This fictionalized witch hunt based on a historical witch trial gave me anxiety 😰
I can see where there is satire, and the narrative is extremely clever, but the pure accumulation of spite against an old woman wore on me anyway. So, #unpopularopinion here, I think. Anyone feel like trying to win me over?

#roll100 - I don‘t remember buying either of these, lol! It seems that the tagged book might work for #pop2022 popsugar challenge (afterlife) so that‘s serendipitous, and the cover on the other is just lovely!

Blaming my lateness for #wintergames2021 on road trips! Sorry @Clwojick !

My combined total for weeks 4 and 5 ( I missed posting for week 4) is 6217 🎉

Thanks for hosting, @Clwojick and thanks for the fun fellow #mistletoemaniacs! Hope I did you proud.

One bingo for December! Pretty good 👍🏻🤩 #bookspinbingo #wintergames2021
Tagged was my favorite from this month, I think!

Happy 2022!
The Hubs and I just finished a 2-day road trip, so I have some catching up to do. *hides fromthe #wintergames crew - don‘t worry, I need to tally points, I didn‘t forget, this last week was just too much for me!*
First up is my January #bookspin #doublespin #bookspinbingo
I am trying very hard to actually finish some of my yearly challenges this year… we‘ll see how that goes, haha!

I forgot to post this back when everyone was doing their #worstof21 😂 good idea, though! The razzies are always fun. Some of these were mistakes to even start as I should have known they are not my speed. Oops!

Cold cold COLD 🥶 and all I‘m interested in doing is listening to audiobooks while sitting as close as possible to space heaters. So, after reading Afterlife of Holly Chase, the OG sounded perfect. This version was read by Jim Dale, and it was great.
Let‘s see if I can pack in any more #wintergames books!

It‘s been a while since I read any “little house” books, so I picked this up for #wintergames2021
Interesting to read as an adult! I marveled at the depiction of life in the old west in the winter, though all the blizzards made me feel even colder than ever 🥶 (I‘m not ready)
Plus, my hubby and I completed our annual gingerbread house competition, so here‘s our holiday baking AND our holiday crafting for the competition! #mistletoemaniacs

The Week 3 total for #wintergames2021 is 8780! Not too shabby.
#mistletoemaniacs @Clwojick

My #top21of21 best books of the year
I‘m currently trying to narrow this down to 9 but it‘s difficult 😣
If you haven‘t posted yet, I‘d love to see your picks!

Elf and a sploot to make up for the fact that this tbr read is definitely out of season 😲😂
But I‘m a sucker for a southern gothic, and this one has infernal inheritances, negotiations of queerness amid toxic masculinity, and a low-key indictment of higher education, and I am here for it!

I‘m other news, I cleared 12561 points last week for #wintergames2021 #mistletoemaniacs 👊🥰

I am nope-ing so hard on this. It some how reads like a man from the 1970s ghost-wrote this as Allende. What the heck is going on? Is it just that this serial killer thriller is way outside Allende‘s usual genre? I chose it for #authoramonth because I thought I‘d try something different from her as she‘s not my favorite. Hah. I guess it was an easy one to check off my list, at any rate! And 15 pts for #wintergames2021!

This was a fun, light, holiday-themed romance. Good pick for the buddy read, #mistletoemaniacs! #wintergames2021
Kinda funny to read something set in a ski destination where no one did any skiing!
This was also the #bookspin pick for December for me.

Hi fellow #wintergames2021 folks! One of the Agatha Christie‘s on sale today on Amazon is a collection of winter-themed short stories ripe for stacking up points!

5310 points for #mistletoemaniacs
Not as many as some posts I‘ve seen, but I‘m trucking along 🎄👍🏻
Thank goodness for the search function on kindle!
#wintergames2021

A lovely fairytale filled with magical inheritances, witchy women, and fallen stars. Good Neil Gaiman and Latin American vibes, all at the same time! It even made me change my goodreads vote for best fantasy novel 😆
Not a “Christmas” book, but I got 270 words for the #wintergames2021 word search! I‘ll tally up the points, including readathons, in the spreadsheet
#mistletoemaniacs

#WinterGames #MistletoeManiacs
Great getting to know all of you! I learned:
1. I share a bday month with @thearomaofbooks
2. Starless Sea shoutout to @Catsandbooks, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn love for @Bookwormjillk
3. I think we are all (?) reading In a Holidaze, haha, but I see @BeeMagical and @Traci1 up there!
4. I appreciate how @BeeMagical is their own inspiration to read lots of books! Sometimes self-motivation is the best motivation.

Finished book 1 of #wintergames2021! It had word search words in it 41 times and it took me 5.5 hrs. I‘ll tally the readathons in the spreadsheet- too much back and forth to figure it out for here!
In unrelated news, this is my post for the #festivephotochallenge, too, haha, showing off the red and white of one of the many hand lotions I keep around bc winter is hard on hands!!
#mistletoemaniacs @Clwojick

Starting my first book for #Wintergames2021! It should have lots of words from the word search 🤨 and the cover is perfect for day 1 of the #festivephotochallenge, red and green everywhere!
So far so good, this is a very soothing romance with two lovely older protagonists and a luxurious stay in the English countryside 🎄
#mistletoemaniacs @Clwojick

#doublespin AND I even snuck in a bingo! Gilded wolves is a Dan-Brown inspired alt-history with magic and heists and magical heists set in Paris at the time of the Paris world‘s exposition. Neat magic system. I may need to take a break from the drama of YA for a while after this, though.

I think I figured out my December TBR! It was hard for me to find seasonally-appropriate books to start with, and then I left too many prompts from popsugar and read harder challenges to the last month 😬 oops!
Tagged book I was very much enjoying before the library took it back, so it‘s the book I‘m most excited to finish next month!
#WinterGames2021 #MistletoeManiacs #BookSpin #BookSpinBingo

The unremitting romantic melodrama of this book! I liked parts of it very much, but some was a bit much and I found it predictable. Also, the treatment of women was def ick. You know how when you spend a long time in another culture and the way others act around you, while culturally appropriate for them, just makes you miss home? Yeah, this book evoked that pretty strongly for me.

Pic from Pinterest (I‘m feeling lazy)
#Authoramonth

Love it! Margaret Rogerson is fast becoming a must-buy. Her YA fantasies have become progressively less romance-driven but kept the powerful protagonists. In this first of a high fantasy series, the MC is one of an order of nuns who can see and control the spirits of the dead. I‘m ready for the next installment, already!

fan art: https://rejamart.tumblr.com/post/645385981617389568/margaret-rogerson-has-a-new-...

Littens, help please in finding holiday-appropriate books for #wintergames2021 ! Lighter fantasies (YA or not), mysteries (cozy or not), or romances would all work. Right now, I‘m stalled out with really only the buddy reads and Royal Holiday on my tbr that fit any of the holiday bingo boards! 😂 TIA #recommendationsplease

Is anyone else annoyed that goodreads isn‘t allowing write-ins this year? If so, @LibrarianRyan is gauging interest in another round of Litsy awards, so you should go to her post and let her know!

LibrarianRyan's post on Litsy https://litsy.com/p/OTNPMW80aHlF

1️⃣ I made this small stuffie recently, whee
2️⃣ I learned this week that incense is no longer only for meditation &/or high schoolers who think they have covered up the smell of weed. I‘m intrigued; does anyone have a favorite I should try?
3️⃣ my home & family 🧣🏡👫🏻🦮
Oh! Also the tagged sweet, feel-good scifi novel. Chambers writes such homey slice-of-life space stuff! I need to do it in small doses, but I love it.
#wonderouswednesday

I love a book with a good murder board! (*murderboard not from book 😅)
This Serial-alike dealt with the array of buzz-worthy issues, motives, and high school in a believable and charming way. I would have been all on board but for one small plot point… (⬇️ for spoiler)
#bookspin complete!

I started this for #scarathlon last month, and am only now finishing it. So interesting! Larson is as great as expected at bringing this rather complicated time in Chicago history to life. It‘s been on my TBR for a while, and I‘m glad I finally went for it! H. H. Holmes is as creepy as thought he might be 🔪 and now I want to do some touristing and see what‘s left from the Chicago World Fair 🏨🏛

#bookspin and #doublespin and #bookspinbingo list for November! I don‘t know that I can do as well as I did in October, but I can try! Most excited about the tagged book as I adored book 1 🤩 gimme!

And with this, I‘m calling my last book of October and of #scarathlon even if there‘s still some time left in the day! How‘s everyone do? I‘m excited because I finally got a bingo (or three…) this month 🤩
#bookspinbingo #teamslaughter

My phone died, or at least it suddenly started keeping a charge for all of 30 min on Thursday, and this has really cut in to my audiobook time!! 🙀 however, today I finally managed to finish the tagged book about descendants of a mysteriously abandoned mining town going back to film a documentary at the site. I‘m trying, #teamslaughter! One day left for #scarathlon, and I‘ll do what I can with the brand new phone 📱 🎃

Week 3 #teamslaughter #scarathlon total: 5238
Favorite book from this week is the tagged true crime that focuses on the Indigenous woman who searches for the missing and helped uncover corruption on her reservation. Lots of great detail on the reservation history and the oil boom on reservation land that led to this corruption, and the author‘s voice is lovely and meditative.
Also read: Ararat, The Archived, In the Tall Grass, The Jigsaw Man⬇️

Read for #AuthorAMonth
I enjoy Schwab‘s writing style, and her gothic flair, in this YA fantasy. I liked that the world wasn‘t fluffy, and the twists of the mystery. Even the love-triangle, which is usually a never for me, wasn‘t much of a focus and quickly resolved.
Plus, there‘s ghosts and gloom and good spooky vibes for #scarathlon!
Pic is fan art from Schwab‘s blog.

#scarathlon #teamslaughter totals for week 2: 3502
🥳
Not as good as last week, but still trucking my way through seasonal books, and I finished the team read! This was quite the roller-coaster and I enjoyed it.
Also read: My Heart Is a Chainsaw, Firekeeper‘s Daughter, Agents of Dreamtime, and Gold Diggers. I completed 4 challenges from 3 readathons, and participated in more, including some that are ended now (guess I‘ll have to find more!) ⬇️

7201 points for week 1! I tried to readathon the heck out of everything 😆 and binge some X-Files on the side 👻
#teamslaughter #scarathlon2021

Catch up post for week 1 of #teamslaughter #scarathlon since I was camping over the weekend. Gotta enjoy fall weather while I can!
I thought this would fit our team prompt as a cozy, similar to Arsenic and Adobo, but it was a romance with a murder-romp subplot. My bad! 😅 I saw “guy dies on blind date” and assumed there would be a whodunnit involved, when there really wasn‘t. I enjoyed the Chinese-Malay aunties, tho. Points tallied for wk 1!

Theme read for #scarathlon #teamslaughter
I think I was hoping for some of that weird supernatural goodness that infused The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hugo or whatever it was, and this one disappointed me a bit. I did enjoy the high seas flavor, but honestly not much else from this historical Sherlock-and-Watson inspired story with witches and heists and improbable murders.
Readathons listed ⬇️

Frankenstein marathon on tv! Young Frankenstein first, because Madeleine Kahn, and then Curse of Frankenstein with that guy who played Grand Moth Tarken. Gotta love Halloween! #scarathlon #teamslaughter

#bookspin complete! And another so-called cozy for #scarathlon #teamslaughter. I‘ll update later with all the other things this applies to… I can‘t remember without my spreadsheet lol 😆
This book was supposed to be a cozy, but I actually found how Lila was being setup as a killer and a drug pusher to be stressful. The dogged police officer “just doing his job” while hitting on Lila‘s aunt particularly annoyed. The author does admit this problem⬇️

3rd of 4 in a short, middle-grade spooky series. Each book is set in a different season so far (this one in spring) but it has ghosts, lake monsters, axe-wielding men, + the general Halloween feel from bk 1 definitely spills over! 🎃👻

Counting as a Halloween read for #scarathlon #teamslaughter and for a bunch of readathons! (See below ⬇️)

I‘m using a spreadsheet to tally points, so I think I‘ll put those all on my report post, if that works!

#bookspinbingo board for October : tagged is #bookspin, and Razorblade Tears is #doublespin. Most of these are spooky books for spooky season or are otherwise for #scarathlon #teamslaughter

Here‘s hoping for at least one bingo!

First book read for #scarathlon! Black cat pictured bc spooky… but that‘s the only reason.
Two ex-cons investigate their sons‘ deaths. Their sons happen to be gay, and there are some difficult scenes as the fathers deal with their own anti-gay sentiment and that of others. I like how Cosby writes these men - they are flawed, interesting and believable - and his books are action-packed. I liked Blacktop Wasteland slightly more than this one. ⬇️

#scarathlon #teamslaughter week 1 game 1

I had fun scrambling and unscrambling these words! I‘ll update my total when I decide to finally call it. For now, 183 words - see comments :)

September wrap-up includes not many books. Tagged was probably what I enjoyed the most this month, but the Chosen and the Beautiful was almost enough to make me want to reread Great Gatsby, so that‘s not nothing! I started She Who Became the Sun… but still didn‘t quite make a bingo! @bookspinbingo

I almost forgot to post my September #doublespin! This was a nice time travel story that played with the grandfather paradox in fun ways. Some great, nerdy female characters, too 🥰
Audiobook, so pic of my fav walking companion

I hunted & searched & think I finally came up with a #bookspin #doublespin & #scarathlon list for October that satisfies both my love of scary books and #teamslaughter! I am lucky that I think so many spooky reads can count as thrillers 😅

Books marked with * are what I am excited about for #scarathlon2021 and count for my #scarathlontbr

True story: I‘ve already started the tagged book but I‘m pacing myself so I can count it for the team! 😉 😬

Just finished a work trip, over which I was very surprised I finished only this one book! I thought I‘d have lots of me-time, but no.
What a quirky, action-packed, genre-bending book! The MC is FUNNY and crass and I loved her. Plus, it‘s (semi?-)queer space necromancers with manyof bones, gore, and 1x1 battles.
Yes, that last pitch is for the #roaringwolf Sep sci-fi challenge 😉

I love all the Discworld Death arc, and I‘d say he or Susan make a great match for today‘s prompt for #littensdressedinblood! I know the tagged is a Christmas book, but I might rewatch the miniseries anyway.
Pic from www.zetallis.com

Happy long weekend for those in the US!

1. I‘ve always thought the idea Anastasia survived the revolution was sweet. I‘m not sure I believe them, though it‘s compelling and romantic.

2. I think they are mostly just wistful or romantic versions of events we wish weren‘t true.

3. I know a lot about archaeological hoaxes, all of which derive from someone “proving” pet theories, like that humans evolved in Britain (piltdown man). See below for bk!

This is a twofer for #littensdressedinblood as I‘m behind!
(Hungry like the wolf AND Dead Man‘sParty)
Katsu reimagines the Donner Party story to have a supernatural influence in this novel, and it is creepy. Recommend visiting Donner Pass immediately after reading 😜