1. A Scoundrel of Her Own by Stacy Reid, The Crane Wife by C .J. Hauser, Equal Partners by Kate Mangino

2. Goodnight Veggies by Diana Murray (any book that makes my baby squeal with delight is an auto-five star read)

3. A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher (a wonderful middle grade about doing more than you believe you are capable of to help your community)

#WeekendReads @rachelsbrittain

Cap Joyce was a cowboy who ran an Arizona dude ranch called the Spur Cross because acting like a cowboy, for tourists, was more lucrative than the actual herding of cattle.... He was my great-grandfather.

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

4.5/5

A quiet, meditative sequel to the first novella in this series. I loved reading about Mosscap experiencing this world that we first saw through Sibling Dex's eyes. It's such a beautiful series, and I really enjoyed the questions Mosscap and Dex posed and the understanding that not all questions have answers.

#netgalley

4.5/5

Maggie travels around the country flipping houses for her one million YouTube subscribers, and definitely isn't looking to put down roots. Then she takes on her most ambitious project yet in Kinship, Idaho, and her handsome landscape architect, Silas Wright, is immediately interested in changing her mind.

I loved the romance between Maggie and Silas, as well as the mystery behind the Campbell house.

#netgalley

"Did you consider just setting a pile of money on fire instead?"

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

3/5

I really loved For the Wolf, and I was so excited with where it left off because I thought the premise of For the Throne was incredible, but it fell short of my hopes. I liked a lot of the shadowlands stuff, but the rest fell short. There were more romance subplots, but somehow this book felt a lot less romantic to me.

1. Maggie Moves on by Lucy Score, A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers, and Ambitious Like a Mother by Lara Bazelon

2. Ever? According to goodreads, it might have been Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan.

This year: Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

3. I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston

#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain

She couldn't sleep.

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

#bookspin: A Prayer for the Crown-Shy
#doublebookspin: The Crane Wife

#bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks

I managed a bingo for May!

#bookspin #doublebookspin #bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks

The thing about fucking off to the woods is that unless you are a very particular, very rare sort of person, it does not take long to understand why people left said woods in the first place.

#FiratLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

4/5

This is such a sweet romance that takes place between two rivals on the high school robotics team. For Teo Luna, robotics is his passion, and he wants to be sure that everything goes perfectly his senior year. Bel is new to the school, but after impressing her physics teacher, ends up on the team, where she and Teo immediately butt heads.

I've got my June #bookspin list ready to go.

#bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks

3.5/5

Lyric and Kian are best friends and roommates. When Lyric's research on sexual attraction stalls, Kian offers to take her on fake dates to help figure out what's going wrong.

For a grad student studying sexual attraction, Lyric was painfully naive about relationships, and I got Emma vibes from how cluelessly Lyric kept trying to pair up Kian and her friend Zoey when it was very obvious that neither of them was interested in the other.

4/5

Aja moved to the small town of Greenbelt to get a handle on her anxiety, but so far her only social interaction happens every Wednesday night at bingo. Walker couldn't get away from his childhood trauma in Greenbelt fast enough when he graduated from high school, but when his Gram breaks both her arms, he comes home to help her around the house and at to play bingo for her on Wednesday nights, where he meets her bingo friend, Aja.

1. Bet on It by Jodie Slaughter, The Sizzle Paradox by Lily Menon, and Ambitious Like a Mother by Lara Bazelon

2. For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten

3. I'm going to try to read 10 books

#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain

4/5

A look into the language of both actual cults and groups with cult followings like soul cycle, cross fit, and amway, and how specific language helps define them. It was a super interesting read. The chapter on suicide cults was dark and a little difficult to get through, so I'd warn anyone thinking this is a light read, to be prepared for that.

All things considered, the frozen dinner section of the Piggly Wiggly was one of better public places to have a panic attack

#FirstLineFridays #ShyBookOwl

4.5/5

In this matriarchal society, second daughters are sacrificed to the Wilderwood that trapped the world's gods, monsters, and magic centuries ago. Red has had a taste of the dangerous magic the forest contains, but she learns that the stories she's been taught aren't entirely fictional or entirely true.

4/5

After a failed elopement destroyed Mina's reputation, she's stayed in her brother Anthony's country residence. When their lack of funds cause Anthony to duel Earl Crestwick, Mina takes his place and finds that the Earl isn't who she expected.

I loved all the politics in the book and thought it was a very fun read.

#netgalley

3/5

Shaina and Mark were born just ten days apart and their mothers have always wanted them to end up together, but between that pressure and Mark misunderstanding Shaina's disability they've always been enemies, until a competition to win a vacation forces them to work together.

I loved the hard of hearing and demisexual rep in the book. I did think the enemies part was a miscommunication that should have been sorted out before they were 33.

4/5

Freshman year, Chloe Green moves with her moms from LA to rural Alabama where she attends a private Christian high school. For four years Chloe has imagined herself and her friends as the only people who matter in this town, until Shara goes missing and leaves clues behind for Chloe to find her. It's a great book about realizing that people can be more complex than you've imagined them to be.

#netgalley

5/5

This has been one of my most read books this month, now that my son had figured out rhymes. It's a very sweet book with lovely illustrations.

1. I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuistin, The Un-arranged Marriage by Laura Brown, and Ambitious Like a Mother by Lara Bazelon

2. Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer

3. Below Zero by Ali Hazelwood

#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain

4/5

I've really enjoyed this series. Hazelwood played around with the order that all three stories were told both in present and past tense that I really enjoyed. I did find the Mars dirty talk in this one a little much, but I enjoyed it overall.

