With the heart of an Atwood tale and the visuals of a classic Asian period drama The Empress of Salt and Fortune is a tightly and lushly written narrative about empire, storytelling, and the anger of women.
A young royal from the far north is sent south for a political marriage. Alone and sometimes reviled, she has only her servants on her side. This evocative debut chronicles her rise to power through the eyes of her handmaiden, at once feminist high fantasy and a thrilling indictment of monarchy.
Hello, hello and welcome back to another episode of WWW Wednesday, a weekly meme hosted by Sam @ Taking On A World of Words, which means I’ll be answering these questions:
Magic, a prized resource, is the only thing between peace and war. When magic runs out, four estranged royal siblings must find a new source before their country is swallowed by invading forces. The first in an Indian-inspired duology. Vira is desperate to get out of her mother’s shadow and establish her legacy as a revered queen of Ashoka. But with the country’s only quarry running out of magic–a precious resource that has kept Ashoka safe from conflict–she can barely protect her citizens from the looming threat of war. And if her enemies discover this, they’ll stop at nothing to seize the last of the magic.
Vira’s only hope is to find a mysterious object of legend: the Ivory Key, rumored to unlock a new source of magic. But in order to infiltrate enemy territory and retrieve it, she must reunite with her siblings, torn apart by the different paths their lives have taken. Each of them has something to gain from finding the Ivory Key–and even more to lose if they fail. Ronak plans to sell it to the highest bidder in exchange for escape from his impending political marriage. Kaleb, falsely accused of assassinating the former maharani needs it to clear his name. And Riya, a runaway who cut all family ties, wants the Key to prove her loyalty to the rebels who want to strip the nobility of its power.
They must work together to survive the treacherous journey. But with each sibling harboring secrets and their own agendas, the very thing that brought them together could tear apart their family–and their world–for good.
Charming, hilarious, and emotional, Starry-Eyed Love is Helena Hunting at her very best!
Having just broken up with her boyfriend, London Spark is not in the mood to be hit on. Especially not when she’s out celebrating her single status with her sisters. So when a very attractive man pays for their drinks and then slips her his number, she passes it right back to him with a ‘thanks, but no thanks’. As the business administrator for their family’s event hotel, the Spark House, London has more important things to worry about, like bringing in new clientele.
As luck would have it, a multi-million-dollar company calls a few months later asking for a meeting to discuss a potential partnership, and London is eager to prove to her sisters, and herself, that she can land this deal. Just when she thinks she has nailed her presentation, the company’s CEO, Jackson Holt, walks in and inserts himself into the meeting. Not only that, but he also happens to be the same guy she turned down at the bar a few months ago.
As they begin to spend more time together, their working relationship blossoms into something more. It isn’t until their professional entanglements are finally over, that London and Jackson are finally ready to take the next step in their relationship. But between Jackson’s secretive past and London’s struggle with her sisters, London must question where she really stands – not just with Jackson, but with the Spark House, too.
We’re back with another Sundays in Bed With… meme! This meme dares to ask you what book has been in your bed this morning and is hosted by Midnight Book Girl. Come share what book you’ve spent time curled up reading in bed with, or which book you wish you had time to read today!
I spent most of Sunday in bed finishing Starry-Eyed Love by Helena Hunting. This is the second book in her Spark House series and I’m happy to say that I enjoyed it so much more than the first! There were still things that irked me but I liked the romance much more. My review will go up tomorrow! 🙂
Happy Friday book lovers! We’re back with another First Lines Friday, a weekly featurefor book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?Here are the rules:
Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Centuries before, robots of Panga gained self-awareness, laid down their tools, wandered, en masse into the wilderness, never to be seen again. They faded into myth and urban legend.
Now the life of the tea monk who tells this story is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of “what do people need?” is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They will need to ask it a lot. Chambers’ series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?
Hello, hello and welcome back to another episode of WWW Wednesday, a weekly meme hosted by Sam @ Taking On A World of Words, which means I’ll be answering these questions:
We’re back with another Sundays in Bed With… meme! This meme dares to ask you what book has been in your bed this morning and is hosted by Midnight Book Girl. Come share what book you’ve spent time curled up reading in bed with, or which book you wish you had time to read today!
I’ll be spending my Sunday in bed finishing Everything for You by Chloe Liese. If you don’t know this about me, I’m a huge Chloe Liese fan and I adore all of her books, so I was beyond excited to get an ARC of this. Oliver and Gavin are just… Everything. *sobs in happy* 🥹🥹🥹
It’s out next week (10 May) and I can’t wait for you all to read it!
Hello, friends! I hope you’re all doing okay as we move into May. Last month, I participated in The Magical Readathon: Orilium Spring Equinox 2022 and today I’d like to share my wrap up of the books I read for the readathon. Did I pass my classes? Did I manage to complete any additional quests to help my guild gain points? Read on to find out!
Again, I’d like to give a shout out to the creator of this amazing readathon: G @ Book Roast who did an incredible job preparing everything for us. I’m still in awe of all the effort that she’s put into this and I find it very inspiring!
CHARACTER BACKGROUND
Name: Meeska Sholara
Guild: House of the Arcane
Calling: Illusionist Rogue
Background: Urban
Province: Kerador
Heritage: Earthling (Fire)
Conduit: Staff
Legacy: Pocket Dimension
Orilium Spring Equinox Class Prompts
Luckily for me, as an Illusionist Rogue, I only had to attend three classes: Shapeshifting, Art of Illusion, and Psionics & Divination. This means that I only had to read three books and although it was a close call because I kept putting off my reads until the very end of the month (meep, truly accurate to how I was as a student IRL!), I managed to successfully pass the term! WOO!!! 🥳 I also managed to complete a few quests from the noticeboard. On that note, here’s what I read for the readathon:
I’d heard so much about this one and I was scared that it’d go over my head but it didn’t and I totally get the hype. This had me captivated from the very beginning. Vo’s writing was lyrical and flowed off the page. The setting was also magical and the story was fantastic!
This had the rivals to lovers trope and I really enjoyed it. The first-love romance was sweet and I ended up really liking Bel and Teo and rooting for their romance! I buddy read this with Leslie & Julie and we also had great discussions about what we loved and disliked. It was an empowering story!
This was my first book by de Bodard and I’m afraid this book was a little too smart for me? 😂 I liked the Sherlockian inspired characters and mystery but the world-building was disorienting and I didn’t fully connect with the characters. I enjoyed the writing though!
additional quests:
I managed to complete more quests than I thought I would! These were all unlimited quests as the time difference meant that I always missed out on the limited quests when they were posted but that’s okay. Each quest was worth 10 guild reputation points so I was rewarded 60 points total!
Letter D in the title
New-to-me author
Steal a book from someone else’s TBR
5-star prediction
Borrowed from the library
Book with multiple POVs
From Initiate to Assistant
I started the Spring Equinox as an Initiate and by the end, I earned 50pts for successfully passing the term and another 60pts for each quest that I completed. With 110 guild reputation points tucked away, I’ve managed to move up on the guild tier to become an Assistant, which means my character’s face is recognisable within the guild. Exciting times! 😃
That it’s from me, folks! Did you join The Magical Readathon too? How were your spring classes and did you pass them all? Did you manage to do any additional quests? I don’t know about you but I can’t wait for next term! 😍
dinipandareads 