My new favorite store to buy books from – Ollies! Granted to books are usually a few years old, but it has encouraged me to seek out new authors as a result. They are my bargain buys, that mostly work out. Currently, I have six in line to read that I picked up there. Unfortunately, they keep getting pushed back due to recently released library books that I want to read – just not purchase 😁.
Most recently on the new release book list – Decimate by Cristopher Rice (yep, Ann Rice’s son carrying on the family business 😁). I first picked him up in 2019 when he released the first book in the Burning Girltrilogy, which I loved 💜. So when this came out, I decided to give it a read. The first 200 pages run at a steady rate, but boy I hit around 210 or so and I could not put it down. I spent 2 hours Saturday night and another three Sunday just plowing through it (it clocked in at a whopping 420 pages 😮). The story, the characters – perfection, and I didn’t see the twists and turns it took, which is always a plus for me!
Prior to that, I had borrowed The Book of Night by Holly Black. Now some people might label this magical realism, I like to think of it as supernatural set in a universe one step left of ours 😜. Another favorite even though I struggled a little with the concept a bit. Again, characters I enjoyed and a story that had a different spin to it, although I did figure out the “surprise ending” long before I got to it. But I enjoyed it enough to finish in about 4-5 days.
Speaking of supernatural adjacent worlds, I picked up the book The Library of the Dead by T.L. Huchu at B&N because I had a gift card, and it was buy one get one 50% of paperbacks so this was one of two I picked up. The book was originally released in 2021 so guess what? The sequel, Our Lady of Mysterious MaladiesAilments (I keep saying Maladies because alliteration 😁), was already released so I trotted over to the library once again to grab it because I was hooked 🪝, despite the protagonist annoying character flaws 😆😆. I am looking forward to the third book, whenever it gets released, I am that big of a book geek 😊.
The other paperback I picked up with The Library of the Dead was The Family Plot by Meg Collins. Of all the books I’ve read in this post, this was the least successful for me. I emphasis for me because, not everyone likes the same thing, so some of you might want to give it a go as you might enjoy it more than I did 🙂. But I did finish it, despite figuring most of it out, so there’s that (trust me, I will put a book aside if I am not enjoying it at all).
My current read is When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill. I’m about 50 pages in and while I like the concept of the book, I’m not sure I care for the writing style. So, I may cheat read my way through it because Kim Harrison latest in the Hollows series will be released on Tuesday and I’ve already ordered it. I cannot wait to see my old friends 🤗.
Lastly, I would like to say that it sucks when one of your favorite authors is from Sweden. For some reason it takes forever to get English translated copies of books. Right now, she has at least two books not available to me and is planning another in her primary series and I don’t know how long I’ll have to wait before I can get my hands on any of them 😭.
The life of a reader….
My Lemons My Lemonade 