I love these sandwiches so much! And this recipe made them so easy! #DinnerByTheBook

Jess, having recently moved to Malaysia w/ her parents, starts hearing a voice in her head that claims to be her grandmother who needs help w/ some unfinished business. Only then Jess gets mixed in w/ a god, gangsters, & family secrets.

I really loved the world building & the fantastical elements in this. But there was something about how Jess & Ah Ma‘s relationship shifted that bugged me. & this got much darker than I usually enjoy.🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑

Before coffee, before Thune, before retirement, Viv is a mercenary waiting to heal while her band moves against a necromancer. Relaxing in a small sea side town should be easy, right?

I adored this prequel! Seeing Viv‘s backstory was lovely, Fern & her bookstore were a delight, & Satchel was hilarious. It felt a little too quickly resolved, & the epilogue felt a bit sequel bait, but overall I really enjoyed this! Even the romance! 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑

#WeeklyForecast

My hold on Buried Deep just came in and I cannot wait to get to it! 🩵

#BookReport

I am loving Bookshops and Bonedust so much!

Henry, king of Elben, must tie 6 wives to 6 palaces to keep the country safe. When Queen Boleyn & Queen Seymour become friends, a truth of the kingdom‘s magic long buried will be brought to light.

What a lush fantasy! So much political intrigue, a fantastical reimagining of history, & sapphic pining. The romance could have been developed more for me, & I would have liked more of the other queens. But I was enthralled the whole time.🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑

It‘s not that I haven‘t read a lot of McGuire, it‘s that I want to read even more! I want to get caught up on the Incryptid series. I want to read the copy of Middlegame someone gifted to me years ago. I want to reread the Wayward Children series to get ready for the next one!

#SundayFunday Have a marvelous day and don‘t forget to tag me in your posts!

After the deaths of their parents, 3 sisters find their lives being drawn into different directions from the magical tearoom they run together.

This was delightful! I loved the historical fantasy setting, the sisters‘ relationship was both complicated & lovely, & there was some plot misdirection that kept me guessing. The sisters did feel a little too similar sometimes, & I‘m not a fan of miscommunication for angst‘s sake. 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑

This cookbook was a Christmas gift, and I had so much fun cooking out of it tonight! So many flashbacks! #DinnerByTheBook

To save his family‘s business, Matti is ready to marry a woman he doesn‘t love. Hiring a swordsman to act as his best man for the wedding may create as many problems as it solves.

A really lovely historical romantasy. Matti‘s dedication to his family broke my heart, & I loved the development both in him & in the love story. It is very slow, & I think The Last Binding series is stronger narratively, but the tension is good & paced well.🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑

Helping my mom run some errands, so of course we‘ve got to stop at this lovely library. ❤️

#SLC #SaltLakeCounty

It‘s here! 💚🩷💚🩷💚

Part two of a movie musical based on a stage musical based on a book based on a movie musical based on a book. Phew!

#BookAdaptations

Semi serious question. I‘ve been going through my books trying to get rid of some (none so far 😅) and I found my copy of Wicked I tried to read back in high school. Should I give it another go?

https://youtu.be/BRt-qexTWy4?si=riPJksD-LycwtNTp

Dog sitting for some neighbors this week, and I thought I‘d head over, hang out with the dogs, and get some reading done out on the lawn.

The dogs did not agree with this plan. 😂

Happy Pride Month! #BookSpinBingo #BingoBoard

#BookSpin The Hanging City, #DoubleSpin Paris in the 20th Century

#Roll100 The Yiddish Policemen‘s Union, Quiet, Gwenhwyfar

#OokBOokClub Men at Arms

#BobWhiteBuddies Mystery of the Emeralds

#BeyondTheYellowBrickRoad The Patchwork Girl of Oz

#QueerBC Black Water Sister

#ThematicCozies Claws Out

#JuneOfARC The Hanging City, Written in Bone

The castle at Carelon is crumbling, Arthur is failing, & Morgan Le Fay has vanished. New characters & old must unite to save the kingdom from all that threatens it.

This was almost everything I wanted from the conclusion. Everything comes together, we get a grail quest, so many references. Some parts were a little glossed over, but very satisfying all around. & I loved our new characters so much! Going to have to look up more by Barron!🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗

What a lucky break!

