Monthly Recap: August 2022

August!

Nothing much happened this month! I've unfortunately found myself in a book slump. Every book I pick up I find a tiny detail that I dislike which ends in a DNF. At this point, I know it's me and not the books I'm picking up. Here's to a better September!

Until next month!

Happy reading!

Books I Read & Listened

To In August

| Audio Book | Audio Book |

• Wild Knight By Annabel Chase - I honestly don't know how I finished reading this one. The first 80% was overall fun. The last 20% lost me. I think I was so numb to everything about this story that I lost ALL interest by that point. The characters weren't holding my attention and I couldn't care less about the story if I tried. (My review is live here!)

• Bound Of Blood By Krista Street - I liked this one so much! Unfortunately, I completely forgot to write up a review while this was still fresh. This one was fun and entertaining! I'm definitely looking forward to the next book in this series! (My review is live here!)

Books I Can't Wait To Get

My Hands On In September

* Book titles are linked to Goodreads.

9th

| The Unbreakable Bladesong Druid |

20th

| The Viper |

23rd

| Unnatural Magic |

Here's What Happened On

This Blog In August

I reviewed the following books & audiobooks:

• Play the Demon By Stacia Stark ★★★★☆
• Dormant Soul By Alana Ash ★★★★★
• Fire Born By Rayanne Haines ★★★☆☆
• Road To Winter By Lily Archer ★★★☆☆
• Anton By Sophie Lark ★★★☆☆

What books are you looking forward to reading this month?

Let me know in the comments below!

Monthly Recap: July 2022

July!

Ah. My most disliked month of the year. We meet at last! Frankly, I'm just glad it's over. We've now in the "Salt air, and the rust on your door" month! That's a Taylor Swift song called August. Twitter has made a stan out of me it seems! Things have been going as well as they can be expected. I hope to get more reading done in August! We're that much closer to the best month of the year: OCTOBER! ♡

Until next month!

Happy reading!

Books I Read & Listened

To In July

| Audio Book | eBook | eBook |

• Compelled By Jaymin Eve - I'm beginning to think that my loving Mira and Shadow's story (the first 3 books in this series) was an outlier. A fluke some may say. I was actually very excited about Simone getting a book. This however was not how I thought it would turn out. This was a snoozefest. (My review is live here!)

• Play The Demon By Stacia Stark - I'll start out by saying that this will be a very fangirl-y book review. I am not impartial at this point. Stacia Stark has become an auto-buy author for me. As far as I'm concerned everything she writes turns into gold. (My review is live here!)
• Summer Cursed By Kimberly Quay - It was a fantastic read! The big bad was big and as bad as ever. When you think it can't get any worse. It kinda sorta does. (My review is live here!)

| eBook |

• Dormant Soul By Alana Ash - This book single-handedly took me out of a book slump. For that alone, it deserves all the stars! I really loved this book! (My review coming soon!)

Books I Can't Wait To Get

My Hands On In August

* Book titles are linked to Goodreads.

9th

| Storm Echo |

25th

| Autumn Kissed |

27th

| Fae King's Quest |

Here's What Happened On

This Blog In July

I reviewed the following books & audiobooks:

• Fate Touched By Becky Moynihan ★★★★☆
• Knox (Blackstone Academy #3) By Elizabeth Dear ★★★★☆
• The Twice-Scorned Lady of Shadow By Annette Marie ★★★☆☆
• Tear Down the Throne (Gargoyle Queen #2) By Jennifer Estep ★★★★☆

What books are you looking forward to reading this month?

Let me know in the comments below!

Monthly Recap: June 2022

June!

This month was h*ll. I was already dealing with allergy symptoms last month. Add to that getting the common cold with a lovely dry hacking cough reading was just not getting done. I still don't know how I listened to 3 whole books in between all the coughing. 

Side note: I'm bearly going out of the house since The Plague hit and when I do I'm always wearing a mask. How in the H*LL did I manage to get the common cold? We've confirmed it's not covid (so that's a relief at least). The day I got sick I should have played the lottery 😂

I finally got a definitive answer as to why I'm having allergy symptoms without actually having a true allergic reaction (something you can see isn't happening through blood tests). Turns out the most likely explanation is my anxiety. Love hearing that I'm basically digging my own grave at this point. The thing is I can't even disagree with the doctor because I've been going to her for around 14 years and she's a fantastic doctor. I wish all doctors were like her. It's just really nice being heard and seeing the information that I'm giving sink in instead of being dismissed and called crazy in between the lines.

Here's to learning how to relax & maybe figuring out some deep breathing exercises? 

Oof.

Until next month!

Happy reading!

Books I Read & Listened

To In June

| Audio Book | Audio Book | Audio Book |

• The Secrets In Shadow & Blood By Lana Pecherczyk - This book was one of those filler books for me. It was just meh. There wasn't anything I loved about it but I also didn't hate it. (My review is live here!)

• Wolf Of Fire By Krista Street - I adore the universe this author has created! I feel bad that it took me SO long to get to this series. I was waiting on the audio book to release and it did not disappoint! (My review is live here!)

• Knox By Elizabeth Dear -  I was pleasantly surprised by this story. When I first heard that Knox "The Jack*ss" Monroe would get his story I was not on board. I've been burned in the past bad with anti-hero stories so, if I'm being frank, I was going to skip this one entirely. It was actually really cool to win a copy and try it out and end up loving it! (My review coming soon!)

Books I Can't Wait To Get

My Hands On In July

* Book titles are linked to Goodreads.

5th

| Spells and Slip-ups |

26th

| Storm Echo |

28th

| Fae King's Quest |

Here's What Happened On

This Blog In June

I reviewed the following books & audiobooks:

• Inner Demons By Stacia Stark ★★★★★
• Luck of the Demon By Stacia Stark ★★★★★
• Demon's Advocate By Stacia Stark ★★★★★
• Covet By Tracy Wolff ★★☆☆☆

What books are you looking forward to reading this month?

Let me know in the comments below!

Monthly Recap: May 2022

May!

So the allergy fiasco just keeps getting worse. I got so little reading done this month because my eyes have been on fire for the last 3 weeks. The eye drops only take away so much. The act of reading a book with my eyes makes my head hurt and my eyes water/burn. I also had a physical ARC I needed to read last week. Guess who couldn't do that either? *sigh* 

Now my throat is also on fire and my voice is nowhere to be found. I either have no voice or am very hoarse to the point where it hurts to try to speak. I've got an appointment with an ear-nose-throat specialist. Hopefully, she'll have more to say to me other than to "stop sleeping with your mouth open". Which for the record is very dismissive and not true. Even if it were true it wouldn't explain why it sometimes gets worse and then it gets better and the cycle renews. It's more truthful to say that I clench while I sleep than it is to say that I sleep with my mouth open. Can you tell I'm losing faith in doctors yet? How I can have classic allergy symptoms and have them not be *actual* allergies is astounding to me.

Here's hoping you had a better month than I did 😅

Until next month!

Happy reading!

Books I Read & Listened

To In May

| eBook | eBook | Graphic Audio Book |

• Demon's Advocate By Stacia Stark - I love this series! This is one of the best series I've read all year. This will probably be in the Top 5 of the best books I've had the pleasure of reading this year. (My review coming soon!)

• The Vampire's Deal By Alice Wilde - I realized too late that this book wasn't for me. By that point, I was almost finished with it and didn't have it in me to DNF. (My review is live here!) 

• One Fell Sweep By Ilona Andrews - This was the best book in the series so far! I loved everything about it! Dina was as kick*ss as ever. Sean played a more significant role than he's played in past novels. I loved seeing another piece of Dina's family being a part of the story. I loved how quippy the characters were. (My review is live here!)

| Audio Book |

• Quicksilver By Dannika Dark - I loved this story! I loved seeing Raven and Christian have sweet moments and banter together. I loved seeing how everyone worked together to solve a very big problem with life-altering consequences. (My review is live here!)

Books I Can't Wait To Get

My Hands On In June

* Book titles are linked to Goodreads.

24th

| Play The Demon |

Here's What Happened On

This Blog In May

I reviewed the following books & audiobooks:

• Capture the Crown By Jennifer Estep ★★★☆☆
• Dance with the Demon By Stacia Stark ★★★★☆
• Fallen By Lauren Kate ★★☆☆☆
• Quicksilver By Dannika Dark ★★★★☆

What books are you looking forward to reading this month?

Let me know in the comments below!

Monthly Recap: April 2022

April!

The saga of the allergic reaction continues! I posted, probably a few years ago at this point, that my eyes were burning and that an allergist did a total of ~5 blood tests and washed her hands of me. Well, this month was where I finally got some answers about my "allergies"! I put it in quotations because apparently, it's not a *true* allergic response. A *true* allergy response would have my immune system in hyperdrive and according to a very specific blood test that's not what's happening. I'm getting allergy-like symptoms and that's the end of it. There's no way to treat the cause because it's "reactive". That's the word the doctor used. I can only treat the symptoms on the surface and hope it eventually goes away. It's usually caused by something in the air that my body thinks is evil. That means being in the vicinity of smoke, strong fragrances, dust, and anything else that can be airborne makes my body ring the alarm for idiotic symptoms that feel like hell.  Another great idea would be living in a bubble. I wish that were possible on the worse days.

On a better note, I read books this month? I'm questioning myself on that one because I mostly just pushed myself through most of the books this month. The War Of Two Queens really did a number on me (with how good it was!) which makes my brain kinda sorta want to go into a reading slump because of course no book can be as good as that book. Right? RiGhT?! RIGHT???

It was a weird month. Let's leave it at that 😅

Until next month!

Happy reading!

Books I Read & Listened

To In April

| eBook | GraphicAudio | Audio Book |

• Romeo By Sybil Bartel - I wasn't expecting this but I ended up DISLIKING this book SO DAMN MUCH. I loved quite a few books by this author in the past. I don't know what went so wrong with this one but I just could barely stand it. (My review is live here!)

• Sweep In Peace By Illona Andrews - The only reason I've picked up this series and stuck with it was it being a GraphicAudio production. The first book blew me away this one (story-wise) was just okay. (My review is live here!)

• Ben Fortune By Elizabeth Dear - This book did something I wasn't expecting it to do. It interweaved Ben's story into Mave's story (Book #1) in an interesting way. In this book, we get to see what was happening with Ben while Mave was being put through the wringer in her book. (My review is live here!) 

| Audio Book | Audio Book |

• Lord Of Embers By C. N. Crawford - I had very high hopes for this book. It all came crashing down on me and my expectations. My dislike of this book runs deep. I wanted more of what got me hooked on the first book. This one was more character-driven (and it just didn't work for me with this story). (My review is live here!)

• The One And Only Crystal Druid By Annette Marie - I still love this series! I'm very glad I reread this before starting the next book. I can't wait to figure out all of Zak's secrets and where things will be going from here! (My review is live here!)

Books I Can't Wait To Get

My Hands On In May

* Book titles are linked to Goodreads.

5th

| Kiss Of Darkness |

6th

| The Twice-Scorned Lady Of Shadow |

17th

| Quicksilver |

(Audio Book)

30th

| Reject Me |

31st

| Fate Touched |

Here's What Happened On

This Blog In April

I reviewed the following books & audiobooks:

• The War Of Two Queens By Jennifer L. Armentrout ★★★★★
• Shadow's Lyric By C. A. Worley ★★★☆☆
• Speak of the Demon By Stacia Stark ★★★★☆
• Ben Fortune By Elizabeth Dear ★★★★☆

What books are you looking forward to reading this month?

Let me know in the comments below!