📚 ☕️ Second Sundays May 2024 ☕️📚

Hello and happy... er, end of May! 😬😅So sorry for the long delay in this blog. Between things getting... shall we say "eventful" in the day job and catching a bad cold, May is another month that slipped me by. To make up for it, here's a couple of shark videos (because sharks are another one of my obsessions) that I took during my April visit to the local aquarium. 😁

Now without any other ado, here is all the bookish stuff from the last month!

☕📚 May Book Club Pick 📚☕

Our Cup of Tea book club pick this month was Persuasion by Jane Austen, and I'm so glad I decided to embrace the Austen itch. I'd only ever read Pride and Prejudice in high school, about 20 years ago now, and I have always wanted to go back and visit her other works.

I really enjoyed this one. Austen's plots are simple, and her language is immersive. Having 3 different adaptations to watch while reading was also a nice bonus. 😉 While Wentworth is no Mr. Darcy, he certainly has a way with words. So does Anne for that matter. Without getting into spoilers, I'll say that I have several new favorite Austen quotes now thanks to these two characters. If you're an Austen fan or wanting to read Austen and haven't given this one a try, I definitely think you should. It's one of her shorter stories and just as accessible as Pride and Prejudice as far as getting used to the writing language and characters that are easy to root for.

April Reads and Reviews

Whoo dang it was a rough reading month. I didn't finish any books for review. It wasn't a reading slump per se - I started both I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons and Stardust and stopped both not because I wasn't enjoying them but because I was simply too tired to focus and give them the attention I would have liked. April was the first month for me this year to just come and go with what felt like not much more than a greeting and a farewell.

I do have a book haul to share though (even if I'm not reading, I'm collecting!) 🤓

📚 April Book Haul 📚

I know you're not supposed to judge a book by it's cover, but I absolutely did that with most of these this month. It was also one of my more modest hauls so far this year, which isn't a bad thing considering what May's ended up looking like... but more on that in the next blog.

From Top to Bottom:

Masquerade ARC by O.O. Sangoyomi - this is a historical fantasy loosely based on the Greek myth of Persephone and Hades but set in a reimagined 15th century West Africa. Yeah, no way I was going to pass this ARC up.

The Last Phi Hunter by Salinee Goldenberg - I mentioned this one in the last blog as one of my anticipated releases. A quick refresher - a spirit hunter is after the most elusive and dangerous demon in the world while trying to help a pregnant woman (who is not what she seems) get back home.

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo - I haven't read any of her books yet, although Shadow and Bone has been sitting on my tbr shelf for... over a decade. 😬 But this one is her first adult novel and is another historical fantasy set in Spain's "Golden Age" and has a mix of magic, science, fraud, and curses. Pretty sure it's a standalone too which makes it an easy approach.

The Book That Wouldn't Burn and The Book That Broke the World by Mark Lawrence - I have heard so many great things about the first book on BookTube and the sequel just came out, so I snatched up both. Also, STUNNING covers!

The Titanic Survivors Book Club by Timothy Schaffert - anybody who knows me knows I've been obsessed with the Titanic since I saw James Cameron's movie in theatres back in the day - so when I saw this, there was no way I wasn't grabbing it. It's a historical fiction about a man who was supposed to have been on the Titanic, but wasn't - and he's the only one who knows that. Then the man gets swept up in a book club for survivors of the tragedy. Definitely intrigued.

And now as promised, the pretty book covers! 😍

May New Releases I Was Excited For

The only one I really had my eye on initially was Heavenbreaker by Sara Wolf. This one caught my eye at first because, you know, SPRAYED EDGES 😍 but then I read the synopsis and I'm genuinely intrigued. It's a romantic sci-fi space opera that gives me Dune meets Evangalion vibes.

Tell me your brain doesn't explode when you see this. 🤯

See you very soon in the next blog!