4.5/5

This was an incredibly interesting book about the history of Christmas monsters and ghosts from how they came to become folklore to their ongoing evolution and popularity. This wasn't something I had thought about much before, but I found it so interesting to find out what we know about these stories origins and what the can tell us about how Christmas, and midwinter in general, was celebrated historically in Europe.

#netgalley

This was my favorite edition of The Night Before Christmas and after my son was born I wanted to share it with him. It took us well over a year of searching my parents house to find it (after having no luck finding it online because I thought it was illustrations of muce instead of rabbits), but now we have it, and my son loves it just as much as I did. He asked me it read it twice last night.

#wintergames

I finally had time to look through all the books on my #auldlangspine list from @julesG. I've read and loved Ne'er Duke Well and Earls' Trip, and Lock In has been on my TBR for too long. I've decided to focus on reading these 5 in January:

Lock In by John Scalzi
The Night Guest by Hildur Knútsdóttir
A Quiet Life in the Country by T E Kinsey
The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

@monalyisha

My second year in a row finishing the #52bookclub reading challenge

4/5

Liz, Birdie, and Rafi are all returning to their famous mother's home for the holidays. Liz is trying to pitch a new season of her hit show, and avoid her feelings for the star of the show. Birdie is struggling with her stand-up career, her relationships, and her drinking when she meets a local artist. Rafi is turned down after a public proposal and returns home to spend time with his best friend.

#netgalley

4/5

Patrick and Quinn's new marriage is already struggling with the pressures of owning a fixer upper and both working demanding jobs, but when they accidentally attack Santa Clause and have to take over his job, they're forced to take a break from their life and their problems. But even in someplace as magical as the North Pole, they have to figure out how to fix their relationship.

#netgalley

#GuesstheBook24 #WinterGames2024

#GuesstheBook24 #WinterGames2024

4/5

Evie is a comic book illustrator on a deadline, but she still has time to appreciate the mysterious ornaments left on her door, and to crush on her cute neighbor. A quick, fun romance.

#netgalley #wintergames2024 #christmaschapterchasers

2.5/5

Everleigh keeps running into holiday trouble, but that's fine, since cute fireman Griffin Brantley keeps rescuing her. I felt like this one didn't have much plot, but it was still fun.

#netgalley #wintergames2024 #christmaschapterchasers

3.5/5

Nina and her crush, William, are both working a seasonal job advertising mincemeat on a repurposed weinermobile. When they get stuck in a snow storm, they reveal their feelings for one another. A fun, short romance. I appreciated all the mincemeat puns.

#netgalley #wintergames2024 #christmaschapterchasers

3/5

Single mom, Evie, is working at a thrift shop where local farmer Luke keeps trying and failing to find clothes that fit. It was a quick, fun romance, but the holiday setting felt pretty unnecessary to the story.

#netgalley #wintergames2024 #christmaschapterchasers

#GuesstheBook24

3.5/5

Jamie and Marc reconnect during a snow storm a not long after a disastrous date. Childhood crush into love isn't my favorite trope, but I thought that this was a fun, light wintery romance.

#netgalley #wintergames2024 #christmaschapterchasers

5/5

Isaac bought the mansion in Christmas Notch in the hopes of finding inspiration to write a Christmas album to meet his contractual obligations and live out the rest of his life in peaceful isolation. Instead he find's Sunny, his best friend's wife's best friend, in a terrible motel with her cat trying to write a holiday screenplay for the Hope channel and invites her to be his roommate instead. They quickly become more than roommates.

5/5

Sir Horley is a gay man who feels that he must marry to satisfy his family, even if it is a miserable match, but on the eve of his wedding Arabella Tarleton, his aromantic friend, convinces him to elope with her instead. I loved the platonic relationship between Sir Horley and Belle. It was unlike any other romance novel I've read, and I would have happily read so much more about them building a life together that suits them both.

My December #bookspin/ #wintergames2024 TBR. It's hard to pick a most anticipated but I think it's got to be A Jingle Bell Mingle.

#ChristmasChapterChasers @StayCurious #doublebookspin #bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks

Eggnog
Open Presents on Christmas
Star tree topper
Turkey
Stay at Home

#WinterGames2024 #ChristmasChapterChasers @StayCurious

print: Queerly Beloved by Susie Dumon
audiobook: Lifeform by Jenny Slate

#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain

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