I usually have trouble reading classics, and I've never read Dracula, so I've been doing the Dracula Daily emails. I'm loving getting the book in bite sized chunks, so far, and I think reading along with the events of the book in real time will be very interesting. Is anyone else reading Dracula this way right now?

https://draculadaily.substack.com/about

4/5

Another STEM romance audiobook from Ali Hazelwood. When the power on her block goes out, Sadie ends up trapped in an elevator with a rival engineer who she hooked up with and then ghosted when he betrayed her trust.

I didn't like this one quite as much as Under One Roof, but I still enjoyed it. I do think it's very cool that this series is being released as audio first with different narrators for each book.

1. Stuck with You by Ali Hazelwood, The Un-arranged Marriage by Laura, and Ambitious Like a Mother by Lara Bazelon

2. Daffodils

3. It's my first mother's day, and my husband is going to watch the baby while I take a bath & read, for the first time since he was born.

#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain

My world comes to an end at 10:43 on a Friday night, when the elevator lurches to a stop between the 8th and 7th floor of the building that houses the engineering firm where I work.

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

4/5

I'm not usually a fan of friends to lovers romances, but this was a slow burn romance between friends that spans across ten years of summer trips they've taken together

My April reading went much better than expected once I realized how much easier it is to listen to an audiobook while feeding a baby.

#bookspinbingo

May #bookspin list. I left some extra room for audiobooks, since those are working best for me now that I have a newborn.

#bookspin #doublebookspin #bookspinbingo

You expect heroes to survive terrible things. If you give them a medal, then you don't ever have to ask why the terrible thing happened in the first place. Or try to fix it.

4/5

Mona is a 14 yeag old wizard whose medium is dough, so she's perfectly content to work in her aunt's bakery and leave the defense of her city to more powerful wizards. Until she's caught up in a plot to kill wizards, and her whole world is turned upside down.

Super fun read with strong Pratchett vibes. It also has an incredible quote about heroes and medals I'll post next.

3.5/5
I love the way Montgomery writes about animals. In this very short book, she writes about both the hawk and its wild fierceness, and the unique relationship falconers have with the birds. It's a very short read, but I loved the way it comes across how unlike humans, hawk's are with their incredible instincts.

#netgalley

Inches from my face, I hold a living dinosaur.

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

4/5

This was such a quick, fun romance. Actress Kimberleigh has plenty of secrets she hides from the public, so it's no surprise she and entertainment reporter Spencer got off on the wrong foot after a disastrous interview early in her career, but when she has a panic attack and Spencer helps her, they both learn there's more to the other person than they had thought.

#netgalley

4/5

I was so excited to see Jasmine Guillory's take on Beauty and the Beast in this series of Disney fairy tales adapted to contemporary romances. Izzy is an assistant at a publishing house and one of her tasks is emailing the reclusive celebrity Beau Towers for updates about he very late memoir, which are always ignored. Izzy goes to Beau's home in Southern California to try to finally find out what's going on, but ends up staying to help Beau.

4.5/5

I love a fairy tale inspired fantasy, especially those that acknowledge the dark roots of these stories, and this delivers with impossible tasks, fairy god mothers, and curses.

Marra is the third princess and soon learns as her sisters are married off one after the other, that the monsters of her world are princes and no one will risk the good of the kingdom to save a princess. Marra must find a way to save her sister and herself.

The trees were full of crows, and the woods were full of mad men. The pit was full of bones, and her hands were full of wires.

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

4/5

This look into Padme Amidala's life takes place after Queen's Peril and Queen's Shadow during the beginning of the Clone War and Padme's marriage to Anakin. Padme has fewer handmaid know that her job as senator has become more straight forward, but I loved that she did one last swap with Sabe, and I appreciated the look into Sabe and Sashe's lives at this time, and the foreshadowing for what Palpatine's plans for the future are.

#netgalley

1. By the Book by Jasmine Guillory and Queen's Hope by E. K. Johnston

2. A Proposal They Can't Refuse by Natalie Cana

3. The Emma Project by Sonali Dev

#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain

Isabelle Marlowe smiled at the world as she walked down the bustling, crowded Manhattan street. She couldn‘t help it.

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

4/5

A true crime podcaster finds herself in the middle of an actual murder mystery after her wife books them a trip to a remote Scottish hotel to work on their strained marriage. I loved how the book played with a lot of the classic murder mystery tropes and how the chapter titles referenced Clue. I thought the classic elements of a mystery paired well with the modern true crime podcast type investigation. It was a fun read.

March #bookspinbingo #bookspin #doublebookspin

I put together my April #bookspinbingo even though I think I'll be lucky to finish 4 books next month, including the two I'm currently reading.

#bookspin #doublebookspin @TheAromaofBooks

4.5/5

Another wonderful Dark Olympus novel. Helen is not a prize to be won, and she'll do what it takes to have her own power in the city, even competing to win the title of Ares against warriors like Achilles and Patroclus. Achilles is also hungry for the power that comes from being one of Olympus's elite, and with the help of his partner Patroclus, he is certain he will be the next Ares.

#netgalley

I've completed 12 #booked2022 prompts so far. The first half of a challenge is always the easiest since I just read what I want and see what matches a prompt, it's the second half that's harder when I start having to read outside my comfort zone a little more.

@Cinfhen @4thhouseontheleft @BarbaraTheBibliophage

4/5

Best selling co-authors, Nathan and Katrina, are as well known for their falling out as their novel, but with another book already contracted they're going to have to find a way to write together again.

This is the rare enemies to lovers where the characters actually hate each other. It does make the first half of the novel a bit unromantic, but I enjoyed the second half as Nathan and Kat sort out their complicated history with one another.

1. An Acquired Taste by Kelly Cain and The Roughest Draft by Emily Wibberly and Austin Siegemund-Broka

2. I started re-reading Anne of Green Gables last year, but never finished

3. I'd like to re-read Little Women

#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain