Ten Top Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, and the topic for this week was our anticipated releases for the second half of 2024. My list is comprised mainly of books by authors I already love and continuations of romance series.
*click on the title of the books to go to the Goodreads page*
“A heartwarming fantasy with a best friends-to-lovers rom-com twist–When Harry Met Sally, but with dragons!—set in the delightful demigod and donut-filled world of Tanria”
I loved the first book in the series and When Harry Met Sally is my favorite rom-com, so of course I’m reading this
“A young woman wins the role of a lifetime in a film about a legendary heroine — but the real drama is behind the scenes in this sumptuous historical epic”
I’m a huge Silvia Moreno-Garcia fan and I will basically read anything she writes.
“It’s love at first haunting in a seaside town that raises everyone’s spirits”
I loved a Jen DeLuca book before but I have also disliked one of her books before, so I’m hesitant. But I love the premise of this seaside town known for its ghost tours and lately, I have been enjoying paranormal romance.
“A treasure hunt leads the local bookstore owner and a fisherman around their small town and their undeniable chemistry might be just as hot as the fresh-out-of-the-oven cinnamon buns the bookstore sells…”
I enjoyed seeing Noah and Hazel as side characters in the first book of this series, so I can’t wait for their story.
Hello everyone! I’m back!!! I started the year with so much motivation and passion for reading and blogging and then the worst reading slump of my life started in February and got a lot worse in March. I keep saying reading slump, but honestly, it was more generalized than that. For almost two months, I didn’t want to know anything about book-related things, so I wasn’t reading, blogging, or reading blogs, I didn’t go into Bookstagram and I still haven’t, and something that has never happened before, I even stopped watching Booktube videos for a while. It was terrible!
I’m grateful that the slump has finally passed and today, I bring you my wrap-up for February and March, most of this was read either at the beginning of February or the last couple of days of March.
Bride by Ali Hazelwood(5 stars): Ali Hazelwood could write a grocery list and I would read and love it. She makes me feel invested in her characters and stories. This book is set in an interesting world, I always love stories about humans, vampires, and werewolves co-existing in the same world, and I appreciated that there were things about this that made it feel unique. I loved the romance, a marriage of convenience, but the hero is secretly pinning for the heroine, it’s kind of slow burn, and they are fated mates. I loved all of it. Also, I liked the side characters and after that ending, I NEED the next book about the couple that gets introduced.
Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date by Ashley Herring Blake (4 stars): I really liked the main characters in this story, and I liked that we got to see the things they were each struggling with and how they worked through them and grew. Especially, the storyline about Stevie’s anxiety. The character development of both protagonists is one of my favorite aspects of this book. I also liked the romance, from the fake dating, to the sweet moments and the steamy scenes.
The Pumpkin Spice Café by Laurie Gilmore (3,5 stars): This book was not very memorable, but it was entertaining enough. It had great small-town vibes and quirky side characters, everyone knows everyone and they all meddle in each other’s business. Those were my favorite elements of the book. I liked the main characters and their relationship, they were okay but there wasn’t anything super captivating about them and I didn’t love the miscommunication at the end.
Office Hours by Katrina Jackson (4 stars): I really liked that this book was about two people getting to know each other, going through everyday life, and falling in love. The romance was sweet but there were some very steamy scenes as well. I appreciated the discussions in this book about burnout and women of color being pushed out of academia by the unfair and unreasonable demands and expectations that are placed on them. Overall, a very solid read.
Sabbatical by Katrina Jackson (4 stars): I liked the first book a little more but this was still a solid romance. I loved both of the main characters, the friends to lovers, slow burn romance was fantastic and the steamy scenes were great. I also appreciated the commentary on how it is to be in academia as a person of color.
Mislaid in Parts Half-Known by Seanan McGuire (4 stars): Another solid installment of this series. I always love the way these books are written as if they were fairytales, and it was no different with this book. I love that we got to see old beloved characters in an adventure together, visiting different worlds. Both the story and characters were great. I think the dinosaur on the cover is a bit misleading since they are only a small part of the story, but it was nothing that detracted from my enjoyment.
