Hello Mondays, welcome back to #5OnMyTBR, a meme created by the wonderful E @ The Local Bee Hunter’s Nook. This bookish meme gets us to dig even further into our TBRs by simply posting about five books on our TBR! You can learn more about it here or in the post announcing it. You can find the full list of prompts (past and future) at the end of this post!
This week’s prompt is: Autumn Read
Read More »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 been you’ve spent time curled up reading in bed with, or which book you wish you had time to read today!
This Sunday I’ve spent the majority of the day in bed with The Extraordinaries by T.J. Klune. I haven’t been able to get that far into it yet because I’m finding it more than a little difficult to focus this weekend. What I read did have me laughing out loud at times and I can already tell what relationships I’ll be loving in this book. This is Klune’s YA debut and I’m keen to see if it’ll leave me feeling the same way I did after finishing The House in the Cerulean Sea last week. Hopefully I’ll get a bit more reading in this week.
Some people are extraordinary. Some are just extra. TJ Klune’s YA debut, The Extraordinaries, is a queer coming-of-age story about a fanboy with ADHD and the heroes he loves.
Nick Bell? Not extraordinary. But being the most popular fanfiction writer in the Extraordinaries fandom is a superpower, right? After a chance encounter with Shadow Star, Nova City’s mightiest hero (and Nick’s biggest crush), Nick sets out to make himself extraordinary. And he’ll do it with or without the reluctant help of Seth Gray, Nick’s best friend (and maybe the love of his life). Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl meets Marissa Meyer’s Renegades in TJ Klune’s YA debut.
What are you currently reading?
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Goodreads: Force of Nature (Aaron Falk #2)
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Publication Date: 06 February 2018
Genre: Mystery Thriller
Panda Rating:
(4 pandas)
FIVE WOMEN GO ON A HIKE.
ONLY FOUR RETURN.
When five colleagues are forced to go on a corporate retreat in the wilderness, they reluctantly pick up their backpacks and start walking down the nuddy path. After all, this retreat is supposed to take the office workers out of their air-conditioned comfort zone. It’s supposed to be abonding experience. It’s supposed to be a bonding experience. It’s supposed to build trust.
But it doesn’t work out that way.
One of the women doesn’t come out of the woods. And each of her companions tellsa slightly different story about what happened.
Federal Agent Aaron Falk has a keen interest in the whereabouts of the missing hiker. Alice Russell is the whistleblower in his latest case–and in just a matter of weeks, she was supposed to help him bring down both the company she works for and the people she works with.
In an investigation that takes him deep into isolated bushland, Falk discovers secrets lurking in the mountains and a tangled web of personal friendship, suspicion, and betrayal among the hikers. But did that lead to murder?
Get A Life, Chloe Brown (The Brown Sisters #1)
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Panda Rating:
Chloe Brown is a chronically ill computer geek with a goal, a plan, and a list. After almost—but not quite—dying, she’s come up with seven directives to help her “Get a Life”, and she’s already completed the first: finally moving out of her glamorous family’s mansion. The next items?
• Enjoy a drunken night out.
• Ride a motorbike.
• Go camping.
• Have meaningless but thoroughly enjoyable sex.
• Travel the world with nothing but hand luggage.
• And… do something bad.
But it’s not easy being bad, even when you’ve written out step-by-step guidelines. What Chloe needs is a teacher, and she knows just the man for the job: Redford ‘Red’ Morgan. With tattoos and a motorbike, Red is the perfect helper in her mission to rebel, but as they spend more time together, Chloe realises there’s much more to him than his tough exterior implies. Soon she’s left wanting more from him than she ever expected . . . maybe there’s more to life than her list ever imagined?
Happy Friday book lovers! We’re back with another First Lines Friday, a weekly feature for 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:
First lines:
“This house was made for someone without a soul. So I guess it makes sense that my mother wanted it so badly.”
Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?
Read More »Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Books for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
The House in the Cerulean Sea
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication date: 17 March 2020
Genre: Science Fiction & Fantasy
Panda Rating:
A magical island. A dangerous task. A burning secret.
Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.
When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he’s given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.
But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.
An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.
Note: The quotes below are taken from an advanced/unfinished copy and are subject to change in the final version.
Read More »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:
Since last week, I’ve managed to finish 6 books! Three of these were novella length books in a series so they were pretty fast reads. I also finally managed to tick off a highly anticipated romcom from my TBR and it was every bit as wonderful as everyone said it would be!
