Monthly TBRs

May TBR

Happy Friday bookish people! I am going on a week long holiday this month so I have made sure that my TBR has a lot of choice and variety.

The Agathas

Beggars Abbey by V L Valentine

Crown of Midnight by Sarah J Maas

Daughters of Night

Everyone in my family have killed someone

Finlay Donovan jumps the gun

The Good Thieves

The Hemlock Cure

I Hope You’re Listening

Katherine of Aragon by Alison Weir

The London Seance Society

Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder

Northranger

Pen Dipped in Poison

Queen’s Assassin

Radio Silence

Sabriel

Traitors Blade

Under the Whispering Door

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Guide for murderers

Wolf Hall

Your Turn To Die

What are you reading in May?

Monthly Wrap Ups

September Wrap-Up

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!

Book Tags

Top 5 Intimidating Books I Want To Read

Happy Friday bookish people! I’m back with another book tag! I was tagged in this by @moonraa23 (sorry if I’ve spelt this wrong) on Twitter, so thank you to them.

The idea of this tag is – telling you all five of the books on my TBR that I find intimidating and why. It was very difficult to get it down to just five, there’s a lot of books that anticipate me for many different reasons. Also, I will say the book title and then I will give you the synopsis of the book and then the reason that it intimidates me.

Let’s get to the first one!

A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas

Feyre survived Amarantha’s clutches to return to the Spring Court—but at a steep cost. Though she now has the powers of the High Fae, her heart remains human, and it can’t forget the terrible deeds she performed to save Tamlin’s people.

Nor has Feyre forgotten her bargain with Rhysand, High Lord of the feared Night Court. As Feyre navigates its dark web of politics, passion, and dazzling power, a greater evil looms—and she might be key to stopping it. But only if she can harness her harrowing gifts, heal her fractured soul, and decide how she wishes to shape her future—and the future of a world cleaved in two.

So… I read A Court of Thorns and Roses at the beginning of this year and loved it and I’m very excited to pick up A Court of Mist and Fury but it intimidates me. Simply because I’ve heard so many good things about it and especially about Rhysand that I’m worried about reading it even though I’m 99% sure I’m going to love it.

Once Upon A Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber

Evangeline Fox was raised in her beloved father’s curiosity shop, where she grew up on legends about immortals, like the tragic Prince of Hearts. She knows his powers are mythic, his kiss is worth dying for, and that bargains with him rarely end well.

But when Evangeline learns that the love of her life is about to marry another, she becomes desperate enough to offer the Prince of Hearts whatever he wants in exchange for his help to stop the wedding. The prince only asks for three kisses. But after Evangeline’s first promised kiss, she learns that the Prince of Hearts wants far more from her than she’s pledged. And he has plans for Evangeline that will either end in the greatest happily ever after, or the most exquisite tragedy… 

This book isn’t out yet, I can’t wait for it to be published! I absolutely loved the Caraval series and that’s why I’m intimidated by this one, I’m hoping I’m going to love it at least as much but we shall see once I get it in my hands and get around to reading it.

Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee

From Harper Lee comes a landmark new novel set two decades after her beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird. Maycomb, Alabama. Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch—”Scout”—returns home from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political turmoil that were transforming the South, Jean Louise’s homecoming turns bittersweet when she learns disturbing truths about her close-knit family, the town and the people dearest to her. Memories from her childhood flood back, and her values and assumptions are thrown into doubt. Featuring many of the iconic characters from To Kill a MockingbirdGo Set a Watchman perfectly captures a young woman, and a world, in a painful yet necessary transition out of the illusions of the past—a journey that can be guided only by one’s conscience. Written in the mid-1950s, Go Set a Watchman imparts a fuller, richer understanding and appreciation of Harper Lee. Here is an unforgettable novel of wisdom, humanity, passion, humor and effortless precision—a profoundly affecting work of art that is both wonderfully evocative of another era and relevant to our own times. It not only confirms the enduring brilliance of To Kill a Mockingbird, but also serves as its essential companion, adding depth, context and new meaning to an American classic.

I really enjoyed reading To Kill A Mockingbird, luckily I didn’t read it for school otherwise I might not have enjoyed it as much. I was surprised when they brought out this book and I’m not sure on it because To Kill A Mockingbird worked perfectly as a stand-alone so I want to read it but I also don’t.

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M Danforth

Our story begins in 1902, at The Brookhants School for Girls. Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it The Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths. This is where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five years later, The Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever—but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property, each in a most troubling way.

Over a century later, the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer, Merritt Emmons, publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed” Gilded-Age institution. Her bestselling book inspires a controversial horror film adaptation starring celebrity actor and lesbian it girl Harper Harper playing the ill-fated heroine Flo, opposite B-list actress and former child star Audrey Wells as Clara. But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled—or perhaps just grimly exploited—and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins.

A story within a story within a story and featuring black-and-white period illustrations. 

A murder mystery set in a school sounds amazing to me, and it reminds me of a more adult version of Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson a little bit but I’m intimidated by this book – not only because it is massive, but also because it might be too much of a thriller for me.

