A Gathering of Shadows: A Novel | 
pickMind blowing. I loved this book. V.E. Schwab has this talent where she could to take something and make it interesting easily. I‘ll admit the book was a bit slow paced near the start (until practically half the book) but it was written in such a magnificent way, that I didn‘t want to put it down once engaged.
I loved the storyline, I love the characters, and I cannot wait until I start the next book! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
“People could only hurt you if you cared enough to let them.”
My greatest fear in life isn‘t dying. It‘s being the source of someone else‘s suffering. I know you feel trapped. I know I‘m your cage.
You cannot be the symbol of power and an ordinary man at the same time. You have to choose.
“Politics is a dance until the moment it becomes a war. And we control the music.”
Do you know what makes you weak?
You never had to be strong.
Magic is tangled, so you must be smooth.
Magic is wild, so you must be tame.
Magic is chaos, so you must be calm.
Lila supposed it would be better not to slit the captain‘s throat in plain sight.
No, it could be done in private.
so-soI went into this book with high expectations because the first book in the trilogy was so good but it just didn‘t hit the mark for me. I was really quite bored until the last few chapters when things started to finally happen. But at least the ending made sure I‘ll have to read the third book too.
Another beautiful day reading outside! 📚🍁🍂 I hope there are many more gorgeous fall days this month! 💕 I'm hoping to finish this today and move on to my reread of A Conjuring of Light next! After that, there's nothing left to do but wait for the first Threads of Power book to be published! 😭
I forgot how much I love these characters! ❤️ Also, it's a little colder today, but still perfect outside reading weather! 🍁🍂📚
It's actually pretty warm today! And lots of sunshine again! ☀️🌿 Still beautiful outside reading weather! 💕📚
Behold! Coldstone has a Halloween themed ice cream! 🎃🍁🖤 It's cake batter flavor (and colored black!), and filled with m&m's, kit kats, and Halloween Oreos! Plus the waffle cone is orange! HOW EPIC IS THIS?!?! 😱 It looks...kind of menacing in the picture, but I promise that it was in fact delicious! 😅 Eating this at the pavilion in town while reading was particularly blissful! 🎃
so-so3✨The second book in the series did pretty well. Events in the first book caused two characters to be connected. This got pretty repetitive as the story went on. However, a game/ event similar to gladiators caused a lot of drama all around. Magic was learned and used in this battle game, and it made the story more exciting.
I am almost done with the tagged book so my next audio while I clean for Easter is Beyonders. I may DNF the tales of ancient Egypt this month since I‘m finding no drive to pick it up. I started Dinoverse #4 yesterday and I‘m already two chapters in. 😍 @Andrew65 #weekendreading
Didn‘t have a babysitter today so I cleaned some of the yard for Easter. Just let the girls play while I listened to the tagged book I managed to capture two ducks in the sun on this beautiful spring day. 💛😍
I spent most of the day being mom to a sick cutie so now as a teacher I have to do my job. Setting up next weeks work so I can do my household duties tomorrow. Whew. Next week will be a nice quick week. 😊
pickFinished this today! I always worry a series is going to not deliver the longer the books go. This one kept the momentum and had me inhaling each page. So very good #readingchallenge2022
pickI don‘t really know what to say about this book, to be honest I was wondering how, after the ending of the first book, the story with these AMAZING characters would continue. I have to say that I‘m far from disappointed and honestly quite speechless. I loved the fact that this book focused a lot more on the magic in the world and how the characters developed. I cannot wait to start reading the next book because I HAVE to know how it ends.
4.5⭐️
She knew she should probably bow, kiss his hand, or swoon-at the very least explain what she was doing there, in the private palace halls, as close to the prison as anyone would let her-but instead she flicked her fingers, producing a small blade. “Who do I need to kill?”
“Impossibility is a thing that begs to be disproven.”
“A reminder.”
[…]
“Of what?” asked Ister.
Lila took up the dagger hilts and slid them into her forearm plates. “That I‘m stronger than my odds.”
He wanted to kiss her.
But she kissed him first.
“Do you think you‘ll ever stop running?”
She tensed against him. “I don‘t know how.”
Kell‘s free hand drifted up her bare arm to the nape of her neck. He tipped his head and rested his forehead against hers.
“You could just…” he whispered, “stay.”
“Or you could go,” she countered, “with me.”
“The thing about freedom, Kell? It doesn‘t come naturally. Almost no one has it handed to them.”
“Everyone thinks I have a death wish, you know? But I don‘t want to die-dying is easy. No, I want to live, but getting close to death is the only way to feel alive. And once you do, it makes you realize that everything you were doing before wasn‘t actually living. It was just making do.”
“Where have you been?”
Lila smirked. “Why, did you miss me?”
Kell opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again before finally managing to answer, “Yes.”
He opened his mouth, and Lila braced herself for an attack. But instead of yelling, Kell exhaled, held out his hand, and said, “Dance with me.”
Then she had an idea.
A novel, dangerous idea, which was, of course, her favorite kind.
If anyone was bullheaded enough to do something this stupid, this rash, this suicidal, it was the girl who‘d picked his pocket that night in Grey London, who‘d followed him through a door in the worlds-a door she should never have survived-and faced the black stone and the white royals and death itself with a sharpened smile.
It was the man she‘d fought beside in three different Londons. The one she‘d stolen from and threatened and saved. It was Kell.
The last time he‘d felt this alive, someone was trying to kill him.
Even when the people grew thin and pale, even when they began to rot inside and out, even when they had no food, no strength, no power, the stories survived.
“I do not know why you two are circling each other like stars. It is not my cosmic dance. But I do know that you come asking after one another, when only a few strides and a handful of stairs divide you.”
If anyone could make the strange seem ordinary, the impossible look easy, it was Delilah Bard.
“I‘m sorry.” He sounded so…earnest, which made Lila instantly suspicious. Alucard was many things, but genuine wasn‘t usually one of them.
“For growing on me?” She asked.
He shook his head. “For whatever happened to you. For whoever hurt you so deeply that you see things like friends and fondness as weapons instead of shields.”
“This is a bad idea,” said Kell, not because he expected to change Rhy‘s mind, but simply because it was his job to say it, so that later he could tell the king and queen he‘d tried.
“The best kind.”
Not all things grew in gardens.
Plenty of plants grew wild.
And Lila had always thought of herself more as a weed than a rose bush.
People survived by being cautious, but they got ahead by being bold.
“Don‘t you have enough knives?” He grumbled, his lip thrust forward in a pout.
Lila‘s smile sharpened. “No such thing.”
I am Delilah Bard, she thought as the ropes cut into her skin. I am a thief and a pirate and a traveler. I have set foot in three different words, and lived. I have shed the blood of royals and held magic in my hands. And a ship full of men cannot do what I can. I don‘t need any of you.
I am one of a damned kind.
