Tome Thursday: The Stars are Dying

 

Hello everyone!

 

Are you ready for this?

 

Because I'm not sure you are. I know I certainly wasn't, and I willingly signed up for whatever was coming at me at the time.

 

See a while ago, I kept seeing these gorgeous book covers (and similar book art) all from the same author. Bookstagram was going HARD, y'all, and eventually I caved and had a look around the author's page to see what it was all about.

 

Turns out, she's writing a fantasy series that's literally like someone wrote it especially for me.

 

So I grabbed the books and read the first one, but unfortunately then ran out of time as I had other ARCs waiting for me to read and review them.

 

Then this one came about - I'd seen the promos on her Instagram, but randomly stumbled over an open call for eARC readers, and signed up on a whim. I honestly didn't think I'd get it, and would have been fine just waiting for the book to release, but guess what? I GOT THE ARC.

 

And with the book releasing in a few days, here's your glowing review for it. What's it called? The Stars are Dying.

 

Tome Thursday: The Legend of Lady MacLaoch

Hello everyone!

With the weather having changed (FINALLY) to something a little more manageable in the sense that it's not two hundred degrees outside every time I stick my nose out, I finally feel like I can actually function normally again.

I mean, I like summer, don't get me wrong, but I also like it when it doesn't try to roast me on the spot like it's been trying to do.

But then of course the downside here is that we may not GET any more real summer from now on, which is a bit of a bummer.

You can't have it all!

But maybe you CAN if you're descendant of some ancient Scottish clan or Viking-inspired seafarers, because then you just MIGHT stumble over a curse that's been hanging over someone's head for generations, you CAN try to lift it, and end up living your happily ever after!

Sounds like something you might read more about?

Then I encourage you to pick up The Legend of Lady MacLaoch. It's got all of the above, and more!

Tome Thursday: Morrighan

Hello everyone!

I'm reviewing something different this week, and something that I'm a little late to reading to begin with, based on the publication date. 

And while I'm still sitting on The Sinner from J. R. Ward (I'm getting there, I just ... I have to make myself do it, first), I picked up this novella at random because I'm OCD enough that if there's a book that's said to be happening BEFORE a main series, then I want to read it in chronological, not publication order.

From what I've managed to gather, a lot of people seem to think this novella should be read between some of the main books, but it's so short that I won't really have an issue picking it up again if need arises.

For the time being, I was just happy to be able to dive into a completely new world.

Mary E. Pearson is an author I haven't had the chance to read much of yet, but her Remnant Chronicles have been popping up on reviews from some of the Booktubers I follow, and it felt like sort of a sign.

If everyone else is talking about it, it deserves at least a look-see, right?

So here we go. Listen to the wind, everyone, and let's follow the Morrighan.

All Souls Trilogy (Booktober)

"It begins with a discovery of witches."

What to say about the one witchy trilogy you absolutely NEED in your life? I was late to the Deborah Harkness train, but her All Souls Trilogy is absolutely stunning. It reminds you of Twilight, but in a very good way, and it brings all hands on deck to make the story believable, enchanting, and absolutely spectacular. Diana Bishop and Matthew de Clermont are in a race against the clock, against their own people, their beliefs, and time itself. Is there anything they can do to ensure not only their own survival, but the survival of witches, vampires and daemons?

Because it begins with absence and desire. And it begins with blood and fear.

Deep in the stacks of Oxford's Bodleian Library, young scholar Diana Bishop unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript in the course of her research. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Diana wants nothing to do with sorcery; so after a furtive glance and a few notes, she banishes the book to the stacks. But her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, and a horde of daemons, witches, and vampires soon descends. Diana has stumbled upon a coveted treasure lost for centuries-and she is the only creature who can break its spell; but the real threat to the future has yet to be revealed, and when it is, the search for Ashmole 782 and its missing pages takes on even more urgency ...

(from Goodreads)

xx

*image not mine

Cobweb Bride Trilogy (Booktober)
These Old Shades (Booktober)

Term Limits (Booktober)

Boudica (Booktober)

The Lady of the Rivers (Booktober)

The Name of the Wind (Booktober)

The Red Knight of Germany (Booktober)

The Kommandant's Girl (Booktober)

Nemesis (Booktober)

Outlander series (Booktober)

The Conqueror Series (Booktober)

The Lost Symbol (Booktober)

The Host (Booktober)

The Bridgertons (Booktober)

The Hound of the Baskervilles (Booktober)

The Infernal Devices (Booktober)

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (Booktober)

Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Booktober)
Broken Sky (Booktober)

The Shadow of the Wind (Booktober)

Dracula (Booktober)

Life and Death (Booktober)

ACOTAR series (Booktober)

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (Booktober)

Sepulchre (Booktober)

Pride and Prejudice (Booktober)

Tempting Autumn (Booktober)

Harry Potter (Booktober)

The Hobbit (Booktober)

The Kommandant's Girl (Booktober)

"I had become a foreigner in the place I had always called home."