My BookSpin read is one of my picks for #JuneOfARC and the DoubleSpin is a buddy read I‘m doing with a friend of mine! (I do still need to buy a copy of it though! 😅)

#MonthlyRoundup

Reading instead of of doomscrolling is paying off this past month! 😂

Was looking through my stats yesterday trying to convince my cousin to get Storygraph and I forgot how much I liked looking at all the little graphs. #Storygraph

#WeeklyForecast

I am so excited for all of my upcoming reads! 🎉🎉

#BookReport

The Stressed Eldest Sibling Energy in Swordcrossed means I‘m either going to blaze through it or take a month. No in between. 😅

Morgan has settled into life at court, only to find her life complicated by Merlin‘s machinations, Guinevere‘s animosity, & Arthur‘s ambitions. & then an old love appears.

A worthy follow up! Absolutely fantastic characterization as Morgan slides into villainy. It‘s believable, the way she finds herself disappointed by the people around her. I wish we could have gotten more of the secondary characters. But I am so excited for book 3! 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑

The only thing I‘m not ready for in June is the 97 degree weather we‘re getting today. 🫠

#BookSpinBingo

Happy Pride Month everyone! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

The tagged book is my choice for June‘s #QueerBC and I can‘t wait to get to it. I‘ve loved everything else I‘ve read by Zen Cho, although this looks pretty different.

#SundayFunday Hope you all have a safe and wonderful day, and don‘t forget to tag me!

What if it‘s not a prince that rescues Rapunzel, but Jack after his Beanstalk adventures? Together they must face faeries, monsters, & secrets to learn the truth of Rapunzel‘s past & save Jack‘s sister.

This was delightful, if a bit long. It gave me big Gail Carson Levine vibes. There are wonderful little references (Andrew Lang‘s fairy books!) throughout a powerful story about the loss of innocence, standing up for yourself, & family.🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑

Draw your swords and raise your banners! It‘s that time of year again my #NetGalley Littens!

Let‘s get that NetGalley backlog under control! At least a little bit! I have several June books coming up, so I don‘t know how well I‘m going to do on the backlog, but I hope to get at least two done! #JuneOfARC

In Lana‘s most thrilling adventure yet, someone is killing off members of a secret society in Cleveland‘s Asian community. As she helps a private investigator, she might learn more than she wants.

Such fun! I can‘t remember which of this series I‘ve already read, but this 1 stood well on its own. The mystery kept me guessing all through. & I really adored Lana‘s friendships. & I loved how intricately Cleveland was described. 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑

Got an arc for this, and it looks like it would work really well for June‘s Celebration theme for #ThematicCozies ! @julieclair

Love this shoyu chicken recipe out of this cookbook! #DinnerByTheBook

I am so excited for the June #Roll100 reads!

Dark Lord Davi now has the unenviable position of convincing her Horde to not actually kill all the humans, please & thank you? While trying to broker peace, Davi also begins to come to terms with her past & learns why she‘s here in the 1st place.

Liked this MUCH more than 1! Still funny, raunchy & violent, but Davi‘s character growth is great, her relationship w/ Tsav is wonderful. Wish there was more of the side characters from 1.🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗

A summer vacation gets upended when the BobWhites find a mysterious letter hinting at a map & a lost fortune. It‘s up to the club to track down the money, only someone else is looking too.

A solid mystery, & a pretty good resolution too! I really wish I could find a list of the ghost writers. Who leaves out Dan, who tones down Mart‘s bullying. I also really appreciate how Trixie‘s empathy is forefront through this whole story! 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑

Thanks for the tag @Eggs !

1. Honestly, I‘m pretty fond of my name, but if I had to choose a new one, I‘d pick a plant one. Nigella or Belladonna or Amaryllis.
2. Beta fish named Grover, dog named Riley, cat named Lucy.
3. I love a lot of the names in Tamora Pierce‘s Emelan books: Sandrilene, Trisana, Rosethorn.

#WondrousWednesday

I‘ve been spending the day working on a new novel idea, and it‘s my first time writing without any kind of outline.

It is both terrifying and exhilarating. 😂

#WeirdWordWednesday #WeirdWords @CBee

W/ the bank ready to foreclose the farm, Dorothy decides to plead to Ozma to let Uncle Henry & Aunt Em move to Oz. At the same time, the Nome King has decided to invade Oz.