His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie ★★★★½
This was such a powerful and fantastic debut from Medie. I didn’t have any expectations going into it but Medie reeled me in with her witty prose and wowed me with how she brought Ghana to life. I felt so much emotion while reading this book and I became so invested in Afi’s story. This is one you shouldn’t let slip past your radar! Read my review
Fable (Fable #1) by Adrienne Young ★★★★★
Fable has been one of my most anticipated 2020 releases and it did not disappoint! Young paints a gritty cut-throat pirate ruled world and she doesn’t pull any punches. Fable is such a tough MC with a resilient spirit who I became so invested in. Unsurprisingly, I loved the found-family vibes with the crew + the romance was a satisfying slow burn. I’d definitely recommend it! Read my review
Empire of Lies Series by Whitney G. ★★★☆☆
It’s been a while since I’ve read anything by Whitney G. and while this had her touch of steaminess, it was also a big departure from her usual–which she does state at the start of each book. It was a much darker read but I did enjoy the ‘big twist’ in book one as it did surprise me! Following that though, everything became predictable. While we learn a lot more about our MCs separately, we don’t get to see how their relationship grows so quickly, so I felt their romance was more “insta” and sadly underdeveloped. Overall though, I appreciated the concept and it was the palate cleanser I needed before my next read!
Get A Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert ★★★★☆
Your eyes are not deceiving you, friends. I have finally read this book and it was just as wonderful as everyone said it was! I loved getting to know Chloe and Red. Their awkward and hilarious internal dialogues, their cheeky banter and the sexual tension between these two were absolute fire! They both had painful pasts that made them wary of any happiness they might find in the present but I loved seeing them grow and heal together. As has been mentioned by many reviewers, the chronic illness rep in this book is pretty great and I really appreciated reading a romance about such realistic characters. Review coming soon!
Well it has certainly been a hot minute since I did one of these (April was my last one)! But since it’s already the end of August and I’m actually remembering to do a monthly wrap up on time, I thought I might as well do it. I don’t know about you but August passed in a literal blink for me! I definitely don’t think that I did anything noteworthy this month on both the work and personal life front, and to be honest, if you asked me what I did yesterday I don’t think I’d be able to tell you. It’s been that kind of brain foggy month and well, I’m just trying to keep my head above water and keep moving forward.
On a more positive note, I completed my Goodreads Reading Challenge to read 100 books this past Saturday and I honestly didn’t think I’d do it because my reading has been iffy at best this year. Thank goodness for the blog tours I’ve been on because they’ve been keeping me motivated and have given me the push I need to stay reading. Not that I haven’t wanted to read, it’s just that my moods have been all over the show lately and as a mood reader, books don’t usually get read very quickly, if at all, in my current state of mind.
Saying that, this month I managed to read a total of 15 books, not counting the second book I’ve DNF’d this year! Yes, you read that right, the infamous ‘non-DNFer’ has DNF’d not one, but two books in 2020. Like I’ve said before, I’m taking baby steps to DNF-ing more books and well, it’s two more than I DNF’d last year so, yay progress? 😬
Read More »Welcome back to Goodreads Monday! It’s been a very hot minute since I did one but I figured I might as well get back into it! This weekly meme was started by @Lauren’s Page Turners and it invites you to pick a book from your TBR and explain why you want to read it. Easy enough, right? Feel free to join in if you want to! I’ll be using a random number generator to pick my books from my insanely long GR Want-to-read list.
This week’s featured book is The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe. This is a YA Contemporary that was published in January 2019 and it has a 3.81 star rating on Goodreads.
Read More »Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Fable (Fable #1)
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication date: 01 September 2020
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Panda Rating:
As the daughter of the most powerful trader in the Narrows, the sea is the only home seventeen-year-old Fable has ever known. It’s been four years since the night she watched her mother drown during an unforgiving storm. The next day her father abandoned her on a legendary island filled with thieves and little food. To survive she must keep to herself, learn to trust no one and rely on the unique skills her mother taught her. The only thing that keeps her going is the goal of getting off the island, finding her father and demanding her rightful place beside him and his crew. To do so Fable enlists the help of a young trader named West to get her off the island and across the Narrows to her father.
But her father’s rivalries and the dangers of his trading enterprise have only multiplied since she last saw him and Fable soon finds that West isn’t who he seems. Together, they will have to survive more than the treacherous storms that haunt the Narrows if they’re going to stay alive.
Welcome to a world made dangerous by the sea and by those who wish to profit from it. Where a young girl must find her place and her family while trying to survive in a world built for men.
Note: The quotes below are taken from an advanced/unfinished copy and are subject to change in the final version.
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