Month: April 2019

Top Ten Tuesdays #231: Rainy Day

Posted April 16, 2019 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 8 Comments
Top Ten Tuesdays #231: Rainy Day

Rainy Day Reads Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. You can take this a few different ways based on how YOU like to spend a rainy day reading – maybe books with rainy settings, sweeping fantasy reads that pull you in and out of wherever you are, long books to curl up with and get lost in, or short books that you can binge in one day… I’ve decided to talk about all of these today! Stereotypically Rainy Settings Seattle | Parts of Europe (Ireland) If you google some stereotypically rainy places, you’re likely going to see Ireland and Seattle, WA on the list. I was going to include some more but these three books jumped out at me, so here we are with two locations. SERIOUS MOONLIGHT really showed the quirky side to Seattle, which I appreciated (as someone who has never been there!). Both LOVE & LUCK and THE UPSIDE OF FALLING DOWN featured heroines in Ireland… definitely experiencing vastly different things while they’re there! Pretend You’re Somewhere Else Portal fantasy | Cute small beach town | Huge manor | Cross-country train trip One of my favorite fantasy duos is THE MARKED GIRL and THE BROKEN WORLD, because apparently […]

Lauren Lately | April 2019

Posted April 15, 2019 / Features, Lauren Lately, Wrap-Ups / 4 Comments
Lauren Lately | April 2019

Because my Bookmark Lit Bulletin wrap-ups got out of hand, I wanted to break up my monthly wrap-ups into two posts: one personal and one bookish/bloggy. I created Lauren Lately here to highlight all of the personal happenings in my life: events, activities, shows I’m addicted to, things I’m obsessing over, recipes I’ve loved, and goals for the next month. I decided to space them out so this wrap-up happens around the mid-point of the month and the bookish one happens at the end of the month. ✨ Check out my most recent bookish and bloggy wrap-up HERE ✨ What I’ve Been Up To Maple Festival | The town next to ours hosts a cute Maple-themed festival in March each year, so we invited up our maple-syrup loving friends for the weekend! We bought a looooot of maple food, walked around the little fair, and then showed them around the UConn area (including their amazing dairy bar ice cream!). We went out for Mexican later AND got some Insomnia Cookies because clearly our MO was to eat ALL DAY LONG. Weird weather | We got a freak snowstorm one night in March. Like… completely unexpected. We got probably 3-4 inches at our house, while about 3-5 miles away there was ZERO SNOW. How is that even possible?! We also got a lot of nicer, warmer weather in the last few weeks too. It’s been a bizarre Spring so far but honestly I don’t expect anything less from New England! Bridal shower and various plans […]

Review Round Up | The Goose Girl, The Cottingley Secret, and Everything Must Go

Posted April 12, 2019 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments
Review Round Up | The Goose Girl, The Cottingley Secret, and Everything Must Go

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! When planning out my books for the retellings challenge this year, I knew I needed to attempt THE GOOSE GIRL. This is a classic fantasy novel that everyone seems to love. It reminded me a bit of ELLA ENCHANTED or STARDUST when it got started, with the princess/girl heading out on some kind of adventure/quest/etc. It honestly took me a little while to get into this and see what all the fuss was about, but it was worth it. I should also mention that I started with the audiobook, which has a full cast (!!) and was pretty adorable as a result. The latter half of the book was pretty fantastic, honestly. I’m glad I wasn’t fully aware of the original Brothers Grimm story, or else I wouldn’t have gasped as much as I did LOL. I didn’t see certain things coming and was honestly on the edge of my seat, deciding to finish the book off as an ebook instead of an audiobook. Ani was a great character to watch grow up and learn about life outside of being a princess. Her experience as a goose girl definitely shaped her into a more well-rounded person. I loved the bit of romance, even though it definitely wasn’t […]

Seasonal Reading: Updates and Discussion

Posted April 11, 2019 / Discussions, Features / 7 Comments
Seasonal Reading: Updates and Discussion

