July 2023 Wrap Up

Here is what I read/posted/bought in July.

As always, let me know if you have read any of these books and (if you did) what you thought of them.


Books I Read:

ARC from Crooked Lane Books
Non-ARC from author
Non-ARC from author
Non-ARC from author
Non-ARC from author
Non-ARC from author
Kindle purchase
Free Kindle purchase
Free Kindle Purchase
Free Kindle Purchase
KU Purchase
ARC from Crooked Lane Books
ARC from Meryl Moss Media Group, Rosewind Books
ARC from Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, Del Rey
ARC from St. Martin’s Press, St. Martin’s Griffin
Non-ARC from Author
Free Kindle Purchase
Free Kindle Purchase
Free Kindle Purchase
Free Kindle Purchase
ARC from St. Martin’s Press
ARC from Sourcebooks Fire
ARC from Random House Publishing Group -Ballantine, Del Rey
ARC from Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, Dell
Free Kindle purchase
Free Kindle purchase
Kindle Purchase
Kindle Purchase
Free Kindle Purchase
Free Kindle Purchase
Kindle Purchase
Free Kindle Purchase
ARC from Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, Bantam
ARC from St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books
Non-ARC from author
ARC from Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, Ballantine Books
ARC from St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books

Books I got from NetGalley:

ARC from St. Martin’s Press, St. Martin’s Griffin
Wish granted from Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, Delacorte Press
Wish granted from Sourcebooks Fire
ARC from Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, Del Rey
ARC from St. Martin’s Press
ARC from St. Martin’s Press
Wish granted from Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, Dell
Limited time Read Now from St. Martin’s Press
Invite from author via his publisher–Level Best Books
Arc from St. Martin’s Press, St. Martin’s Griffin
ARC from Atria Books, Atria/Emily Bestler Books

Books I got from Authors/Indie Publishers:

ARC from author
Non-ARC from author

Giveaway Winners

The Bridge to Magic by Alex Thornbury


Books Reviewed:

Carving Up Reily by Paul Flanagan—review here (4 stars)

Playing with Fire by Flora McGowan—review here (4 stars)

The Voinico’s Slayer by Sallie Cochren—review here (4 stars)

Death By a Thousand Sips by Gretchen Rue—review coming September 5th, 2023

One*Life: Ameno by Blaze Dendukuri—review here (3 stars)

The Master of Demise by Nadija Mujagic—review here (4 stars)

Under Central Park: The Amulet’s Secret by D.W. Spinola—review here (4 stars)

Paper Targets: Art Can Be Murder by Steve S. Sardoff—review here (4 stars)

Dark Horse by Ann Hunter—review here (4 stars)

Hello Stranger by Katherine Center—review here (4 stars)

A Cryptic Clue by Victoria Gilbert—review here (4 stars)

Macarons Can Be Murder by Rose Betancourt—review here (3 stars)

My Goodbye Girl by Anna Gomez—review here (4 stars)

Thief Liar Lady by D.L. Sonia—review here (4 stars)

Play to Win by Jodie Slaughter—review here (4 stars)

Against the Odds by Ann Hunter—review here (4 stars)

Take the Honey and Run by Jennie Marts—review here (4 stars)

The Block Party by Jamie Day—review here (4 stars)

Have You Seen My Sister by Kirsty McKay—review coming September 5th

Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia—review here (4 stars)

Sammy Espinoza’s Last Review by Tehlor Kay Meija—review here (4 stars)

Blind Fear by Brandon Webb and John David Webb—review here (4 stars)

The Lady from Burma by Allison Montclair—review here (4 stars)

The Celine Bower Story by Carly Brown—review here (4 stars)

The Madwomen of Paris by Jennifer Cody Epstein—review here (4 stars)


The StoryGraph Reading Challenges:

June:

Scavenger Hunt (A book that was turned into a show/movie you haven’t seen): The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

PopSugar Reading Challenge 2023 (A book about a forbidden romance): Painted Love by Lacy Embers

2023 TBR Toppler (A book under 200 pages): Berkley Street by Ron Ripley

2023 Monthly Themes (June to the Moon: Sci-fi): The Liberty Box by C.A. Gray

2023 Reading Challenge (A retelling of a classic story/myth): Ariadne by Jennifer Saint

2023 ABC Challenge (F): Forever Black by Sandi Lynn

Romanceopoly 2023! (Read a contemporary romance by an author you haven’t tried before): Father Figure by James J. Cudney

2023 TBR Prompts (Shortest book on my TBR): Thirst by Graceley Knox

July:

Buzzword Reading Challenge 2023 (“Weather-related words: weather related words in the title: rain, storm, snow, clouds, sky, sunshine, hurricane): Stormcall by T.A. Marks

2023 Sami Parker Reads Title Challenge (A book that has a day of the week in the title): That Monday Girl by Julie Johnson

Cover Scavenger Hunt 2023 (Sky): Unbound by A.R. Shaw

The StoryGraph Reads the World 2023 (Pakistan): A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

The StoryGraph’s Genre Challenge 2023 (A fantasy novel written by an author of color): The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

Beat the Backlist 2023 (an author writing under a pseudonym): What Doesn’t Kill You by Jo Ho

Scavenger Hunt TBR Book Challenge (find a book with the same amount of pages as the last book and read it): Woman Scorned by Shannon Heuston

Scavenger Hunt (A book that was translated from another language): Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

PopSugar Reading Challenge 2023 (A book with “girl” in the title): The Fireproof Girl by Loretta Lost

2023 TBR Toppler (A book over 500 pages): The Yellowstone Conundrum by John D. Randall

2023 Monthly Themes (Books in the Heat: Book takes place in the summer or someplace hot): What Happened at the Lake by Phil M. Williams

2023 Reading Challenge (A Yellow Book: Cover or Title are Yellow): A Worse Secret by Harvey Church

2023 ABC Challenge (G): Girl with No Fingerprints by Mark Bailey

Romanceopoly 2023! (friends to lovers): Anything for Love by Lola St. Vil

2023 TBR Prompts (Longest book on my TBR): The Needle House by Robin Roughley


Books I bought:

Stalks of Gold by Celeste Baxendell (free Kindle purchase via BookBub)

Mirrors of Ice by Celeste Baxendell (accidental Kindle purchase)

Dead Before Dinner by Kat Bellemore (free Kindle purchase via blog post)

Death on Deck by Verity Bright (free Kindle purchase via blog post)

Protecting Fiona by Susan Stoker (free Kindle purchase via BookBub)

Open, Honestly by Bill Konigsberg (free Kindle purchase via Goodreads)

His Baby Proposal by Ivy James (free Kindle purchase via BookBub)

This Much Is True by Tia Louise (free Kindle purchase via BookBub)

Ruined & Redeemed: The Earl’s Fallen Wife by Bree Wolf (free Kindle purchase via BookBub)

Burden of Proof by Julie Anne Lindsey (free Kindle purchase via blog post)

MacFarland’s Lass by Glynnis Campbell (free Kindle purchase via BookBub)

Finding Faith by B.E. Baker (free Kindle purchase via BookBub)

Resisting Chase by Sharon Woods (free Kindle purchase via BookBub)

Dance with Deception by Tracy Goodwin (free Kindle purchase via BookBub)

Saving Noah by Kaci Rose (free Kindle purchase)

Four Cold Months by K.J. Kalis (free Kindle purchase via BookBub)

Whiskey Rebellion by Liliana Hart (free Kindle purchase via BookBub)

Watch Your Back by Stacy Claflin (free Kindle purchase via blog post)

Sweet Distraction by Lainey Davis (free Kindle purchase via BookBub)

Dirty Player by Stacey Lynn (free Kindle purchase via BookBub)

The Lady from Burma (Sparks & Bainbridge: Book 5) by Allison Montclair

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books

Date of publication: July 25th, 2023

Genre: Mystery, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical Mystery, Historical, British Literature

Series: Sparks & Bainbridge

The Right Sort of Man—Book 1

A Royal Affair—Book 2

The Haunting of the Desks: A Sparks and Bainbridge Short Story—Book 2.5

A Rogue’s Company—Book 3

The Unkept Woman—Book 4

The Lady from Burma—Book 5

Purchase Links: Kindle | B&N | AbeBooks | WorldCat

Goodreads Synopsis:

In Allison Montclair’s The Lady from Burma, murder once again stalks the proprietors of The Right Sort Marriage Bureau in the surprisingly dangerous landscape of post-World War II London…

In the immediate post-war days of London, two unlikely partners have undertaken an even more unlikely, if necessary, business venture – The Right Sort Marriage Bureau. The two partners are Miss Iris Sparks, a woman with a dangerous – and never discussed – past in British intelligence and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge, a war widow with a young son entangled in a complicated aristocratic family. Mostly their clients are people trying to start (or restart) their lives in this much-changed world, but their new client is something different. A happily married woman has come to them to find a new wife for her husband. Dying of cancer, she wants the two to make sure her entomologist, academic husband finds someone new once she passes.

Shortly thereafter, she’s found dead in Epping Forest, in what appears to be a suicide. But that doesn’t make sense to either Sparks or Bainbridge. At the same time, Bainbridge is attempting to regain legal control of her life, opposed by the conservator who has been managing her assets – perhaps not always in her best interest. When that conservator is found dead, Bainbridge herself is one of the prime suspects. Attempting to make sense of two deaths at once, to protect themselves and their clients, the redoubtable owners of the Right Sort Marriage Bureau are once again on the case.


First Line:

He sat on the edge of the narrow bed, reaching for the black wool socks he had stuffed into his shoes.

The Lady from Burma by Allison Montclair

Miss Sparks and Mrs. Bainbridge are two years into running The Right Sort Marriage Bureau. So, when a woman dying from lung cancer hires them to find a wife for her husband, they can’t say no. Shortly after, that woman is found dead of an apparent suicide in Epping Forest. While Miss Sparks is helping the local police with that case, Mrs. Bainbridge is trying to regain legal control of her life. When the conservator managing her assets is found dead, Mrs. Bainbridge is the main suspect. With the police breathing down her neck, Mrs. Bainbridge must solve his murder. Can she? And how are the two cases connected?

I was super excited when I got the widget for The Lady from Burma. I read the first book in this series way back in 2019. Because of Covid and my year-old hiatus, I couldn’t read books 2, 3, and 4. So when that email popped up in my inbox, I jumped on it.

The Lady from Burma is book 5 in the Sparks & Bainbridge Mystery series. You can read this as a stand-alone book. But, I always suggest reading the previous books to get backgrounds on the characters (major and minor).

The Lady from Burma is a medium to fast-paced book. It stayed at a steady medium pace until almost the end of the book. Then it picked up at the end of the book. There was no lag, either, which was nice.

There were two storylines in The Lady from Burma. They are:

  1. Bainbridge’s struggle to regain legal control over her life.
  2. Sparks and Bainbridge’s investigation into their client’s apparent suicide

Each storyline was well written. I enjoyed that the author portrayed how marriage and mental health were viewed. When the author brought the two storylines together, she did it almost seamlessly.

Bainbridge’s frustration, anger, and terror (yes, terror) over her conservatorship were palpable. All she wanted was her life back, and to do that, she needed to go to Lunacy Court and hope a judge agreed. I felt for her. It was horrible how women and mental health issues were treated back then. It both horrified and saddened me.

Spark’s investigation into their client’s murder was fascinating. I felt that the constable was very forward-thinking for the time. Spark’s observations helped. She was also such a good friend to Bainbridge. She spent the night to make sure Bainbridge didn’t do anything to threaten her case (like try suicide). She also was vital in making a significant connection between Bainbridge and the dead woman.

The romance angle of The Lady from Burma was interesting. I liked that Sparks seemed to be settling down. I vaguely remember Archie from the first book and feel he would fit her well. As for Bainbridge, I don’t know who I want her to end up with. I was hoping for Sally, but there were two other men introduced that made me go, “Hmmm.

The mystery angle of the book was interesting. I liked how the mysteries were investigated separately until they were brought together. I also was shocked at how Bainbridge was connected to the dead woman. There was a slight twist at the end, which I didn’t see coming.

The end of The Lady from Burma was interesting. I liked how the author wrapped up all of the storylines. I was very excited for Bainbridge. That scene in court, with the new lawyer, was perfect.

The wrap-up of the murder was directly tied to what was going on with Bainbridge. What was revealed was surprising, and I didn’t see it coming. The author left enough open for me to look forward to book 6.

I would recommend The Lady from Burma to anyone over 16. There are nongraphic sexual situations, mild language, and mild violence.

Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books, NetGalley, and Allison Montclair for allowing me to read and review The Lady from Burma. All opinions stated in this review are mine.


If you enjoyed reading this review of The Lady from Burma, then you will enjoy reading these books:


Other books by Allison Montclair:

WWW Wednesday: July 19th, 2023

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words.The Three Ws are:What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?


What I am currently reading:

A music critic stuck in a spiral of epic proportions targets her teenage crush for a career comeback and a chance at revenge. What could possibly go wrong?

Sammy Espinoza’s life is a raging dumpster fire. Her desperate attempt to win back her singer ex-girlfriend has landed her in hot water at work, and she has one last chance before her editor cuts her column. Luckily, Sammy has a plan to redeem herself, but it won’t be easy.

Rumor has it that Max Ryan, the former rock god, is secretly recording his first-ever solo album years after he dramatically quit performing. And it just so happens that he and Sammy have Right before Max got his big break, he and Sammy spent an unforgettable night together.

Exclusive access to Max’s new music would guarantee Sammy’s professional comeback and, even better, give her the opportunity to serve some long-awaited revenge for his traumatic ghosting.

But Max lives in Ridley Falls, Washington, and Sammy has history there as a family that never wanted her and a million unanswered questions. Going back would mean confronting it all—but what else does she have to lose?


What I recently finished reading:

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Daughter of Doctor Moreau and Mexican Gothic comes a fabulous meld of Mexican horror movies and Nazi occultism: a dark thriller about the curse that haunts a legendary lost film–and awakens one woman’s hidden powers.

Montserrat has always been overlooked. She’s a talented sound editor, but she’s left out of the boys’ club running the film industry in ’90s Mexico City. And she’s all but invisible to her best friend, Tristán, a charming if faded soap opera star, though she’s been in love with him since childhood.

Then Tristán discovers his new neighbor is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he can change their lives—even if his tale of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed.

Now the director wants Montserrat and Tristán to help him shoot the missing scene and lift the curse . . . but Montserrat soon notices a dark presence following her, and Tristán begins seeing the ghost of his ex-girlfriend.

As they work together to unravel the mystery of the film and the obscure occultist who once roamed their city, Montserrat and Tristán may find that sorcerers and magic are not only the stuff of movies.


What I think I will read next:

Katharine Firestone is a bit of a mess.

Between an acting career that’s never quite made lift-off to stardom, a pathetic love life of online-dating-app losers, and a maxed-out balance on every one of her credit cards, things can’t get much worse. So, when she’s plucked from relative obscurity to land a lead role in Hollywood’s next big blockbuster, Kat is sure she’s finally on the right track.

Until she meets her co-star, Grayson Dunn… and all her plans are completely derailed.

Grayson is everything you’d expect the hottest actor alive to be — charming, disarming, and cocky as hell. As their characters slowly spiral into love on screen, Kat struggles to keep herself from falling for real. She knows handing Grayson her heart and expecting him not to break it would be the biggest mistake of her life. Yet the deeper she’s immersed in his glamorous world, the more blurred the boundaries between scripted affection and sincere passion become… and the harder it is to deny that their on-camera chemistry has crescendoed into a behind-the-scenes love affair…

What happens when you fall for someone who’s guaranteed to shatter you into pieces? Do you walk away? Or do you let him break you because, even broken, there’s simply no way you can’t stay?

THE MONDAY GIRL is a messy contemporary romance about a mixed up girl who falls for the wrong boy. It is the first part of a duet. The second installment, THE SOMEDAY GIRL, will be released a few weeks later, in early 2017. Each installment is approximately 95,000 words. Recommended for readers ages 17+ due to strong language, sexual situations, drug use, and other mature elements.

“I never thought I would be in this situation, fighting for survival in a world turned upside-down. But here I am, doing everything I can to keep my daughters safe in this apocalyptic dawn. It’s hard to believe that just a few weeks ago, our biggest worries were school, soccer practice, and what to make for dinner.

Now, we’re living in constant fear. The pack of abandoned dogs we’ve taken in helps, but it’s a dangerous world out there. We’ve had to maintain a charade to keep looters at bay, by making our home, and the others on our street look like still occupied by our old neighbors. I live in fear every second of the day that someone will catch on. So far the ruse has worked, but for how long?”

Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry the troubled and bitter Rasheed, who is thirty years her senior. Nearly two decades later, in a climate of growing unrest, tragedy strikes fifteen-year-old Laila, who must leave her home and join Mariam’s unhappy household. Laila and Mariam are to find consolation in each other, their friendship to grow as deep as the bond between sisters, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter.

With the passing of time comes Taliban rule over Afghanistan, the streets of Kabul loud with the sound of gunfire and bombs, life a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear, the women’s endurance tested beyond their worst imaginings. Yet love can move people to act in unexpected ways, lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism. In the end it is love that triumphs over death and destruction.

“A Thousand Splendid Suns” is a portrait of a wounded country and a story of family and friendship, of an unforgiving time, an unlikely bond, and an indestructible love.

One Life to One Dawn.

In a land ruled by a murderous boy-king, each dawn brings heartache to a new family. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, is a monster. Each night he takes a new bride only to have a silk cord wrapped around her throat come morning. When sixteen-year-old Shahrzad’s dearest friend falls victim to Khalid, Shahrzad vows vengeance and volunteers to be his next bride. Shahrzad is determined not only to stay alive, but to end the caliph’s reign of terror once and for all.

Night after night, Shahrzad beguiles Khalid, weaving stories that enchant, ensuring her survival, though she knows each dawn could be her last. But something she never expected begins to happen: Khalid is nothing like what she’d imagined him to be. This monster is a boy with a tormented heart. Incredibly, Shahrzad finds herself falling in love. How is this possible? It’s an unforgivable betrayal. Still, Shahrzad has come to understand all is not as it seems in this palace of marble and stone. She resolves to uncover whatever secrets lurk and, despite her love, be ready to take Khalid’s life as retribution for the many lives he’s stolen. Can their love survive this world of stories and secrets?

Haunted by the death of his best friend and hunted by the FBI for war crimes he didn’t commit, Finn lands on an island paradise that turns into his own personal hell in this gripping follow-up to Steel Fear and Cold Fear —from the New York Times bestselling writing team Webb & Mann . . .

“Webb & Mann have done it again. Blind Fear has it great characters, an amazing plot, and an incredible setting. This novel moves like a hurricane!”—Connor Sullivan, author of Wolf Trap

By day, AWOL Navy SEAL Finn is hiding out on Vieques, a tiny island paradise off the eastern coast of Puerto Rico, living in a spare room behind a seafood restaurant owned by a blind local. By night he scours the dark web, hunting for the rogue officer responsible for the crimes he is accused of committing.

But Finn’s world is about to be turned upside down by a new nightmare, when his employer’s two grandchildren go missing. To find them, he’ll have to infiltrate the island’s dangerous criminal underbelly and expose a shadowy crime network known as La Empresa—even if it means exposing himself in the process.

As the children go on their own harrowing odyssey to stay one step ahead of a cop-turned-killer, a hurricane batters the coastline, cutting Puerto Rico off from the rest of the world. Taking his pursuit to the sea, Finn’s skills and endurance will be tested to their limits to rescue the lost children and escape his own pursuers before the clock runs out. No one is to be trusted. And those who are seemingly his friends might be the most dangerous foes he’s faced yet.

In Allison Montclair’s The Lady from Burma, murder once again stalks the proprietors of The Right Sort Marriage Bureau in the surprisingly dangerous landscape of post-World War II London…

In the immediate post-war days of London, two unlikely partners have undertaken an even more unlikely, if necessary, business venture – The Right Sort Marriage Bureau. The two partners are Miss Iris Sparks, a woman with a dangerous – and never discussed – past in British intelligence and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge, a war widow with a young son entangled in a complicated aristocratic family. Mostly their clients are people trying to start (or restart) their lives in this much-changed world, but their new client is something different. A happily married woman has come to them to find a new wife for her husband. Dying of cancer, she wants the two to make sure her entomologist, academic husband finds someone new once she passes.

Shortly thereafter, she’s found dead in Epping Forest, in what appears to be a suicide. But that doesn’t make sense to either Sparks or Bainbridge. At the same time, Bainbridge is attempting to regain legal control of her life, opposed by the conservator who has been managing her assets – perhaps not always in her best interest. When that conservator is found dead, Bainbridge herself is one of the prime suspects. Attempting to make sense of two deaths at once, to protect themselves and their clients, the redoubtable owners of the Right Sort Marriage Bureau are once again on the case.

Mosaic Press published The Celine Bower Chronicle One in 2020 which established Carly Brown as an original voice in this genre. She was awarded the Winner Readers’ Choice Niagara Falls Review , 2020, The reviews were unanimous in their overwhelming critical praise. The highly anticipated Chronicle 2 is schedule to be published in 2022.

“I couldn’t put this book down! It kept me on the edge of my seat…Can’t wait for Part 2.” —Kara Foster

“I devoured this book! If you love a badass female protagonist overcoming all odds, this book is for you! From start to finish, this book keeps you riveted on Celine, her palatable need to over come her trauma, and on what will happen next. Can’t wait to see more from this author.” —Nicolle McKinnon

July 2023 TBR

Books for Review:

The Voinico’s Slayer by Sallie Cochren (Not cover yet)


The StoryGraph Reading Challenge books

Buzzword Reading Challenge 2023—weather-related words in the title
2023 Sami Parker Reads Title Challenge—a book that has a day of the week in the title
Cover Scavenger Hunt 2023—Sky
The StoryGraph Reads the World 2023—Pakistan
The StoryGraph’s Genre Challenge—A fantasy novel written by an author of colour
Beat the Backlist 2023—an author writing under a pseudonym
Scavenger Hunt TBR Book Challenge 2023—find a book with the same exact pages as the last prompt in the challenge and read it.
Scavenger Hunt—A book translated from another language
Popsugar Reading Challenge 2023—A book with “Girl” in the title
2023 TBR Toppler—A book over 500 pages
2023 Monthly Theme—Books in the heat
2023 Reading challenge—A yellow book: either a yellow cover or the title is in yellow
2023 ABC Challenge—G
Romanceopoly 2023!—Young Adult/New Adult friends to lovers
2023 TBR Prompts—Longest book on my TBR

January 2023 Wrap Up

January was a busy reading month for me. Because of that, I could complete all my reading challenges for the month!! Woot!!

It was also a busy month, personally, for me. The highlights of this month are:

  • Miss B left her dual high school and college credits program.
  • Snickers going to the emergency vet with a bloody eye. She came home with a torn tear duct and a torn lower lid.
  • BK going back to traveling each week
  • And my not-so-great, horrible week last week.

BK and I have been watching Game of Thrones (we’re on season 7), and we started watching The Last of Us.

I have been experimenting with new cooking recipes. I made a Greek Lemon Chicken Orzo soup with Miss R last week.

As always, let me know if you have read any of these books and (if you did) what you thought of them.


Books I Read:

KU Purchase—No Review
From Author
Kindle PurchaseNo Review
Free Kindle Purchase—No Review
From Publisher—Review coming February 17th
From Publisher
From Publisher
From Publisher
Free Kindle Purchase—No Review
KU Purchase—No Review
From Publisher
From Author
From Publisher
From Publisher
From PublisherReview coming July 11th, 2023
KU Purchase—No Review
Kindle Purchase—No Review
From Author
Kindle Purchase—No Review
From Publisher
From Publisher
From Publisher
KU purchase—No Review
Free Kindle Purchase—No Review
From Author
From Publisher
Kindle Purchase—No Review
From Publisher—Review Coming February 2nd
From Publisher—Review coming February 3rd
Free Kindle Purchase—No Review
Free Kindle Purchase—No Review
Free Kindle Purchase—No Review
From Author—Review coming February 3rd

Books I got from NetGalley:

Wish Granted from Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine/Bantam
Limited Time Read Now from SMP
Read Now from Crooked Lane Books
Read Now from John Hunt Publishing
Invite from SMP
Read Now from Crooked Lane Books
Read Now from Crooked Lane Books
Read Now from Crooked Lane Books
Read Now from Crooked Lane Books
Read Now from Crooked Lane Books
Wish Granted from Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine
From SMPG
Invite from SMP
Read now from Crooked Lane Books
Wish Granted from Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, Del Rey
Wish granted from Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine/Del Rey
Limited Time Read Now from St. Martin’s Press/St. Martin’s Griffin
Invite from Saint Martin’s Press

Books I got from Authors/Indie Publishers:

From Author
From Author
From Novel Cause
From Author
From Author
From Author

A Paroxysm of Fear by Chad Miller

From Author

Giveaway Winners

Paperback—Won from a giveaway. Not sure which one….lol
Kindle—Won from Goodreads Giveaway
Kindle—Won from Goodreads Giveaway

Books Reviewed:

Fatal Intent by Tammy Euliano (review here)

Misfire by Tammy Euliano (review here)

The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff (review here)

The Family Game by Catherine Steadman (review coming February 17th)

All the Dangerous Things by Stacy Willingham (review here)

The Nightmare Man by J.H. Markert (review here)

The Rom-Com Agenda by Jayne Denker (review here)

Son of the Poison Rose by Jonathan Maberry (review here)

Emily Wilde’s Encylopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett (review here)

The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes (review here)

Shadowed Visions by Reily Garrett (review here)

The Things We do to Our Friends by Heather Darwent (review coming February 27th)

The Devil You Know by P.J. Tracy (review here)

Hello Stranger by Katherine Center (review coming July 11th)

A Body Washes Ashore by Bradley Pay (review here)

All Hallows by Christopher Golden (review here)

A Guide to Being Just Friends by Sophie Sullivan (review here)

One Duke Down by Anna Bennett (review here)

Murder Up to Bat by Elizabeth McKenna (review here)

Dead and Gondola by Ann Claire (review here)


Reading Challenges

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (for Cover Scavenger Hunt 2023—a bird)Finished 1-1-2023

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth (for The StoryGraph Onboarding Challenge—-Read a book with more pages than the longest book you read in 2022)—Finished 1-17-2023

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica (for The StoryGraph Read the World—Argentina)—Finished 1-17-2023

The Tea Dragon Society by Kay O’Neill (for The StoryGraph’s Genre Challenge—a contemporary or literary fiction novel with disability rep)—Finished 1-24-2023

The Reader by M.K. Harkins (for Beat the Backlist 2023—a backlist book)—Finished 1-24-2023

The Shape of Thunder by Jasmine Warga (for Scavenger Hunt TBR Book Challenge—Read the most recently added book to your TBR)—Finished 1-3-2023

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston (for Scavenger Hunt—a book written by a woman using a male perspective)—Finished 1-19-2023

The Nightmare Man by J.H. Markert (for Popsugar Reading Challenge 2023—a book you meant to read in 2022)—Finished 1-5-2023

Lost Soul by Adam J. Wright (for 2023 TBR Toppler—a TBR vet)—Finished 1-3-2023

In Our Blood by William J. Goyette (for 2023 Monthly Themes—books that make you feel cold)—Finished 1-10-2023

Before the Coffee Get Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (for 2023 Reading challenge—a translated work)Finished 1-11-2023

All Hallows by Christopher Golden (for 2023 ABC Challenge—A)—Finished 1-19-2023

The Family Game by Catherine Steadman (for Romanceopoly 2023!—read a thriller or mystery where one of the main characters are a detective or private investigator)—Finished 1-3-2023

Hello Stranger by Katherine Center (for 2023 TBR Prompts—a 5-star prediction)—Finished 1-16-23