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 everyone! I’ll be putting up three posts today and this is the first of them. It’s a day or two late but I’m finally getting around to doing my September wrap-up.
So, the month of September was super busy for me and a lot of things happened. First, I moved in with my partner on the first of September and it has been quite the month getting used to living with someone new and learning how they are. This month I also found out that I have gotten onto the PhD that I wanted and now I’m just waiting for when I’m going to start. And finally, I found out that I got a distinction on my Master’s Dissertation.
As I said last month, I’m very surprised I read as much as I did this month, the only problem is that hardly any of the books that I read were from my TBR…. I’m sure you can guess that I didn’t finish my TBR. So, let’s get straight into what I did and didn’t read this month.
September TBR and Thoughts:
A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder by Holly Jackson – we are starting off well, I did read this one and I have posted my review of it.
All the Stars and Teeth by Adalyn Grace – I did not read
Assassins Apprentice by Robin Hobb – I did not read
Lore by Alexandra Bracken – I didn’t read this one either
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern – I wish I had gotten around to this one but unfortunately I didn’t
Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty – I did not read
Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim – I did not read
Six Tudor Queens Katherine of Aragon by Alison Weir – I did not read
The Guinevere Deception by Kiersten White – I did not read
The Switch by Beth O’Leary – I did not read
So… I only actually read one book from my TBR but I did read these nine other books:
Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain
The Woman in the Wood by M K Hill
The Crime Archives
The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
The Hawthorne Legacy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
The Chateau by Catherine Cooper
The Curry Compendium by Richard Sayce
Stalking Shadows by Cyla Panin
The Dinner Party by Sarah Gilmartin
That’s it for my wrap-up for September! I managed to read ten books which I am pretty happy with. I hope you all enjoyed it!
Happy Friday bookish people! Today is my spot on the book tour for Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain. This book is a very dark mystery/thriller story that I was extremely excited to start reading. Thank you to TBRandBeyond Tours, Ginny Myers Sain, Netgalley and Razorbill for sending me a copy of this book to read and review.
In this book review I will give star ratings to four categories and I will write a little about each one. I will try to keep it as spoiler free as possible. I hope you enjoy my book review.
There are a lot of elements to this novel that I loved. First, the eerie sense that people aren’t telling the truth hangs over the story as you’re reading it and creates an intense situation for the characters which I liked. I also really liked how so many characters seemed to have these psychic gifts yet nobody could tell you what happened to the missing girl, again that’s causing a lovely piece of tension right from the first chapter. As well as causing tension it is also a very unique concept, I’ve read some books, mostly fantasy, that have one or two characters that have spiritual gifts but not everyone in the town.
Dark and Shallow Lies Characters:
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
In this book, although each of the characters were different and had their own personalities that came through, I didn’t feel connected to any of them. It might be that there were too many characters introduced for me to focus on them enough but I wasn’t recruited to their motivations and this meant that I didn’t care what happened to them as much as I should have.
Dark and Shallow Lies Writing and Dialogue:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
What I liked about the writing style in this novel is how well it suited the plot. It matched the tone of the story as it changed and I really enjoyed how effortless the writing seemed to be.
Dark and Shallow Lies Overall:
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
I can only give this book three stars because although I enjoyed the plot and the writing the characters weren’t enough for me and personally, I did find it a bit too dark for my tastes.
Blurb/Synopsis:
A teen girl disappears from her small town deep in the bayou, where magic festers beneath the surface of the swamp like water rot, in this chilling debut supernatural thriller for fans of Natasha Preston, Karen McManus, and Rory Power.
La Cachette, Louisiana, is the worst place to be if you have something to hide.
This tiny town, where seventeen-year-old Grey spends her summers, is the self-proclaimed Psychic Capital of the World–and the place where Elora Pellerin, Grey’s best friend, disappeared six months earlier.
Grey can’t believe that Elora vanished into thin air any more than she can believe that nobody in a town full of psychicsknows what happened. But as she digs into the night that Elora went missing, she begins to realize that everybody in town is hiding something –her grandmother Honey; her childhood crush Hart; and even her late mother, whose secrets continue to call to Grey from beyond the grave.
When a mysterious stranger emerges from the bayou –a stormy-eyed boy with links to Elora and the town’s bloody history –Grey realizes that La Cachette’s past is far more present and dangerous than she’d ever understood. Suddenly, she doesn’t know who she can trust. In a town where secrets lurk just below the surface, and where a murderer is on the loose, nobody can be presumed innocent–and La Cachette’s dark and shallow lies may just rip the town apart.
Ginny Myers Sainis the author of DARK AND SHALLOW LIES, her debut YA novel available 8-31-21 from Razorbill/Penguin. Although she comes from a long line of writers, her first love has always been the theatre. She has a degree in theatre and has spent most of her career teaching acting and directing plays and musicals. Ginny currently live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with her teenage son and a very cowardly doberman named Shipley. When she is not working in the theatre or writing, you’re likely to find her listening to true crime podcasts, taking pictures of alligators, eating tacos, or planning a trip to Walt Disney World.
Home | The Blind Scribe 