This is something new I’m going to start doing this year – a little recap at the end of each month with some of my favorite posts!
I know life can be really busy and we don’t always see things when they’re posted – so, I figured this would be a quick easy way to show off some of my posts from January.
Quick and easy and fun! Continue reading “Posts You Might’ve Missed This Month”
Okay, so new year, same WIP.
Honestly, I feel like until I actually start writing again these posts are kind of useless, but here we go.
I barely worked on my SF WIP in 2020 and I barely wrote. I was constantly plagued by shiny new ideas and I’d write a few thousand words and then grow bored or uninspired.
I couldn’t figure out how I was stuck in my SF WIP, so every time I opened the Word doc, I’d just stare at it uselessly. So I didn’t touch it.
Then I started working full time and had no energy. This is a lame excuse, I know. Being stuck and having no energy and no drive to work on it – I didn’t.
Then in October I had a breakthrough. I got unstuck, but then it was NaNoWriMo and I still couldn’t work on it, and work picked up to insane levels.
Then I didn’t write at all in December. Continue reading “Writing Update #22”
Title: Aurora Rising
Author: Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
Pub. Date: May 7, 2019
Pages: 473
Pub: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Genre: YA SFF
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The year is 2380, and the graduating cadets of Aurora Academy are being assigned their first missions. Star pupil Tyler Jones is ready to recruit the squad of his dreams, but his own boneheaded heroism sees him stuck with the dregs nobody else in the Academy would touch…
A cocky diplomat with a black belt in sarcasm
A sociopath scientist with a fondness for shooting her bunkmates
A smart-ass techwiz with the galaxy’s biggest chip on his shoulder
An alien warrior with anger management issues
A tomboy pilot who’s totally not into him, in case you were wondering
And Ty’s squad isn’t even his biggest problem—that’d be Aurora Jie-Lin O’Malley, the girl he’s just rescued from interdimensional space. Trapped in cryo-sleep for two centuries, Auri is a girl out of time and out of her depth. But she could be the catalyst that starts a war millions of years in the making, and Tyler’s squad of losers, discipline-cases and misfits might just be the last hope for the entire galaxy.
They’re not the heroes we deserve. They’re just the ones we could find. Nobody panic. Continue reading “Book Review: Aurora Rising (The Aurora Cycle #1)”
It’s been awhile!
I’m slowly crawling my way back into shows and movies, but I’m still reading as much as ever. With working full time and working a job where I can listen to audiobooks for roughly 8 hours a day, I get a lot of reading done. But the great thing about audiobooks, is that they’re a whole production that plays out like a movie in my head – even more so than just reading them.
But I am happy that I’m slowly getting back into shows. I miss being able to turn my mind off and just enjoy something, with no pressure to review it.
So, let’s take a look at what I’m currently reading and watching! Continue reading “Currently Reading & Watching #22”
Title: Love Spells and Other Disasters
Author: Angie Barrett
Pub. Date: February 1, 2021
Pages: 400
Pub: Entangled: Teen
Genre: YA Contemporary
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
I didn’t know when I wrote the first love spell that it would actually make things happen. Like, actually make people fall in love with each other…
How could I have known something like that? I mean, magic isn’t real, right?
But here’s the thing—the spell does work and so does the next one and the next one…and suddenly I’m getting a whole lot of attention from everyone at my high school. Me, Blend-into-the-Walls, Please-Let-Me-Introvert-in-Peace Rowan Marshall. And not only that, but I’ve also caught the attention of Luca Russo, a godlike, football-playing hottie who claims he likes me just the way I am. Ummm…
But as I’m about to learn, playing around with things you don’t understand means when things go wrong—like really, very awfully wrong—you don’t know how to fix them. Continue reading “Book Review: Love Spells and Other Disasters”
Title: Star Daughter
Author: Shveta Thakrar
Pub. Date: August 11, 2020
Pages: 435
Pub: HarperTeen
Genre: YA Fantasy Mythology
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
If the night sky holds many secrets, it holds Sheetal Mistry’s secret the closest. A secret that explains why her hair is the silver of starlight, or why some nights the stars call Sheetal by name.
Stars like her mother, who returned to her place in the constellation Pushya years ago. Since that day, Sheetal has been forced to hide.
But as her seventeenth birthday draws near, the pull from the sky is growing stronger. So strong that Sheetal loses control, and a flare of starfire burns her human father—an injury only a full star’s blood can heal.
Sheetal has no choice but to answer the starsong and ascend to the sky. But her celestial family has summoned her for a reason: to act as their human champion in a competition to decide the next ruling house of heavens.
Desperate to save her father, Sheetal agrees. But nothing could have prepared Sheetal to face the stars’ dark history—or the forces that are working to shut the gate between the realms for good. Continue reading “Book Review: Star Daughter”
We all do this right?
Then you see the total price and you do one of two things.
You either click “checkout” and worry about the consequences later.
Or
You throw all the books into the “save for later” portion of your cart.
Today, I’m going to show you all the books that I’ve had sitting in my cart for months now, just waiting for me to buy them. Why I haven’t just purchased them yet, I don’t know, but here we are.
