Happy Tuesday bookish people! Merry Bookmas day 7. Today I am going to be showing you what I think are the best book covers of 2021, now I’m not just showing books that were published in 2021, I’m not even sure if there are any published in 2021 on my list, but the books that I have read in 2021. I have chosen my top ten and it’s a collection of books I wanted to read and books I was on a book tour for.
Up first is…
House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A Craig
This book is a retelling of the twelve dancing princesses and it has one of the most beautiful covers of all the books I own.
How The King of Elfhame Learned To Hate Stories by Holly Black
This is a companion to the Cruel Prince series by Holly Black and depending on the version there are white, black and purple covers that I’ve seen.
Ever Cursed by Corey Ann Haydu
This is an interesting books about witches and the power of women
The Hatmakers by Tamzin Merchant
This is a middle grade book that has a beautiful dust jacket and a beautiful cover under the dust jacket
The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner
The colours on this cover are fantastic
Instructions For Dancing by Nicola Yoon
This cover fits the book perfectly – I have posted a book review for this book on this site this year as part of a blog tour
Secrets of the Stars by Maria Kuzniar
Charmcaster by Sebastien De Castell
The illustrations on these covers are so detailed
The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels by India Holt
and finally…
Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain
That’s it for my favourite book covers of the books that I have read so far this year, I hope you all enjoyed it.
Happy Friday bookish people! I’m back with the next set of ten in my top 100 favourite book quotes series. We are getting so close to the end of this! I don’t know about anyone else but I’ve been enjoying making the lists (I LOVE lists, anyone else? No? Just me, okay…) and talking through my choices for my top 100. So, today’s is numbers 20 – 11 so when I said we are close to the end, we are really really close, as in next week will be the top ten….
But first, at number 20 is a book I got a special edition of…
A Darker Shade of Magic by V E Schwaab
20. “I’d rather die on an adventure than live standing still” – this is a very well known quote I think and every time I hear it I wish I was a more adventurous person, although that will never happen because I quite like being in my comfort zone and alive.
Up next is a quote from a book I only rated three stars…
Ever Cursed by Corey Ann Haydu
19. “We’re goddamn witches, don’t tell us we can’t”
At 18 is a quote from a sequel….
Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
18. “Fear is a pheonix, you can watch it burn a thousand times and still it will return”
At 17, is the first book in a duology…
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
17. “The heart is an arrow, it demands aim to land true”
Up next is a quote from a book I haven’t read yet but I love the series….
Queenslayer by Sebastien De Castell
16. “I’ve discovered that a death sentence can be some what liberating for someone who’s spent their life curtsying”
At 15 is the finale in a trilogy..
The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden
15. “I have plucked snowdrops at midwinter, died at my own choosing and wept for a nightingale, now I am beyond prophecy”
Next is a quote from a book I do not own yet…
From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L Armentrout
14. “You’re an absolutely stunning murderous little creature”
At 13 is a quote from one of my favourite books…
Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco
13. “Roses have both petals and thorns”
At 12 is a book from one of my favourite series’…
Hunting Prince Dracula by Kerri Maniscalco
12. “You are yours to give” – just yes.
And finally for this list of ten, a book with a library in it…
Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson
11. “It was always wise to be polite to books whether or not they could hear you”
That’s it for this weeks ten, I cannot wait to bring you my top ten next week!
Happy Wednesday bookish people! It is the last day of March and today I’m bringing you my March wrap up! This was such a good reading month for me. February put me in a big reading slump and for the first half of March I was still feeling it a bit but I did manage to read some books and then there was the Becca and the Books 48 hour Bookopoly reading challenge where I read eight books in one weekend!
Also this month I had more appointments, I got a new teacher for my dramatic writing University module and he’s not much better than the previous one, I completed my first case study for my new job and I’ve started my second one so that’s going well and I still haven’t heard back about my PhD application so that’s a bit worrying but hopefully I’ll hear soon.
It was my birthday in March! I’m now 22 and I keep forgetting and telling people I’m 21… I got a couple of books as presents so I’m happy with that, my sister got me an art set and my boyfriend got me an Alice in Wonderland teapot which I love! I didn’t do any reading on my actual birthday but I’ve read one or two books since – I actually skipped ahead and read one of the books of my April tbr already…
Anyway, I didn’t finish my March tbr but it has been my best reading month so far this year so I’m still pretty happy with how I did. This was my tbr:
What A Way To Go by Julia Forster – I did read
Uprooted by Niami Novik – I did not read
The Ravens by Kass Morgan and Danielle Paige – I did read
The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman – I did read
Rules for Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson – I did read
The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater – I did read
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E Harrow – I did not read
Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty – I did not read
Map of Days by Ransom Riggs – I did not read
Lives of Saints by Leigh Bardugo – I did read
The Library of the Unwritten by A J Hackwith – I did not read
Ever Cursed by Corey Ann Haydu – I did read
Chain of gold by Cassandra Clare – I did not read
A Curse So Dark and Lonely – I did read
What I read: so from my TBR I managed to read eight books which is much better than February but I also read four books that were not from my March TBR which were: The Cousins by Karen M McManus, The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh, Bridge of Souls by Victoria Schwab and Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. I have put up the book reviews for all the books I read this month except for the Cousins and Lives of Saints so check those out if you’re interested in what I thought of them.
