❄ 💙 Second Sundays - February 2024 💙 ❄

Happy February peeps!

Is it only me, or did January feel like 6 months of life lived in 31 days? Granted, I was sick for half of it and it just felt like it would never end. 😣

I have some extra goodies this month in addition to the normal book reviews and hauls, so

let's get to it!

☕ ANNOUNCING THE FIRST CUP OF TEA BOOK CLUB PICK! ☕

I started a book club! 🥳 Our first pick is S. Morgenstern's The Princess Bride abridged by William Goldman. 

We just started reading on the 1st, and this is a read-at-your-own-pace space. You've got the whole month (if you need it) to read and share your thoughts in our chat. There's also an exclusive bookmark drawn by yours truly! You can join at any time through the Cup of Tea tier. 

The Princess Bride not your particular "cup" this month? Not to worry! I'll be announcing March's pick on the main page of the Patreon soon. 😉

❄ ☕ JANUARY READS & REVIEWS ☕ ❄

I was lucky enough to start my year with another instant favorite. Thornhedge is my first T. Kingfisher book and I was not disappointed! It's a spin on the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, and I love this version way more. It's a novella following a human turned fairy creature named Toadling, and I tell you what, between this story and Assistant to the Villain, I'm kind of re-obsessed with toads and frogs. 😅 Kingfisher had me hooked by the bottom of the first page with her lovely imagery and sympathetic main character. It's a whimsical, sweet story with all the best traits of a good fairy tale, including unique world-building and descriptions of magic. 

Some of my favorites:

Toadling's magic was all mud and water.

The currents and eddies carried through the keep, drank endlessly from the well.

There are also other faeries, swamp spirits, and a hare goddess! If you've got an itch for a short, fresh fairy tale, don't miss this one!

The only downside to Thornhedge is that it left me wanting more, so I immediately jumped into Nettle & Bone. Once again, Kingfisher had me before the end of the first page. I read this book in only two days - staying up past even my late hours to finish. This one is a bit longer at 240 pages, so it really satisfied and intensified that craving for more of Kingfisher's imagery and characters. 

What got me particularly hooked this time is a moment in the first few pages when Marra was singing and I recognized the lyrics as matching very closely to a song I know by Loreena McKennitt called "The Bonny Swans" (click the link to listen on Spotify!) So not only did this book make me crave even more Kingfisher (see my book haul below to see just how much!), but it took me back to my childhood and made we want to listen to Loreena McKennitt. There's honestly so many connections between this song and Nettle & Bone, I'd be curious to find the original fairy tale that inspired both.

This story follows a young princess nun named Marra as she goes on a quest to save her older sister - and perhaps herself - from the same fate their first-born sister suffered - murder by the prince she married. This is another good, old-fashioned-type fairy tale with Ghibli-like charismatic characters including a witch called a dust wife, a dog made of bones, a demon chicken, a man wolf, and a godmother. Another instant favorite by an author who's now an instant by for me. I say if you don't read this, you are missing out!

Nettle & Bone left me in a bit of a slump, because all I wanted to read was more Kingfisher and turns out all of her other fantasy titles are print-on-demand or e-book only. So while I waited for my order to come in (seriously, you have no idea - my book haul is... a lot) I perused my TBR bookcase to find something as similar as I could and decided to pick up Godkiller by Hannah Kaner.

This one follows four main characters - a godkiller named Kissen who wants nothing to do with anyone unless they're paying her to kill, a young noble girl named Inna with a strange, unheard-of bond to a small god named Skedi, and a retired knight named Elo who's on a quest to save his king. The king has outlawed offerings to the gods and has ordered godkilling, but there are all kinds of back-door Rumpelstiltskin-like deals still going on between the gods and humans, and the king's rule is failing, not the least reason of which because he's dying.

I have mixed feelings about this one. I think it may have been at a disadvantage because I read the other two first. I did like the story, and there were moments that I even loved, but there were also more moments that left me a bit wanting too. I really liked the unique god system and enjoyed the interactions between these four characters. The ending was a strong point and did leave me encouraged to read the next book when it comes out. (I think this is going to be a trilogy?) I liked the story, but I wasn't in love with the story, which was a hard thing to come down to after two great books. I think this one would really benefit from a reread for me after I've had some distance from Kingfisher 😅 so I would still recommend it if you're looking for an easy quest-type fantasy.

📚 JANUARY BOOK HAUL 📚

Okay, I warned you, so here we are. My epic post-xmas book haul. I feel like I need to state that I had a rather big gift card that I used for nearly all of these, so I only partially broke a rule of my book buying ban. Grimm is pretty excited to have all these added to his hoard!

First, I ordered almost the entire backlist of Kingfisher fantasy books (only minus sequels of a few, and the e-books are sitting in my cart waiting until I decide to get over reading on an iPad). All of these are print-on-demand unfortunately but they were easy to find online. Top to bottom:

• Bryony and Roses - a Beauty and the Beast retellng

• The Seventh Bride - a Miller's Daughter retelling

• The Raven and the Reindeer - a Snow Queen retelling

• Jackalope Wives & Other Stories - a collection of original fairy tale-like short stories

• Summer in Orcus - a fairy tale-like story with Baba Yaga in it

• A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking - 14-year-old Mona finds a dead body on the bakery floor

• Illuminations - "Magic. Mischief. Mandrakes."

• Clockwork Boys - book 1 of 2 - "A paladin, an assassin, a forger, and a scholar ride out of town."

• Swordheart - a book in the Clockwork Boys world - a fairy tale-like story in which the magic sword might be the most dangerous thing

• Paladin's Grace - book 1 of 2 - "When a god dies, who gets left behind?"

The rest of these I purchased because Kingfisher also got me onto a novella/short story kick. I think I need some quick wins in my tbr this year to give me a break from so many of the epic fantasies I'm used to reading. Absolute transparency - you're probably going to get sick of me talking about Kingfisher this year. Sorry, not sorry. The nerd flag is flying! 🤓 Top to bottom:

• The Keeper's Six by Kate Elliot - "a badass, spell-slinging mother... sets out to rescue son from a dragon lord" 

• The Lies of the Ajungo by Moses Ose Utomi - "They say there is no water in the City of Lies... But would you believe what they say in the City of Lies?"

• Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee - a Roc rider hunts the manticores that killed her family

• Your Utopia by Bora Chung - a collection of short, darkly humorous horror stories

• White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link - a collection of fairy tale retellings that are "Brothers Grimm meets Black Mirror and Alice and Wonderland"

• The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo - an exiled empress bends history to her will and takes revenge on her enemies

• The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho - the philosophical fiction classic about a shepherd boy who goes on a journey

• The Way Home by Peter S. Beagle - two new short stories in the Last Unicorn world

• A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow - a Sleeping Beauty retelling

• The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler - the consciousness of a murdered elephant scientist is downloaded into the mind of a resurrected mammoth to help save the species from a second extinction

• The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams - a kitchen boy apprenticed to a scholar goes on a quest to solve a deadly riddle to save a dying kingdom.

The only exception to the novellas is The Dragonbone Chair, which I purchased because I also want to read fantasy and sci-fi classics this year that I missed growing up, and this is a big one. Williams inspired George R.R. Martin and Patrick Rothfuss among a host of others, and sounds like he's one of those criminally underrated and forgotten authors, so I had to snag it.

🎉 FEBRUARY NEW RELEASES I'M EXCITED FOR 🎉

There's really only one book I've got my eye on this month, and that's Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan.

It's an East Asian mythology-inspired story about a half-submerged city on the verge of a civil war between humans who live above the water and the creatures below it. It comes out February 27th and might end up on my summer tbr with some other water/ocean focused stories.

Until next month - Happy Reading!