 

What do you do when your home country is invaded? When your way of life is threatened? When your very existence is about to be erased from the face of the Earth? Those are exactly the kind of questions that Pam Jenoff asks in The Kommandant's Girl, a book that tells the story of how a Jewish girl joined the resistance, pretended to be someone else so that she could get close to a high-ranking Nazi official ... and ended up having feelings for the man other than the hatred she was supposed to feel.

Because in the end, emotions aren't all black and white.

September 1939. Overnight, Jewish nineteen-year-old Emma Bau's world is turned upside down when Germany invades Poland. And after only six weeks of marriage, her husband Jacob, a member of the Resistance, is forced to flee. Escaping the ghetto, Emma assumes a new, Christian identity and finds work at Nazi headquarters. As secretary to the charismatic Kommandant Richwalder, Emma vows to use her unique position to gather intelligence for the Resistance - by any means necessary ...

(from book jacket)

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*image not mine

Nemesis (Booktober)

Outlander series (Booktober)

The Conqueror Series (Booktober)

The Lost Symbol (Booktober)

The Host (Booktober)

The Bridgertons (Booktober)

The Hound of the Baskervilles (Booktober)

The Infernal Devices (Booktober)

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (Booktober)

Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Booktober)
Broken Sky (Booktober)

The Shadow of the Wind (Booktober)

Dracula (Booktober)

Life and Death (Booktober)

ACOTAR series (Booktober)

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (Booktober)

Sepulchre (Booktober)

Pride and Prejudice (Booktober)

Tempting Autumn (Booktober)

Harry Potter (Booktober)

The Hobbit (Booktober)

Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Booktober)

"Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love 

and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war."

 

Who hasn't heard about Laini Taylor? If you've checked out her Strange the Dreamer duology, you should also check the trilogy that launched her name into the books. The Daughter of Smoke & Bone series is a must-read during any month of the year, but perhaps especially when it's all foggy outside and you can just imagine some winged creature flying through the mists. Karou and Akiva's story is a story of star-crossed love, magic, loyalty, rebellion - and an alternate look at good and evil that you really shouldn't miss out on.

Romeo and Juliet just got another chance. And they might even make it work!

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grows dangerously low. And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war. Karou finally has the answers she has always sought. She knows who she is—and what she is. But with this knowledge comes another truth she would give anything to undo: she loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it. This is a twisted version of a long-ago dream, but with even bigger threats on the horizon, are Karou and Akiva strong enough to stand among the gods and monsters?

(from Goodreads)

xx

*image not mine

Broken Sky (Booktober)

The Shadow of the Wind (Booktober)

Dracula (Booktober)

Life and Death (Booktober)

ACOTAR series (Booktober)

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (Booktober)

Sepulchre (Booktober)

Pride and Prejudice (Booktober)

Tempting Autumn (Booktober)

Harry Potter (Booktober)

The Hobbit (Booktober)

Tome Thursday: Dreams of Gods and Monsters

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil pressed their hands to their hearts,
and started the Apocalypse.

Hello everyone!

You know, I'm feeling quite accomplished today. Not taking into account my feeling a bit like a yo-yo in my professional life for a while there (to all good results, before anyone starts asking!) I'm coming to an end of a series of reviews which is ALWAYS satisfactory and cause for celebration. After all, I don't often get to say this.

That's because while I tend to START a series, I kind of forget to keep putting reviews up. 

I'm that bad, I know.

And for some reason I sound like Demelza from Poldark right now ... might have to lay off binge watching that one!

Anyway, it's been almost a full year since I posted the very first review of the very first book in the series, and now it's time to come full circle after the second one came along in mid-summer. And I'm insanely proud of myself for achieving as much, really! I think I should group my blog posts somewhere in one place at some point so that people can look them up quickly.

But before I go off-tangent, let's dig right into the review for Dreams of Gods and Monsters!

Tome Thursday: The Shadows

Hello everyone!

So, okay, I only just realized that I should probably include a SPOILER ALERT somewhere in the description of this blog, or at the beginning of each entry, but since this is kind of a review and recap place for me to express myself and talk about what I've seen or read, I figure that, generally speaking, that should be a given. It's not always the case though so I apologize if anyone has been 'spoiled' by certain facts I state in these posts, especially on just-released movies or books, but there you go, we all learn and are works in progress along the way, right?

Right.

Back to the actual blog post - yes, with spoilers ahead - I'm going to talk about The Shadows today. A little while ago I posted an entry about Lover Avenged, which was book seven in the Black Dagger Brotherhood book series. Well, end of March saw the release of the very latest installment (number thirteen!) and I think I pretty much dropped three other books I'm reading at the moment (yes, I always read multiple books) just so I could get my hands on this one.