There were also two five star reads this month! Those were Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell which I didn’t expect to enjoy as much as I did and A Curse so Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer. They were my favourite reads this month.
Most disappointing reads: It’s actually been a really great month, there’s only one book I didn’t enjoy which was What A Way to go by Julia Forster. It just wasn’t for me.
Current reads: well I read the Cousins off my April tbr last night so today I’ll be choosing a new book off my April tbr to start reading and I’m very excited about it.
That’s it for my March wrap up I hope you enjoyed it!
It’s Monday again bookish people! That means it’s time for another book review. Today I’m going to be uploading the book reviews for all the books I read last weekend for the Becca and the Books (YouTube) 48 hour Bookopolathon. Starting with my first read which was for the prompt of dark cover and that was Ever Cursed by Corey Ann Haydu. As usual I will give star ratings for four categories and I will write a little about each of these. I will try to keep it as spoiler free as possible. I hope you enjoy my book review.
A friend of mine gifted me this book (and many others) and the blurb interested me a lot, especially because it’s a very short book for a fantasy so I was excited to get to read it. It didn’t quite live up to my expectations of it, I enjoyed it but I thought it could have been better.
Plot:
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
I felt the plot of Ever Cursed had the potential to be a great fast paced fantasy novel that would have flowed smoothly and captured my attention. In my opinion the plot did not reach it’s full potential in this way. It had wonderful elements such as the witch giving a curse (and a very unique type of curse that I hadn’t seen in a book before) and the quest for the cure. These elements ultimately made the story enjoyable for me but they felt like they were missing something. I’ll talk a bit more about this when talking about characters but I was underwhelmed by the plot of this novel.
Characters:
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Again, I felt that the characters in this book had the potential to be great but I wasn’t invested in them in the way I had hoped I would be. The book is told in the switching POVs of Jane, one of the cursed princesses, and the witch that cursed them. I find this an interesting dynamic, getting to see both points of view but neither of the characters make me root for them, I didn’t feel the need to see what happened at the end to either of the characters. Also in this book there is the tiniest inkling of a romance but it’s such a small part of the plot it doesn’t seem connected to the story and personally I think the book would have been better without it.
Dialogue and Writing:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
This is one section I really enjoyed in this novel. If you’ve read any of my previous book reviews you will know how much weight I put on the dialogue in a book. It can really make or break my enjoyment of a book. I enjoyed the conversations between the princesses in this book, it was the only time I felt the other princesses became proper characters rather than 2D people. The dialogue also gave most of the information, it was a telling not showing situation in this book which isn’t something I usually like. The writing style itself I thought was good, it was easy to follow and didn’t feel clunky.
Overall:
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Overall I can only give this book three stars. I enjoyed it but not as much as I thought I would and I didn’t think there was enough urgency or character development given to the book.
Blurb/Synopsis:
Damsel meets A Heart in a Body in the World in this incisive and lyrical feminist fairy tale about a princess determined to save her sisters from a curse, even if it means allying herself with the very witch who cast it.
The Princesses of Ever are beloved by the kingdom and their father, the King. They are cherished, admired.
Cursed.
Jane, Alice, Nora, Grace, and Eden carry the burden of being punished for a crime they did not commit, or even know about. They are each cursed to be Without one essential thing—the ability to eat, sleep, love, remember, or hope. And their mother, the Queen, is imprisoned, frozen in time in an unbreakable glass box.
But when Eden’s curse sets in on her thirteenth birthday, the princesses are given the opportunity to break the curse, preventing it from becoming a True Spell and dooming the princesses for life. To do this, they must confront the one who cast the spell—Reagan, a young witch who might not be the villain they thought—as well as the wickedness plaguing their own kingdom…and family.
Told through the eyes of Reagan and Jane—the witch and the bewitched—this insightful twist of a fairy tale explores power in a patriarchal kingdom not unlike our own.
That’s it for this book review, I hope you all enjoyed it! If you’ve read this book what did you think of it?
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