the edge of my seat.

Murder Your Employer is exactly what I thought it was going and more. I actually really enjoyed a lot of the characters in this book. And, while the book wrapped up great, I was happy with how everyone's story ended. Well, not everyone's ending. I'm still a lot bummed about one ending, but that would telling.

Still, this book left me wanting another series. More time at McMasters, even though there wasn't really must more tell. Not that I care, I'd read almost anything set in this universe I think.

HAPPY READING!!

April Reading Wrap Up

Anyone else have a weird April? It wasn't a bad month, just somehow the month seemed to fly by while so much happened. I almost feel like the month gave me some kind of whiplash. My reading was low, but that was becuase I was up to so much other stuff this month. Started a fun Middle Grade series, and finally picked up one of my Spotlight books. Which was the other reason my reading was slow.

I'm not stressed about a low reading month though. I've read enough the last three to cover some lighter months without setting myself behind. Besides I saw four great movies. If you haven't seen Reinfield or Dungeons and Dragons,  you are missing out. Both were a lot of fun!

Now onto the books!  

Books Read: 2
BINGO Books: 0 

A to Z Challenge: 0

Pages Read: 607

Currently Reading: 'Salems Lot and Raptor Red

A big 'ole goose egg on the challenges this month. No A to Z squares crossed off, and the exact same for my BINGO Board. Nothing marked off. While that's find for my BINGO challenge because I made huge headway the first three month. It's probably not so good for the A to Z Challenge! I need to break free of my Kindle for a little and try to cross some of those squares off!  

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.

An insidious darkness threatens to devastate a rural New England village when occult forces are conjured and when bigotry is left unrestrained.

After a recent string of disappearances in a small Connecticut town, a grieving widower with a grim secret is drawn into a dangerous ritual of dark magic by a powerful and mysterious older gentleman named Heart Crowley. Meanwhile, a member of local law enforcement tasked with uncovering the culprit responsible for the bizarre disappearances soon begins to learn of a current of unbridled hatred simmering beneath the guise of the town’s idyllic community—a hatred that will eventually burst and forever change the lives of those who once found peace in the quiet town of Henley’s Edge.

From the Bram Stoker Award®-nominated author of the viral sensation, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, Everything the Darkness Eats is a haunting supernatural thriller from a new and exciting voice in genre fiction.

Why I'm Waiting: I've heard a lot of good things about Eric LaRocca through Bookstagram. So I'm excited to read their newest book.

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

At the movie theater where Jo works, the last show has ended. But the nightmare is just beginning.

Tonight, Tempest Theaters is closing forever, the last remaining business in a defunct shopping mall. The moviegoers have left, and Jo and her six coworkers have the final shift, cleaning up popcorn and mopping floors for the last time.

But after an unexpected altercation puts everyone on edge, the power goes out. Their manager disappears, along with the keys to the lobby doors and the theater safe, where the crew's phones are locked each shift. Then, the crew's tension turns to terror when Jo discovers the dead body of one of her co-workers.

Now their only chance to escape the murderer in their midst is through the dark, shuttered mall. With its boarded-up exits and disabled fire alarms, the complex is filled with hiding places for both pursuers and pursued. In order to survive this night, Jo and her friends must trust one another, navigate the sprawling ruins of the mall, and outwit a killer before he kills again.

HAPPY READING!!

Indie Bookstore Day Haul

I went big and then I went home. Well, actually I went to the movies. Because they were showing Return of the Jedi on the big screen, I was a hundred percent on board. But, you all get what I mean. I took the day off work to celebrate Indie Bookstore Day, and here is the haul!

We hit 6 bookstores, 3 bakeries, and 2 ferry rides, and drove about 50 miles from door-to-door from the house. I snagged 6 new books, a gift card to one of my favorite bookstores, and a sunburn! But, we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day to be out and about. 

 I didn't get to all the bookstores I wanted to, but I'll save them for a rainy day this summer. A couple of them will make for good day trips. 

Some pretty sweet book mail showed up this weekend as well! So stay tuned for that!

HAPPY READING!!