I’ve talked at great lengths about how I read very seasonally. (I wrote a TTT post and a discussion post about a seasonal book club I’d create!) I read Christmas/holiday/winter books during that season, super summery/beachy books during that time of year, and a decent amount of other books in between. After reading Stephanie’s discussion about reading holiday books during other times of the year, I thought I’d revisit this topic and discuss how I maaaay have gotten even pickier about this LOL. Fall Reads September Let’s kick this off with my favorite month of the year! Books about football will be read during this month, of course, if I happen to find any appropriate ones! This is a niche topic but the start of football season brings on ALL the feels for me. I also will try to read books about schools or new school years starting up during September since it brings me back to those days of my life. Anything school-heavy (especially boarding school) will probably get read here. Pictures: books about school (2/3 of them), all of them about football! October I don’t read a lot of super scary books, but generally spooky stories (especially mysteries, thrillers, Halloween-themed, and very light horror-ish books) will be read in October. I don’t lean in on this like many of my blogging friends do, but it certainly happens for me. I like atmospheric fall-time reads in October for sure – something that makes me feel the chill in the air and the slow shift […]

Blog Tour Review & Cover Colors: Last Girl Lied To

Posted April 10, 2019 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments
Blog Tour Review & Cover Colors: Last Girl Lied To

Review I was a huuuuge fan of Flynn’s debut novel, FIRSTS, so I was super eager to find out what she’d be writing next. She started with a contemporary and then, for her sophomore novel, moved into mystery. I could totally see her knocking this kind of book out of the park, along with a new-ish pen name to match the new genre. Needless to say, I signed up for this blog tour so quickly! This book was incredibly addicting. There’s something about her writing that makes you want to keep reading until the book is over; I remember the same feeling with FIRSTS and reading it in 1-2 sittings. It also helped that the chapters were often really short and easy to breeze through, eager to see what would happen next. Fiona recounts the night Trixie supposedly walked into the ocean and various points of their friendship, while living her life in present day, trying to figure out what happened that night. I liked that the book was mostly about Fiona’s relationship with herself (and her body image issues), trying to remember who she was before and during her friendship with Trixie, in order to figure out who she actually is without any friends influencing her too much. There was a common pattern where she’d mold herself into whatever her friends needed her to be, which caused her to lose sight of things she loved (like fashion and making clothes). As I said, she’s also trying to figure out what […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #230: Outrageous Bookish Things

Posted April 9, 2019 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 8 Comments
Top Ten Tuesdays #230: Outrageous Bookish Things

Things I’ve Done for the Love of Books Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. This is such a unique topic! I honestly can’t think of a lot of outrageous things I’ve done for my love of books, so I’ll spin this topic a little bit. I’ll talk about bookish habits or weird things I’ve done (or currently do) for books, as well as some of those books that made me stay up too late! Reading at Work I try to behave at work and not do too many personal things when I need to get things done… but there are a few books that just needed to get done based on deadlines! They’re mostly surrounding ARC tours and mailing deadlines from back in the day, but sometimes book club is coming or addiction just overtakes me. Dream a Little Dream by Kerstin Gier and Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon (borrowed and read for an ARC tour, needed to mail THAT DAY and hadn’t finished the books yet) Shadowlands trilogy by Kate Brian (was so addicted to these that I read all three books in quick succession through a week that my boss was out on vacation) The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson (only had […]

Series I’ve Religiously Read

Posted April 8, 2019 / Book Lists, Discussions, Features / 13 Comments
Series I’ve Religiously Read

I was thinking about this the other day when I was working on a review round-up post. I realized that one of the books on there is one where I would religiously read the next book, the new release, each year it came out. I tend to get behind on a LOT of series, where I read one or two books and then sleep on the rest like a dummy… but there are some series, in the past few years, where you’d find me reading the next book ASAP (within the first month or so after it came out). I figured I would do a little post to honor those and talk about this phenomenon in general. These are also books where the first book published, I read it ASAP, and then continued the series. I won’t be talking about those like Haven Point or Black Dog Bay where I read a bunch of backlist ones first to catch up. I’m also going to avoid duos or trilogies where the next ones haven’t come out yet. OKAY, here we go! Beautiful Idols by Alyson Noël I really enjoyed some other works by this author back in the day and this series was a bit of a crack-book kind of thing. I couldn’t stop reading them; they were deliciously dramatic and easy to read, like Gossip Girl or The A-List. Any book series that reminds me of those nostalgic, super long and crazy series from high school, will probably be devoured by me […]

