January 2020 TBR

So here we are, day two of a new year and my first TBR post of 2020. Things got hectic towards the end of the year and I wish I hadn’t been so ill so I could have done a proper post about my year in reading but alas I’m still only just getting over whatever horrible flu bug afflicted me so it was not meant to be! I will say though that I completed my 2019 reading challenge of 60 books with only about ten minutes to spare after frantically reading some trade paperbacks (comics) during New Years Eve. Those 60 books are the equivalent of 17,757 pages according to Goodreads, with the shortest book being Dewdrop by Katie O’Neil at 40 pages (due out later this year) and the longest being Queen of Air and Darkness by Cassandra Clare at 902 pages (it felt so much longer!)

Now before I get on with my TBR for this month I wanted to cover a few changes to my blog this year! Instead of taking part in WWW Wednesday every fortnight I’m instead going to do a monthly Wrap Up Wednesday post instead, I’m hoping this will be less repetitive and will include films and things etc as well as books with any luck. Another monthly feature (yet to be named, not sure how angry Disney would be about me using Force Fridays) will be adjacent to my reading of at least ONE Star Wars book a month this year and discussing that (the lovely El/Ink and Plasma from El’s Reviews is joining me so make sure you check out her awesome blog too!). I’ll be retiring the weekly Must be Monday posts for the foreseeable future too as I’m trying something different with my writing this year and time writing that post is time I could be spent working on my writing. There may be some other changes along the way, I’m toying with the idea of a monthly comics feature and something video game-related too, maybe even something to do with Dungeons and Dragons related, who knows? What would you like to see?

ANYWAY, without any further ado, I present my first planned TBR of the year!

The God Game by Danny Tobey
This is my current read, I’m only a short way through it after spending most of yesterday rearranging my bookshelves (and I’m still not done!) but I’m enjoying what I’ve read so far. The God Game is about a strange video game called The G.O.D Game, made by Underground hackers and controlled by a mysterious A.I that believes they are GOD. A group of teenagers begin playing the game and when they complete tasks they are rewarded with things from expensive tech, revenge and cash but things turn sinister when they start to receive threatening messages and the tasks they must complete become cruel and carry heavy punishments. I’ve enjoyed Ready Player One and more recently, CTRL S and I feel this might be a heavier darker version of these two books combined and I’m very excited for it! The God Game is coming very soon (January 9th, I believe) so you still have time to preorder if this sounds like your kind of book!

The Stars we Steal by Alexa Donne
“Engagement season is in the air. Eighteen-year-old Princess Leonie “Leo” Kolburg, heir to a faded European spaceship, only has one thing on her mind: which lucky bachelor can save her family from financial ruin?”

Described by Alexa herself as a kind of Jane Austen meets the bachelor (just in space) as the book is very much a retelling of Austen’s last completed novel Persuasion I found myself utterly intrigued! I think I realised last year that I love Sci-Fi but I think I like books that can also be classed as Space Operas just as much if not more than generic Sci-Fi which I think is why I read a lot of YA Sci-Fi as they fit into that category more often. Here’s to hoping I enjoy this new release! Due out February 4th!

Star Wars Master and Apprentice by Claudia Gray
“An unexpected offer threatens the bond between Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi as the two Jedi navigate a dangerous new planet and an uncertain future.”

I’ve had my eye on this book for a good while now and I’m glad to have finally got my hands on it. I rewatched a lot of Star Wars last month and fell head over heels back in love with Obi-Wan Kenobi (I was OBSESSED when I was younger) and so this month a large chunk of the Star Wars content I’m intending to consume is set around the time of the prequel trilogy including my comic read for this month and if I get time, season two of The Clone Wars TV show. So it stands to reason that this would be my Star Wars book for this month!

The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
So like everyone I was swept up in the Witcher craze last month and honestly, I’m okay with that. I loved the show (one more episode left to go!) I brought the games years ago but never got around to playing them and I had one of the standalone books that I also never got around to so hoping I can ride the hype and enjoyment from the show into the books and possibly the games with any luck. I decided to start with The Last Wish (dubbed as The Witcher 0.5) instead of The Sword of Destiny as apparently it’s a book of short stories and I have really been enjoying those a lot lately.

Star Wars Age of the Republic: Heroes by Jody Houser and Cory Smith
As mentioned before I’m revisiting the prequels this month. This is a bind-up of comics focusing on short stories primarily about Anakin, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon and Padme that I’m intrigued to read and will go well alongside my novel choice this month and honestly although the prequel films were a bit of a hot mess (that CGI *shudders*) I really liked these characters and can’t wait to learn a bit more about them.

I worry that this might be a little over-ambitious (as usual) this month but only time will tell I guess! I’m hoping to get caught up with blogging and blog hopping over the next month or so and not ending up frantically writing blog posts the day they’re due to go live (I am doing this right now, oops).

Happy New Year to you all! Let me know what you’re planning to read this month!

WWW Wednesday 4th December

For a change, it actually feels like it’s been longer than a fortnight since I last did one of these! I think because I actually got some books finished for a change. I’m definitely feeling more confident reading-wise and on a whole which is a nice change after feeling quite overwhelmed over the past month or so.

If you want to join in with WWW don’t forget to send over a big thank you to Sam at Taking on a World of Words for keeping WWW alive and kicking.

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

What are you currently reading?

Sherlock Holmes and The Christmas Demon by James Lovegrove is my current read. As soon as I realised it was penned by James I knew I needed it after he wrote an AMAZING Firefly novel earlier this year (review here) and I had decided then that I needed to read some of his Sherlock Holmes work and this seemed the perfect opportunity, not to mention that the cover for this book is the most beautiful thing in existence. Not to mention it’s actually a really good read so far!

What did you recently finish reading?

A few days ago I finished Star Wars: Resistance Reborn by Rebecca Roanhorse and although it didn’t quite grab me the way Phasma did (I’m seriously never getting over that book) it was really good, I enjoyed seeing what happens during some of the time between The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker as well as seeing some older faces that have been in the books, the comics and the older films.

What do you think you’ll read next?

Ahh, I won’t go into too much detail as my December TBR is going live tomorrow but I think it’ll probably be Starsight by Brendon Sanderson. I am trying to work my way through my ARCS and advance copies but trying to keep a balance between books that are coming out next year and new ones that are out now so that I can get some content written in advance but without running out of my weekly reviews too.

Have you read any of these? What are you reading right now? What have you read recently? I want to hear all about your reading life right now!

TBR Thursday – November 2019

Okay so it seems forever since Octobers TBR post for some reason although I did only get around to reading one of the books on that massive list I made, I was definitely far too ambitious and underestimated how busy a month it would be. As a result, this months TBR is much smaller, especially because on top of everything I’m also taking part in NaNoWriMo which is taking up almost all of my free time to be honest (I feel like I haven’t seen my FFXV boys in YEARS and none of my animal crossing villagers like me anymore). Still, these are the books I still hope to be able to read this month.

Chasing the Shadows by Maria V. Snyder
If you caught my WWW Wednesday post yesterday you’ll know that this is my current read. I’m lucky enough to have been granted an early e-book copy ready for the release which is fast approaching now! It’s been a great read so far and I’m finding it very hard to put it down, even more so than Navigating the Stars.

CTRL S by Andy Briggs
I believe I mentioned this in my last two WWW Wednesday posts but the book took a little longer to arrive than I thought it would BUT it’s here now and will definitely be my next read! CTRL S is apparently perfect for fans of Ready Player One and follows Theo Wilson as he searches the dark side on an online universe for his kidnapped mother in a world where people are harvested for their emotions.

The Sky Weaver by Kristen Cicarelli
A second sequel/companion story to The Last Namsara which I LOVED to pieces! I can’t wait for the next instalment and was so happy to find this on NetGalley by accident a little while ago! I of course also have my copy pre-ordered and have already received my beautiful pre-order goodies, these gorgeous art cards featuring characters from the books!

Dewdrop by Katie O’Neil
This is another early copy I received via Netgalley and is a children’s story about an Axolotl I can’t wait to read and hoping my little one will share with me!

I also have some comics and graphic novels I’m hoping to get around to reading too but we’ll see how things go although all bets are off if the newest copy of NPC Tea arrives because I am in DIRE NEED folks. Have a great weekend and I’ll hopefully see you back here Sunday if I don’t drown under my word count goal!

