Every Thursday, I will post a new book review here. Check back for the latest reads.
-
Call the Canaries Home: Not what I expected, but not bad
Three estranged sisters convene at their Meemaw’s house for a weekend, where they must confront their differences as they try to understand the decades-old disappearance of their fourth sister.
-
Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Worse the more I think about it
In a small café in Tokyo, patrons can travel in time – but they have to return before their coffee gets cold. This book follows four different women who decide to do just that.
-
Divine Rivals: Sweet and well-written
Two competing young journalists navigate life, love, and the front line in the midst of war between gods.
-
August 2023 DNF Roundup
In lieu of a review this week, I’m covering a quick list of some recent DNFs (books I gave up on). Come sip the tea.
-
Warbreaker: An instant favorite
One princess is forced to marry the God King and another begins a quest of vengeance, setting off a chain of magical and political events.
-
House of Sky and Breath (Book 2): Entertaining, but overall just okay
Bryce and Hunt are dragged into the rebel cause, only to discover that nothing about their world is as it seems.
-
A Deadly Education: Perfect for teen readers
At the Scholomance, half the students won’t survive to graduation. El is doing well enough – except her magic is powerful and inconveniently primed for evildoing, so she has to be careful not to raze the whole place down.
-
House of Hunger: An addicting sapphic gothic tale
In a world where blood is a valuable commodity, a young woman named Marion agrees to become an indentured bloodmaid for a noblewoman – but not everything in the mansion is as it seems.
-
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Book 1): Cozy and delightful
Emily Wilde is a socially awkward scholar of fairies. In this diary, she records the encounters and events she faces in a small Scandinavian village as she attempts to study their previously undocumented “Hidden Ones.”
-
A Dowry of Blood: Dark and seductive
Told from the perspective of Constanta’s letters to Dracula, we follow her through the centuries of her second life as the ancient vampire’s first bride.
-
The Ocean at the End of the Lane: Whimsical and creepy
A middle-aged man suddenly remembers the strange, magical happenings he experienced as a child when he returns to visit the house at the end of the lane from his childhood home.
-
Ninth House (Book 1): Gripping and creepy
Alex Stern, who has lived a hard life of drugs and petty crime, is offered a place in Yale’s secret dark magic societies because of her unique ability to see ghosts. One semester in, a woman turns up dead – and Alex thinks the societies are involved.
-
Outlawed: Intriguing, but slow
Ada’s life of crime begins after she fails to conceive a child, is accused of witchcraft, and runs away to a gang of non-conforming outlaws.
-
The Hawthorne Legacy (Book 2): Entertaining but not mind-blowing
The plot thickens as Avery tries to find the one man who may know why a stranger left his billions to her instead of his own family.
-
Mary Jane: A delightful, cozy read
In 1975 Baltimore, 14-year-old sheltered Mary Jane takes a summer nannying job in a home where the psychologist father is treating a drug-addicted rock star and his movie star wife.
