It’s SUMMERTIME. At least here in the States and its definitely hot and sticky and raining almost every afternoon. Which is kind of the perfect reading time for me whenever I get time. I was going to do these “tbr and goals” posts monthly but decided that I am dedicated enough to do monthly goals so I settled for seasonal.
I’ve tried to shorten my TBR but in reality I have SOOOO many books I have on my TBR. But if I at least read these within July and/or August I will consider this a successful read. I read most of the books on my June TBR, but I still feel like that was a flop reading month.
Yes I am aware that it is the middle of July and I’m finally making this post! I don’t what to tell you other than my life has been kinda crazy right now.
TBR
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
I’ve had Her Body and Other Parties on my TBR for a LONG TIME and I have read some of the first chapters and I liked what I was reading but I just put it down and I haven’t picked it back up since. But obviously I want to really read it, as well as the author’s other book, In the Dream House which has been described as a memoir but one that doesn’t read like a typical memoir.
Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
This is an interesting translated Argentine novel about a dystopian where cannibalism is made legal. Yep. It just sounds super fascinating to me and I would like to read more translated works anyways.
The People We Keep by Allison Larkin
This one I actually discovered through Book of the Month, as it was one of their July selections. This is described as a coming of age story set on a road trip in 1994. I have admit that the cover gives me that summertime vibe and that’s what drew me into it but this book actually sounds like a good read.
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton
I restarted my Book of the Month membership in May and The Final Revival of Opal & Nev was one of the books I chose. I love stories about musicians & bands whether it be fictional like Almost Famous or true (or true-ish) like Rocketman. BOTM’s quick take on it: “For fans of Daisy Jones & The Six: a rollicking tale with equal parts rock ‘n’ roll and Black feminist punk spirit”.
The Lost Coast by Amy Rose Capetta
An author I follow on my Twitter recommended this one and I have had it since it came out because its about witches! I don’t know about y’all but I love witchy books. I think a lot of people do but this sounded like a summery witch book in California.
And I Do Not Forgive You by Amber Sparks
This is a short story collection with a title that I really love. It’s described as feminist and I don’t really know what else to say about it because I haven’t look deeply into it so I can let myself be surprised by what I read.
The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
Yes, yet another short story collection which means I can dub this summer as “short story summer”. But this is THE SHORT STORY book. The Bloody Chamber is a novel that gets brought up by authors and readers when talking about feminist fairytale retellings and feminism in general. It’s been the inspiration for many other fairytale/folkloric retellings. I have been dying to get a copy of this book for years and at the beginning of July when I was on vacation with my family in Alabama we stumbled upon a bookstore that happened to have The Bloody Chamber for $3!!! WHAT A FREAKING STEAL. I bought a bunch of other books from there as well but I was so fucking thrilled to get it.
GOALS
My goals are pretty self-explanatory. I also just recycled them from the goals I made in June because I honestly did not achieve them in June.
I would like to read my TBR from up above.
Post at least four times/days a week, I thought June would be my month but it wasn’t. Maybe July/August could be better.
Post more on my bookish Instagram. I have posted exactly ONE post ever since I decided I was going to try to revive it.
I also STILL have ARCs to read and review. Not only is the number somehow adding up but so is the guilt of not having yet read and/or reviewed them. It turns out that not only am I bad blogger but also a bad reviewer.
Another goal from last month which I somehow still haven’t done is updating my Goodreads, Story Graph, and Readerly accounts to match up to where I’m currently at with my reading for the year. I rarely use Story Graph or Readerly just because I haven’t made myself use them frequently and with Goodreads I typically add more books to my TBR than updating my reading status.
Blog hopping!!! I should do this way more!! Because I read y’alls posts whenever I get the chance and I love what I am seeing.
Going along with the ARC reading/reviewing, my NetGalley ratio needs to go up so I can actually read/review future releases I am interested in. Also I have never been at 80% on NetGalley so it would be cool if I actually achieved this, this summer.
Catching up on tags & challenges I’ve been tagged in. I was supposed to do this in June but as I said, life got in the way as usual and I never really posted anything aside from three posts.
There you have it. As a bad blogger & reader, I am hoping this summer will be a redemptive one for me to get myself back into reading more, blogging more and just in general enjoying all of this more. I have to admit my struggles with blogging/reading come from personal struggles & insecurity over whether all of this is worth doing or if anyone actually cares and I know that some of y’all do! Which is awesome! But I still struggle to make myself invest in doing this and find myself feeling down and the more I procrastinate and put off writing posts or typing up reviews, the more guilt I feel. I still consider this a fun thing I’ve started but one that I feel I am not good enough at or take seriously enough.
Sorry to be a downer there but I wanted to put those feelings out there in case anyone else is in the same boat. If you’re struggling to be a book blogger let me know in the comments and we can talk it out lol.
Happy June and Happy Pride Month! I’m finally starting to get back into the swing of things when it comes to blogging. I decided to go for the typical TBR post and also talking about some goals of mine for the month. I’m a little talkative here so apologies in advance for going on tangents. Next time I’ll try to be briefer with these kinds of posts.
TBR
I am a big mood reader and I also rarely, if ever, follow closely to my TBR. Sometimes I don’t even complete my TBR at all. I am trying to be better at setting goals and keeping them by being realistic. I think if I read at least 6 books I will consider this month a success. I do have ARCs to read (some of which I am unfortunately super behind on reading & reviewing) so I will most likely prioritize those reads. These are ARCs that are coming soon and should really read ASAP. Then I of course have books I had pre-ordered and have been arriving over the past months and they still keep coming! Also there’s the books I already had on my TBR for a long time before those new books arrived. It is Pride Month so I obviously will want to read some queer books. Then there’s also the several library books I have borrowed and for some reason I think I can read them all. I have way too many.
ARCS
The Sea is Salt and So Am I by Cassandra Hartt (Release Date – June 8)
Darling by K. Ancrum (Release Date – June 22)
Gearbreakers by Zoe Hana Mikuta (Release Date – June 29)
The Tragedy of Dane Riley by Kat Spears (Release Date – June 22)
OWNED (PHYSICAL AND E-BOOK)
The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri
For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten
It Goes Like This by Miel Moreland
You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Jackson
Pet by Akwaeke Emezi
Each of Us a Desert by Mark Oshiro
The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen
GOALS
Since I’m trying to get back into blogging there’s a few thing I feel like I need to catch up on. One would be updating my reading goals & challenges on Goodreads, The Story Graph & Readerly. I haven’t used GR especially in the way I should lol. I really just use it solely for adding books to my TBR instead of reading & reviewing and keeping track of what I have read. So it currently has that I have read 0 out of 45 books this year when its more likely around 12 ??? I guess ??? I am not doing a good job of keeping track of what I have been reading since last year TBH. It’s a whole mess. I at least want to complete my GR challenge this year so I should fix that. But I’m too lazy to go through all that.
Also to write reviews for ARCs I have read on NetGalley, GR & on my blog. I’m guilty of not doing the best job of reviewing ARCs (except when it has come to participating in blog tours in which I prioritize the hell out those posts). Which also has led to my NetGalley ratio falling into the low numbers. 80% is considered the golden ratio for NetGalley users and I have yet to have reached that ratio. AND YET. I somehow am receiving ARCs??? I am not complaining but I am a little overwhelmed to say the least. But reaching 80% is going to be THE GOAL OF THE SUMMER for me.
For some blog goals, I would like to have at least 4 days a week. I think that’s manageable for me, considering I have plenty of blog material such as reviews, lists, discussion posts, tags & challenges that I have been tagged in but haven’t done yet and I feel so bad because I have wanted to do them!!! So catching up on tags/challenges is one priority for me in terms of producing content. I also should blog hop more because I want to support my fellow bloggers who have always supported me, even when I haven’t consistently blogged for a year or more.
And one last thing: I am attempting to revive my bookish instagram account. You’re probably thinking “this bitch has a bookstagram? SINCE WHEN??” Yes I do. In fact since February 2019. When was my last IG post on that account? March 2019. I’m not going to lie, I felt sort of embarrassed/intimated by the world of bookstagram. I don’t have the best camera on my phone because its quite scratched up and also the lightning everywhere in my house SUCKS. So I sort of have this inferiority complex concerning my photos and instagram content. But at the same time I do like the creativity that comes with bookstagram and I also would like be someone who is just like “fuck it” and posts whatever I want, even if it doesn’t get the likes or attention. So I’m going to give it go yet again to see if this is something I can stick with.
Hey everyone! While books are my thing on this blog I would love to talk things that are outside of books I am interested in. Movies, TV series, anime, and whatever else is going on in my life that makes me excited and feel joy.
VACCINATED BABY!!!
I got my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine in May so after a few days of a slight fever and yucky feeliness I am feeling better now and am fully vaccinated! I’m not going to go crazy but I am just glad that I am vaccinated. I feel so much relief though.
BOOKS
I have a whole post dedicated to this! So feel free to check that out. But yeah there’s a TON of books coming out this summer that I really would love to get to reading! Check that post out here!
MOVIES
My other love besides books are movies!!! The last movie I saw in theaters was Birds of Prey and then of course everything shutdown because of Covid sometime after that. I am more than ready to step back in with precaution of course to watch a movie in a theater!!! I am wanting to talk more about the films that aren’t just a reboot or sequel or superhero movie, because I’m honestly getting super exhausted of all of that. Not that I’m not interested in many that will come out this year but I want to see some originality!!!
THE GREEN KNIGHT
All I have to say is that it is DEV PATEL SUMMER!!! I have been DYING TO SEE THIS and to see Dev Patel get the stardom he deserves. I got these tee shirts from Super Yaki (a super cool site for movie merch!) to celebrate when I got this. Anyways onto the movie itself I typically enjoy most A24 films since they focus on original stories and aren’t just another franchise/sequel/reboot. This one is based off of the Arthurian legend, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
ZOLA
Another movie I am excited for because it’s based off the iconic Zola twitter thread. It looks messy, dramatic, over the top and I am here for it!!!
GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE
Not sure if this is a summer release but I just wanted to talk about it because it looks super fun and cool. It’s got so many great names. Karen Gillan, Lena Headey. Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh, Carla Gugino. Top notch actresses in a very John Wick/Birds of Prey like movie.
SHOWS
LOKI
I told myself this year that I wasn’t going to bother with the MCU but I ended up watching both WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I’m at odds with the fact that I enjoy most of these characters but I hate that we’re stuck in this amount of MCU content and nothing really original. Also I just have a lot of issues with the MCU in general but that’s a rant for another day. With that mini rant out of the way, LOKI has been a show I was way more excited for than WV and TFATWS. Loki has been one of the most iconic MCU characters IMO and I think if I get anything out of this, it’ll be fun.
TED LASSO (SEASON 2)
Ted Lasso was one of my surprise watches of this year when I did a free trial for Apple TV and wow I didn’t expect to enjoy Ted Lasso as much as I did. It’s such a weird comedy in that it’s based on kindness and positivity. Which is something to say coming from someone who does like cynical comedy but it just works for Ted Lasso. The one downside is that I’ll have to set up new free trial since I ended my sub. I really wish it wasn’t on Apple TV because it’s literally the only thing on that service that I am remotely interested in.
THE OWL HOUSE (SEASON 2)
The Owl House provides me with that pure, whimsical, magical joy. Season 1 was such a ride as I binged it and caught up to the final few episodes. So the first season left off on a sort of sad note for the characters and story. Which is a fairly common trend among children’s animated series these days to go darker like Steven Universe, Gravity Falls, She-Ra Princesses of Power to name a few. I was supposed to put out a review of season 1 last year when I watched it but never got around to it. Maybe I’ll quickly post it before the new season comes out.
MUSIC
So my music taste is super indie/alternative with hints of whatever is popular like right now I’m listening to Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour or Aly & AJ’s new album. There’s definitely some I’ll miss because I don’t always know who or when they’re putting out an album. There’s rumors that Lorde might be dropping a single off her new album 👀👀👀👀 Obviously I will take that rumor with a grain of salt but Lorde’s comeback is on my mind all the time. Also Willow is going to do a pop punk album. Very excited for that one. Music is in a great place right now.
Japanese Breakfast – Jubilee
Probably one of my favorite artists right now! Japanese Breakast aka Michelle Zauner is a genius. From her first album Psychopomp to her sophomore album Soft Sounds from Another Planet, I am always mesmerized by the sounds and music of Japanese Breakfast. I’ve been listening to her singles Be Sweet and Posing in Bondage off this new album so much this spring and I can’t wait to listen to the full album over the summer. Also I bought her memoir Crying in H Mart recently which I know is going to be a tearjerker. Probably an album of the year choice for me.