Everyone on this Train is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson (4 stars): This was a really good sequel. It felt like a golden age mystery, with the isolated setting, all the different suspects, each one with a good motive and keeping tons of secrets. There were so many interesting reveals and the solution to the mystery was a good one. I also appreciate that this keeps the same narrative style where the main character is the author writing the story for us, but they added so many new characters and dynamics that it keeps the story interesting.
A Game of Cones by Abby Collette(2 stars): I didn’t love the first book in the series but I don’t remember it being this bad. The main problem with this is that the main character’s best friend, Maisie, has a big role in this book and she is so annoying, she feels like a caricature and does so many dumb things, which left me so frustrated. Also, the main character, Wyn, is so naive and bad at figuring things out. Lastly, the writing is not very good and the mystery is so obvious, there was no subtlety at all, I knew the who as soon as they were introduced early on in the book and I also knew the why.
A Killer Sundae by Abby Collette (3,5 stars): I almost DNFed this series because book two was so bad. But surprisingly, this was a lot better. My favorite of the series so far. The main character, Wyn, is a lot more self-aware in this book and a bit better at figuring out the mystery, and Maisie, her best friend, is not in this that much, and her ridiculousness was toned down a lot. But the main thing that made this better is that the mystery was stronger and more interesting. While I suspected who the culprit was, there were enough people with motives to make me doubt if it was really that person who did it. The one thing that didn’t work out so well in this is the romance, Wyn and O have zero chemistry, and I’m not sure if this heading for a love triangle, which I don’t think I would like, so it worries me.
The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie (3,5 stars): The mystery was interesting, I love seeing Poirot solve cases so I had fun with this, and I appreciated that various POVs were telling the story. The ending was okay, even if some things felt like they came out of nowhere at the end and I didn’t like the romance, that guy did not deserve that woman.
The Under Dog and Other Stories by Agatha Christie (3,5 stars): This was entertaining and I liked the different cases, but I’m not sure if the short story format works for me because I felt like the resolution to the mysteries came out of nowhere most of the time.
What Feast at Night by T. Kingfisher (3,5 stars): When this book was announced I was excited because I loved What Moves the Dead. Unfortunately, this sequel was neither as entertaining nor as unnerving as the first book. Still, the writing was wonderful as always with T. Kingfisher, I liked the characters that returned from the previous book, and the setting -this isolated and probably haunted hunting lodge- provided the right atmosphere for the book. So I didn’t love it but it was an okay read.
Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor: This book will make you feel uncomfortable, the story is terrible and grotesque but captivating. It deals with poverty, violence, sex work, drugs, homophobia, desperation and so many other things that go on in a small rural town in Mexico. The story is violent and gruesome and the writing amplifies that, it’s crude, raw, and urgent, and it feels like you are reading a nightmare. The story is not that complex but the way the book is structured is, while still being easy to follow, which makes the story more interesting.
I struggled a bit with this because I feel like a lot of the terrible things that happened in this book were described in a lot of detail, there’s nothing left to the imagination and, sometimes, it wasn’t necessary, it didn’t make the story better. Especially since there is a lot of the child SA that takes place on the page and that’s pretty graphic.
What’s the best book you read in lately? What are you currently reading?
Ten Top Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, and the topic for this week was our winter tbrs. These are all books I can’t wait to read and they are priorities at the top of my tbr for the upcoming months. I decided not to include in my top 10 any of my anticipated releases of 2024 or books in series I want to finish in 2024 because both of those lists are coming in the next couple of weeks. So these are books that have already been released and that are either standalone or the first book in a series.
For the last couple of years, I have been getting more into horror and trying to explore the genre, so these are some horror books that are at the top of my horror tbr:
Rouge by Mona Awad: a gothic story about grief with commentary on beauty standards
These are some books that have been on my tbr for a while and I really want to read but I haven’t prioritized them, but I keep thinking about them so it’s finally time to read them:
Bookish Wanderess 