❄ Second Sundays - January 2024 🎉

Happy New Year 🥳 and Welcome to the new home for Second Sundays!

I decided to leave the holiday header up because we still haven't celebrated Christmas at my house. Everyone has been getting sick in turns, so we've postponed twice. We'll see when it eventually all comes together, but in the meantime, I thought it appropriate that Gnikgnik gets to keep her ornament and holly. 🤗

Some quick housekeeping for those new to the blog:

Second Sundays is my monthly laundry list of reviews, book hauls, TBR lists, future releases on my radar, and any other bookish content and some other tidbits occasionally thrown in. A disclaimer about those TBR lists - they're more suggestions than actual lists. I've discovered I'm a mood reader, so best laid plans are often thwarted, and we go with the flow here. 

Now that's done, on to the goods!

❄ ☕ DECEMBER READS & REVIEWS ☕ ❄

As expected, I only managed to read one last book in 2023 - Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree. This was a prequel to Legends & Lattes, a book I instantly fell in love with last year and added to my re-readable favorites.

I have to admit that this one didn’t grip me as fast as Legends & Lattes did. I still enjoyed it, but it had a different flavor in the sense that I didn’t feel the coziness until about halfway through the book, which is also when I became truly invested in the characters. The plot was more restless, which fit the mood of the main character Viv perfectly, but I found myself anxious for the story to calm down for a moment and really settle in. I got a few cozy moments, one in particular that really spoke to my bookseller side, and the full-circle epilogue made the story worth it. I think this had more to do with me and my current reading mood than the book itself, though. I also wasn't much of a fan of the romance reading recommendations peppered throughout the story, which not being a very avid romance reader and picky about the romance the does end up in the books I read, is definitely a me thing. The romance and romance books serve the plot and make sense, and I can appreciate the nudging humor in them that Baldree was probably going for.

If you're wanting a low-stakes fantasy and enjoy the D&D world, I think you'll like this story. One endearing "boney" side character alone makes the book worth the read. (Admittedly, if you can make it to the middle of the book when he shows up.)

🎅📚 DECEMBER BOOK HAUL 📚🎅

I technically purchased six additional books last month (one literally skating in yesterday just under the wire of my book-buying ban that started today! 😅) but as four of them are coming in special from the UK and won't be delivered for a bit, I'm counting them toward January's haul instead. I'm SUPER STOKED about them 😁 but more on that later!

Ruthless Vows by Rebecca Ross is the sequel to Divine Rivals, a Young Adult Fantasy that I admittedly have not read yet. 😅 But I wanted the covers to match 🤷‍♀️ and once the exclusive editions are gone, they're gone. This duology is about... well, remember when I said I'm picky about the romance I read? This is an enemies-to-lovers romantasy story that caught my attention because  of the rave reviews and the warring gods subplot. I've got a feeling about these books, and I'm going with it. Definitely on the early-list of reads for this year!

Okay, I'm not gonna lie. I judge books by their covers (I am an artist after all!) and this exclusive edition of Sons of Darkness by Gourav Mohatney had my attention instantly. The cover artist is Micaela Alcaino, and I'll be hunting her down on the socials to see everything else she's done. I mean how GORGEOUS is this book?! 😍 It's honestly probably the prettiest thing on my bookshelves right now, which is saying a lot. Then I read the synopsis, which begins with "Some ballads are inked in blood" and boy am I in for this epic fantasy hook, line, and sinker! 

📚 JANUARY TBR WISHLIST 📚

So January is a notoriously weird month for me when it comes to reading. I usually end up in a non-fiction mood by February, but the weeks leading up to it are a big question mark. Restricting myself to choosing only the books on my unread bookcase actually helps, and I think I'm in a wintery, Frozen-like mood, so here are some contenders for what I might read this month:

The Wilderwood Duology by Hannah Whitten has been on my tbr for a year or two now. It's a kind of Red Riding Hood retelling about two sisters with two very different destinies. 

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher is another fairy tale retelling, this one a bit of an odd riff on Sleeping Beauty. It's a novella, so it would be a swift win for the 2024 Goodreads reading goal.

Echo North and Wind Daughter by Joanna Ruth Meyer (a local-to-me author!) are a standalone and companion YA fantasy novels. Echo North is a mash-up of fairytales retold and both have very wintery settings and themes. I had the pleasure of meeting this author last year at the local comicon, and her books have been snagging my eye on and off since.

🎉 JANUARY NEW RELEASES I'M EXCITED FOR 🎉

There actually isn't any new release this month on my radar, so instead I'm going to gush about those books coming in from the UK. 😁

This is a quartet epic fantasy titled The Dandelion Dynasty by Ken Liu. So first of all, sometimes (actually, when it comes to book covers, oftentimes) the UK has nicer things, and being a fan of book cover art, I had to go with these editions. They line up to make a full scene! How cool and beautiful is that?! Second of all, I've watched reviews of these books on my favorite bookTube channels, and I'm hearing nothing but good things. Particularly that Ken Liu is criminally underrated and The Dandelion Dynasty should have a place among the best epic fantasy books ever written. EVER. And, they are big beastie books, and we all know I like my big books, so of course I'm all in and I am so excited for these get here! I've never done an unboxing video before, but I just might have to figure out how to do one for these.

I hope all of you are having a smooth and healthy start to the new year. Happy reading!