Wolf Alice – Blue Weekend
Wolf Alice is back in time for sad indie rock music summer!!! This album, when it was announced was a surprise one, and I am super stoked.
Lucy Dacus – Home Video
Another indie lady I am obsessed with! Lucy Dacus!!! I am loving her two singles, VBS and Hot & Heavy. Just another artist that never fails to disappoint me. Also I’ve been stalking her Goodreads because she has a Goodreads and has excellent taste! Would really love to see her start a book club.
Kississippi – Mood Ring
I’ve more or less recently have gotten into Kississippi. She’s indie pop/indie rock. This album seems like it’s leaning more towards indie pop. But I love the vibes. All hear for this music this summer.
Pom Pom Squad – Death of a Cheerleader
I hate to be compare artists with one another but I would really love more people who liked Olivia Rodrigo’s song Brutal to listen to Pom Pom Squad. She’s got that angsty punk girl vibe ~but make it sapphic~. Listen to Lux and Head Cheerleader. Also her cover of FKA twig’s Cellophane.
Faye Webster – I Know I’m Funny haha
I listened to Faye Webster a lot last year. In a Good Way and Better Distractions were on my On Repeat playlist a lot last year. So this album is going to be a future favorite. I just know it. If you want more chill sad indie in your life with hints of country, here you go! Listen to Faye Webster.
BASEBALL ⚾️
So like a week right after I got over my second covid shot sickness, my parents were like “let’s go to a baseball game since we’re all vaccinated 🤪”. Which I was down with. I’m not a big sports fan but I do enjoy watching a live baseball game. I like the atmosphere. So we went and I ending up having a fun time and we plan on going again soon in June! My local professional baseball team is the Tampa Bay Rays. And they’re also good!?? So I may now be a little more interested in baseball now.
Anyways that’s what I’m looking forward to this summer. Let me know what you plan on doing this summer or winter if you’re in the southern hemisphere!!
Hello y’all!! This is my first non-review/blog tour post since I don’t know when to be honest. At least since sometime last year, when I started becoming less active on here. I have been wanting to revive my blog again for a long but things happen! Life happens. It gets super hard to manage a blog when you’re working, when the world is burning, and your mental health is shit. I’m hoping to make an official “I’m back from my hiatus (?)” post soon though and talk about things that have happened last year and this year.
In the meantime, I have been dying to talk about some upcoming books!! So here’s a typical anticipated summer releases list for you to enjoy or not. I decided to separate these books into arbitrary categories so do with that what you will. Please enjoy this list and I hope I have convinced some of y’all to look into these for yourself! Let’s have a good summer full of reading, chilling out and also staying 6 feet apart and away from me with a mask still on please.
SCIENCE FICTION / FANTASY / LITERARY FICTION RELEASES (JUNE TO AUGUST 2021)
This is the straight up fantasy category. The lush and descriptive type of fantasy that takes you to a whole other world.
For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten – Release Date: June 1
Woodsy, fantasy romance with a monster boyfriend/husband?? Indulge me please. I’ve been waiting for this book ever since it was announced and I cannot wait to devour it.
The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo – Release Date: June 1
Not only is this a retelling of The Great Gatsby but its also queer, Asian, and magical. I’m also lucky enough to have been given an arc of this 👀👀👀 Review to come obviously for this one!
The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri – Release Date: June 8
This is the start of a fantasy trilogy featuring morally grey sapphic characters. I’ve heard so many great things about Tasha Suri’s first series, Empire of Sand & Realm of Ash. She’s also an author that I follow on Twitter and she seems chill. IDK There is something about authors that are just kind of chill and cool on Twitte that makes me want to read their books more.
The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid – Release Date: June 8
Will anyone hate me when I say that I have read this book already? I will have a review up soon for this one because WOW. This book. I hope my review can give this book justice to how damn good it was. I also have the the book itself in person and it is GORGEOUS. I am begging y’all to grab this book that if you want a fantasy story that hits you dark and brutal themes of nationalism, genocide, and ethnic cleansing. I would definitely check into the trigger warnings for this book before going in.
This a mix of contemporary/historical settings and characters.
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston – Release Date: June 1
I haven’t read Red, White & Royal Blue and I KNOW I WILL READ IT EVENTUALLY. But One Last Stop just really sounded more my speed. Queer Kate & Leopold?? This sounds a lot of fun and I need more fun in my life. I’ll more than likely take this as a beach read since I am going to hit the beach at some point this summer. Vaccinated baby!!!
The Temple House Vanishing by Rachel Donohue – Release Date: July 6
Okay so I have to point out that this has not been the only book released this year about boarding schools and specifically all-girls schools. There’s at least 3 others that also fit in this category from this year alone. It’s a sub-genre that I have come to realize that I enjoy reading about because its usually mystery and coming of age all rolled into one. Picnic at Hanging Rock is one of my favorite films and I think that’s where I get my admiration for this type of story.
Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So – Release Date: August 3
This a collection of short stories that is specifically about Cambodian Americans dealing with race, sexuality, and generational trauma from the Khmer Rouge genocide. I’ve been wanting to read more short stories and I think this sounds like it would be interesting.
Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia – Release Date: August 17
I have to first address the cover because it is both HOT and COOL. Tell me that isn’t a hot as fuck cover. But also super cool and badass. Moving on from my cover love, this is a historical noir from a new favorite author of mine. Mexican Gothic was one of my favorite reads from last year and I’m super intrigued to see how Silvia Moreno-Garcia goes into historical noir. She’s an author that puts so much work into research and it shows. Plus her writing is so lush and captivating.
I guess this is also like the previous category of books. There are two thrillers and two contemporaries.
Ghost Forest by Pik-Shuen Fung – Release Date: July 13
This sounds like it will be a strong book about grief as well as the experience of immigrants. Also not a book set in the U.S. as its set both in China and Canada. I know its random that I point that out but I also don’t for some reason read many non-US books which I obviously should fucking fix.
The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris – Release Date: June 1
This had me at Get Out meets The Stepford Wives which is quite the comp to make. This about a young Black woman who works a book publishing house in New York where she has been the only Black employee until the new girl arrives. It seems like they’ll get along fine but the new girl starts to leave her hostile messages and things begin to spiral out.
With Teeth by Kristen Arnett – Release Date: June 1
Not going to lie but I actually am kind of wanting to read this because 1) the author is hilarious on Twitter. She’s always trending somehow?? 2) She’s a Florida author and this is set in Florida. I am naturally biased towards books set where I am from. But I mean the book does sound intriguing. The synopsis sounds almost basic but also eerily unsettling??? I guess that’s how I would describe it because it sounds like its going to be a messy ride and I am here for it.
The Comfort of Monsters by Willa C. Richards – Release Date: July 13
Set in the early 1990s during the time Jeffrey Dahmer was caught, a teenage girl also happened to disappear and it follows the sister’s story to piece together what actually happened. Also I saw the name “Gillian Flynn” and immediately added this to my tbr.
This is the “whatever else is left to talk about” category. A mix of genres and authors.
My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones – Release Date: August 31
This is described as Shirley Jackson meets Friday the 13th which sounds cool as hell. I’m also very excited because of the hype and praise surrounding his release from last year, The Only Good Indians (which I am also dying to read). And yeah that title is hardcore.
Star Eater by Kerstin Hall – Release Date: June 22
The synopsis does not at all mention that this book is about cannibalism but it is apparently about cannibalism but fantasy. This sounds fucked up to be honest and I am here for it.
Songs in Ursa Major by Emma Brodie – Release Date: June 22
Another thing I am into, books about music. This book leans into the 1960s/1970s folk music scene which is an era I vibe with. Bob Dylan. Joni Mitchell. James Taylor. This apparently is partially based off James Taylor and Joni Mitchell’s love affair. Sorry Bob.
The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix – Release Date: July 13
Okay this might sound fake but I had a WIP that was also about final girls joining up together to face up against one villain. RIP The Final Girls Club. Damn you Grady Hendrix for also going for the most obvious story idea to tell and doing it before me. But this seriously sounds super cool. It probably will be better than anything I put on paper.
YOUNG ADULT RELEASES (JUNE TO AUGUST 2021)
This category is the YA horror/thriller category and this year it looks strong. I’ll especially love to talk about the ones coming out in the fall/winter season as well. There’s another book that fits here but I am purposely leaving it out for aesthetic reasons.
Darling by K. Ancrum – Release Date: June 22
A dark retelling of Peter Pan which K. Ancrum is known to deliver on dark topics. The synopsis itself is pretty vague and mysterious as to what the hell is happening. But that somehow makes me more excited to read this one. I have an ARC for this and hopefully I will be getting into it soon!
The Devil Makes Three by Tori Bovalino – Release Date: August 10
Demonic books, boarding school, dark academia…what could be better??? I am actually rubbing my hands over the thought of reading this. This is the kind of spooky shit I have been craving.
The River Has Teeth by Erica Waters – Release Date: July 20
I adored Ghost Wood Song, the author’s debut which you should check out! This one is a sapphic Southern gothic/ supernatural book. I crave for more Southern gothic stories TBH.
A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee – August 3
Sapphic dark academia in the house!!! We love to see it!!!
This is a mix of books that have mostly contemporary settings grounded in realism but also two have have fantastical elements.
The Sea Is Salt and So Am I by Cassandra Hartt – Release Date: June 8
This deals with a seaside town during stormy weather season and also deals with depression and suicide. So this could be a difficult read for myself since those issues hit hard for me. But I like the premise enough to want to try to read it.
Me (Moth) by Amber McBride – Release Date: August 17
So this is an interesting mix of novel-in-verse contemporary and ghost story. It sounds like it will be a haunting read and I didn’t look into it any further than that because novels-in-verse are easy for me to go in without knowing too much about them.
Dangerous Play by Emma Kress – Release Date: August 3
I have been wanting to venture into YA sports books which there seems to be a lack of. Not non-existent but just very limited and they don’t seem to get as much coverage as fantasy and romance contemporaries do. I am interested to see how this portrays sexual assault and the trauma of it.
This Poison Heart by Kaylynn Bayron – Release Date: June 29
I believe this is a retelling of The Secret Garden which I story I ADORED in my childhood years but also I recognize that its a story that could use a good retelling and especially one from the perspective of a person of color. I’m also a sucker for plant magic fantasy. Give me all the cottagecore vibes please.
This is the WLW category. HAROLD.
Gearbreakers by Zoe Hana Mikuta – June 29
Aimed at fans of Pacific Rim (that’s me) with a sapphic romance, I really think this could be a fun read. I actually preordered this a while ago so I have been anxiously waiting for the finished copy to show up for a long time now but I also have an ARC and I am dying to find time to read this!! To my knowledge I haven’t read any book with mechas in them, which is honestly such a weird thing because that whole category of cyberpunk/sci-fi is huge in anime, if you’re a fan of Neon Genesis Evangelion or Gundam and of course Pacific Rim.
Girls at the Edge of the World by Laura Brooke Robson – June 8
I actually have no idea what the hell this book is really about. From the synopsis I get the hint of fantasy ~but make it apocalyptic~ which is my absolutely my thing. Also it is of course sapphic. I kind of like that I’m going into this not knowing much tbh.
The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould – August 3
Ghosthunting!! Haunted towns!! Horror!! Sapphics!! *In the tune of Shania Twain’s Man I Feel Like a Woman* Let’s go ghouls!!
Rise to the Sun by Leah Johnson – July 6
This sounds like the perfect summer read, its about two girls at a music festival and falling in love. I personally love books that are about music and about the fans of music. Look at that cover and tell that this isn’t going to be cute af.
That’s my little list, let me know some of your most anticipated summer releases. Also what do you think of this year in books thus far? Has it been a good/okay/bad year for book releases? Have you already found a favorite book of the year or do you expect this next half to have a new favorite in store?
Thanks to Wednesday Books for providing me with an eARC for this wonderful book and letting me join in on this blog tour! Today I will be reviewing HURRICANE SUMMER, a stunningly powerful debut that is set in the countryside of Jamaica from the POV of a Jamaican-Canadian teenager who discovers her estranged father’s side of the family over the course of a summer that changes her life.
HURRICANE SUMMER by Asha Bromfield
On-sale: May 4th, 2021
SYNOPSIS
In this sweeping debut, Asha Bromfield takes readers to the heart of Jamaica, and into the soul of a girl coming to terms with her family, and herself, set against the backdrop of a hurricane.
Tilla has spent her entire life trying to make her father love her. But every six months, he leaves their family and returns to his true home: the island of Jamaica.
When Tilla’s mother tells her she’ll be spending the summer on the island, Tilla dreads the idea of seeing him again, but longs to discover what life in Jamaica has always held for him.
In an unexpected turn of events, Tilla is forced to face the storm that unravels in her own life as she learns about the dark secrets that lie beyond the veil of paradise―all in the midst of an impending hurricane.
Hurricane Summer is a powerful coming of age story that deals with colorism, classism, young love, the father-daughter dynamic―and what it means to discover your own voice in the center of complete destruction.
REVIEW
Before I get into my review I would like to share the content/trigger warnings for this book as the story is heavy and intense and I recommend you look into these TWs before reading this for yourself.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: sexual assault, rape, racism, colorism, classism, slut shaming, abuse (verbal and physical), death
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
"How beautiful it was to be destroyed"
HURRICANE SUMMER was a book I had been anticipating ever since I read the title, the synopsis and saw THAT gorgeous cover. When finally read it, I found myself thrusted into something that put me through anxiety and intense emotions. There were many unexpected things and often times unpleasant and tense moments that happened over the course of HURRICANE SUMMER. Moments of bliss and summer vibes that eventually spiraled like a hurricane into moments of violence, tension, and raw emotion.
This is a pretty typical YA premise. Being that of a coming of a age story and finding out about yourself through your family and the new people and places you meet along the way. But this one has a unique and fresh perspective that stands out to me. HURRICANE SUMMER follows 17 year old Tilla, a Jamaican-Canadian teenager who alongside her 9 year old sister Mia, go to spend the summer in Jamaica with their estranged father, Tyson. What follows is a tale that explores Tilla’s complicated and heartbreaking dynamic with her father, her father’s side of the family whom she used to know when she was younger but is also as estranged and distant as her father and how she comes to learn the ways of Jamaica and what it means to be yourself.
I really enjoyed the writing. It felt immersive as I entered in a story where I was not familiar with the Patois dialect that nearly every character speaks (there is a Patois Word Bank at the beginning of the book if you feel lost), but I began to be more familiar with the language of the book as Tilla becomes herself. The lush and wondrous descriptions of Jamaica, both as its being stormed in on by Hurricane Gustav and before the storm, when Tilla and her cousins and the neighborhood kids venture through the cooling waters and greenery.
Tilla is a strong protagonist. I ached for her as the story went on and as it got more intense and emotional. She faces a lot of adversity throughout the story, starting with her relatives, especially her religious yet hypocritical and abusive Aunt Herma, and her cousin Diana. She also faces cold treatment from her other aunts and uncles. And it never changes. I had expected maybe things could be better as Tilla did as well. There were some things in the story that addressed the reasons for maybe why they hated her. For one instance being that since she’s from Canada she is more privileged than they are which Tilla herself acknowledges that she has privilege. However a lot of their hatred towards her is way more personal and eventually becomes way beyond redeeming when things get more violent and toxic and it ends up breaking Tilla apart. When Tilla stands up to them, there is a lot of anger and strength within her that I have to applaud her for. When I say this story is intense, I mean it is intense.
The few people she does feel warmth from are Hessan and Andre. Hessan being her love interest…as well as Diana’s fiancé which becomes more complicated throughout the story. I bought their chemistry but at the same time I could feel it easily being upended due to him easily believing the lies and hate that the others in the town believe about Tilla. I’m happy that at the end Tilla was able to see that Hessan was not for her and that didn’t have to forgive him. Andre, her cousin, faces prejudice because of having dark skin and is punished physically and emotionally by the neighborhood kids and his own family, with Tilla being one of the only people in the story to understand how much pain and suffering he goes through and treats him like a person. Their friendship was nice to see and it broke my heart when he was found dead after the hurricane since he was one of the few genuine bonds that she made during her trip.
Her story with her father grows even more complicated than it ever had been as she uncovers many secrets about him that she never knew: he owns a farm, he is seen as respected by everyone in town, he has another family which includes a young woman and a son. Which leads her to eventually come to understand that her father is never going to be the father she wants him to be.
Overall, this story’s strength is Tilla’s growth in realizing she doesn’t need to look for a home in her father or his family or in Jamaica. But she needs to find her own.
But I know now that there will always be a hole in my heart the size of my father. And that is okay. In time, I will learn to fill it with my own magic. My own resilience. My own love.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Asha Bromfield is an actress, singer, and writer of Afro-Jamaican descent. She is known for her role as Melody Jones, drummer of Josie and the Pussycats in CW’s Riverdale. She also stars as Zadie Wells in Netflix’s hit show, Locke and Key. Asha is a proud ambassador for the Dove Self-Esteem Project, and she currently lives in Toronto where she is pursuing a degree in Communications. In her spare time, she loves studying astrology, wearing crystals, burning sage, and baking vegan desserts. Hurricane Summer is her debut novel.
Hello again! Today I’m excited to share an excerpt from THESE FEATHERED FLAMES, which is OUT NOW! This is a lush, sapphic fantasy retelling of “The Firebird”, Thanks again to Inkyard Press for providing me with the eARC and excerpt! Hope y’all enjoy 🙂
Three Dark Crowns meets Wicked Saints in this queer #ownvoices retelling of “The Firebird,” a Russian folktale, by debut author Alexandra Overy.
When twin heirs are born in Tourin, their fates are decided at a young age. While Izaveta remained at court to learn the skills she’d need as the future queen, Asya was taken away to train with her aunt, the mysterious Firebird, who ensured magic remained balanced in the realm.
But before Asya’s training is completed, the ancient power blooms inside her, which can mean only one thing: the queen is dead, and a new ruler must be crowned.
As the princesses come to understand everything their roles entail, they’ll discover who they can trust, who they can love—and who killed their mother.
When Asya had smelled the sharp tang of magic—strong even before she emerged from the tree line—that possibility hadn’t so much as fluttered across her mind. It was never meant to be a child.
But the scent of magic was undeniable. That indistinguishable combination of damp overturned earth and the metallic copper of blood, cut through with the acrid burn of power. It was overlaid with the cloying sweetness of waterose, as if someone had tried to mask it.
A futile attempt.
And Asya was sure this time. The person they were looking for had to be here.
The comfort of the forest stood at her back, the dark canopy of trees stretching behind her in every direction. The fading sunlight could not break through the writhing tangle of branches, so in the shadow of the trunks, it was dark as twilight.
Most people feared the forest. Stories of monsters that lurked in its depths, witches who lured unsuspecting children in and tore out their hearts. But to Asya it had always felt safe, the gnarled trunks and rustling leaves were like old friends.
“This is it,” Asya said, inclining her head toward the clearing in front of them.
A slight smile tugged at her lips. Two years ago, when her great-aunt had first deemed her ready to try tracking herself—to follow the magic with only her mortal senses once they were close enough to the source—she’d found it impossible. More often than not, she just led them in circles until Tarya gave up on her. But today, Asya had managed it.
She might not be as unwavering as her aunt, as strong or as dutiful, but at least Asya had succeeded in this.
She glanced over at Tarya, waiting for her reaction. But her aunt stood stiller than the trees, an immovable presence in their midst. The shadowed light filtering through the leaves cast her face in stark relief, carving deep hollows into her snow-white cheeks and emphasizing the wrinkles at her brow. She could have been a painting—one of the old oil portraits of the gods, soft brushstrokes of light adding an ethereal glow to her stern face.
It made her look otherworldly. Inhuman.
Which she was. One of the creatures that prowled these trees.
While Asya, or any other mortal, could smell the residual magic, her aunt could feel it. No amount of waterose or burned sage—or any of the other tricks people tried—could hide magic from Tarya.
Her dark eyes flickered to Asya. “Correct,” her aunt murmured, a hint of satisfaction in her soft voice.
In front of them, the comforting trees gave way to an open paddock. It had been allowed to run wild, chamomile glinting yellow in the long grass, like sun spots on water. Purple-capped mushrooms pushed their way through the weeds, intertwining with the soft lilac of scattered crocuses.
The tinge of pride in Asya’s chest melted away, replaced by a thrumming anticipation. The paddock could have been beautiful, she supposed. But the cold apprehension burning in her stomach overshadowed it, darkening the flowers to poisonous thorns and muting the colors like fog. It was always like this. Ever since the first time Tarya had taken her on a hunt. Once she was left without a task to complete—a distraction—Asya couldn’t pretend to forget what came next. She’d hoped it would get better, but she still couldn’t shake the lingering fear.
She shifted her feet, trying to ignore the erratic rhythm of her heart. She hated waiting. Each frantic beat stretching out into an eternity.
She just wanted this to be over.
After all, her sister had always been the brave one.
But that was why Asya was here. Why she had to follow this path, no matter how she wavered. She owed it to her sister. They were the two sides of a coin, and if Asya failed, then her sister would too.
Tarya’s words—the words Asya had to live by—pounded through her. This is our duty. Not a question of right or wrong, but balance.
Her aunt stepped forward. She moved silently, slipping like a shadow untethered from its owner, from the gnarled trees and out into the overgrown paddock beyond. She didn’t speak—she rarely did when she felt a Calling—but Asya knew she was meant to follow.
Asya took a shaky breath, touching one finger to the wooden icon around her neck. An unspoken prayer. She could do this.
Far less quietly, she followed Tarya into the uneven grass, wincing at the snapping twigs beneath her boots.
The paddock led to a small cottage, surrounded by more soft crocuses. Their purple seeped out from the house like a bruise. The building’s thatched roof had clearly been recently repaired, and the gray stone was all but consumed by creeping moss. The stench of magic grew with each step Asya took. Wateroses lay scattered on the ground, interspersed with dried rosemary sprigs. The too-sweet scent, cut through with the burn of magic, made her stomach turn.
Tarya stopped by the wooden door. Marks of various saints had been daubed across it in stark black paint, uneven and still wet. Acts of desperation. They felt out of place in the idyllic scene. The sight sent a prickle of unease through Asya’s gut.
“Your weapon,” Tarya prompted, her voice as low as the rustle of grass behind them.
Asya’s fingers jumped to the curved bronze shashka at her waist. A careless mistake. She should have drawn the short blade long before. She couldn’t let the apprehension clawing at the edge of her mind overwhelm her. Not this time.
She had to be sure. Uncompromising. She had to be like Tarya.
Asya unsheathed the weapon, the bronze glinting in the fading light, and forced her hand to steady.
Her aunt gave her a long look, one that said she knew just how Asya’s heart roiled beneath the surface. But Tarya just nodded, turning back to the freshly marked door. Sparks already danced behind her eyes—deep red and burnished-gold flames swallowing her dark irises. It transformed her from ethereal into something powerful.
Monstrous.
Asya swallowed, pushing that thought away. Her aunt wasn’t a monster.
Tarya reached out and pressed her palm to the wood. Heat rolled from her in a great wave, making Asya’s eyes water. A low splintering noise fractured the air, followed by the snap of the metal bolt. The door swung open. All that was left of the painted sigils was a scorched handprint. Asya’s mouth went dry. She couldn’t help but feel that breaking the saints’ signs was violating some ancient covenant.
But Tarya just stepped inside. Asya tightened her grip on the blade, trying to shake off the sense of foreboding nipping at her heels, and followed.
The cottage was comprised of a single small room. Heavy fabric hung over the windows, leaving them half in shadow. As Asya’s vision adjusted, she took in the shapes of furniture—all overturned or smashed against the cracked walls. Clothes were strewn across the floor in a whirl, along with a few shattered plates and even a broken viila, its strings snapped and useless. A statue of Saint Meshnik lay on its side, their head several paces from their armored body. The room looked like it had been ransacked, perhaps set upon by thieves.
Or like someone wanted it to seem that way.
Tarya turned slowly, her sparking eyes taking in the room. Then her gaze fixed on a spot to her left, and flames reared across her irises again. Asya couldn’t see anything. But she knew her aunt was not really looking at the wall, she was feeling—reaching for those intangible threads that bound the world and using them to narrow in on her prey.
Asya waited, her breath caught in her chest.
Tarya moved in a flash, as though Vetviya herself had looked down and granted her secret passage through the In-Between. One moment beside Asya, the next in front of the wall. Flames, as golden and bright as sunlight, sputtered from her wrists, licking along her forearms. She put her hands on the wall, and the flames eagerly reached out to devour.
They burned away what must have been a false panel, revealing a tight crevice behind. Three faces stared out, eyes wide and afraid. Two children, a boy and a girl, clutching onto a man with ash-white hair, now covered in a faint sheen of soot.
“Oryaze,” he breathed, terror rising on his face like waves over a hapless ship. Firebird.
Bile burned in Asya’s throat. She took a halting step back, staring at the huddled family. It’s the man, she told herself. It had to be. The thought murmured through her, a desperate prayer to any god or saint who might be listening.
The man leaped forward, spreading his arms as though hiding the children from view might protect them. As though anything he did would make a difference. “I won’t let you touch her!” he cried, grabbing one of the broken chair legs and brandishing it like a sword.
Asya clenched her teeth, a sharp jab of pity shooting through her. It would be no use. Nothing would.
The flames coiled lazily around Tarya’s wrists as she watched the man with a detached curiosity. “The price must be paid.”
He let out a low sob, the chair leg clattering uselessly to the ground as he clasped his hands together as if in prayer. “Please, take it from me. She didn’t know what she was doing.”
The room was too hot, the flames scorching the very air in Asya’s lungs. This is what has to be done, she intoned. This is our duty. The same words her aunt had hammered into her. Asya’s knuckles shone white on the hilt of her shashka, the cool metal tethering her to the ground, to this moment, and not the rising guilt in the back of her mind. A panic that threatened to crush her.
“I cannot,” Tarya said, her voice hollow. “The price must be taken from the one who cast the spell.” With a casual flick of her wrist, a burst of fire sprang at the man. He dived aside, toppling into an overturned table.
The little boy was crying now, soft whimpers barely louder than the spitting flames. But the girl did not cry, even as Tarya wrapped an elegant hand around her arm and dragged her forward.
Asya saw the stratsviye clearly against the milk-white skin of the girl’s wrist. A mass of black lines that coalesced to form a burning feather, seared into her flesh like a brand. The mark of the Firebird. The mark that meant a debt had to be paid.
“Please,” the man said again, pulling himself from the collapsed table. “Please, she didn’t mean to—”
“Asya,” her aunt said, without looking up from the mark.
Asya knew what she was meant to do, but her legs took a moment to obey. Muscles protesting though her mind could not. But she moved forward anyway, placing herself between the man and the little girl, shashka raised in warning.
No one could interfere with the price.
The man scrambled for the chair leg again, leveling it at Asya with trembling hands. “She only did it to save her brother,” he pleaded, emotion cracking through his voice like summer ice. “He was sick. She didn’t know the consequences.”
Asya’s gaze slid to the little girl. To the determined set of her jaw, her defiantly dry eyes. That look wrenched something in Asya’s chest. The resolve she’d so carefully built crumbled around her. She knew what is was like to have a sibling you would do anything—risk anything—for.
But Tarya was unmoved. “Now she will know—magic always comes with a price.”
He lunged. He was clumsy, fueled by fear and desperation. Asya should have been able to stop him easily, but she hesitated. A single thought caught in her mind: Is it so wrong of him to want to protect his daughter?
That one, faltering breath cost her. The man swung the chair leg at her, catching the side of her head. Bright lights danced in front of her eyes. She stumbled into the wall as the man let out a fractured cry and threw himself toward Tarya.
Tarya did not hesitate.
Another tongue of flame reared from her, forcing the man back. This one was more than a warning. The acrid smell of burnt flesh sliced through the scent of magic. A low, broken sob trembled in the air as the man clutched his now-scorched left side.
Tarya’s head snapped to Asya, flames flashing bloodred.
Ignoring the throbbing pain in her head, Asya darted forward. She grabbed the man’s arm and twisted, sending the chair leg tumbling to the ground again. It was painfully easy. The injury made his attempt to swing back at her fly wide, and her hands fastened on him again. She spun him, one arm wrapping around him, the other holding the shashka to his throat. Her chest heaved, and her head reeled. But she didn’t move.
He let out a low whimper, still trying to struggle free. Asya pressed the blade deeper, almost wincing as a trickle of blood ran down his throat. “Don’t,” she said, half command, half plea. “You’ll just make it worse.”
Tarya had already turned back to her prey. Her gleaming eyes, still threaded with flame, stared down at the girl. There was no malice on her face, just a cold emptiness. Asya wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse.
“You must understand, child,” Tarya said. “The price has to be paid.”
And in a breath, she transformed.
Flames devoured her eyes, spreading from the pupils until they were no more than luminous orbs. Twin suns, captured in a face. But the fire did not end there. It rose up out of her like a living thing. Glinting golds and burnt oranges twisted with deepest crimson to form hooked wings, spread behind her like a blazing cape. Another head loomed above her own, a vicious, living mask. It formed a sharp beak, feathered flames rising from it to forge the great bird’s plumage. They arched up into an expression of cruel indifference, mirroring the human features below. The very walls of the cottage trembled.
The Firebird.
Asya felt her hand go slack. A deep, instinctual fear sank into her bones. She had seen her aunt transform before, more times than she could count. But that primal fear never went away. The mortal instinct that she should run from this creature.
She was eleven when she’d first seen her aunt exact a price. Asya had been naive and desperate to shirk her new responsibility, to run back to her sister. Tarya had brought her on a hunt to see—to truly understand—the weight of this responsibility.
It had terrified Asya then. It still terrified her now, six years later.
Everything about the flaming creature exuded power. Not the simple spells mortals toyed with, but the kind of power drawn from the depths of the earth, ancient and deadly.
The girl could not hide her fear now. It shone in her dark eyes like a beacon as she tried to back away, but Tarya’s curled fingers held her tight. The boy was screaming. The sound rose in Asya’s ears to a high keening, writhing through her insides.
The creature—Tarya—looked down at the girl, head cocked to one side. Considering.
Asya wanted to close her eyes. To pretend she was somewhere far away, safe beneath a canopy of trees. But she couldn’t.
She had to do this. This was the duty the gods had chosen her for. The burden she had accepted.
And looking away would feel like abandoning the little girl.
Asya tried to take a breath to steady her whirling thoughts, but the very air was bitter and scorched. Please be something small, she thought. Not her heart.
She couldn’t stand back and watch that. Or, perhaps, she didn’t want to believe that she would just stand aside as this monster tore the girl’s heart from her body.
Because Asya knew she would. Knew she had to. That was her price.
The flames spread down Tarya’s left arm, coiling like a great serpent as they bridged across her fingers to the girl. A cry tore through the air, raw and achingly human. The greedy, blazing tendrils wrapped around the girl’s arm, as unmoved by the screams as their master. They consumed the flesh as if it were nothing more than parchment.
In only a few frantic beats of Asya’s heart, the girl’s left arm was gone. Not just burned, but gone. No trace of it remained. No charred bone, not even a scattering of ashes.
The price had been paid.
The flames receded, the creature folding back in on itself until it was no more than a spark in Tarya’s eyes. All that was left was a heavy smoke in the air, thick and choking.
Asya let her hand holding the shashka fall. The man threw himself forward—though Asya had a feeling he would have moved even if her blade had still been at his throat—and clutched the little girl, who was still half-frozen in shock. The boy flung himself at his sister too, his screams reduced to gasping cries.
Asya’s stomach curled as she stared down at the huddled family, enclosed in a grief she had helped cause.
She backed away. It was suddenly all too much. The suffocating smoke. The man’s ragged sobs. The blistered stump that had been the girl’s arm. Her aunt’s impassive face, as empty as the carved saint’s head on the ground.
Asya whirled around, pushing back through the broken door. She doubled over as she stumbled across the threshold, leaning a hand against the moss-eaten stone to keep upright. Bile rose in her throat.
It had never been a child before. Despite all the hunts Tarya had taken her on, all the training lessons, Asya hadn’t thought of that possibility—that it could be a little girl desperate to save her brother.
Something wet trickled from the wound on Asya’s head, but she barely felt it. Her insides had been hollowed out.
All she could see were the little girl’s eyes. The ghastly reflection of the Firebird in them, looming and monstrous. A creature of legend.
A creature that, one day, Asya would become.
ALEXANDRA OVERY was born in London, England. Ever since she was little she has loved being able to escape into another world through books. She currently lives in Los Angeles, and is completing her MFA in Screenwriting at UCLA. When she’s not working on a new manuscript or procrastinating on doing homework, she can be found obsessing over Netflix shows, or eating all the ice cream she can.
Today I’m participating in yet another blog tour post from Inkyard Press! Thanks again to Inkyard Press for providing me with an eARC of THIS GOLDEN FLAME. Today I am sharing an excerpt from this fascinating new YA fantasy featuring ace rep! Which by the way, is OUT NOW!
THIS GOLDEN FLAME BY EMILY VICTORIA
On Sale Date: February 2, 2021
9781335080271, 1335080279
Hardcover
$18.99 USD, $23.99 CAD
Young Adult Fiction / Fantasy / Epic
Ages 13 And Up
384 pages
SYNOPSIS
An Ember in the Ashes meets Mask of Shadows in Emily Victoria’s #ownvoices debut YA fantasy, This Golden Flame, in which asexual Karis, a servant to the mysterious Scriptorium, accidentally awakens long-dormant automaton Alix, initiating an epic adventure full of magic, rebellion, and finding where you truly belong.
Orphaned and forced to serve her country’s ruling group of scribes, Karis wants nothing more than to find her brother, long ago shipped away. But family bonds don’t matter to the Scriptorium, whose sole focus is unlocking the magic of an ancient automaton army.
In her search for her brother, Karis does the seemingly impossible?she awakens a hidden automaton. Intelligent, with a conscience of his own, Alix has no idea why he was made. Or why his father?their nation’s greatest traitor?once tried to destroy the automatons.
Suddenly, the Scriptorium isn’t just trying to control Karis; it’s hunting her. Together with Alix, Karis must find her brother…and the secret that’s held her country in its power for centuries.
1
KARIS
The hallways of the Tallis Scriptorium are always so black at night. Statues and busts loom out of the dark and ribbed columns stretch down from the roof like pale fingers. I’ve taken my sandals off, twined their laces together, and hung them off my shoulder where they can’t make any noise, and the cold of the floor leeches through the soles of my feet. I pull my himation tighter around me, the rustling of the cloak a bare whisper. If this were day, I would hear the quiet scratch of reed pens against parchment in the study rooms to the east, the droning buzz of a master’s lecture from the hall. But in the night, it’s so stiflingly quiet. Like a tomb.
Even after seven years I’m still not used to it. To the quiet. The dark. Back on Heretis, the island I grew up on, there was always noise, always light, even in the run-down streets my brother and I haunted, where not many could afford oil for their lamps. Here on Tallis, the black is deep and somber, every door locked and every shutter latched firmly shut, as if the masters fear thieves who might lurk out there in the wilderness and the night.
If only they knew the thieves were already inside.
I slink down the shadowy hall, my eyes straining to navigate the black, even though it isn’t really the dark that’s a risk. Being out of bed this late would earn me a lashing, but at least that’s all I’d get. The true risk is in anyone dis- covering what I stole: the ledger currently clasped to my chest, its leather cover warm beneath my fingers. I can’t even say what the punishment for this would be, because as far as I know no one’s ever been impudent enough to try it.
At least not before me, and I prefer the term reckless.
I reach the west hall. Giving a quick glance up and down the silent corridor, I lift the latch on the closest window, wincing as it squeaks. I push the shutters open and night air brushes my skin.
The chilled marble of the windowsill stings against my legs as I swing over and drop into a crouch in the deep shadows by the edge of the building. From far off I can make out the sound of the waves crashing against the cliffs, the sharp tang of seawater hanging in the air. I take a deep breath, trying to trap the taste of it in my lungs.
I look across the dark courtyard to one of the smallest buildings. Despite its size, it’s all marble with a full colonnade around its edges and elaborate moldings of masters and ledgers and automatons in the frieze running along the edge of its roof, darkened now with shadows.
The Hall of Records.
The second watch rings across the complex. I allow my- self a smile. Perfect. There shouldn’t be a patrol anywhere near here right now. I take off across the courtyard, bare feet pounding the packed dirt, not slowing until I slip past the colonnade. Bars of moonlight glow against the floor, stretching from the pillars that surround the open atrium I stand in. The back of the space is lost in the gloom, but it’s impossible to miss the glimmer of gold, too vivid and bright to be anything but Scriptwork.
I pad silently over, avoiding the strips of moonlight and sticking to the shadows. As if the night sky will tell on me. Details swim from the dark: olivewood doors stretching high above my head, framed with brass and cut with flourishes and curls; the seal of bronze plastered to their center; and the rune carved deep into the metal, a tangle of thick golden strokes, bent around each other as if in a knot. A lock rune. The most complicated rune on this island.
I run my fingers over the ridges of the lines, warm and tingling beneath my skin despite the night air. The truth is, I’m not even supposed to know Scriptwork, at least no more than what’s needed to climb automatons and make rubbings of the runes. The actual work of study is done by the masters and the aristoi scholars who come to study on Tallis. We orphans are only here for grunt labor. The Scriptmasters barely believe we can think for ourselves, never mind do something like this.
Lock runes are tricky. You have to understand which strokes engraved into the seal are part of the base rune and which have been added by that particular Scriptmaster. Then you have to replicate it perfectly in a ledger, all in the right order. Runes have rules, some of which haven’t even been discovered yet, and we were certainly never al- lowed to study them.
But just because a crotchety old master wasn’t going to teach me didn’t mean I wasn’t going to learn.
The light’s just enough to let me see the ledger as I flip it open to the last page, the golden glow spilling over the rough stretch of parchment. I pull out the stub of charcoal from my belt pocket. Once I draw a line, there’s no changing my mind. I’ll have to sneak the ledger back eventually, and lines will only mean evidence, since trying to tear a page out will just be more obvious. If this doesn’t work, I’ll have taken all this risk for nothing.
Only then I think of Matthias. It’s been seven years since they shipped my older brother away, all because he tried to defend me against them. Because they decided he would be too troublesome to keep. Behind these doors is the only record on the whole of this island that can tell me where he was sent.
And I am getting through tonight.
I dash off the first of the lines on the page. It comes off black and bold and perfect.
That’s when I hear voices. Low. Serious.
A patrol.
There shouldn’t be a patrol here, not at this time of night. Which means I’m either not as observant as I think or I’m real unlucky.
As soon as they enter the courtyard, I won’t be able to get back to the window, not without them noticing. A hint of panic thrums beneath my skin, telling me to leave now, while I still can. But then I look down at the parchment, the rune already started. They can’t catch me if I’m already inside the Hall.
As soon as I have the idea, I know it’s a terrible one. I suppose that fits me perfectly.
I bend over the ledger and keep going. The lines unfurl across the parchment as the rune takes shape, each line in the proper order and form. Excitement curls around my heart, even as the voices come closer. I’m doing it.
The rune is finished. I look up at the seal on the door, waiting for the golden line to cut it in half, to let me through.
Nothing happens.
The seconds pound through my head. No. I look down at the page, at this rune that looks exactly like the one on the door. I’m sure I did it right. Why isn’t it working?
One of the soldiers speaks again, their voice close. Too close.
I’m out of time.
I bite down my curse and dash away from the glow of the rune, toward the courtyard. Maybe I can still get across. I’ve just reached the colonnade when the soldiers step into view through the main gates. There are two of them, a man and a woman, their red chitons dark enough it’s hard to make them out. Short gladius swords are strapped to their hips. They’re coming closer.
There’s one other way to my quarters, through a door I can possibly sneak to by circling the back of the buildings. A door that always stays unlocked because it’s used by the patrols themselves to get inside.
I jam the ledger into a fold in my himation and run, sticking close to the wall that surrounds the Scriptorium complex. I can see the door I need ahead, nestled at the back of the acolytes’ quarters.
I’m reaching out when it swings open toward me. I stumble back, off balance, and a hand from behind me clamps around my upper arm.
I jam my elbow back at whoever has me, but they’re quick. An arm scoops me around the waist and jerks me behind the closest pillar, right as another two soldiers step out the door. I snap my head up at whoever has me, and catch a glimpse of a trainee’s red sash. Of tousled dark hair and deep green eyes, currently narrowed to order me to shut up.
Dane.
I go still, both of us hidden in the narrow space between the pillar and the building. It throws me back, to years ago, when I wasn’t the only one sneaking out at nights. When this picture of him and me was as natural as breathing.
The footsteps fade away.
I let out a breath. That was close. I know I shouldn’t, but I look back the way I came. Maybe now that Dane’s here, I could try again. Maybe he’d come with me.
But he doesn’t even give me the chance to ask. Before I can open my mouth, he grabs my hand and pulls me through the door. Our footsteps hush over the floor, two sets this time, and even though I can practically feel the exasperation wicking off of him, see the tension in his neck, I feel strangely relieved. At least he’s here.
He doesn’t stop until we reach the small linen storeroom near my quarters, piled high with coarse chitons. There’s a thin crack in the shutters, letting in just enough moonlight that I can see him. His hand is pressed over his eyes, obscuring most of his face, as if that’s enough to hold back whatever he’s thinking. Under different circumstances, that would have made me laugh.
“Karis.” His voice is that dangerous sort of calm that, as far as I know, is only reserved for me and only when I’ve done something incredibly reckless. “What in all of every- thing were you thinking?”
I fold my arms over my chest. “You don’t even know what I was doing.”
He drops his hand and glowers at me. It’s an expression I haven’t seen in a while. Not because I haven’t been doing reckless things. But because he hasn’t been around to no- tice. “I got back after the rest of the patrol and I saw you near the Hall of Records. I know what you were doing.”
I wince. I hadn’t even considered that the patrol might have been spread out. It was careless.
“What were you even hoping to achieve without a ledger?” He’s facing the moonlight. I’m not. I doubt he can make out my expression, but my silence must speak volumes.
He groans. “You didn’t.”
I reach into my himation, the cloth looped about my shoulders and waist, and pull out the ledger. “I’m going to return it.”
Dane shoves his hands through his hair, growling at the ceiling. “Of all the ill-thought, hardheaded, impulsive…”
Dane’s my best friend. My only friend really. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stand around while he verbally berates me to the roof. “You couldn’t have expected me not to try.”
“Try to do what? What exactly were your plans for this?”
He catches my wrist and holds it up, forcing me to look at the bronze bracelet suckered there like a malignant growth. A copy of the one he wears. That every orphan brought to this island wears.
And he’s right. I hate it, but he is. Even if I’d figured out the rune and written it perfectly, even if I’d gotten in and found exactly where Matthias had been sent, I would still be trapped here. Because of this hunk of metal around my wrist, this perfect circle with no clasp. As long as it’s attached to me, going anywhere near the beach will burn my bracelet’s identifying rune into their scrolls. They’d know exactly where I was and what I was doing. And there’d be no running from them then. There’s only one ledger that can unlock the bracelets, and it’s always with the head Scriptmaster. Not even I can steal that.
I meet Dane’s eyes over my hand, and for a moment I’m so achingly tired. I almost want to apologize, to tell him he’s right. Because maybe he is. Maybe I don’t want to spend my entire life fighting a battle I can’t win, when I couldn’t even open a door. Maybe the masters were right about me and I am exactly what they judge me to be.
Only then I think of Matthias. Of the way he looked the last time I saw him, the day he was dragged away. Me screaming. Him calling out my name as his hand was ripped from mine.
The truth is, it isn’t in me to quit. Not now, not ever. There are things I will not—cannot—concede, and my brother is at the top of that list.
So I don’t say anything, just stare Dane down, and in the end he’s the one who looks away, dropping my hand. A part of me is naive enough to believe it might be because he understands.
“You’re lucky I was on patrol,” he finally says.
“I know,” I whisper. It’s the most I can give him. It must be enough because he lets out a breath, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Did it work?” he asks. “The rune?”
I don’t want to say it and make it more real. But I lie to so many people in my life, and I won’t lie to him. “No.” I swallow, staring down at the floor. “It didn’t.”
I can feel his eyes on me and when he speaks, his voice is gentler. “I’m sorry.”
I raise my head to look back at him and force a smile. As impish and real as I can make it. “I know that, too.”
He rolls his eyes, but that crooked grin, which doesn’t belong to the soldier but to the street brat, to my friend, is already stealing over his face. I’ve missed that smile. “Yes, well, now that I’ve saved your sorry hide, I need to get back. And you should go to bed.”
He must have forgotten the ledger, hidden in the dark. I rub my fingers over it and for a moment I’m tempted not to say anything. To let him leave and to give it another try. Maybe I would have, if I had any idea where I went wrong with the rune. Maybe I would have if Dane wasn’t standing right there.
But he is. I don’t know how he managed to get away from his patrol for this long, but I do know that if anything happens tonight, he’ll be implicated in it. And I wouldn’t do that to him. The risks I take, I take on my own.
I hold the ledger up. “I need to get this back.” When I left, Master Kaius was snoring into his wine, but even he’ll notice a missing ledger when he wakes up. The masters would tear this Scriptorium apart to get it back.
Dane looks at the book between us, and then he takes it. “I’ll slip it into his study. At least if I get caught in the halls, I’ll have an excuse.”
I wasn’t expecting that, not even from him. “Dane…”
He’s already taken a step away, but he looks over his shoulder, and maybe more of the street boy still exists than I thought because trouble darts across his deep eyes. He comes back to me and pecks a kiss on my forehead. “Go to bed, Karis, before someone notices.”
Then he’s gone, disappearing back into the shadows of the hall, and the only evidence he ever stood here is the soft tread of his fading footsteps.
I failed. The knowledge sits like a thorn in my chest, prickling at the tender flesh of my heart. I was right there, I had the ledger in my hands, and I failed.
I drag my feet as I walk through the hallways, silently following the other acolytes in my group. Master Vasilis strides down the hall at our head, his robe billowing around his legs as he leads us to whatever work site he’s chosen today to re-catalog for the umpteenth time. All in the hopes that something will have changed that will unlock the secrets of the automatons.
The Scriptorium, which rules Eratia, flaunts itself as a leader among the nations in knowledge, but for the past two hundred years all the Scriptmasters have been obsessed with is recovering what they lost—reanimating and con- trolling the automatons littered over the islands.
It’s mind-numbingly pointless. If it hasn’t happened yet, it isn’t going to happen. The power of the automatons is dead. And right now, with the knowledge of my failure sit- ting heavy in my heart, I’m spitefully glad the Scriptorium is never going to get what they want either.
Outside, it’s barely dawn, pale colors stretching across the sky. Despite the early hour, the yard is already busy with the organized chaos of morning drills, men and women scattered about the yard. I look for Dane, even though I know he’s smart enough to take care of himself.
There are so many sparring pairs, it takes me a moment to spot him. Despite the chill in the air, his skin’s flushed and sweaty, and his sword flashes in the sun as dust flies around his sandals. Fatigue sits like a stone behind my eyes, but Dane looks as awake as ever. He lunges out fast and his opponent, a boy named Erys, jerks back and trips over his own feet. He falls in a tangle of flailing limbs. Dane lets out a whoop and jogs a few paces of a victory lap before helping Erys to his feet and slapping the other boy on his back.
I can’t help the grin that cracks across my face. Some- one’s having fun.
As if Dane can sense my attention on him—which I’m half convinced he can—he turns and sees me. He flashes me a smile that’s all secrets and all mine, and for a moment I almost forget how much the last few years have changed us. I wave back, ignoring the odd looks some of the nearby soldiers throw my way. As if it’s unnatural that someone like Dane would pay attention to someone like me. I wonder how many of them remember that Dane came here as an orphan, too. Before he picked up sword-fighting like he’d been doing it his whole life. Before he was allowed to join the militia ranks and became a favorite of his master and his squad. Before he grew from a gangly child into some- one who fits in perfectly.
Dane is good-looking and the worst thing is, he knows it. Knows exactly the effect he has on other people, especially on girls. At least girls besides me.
I’ve never felt that way about him. Actually, I’ve never felt that way about anyone. It’s not as if I think Dane is bad-looking. Objectively speaking, he’s quite nice to look at. There are plenty of people on Tallis who are nice to look at. I just wouldn’t ever want to kiss one of them over it. Whatever it is that makes my group mates sigh and go misty-eyed, I’ve never felt for myself.
I know all that about myself and most of the time I’m fine with it. But right now, under all these stares…there’s a part of me that wonders if I’m the strange one.
The drill sergeant, Master Adalis, gives a sharp whistle, raising her eyebrows at Dane. Looking only mildly abashed, he readies himself for another spar. I jog after the tail end of my group, slipping out through the front gate.
The island spreads before me, all pale craggy rocks and waving grasses. Stiff stalks poke at my calves and dust settles into every itchy space in my sandals. Orchids, just now blooming, open their delicate, purple petals to the sky. I lift my face to the thin rays of sun, ignoring the chatter of the other students, none of it directed at me.
I wonder what Matthias would think of this island. Even though he has low vision, he was always an adventurer, certainly more than I was. Maybe that was just because he was older. Or maybe that was just him. Back when we were young, I’m sure he knew every corner of our parents’ weaving shop and our tiny yard, where we used to pluck figs from the tree and eat them crouched in the shade on hot days, or separate lentils into bowls for dinner. When we were on Heretis, every run-down building we took shelter in was a chance for him to poke his fingers into the nooks and cracks. Our childhood was one of small spaces and I’m sure he’d have loved the wide-open possibilities of Tallis.
“Acolyte Karis.”
I snap back to attention just in time to hear the snickers. My cheeks burn as I see Master Vasilis standing in front of me. Behind him I can make out the curving edge of the eastern side of the island, where it turns sharply into white cliffs. We arrived at our work site and I didn’t notice.
Master Vasilis glowers down his aquiline nose at me. “Tell me, Acolyte Karis, what has so riveted your attention that you ignored my instructions?”
I almost want to tell him, just to see his face when he learns I stole a ledger. But if I said that, I might as well go walk off that cliff. So I bite down the impulse and mumble, “Nothing, Master.”
“Nothing? Well then, your wandering thoughts must simply be in need of a task. Attach the pulley system to the automaton.”
My group mates snicker again and I don’t understand why until I turn to the behemoth of a creature standing not five feet from us.
In the seven years since I arrived on Tallis, I’ve gotten plenty used to automatons. Back home on Heretis, there were only two on the outskirts of the city, and since Matthias and I always stayed near the central agora, where thieving was the easiest, I never actually saw them. Only heard the tales from the other street kids.
Here on Tallis, there are close to a dozen, leftover from the days when this island was a guard post. The things are massive. Monstrous. Great hulking bodies made of Scriptstrengthened bronze, most of it tarnished a dull green be- cause there aren’t enough of us to keep them all polished, thick arms and legs made from interconnecting plates meant for bashing and breaking, tiny heads placed atop for no reason I can see except to provide a point of normality to creatures that don’t look normal at all. When I came to this island, I screamed the first time I saw one. And though the years have taken that blinding edge of fear away, the things still give me the shivers. Even though they’re the pride of Eratia, the proof for the Scriptorium that once we were more powerful than anyone.
This automaton looks like any of its frozen kind, except for one thing: it’s at a tilt, its upper body leaning out over the cliff’s edge as if stilled in the moment before it was to dive into the water below. The ocean glints from up here, deceptively bright and beautiful. But I know there are rocks just beneath those waves. One wrong misstep on the climb up and I’ll be taking a quick trip to a long sleep.
One of my fellow acolytes, Demetrius, steps forward and shoves the pack with the pulley system into my hands. I meet his smug eyes. The others crowd behind him— Jocasta, Petros, Thetis—whispering as they sneak glances at me. There’s not a scrap of kindness in any of their faces, even though once there was. In Jocasta’s, especially. Of everyone, she was maybe the one I could have made friends within those early days. She was the one willing to reach out, who would smile when she passed me in the halls. Only I didn’t want friends.
And I don’t need their kindness.
I jut out my chin as I swing the pack onto my back. My gaze tracks up the automaton, trying to find the best route. Its tarnished and dented skin is littered with runes: reach, lift, bend. Hard lines carved into the hard metal. They aren’t lit—they haven’t been lit since Master Theodis, the greatest villain of the ages, triggered the Great Lapse that made all the things still. But they’re as close to handholds as I’m going to get.
I grab the lowest rune and haul myself up. I stick to the back of the thing’s thigh, where at least its body is between me and the fall, but the runes down here are far and few between.
Sweat prickles from my palms and slides down my spine. My arms ache from the sheer effort of pulling myself up the steep incline. I grit my teeth and push on. I refuse to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing me plummet to my death.
I’m almost to its back. I reach for another rune and my fingers slip. I scramble for a new hold, any hold, but it’s too late. My balance tips and I fall, screeching. The world tumbles over itself, flashing water and sky and cliff side. My body slams into rock, a steep slope turning my free fall into a desperate tumble, until with a bone wrenching thud, I stop.
I choke on air, my chest heaving, as I stare up at the bright blue sky. A hazy din of panic screams in my ears, and agony burns under every bit of my skin, like hundreds of scratching insect legs. I’m…alive. A strangled laugh tears from my throat. I’m alive.
My shaking fingers probe the ledge I’m on, slick with salt spray and barely larger than I am. This little outcropping of rock that saved my life. If it didn’t involve flipping over, I might have kissed it. Gritting my teeth, I heave myself up to my elbows.
There’s a crack in the cliff side, a few feet farther down the ledge. Its edges are lit with a faint glimmer of golden light.
I blink slowly, my aching head still sluggish. Is that… Scriptwork?
“Master, she isn’t dead.”
My group mate, Archus, has stuck his head out over the edge of the cliff side. Master Vasilis appears next to him, and even though I can’t hear his sigh, I see it in the way his shoulders heave. As if my nearly dying is some great inconvenience.
“Well, I suppose someone ought to grab a rope and throw it down,” he says.
There’s some shuffling up above and then the frayed end of a rope is thrown down. Every bit of me feels battered and bruised, and I have no idea how I’m going to climb all the way back up. But I do know that if I don’t do it, no else is going to come down here and get me. So, with a growl, I grab the rope and drag myself to my feet.
Emily Victoria lives on the Canadian prairies with her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, works at her public library, and has just finished her Masters of Library and Information Studies.
An emotional adventure about two misfits who have extraordinary powers, but have forgotten who they were before. The vigilante and the villain must team up to stop a mad scientist who threatens the city, while trying to figure out who they really are.
Jamie woke up two years ago in an empty apartment with no memory and only a few clues to who he might be, and also with the power to read other people’s memories. In the meantime, he’s become the Mind Robber, holding up banks for quick cash. Similarly, Zoe is searching for her past, and using her new extraordinary abilities of speed and strength…to deliver fast food. And occasionally beat up bad guys, if she feels like it.
When the two meet in a memory-loss support group, they realize they are each other’s best chance at discovering what happened to them. The quest will take them deep into a medical conspiracy that is threatening to spill out and wreak havoc on their city, and maybe the country. As the two get past their respective barriers, they’ll realize that their friendship is the thing that gives them the greatest power.
Today I’m here to share an excerpt from this fun, fresh superhero story that you definitely need to add to your TBR!!
Chapter 3
Jamie stopped, catching himself. He’d gone too far this time. Close eyes, deep breaths, count to five, and then open eyes to see the damage.
Damn it. He’d really done it. He looked at the grout brush, then the lines between the countertop’s tiles, then back at the brush. Yes, he’d gotten the coffee stain out, but he’d also scrubbed too hard, wearing away some of the grout.
Twenty minutes ago, he’d arrived home, throwing his cashfilled backpack on the futon cushion. It landed with a thump, startling Normal out of her cat tuffet next to the window. And though he stopped to give Normal a calming pet, his instincts took over, starting with a meticulous cleaning of the litter box, then a complete vacuum of the small apartment. Then organizing his stack of library books into a preferred reading order, putting away the neatly folded clothes in the laundry basket, cleaning the pour-over coffee carafe and kettle before brewing a fresh cup. As it settled, he noticed some drips of coffee had absorbed into the grout lines adjacent to his row of ceramic mugs, thus kicking off his quest for a completely clean and reset kitchen. All of the fear and concern and guilt from the day funneled into his end-to-end cleaning spree even though it wasn’t Sunday, the day he typically reserved for getting his home in order.
But this. Flecks of dried grout stuck to the brush bristles, and Jamie squinted, examining them as if he tried to break into the memory of the synthetic fibers. He blinked when Normal mewed at him, snapping him back into the present. He had to slow down. He had to regroup. He’d gone too far this time, and though the counter looked clean, a closer examination showed a tiny degradation in the grout.
Damn it. Jamie blew out a sigh and surveyed the room.
So neat. So organized. In fact, it was nearly identical to when he’d woken up here, standing in the middle of a barely furnished apartment two years ago. On that morning, he had blinked as he came to, his eyes adjusting from blurry to focused, taking in the sun shining through the cheap tan drapes onto the futon in the middle of the living space. Once he’d realized where he was, it had dawned on him that he didn’t know who he was. He’d walked methodically through the semifurnished apartment, looking for triggers. Coffee table, bread, water, sink, bed, toothbrush. He knew what those were, their purpose, but none offered clues about himself. Even the mirror produced zero recognition; he didn’t know what history lay behind those eyes, what the story was behind the scar on his palm.
So neat. So organized. In fact, it was nearly identical to when he’d woken up here, standing in the middle of a barely furnished apartment two years ago. On that morning, he had blinked as he came to, his eyes adjusting from blurry to focused, taking in the sun shining through the cheap tan drapes onto the futon in the middle of the living space. Once he’d realized where he was, it had dawned on him that he didn’t know who he was. He’d walked methodically through the semifurnished apartment, looking for triggers. Coffee table, bread, water, sink, bed, toothbrush. He knew what those were, their purpose, but none offered clues about himself. Even the mirror produced zero recognition; he didn’t know what history lay behind those eyes, what the story was behind the scar on his palm.
And now? What he wouldn’t give for that blissful ignorance, free from knowing that the injured woman from today was all his fault.
How could he have been so stupid, so reckless?
As with each of his bank robberies, he’d taken his time, planned a strategy, even wrote out his script beforehand and memorized it. He still lacked in execution, but that was why he had checked out some acting books from the library. The whole goal, the entire focus was to get in and out as quickly, as cleanly as possible. That meant brain-stunning the people in the building in a very specific order under a very specific time frame, all while cackling like a cartoon character and reciting over-the-top lines in a not-quite-there American accent.
If he controlled the entire situation, then no one got hurt and he did his job.
Except when one of them had a medical condition.
Jamie cursed at himself, cursed his fake-it-till-you-make-it attitude, cursed the whole damn situation. Not once, not a single time had he ever considered the possibility of a medical issue.
He finally broke, forcing himself to move. A click on the remote control brought his small TV to life, flashing a news report about electrical surges throughout the city before turning to the bank heist. His fingers fumbled to hit the power button again, taking several tries before the screen thankfully went to black, leaving only the sounds of a hungry cat meowing to remind him that he hadn’t given her dinner or her nightly treat of coconut water yet. Jamie set the grout brush in the sink, and obliged the demanding cat.
Seconds later, the room filled with a content rumbling of purrs.
But even Normal’s happy noises failed to remove the trauma of the day. The sound of the woman’s head hitting the tile. The sight of the blood pooling. The desperate cries of her coworker.
Don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t think about it.
Onward. Next task: the money. He grabbed the backpack and headed to the bedroom. The backpack’s large top zipper got caught as he tugged on it, and the stress of the day gnawed at his patience, skipping past his normal mode of meticulously fixing it and jumping right to forcing it free. On the underside of the zipper, the corner of a hundred-dollar bill clung in between the metal clasps.
Jamie sighed, a sound soon mimicked by Normal yawning at his feet. “You have no idea,” he told the cat before reaching in and starting his post-robbery sorting process for cash.
A buzzing sound rattled the room, causing a handful of loose coins on the end table to dance; it broke his focus, jolting his shoulders and neck in surprise. From the hallway, he heard Normal’s claws catch in the thin carpeting before dashing off to find a hiding spot from the abrupt noise.
He picked up the phone, heart pounding that it might be someone on his trail. But a glance at his screen caused a sigh of relief. Reminder: Support Group. San Delgado East Side YMCA. Six o’clock.
Right. The weekly support group—more specifically, San Delgado Memory Loss & Dementia Support Group.
Not that Jamie cared about the giant gap in his personal life, the big cloud of nothing stemming from the moment he awoke in this apartment all the way back to, well, his birth. Something pulled him away from those thoughts whenever he even approached the matter, like staring into a bright beam of light until the intensity forced his eyes away. Every time. That avoidance happened so frequently it felt instinctive at this point, skirting whatever that was and whoever truly stood behind the impenetrable fog.
It didn’t matter. No, the support group was for learning more about memory loss in general, to guard himself from any further memories vanishing.
The irony of the Mind Robber dealing with all that didn’t escape him.
He resumed unloading the cash, first putting the stacks by denomination from left to right, then counting and rubber-banding any loose ones complete with a Post-it note with the total on each makeshift bundle. In the closet sat a safe—something that had been absolutely terrible to get into his apartment. He pulled off the blanket hiding it and turned the dial. Left with click click clicks. Then right. Then left again.
It opened up, revealing a larger version of the stacks assembled on his bed. Jamie took new bundles, two at a time, and neatly set them in the appropriate spots, making each tower of cash grow until the backpack and the bed were clear of evidence. A notebook leaned on the cash; Jamie pulled it out and opened it to the ledger he’d crafted, filling out the columns with the latest tally of earnings, anticipated expenses, safety-net cash and overall savings.
At the top of that column was a little drawing he’d made of a palm tree and a beach. Based on today’s earnings, he was nearly 80 percent to his goal. Depending on the size of each haul, a few more robberies—especially if he remembered to ask for the stacks of hundreds specifically—would provide enough financial comfort to retire on a tropical beach at a much lower cost of living. He’d read that the coffee in the Caribbean was excellent.
A comfortable permanence, as long as the Throwing Star didn’t track him down. That further complicated things, and Jamie wondered if he’d jinxed it all by invoking her during his bank performance. He gritted his teeth.
So close to a fresh start. For him and Normal, and he wouldn’t let the Throwing Star jeopardize that.
Normal gave an urgent meow, which translated in cat speak to “Where is my bed?” Jamie folded the blanket exactly and draped it over the safe, then put a small cat tuffet back on top of it. A gray-and-orange blur zipped by, and in one leap, landed on the tuffet, turning his trail of crime and/or source of income into the world’s most valuable cat bed.
Jamie exhaled, and his mattress bounced as he flopped on his back, eyes glued to the ceiling but brain refusing to shut off. One blink and he saw the woman fall again. Every time he closed his eyes, the image reappeared, except each instance seemed to intensify in its color and sound, the sheer vibrancy of his mind seemingly taunting him.
He could lift the memory out. He’d done it before as an experiment, including writing a note with steps and details as proof that he’d removed his immediate recall of the moment. It left him with what he presumed to be the same nausea that his victims experienced, and other than a few follow-up trials, he hadn’t done it for any practical purpose.
A small price to pay to be relieved of the guilt.
Jamie raised his hand, this time pointed at himself, and he closed his eyes, digging deep to flip through his own memories. Bright and fresh, full volume and movement, no haziness or missing pockets of moments. One wipe and it’d be gone.
But what would that make him? A possible murderer without a conscience? He treated his villain persona and robberies as a job, an income. Not to hurt people, not with malevolence or sociopathic apathy.
No.
This memory had to stay.
Jamie lowered his hand.
There was a knock at the door, jolting him to his feet.
He closed his eyes and stretched out with his mind, sensing the ghostly silhouette of a single form at his door.
No one ever came to his door.
“San Delgado police. Is anyone home?”
The very idea of having law enforcement at his door caused Jamie’s hands to tremble and a thin layer of sweat to form on his forehead. He could brain-stun the officer and run. He could dive into the officer’s memories, see what happened, why he was here—maybe it was just a fundraiser for the Police Athletic League.
Another knock rattled the door.
If he brain-stunned the officer, that wouldn’t exactly be inconspicuous. You couldn’t just leave gawking, unresponsive police on your doorstep. And the officer’s location was probably tracked by SDPD, which meant that lifting memories and sending him on his way would only lead to more trouble.
No, the only way out of this was through it.
Jamie took a deep breath, put on a baseball cap with a logo of the local San Delgado Barons hockey team, then marched to the door. He opened it halfway to find the very serious, very professional face of a plainclothes officer. Despite the fact that he stood shorter than Jamie, his sturdy build made him far more intimidating.
“May I help you?” Jamie held the door ajar. “Sorry,” he said, native English accent in full display, “I have a cat that tries to get out if I open the door all the way.” As if on cue, mews came from behind him and Jamie scooped up the pudgy feline. Mental note: she deserved extra coconut water tonight. “Be nice, Normal.”
The detective tilted his head at the name, then chuckled, sunlight gleaming off the light brown skin of his shaven bald dome. “No problem. Sorry to bother you this evening. Detective Patrick Chesterton. I’m the lead on the Mind Robber case.”
No reaction rippled through Jamie. Which was probably a reaction in itself. He waited, seconds stretching into vast chunks of time, and though he somehow managed to keep a polite expression on his face, the pounding in his chest might have given him away.
“We get anonymous tips all the time about the Mind Robber. Some people even claim to be him. But this one was very specific. And since we know he left on a train heading eastbound about ninety minutes ago, I thought I’d check it out.” He glanced over his shoulder, eyes tracking past the courtyard and toward the parking lot. “Traffic is going to be hell getting back to the station.”
Jamie told himself to laugh, though in a completely different way from the forced maniacal display of the Mind Robber. Calm, quiet, a little nervous—the natural kind of nervous anyone got when questioned by law enforcement. Normal must have agreed, as she continued mewing in his arms.
“Well, aren’t you a nice cat?” the detective said, his voice softening. He reached up to pet Normal’s round head, but the cat replied with a hiss. Before Jamie could stop her, she swatted at Chesterton. The cat kicked out of his arms, and Jamie turned to see a streak of pudgy fur dashing for the bedroom.
“Oh, I’m so—” Jamie stopped himself at the realization that the detective nursed a fresh scratch across the knuckles.
If they weren’t going to get him for being the Mind Robber, what about assault via cat scratch?
“I’m so, so sorry. Normal usually loves strangers.” That was a lie, or it might have been a lie. Normal never met anyone, regular or stranger, so the sample size on that remained small. “But she gets weird occasionally.” That part was true. Jamie held up his hand, palm out. “See this scar across my palm? Normal got me good one time.”
Flat-out lie: Jamie had no idea where that scar came from, though whenever he focused on it for too long, a strange mix of nausea and embarrassment would flood over him.
“It’s okay,” Chesterton said. “I had a cat growing up. They can be temperamental. I should know better than to do that. Anyway, the tip said that someone who fit the build and look of the Mind Robber was in this area. This block, actually.” He looked Jamie up and down. If Jamie decided to risk it, he probably could have poked into the detective’s memories and seen specifically what he was thinking, even the source of the tip. “Have you seen anyone who fits that profile?”
In the courtyard, Jamie caught sight of the old couple across the way trying to get their mini schnauzer puppy to obey commands. They looked over at Chesterton, then Jamie, and Jamie offered a reassuring wave. Despite being a theoretical villain, he still wanted to be a good neighbor. “I, um, actually don’t watch the news much. I find it triggering.”
“Ah, got it. He’s Caucasian. Around six feet tall. Thin build. Strong chin. That’s about it, really, though. His hood and mask obscure everything else.”
“Well,” Jamie said. A response came to mind, and he debated whether or not he was being too clever. His arms extended and a wry smile came over his face a little too easily. Maybe learning to play a villain had turned the gesture into muscle memory. “That sounds like me.” The words came out smooth, just enough of a joking lilt that they threaded the needle between bullshit and levity. It came naturally, almost uncannily so.
For a moment, nothing happened. Neither man blinked, and even Normal stayed quiet. The only noise came from squeaking brakes as a car pulled into the adjacent parking lot.
Then the detective burst out laughing. “I like you,” he said, before reaching into his back pocket. Jamie’s hand moved into position, a subtle gesture that only he could detect should he need to brain-stun. His fingers raised ever so slightly in preparation when a buzz in his back pocket caused both men to stand at attention.
“Sorry, just my reminder,” Jamie said after pulling out his phone. The device’s blinking screen gave him an idea. “My weekly support group. I, uh, need to get going.”
“Oh, of course. Good for you,” he said. “It takes a strong person to seek out help.” Jamie’s head bobbed at the compliment, and the detective finished reaching in his back pocket. He held up a business card. “Do me a favor and call if you see or hear anything that strikes you as suspicious. About him or the Throwing Star. We’re no fan of vigilantes, extraordinary or not. You can’t just run around in a suit beating up people. I don’t care if they’re good or bad. You know, if either of them just called us first and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got these abilities,’ you can bet we’d have found a job for them.” Chesterton glanced at the cat scratch on his hand before letting out a short laugh. “I heard she tripped in the Metro station and let the Mind Robber get away,” he said with a headshake. “I guess ‘extraordinary’ comes in many forms.”
All forms. That skepticism, if not admirable, at least provided some cover. “Right,” Jamie said, taking the card. “I’ll keep an eye out.”
“Even if you hear anything about weird crimes in Hartnell City. Their PD asked us about the Mind Robber. Guess they’re seeing some strange activity too.”
“Of course, Detective.”
Jamie’s exhale was nearly as loud as the slamming of the door. He’d never been that close to getting caught before.
Who could have possibly tipped the police? He’d wiped the memories of any OmegaCars driver that took him close by, and even then, he’d always walked the last few blocks, taking different routes each time. Could the Throwing Star have tracked him? Possibly, but she seemed more like the “punch in the teeth” than “call the cops” type.
Questions circled as Jamie heard the roar of the detective’s car coming to life. Through the blinds, Jamie watched a dark blue sedan pull halfway across the parking lot before pausing for a handful of seconds and then finally rolling away. Chesterton was gone for now, but if he suspected anything, the best course of action would be for Jamie to act as any normal civilian would. In this case, it meant going exactly where the detective expected him to be.
Normal meowed a farewell as Jamie grabbed a jacket—not his black hoodie—and locked the door behind him.
It was almost time for the support group. Even if he didn’t want to go.
Mike Chen is a lifelong writer, from crafting fan fiction as a child to somehow getting paid for words as an adult. He has contributed to major geek websites (The Mary Sue, The Portalist, Tor) and covered the NHL for mainstream media outlets. A member of SFWA and Codex Writers, Mike lives in the Bay Area, where he can be found playing video games and watching Doctor Who with his wife, daughter, and rescue animals. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @mikechenwriter
I’m looking into the future and I see spooky, creepy, horrifying, thrilling reads ahead.
Here’s a post for all of you who want some more spooky books in your life! Basically this is almost every horror/thriller/mystery/dark fantasy book releasing soon or in the next year that I’m excited for.
Also I’m only covering books with covers right now but there are plenty I’ll talk about maybe one day without covers that would be on this list or whenever those covers get revealed. Let me know in the comments.
👻 Now let’s get spooooooky. 👻
2020 RELEASES
Magic Dark and Strange by Kelly Powell
The Bone Witch meets Sherlock Holmes in this thrilling historical fantasy about a girl with the ability to raise the dead who must delve into her city’s dangerous magical underworld to stop a series of murders.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: Necromancy is always fun to read about. I’m kind of big on reading magical books right now.
Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco
Emilia and her twin sister Vittoria are streghe – witches who live secretly among humans, avoiding notice and persecution. One night, Vittoria misses dinner service at the family’s renowned Sicilian restaurant. Emilia soon finds the body of her beloved twin…desecrated beyond belief. Devastated, Emilia sets out to find her sister’s killer and to seek vengeance at any cost-even if it means using dark magic that’s been long forbidden.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: Okay I was mostly sold on this being described as having an enemies to lovers romance which is one of my fave tropes. But I do like the idea of the Seven Deadly Sins especially since I watched Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (and reading the manga) which does some cool stuff with the Sins.
Those Who Prey by Jennifer Moffett
Sadie meets The Girls in this riveting debut psychological thriller about a lonely college freshman seduced into joining a cult—and her desperate attempt to escape before it’s too late.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: Any book comped with SADIE gets added to my TBR quickly. Also if you haven’t been following me you might not know this but I love cult stories. It’s just a topic of high interest for me and I cannot wait to see what this story does with that story element.
Ruinsong by Julia Ember
In Julia Ember’s dark and lush LGBTQ+ romantic fantasy Ruinsong, two young women from rival factions must work together to reunite their country, as they wrestle with their feelings for each other.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: A Sapphic Phantom of the Opera?? I’m sold. I also am super fortunate enough to have an ARC of this, so I can’t wait to dig into this story.
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories by Holly Black
This new installment in the Folk of the Air series is a return to the heart-racing romance, danger, humor, and drama that enchanted readers everywhere. Each chapter is paired with lavish and luminous full-color art, making this the perfect collector’s item to be enjoyed by both new audiences and old.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: I adored The Folk of the Air trilogy and yeah I get this is kind of a fanservice-y novel but who cares? I want more Jude and Cardan content especially Cardan living in the mortal world.
The Good Girls by Claire Eliza Bartlett
Everyone has a label, whether they like it or not–and Emma was always known as a good girl. But appearances are never what they seem. And the truth behind what really happened to Emma may just be lying in plain sight. As long-buried secrets come to light, the clock is ticking to find Emma’s killer–before another good girl goes down. (FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: I don’t really know but I’m down to read a good sounding thriller and I also love the cover. It’s so minimalistic.
2021 RELEASES
The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould
Courtney Gould’s thrilling debut The Dead and the Dark is about the things that lurk in dark corners, the parts of you that can’t remain hidden, and about finding home in places―and people―you didn’t expect.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: Sapphic enemies to lovers in a haunted small town. That’s all that needs to be said honestly.
In the Ravenous Dark by A.M. Strickland
A pansexual bloodmage reluctantly teams up with an undead spirit to start a rebellion among the living and the dead.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: This novel sounds so cool! I also love that the author is transparent about this story having so many queer characters. The premise sounds unique and dark.
Sweet & Bitter Magic by Adrienne Tooley
In this charming debut fantasy perfect for fans of Sorcery of Thorns and Girls of Paper and Fire, a witch cursed to never love meets a girl hiding her own dangerous magic, and the two strike a dangerous bargain to save their queendom.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: I’m always won to read magic witch books. It’s just a given. I believe this also has sapphic leads and romance between the main characters which is a rivals to lovers.
Darling by K. Ancrum
A teen girl finds herself lost on a dangerous adventure in this YA thriller by the acclaimed author of The Wicker King and The Weight of the Stars—reimagining Peter Pan for today’s world.(FULL SYNPOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: One of the many Peter Pan retellings we’ll be seeing in 2021 and this one and the other I’ll mention later has a thriller-y twist to it. I have enjoyed the hell out of the authors two other books and I have no doubt that this one wil be just as compelling.
The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur
After her father vanishes while investigating the disappearance of 13 young women, a teen returns to her secretive hometown to pick up the trail in this second YA historical mystery from the author of The Silence of Bones.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: I’ve heard so much acclaim towards the author’s debut, THE SILENCE OF BONES and the premise of this one is completely compelling and freshly diverse take on the murder mystery genre.
Pride and Premeditation by Tirzah Price
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young woman who desires a law career must be in want of a case. So when seventeen-year-old Lizzie Bennet hears about a scandalous society murder, she sees an opportunity to prove herself as a solicitor by solving the case and ensuring justice is served. (FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: I’m a slut for Pride & Prejuice anything, I want to see that Lizzie x Darcy content. Also this is the first in a Jane Austen inspired murder mystery series?? Where do I sign to get this in my hands immediately?
What Big Teeth by Rose Szabo
MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN MEETS THE ADDAMS FAMILY IN THIS HAUNTING STORY OF ONE GIRL’S ATTEMPT TO RECONNECT WITH HER MONSTROUS FAMILY.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERSTED: Monster girls, monster families, monsters everywhere!!! The spirit of Halloween exudes in this book. Bonus for cool cover.
House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland
A dark, twisty modern fairytale where three sisters discover they are not exactly all that they seem and evil things really do go bump in the night.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: I’m actually not wanting to read too much into the premise because I like to not know much about some stories. This sounds like one where it’s best to not know much. Obviously I LOVE the cover so there’s that vain interest involved as well lol.
Lost in the Never Woods by Aiden Thomas
When children go missing, people want answers. When children go missing in the small coastal town of Astoria, people look to Wendy for answers.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: The other Peter Pan retelling with thriller elements as I mentioned earlier. The idea of Peter Pan but with more suspenseful elements captivates me.
Witches Steeped in Gold by Ciannon Smart
Deadly, fierce, magnetically addictive: this Jamaican-inspired fantasy debut is a thrilling journey where dangerous magic reigns supreme and betrayal lurks beneath every word. (FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: GOD this book is a fresh breath of air for the witchy, magical book genre. As much as I love those kind of books, they can be uhhhh super white. The roots are often hard to define but a lot of it is based on Caribbean, African lore and customs.
Mark of the Wicked by Georgia Bowers
A young witch tries to unravel the mystery of who is framing her for dark magic in Georgia Bowers’ creepy YA debut fantasy, Mark of the Wicked.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: I love the premise even though it sounds a little basic if its done well enough I’ll be impressed.
All Our Hidden Gifts by Caroline O’Donoghue
Maeve’s strangely astute tarot readings make her the talk of the school, until a classmate draws a chilling and unfamiliar card—and then disappears.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: Not gonna lie, the cover is so fun to me and it was an instant cover to TBR add.
She’s Too Pretty to Burn by Wendy Heard
An electric romance set against a rebel art scene sparks lethal danger for two girls in this expertly plotted YA thriller. For fans of E. Lockhart, Lauren Oliver and Kara Thomas.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: This is inspired by The Picture of Dorian Gray but make it sapphic. It’s sounds fresh and modern and I love the idea of a Dorian Gray retelling set in sunny California.
Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley
Debut author Angeline Boulley crafts a groundbreaking YA thriller about a Native teen who must root out the corruption in her community, for readers of Angie Thomas and Tommy Orange. (FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: It’s an OwnVoices Native murder mystery story? How could I not be interested?
Down Comes the Night by Allison Saft
A gorgeously gothic, deeply romantic YA debut fantasy about two enemies trapped inside a crumbling mansion, with no escape from the monsters within.(FULL SNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: Y’all its enemies to lovers wit a Gothic romance compared to Crimson Peak. This should not be a surprise.
The Project by Courtney Summers
The next pulls-no-punches thriller from New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author Courtney Summers, about an aspiring young journalist determined to save her sister from a cult.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
What happened on the mountain? And where are Kat and Jesse? Claire knows the answers are buried somewhere in her memory, but as she’s learning, everyone has secrets – even her best friends. And she’s pretty sure she’s not going to like what she remembers. (FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: I just discovered this when the cover was revealed. I have to say my intrigue comes from this sounding so eerily similar to a WIP I had at one point lol
The Witch King by H.E. Edgmon
To save a fae kingdom, a trans witch must face his traumatic past and the royal fiancé he left behind. This debut YA fantasy will leave you spellbound.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: Ever since I became entranced by The Folk of the Air, I wanted more fae stuff and this promises that but with more queer characters.
How We Fall Apart by Katie Zhao
In a YA thriller that is Crazy Rich Asians meets One of Us is Lying, students at an elite prep school are forced to confront their secrets when their ex-best friend turns up dead and they’re the prime suspects in her murder. (FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: This is a dark academia but with Asian rep and I’m so interested in that aspect alone.
The Obessesion by Jesse Q. Sutanto
A classic sort of love story…except somebody might wind up dead.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: I recommend reading up on the full synopsis because it tells so much more than I could describe. It sounds dark as hell for YA novel.
The Devil Makes Three by Tori Bovalino
The demon will stop at nothing to stay free, manipulating ink to threaten those Tess loves and dismantling Eliot’s strange magic. Tess is plagued by terrible dreams of the devil and haunting memories of a boy who wears Eliot’s face. All she knows is to stay free, the demon needs her… and he’ll have her, dead or alive. (FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: Demons and haunted, forbidden books? An absolute terror if I had to live through that, but since its a story I can manage.
Sing Me Forgotten by Jessica S. Olson
Cast into a well at birth for being one of the magical few who can manipulate memories when people sing, she was saved by Cyril, the opera house’s owner. Since that day, he has given her sanctuary from the murderous world outside. All he asks in return is that she use her power to keep ticket sales high—and that she stay out of sight. For if anyone discovers she survived, Isda and Cyril would pay with their lives. (FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: Another Phantom of the opera retelling this time with a much more fantastical element that it seems removed from that story but the premise is very much, PHANTOM.
Don’t Tell a Soul by Kirsten Miller
Stay up all night with this modern day Rebecca! Perfect for fans of Truly Devious—a haunting story about a new girl in an old town filled with dark secrets . . . that might just kill her.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: Haunted house and spooky old town filled with secrets?? Say no more.
These Hollow Vows by Lexi Ryan
From New York Times best-selling author Lexi Ryan, Cruel Prince meets A Court of Thorns and Roses in this sexy, action-packed fantasy about a girl who is caught between two treacherous faerie courts and their dangerously seductive princes.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: Okay this could be medicore maybe because it sounds basic with it being not only another enemies to lovers but also there’s a love triangle. However I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt and take a chance on this fae book.
The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky
New York Times –bestselling author Goldy Moldavsky delivers a deliciously twisty YA thriller that’s Scream meets Karen McManus about a mysterious club with an obsession for horror.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: If I had to join a mysterious club it would be this one that’s named after the baddest horror bitch ever, Mary Shelley.
Our Last Echoes by Kate Alice Marshall
Kara Thomas meets Twin Peaks in this supernatural thriller about one girl’s hunt for the truth about her mother’s disappearance in Kate Alice Marshall’s most commercial book yet.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: TWIN FUCKING PEAKS!!!!
The River Has Teeth by Erica Waters
Natasha is angry. Della has little to lose.They are each other’s only hope. (FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: I loved GHOST WOOD SONG from this author, and I cannot wait to read her next novel which sounds as darkly magical as GWS.
(Me) Moth by Amber McBride
A debut YA novel-in-verse that is both a coming-of-age and a ghost story.(FULL SYNOPSIS HERE)
WHY I’M INTERESTED: I love the idea of a horror novel but told in verse. I’ve been wanting to read more verse novels and this sounds so cool and unique.
Wow there are so so many books here!!! Sorry that this took a while to post but wow! I hope y’all liked this post and if you want more like this in the future please let me know!!!
Happy Halloween to those who celebrate it and have a great weekend!! 🎃
This is a Top Ten Tuesday post, which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Click here form more on this weekly meme and for future topics
What’s spookier than fiction??? NON-FICTION mwahahaha because it’s R E A L. And there’s nothing you can do about it’s realness.
Okay moving on from that terrible intro, today’s topic is Halloween freebie and I’ve been wanting to discuss more non-fiction so I’m recommending two I’ve read and eight others on my TBR.
My Little Occult Book Club by Steven Rhodes
You may have seen this artist’s shirts on websites before. They say things like “EASY BAKE COVEN”, “LET’S SUMMON DEMONS”, or “LET’S SACRIFICE TOBY” and they have very 80s/90s vibes with kids that parody the kids games with that of the occult, paranormal and spooky. Which is the same vibe of this art book that features darkly funny illustrations that have hints of nostalgic book value. It makes for a fun coffee table book and I highly recommend it!
Cursed Objects by J.W. Ocker
I got this from my library recently and it was a fascinatingly delightful read! These details of course, cursed objects, real life objects from all parts of the world that have caused misery, pain, haunting, and d e a t h. Sorry for being morbid but I do find this subject interesting and also terrifying seeing as one of these objects is in my state!!! This is also illustrated like the previous book recommended but does have some words and stories about each object. I think this makes for a great history read as well. So I recommend this one for a quick read.
The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule
This is a pretty well known true crime book from a well known true crime author Ann Rule about Ted Bundy, whom she actually knew before anyone ever knew the truth about him. I actually have read a little bit of this, at least the first few chapters where she actually talks about how she worked at a crisis center where she met Ted. However I know that she goes further into the story of the infamous serial killer and his life, the women and girls that he murdered and so on. It’s a heavy read and a big book so it may take me a while.
Paperbacks from Hell by Grady Hendrix
There’s this really cool YouTube video that talked about old school paperback horror covers which I’ll link here. From that video I found out about this book which also talks and shows off some of the grotesque, weird, horrifying covers from 70s and 80s horror paperbacks. I got this just recently from a Kindle deal and I cannot wait to see what’s in store!
Beneath the Moon: Fairy Tales, Myths, and Divine Stories from Around the World by Yoshi Yoshitani
I’ve had small peels at the gorgeous art featured in this book from Yoshi Yoshitani and it just looks so stunning. Maybe less on the spooky side but I think it works for this list because it’s about folklore and myths from around the world, as the title says. I believe the art also was used for tarot cards.
Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession by Alice Bolin
I’ve had this on my Kindle for a long while. I’m always fascinated with books that critique and analyze trends in media and this details on why media in particular is maybe a little too fascinated and sensationalized dead girls. I can’t wait to see what this talks about, I saw something that it talks about Twin Peaks, which is a favorite of mine but nevertheless has some pretty problematic elements in it and I can see why it’s easy to critique one particular element from it.
Monster, She Wrote by Lisa Kröger & Melanie R. Anderson; Nightmare Flower by Elizabeth Engstrom; The Women of Weird Tales: Stories by Everil Worrell, Eli Colter, Mary Elizabeth Counselman and Greye La Spina
A 3-in-1 section!!! MONSTER, SHE WROTE, specifically focused on women who wrote horror & speculative fiction such as Mary Shelley, Octavia Butler, VC Andrews, Angela Carter etc. Then the other two are companions to MONSTER, SHE WROTE with stories and authors that were mentioned in MSW. I love things like this about women who wrote in this genres but were maybe overlooked during their time because of so many reasons and now we can look back see their influence in horror and the speculative genre.
The Lady from the Black Lagoon by Mallory O’Meara
What’s more horrifying that ghost or ghouls? Men who get jealous of a woman’s success and tries to take credit for her contributions to film! This nonfiction tale is the story of Millicent Patrick, one of Disney’s first female animators and the woman who created the design for the Creature of the Black Lagoon and how unfortunately one jackass tried to make everyone forget about her. But I’m glad that a book like this exists to give Millicent Patrick the credit she deserves. It also has me questioning everything about how women especially throughout history have been overlooked or intentionally forgotten due to the patriarchy™️.
Well that’s that for my Top Ten! Let me know if you’ve read any spooky, scary non-fiction recently and what you’d recommend or if you’ve read of any of these! Thanks for reading and Happy Halloween week!!! 🎃