 

WWW Wednesday – September 25th 2019

My reading has been stagnant for a few weeks now while I’ve been reading Darkdawn but I’ve finally finished it now and so I can move on! I was excited to get a lot more reading done but it turns out I’ve got a horrid cold my husband brought home last week and so I’ve just been moping around feeling sorry for myself while occasionally playing animal crossing to cheer me up in between looking after Nate who has also caught it! I’m still making progress though and so I invite you to check out my fortnightly WWW Wednesday post and hear about what I’ve been reading and what I plan to read next.

If you want to join in with WWW don’t forget to send over a big thank you to Sam at Taking on a World of Words for keeping WWW alive and kicking.

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

What are you currently reading?

I’m currently reading The Deathless Girls by Kiran Milgrave Harwood. I’m only about 20% of the way through at the moment and I’ve enjoyed the writing style but nothing hugely interesting has happened yet although there have been little hints here and there of what’s to come possibly. In case you haven’t heard of The Deathless Girls before it’s a tagged as a feminist retelling of the story of the Bridges of Dracula.

What did you recently finish reading?

Obviously Darkdawn but since then I’ve also finished NPC Tea – Vol Six by Sarah Milman (Issues one – six available here). “NPC Tea is about Cardiff’s least popular tea shop, Y Ddraig, run by a perfectionist elf and a disgruntled fire summon. When a magicless human discovers Y Ddraig’s secret and a type of banned magic rears its ugly head, caddies upon caddies of rotting tea become the least of their worries as the entire city of Cardiff is threatened with destruction!” I think volume six may have been my absolute favourite issue so far! There were some lovely sweet moments, much blushing and a nice healthy dose of danger too! Things are really hotting up with the penultimate issue seven out imminently, ahh I don’t want it to end!

What do you think you’ll read next?

Unless NPC Volume seven turns up before I finish The Deathless Girls then it’ll almost certainly be Angel Mage by Garth Nix. I’m really excited to read this new dive into adult fantasy AND it’s a standalone novel which I’m so here for right now. I’ve seen some describe the book as a cross of The Three Muskateers and Joan of Arc which sounds very much up my streets (I was obsessed with The Man in the Iron Mask and The Messenger: Joan of Arc when I was a teenager) so I can’t wait to get stuck in, plus I’m taking part in the blog tour towards the end of the month!

Have you read any of the books featured today? What are you reading at the moment? What have you read recently? Let me know and I’ll reply from my sickbed as much as I can. Keep an eye out for a new book tag coming tomorrow!

TBR Thursday – September 2019

My little boy started school yesterday and although granted, I do spend most of the time he’s there (he’s only doing short days for a while) I spend most of it doing housework at the moment to help our poor flat recover from the six weeks holiday I’ve realised I’ll have time to READ and listen to audiobooks and eventually I might even be able to go swimming again!! But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, I’ve planned a suitably (hopefully) achievable TBR for September which will see my kindle getting a good amount of use as I try to get through my NetGalley backlog! Also, did I mention…

DARKDAWN by Jay Kristoff
IT IS HERE I HAVE MY COPY AND IM READY TO VIBRATE ONTO ANOTHER PLAIN OF EXISTENCE I’M SO EXCITED.
(The third and final book in the Nevernight Chronicles. I am not ready).

The Boneships by RJ Barker
You might remember that I got very over-excited about a new project RJ Barker told us about at the MCM Blogger Brunch back in May, this is it and I’m lucky enough to have received an early finished copy to dig my teeth into. I’m hoping that the Darkdawn hangover isn’t too great and I can get right into this as soon as possible.

The Deathless Girls by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Another book I’ve been excited about for a while, The Deathless Girls is the untold story of the brides of Dracula and a concept I’ve been interested in since the cheesy Van Helsing film with Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckingsale in from way back when. I can’t wait!

Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky
The new novel by the author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower promises to be different, unnerving and spooky from what I’ve read of the sample I’ve already read, just in time to be a perfect creepy Autumn read!

Hex Life Anthology by Kelly Armstrong, Rachel Caine and many more
Hoping I’m not being too ambitious with five books for this month but would really love to get stuck into Hex Life, a witchy anthology including short stories from some of my favourite paranormal romance etc authors!

WWW Wednesday 14th August

It’s been a slow reading couple of weeks for me! With little man off school and then being ill the past few days I’ve not been able to get very much reading done at all but I did finally tick an eagerly anticipated book off my TBR though!

