5/5

I enjoyed this set of fantasy short stories. My favorites were Sucker for Pain where the servant of a witch becomes a vampire and gains her own power, The Animation Games where two betrothed take advantage of their resurrected afterlife to hunt one another now, and Chaos Theory, the longest story in the collection, where the actions of two individuals in one universe have ripple effects across their lives in four other alternative universes.

print book: Queerly Beloved by Susie Dumond
audiobook: Januaries by Olivie Blake

#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain

4.5/5

Theodosia might be the wicked stepsister to Princess Beatrice, but when her mother tries to marry her off to an ancient duke, she knows she has to save herself. She finds Beatrice's notes for summoning a fairy, and make her own deal to escape her upcoming marriage. Of course nothing is easy when you're wicked, so Theo is tasked with completing three selfless tasks to prove that's she's worth of fairy magic.

#netgalley

4/5

I thought this was a really lovely essay about what we can learn from the serviceberry and ecology more broadly about gratitude, reciprocity, community, and gift economies. I found it's message very inspiring.

#netgalley

Theodosia Balfour's ball gown was made of fine white silk, and that's where the compliments ended.

#firstlinefridays @shybookowl

4/5

A quick, fun Ali Hazelwood audiobook. I enjoyed the narration.

3/5

Christopher Brown was inspired by the nature and wildlife he began to notice within his city when he purchased an empty lot in an industrial area in Austin to build his home. He began to document the ways that nature reclaims the places humans abandon.

I thought this book was beautifully written and the topic was very interesting. It was also very dense and I had difficulty focusing on the overall message.

#bookspin: The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer

#doublebookspin: How to Summon a Fairy Godmother by Laura J. Mayo

#bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks

e-book: A Natural History of Empty Lots by Christopher Brown
audiobook: Two Can Play by Ali Hazelwood

#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain

4/5

Dylan's bad relationship with his neighbor Derek isn't improved when he literally falls through the floor between their units. Their lives get more and more entwined as Dylan helps repair both the damage he caused and the underling plumbing issues in Derek's apartment.

I really enjoyed this romance that built from dislike to love. I really enjoyed the growth of each character on their own and together.

Managed 1 bingo in October.

#bookspin #doublebookspin #bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks

Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy was my only five star read of the month, so an easy pick for October. Unfortunately, I think Anxious People beats it out to the semi-final spot.

#readingbracket2024 #bookbracket2024 @CSeydel

#HauntedShelf Total Points: 4,637

I wasn't able to participate as much as I'd hoped, but still had fun with some spooky reads and bingos.

#FrightClub @Jadams89 @PuddleJumper

November #bookspin list

#bookspin #doublebookspin #bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks

3/5

After Ursula was left at the altar, she wishes to change up her life in Freya Grove. Xavier is a Fae prince who comes to Freya Grove to find a solution after he is cursed to find the perfect kiss. Ursula and Xavier realize they can work together to find what they need.

This got off to a very slow start, and I had trouble getting invested in Xavier's storyline.

4/5

When Ellie is brought in to ghost write Kieran's debut cookbook after his recent win of a cooking competition, they immediately get off on the wrong foot. But as they're forced to work together, they both learn that maybe Kieran could benefit from Ellie's grounded-ness and Kieran could help Ellie break out of the routines that have become suffocating after her husband's death three years earlier.

It's a great romance that builds slowly.

3.5/5

After losing her husband, her best friend, and her job, Lark takes a job in Ireland to give herself a new start and a break from her life. When she learns her neighbor, Callum, needs to get married within the next few months or lose his family's funeral home, she decides to find him a perfect match, since she knows she can't get married again.

It was a read. I particularly liked the romance between Lark and Callum.

3.5/5

Ezri returns to their childhood home where they and their siblings grew up as the only black family in a white suburb to find their parents dead in an apparent murder suicide. The siblings are forced to confront their pasts to determine what really haunted that house their entire childhoods.

As with many of Solomon's reads this dealt with a lot of difficult topics including racism and child abuse. It was a good book, but a hard read.

5/5

Leo and Grimm have notoriously cannot get along. But when they're partnered together in a class and accidentally place a curse on Leo, they're forced to journey into the Unquiet Wood, to try to find a cure.

I loved this book so much. The magic system and the characters are wonderful, and I really look forward to future books revealing more of the mysteries of the world, and to see how the relationship between Leo and Grimm evolves.

2/5

What starts as Lexi and Will pretending to date to avoid Lexi's former friends finding out she hasn't lived up to everyone's expectations, quickly turns into a fake engagement as the situation gets out of their control.

I had a lot of trouble getting into this story. I felt like the story was too slow and the romance was too fast, and it just didn't work for me.

2/5

Penelope Skinner hates Neil Storm (for reasons that were never clear to me), so when they both end up in a haunted castle they find that proximity and a mystery can change the way they see each other.

There were a lot of storylines in this novel, and it left me confused on what was really going on. I enjoyed the ghost story, and wished there had been more focus on that storyline; though, I felt the ending of it was a little unsatisfying.

ebook: If I Stopped Haunting You by Colby Wilkens
audiobook: Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy

#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain

4/5

Mara gets a job on a TV show renovating haunted homes, and as a PA, it's Mara's job to convince the homeowners' that their houses really are haunted. But over the summer, it seems like Mara isn't the only one doing the haunting.

