August Preview

 Hello Interwebs!

It's the beginning of August and I've got my August TBR sorted out. I have two book clubs I'm participating in so we'll start there and then we'll get to the rest of the TBR. So without further ado here are the books. 

First up I have the books I'm already working on. There's two: one physical and one audio. 

1. So Happy For You by Celia Laskey: this is a hardcover library book I got after seeing several people on BookTube reading it for various things. This is kind of a dystopian friendship story about Robin and Ellie who have been friends since high school. After Ellie asks Robin to be her maid of honor Robin begins wondering if everyone is out to get her including Ellie. I'm two chapters into the book and to be honest I'm not really vibing with it quite yet but I'll probably give it another couple chapters or so before I make any decisions. 

2. Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix: I picked this book up on audio from my library after finishing The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires during Summerween. I'm about 60% of the way through the audiobook and I'm really enjoying it. It's a haunted house style story about people in an Ikea knockoff and it's equal measures creepy and hilarious. I have both the physical and ebook copies that I own and the book is just so much fun and is formatted to look kind of like an Ikea catalog. 

Next up I have my two book club picks for Literati and for The Book Troop. I'll probably watch the live show at the end of the month for the Literally Dead book club since they're reading What Moves the Dead by T Kingfisher which I read an arc of a while back and loved but I'm not rereading it so that's not on the table really. 

1. Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell: this is the book club pick for Elin Hilderbrand's Beach Reads Literati book club. This is a historical fiction that takes place during the British heatwave in 1976 and follows a woman whose husband has disappeared and her three grown children who have come home for the first time in ages. This book looks and sounds interesting and considering it appeared in the middle of a heatwave here (seriously 100-110 degree temps off and on for the entire last week or so) I think it's meant to be. 

2. Things We Do in the Dark by Jennifer Hillier: this is a recently released thriller that is the selection for The Book Troop. It follows a woman who is arrested in her bathroom, covered in blood, holding a straight razor next to her celebrity husband's dead body. It sounds pretty good and I'm always ready to take a chance on a thriller. 

Then finally the rest of my TBR. I picked out twenty books randomly from my Summer reads TBR and then read the first chapter (or part) of the book to narrow it down to 10 books, plus the next Becky Chambers book. So without further ado here's the rest of my TBR. 

1. Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers (Wayfarer #3): this is the next Becky Chambers book in the series I'm working on and follows the captain from A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and specifically his sister and her child. I've really enjoyed the other two and I assume this will be no different. 

2. The Last to Vanish by Megan Miranda: this is a new release thriller that I replaced another thriller on this TBR with since my hold came in quicker than I expected from the library's Libby app. This follows the disappearance of a journalist investigating disappearances in a resort town. When the journalist's brother shows up in town a woman helps him try to find what happens to his brother and the others who have vanished. 

3. The Deep by Alma Katsu: this is a horror that's been on my TBR and bookshelf for a while. It's a historical fiction/horror that takes place on and around the Titanic and involves some kind of creatures that are behind the sinking of the ship. I really liked her novel The Hunger and I know I'll like this too. 

4. The Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon: this is another book I've been meaning to read. This follows a woman who misses multiple calls from her older sister and then finds out she's drowned in their grandmother's pool while investigating the history of their family. Also sounds pretty good. 

5. The Remaking by Clay McLeod Chapman: this is a horror about Virginia city beginning with the burning of a young woman and her young daughter for beign witches and achieving legendary status. Then in the present day (1970s/1990s) they're making and remaking a movie based on the Witch Girl of Pilot's Creek which becomes something of nightmares. 

6. From Below by Darcy Coates: yet another water-based horror since my TBR decided that watery horror was best. This is about a crew diving on a shipwreck where horrifying things end up happening. 

7. The Newcomer by Mary Kay Andrews: this is a contemporary fiction about a woman on the run with her niece after her sister is murdered, allegedly by her husband, and ends up at a hotel where the locals look at all newcomers with disdain. It sounds pretty good and I love the cover. 

8. Something Wilder by Christina Lauren: this is a recently released romance about a woman who is conducting treasure hunts using her father's old maps in an effort to get back the ranch she loved and ends up reconnecting with the only man she ever loved. Sounds cute and fun for summer. 

9. Mestiza Blood by V Castro: this is a short story collection all about the chicana experience and the short stories sound amazing and after reading the first one during my try a chapter thing I absolutely was drawn into this and I'm looking forward to it. 

10. The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse (Detective Elin Warner #1): this is a thriller I inserted into my TBR because I have the sequel to it on hold at the library (I didn't realize it was part of a series until I already had the sequel on hold. This is about a detective staying at a hotel that was a former sanatorium in the Swiss Alps for a wedding. Then a storm cuts off access and guests start to die. 

11. The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle by Jennifer Ryan: this is a historical fiction about a group of women including a young woman who is getting ready to get married and is trying to fix her mother's wedding dress to wear and a seamstress who is trying to find a purpose during WWII. I really loved the domestic historical fiction from her previous book The Kitchen Front and I'm excited for this as well. 

12. The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin (Great Cities #1): this is a sci fi/fantasy in which every city has a soul and five New Yorkers come together to save the city from some sort of ancient evil threatening it. The book is beautiful and the premise sounds interesting. 

So that's everything I'm planning on reading in August. I absolutely know that I'm probably not going to finish all of this but I have plenty of options for the month and I plan on having a good reading month. 

Happy Reading!

Richelle

July Wrap Up

 Hello Interwebs!

Today is the first day of August and it's time for my July wrap-up. In the month of July I read seven books, a couple of which got me out of my wheelhouse. All of which I enjoyed. I read two sci-fi, one cozy mystery, three horror, and one thriller. I read a total of 2,389 pages for an average rating of 4.3 stars out of 5. 

1. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (Wayfarer #1): this is a sci-fi novel that I picked up from the library that I heard compared to things like the show Firefly, which I absolutely adore. I think I'd call this a kind of cozy sci-fi since it's more focused on the characters rather than the actual overarching plot. That being said I really, really liked this book and I'm not at all a sci-fi reader typically. Before I'd even finished this I had ordered the whole series off Amazon with some of my birthday money. I read this book from June 29th to July 10th and gave it a 4.75 out of 5 star rating. 

2. The Cracked Spine by Paige Shelton (A Scottish Bookshop Mystery #1): this is a cozy mystery that my mother read and lent to me when they were in town for my birthday. I picked it up while I was waiting for the second wayfarer book to come available and just plowed through it in about a day while I was on my little staycation from work. This follows a young woman who goes to work in an eccentric bookshop in Scotland and ends up involved in the investigation into her boss's sister. I gave this an enjoyable 3.5 stars and read it from July 10-11th. 

3. A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers (Wayfarer #2): this is the second book in the Wayfarer series and you follow a couple side characters from the first book. One is an AI newly implanted in a body and coming to terms with that and the other is the mechanic who is taking care of her. It's a dual timeline book with the present between those two characters and the past where you are learning the story of the mechanic and her partner. I also gave this one a 4.75 out of 5 stars and read it from July 11th to the 15th. 

4. Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare (Clown in a Cornfield #1): this is a new favorite for me. This was my first Summerween book to fulfill the prompt, read a slasher. This follows a teenage girl who just moved to a small town and falls in with a group of fellow teens just in time to get thrown into her own slasher movie at a party hunted by people dressed as the town's creepy clown mascot. This book has a full review on one of my Summerween posts. I ended up giving this book a full 5 star rating and read it in almost one sitting from July 15th to the 16th to kick off Summerween.

5. The Haunting of Gillespie House by Darcy Coates: this was my second Summerween pick read a book with "haunt" in the title. You follow a young woman who is house sitting in this creepy house while the owners are on vacation. The house ends up having a dark, haunted past that involves cults. I really enjoyed this and listened to it on audio which helped it also fulfill the prompt to read a book in the dark. I listened to it from July 21st to 22nd and gave it 3.75 stars.  

6. The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix: this was the book I chose to replace another for my read a book with Halloween colors on the cover. This follows a group of woman in the south in the 80s/90s as they discover their neighbor man is a vampire intent on hurting their children and destroying their community. This book was a lot of fun, a great mix between comedy and horror and I really, really enjoyed it. This book gives off nothing but summer vibes with the peaches on the cover and the southern gothic setting. I gave this a 4.25 out of 5 stars adn read it from July 17th to the 23rd.  

7. The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager: this was The Book Troop pick for July and was my fourth Riley Sager thriller. This follows an actress named Casey who is secluded at her family's lake house in the fall while suffering from alcoholism following her husband's drowning death the previous year. She ends befriending the ex-model across the lake and watching her and husband with some binoculars. She ends up in a tangled web that involves a possible poisoning, a suspected serial killer, ghosts and the drowning of her own husband. This book was a wild, wild ride. The first 2/3 of it was pretty slow and predictable much in the fashion of The Girl on the Train and The Woman in the Window but then when the plot twists started, they just kept coming. I enjoyed this overall and gave it a 3.75 out of 5 star rating and read it from July 23rd to July 31st. 

So that's everything I read in July 2022. I really enjoyed everything I read and found a good, solid reading month. Keep an eye out for my August preview in the next couple days and I hope you have a good one. 

Happy Reading,

Richelle