A much more solid plot. Nome recruitment & war planning alternates w/ Dorothy showing new places of Oz to her family. There‘s also a huge increase in puns 😆. The ending was a little disappointing, but I‘m also no longer the real target audience for Ozma‘s speech.🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑

Ava is a vampire kept in her tower home by her mother. Kaye is a witch, vowing to kill the vampires that murdered her mother. Former friends, now enemies, when they have to make it through the forest, they‘ll only have each other to depend on.

For a story of a vampire/mortal war, this felt too slow. All the characters felt flat, & I did not care about the romance. I was fascinated by the magic system, & the narrators were pretty good.🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑

#WeeklyForecast

I‘m enjoying Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me so much!

#BookReport

What an eclectic collection this past week has been! 😂

Introducing Alexander to her family is so much more fraught when Saffron discovers that the dastardly Bill Wyatt has infiltrated her family home as a doctor. It‘s up to her to find what he‘s looking for, before he follows through on his threats.

My favorite! It felt so much tighter, we had an interesting B plot, & I loved the introduction of Saffron‘s family. The romance is also much more solid here, & Elizabeth continues to delight me.🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑

This one! It was a buddy read with a friend, and oh this one moved me so much. And the audiobook was fantastic.

#SundayFunday Hope you all have a wonderful day, and don‘t forget to tag me in your posts!

An informative and emotional history of one of my favorite indie bookstore: The King‘s English in Salt Lake City, Utah.

I grew up visiting this store, and it was a true delight to learn how it came to be and how it operates. I really appreciated reading of the difficulties they‘ve dealt with. And many big name authors have visited! Also many, many book lists to peruse and take notes on! 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑

Clem & Cris are twins dealing w/ untold troubles: the death of their father, their mother sick, their family reputation lost, & a widening gap between them. When they learn that something else may be behind that, they‘ll have to work together to figure it out.

W/ unnecessary POV chapters, uneven pacing, & too many characters, I wasn‘t completely sold. But I was fascinated by the sibling relationship & the magic system through the end.🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑

It‘s time for yard work! #AudioGardening

Sometimes, you just gotta buckle down and do the work. 💙

#WeirdWordWednesday #WeirdWords @CBee

When Lily arrives in the afterlife she finds that nothing is what she expected. The demons are hot, Hell is for Justice, & she enjoys working the Hellp Desk

If you haven‘t watched Jaysea‘s TikTok series that inspired this book, I recommend it! This book is the prequel, telling of Lily‘s journey, & her discovering the joys of the afterlife. A little long, & a little more sex, but full of heart & tears & an afterlife I could get behind.🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑

Tanith‘s job as a ride conductor becomes much more complicated w/ drug deals between cast members, management union busting, & oh yes, somebody is killing the other park employees.

Everything just felt so rushed. I liked the idea of poking fun at big amusement parks, mixed w/ a fairy tale themed serial killer, & the art was good & felt on brand, but we didn‘t get time to get to know anyone, & the ending wasn‘t set up enough for me. 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑

Celeste is trying to escape the poverty of her home town. Dominic is trying to survive manipulative parents & a controlling boyfriend. & their ship is also transporting alien remains. Only, the aliens aren‘t as dead as they thought.

Loved the 2 MCs though their voices were too similar for both to be 1st person, & it had a slow start for a novella. But also fun world building in a short time, great side characters, & a hook of an ending!🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑

#WeeklyForecast

My hold on The Witch and the Vampire came in and I‘m super excited!

#BookReport

Lots of fun reads this past week!

After the averted end of the world, Greta is tasked w/ a road trip w/ an angel & a demon to see if they can work together w/out having allergic reactions. Too bad this trip coincides w/ an attempted coup of the New York undead mob.

I‘m torn. This fixed 1 of my major problems w/ book 3, but also went straight back to Greta & The Boys. I found the mystery fascinating, the side characters charming, but the ending a bit abrupt & too open.🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑

I listened to this on audiobook, and while I really enjoyed the story, boy this sucker is long! 😂

#SundayFunday Have a marvelous day, and don‘t forget to tag me in your posts!