The Six Tudor Queens series by Alison Weir

I won’t give you a synopsis here because this is a whole series not just a single book. So, this one I’m intimidated by because I love books set in the Tudor Period and Philippa Gregory is one of my favourite authors but I’ve read all her books so I needed some new Tudor historical fiction and I’m hoping Alison Weir can give me that.

That’s it for this tag, I hope you all enjoyed it!

Monthly Wrap Ups

May Wrap Up!

Happy Tuesday Bookish people! I’m a day late with this one but it’s finally the end of May. This month has been a difficult one, there’s been good parts to it of course but there’s also been some horrible parts. Nevermind, June is a new month and hopefully it will be a great one!

This month I will admit now, my TBR was mostly forgotten about. I had quite a few book tours I was taking part in and towards the second half of the month I was losing my motivation to read because of what was going on in my life.

So, onto the wrap up.

My May TBR:

  • The Prison Healer by Lynette Noni – I did read (start with a good one, however, this does not continue..)
  • The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton – I did not read
  • A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik – I did not read
  • Watch Her Fall by Erin Kelly – I did not read
  • Love and Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch – I did not read
  • Lore by Alexandra Bracken – I did not read
  • Six Tudor Queens: Katherine of Aragon – I did not read
  • Get A Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert – I did not read
  • Turtles All The Way Down by John Green – I did not read
  • A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas – I did not read
  • A Masked City by Genevieve Cogman – I did read! (surprised you there didn’t I)
  • A Gathering of Shadows by V E Schwaab – I did not read
  • Radio Silence by Alice Oseman – I did not read
  • Yes, No, Maybe so by Becky Albertalli and Aisha Seed – I did not read
  • Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel – I did start this but I didn’t manage to finish it within the month

So.. my TBR went pretty terribly, I read two and started another. But I did read other books that weren’t on my TBR which were: The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss (which I loved!), Love Is What You Bake Of It and Love by Design by Effie Kammenou, Things To Do Before The End Of The World by Emily Barr and You Had It Coming by B M Carroll.

Altogether I read eight books this month which isn’t bad I suppose but it felt like I had a terrible reading month. Hopefully I’ll enjoy my reading more in June… I’m about to post my June TBR so check that out too if you are interested in seeing what I’ll be reading in June.

That’s it for my May Wrap Up, I hope you all enjoyed it!

Monthly TBRs

May TBR!

Happy Friday bookish people! Today I’m bringing you my May TBR and I am telling you now my TBR game was not kind to me this month. I just kept getting doubles on the dice and by the end I had 18 rolls to do… oh dear.

April.. didn’t go the way I planned and I ended up not reading very much. If you’d like to see what I did read go and check out my April Wrap-Up. I’m hoping that May will be a much better month for me so fingers crossed!

As well as my very long TBR I also have some books I need to read for my spots in book tours which I’m hoping to get read first and then concentrate on my TBR.

I also have a lot of contemporary on this month’s TBR, anyone who knows me will know that I do not really like contemporary.. so how did I end up with so many on my TBR? Well, I put the contemporary space on my game board so that I covered every genre and with all the rolls this month I kept landing on it… maybe I’ll find a new genre to like but I doubt it.

My May TBR:

First, Usually I would put pictures of the books on my TBR however, today for some reason it’s not letting me put the pictures in so I’m going to have to just list them and then see what is happening later.

  • The Prison Healer by Lynette Noni – I picked this one up because the cover is so beautiful! And also, the back of the book just said something like ‘keep her alive we are coming’ and that hooked me right in.
  • The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton – I have had this book on my shelves since it came out. I loved his book the Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle so I have high hopes for this one.
  • A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik – I got this book in one of my Illumicrate boxes and it is so lovely, it has a gold cover and blue sprayed edges. It’s dark academia which is something that I am getting into quite recently.
  • Watch Her Fall by Erin Kelly – a psychological thriller set in a ballet company just sounds amazing!
  • Love and Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch – the first of many contemporaries this month.. I don’t know much about it but hopefully I will enjoy it.
  • Lore by Alexandra Bracken – I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this book so of course it’s straightaway on my TBR.
  • Six Tudor Queens: Katherine of Aragon the True Queen by Alison Weir – I love Historical Fiction especially the Tudor ones and I have read all of Philippa Gregory’s books to date so I needed some new Tudor stories and this is what I went with.
  • Get A Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert – I have seen a lot of good things about this book and I actually won my copy in a competition on Twitter.
  • Turtles All the Way Down by John Green – again I don’t know much about this at all but I’m hoping it will be a good read.
  • A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas – I will get around to reading this at some point! I keep putting it on my TBR and then not reading it..
  • A Masked City by Genevieve Cogman – A librarian spy… I don’t need to say anything else about this.
  • A Gathering of Shadows by V E Scwab – I read A Darker Shade of magic a little while ago and it’s about time I read the second book in the series.
  • Radio Silence by Alice Oseman – there’s a lot of books this month I know nothing about but it is another contemporary.
  • Yes, No, Maybe So by Becky Albertalli and Aisha Seed – It’s got a lovely bright yellow cover…

That’s it for my May TBR! Check back at the end of May to see how well or how badly I did with my reading!