The Architect of Song (Haunted Hearts Legacy #1) – A.G. Howard
The Glass Butterfly (Haunted Hearts Legacy #2) – A.G. Howard
The Hummingbird Heart (Haunted Hearts Legacy #3) – A.G. Howard
The Queen of Cursed Things (Serpents and Kings #1) – S.M. Gaither
The Empire of Empty Wars (Serpents and Kings #2) – S.M. Gaither
The King of Burning Skies (Serpents and Kings #3) – S.M. Gaither
Dawn of Darkness (The Riven Kingdoms #3) – Shari L. Tapscott
Emerald Rose (Celestials #2) – Emma Hamm
Evenfall (Shadowfire #1) – Gaja J. Kos & Boris Kos
Spring (Evermore Academy #2) – Audrey Grey
Stolen Songbird (The Malediction Trilogy #1) – Danielle L. Jensen
Hidden Huntress (The Malediction Trilogy #2) – Danielle L. Jensen
Warrior Witch (The Malediction Trilogy #3) – Danielle L. Jensen
The Broken Ones (The Malediction Trilogy #0.5) – Danielle L. Jensen
Pandemonium (Pandemonium #1) – Willow Anderson
Nightborn (The Hollow King #2) – Jessica Thorne
Stalking Jack the Ripper (Stalking Jack the Ripper #1) – Kerri Maniscalco
Hunting Prince Dracula (Stalking Jakc the Ripper #2) – Kerri Maniscalco
These are all basically books that I have read, with only a few that I haven’t. I either read the eBook or listened to the Audiobook and now I need physical copies for my shelves. Some are duplicates since I want to be able to display art dustjackets alongside the OG dust jackets. I act like I have unlimited shelf space, but in reality I’m genuinely out of shelf space, so when I do eventually buy these books, I have no idea where they’re going to go. But, that’s a future me problem!
As a Bonus: here’s what’s current in my cart – and I totally plan on purchasing these this week.
Undying (Unearthed #2) – Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner
Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle #2) – Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
Star Daughter – Shveta Thakrar
A Heart So Fierce and Broken (Cursebreakers #2) – Brigid Kemmerer
A Curse So Dark and Lonely (Cursebreakers #1) – Brigid Kemmerer
Title: Dark of the West
Author: Joanna Hathaway
Pub. Date: February 5, 2019
Pages: 480
Pub: Tor Teen
Genre: YA Historical Fantasy
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Aurelia Isendare is a princess of a small kingdom in the North, raised in privilege but shielded from politics as her brother prepares to step up to the throne. Halfway around the world, Athan Dakar, the youngest son of a ruthless general, is a fighter pilot longing for a life away from the front lines. When Athan’s mother is shot and killed, his father is convinced it’s the work of his old rival, the Queen of Etania—Aurelia’s mother. Determined to avenge his wife’s murder, he devises a plot to overthrow the Queen, a plot which sends Athan undercover to Etania to gain intel from her children.
Athan’s mission becomes complicated when he finds himself falling for the girl he’s been tasked with spying upon. Aurelia feels the same attraction, all the while desperately seeking to stop the war threatening to break between the Southern territory and the old Northern kingdoms that control it—a war in which Athan’s father is determined to play a role. As diplomatic ties manage to just barely hold, the two teens struggle to remain loyal to their families and each other as they learn that war is not as black and white as they’ve been raised to believe. Continue reading “Book Review: Dark of the West (The Glass Alliance #1)”
Well, I’m going to make this a series and maybe I’ll eventually get through all of my shelves. I’ve wanted to do a bookshelf tour for ages, but they just seem so time intensive, and honestly, I’m lazy. I also have a lot of shelves and that post would be a doozy to create and read. Doing this shelf by shelf, or maybe even 2 at a time in the future will make this feel less daunting. The last time I showed you my “Paperback High Fantasy/Fantasy Shelf” which featured small press/indie/self pubbed books. You can check out that post here.
This time, I’m going to show you the first shelf on what I consider to be my main bookcase. It’s basically just a fantasy shelf, and mainly just those tall hardcovers. I’ve actually read everything on this shelf – amazingly, so let’s check it out.
This is a pretty new set up. I recently did a mini reorganization and was able to fit all of these on here. I’m sure in the near future things are going to move around again – especially when I finally go to Ikea and get another bookcase – I keep putting it off because I don’t want to drive to Ikea. I don’t think I need to explain what’s on this shelf, but I have some Susan Dennard, Margaret Rogerson, Tricia Levenseller, Emily A. Duncan, Katy Rose Pool, Crystal Smith and Anna Bright. For the most part, I try to keep books by the same author together, but I don’t always have room, and I do kind of try to group by genre (and I mean that in a really loose way).
And as a final note – if you haven’t read what’s on this shelf, you’re seriously missing out.
Title: Soulswift
Author: Megan Brannen
Pub. Date: November 17, 2020
Pages: 480
Pub: Blazer + Bray
Genre: YA Fantasy
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Gelya is a Vessel, a girl who channels the word of the One True God through song. Cloistered with the other Vessels of her faith, she believes—as all Ovinists do—that a saint imprisoned Elath the Great Demon centuries ago, saving humanity from earthly temptation.
When Gelya stumbles into a deadly cover-up by the Ovinists’ military, she reluctantly teams up with Tavik, an enemy soldier, to survive. Tavik believes that Elath is actually a mother goddess who must be set free, but while he succeeds in opening Her prison, he inadvertently turns Gelya into Elath’s unwilling human vessel.
Now the church that raised Gelya considers her a threat. In a race against the clock, she and Tavik must find a way to exorcise Elath’s presence from her body. But will this release stop the countdown to the end of the world, or will it be the cause of the earth’s destruction? And as Tavik and Gelya grow closer, another question lingers between them: What will become of Gelya? Continue reading “Book Review: Soulswift”
Writing The Universe 