Top 5 Saturday: 2020 Book Releases!

It’s time for another Top 5 Saturday, a weekly meme created by Mandy @ Devouring Books and this week’s topic is: books coming out in 2020! Ooh this is a fun one because I spent my half-day before Christmas at work scouring Goodreads lists for what’s coming out in 2020 and there are loads that I’m excited for. I’m also participating in one or two blog tours for some of these books so YAY!

The Queen’s Assassin (Queen’s Secret #1) by Melissa de la Cruz

Caledon Holt is the Kingdom of Renovia’s deadliest weapon. No one alive can best him in brawn or brains, which is why he’s the Guild’s most dangerous member and the Queen’s one and only assassin. He’s also bound to the Queen by an impossible vow–to find the missing Deian Scrolls, the fount of all magical history and knowledge, stolen years ago by a nefarious sect called the Aphrasians.

Shadow has been training all her life to follow in the footsteps of her mother and aunts–to become skilled enough to join the ranks of the Guild. Though magic has been forbidden since the Aphrasian uprising, Shadow has been learning to control her powers in secret, hoping that one day she’ll become an assassin as feared and revered as Caledon Holt.

When a surprise attack brings Shadow and Cal together, they’re forced to team up as assassin and apprentice to hunt down a new sinister threat to Renovia. But as Cal and Shadow grow closer, they’ll uncover a shocking web of lies and secrets that may destroy everything they hold dear. With war on the horizon and true love at risk, they’ll stop at nothing to protect each other and their kingdom in this stunning first novel in the Queen’s Secret series. 

The Heart Principle (The Kiss Quotient #3) by Helen Hoang

To most people, Quan Diep is nothing but a surly-looking, underachieving playboy. The problem is he’s not any of those things. And now that he’s the CEO of an up-and-coming retail business, he’s suddenly a “catch,” and the rich girls who never used to pay any attention to him are looking at him in a new way—especially Camilla, the girl who brushed him off many years ago.

Anna Sun dislikes Quan Diep almost as much as germy bathroom door handles. Or so she tells herself. She will never admit that she has a secret crush on him, especially because he only has eyes for her charismatic and newly engaged younger sister Camilla. Over the years, Anna has worked hard to overcome her OCD, but she’ll still need to find a way to bury her anxieties and seduce Quan so he doesn’t ruin her sister’s engagement, and with it, a crucial real estate development deal.

Slowly, Anna breaks down Quan’s dangerous and careless exterior while peeling off her own tough, protective shell. But when Quan discovers Anna’s true intentions, he’s forced to confront his own hurtful past and learn to forgive, while Anna must face her greatest challenge: truly opening herself up to love.

A Heart So Fierce and Broken (Cursebreakers #2) by Brigid Kemmerer

Find the heir, win the crown.
The curse is finally broken, but Prince Rhen of Emberfall faces darker troubles still. Rumors circulate that he is not the true heir and that forbidden magic has been unleashed in Emberfall. Although Rhen has Harper by his side, his guardsman Grey is missing, leaving more questions than answers.

Win the crown, save the kingdom.
Grey may be the heir, but he doesn’t want anyone to know his secret. On the run since he destroyed Lilith, he has no desire to challenge Rhen–until Karis Luran once again threatens to take Emberfall by force. Her own daughter Lia Mara sees the flaws in her mother’s violent plan, but can she convince Grey to stand against Rhen, even for the good of Emberfall?

The heart-pounding, compulsively readable saga continues as loyalties are tested and new love blooms in a kingdom on the brink of war. 

Aurora Burning (Aurora Cycle #2) by Amie Kaufman, Jay Kristoff

First, the bad news: an ancient evil—you know, your standard consume-all-life-in-the-galaxy deal—is about to be unleashed. The good news? Squad 312 is standing by to save the day. They’ve just got to take care of a few small distractions first.

Like the clan of gremps who’d like to rearrange their favorite faces.

And the cadre of illegit GIA agents with creepy flowers where their eyes used to be, who’ll stop at nothing to get their hands on Auri.

Then there’s Kal’s long-lost sister, who’s not exactly happy to see her baby brother, and has a Syldrathi army at her back. With half the known galaxy on their tails, Squad 312 has never felt so wanted.

When they learn the Hadfield has been found, it’s time to come out of hiding. Two centuries ago, the colony ship vanished, leaving Auri as its sole survivor. Now, its black box might be what saves them. But time is short, and if Auri can’t learn to master her powers as a Trigger, the squad and all their admirers are going to be deader than the Great Ultrasaur of Abraaxis IV.

Shocking revelations, bank heists, mysterious gifts, inappropriately tight bodysuits, and an epic firefight will determine the fate of the Aurora Legion’s most unforgettable heroes—and maybe the rest of the galaxy as well. 

Wild at Heart (Wild #2) by K.A. Tucker

From the internationally bestselling author of The Simple Wild comes the continuation of a young woman’s journey to the Alaskan wild and a life she never imagined for herself.

What 2020 releases are you excited for? Are you excited for any of these too?

Friday Favorites: Top Reads of 2019!

It’s time for another Friday Favorites hosted by Kibby @ Something of the Book! This weekly meme is where you get to share a list of all your favourites based on the list of prompts on Kibby’s page. Sounds fun, right? This week’s prompt is: favorite reads of 2019! Well, I guess I can no longer afford to keep avoiding thinking about this question because… The year is very quickly drawing to a close. It’s the last Friday of 2019 (!!!) and I guess there’s a slim chance of more contenders for my top spot! I’m wondering if I should divvy this up into genres just like I did last week because I honestly don’t know if I can narrow it down to just 10 books in total? So I’m going to look at the top five (max) reads for these genres: Contemporary, Thrillers/Horrors, Fantasy, Romance, Non-Fiction, Graphic Novels… Let’s get to it…

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#TopTenTuesday: Books I Hope to Find Under My Tree!