If you want to join in with WWW don’t forget to send over a big thank you to Sam at Taking on a World of Words for keeping WWW alive and kicking.

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

What are you currently reading?

Godsgrave by Jay Kristoff

I’m really gutted I haven’t been able to read much of this at the moment but I’m already really enjoying what I’ve read so far and can’t wait to finally get back into it now I’m feeling a lot better. Will admit I’m a little scared of having to wait for Darkdawn after finishing this though.

What did you recently finish reading?

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff

You’re probably seeing a pattern here right? I’m SO glad I finally got around to reading this book because, as expected, I absolutely freaking adore it. Nevernight is basically the story of Mia joining Murder Hogwarts and I love me some boarding school stories AND assassins, this is honestly the perfect book for me. Also, it may have broken me for a day or two as well. I made a YouTube video about it. (warnings for a sprinkling of bad language and spoilers after being warned in advance).

 

What do you think you’ll read next?

Finding Home: Volume Two by Harri Conner, What Magic is This? by Holly Bourne

Assuming I manage to finish Godsgrave before Darkdawn releases I plan to have a binge read of some graphic novels I have on my TBR at the moment and I received a finished copy of What Magic is This? From the lovely folks at Barrington Stoke this weekend and I think because it’s a nice short read I should be able to fit it in no problem.

What are you reading at the moment? Have you read something recently that you’ve absolutely loved? Tell me all about it!

 

August TBR

So as I thought it might, YALC totally messed with my TBR plans for the month. I may have brought…a few books. I think I might have to be extra lucky to get through all six of these this month but you never know!

Godsgrave by Jay Kristoff
My next read after Nevernight for obvious reasons. I hear the cliffhanger endings are painful so I’m glad I have these two to read together and then not too long of a wait for Darkdawn releasing in September!

X-Men: Days of Future Past by Alex Irvine
I did start reading this last month but ended up putting it on hold due to wanting to get my YALC reads finished so I’m getting back to it this month alongside my rewatching of all the X-Men films because I love them, even the bad ones.

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
I was excited to be approached by a publisher I hadn’t worked with before and offered a review copy of Lisa Jewell’s new book in exchange for an honest review, I wasn’t sure at first as my TBR is somehow still growing at a painful rate but I checked out the synopsis and I was sold. “You thought they were just staying for the weekend. They looked harmless enough – with only two suitcases and a cat in a wicker box. But soon things turn very, very dark. It happens slowly, yet so extraordinarily quickly. Now you and your sister must find a way to survive…”

The Kingdom by Jess Rothenberg
This was a YALC buy, I had actually picked up two other books in a two for £7 deal when the bookseller told me they also did three for £10 and recommended The Kingdom. I was getting low on bag space so thought to decline when she mentioned that the book was essentially, “imagine Disney princesses but they’re A.I” as I’m sure you can guess I caved the moment she mentioned A.I. Lots of people who I spoke to (while holding said book as, like I said, bag space was at an all-time low) recommended the book and said how much they loved it so it got bumped right to this months TBR, it’s only a reasonably short book too so I’m hoping I should be able to fit it in easily.

STAGS by M.A Bennett
So I’ve had STAGS on my Netgalley for ages but after reading and not enjoying The Island by M.A Bennett I had been reluctant to try STAGS for a while, despite all the great reviews I’d heard it’s been getting. I got chatting with one of the booksellers at the Hot Key books stand who went into a bit more depth and showed me the prospectus they had made to go alongside the book and honestly that kind of sold me. STAGS has a sequel called DOGS coming out pretty immanently (I resisted buying it early at YALC in case I didn’t like STAGS in the end) so thought now would be a good time to read it.

Wilder Girls by Rory Power
I’ve been going through my books lately and trying to get rid of ones I really don’t think I’m going to get around to reading and I’d put a few of my arcs up for trade and one I got in return was Wilder Girls. I’d already become intrigued by this book after reading a review from one of the bloggers I’m in a “support” group with (I can’t remember whose blog it was I’m sorry! If I commented on your Wilder Girls review though it was probably you) and so when I was offered this arc in return I jumped at the chance, I’ve seen some beautiful fan art for it recently as well and decided that as it’s out soon I should get to that one asap too.

What is your TBR for the month looking like? If you attended, have you got a lot of books from YALC to read? What book are you most looking forward to reading this month?