Spotlight: Forever Romance

Posted April 5, 2019 / Features, Spotlight / 6 Comments
Spotlight: Forever Romance

My new Spotlight feature highlights anything within the bookish world that I feel deserves a spotlight for a few minutes – publishers (or more specifically, imprints!), new or old favorite authors, bookish people/bloggers, covers or cover trends, topics/genres within books, and anything else that should be on your radar. Forever Romance Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Am I biased about Forever because I love Estelle, their marketing/PR guru? Could be. But honestly, this imprint is one of my very favorites lately. The stories, authors, books – they all speak for themselves… and, of course, my ratings speak to how much I genuinely enjoy their titles. Forever Romance is an imprint under Grand Central Publishing (Hachette). They focus specifically on romance titles. Forever Yours focuses on ebooks and digital-first publishing. I came to know Forever when Estelle started her position there and it’s been so great to collaborate with her! You may remember during the holiday season when I worked with Forever on the All Hale Christmas Wishes read-a-long. Jenny Hale has been one of my favorite holiday writers for years now and being able to see one of my FAVORITES become a cute paperback through Forever was an awesome experience. Today I’ll be sharing some of my favorite things about Forever Romance, books I recommend (and books still on my TBR!), and why I think you should focus on this imprint for all of your romance needs 😉 Small Town Romance (Including Holiday Stories!) One of the biggest […]

Unreleased Excitement

Posted April 4, 2019 / Discussions, Features / 8 Comments
Unreleased Excitement

I wrote a lot of these posts back before 2017 and it was fun to share books I was super excited for. I include these sometimes  when I talk about books I added to my list, but not to this extent! I have plenty of fresh releases to add to your TBRs, folks. I’m only including books that have cover art because it just makes my life easier. As usual, I won’t be including books I have review copies for right now. Last Girl Lied To by L.E. Flynn | I didn’t need to read the synopsis to know that I wanted to read this book. I loved Flynn’s debut (under a slightly different version of her name). However, the summary definitely helps 😉 I’m a sucker for books where the character may have disappeared instead of died, all of the mysteries involved in finding out the truth, etc. GIVE ME IT. (I’m in the blog tour for this one next month – eeek!) A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson | Ugh yes please. I was a sucker for the Serial podcast just like everyone else. Cases that are “closed” that may not actually be solved correctly? Sign me up. This story involves the lead character investigating a murder (for a school project) that occurred in her small town five years earlier… and discovering that it may not be as solved as they all think. Virtually Yours by Sarvenaz Tash | Another author where I will add their books […]

ARC Review: Serious Moonlight

Posted April 3, 2019 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments
ARC Review: Serious Moonlight

Initial Excitement & Summary I’m a huge fan of Jenn Bennett. Seriously, huge. All of her books have been major successes in my eyes. She always creates somewhat unique situations for romance and develops her characters in wonderful ways. Her three releases before SERIOUS MOONLIGHT each earned 4.5 stars from me… so clearly I’m a fan. From an overall plot perspective, with the mystery solving and quirky settings across Seattle, this had the right setup to be another favorite by Bennett. Birdie and Daniel meet under interesting circumstances and find soonafter that they’ll be working together during the night shift at a famous Seattle hotel. They move past the awkwardness of their first meeting to solve a mystery together – an author, who remains anonymous and uses a pseudonym, is staying at their hotel each week, and they want to confirm his identity. Birdie is big into mystery novels and hopes to be a detective of some kind someday. Daniel loves magic and has a talent for woodworking. Both of them also have secrets they’re hiding from each other… Storytelling & End Feels I’ve never been to Seattle but I can say with certainty that I want to visit even more now! I know the hotel was made-up but the rest of the city felt real to me. I’d love to take a ferry to the island and explore the market on the other side. There were so many cool shops, like the bookstore (mysteries!) and magic shop, that made […]