It’s that time of the week again, friends! We’re back with another Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s prompt is: books I hope to find under my tree. My family actually doesn’t celebrate Christmas and neither do we have any kind of Balinese/Indonesian tradition that involves gift exchanges etc. The closest we get to the very festive and jovial mood of Christmas is on New Years Eve. But this year we’re actually planning to do a very small White Elephant round and I’m looking forward to it. I don’t think I’ll be finding any books under “my tree” 😅 but STILL a girl can hope right?! But I also just like to make these lists so here’s what I’d hope to get:

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Top 5 Saturday: Books Made into TV Shows/Movies!

It’s time for another Top 5 Saturday, a weekly meme created by Mandy @ Devouring Books and this week’s topic is: books that have been made into TV shows/movies! Technically the topic only covers ‘movies’ but there are more TV adaptations that I can think of and that I’m really keen to check out. I’ve read the book of half of these shows/movies but others I’m still working on… but I’m determined to finish the books before I start watching it. Here’s what I got:

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Friday Favorites: 2019 Releases!

It’s time for another Friday Favorites hosted by Kibby @ Something of the Book! This weekly meme is where you get to share a list of all your favourites based on the list of prompts on Kibby’s page. Sounds fun, right? This week’s prompt is: favorite 2019 releases! Well, here’s another reason I’m really glad that I keep track of my reads through my Goodreads reading challenge, otherwise I would’ve struggled with this one 😂 I think one of the reasons I ended up reading as many 2019 releases as I did this year is because of FOMO. I always see the hype and I get sucked right in and can’t resist. I’ve tried to narrow these down as much as possible and I’ve brought it down to 15 books (it’s hard to narrow down okay?! 😭) and I’ve broken them up into a few categories to make clumping easier: Contemporary, Thrillers/Horror, Fantasy, Romance. Chances are I’m totally forgetting some book or other (even with Goodreads’ help!) but this is what I’ve come up with:

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#TopTenTuesday: Books That Surprised Me (in Both Good and Bad Ways)

It’s that time of the week again, friends! We’re back with another Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s prompt is: my December TBR. But as I’ve already written a few posts (like this one and this one here) I thought I would choose a past topic to do and I’ve chosen: books that surprised me (in both good and bad ways) focusing on the books I’ve read this year. I’m splitting the post up into ‘the good’ and ‘the not-so-good’ and for both parts, the books I listed were mostly in order read (from earliest to later in the year), so it’s not about some books being better/worse than others. It was interesting to look back on what books surprised me this year and it’s definitely making me think more about what my top reads for 2019 are going to be!

THE GOOD

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Top 5 Saturday: ARR, Pirate Books, Matey!

It’s time for another Top 5 Saturday, a weekly meme created by Mandy @ Devouring Books and this week’s topic is: books about pirates! And so I obviously had to make this lame post title but I’m sorry I’m not sorry 😂 I don’t read books with pirates very often and I don’t tend to seek them out either? Nothing against pirates, they’re cool and everything but 🤷🏻‍♀️ I could only identify one book off the top of my head that had pirates in it, so off I went to the great land of Goodreads Lists and found some more pirate books that sound interesting…

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Friday Favorites: New to me Authors in 2019!

It’s time for another Friday Favorites hosted by Kibby @ Something of the Book! This weekly meme is where you get to share a list of all your favourites based on the list of prompts on Kibby’s page. Sounds fun, right? This week’s prompt is: favorite new to me authors in 2019. 2019 has been one of the most incredible years of reading for me. I’ve never in my life read near on 200 books in one year before and I’m shocked to know that it’s a good possibility that I might even read over 200 books at this point. As a result of all this reading, I’ve discovered so many new authors that I now love and some have even made it onto my auto-buy list! There are actually quite a lot of new authors that I have loved discovering this year and I honestly want to name them all, but this list might go on for ages if I do, so for now I’m sticking with this list of fivesix new to me authors from 2019

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#TopTenTuesday: Brand New Christmassy Books!

It’s that time of the week again, friends! We’re back with another Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s prompt is: a freebie! I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with this freebie, but after some thought I decided that I would try injecting a little bit of holiday cheer to my blog, so I’m looking at the brand new holiday titles on my shelf. I’m not much of a holiday or seasonal reader so I don’t have any Christmassy books, but that is all changed today, friends! Early this morning I read Jana’s ‘A Bookish Little Christmas’ post and couldn’t help getting sucked right into the holiday mood, intense tropical heat notwithstanding! I mean, everything about the post screamed CHRISTMAS BOOK BUYING TIME…and what do you think I did? 😅 If you guessed that I went and bought all the Christmassy books then you’re spot on! Okay, I’m kidding (only a little bit). I did buy some but there are quite a few options available on Kindle Unlimited, in case you’re looking for a holiday read! I’m going to go ahead and say that pretty much 100% of these were cover buys 😍

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Top 5 Saturday: Standalone Books

It’s time for another Top 5 Saturday, a weekly meme created by Mandy @ Devouring Books and this week’s topic is: standalone books. Another pretty difficult topic to narrow down this week! I generally read as many standalone books as I do series. Sometimes it’s just nice to take a break from reading books in a series, especially when you’re left with cliffhangers and have to wait what feels like forever for the next book. It’s a nice change of pace to read a book and know that at the end of it your questions will be answered and you’ll have a satisfying resolution to everything that happened. There’s certainly no shortage of these books on my kindle and physical shelves either, but what’s new there?! 😂 Here are five standalone books that I’d like to get to at some point in the (hopefully) near future…

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