Hell Bent
by Leigh Bargudo
Urban Fantasy | Published: 2023 | Goodreads
Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex” Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory―even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.
Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies’ most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls.
Booked Kingdom
a grisha readalong
January to April 2021
hosted by The Ravkan Historical Society
(details)
🌑 Reading Schedule 🌖
January: Shadow & Bone Trilogy
Shadow and Bone | my rating: 4 | good start, start of would-be heroes
Siege and Storm | my rating: 4 | shifting thoughts on characters and their motives
Ruin and Rising | my rating: dnf |
Stacking the Shelves
hosted by Tynga's Reviews (details)
Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!
~*~
Bought:
Six of Crows
by Leigh Bardugo
-Fantasy, YA Amazon | Goodreads
=====> Books Inc. of San Francisco presented Leigh Bardugo and her latest book!
Here are a few things she shared:
- Reading from an older work: about a character named Blood (I didn't catch the title of book).
- Reading from new work: about a character named Nina in Six of Crows
From Q&A:
- audio version of book has multiple narration
- would like to see Six of Crows as a tv series
- so far, Six of Crows is planned as a duology, BUT there is "potential for more adventures for those who live..."
- original title was "The Dregs"
- city of Kerch is primarily based on Dutch Republic of 1700s
Freebie:
Rock & Release
(Summer Love Series #1)
by Riley Edgewood
-New Adult, Romance
courtesy of author -Thanks! Amazon | Goodreads
Library:
Brooklyn
by Colm TóibÃn
-Historical, Ireland, New York Amazon | Goodreads
=====> I am currently listening to the audio version in preparation for a preview screening on Oct 20. Loving it so far.
UNBOXING:
From Powell's Indiespensable club package (details & signup): Powell's subscription club delivers the best new books, with special attention to independent publishers. Signed first editions. Inventive, original sets. Exclusive printings.... Every six weeks, another installment to read and admire. Plus, every package is stocked with exciting surprises!
This is box #55. (sorry - this is sold out, but you can signup for the next one)
Box includes:
* A signed first-edition of Did You Ever Have a Family in a custom slipcase exclusive to Indiespensable
* A collectible booklet featuring the Powells.com interview and Indiespensable Q&A with Bill Clegg
* ARC of Tuesday Nights in 1980s by Molly Prentiss
* Trailhead Coffee Roasters sample bag of Sunbreak Morning Blend
Did You Ever Have a Family
by Bill Clegg
-Family, Death, Contemporary Fiction Amazon | Goodreads | Powells
The stunning debut novel from bestselling author Bill Clegg is a magnificently powerful story about a circle of people who find solace in the least likely of places as they cope with a horrific tragedy.
Alone and directionless, June drives across the country, away from her small Connecticut town. In her wake, a community emerges, weaving a beautiful and surprising web of connections through shared heartbreak.
From the couple running a motel on the Pacific Ocean where June eventually settles into a quiet half-life, to the wedding’s caterer whose bill has been forgotten, to Luke’s mother, the shattered outcast of the town—everyone touched by the tragedy is changed as truths about their near and far histories finally come to light.
Elegant and heartrending, and one of the most accomplished fiction debuts of the year, Did You Ever Have a Family is an absorbing, unforgettable tale that reveals humanity at its best through forgiveness and hope. At its core is a celebration of family—the ones we are born with and the ones we create.
Tuesday Nights in 1980
by Molly Prentiss
-Art, Contemporary Fiction Amazon | Goodreads | Powells
An intoxicating and transcendent debut novel that follows a critic, an artist, and their shared muse as they find their way—and ultimately collide—amid the ever-evolving New York City art scene of the 1980s.
Welcome to SoHo at the onset of the eighties: a gritty, quickly gentrifying playground for artists and writers looking to make it in the big city. Among them: James Bennett, a synesthetic art critic for the New York Times whose unlikely condition enables him to describe art in profound, magical ways, and Raul Engales, an exiled Argentinian painter running from his past and the Dirty War that has enveloped his country. As the two men ascend in the downtown arts scene, dual tragedies strike, and each is faced with a loss that acutely affects his relationship to life and to art.
It is not until they are inadvertently brought together by Lucy Olliason—a small town beauty and Raul’s muse—and a young orphan boy sent mysteriously from Buenos Aires that James and Raul are able to rediscover some semblance of what they’ve lost.
Top Ten Tuesday
meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish -details
Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created here at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!
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January 27: Ten Books I'd Love to Read With My Book Club/If I Had A Book Club (or you could pick a specific kind of book club -- like if you had a YA book club or an adult book club or a science fiction book club etc.)
For my fantasy vvb32 reads book club here are my picks for the year - most of which are in my TBR pile.
Come to think of it, I think I will go ahead and make this official. I will post review links here as posts go up.
JANUARY: for Celebrity Read a Book Week (last full week of January)
and Ewan McGregor is reading...
Beatrix Potter The Complete Tales (Peter Rabbit)
by Beatrix Potter Amazon | Goodreads
=====> I will pick out at least two stories from the collection as January is already booked.
FEBRUARY:
The Secret of Pembrooke Park
by Julie Klassen
-Christian, Historical, Jane Austen theme
Just released: December 2014 Amazon | Goodreads | my review
=====> part of a book tour
MARCH:
Razorhurst
by Justine Larbalestier
-Paranormal, YA
Release date: March 3, 2015 Amazon | Goodreads | my review
APRIL: for National Poetry Month
Brown Girl Dreaming
by Jacqueline Woodson
-Poetry, Memoir Amazon | Goodreads | dnf
Stacking the Shelves
hosted by Tynga's Reviews (details)
Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!
Published: 2012
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Genre: Fantasy, Steampunk, YA
Hardback: 368 pages
Rating: 4.5
Surrounded by enemies, the once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a swath of near impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh. Now its fate may rest on the shoulders of one lonely refugee.
Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life—a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling.
Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha . . . and the secrets of her heart.
Shadow and Bone is the first installment in Leigh Bardugo's Grisha Trilogy.
The Grisha series:
Shadow and Bone
Siege and Storm
Ruin and Rising
PeekAbook:
My two-bits:
I gobbled this book pretty quick and wondered what took me so long to get around to it.
It is such a wonderful start to this pseudo-russian fantasy trilogy! But, this one can stand on its own as well.
This heroine coming-of-age story has twists and turns that leaves the heroine wondering who is friend and who is foe. I loved watching the main character, Alina, come into her own and find her way through the darkness that threatens her.
Of course, there is touch of romance that works itself into the story that is just the right amount for sweet moments.
Some descriptions for this book says steampunk of which I found just a bit of in regards to gadgetry. Maybe the other two books have more steampunk vibe.