This was a short, not particularly scary, ghost story. It has a fun premise, and was a quick read for me.

4.5/5

Cass has returned home and finds more than she expected when her ex-best friend, Seth, turns into a werewolf and it turns out that Cass is a witch. Cass has to figure out the supernatural world and her feelings for Seth.

I found the communication issues very frustrating. This book had so much going on, and while I loved it, I wish I had gotten to learn more about the town, the side characters, and the magic of this world.

Pen wondered how drunk she must have been when she accepted this invitation, because it was a disaster in the making.

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

#bookspin: Can't Help Falling in Love by Sophie Sullivan
#doublebookspin: If I Stopped Haunting You by Colby Wilkens

#bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks

I technically rated How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen higher than Gravity Lost, but since this has ended up being an entirely fiction board, I think I'll stick with that theme (and maybe create a second non-fiction bracket for myself)

#readingbracket2024 #bookbracket2024 @CSeydel

Managed one bingo in September!

#bookspin #doublebookspin #bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks

My spooky/paranormal themed October TBR

#FrightClub #HauntedShelf @Jadams89 @PuddleJumper

#bookspin #doublebookspin #bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks

e-book: The Joy of Connections by Ruth K. Westheimer
audiobook: How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen by Joanna Faber & Julie King

#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain

For #HauntedShelf let me recommend two of my favorite recent spooky reads:

The Hacienda by Isabel Canas
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

#FrightClub @Jadams89 @PuddleJumper

4/5

A really interesting book about Pidgeon's experience of discovering they were intersex at age 18. This was a hard, but incredibly educational read about both Pidgeon's experience and the experience of so many intersex children.

Took me a while to get to it, but thanks @peanutnine for this #auldlangspine rec @monalyisha

Just a few more days to sign up for some #hauntedshelf fun.

https://forms.gle/WYnaNvp3dmRed8jZ7

For anyone participating in #hauntedshelf who likes using Notion, I've made a point tracking template.

https://sphenoid-trail-688.notion.site/Haunted-Shelf-2024-Template-9d63e84344044...

3.5/5

Childhood friends June and Levi both go viral for being very publicly broken up with. When Levi returns to their hometown where June is running a tea shop, they decide to pretend to date to turn the situation around for their own benefit. With all their history, it's hard to for the dating to stay fake.

This was a fun romance that also touched on reconnection, community, and grief.

audiobook: The Break-Up Pact by Emma Lord
e-book: You Had Me at Happy Hour by Timothy Janovsky

#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain

Before I took over Tea Tide, I imagined running a tea shop by the ocean would be like something out of a Hallmark movie.

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

4/5

If you enjoyed Prue's video series, you'll enjoy this. It's a collection of funny vaguely insulting statements with descriptions of how (or why) to use them for maximum effect. I thought the ending was particularly strong when Prue describes patriarchy as a series of boxes we're all put in.

3/5

Aliens have spent three decades destabilizing Earth and just as they are ready to complete their takeover, they find instability within their own ranks. Told primarily from the point of view of the alien group, I didn't always understand what their goals were, but I found the various intrigues interesting. I was gorier than I was prepared for, depicting scenes of torture.

4.5/5

Archie is going on a two week vacation with his two best friends when instead they must make a detour to rescue his two childhood friends, Clementine and Olive, from elopement and ruination. Rather than miss the rest of the vacation, Archie asks Clem and Olive to join them.

It's a fun read if you enjoy regency romances that aren't too focused on the rules of proper society. I thought the chapter titles were all very fun.

4.5/5

The ambit crew is back and has been blackmailed to jail-break the man they just took into custody.

This is quickly becoming a favorite sci-fi series for me. It has found family, high stakes space battles, an AI ship captain, and a very fun collection of characters.

3/5

Bran has a magical gift that draws him towards his birth home of Cornwall and towards Merryn, a woman with amnesia.

I loved that a lot of the plot centered around tensions between England and France at the time, since so many romance novels set during that period gloss over that reality. I also thought the magic was very interesting. I did find Merryn's amnesia very frustrating, which ended up making the romance not really work for me.

A bit of a rough reading month for me, but A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher was a standout.

#readingbracket2024 #bookbracket2024 @CSeydel

#bookspin: The Ministry of Compliance Vol. 1 by John Ridley
#doublebookspin: How to Piss Off Men by Kyle Prue

#bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks

September list.

#bookspin #doublebookspin #bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks

e-book: Silver Lady by Mary Jo Putney
audiobook: Gravy Lost by L.M. Sagas

#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain

2/5

I really liked the premise of this novel where a person gets pulled into the world of an epic fantasy series as one of the villains. However, I really struggled with the pacing, which made it difficult for me to ever really get immersed in the story.

4/5

A short read, but I loved getting to spend more time with Tadek, Kadou, and Evermer.

4/5

A fun, sherlock holmes style mystery taking place in the future on when humanity has relocated to live on a series of rail connected platforms above Jupiter. I loved the world building and look forward to reading future books in the series.

audiobook: The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older
e-book: Tadek and the Princess by Alexandra Rowland

#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain