Dee's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 10 Apr 2025 19:11:20 -0700 60 Dee's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Empire of Shadows (Raiders of the Arcana, #1)]]> 201845532 Nice Victorian ladies don’t run off to find legendary lost cities.

One trifling little arrest shouldn’t have cost Ellie Mallory her job, but it’s only the latest in a line of injustices facing any educated woman with archaeological ambitions.

When Ellie stumbles across the map to a mysterious ancient city, she knows she’s holding her chance to revolutionize Pre-Colombian history. There’s just one teensy complication. A ruthless villain wants it, and Ellie is all that stands in his way.

To race him to the ruins—and avoid being violently disposed of—she needs the help of maverick surveyor Adam Bates, a snake-wrangling rogue who can’t seem to keep his dratted shirt on.

But there’s more than Ellie’s scholarly reputation (and life) on the line. Her enemies aren’t just looters. They’re after an arcane secret rumored to lie in the heart of the ruins, a mythical artifact with a power that could shake the world.

Between stealing trousers, plummeting over waterfalls, and trying not to fall in love with her machete-wielding partner, will Ellie be able to stop the oracle of a lost empire from falling into the wrong hands?

Empire of Shadows is the first book in Jacquelyn Benson’s smart, swashbuckling Raiders of the Arcana series. Read it now and dive into a rip-roaring historical fantasy adventure perfect for fans of Romancing the Stone and The Mummy.]]> 478 Jacquelyn Benson 1959050125 Dee 0 to-read 4.22 2024 Empire of Shadows (Raiders of the Arcana, #1)
author: Jacquelyn Benson
name: Dee
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/10
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]]> Lucky Day 217387953 Lucky Day is the newest novel of terror from Chuck Tingle, USA Today bestselling author of Bury Your Gays, where one woman must go up against the most horrifying concept of all: nothing.

Vera is a survivor of a global catastrophe known as the Low Probability Event, but she definitely isn't thriving. Once a passionate professor of statistics, she no longer finds meaning in anything at all.

But when problematic government agent Layne knocks on her door, she's the only one who can help him uncover the connection between deadly spates of absurdity and an improbably lucky casino. What's happening in Vegas isn't staying there, and the world is at risk of another disaster.

When it comes to Chuck Tingle, the only thing more terrifying than a serious horror novel is an absurd one...]]> 240 Chuck Tingle 1250398657 Dee 0 to-read 4.52 2025 Lucky Day
author: Chuck Tingle
name: Dee
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/10
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]]> Convenience Store Woman 36739755 Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura.

Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,� she finds peace and purpose in her life. In the store, unlike anywhere else, she understands the rules of social interaction―many are laid out line by line in the store’s manual―and she does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a “normal� person excellently, more or less. Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly pressure her to find a husband, and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action�

A brilliant depiction of a world hidden from view, Convenience Store Woman is an ironic and sharp-eyed look at contemporary work culture and the pressures we all feel to conform, as well as a charming and completely fresh portrait of an unforgettable heroine.]]> 163 Sayaka Murata 0802128254 Dee 0 to-read 3.65 2016 Convenience Store Woman
author: Sayaka Murata
name: Dee
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/10
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]]> Earthlings 50269327
Now Natsuki is grown. She lives a quiet life with her asexual husband, surviving as best she can by pretending to be normal. But the demands of Natsuki's family are increasing, her friends wonder why she's still not pregnant, and dark shadows from Natsuki's childhood are pursuing her. Fleeing the suburbs for the mountains of her childhood, Natsuki prepares herself with a reunion with Yuu. Will he still remember their promise? And will he help her keep it?]]> 247 Sayaka Murata 1783785675 Dee 0 to-read 3.59 2018 Earthlings
author: Sayaka Murata
name: Dee
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/10
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]]> The Witch of Blackbird Pond 703292
Orphaned Kit Tyler knows, as she gazes for the first time at the cold, bleak shores of Connecticut Colony, that her new home will never be like the shimmering Caribbean island she left behind. In her relatives' stern Puritan community, she feels like a tropical bird that has flown to the wrong part of the world, a bird that is now caged and lonely. The only place where Kit feels completely free is in the meadows, where she enjoys the company of the old Quaker woman known as the Witch of Blackbird Pond, and on occasion, her young sailor friend Nat. But when Kit's friendship with the "witch" is discovered, Kit is faced with suspicion, fear, and anger. She herself is accused of witchcraft!]]> 256 Elizabeth George Speare Dee 0 to-read 4.01 1958 The Witch of Blackbird Pond
author: Elizabeth George Speare
name: Dee
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1958
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/10
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]]> <![CDATA[Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow]]> 93995 176 Susan Campbell Bartoletti 0439353793 Dee 0 to-read 4.09 2005 Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow
author: Susan Campbell Bartoletti
name: Dee
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/10
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]]> It Found Us 68009601
Twelve-year-old Hazel Woods has always had an unusual knack for sleuthing. Some may call it snooping, but all she really wants is to solve mysteries around town. So, when she not-so-accidentally overhears her brother Den planning to sneak into the cemetery at night for an epic game of hide-and-seek, she decides to secretly tag along. This seems like the perfect opportunity to investigate the claims that the cemetery is haunted.

But the moment the game ends, Hazel realizes something is very, very wrong. From her hiding spot in the bushes, she overhears that her brother’s best friend, Everett, is missing. Everyone else was found by the seeker but there’s no sign of Everett anywhere. It’s as if he just . . . vanished

Hazel and Den are determined to find Everett before it’s too late. But as they begin to unravel the terrifying clues that started appearing since that night in the graveyard–eerie whispers that sound like someone counting, the intermittent smell of smoke, and the cold, lost presence that follows them everywhere, she’s not sure what they are dealing with. But Everett needs more than search parties and scent-tracking dogs to find him, especially if his disappearance is tied to the history of the cemetery, and the lost, century-old spirits that might still be trapped there.]]> 274 Lindsay Currie Dee 0 to-read 3.94 2023 It Found Us
author: Lindsay Currie
name: Dee
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/09
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]]> Promise Boys 61144954
The prestigious Urban Promise Prep school might look pristine on the outside, but deadly secrets lurk within. When the principal ends up murdered on school premises and the cops come sniffing around, a trio of students―J.B., Ramón, and Trey―emerge as the prime suspects. They had the means, they had the motive . . . and they may have had the murder weapon. But with all three maintaining their innocence, they must band together to track down the real killer before they are arrested. Or is the true culprit hiding among them?

Find out who killed Principal Moore in Nick Brooks's murder mystery, Promise Boys � The Hate U Give meets One of Us Is Lying.]]> 304 Nick Brooks 1250866979 Dee 0 to-read 3.95 2023 Promise Boys
author: Nick Brooks
name: Dee
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/09
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]]> Gothic Tales 214671264 A collection of witty, transgressive tales from the great Enlightenment thinker, best known for his inimitable blend of philosophy and scandalous sexuality

__________

'A bawdy burlesque' Guardian

'A wonderful introduction to Sade's diversity...among the most accessible of his fiction.' Literary Review

'Sade, who seemed to represent nothing throughout the nineteenth century, may well dominate the twentieth.' Guillaume Apollinaire

__________

The Marquis de Sade is one of the select group of authors whose name has become an adjective, inspiring the word 'sadism' with his shocking works of philosophical fiction. But for all his scandalous reputation, Sade was a moralist and a philosopher above all, and the stories collected here show him in his full range, using his kinky imagination to poke fun at convention and decry social ills.

In the longer stories, 'Florville and Courval' and 'Eugénie de Franval', we see one of the greatest taboos of all - incest - employed to criticise the corrupt social order of the time. Shorter pieces such as 'The Horse-Chestnut Flower' and 'The Husband Who Played Priest', meanwhile, show Sade's sharp sense of humour at play. This collection reveals France's most infamous libertine as an author whose literary range and psychological insight can still astonish, centuries after he first shocked polite society.]]> 204 Marquis de Sade Dee 0 to-read 3.78 1965 Gothic Tales
author: Marquis de Sade
name: Dee
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1965
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/08
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]]> Blood on Her Tongue 213570812 "I'm in your blood, and you are in mine�"

The Netherlands, 1887. Lucy's twin sister Sarah is unwell. She refuses to eat, mumbles nonsensically, and is increasingly obsessed with a centuries-old corpse recently discovered on her husband's grand estate. The doctor has diagnosed her with temporary insanity caused by a fever of the brain. To protect her twin from a terrible fate in a lunatic asylum, Lucy must unravel the mystery surrounding her sister's condition, but it's clear her twin is hiding something. Then again, Lucy is harboring secrets of her own, too.

Then, the worst happens. Sarah's behavior takes a turn for the strange. She becomes angryâ€� and hungry.Ìý

Lucy soon comes to suspect that something is trying to possess her beloved sister. Or is it madness? As Sarah changes before her very eyes, Lucy must reckon with the dark, monstrous truth, or risk losing her forever.]]> 368 Johanna van Veen 1728281571 Dee 4 2025-releases 4.04 2025 Blood on Her Tongue
author: Johanna van Veen
name: Dee
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/08
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: 2025-releases
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]]> The Ballad of the Last Dragon 223711170 "A bard never reveals her secrets, only everyone else's."
There is no place for elves in this world, but Sylvaine knows she's destined for greatness—a world-famous bard entertaining the finest nobility as far as Lindale. Unfortunately, performing in her local tavern off the beaten path lends scant opportunity to distinguish herself.

Until a group of adventurers arrive, promising fame, wealth, and glory when they slay the last dragon of their age and find the lost hoard. Syl convinces them they’ll need a bard to spread word of their heroics, and if she can claim some honor for herself along the way, well no one could fault her for recognizing a mutually beneficial arrangement. Even if it means ignoring the glaring disapproval of the hulking warrior assigned to protect her.

Jaromir is rude and ill-tempered. He makes no effort to hide his distaste when she joins their group. But as they grow closer, and are unable to deny the heat of their attraction, she discovers there's more to him than his poor manners. He brings her passion, peace, and safety in a world in which she’s never felt welcome.

When the group suffers a great loss, they must use the power of a convincing story to keep their quest alive. A future that once seemed impossible, is suddenly within reach with Jaromir by her side. But even the ballads of love are rife with sorrow. Syl must slay her own dragons before she has a chance at surviving this journey and writing the ending she yearns for. Every bard knows the victorious ending comes at a price. Syl will see this tale through, no matter what it costs her…]]> 378 C.A. Farran Dee 0 to-read 4.83 The Ballad of the Last Dragon
author: C.A. Farran
name: Dee
average rating: 4.83
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/07
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]]> Blood Over Bright Haven 208430658 Magic has made the city of Tiran an industrial utopia, but magic has a cost—and the collectors have come calling.

An orphan since the age of four, Sciona has always had more to prove than her fellow students. For twenty years, she has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic, fueled by a mad desire to achieve the impossible: to be the first woman ever admitted to the High Magistry. When she finally claws her way up the ranks to become a highmage, however, she finds that her challenges have just begun. Her new colleagues will stop at nothing to let her know she is unwelcome, beginning with giving her a janitor instead of a qualified lab assistant.

What neither Sciona nor her peers realize is that her taciturn assistant was once more than a janitor; before he mopped floors for the mages, Thomil was a nomadic hunter from beyond Tiran’s magical barrier. Ten years have passed since he survived the perilous crossing that killed his family. But working for a highmage, he sees the opportunity to finally understand the forces that decimated his tribe, drove him from his homeland, and keep the Tiranish in power.

Through their fractious relationship, mage and outsider uncover an ancient secret that could change the course of magic forever—if it doesn’t get them killed first. Sciona has defined her life by the pursuit of truth, but how much is one truth worth with the fate of civilization in the balance?

A standalone dark academia brimming with mystery, tragedy, and the damning echoes of the past. For fans of Leigh Bardugo, V. E. Schwab, and Fullmetal Alchemist.

(Content warnings for gore, sexual assault, and suicidal ideation)]]> 430 M.L. Wang 0593873351 Dee 0 to-read 4.40 2023 Blood Over Bright Haven
author: M.L. Wang
name: Dee
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/05
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]]> The Sword of Kaigen 41886271 A son struggling to grasp his violent future,
A father blind to the danger that threatens them all.

When the winds of war reach their peninsula, will the Matsuda family have the strength to defend their empire? Or will they tear each other apart before the true enemies even reach their shores?

High on a mountainside at the edge of the Kaigenese Empire live the most powerful warriors in the world, superhumans capable of raising the sea and wielding blades of ice. For hundreds of years, the fighters of the Kusanagi Peninsula have held the Empire’s enemies at bay, earning their frozen spit of land the name ‘The Sword of Kaigen.�

Born into Kusanagi’s legendary Matsuda family, fourteen-year-old Mamoru has always known his purpose: to master his family’s fighting techniques and defend his homeland. But when an outsider arrives and pulls back the curtain on Kaigen’s alleged age of peace, Mamoru realizes that he might not have much time to become the fighter he was bred to be. Worse, the empire he was bred to defend may stand on a foundation of lies.

Misaki told herself that she left the passions of her youth behind when she married into the Matsuda house. Determined to be a good housewife and mother, she hid away her sword, along with everything from her days as a fighter in a faraway country. But with her growing son asking questions about the outside world, the threat of an impending invasion looming across the sea, and her frigid husband grating on her nerves, Misaki finds the fighter in her clawing its way back to the surface.]]> 651 M.L. Wang Dee 0 to-read 4.46 2019 The Sword of Kaigen
author: M.L. Wang
name: Dee
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)]]> 7260188 My name is Katniss Everdeen.
Why am I not dead?
I should be dead.

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss's family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.

It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans—except Katniss.

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay—no matter what the personal cost.]]> 390 Suzanne Collins 0439023513 Dee 4 ya-madness, books-i-own 4.10 2010 Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Dee
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/25
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: ya-madness, books-i-own
review:

]]> Katabasis 210191773 Two graduate students must set aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul, perhaps at the cost of their own.

Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality—her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world—that is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.

Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands, and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams. Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the same conclusion.]]> 560 R.F. Kuang 0063021471 Dee 0 to-read 4.26 2025 Katabasis
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Dee
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/04
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]]> The Resurrectionist 210365385 Historical fiction, true crime, and dark academia intertwine in a harrowing tale of murder, greed, and the grisly origins of modern medicine.

Edinburgh, Scotland, 1828. Naïve but determined James Willoughby has abandoned his posh, sheltered life at Oxford to pursue a lifelong dream of studying surgery in Edinburgh. A shining beacon of medical discovery in the age of New Enlightenment, the city’s university offers everything James desires—except the chance to work on a human cadaver.

For that he needs to join one of the private schools in Surgeon’s Square, at a cost he cannot afford. In desperation he strikes a deal with Aneurin “Nye� MacKinnon, a dashing young dissectionist with an artist’s eye for anatomy and a reckless passion for knowledge. Nye promises to help James gain the surgical experience he craves—but it doesn’t take long for James to realize he’s made a devil’s bargain... Nye is a body snatcher—and James has unwittingly become his accomplice.]]> 336 A. Rae Dunlap 1496750349 Dee 0 to-read 3.88 2024 The Resurrectionist
author: A. Rae Dunlap
name: Dee
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/03
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]]> <![CDATA[Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1)]]> 52397
Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others.

When fire destroys their compound, Lauren’s family is killed and she is forced out into a world that is fraught with danger. With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean salvation for all mankind.]]> 345 Octavia E. Butler 0446675504 Dee 0 to-read 4.21 1993 Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1)
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: Dee
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1993
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/03
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]]> <![CDATA[Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1)]]> 20893527
Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is sent by mistake to live with a lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make an indelible impression on everyone around her.]]> 427 L.M. Montgomery 0147514002 Dee 0 to-read 4.53 1908 Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1)
author: L.M. Montgomery
name: Dee
average rating: 4.53
book published: 1908
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/03
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]]> The Wind in the Willows 5659 “All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.�

For more than a century, The Wind in the Willows and its endearing protagonists—Mole, Water Rat, Badger, and, of course, the incorrigible Toad—have enchanted children of all ages. Whether the four friends are setting forth on an exciting adventure, engaging in a comic caper, or simply relaxing by the River Thames, their stories will surprise and captivate you.

Hailed as one of the most enduringly popular works of the twentieth century, this story is a classic of magical fancy and enchanting wit. Penned in lyrical prose, the adventures and misadventures of the book’s intrepid quartet of heroes raise fantasy to the level of myth. Reflecting the freshness of childhood wonder, it still offers adults endless sophistication, substance, and depth.

The animals� world embodies the author’s wry, whimsical, and unfailingly inventive imagination. It is a world that succeeding generations of both adult and young readers have found irresistible. But why say more? To use the words of the estimable Mr. Toad himself: “Travel, change, interest, excitement!...Come inside.�]]> 197 Kenneth Grahame 0143039091 Dee 0 to-read 4.02 1908 The Wind in the Willows
author: Kenneth Grahame
name: Dee
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1908
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The River Bank: A Sequel to Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows]]> 31944834 195 Kij Johnson 1618731300 Dee 0 to-read 4.02 2017 The River Bank: A Sequel to Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows
author: Kij Johnson
name: Dee
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> The Boyhood of Cain 217005303 A searing novel of love and betrayal as a young boy comes of age in the heart of England, from an exquisite new voice.

In a small village in England, in the shadow of an ancient abbey nestled between rivers, a young boy is growing up. Daniel is highly intelligent but little understood by his family, and so a secret passion burns inside him—for love, for certainty, and for recognition. His father is a man of grand gestures but few practical skills, and his beautiful mother is attentive but compromised by her own unhappiness and fading ideals.Ìý 

When Daniel’s father loses his job as the headmaster of the local school, the family is pulled beneath the undertow of his whims, stumbling into a rural life for which they are ill-prepared. The arrival of Philip, a new boy at school, whom Daniel worships with a confused intensity, is his sole solace. Before long, both boys fall under the spell of a charismatic art teacher, setting Daniel on a perilous course that could lead to the betrayal of all he loves.  

Tender, brutal, and enthralling, The Boyhood of Cain is a remarkable portrait of a young boy caught between mother and father, between self and desire, and between obedience and freedom. It evokes the passions and private wounds of youth and plumbs the turning points in our lives that make us who we are.]]> 208 Michael Amherst 0593718526 Dee 0 to-read 3.41 2025 The Boyhood of Cain
author: Michael Amherst
name: Dee
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/01
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]]> Hot Wax 224103430 The new novel from the bestselling author of If We Were Villains and Graveyard Shift—a vivid and immersive tale of one woman’s reckless mission to make sense of the events that shattered her childhood, and made her who she is

Summer, 1989: ten-year-old Suzanne is drawn like a magnet to her father’s forbidden world of electric guitars and tricked-out cars. When her mother remarries, she jumps at the chance to tag along on the concert tour that just might be Gil and the Kills� wild ride to glory. But fame has sharper fangs than anybody realized, and as the band blazes up the charts, internal power struggles set Gil and his group on a collision course destined for a bloody reckoning—one shrouded in mystery and lore for decades to come.

The only witness to a desperate act of violence, Suzanne spends the next twenty-nine years trying to disappear. She trades the music and mayhem of her youth for the quiet of the suburbs and the company of her mild-mannered husband Rob. But when her father’s sudden death resurrects the troubled past she tried so hard to bury, she leaves it all behind and hits the road in search of answers. Hitching her fate and Gil’s beloved car to two vagabonds who call an old Airstream trailer home, she finds everything she thought she’d lost desire, adventure, and the woman she once wanted to be. But Rob refuses to let her go. Determined to bring her back where she belongs, he chases her across the country—and drives her to a desperation all her own.

Drenched in knock-down drag-out rock and roll, Hot Wax is a raucous, breakneck ride to hell and back—where getting lost might be the only way to find yourself and save your soul.]]> 400 M.L. Rio 1668070022 Dee 0 to-read 4.00 2025 Hot Wax
author: M.L. Rio
name: Dee
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/31
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]]> Behooved 217387977 A charming slow-burn romantasy featuring a duty-bound noblewoman with a chronic illness, a prince who would rather be in a library than on a throne, and a magical ride through a world of cozy enchantment

*This beautiful paperback edition features sprayed edges.*

Bianca knows her duty comes before her heart. So when the threat of war looms, she agrees to marry the neighboring kingdom’s heir. But not all royal weddings are a fairytale, and Prince Aric, Bianca’s betrothed, is cold, aloof, and seems to hate her on sight.

To make matters worse, on their wedding night, an assassination attempt goes awry―leaving Aric magically transformed into a horse. Bianca does what any bride in this situation would do: she mounts her new husband and rides away to safety.

Sunset returns Aric to human form, but they soon discover the assassination attempt is part of a larger plot against the throne. Worse, Bianca has been framed for Aric’s murder, and she’s now saddled with a husband who is a horse by day and a frustratingly attractive man by night.

As an unexpected romance begins galloping away with their hearts, Bianca and Aric must rely on each other to unravel the curse and save the throne.]]> 352 M. Stevenson 1250375088 Dee 0 to-read 3.78 2025 Behooved
author: M. Stevenson
name: Dee
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/31
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]]> We Can Never Leave This Place 61333647


A precocious young girl with an unusual imagination is sent on an odyssey into the depths of depravity. After her father dies violently, young Mara is surprised to find her mother welcoming a new guest into their home, claiming that he will protect them from the world of devastation and destruction outside their door.



A grotesque and thrilling dark fantasy, We Can Never Leave This Place is a harrowing portrait of inherited grief and familial trauma.



"We Can Never Leave This Place is the apocalyptic 21st century Grimm's fairy tale you need in your life. Eric LaRocca plucks images directly from the muck and mire of our id and fashions them into something grotesquely beautiful." Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World and The Pallbearers Club



"We Can Never Leave This Place is a bleak and tender, monstrous and visceral fable of family and loss, and the courage it takes to confront them both." Kathe Koja, author of The Cipher]]> 106 Eric LaRocca 1685100244 Dee 0 to-read 3.50 2022 We Can Never Leave This Place
author: Eric LaRocca
name: Dee
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/29
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]]> At Dark, I Become Loathsome 210906882 From Eric LaRocca—Bram Stoker Award–nominated and Splatterpunk Award–winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke—c´Ç³¾±ð²õ At Dark, I Become Loathsome, a grim yet gentle, horrifying yet hopeful, intense tale of death, trauma, and love.

“If you’re reading this, you’ve likely thought that the world would be a better place without you.�

A single line of text, glowing in the darkness of the internet. Written by Ashley Lutin, who has often thought the same—and worse—in the years since his wife died and his young son disappeared. But the peace of the grave is not for him—it’s for those he can help. Ashley has constructed a peculiar ritual for those whose desire to die is at war with their yearning to live a better life.

Struggling to overcome his own endless grief, one night Ashley finds connection with Jinx—a potential candidate for Ashley’s next ritual—who spins a tale both revolting and fascinating. Thus begins a relationship that traps the two men in an ever-tightening spiral of painful revelations, where long-hidden secrets are dragged, kicking and screaming, into the light.

Only through pain can we find healing. Only through death can we find new life.]]> 178 Eric LaRocca Dee 0 to-read 3.35 2025 At Dark, I Become Loathsome
author: Eric LaRocca
name: Dee
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> You've Lost a Lot of Blood 60585628
"Each precious thing I show you in this book is a holy relic from the night we both perished-the night when I combed you from my hair and watered the moon with your blood.

You've lost a lot of blood . . ."]]> 209 Eric LaRocca 1088025757 Dee 0 to-read 3.25 2022 You've Lost a Lot of Blood
author: Eric LaRocca
name: Dee
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Bloom 78627220 A sweet sapphic romance takes a deadly dark turn in this sharp-as-a-knife novella from the New York Times bestselling author.

Rosemary meets Ash at the farmers� market. Ash—precise, pretty, and practically perfect—sells bars of soap in delicate pastel colors, sprinkle-spackled cupcakes stacked on scalloped stands, beeswax candles, jelly jars of honey, and glossy green plants. Ro has never felt this way about another woman; with Ash, she wants to be her and have her in equal measure. But as her obsession with Ash consumes her, she may find she’s not the one doing the devouring…]]> 203 Delilah S. Dawson Dee 3 books-i-own, oh-my-goth 3.82 2023 Bloom
author: Delilah S. Dawson
name: Dee
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: books-i-own, oh-my-goth
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Witch's Door: Oddities and Tales from the Esoteric to the Extreme]]> 207567631
Enter at your own risk …]]> 304 Ryan Matthew Cohn 1797229583 Dee 0 to-read 3.70 2024 The Witch's Door: Oddities and Tales from the Esoteric to the Extreme
author: Ryan Matthew Cohn
name: Dee
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Lavender and Old Lace 1742436 Myrtle Reed 1406837733 Dee 0 books-i-own 3.43 1902 Lavender and Old Lace
author: Myrtle Reed
name: Dee
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1902
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: books-i-own
review:

]]> Lavender and Old Lace. 20380430 267 Myrtle Reed Dee 0 to-read 3.05 1902 Lavender and Old Lace.
author: Myrtle Reed
name: Dee
average rating: 3.05
book published: 1902
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Maiden and Her Monster 222377141 A gorgeous, atmospheric debut fantasy that reimagines the Jewish myth of golem in a tale rooted in history, folklore, and sapphic romance—perfect for fans of Katherine Arden, Ava Reid, Hannah Whitten, and Naomi Novik.

The forest eats the girls who wander out after dark.

As the healer’s daughter, Malka has seen how the curse of the woods has plagued her village, but when the Ozmini Church comes to collect their tithes, they don’t listen to the warnings about a monster lurking in the trees. After a clergy girl wanders too close to the forest and Malka’s mother is accused of her murder, Malka strikes a bargain with a zealot Ozmini priest. If she brings him the monster, he will spare her mother from execution.

When she ventures into the blood-soaked woods, Malka finds a monster, though not the one she expects: an inscrutable, disgraced golem who agrees to implicate herself, but only after Malka helps her free the imprisoned rabbi who created her.

But a deal easily made is not easily kept. And as their bargain begins to unravel a much more sinister threat, protecting her people may force Malka to endanger the one person she left home to save—and face her growing feelings for the very creature she was taught to fear.]]> 352 Maddie Martinez 1250367751 Dee 0 to-read 3.60 2025 The Maiden and Her Monster
author: Maddie Martinez
name: Dee
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[To Clutch a Razor (Curse Bearer, #2)]]> 222376891 #1 New York Times bestselling author Veronica Roth pulls from Slavic folklore to explore family, duty, and what it means to be a monster in this sequel to the USA Today bestselling novella When Among Crows

A funeral. A heist. A mission born of desperation.

When someone in Dymitr’s family dies, he’s called back home for the Empty Night, a funeral rite intended to keep evil at bay.

The secret Dymitr is keeping from them makes returning home downright dangerous, but if he wants to get his hands on a book of curses that might appease Baba Jaga’s blood lust, he has no choice. And when that same funeral brings ferocious creature-of-legend Niko to town for his own bloody purposes, Dymitr’s charade becomes impossible to maintain.

Family gatherings can be brutal. Dymitr’s might just be fatal.]]> 240 Veronica Roth 1250855500 Dee 0 to-read 4.86 2025 To Clutch a Razor (Curse Bearer, #2)
author: Veronica Roth
name: Dee
average rating: 4.86
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Snake-Eater 226943506 In an isolated desert town, a young woman seeking a fresh start is confronted by ancient gods, malevolent supernatural forces, and eccentric neighbours. A witty horror-tinged fantasy, perfect for fans of Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Chuck Tingle, and Rachel Harrison.

When Selena travels to the remote desert town of Quartz Creek in search of her estranged Aunt Amelia, she is desperate and short of options. Fleeing an unhappy marriage, she has exactly twenty-seven dollars to her name, and her only friend in the world is her dog, Copper.

On arrival, Selena learns Amelia is dead. But the inhabitants of Quartz Creek are only too happy to have a new resident. Out of money and ideas, Selena sees no harm staying in her aunt's lovely house for a few weeks, tending to her garden and enjoying the strange, desolate beauty of the desert. The people are odd, but friendly, and eager to help Selena settle into her new home.

But Quartz Creek's inhabitants share their town with others, old gods and spirits whose claim to the land long predates their human neighbours. Selena finds herself pursued by disturbing apparitions, visitations that come in the night and seem to want something from her.

Aunt Amelia owed a debt. Now her god has come to collect.]]> T. Kingfisher 1662525095 Dee 0 to-read 5.00 2025 Snake-Eater
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Dee
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Dark Sisters 222376679 Three women must chase a curse through the generations in order to reclaim their power in this fierce and stunning novel from Such a Pretty Smile author Kristi DeMeester.

1750: Anne Bolton sets off with her daughter to begin a life of secrecy. In town, they are killing women accused of witchcraft every day, and as a healer, she’ll soon be persecuted too. But then she makes a deal with the Dark Sisters to protect those under her purview–and unleashes a devastating power with consequences that will echo for three hundred years.

1953: Mary Shephard is a new mother, a picture-perfect wife, and dutiful member of The Path–a community of faith that holds piety and family values above all else. But Mary feels oppressed by these limiting expectations, so she takes a part-time job. Then she meets Sharon, and their star-crossed love story begins. But that’s the thing about star-crossed lovers–people just want to tear you apart.

2007: Camilla Burson is the preacher’s daughter, and she knows how to play the game. But now women in The Path are dying of a rare disease, including her mother, and this time she’ll push her father too far. Her punishment: The Retreat, a place that shows troublemakers like Camilla that toeing the line is best for everyone. But there is an old, forgotten power awaiting her; a power that if Camilla can claim, will change everything.

"Magnificent.� - Rachel Harrison

"A visceral, mesmerizing nightmare. I couldn't look away." - Hannah Morrissey]]> 336 Kristi DeMeester 1250286816 Dee 0 to-read 4.28 Dark Sisters
author: Kristi DeMeester
name: Dee
average rating: 4.28
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Unworthy 214151601 The long-awaited new novel from the author of global sensation Tender Is the Flesh: a thrilling work of literary horror about a woman cloistered in a secretive, violent religious order, while outside the world has fallen into chaos.

From her cell in a mysterious convent, a woman writes the story of her life in whatever she can find—discarded ink, dirt, and even her own blood. A lower member of the Sacred Sisterhood, deemed an unworthy, she dreams of ascending to the ranks of the Enlightened at the center of the convent and of pleasing the foreboding Superior Sister. Outside, the world is plagued by catastrophe—cities are submerged underwater, electricity and the internet are nonexistent, and bands of survivors fight and forage in a cruel, barren landscape. Inside, the narrator is controlled, punished, but safe.

But when a stranger makes her way past the convent walls, joining the ranks of the unworthy, she forces the narrator to consider her long-buried past—and what she may be overlooking about the Enlightened. As the two women grow closer, the narrator is increasingly haunted by questions about her own past, the environmental future, and her present life inside the convent. How did she get to the Sacred Sisterhood? Why can’t she remember her life before? And what really happens when a woman is chosen as one of the Enlightened?

A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror.]]> 192 Agustina Bazterrica 1668051885 Dee 0 3.67 2023 The Unworthy
author: Agustina Bazterrica
name: Dee
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: 2025-releases, currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Something Wicked This Way Comes]]> 248596 Something Wicked This Way Comes, now featuring a new introduction and material about its longstanding influence on culture and genre.

For those who still dream and remember, for those yet to experience the hypnotic power of its dark poetry, step inside. The show is about to begin. Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. A calliope’s shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. Two boys will discover the secret of its smoke, mazes, and mirrors; two friends who will soon know all too well the heavy cost of wishes…and the stuff of nightmares.

Few novels have endured in the heart and memory as has Ray Bradbury’s unparalleled literary masterpiece Something Wicked This Way Comes. Scary and suspenseful, it is a timeless classic in the American canon.]]> 293 Ray Bradbury 0380729407 Dee 0 to-read 3.92 1962 Something Wicked This Way Comes
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Dee
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1962
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Grip of It 31574739 A chilling literary horror novel about a young couple who purchase and live in a haunted house. Jac Jemc’s The Grip of It tells the eerie story of a young couple haunted by their new home.

Julie and James settle into a house in a small town outside the city where they met. The move—prompted by James’s penchant for gambling, his inability to keep his impulses in check—is quick and seamless; both Julie and James are happy to leave behind their usual haunts and start afresh. But this house, which sits between ocean and forest, has plans for the unsuspecting couple. As Julie and James try to settle into their home and their relationship, the house and its surrounding terrain become the locus of increasingly strange happenings. The architecture—claustrophobic, riddled with hidden rooms within rooms—becomes unrecognizable, decaying before their eyes. Stains are animated on the wall—contracting, expanding—and map themselves onto Julie’s body in the form of bruises; mold spores taint the water that James pours from the sink. Together the couple embark on a panicked search for the source of their mutual torment, a journey that mires them in the history of their peculiar neighbors and the mysterious residents who lived in the house before Julia and James.

Written in creepy, potent prose, The Grip of It is an enthralling, psychologically intense novel that deals in questions of home: how we make it and how it in turn makes us, mapping itself onto bodies and the relationships we cherish.]]> 276 Jac Jemc 0374536910 Dee 2 books-i-own, oh-my-goth
I think there was just a lot going on in terms of theme and where the author was trying to go. The horror elements where done ok, but the plot and the resolution proved to be lackluster. There were many questions left unanswered in the end and while I do love a well-done vague ending, this ending is not in anyway impactful to me. Our main characters never-truly change from start to finish and a bunch of thematic elements and questions set up through out the book are never resolved. Had this been set up better the open-endedness of the conclusion could have struck a chord with me but alas, it was not meant to be.

It is a shame because the writing is truly excellent. Jemc knows how to write compelling lines and characters but fumbles with plot and thematic execution.

Overall a 2.5. Very sad. ]]> 3.17 2017 The Grip of It
author: Jac Jemc
name: Dee
average rating: 3.17
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at: 2024/11/04
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: books-i-own, oh-my-goth
review:
This was disappointing.

I think there was just a lot going on in terms of theme and where the author was trying to go. The horror elements where done ok, but the plot and the resolution proved to be lackluster. There were many questions left unanswered in the end and while I do love a well-done vague ending, this ending is not in anyway impactful to me. Our main characters never-truly change from start to finish and a bunch of thematic elements and questions set up through out the book are never resolved. Had this been set up better the open-endedness of the conclusion could have struck a chord with me but alas, it was not meant to be.

It is a shame because the writing is truly excellent. Jemc knows how to write compelling lines and characters but fumbles with plot and thematic execution.

Overall a 2.5. Very sad.
]]> Ordinary Hazards 43787195
Growing up with a mother suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and a mostly absent father, Nikki Grimes found herself terrorized by babysitters, shunted from foster family to foster family, and preyed upon by those she trusted. At the age of six, she poured her pain onto a piece of paper late one night—and discovered the magic and impact of writing. For many years, Nikki's notebooks were her most enduing companions. In this memoir, Nikki shows how the power of those words helped her conquer the hazards—ordinary and extraordinary—of her life.]]> 325 Nikki Grimes 1629798819 Dee 2 ya-madness
Grimes does a great job articulating her past and how she had coped with it. I am already not drawn to the novel in verse style on top of autobiographies/memoirs so that is why for me this novel personally did not work.

I think there are a lot of literary qualities to this book and it should definitely be read far and wide (especially since it a pretty quick read), but if you're like me and not really a fan of the above mentioned forms of writing, you might want to skip.]]> 4.40 2019 Ordinary Hazards
author: Nikki Grimes
name: Dee
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at: 2023/10/22
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: ya-madness
review:
This book just was not for me.

Grimes does a great job articulating her past and how she had coped with it. I am already not drawn to the novel in verse style on top of autobiographies/memoirs so that is why for me this novel personally did not work.

I think there are a lot of literary qualities to this book and it should definitely be read far and wide (especially since it a pretty quick read), but if you're like me and not really a fan of the above mentioned forms of writing, you might want to skip.
]]> <![CDATA[A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (Monk & Robot, #2)]]> 40864030
They hope to find the answers they seek, while making new friends, learning new concepts, and experiencing the entropic nature of the universe.

Becky Chambers's new series continues to ask: in a world where people have what they want, does having more even matter?

They're going to need to ask it a lot.]]> 152 Becky Chambers Dee 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.40 2022 A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (Monk & Robot, #2)
author: Becky Chambers
name: Dee
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Brigands & Breadknives (Legends & Lattes, #2)]]> 222376572 Return to the cozy fantasy world of the #1 New York Times bestselling Legends & Lattes series with a new adventure featuring fan-favorite, foul-mouthed bookseller, Fern.

Fern has weathered the stillness and storms of a bookseller’s life for decades, but now, in the face of crippling ennui, transplants herself to the city of Thune to hang out her shingle beside a long-absent friend’s coffee shop. What could be a better pairing? Surely a charming renovation montage will cure what ails her!

If only things were so simple�

It turns out that fixing your life isn’t a one-time prospect, nor as easy as a change of scenery and a lick of paint.

A drunken and desperate night sees the rattkin waking far from home in the company of a legendary warrior surviving on inertia, an imprisoned chaos-goblin with a fondness for silverware, and an absolutely thumping hangover.

As together they fend off a rogue’s gallery of ne’er-do-wells trying to claim the bounty the goblin represents, Fern may finally reconnect with the person she actually is when there isn’t a job to get in the way.]]> 336 Travis Baldree 1250334888 Dee 0 to-read, 2025-releases 4.03 2025 Brigands & Breadknives (Legends & Lattes, #2)
author: Travis Baldree
name: Dee
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read, 2025-releases
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King, #2)]]> 63910262 In the luscious, dark sequel to One Dark Window, Elspeth must face the consequences of what she's wrought - perfect for readers of Hannah Whitten's For the Wolf and Alexis Henderson's The Year of the Witching.

Elspeth and Ravyn have gathered most of the twelve Providence Cards, but the last, and most important one remains to be found: The Twin Alders.

If they are going to find it before the Solstice and cure the kingdom of the dark magic infecting it, they will need to journey beyond the dangerous mist-cloaked forest that surrounds their kingdom.

And the only one who can lead them there is the monster that shares Elspeth's head. The Nightmare. And he's not eager to share any longer.]]> 437 Rachel Gillig 0356519503 Dee 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.39 2023 Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King, #2)
author: Rachel Gillig
name: Dee
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)]]> 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 382 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 Dee 0 4.66 2025 Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Dee
average rating: 4.66
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read, 2025-releases, books-i-own
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex]]> 52128695 An engaging exploration of what it means to be asexual in a world that's obsessed with sexual attraction, and what we can all learn about desire and identity by using an ace lens to see the world

What exactly is sexual attraction and what is it like to go through the world not experiencing it? What does asexuality reveal about consent, about compromise, about the structures of society? This exceedingly accessible guide to asexuality shows that the issues that aces face—confusion around sexual activity, the intersection of sexuality and identity, navigating different needs in relationships—are conflicts that all of us need to address as we move through the world.

Through interviews, cultural criticism, and memoir, ACE invites all readers to consider big-picture issues through the lens of asexuality, because every place that sexuality touches our world, asexuality does too.

Journalist Angela Chen uses her own journey of self-discovery as an asexual person to unpretentiously educate and vulnerably connect with readers, effortlessly weaving analysis of sexuality and societally imposed norms with interviews of ace people. Among those included are the woman who had blood tests done because she was convinced that "not wanting sex" was a sign of serious illness, and the man who grew up in an evangelical household and did everything "right," only to realize after marriage that his experience of sexuality had never been the same as that of others. Also represented are disabled aces, aces of color, non-gender-conforming aces questioning whether their asexuality is a reaction against stereotypes, and aces who don't want romantic relationships asking how our society can make room for them.]]> 210 Angela Chen 080701379X Dee 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.35 2020 Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
author: Angela Chen
name: Dee
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> The Sundial 131181 (Chicago Tribune): When an aging heiress learns of an impending apocalypse while on a garden walk, her family becomes fixated on preparing for the imminent doom. “One of the premiere gothic horror writers of the 20th century’s funniest and strangest endeavors� Think P. G. Wodehouse meets The Twilight Zone� (AudioFile).

Before there was Hill House, there was the Halloran mansion of Jackson’s stunningly creepy fourth novel, The Sundial. Aunt Fanny has always been somewhat peculiar. When the Halloran clan gathers at the family home for a funeral, no one is surprised when she wanders off into the secret garden. But then Aunt Fanny returns to report an astonishing vision of an apocalypse from which only the Hallorans and their hangers-on will be spared, and the family finds itself engulfed in growing madness, fear, and violence as they prepare for a terrible new world. For Aunt Fanny's long-dead father has given her the precise date of the final cataclysm!]]> 245 Shirley Jackson 0140083170 Dee 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.83 1958 The Sundial
author: Shirley Jackson
name: Dee
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1958
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Death Note: Another Note - The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases]]> 2021816
Onto the scene comes L, the mysterious super-sleuth. Despite his peculiar working habits, he's never shown his face in public—but this time, he needs help.

Enlisting the services of an FBI agent named Naomi Misora, L starts snooping around the City of Angels. It soon becomes apparent that the killing spree is a psychotic riddle designed to specifically engage L in a battle of wits. Stuck in the middle between killer and investigator, it's up to Misora to navigate both the dead bodies and the egos to solve the Los Angeles Murder Cases.]]> 176 NisiOisiN 142151883X Dee 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.28 2006 Death Note: Another Note - The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases
author: NisiOisiN
name: Dee
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> <![CDATA[More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, #2)]]> 199295788 In this charming and emotionally resonant follow up to the internationally bestselling Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, Satoshi Yagisawa paints a poignant and thoughtful portrait of life, love, and how much books and bookstores mean to the people who love them.

Set again in the beloved Japanese bookshop and nearby coffee shop in the Jimbocho neighborhood of Toyko, More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop deepens the relationship between Takako, her uncle Satoru , and the people in their lives. A new cast of heartwarming regulars have appeared in the shop, including an old man who wears the same ragged mouse-colored sweater and another who collects books solely for the official stamps with the author’s personal seal.

Satoshi Yagisawa illuminates the everyday relationships between people that are forged and grown through a shared love of books. As time passes, Satoru, with Takako’s help, must choose whether to keep the bookshop open or shutter its doors forever. Making the decision will take uncle and niece on an emotional journey back to their family’s roots and remind them again what a bookstore can mean to an individual, a neighborhood, and a whole culture.]]> 176 Satoshi Yagisawa 0063278715 Dee 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.90 2011 More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, #2)
author: Satoshi Yagisawa
name: Dee
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot, #1)]]> 40864002 ASIN B08H831J18 moved to the more recent edition

Centuries before, robots of Panga gained self-awareness, laid down their tools, wandered, en masse into the wilderness, never to be seen again. They faded into myth and urban legend.

Now the life of the tea monk who tells this story is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They will need to ask it a lot. Chambers' series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?]]> 151 Becky Chambers Dee 4 fantasy-is-king
I usually find the descriptions to be the most challenging aspect of sci-fi; there is none of that here. This novella is cozy, warm, and Plato-esque.

Overall a solid 4. ]]> 4.25 2021 A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot, #1)
author: Becky Chambers
name: Dee
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/04
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: fantasy-is-king
review:
As a non sci-fi reading I think this is a great dip into it.

I usually find the descriptions to be the most challenging aspect of sci-fi; there is none of that here. This novella is cozy, warm, and Plato-esque.

Overall a solid 4.
]]> The River Has Roots 211004176 Follow the river Liss to the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, and meet two sisters who cannot be separated, even in death.

“Oh what is stronger than a death? Two sisters singing with one breath.�

In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family.

There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic. None more devotedly than the family’s latest daughters, Esther and Ysabel, who cherish each other as much as they cherish the ancient trees.

But when Esther rejects a forceful suitor in favor of a lover from the land of Faerie, not only the sisters� bond but also their lives will be at risk…]]> 133 Amal El-Mohtar 1250341086 Dee 4 4.21 2025 The River Has Roots
author: Amal El-Mohtar
name: Dee
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/17
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: 2025-releases, fantasy-is-king, books-i-own
review:

]]> The Incandescent 217387935 Naomi Novik's Scholomance series meets Plain Bad Heroines in this sapphic dark academia fantasy by instant national and international bestselling author Emily Tesh, winner of the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.

"Look at you, eating magic like you're one of us."

Doctor Walden is the Director of Magic at Chetwood Academy and one of the most powerful magicians in England. Her days consist of meetings, teaching A-Level Invocation to four talented, chaotic sixth formers, more meetings, and securing the school's boundaries from demonic incursions.

Walden is good at her job―no, Walden is great at her job. But demons are masters of manipulation. It’s her responsibility to keep her school with its six hundred students and centuries-old legacy safe. And it’s possible the entity Walden most needs to keep her school safe from―is herself.]]> 432 Emily Tesh 1250835011 Dee 0 to-read, 2025-releases 4.39 2025 The Incandescent
author: Emily Tesh
name: Dee
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2025
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]]> <![CDATA[Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng]]> 218185743
These days nobody can reach Cora: not her aunt, who wants her to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival; not her weird colleagues; and especially not the slack-jawed shadow lurking around her door frame. After all, it can't be real—can it? After a series of unexplained killings in Chinatown, Cora believes someone might be targeting East Asian women, and something might be targeting Cora herself.]]> 304 Kylie Lee Baker 0778368459 Dee 0 to-read, 2025-releases 4.29 2025 Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng
author: Kylie Lee Baker
name: Dee
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> Raising Hare: A Memoir 214269337 A moving and fascinating meditation on freedom, trust, loss, and our relationship with the natural world, explored through the story of one woman’s unlikely friendship with a wild hare.

Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and slept in your house for hours on end and gave birth to leverets in your study. For political advisor and speechwriter Chloe Dalton, who spent lockdown deep in the English countryside, far away from her usual busy London life, this became her unexpected reality.

In February 2021, Dalton stumbles upon a newborn hare—a leveret—that had been chased by a dog. Fearing for its life, she brings it home, only to discover how impossible it is to rear a wild hare, most of whom perish in captivity from either shock or starvation. Through trial and error, she learns to feed and care for the leveret with every intention of returning it to the wilderness. Instead, it becomes her constant companion, wandering the fields and woods at night and returning to Dalton’s house by day. Though Dalton feared that the hare would be preyed upon by foxes, stoats, feral cats, raptors, and even people, she never tried to restrict it to the house. Each time the hare leaves, Chloe knows she may never see it again. Yet she also understands that to confine it would be its own kind of death.

Raising Hare chronicles their journey together, while also taking a deep dive into the lives and nature of hares, and the way they have been viewed historically in art, literature, and folklore. We witness first-hand the joy at this extraordinary relationship between human and animal, which serves as a reminder that the best things, and most beautiful experiences, arise when we least expect them.]]> 285 Chloe Dalton 0593701844 Dee 0 to-read, 2025-releases 4.42 2025 Raising Hare: A Memoir
author: Chloe Dalton
name: Dee
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2025
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]]> <![CDATA[Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde, #3)]]> 211721797 The third installment in the heartwarming and enchanting Emily Wilde series, about a curmudgeonly scholar of folklore and the fae prince she loves.

Emily Wilde has spent her life studying faeries. A renowned dryadologist, she has documented hundreds of species of Folk in her Encyclopaedia of Faeries. Now she is about to embark on her most dangerous academic project studying the inner workings of a faerie realm—as its queen.

Along with her former academic rival—now fiancé—the dashing and mercurial Wendell Bambleby, Emily is immediately thrust into the deadly intrigues of Faerie as the two of them seize the throne of Wendell’s long-lost kingdom, which Emily finds a beautiful nightmare filled with scholarly treasures.

Emily has been obsessed with faerie stories her entire life, but at first she feels as ill-suited to Faerie as she did to the mortal How can an unassuming scholar such as herself pass for a queen? Yet there is little time to settle in, for Wendell’s murderous stepmother has placed a deadly curse upon the land before vanishing without a trace. It will take all of Wendell’s magic—and Emily’s knowledge of stories—to unravel the mystery before they lose everything they hold dear.]]> 358 Heather Fawcett 0593500229 Dee 0 4.21 2025 Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde, #3)
author: Heather Fawcett
name: Dee
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> Persephone's Curse 222376889 The Hazel Wood meets Laini Taylor in this gorgeous speculative tale of sisterhood, ghosts and old family curses.

Are the four Farthing sisters really descended from Persephone? This is what their aunt has always told that the women in their family can trace their lineage right back to the Goddess of the Dead. And maybe she's right, because the Farthing girls do have a ghost in the attic of their Manhattan brownstone —a kind and gentle ghost named Henry, who only they can see.

When one of the sisters falls in love with the ghost, and another banishes him to the Underworld, the sisters are faced with even bigger questions about who they are. If they really are related to Persephone, and they really are a bit magic, then perhaps it’s up to them to save Henry, to save the world, and to save each other.]]> 336 Katrina Leno 1250342902 Dee 0 to-read, 2025-releases 4.57 2025 Persephone's Curse
author: Katrina Leno
name: Dee
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Silvercloak (Silvercloak Saga, #1)]]> 219520708 In this addictive new fantasy series set in a world where magic is fueled by pleasure and pain, an obsessive detective infiltrates a brutal gang of dark mages—knowing that one wrong move will get her killed. . . .

Two decades ago, the Bloodmoons ruthlessly murdered Saffron Killoran’s parents, destroying her idyllic childhood. Hell-bent on revenge, she lies her way into Silvercloak Academy—the training ground for her city’s elite order of detectives—with a single goal: to bring the Bloodmoons to justice.

But when Saff’s deception is exposed, rather than being cast out, she’s given a rare opportunity: to go undercover and tear the Bloodmoons down from the inside.

Descending into a world where pleasure and pain are the most powerful currencies, Saff must commit some truly heinous deeds to keep her cover—and her life. Not only are there rival gangs and sinister smuggling rings to contend with, but there’s also her growing feelings for the kingpin’s tortured son, with his vicious pet fallowwolf, his dark past, and the curious prophecy foretelling his death at Saffron’s hand.

With each day testing her loyalties further, Saff finds her web of lies becoming harder to spin. And when one false step could destroy everything and everyone she’s ever loved . . . the detective who’s dedicated her life to vengeance just might die for it.

Book One of the Silvercloak Saga]]> 464 Laura Steven 0593973992 Dee 0 to-read, 2025-releases 4.07 2025 Silvercloak (Silvercloak Saga, #1)
author: Laura Steven
name: Dee
average rating: 4.07
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]]> Gothictown 215363236 A restaurateur lured by pandemic-era incentives moves her family to a seemingly idyllic town in Georgia.

The email message that lands in Billie Hope’s inbox seems like a gift from the universe. For $100 she can purchase a spacious Victorian home in Juliana, Georgia, a small town eager to boost its economy in the wake of the pandemic. She can leave behind her cramped New York City rental and some painful memories. Plus she’ll get a business grant to open a new restaurant in a charming riverside community laden with opportunity.

After some phone calls and one hurried visit, Billie and her husband and daughter are officially part of the "Juliana Initiative." The town is everything promised, and between settling into her lavish home and starting a new restaurant, Billie is busy enough to dismiss misgivings.

Yet those misgivings grow. There’s something about Juliana, something off-kilter and menacing beneath its famous Southern hospitality. No matter how much Billie longed for her family to come here, she’s starting to wonder how, and whether, they’ll ever leave.  ]]> 362 Emily Carpenter 1496750543 Dee 0 to-read, 2025-releases 3.88 Gothictown
author: Emily Carpenter
name: Dee
average rating: 3.88
book published:
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]]> If We Survive This 215149259 The Walking Dead meets Yellowjackets in If We Survive This, a tense and emotional young adult horror novel from award-winning author Racquel Marie about a teen girl leading a group of survivors on a perilous journey during the apocalypse.

Flora Braddock Paz is not the girl who survives. A colorful creative who spends as much time fearing death as she does trying to hide that fear from her loved ones, she’s always considered herself weak. But half a year into the global outbreak of a rabies mutation that transforms people into violent, zombielike "rabids," she and her older brother Cain are still alive. With their mom dead, their dad missing, and their LA suburb left desolate, they form a new plan to venture out to the secluded Northern California cabin they vacationed in growing up―their best chance at a safe haven and maybe even seeing their dad again.

The dangers of the world have changed, but so has Flora. Still, their journey up the state is complicated by encounters with familiar faces, new allies, hidden truths, and painful memories of the family’s final time making this trip last year. And for Flora, one thing inevitably remains: No matter how far you run, death is never far behind.]]> 336 Racquel Marie 125035269X Dee 0 to-read, 2025-releases 4.27 2025 If We Survive This
author: Racquel Marie
name: Dee
average rating: 4.27
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]]> When the Doves Cried 217241790
1915: Given another chance to write themselves into the narrative, two men emerge. Torn away from their homes and serving on the frontlines of World War One, the pair find themselves drawn to one another after each suffers an immense lose. With no memory of their history together, they attempt to hold onto one another as the war takes its toll and hope runs thin. Grief, however, can be lethal, and war knows no mercy.

Our dearest friendships can become our biggest tragedies, and memories can cause be our greatest undoing.]]> 550 Kieran Dimitri Dee 0 to-read, 2025-releases 5.00 When the Doves Cried
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name: Dee
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]]> A Room of One’s Own 18521 A Room of One's Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. First published on the 24th of October, 1929, the essay was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two women's colleges at Cambridge University in October 1928. While this extended essay in fact employs a fictional narrator and narrative to explore women both as writers and characters in fiction, the manuscript for the delivery of the series of lectures, titled Women and Fiction, and hence the essay, are considered nonfiction. The essay is seen as a feminist text, and is noted in its argument for both a literal and figural space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by patriarchy.]]> 112 Virginia Woolf Dee 0 books-i-own, to-read 4.21 1929 A Room of One’s Own
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Dee
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1929
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]]> Sons and Lovers 51533 479 D.H. Lawrence 1593080131 Dee 0 to-read 3.45 1913 Sons and Lovers
author: D.H. Lawrence
name: Dee
average rating: 3.45
book published: 1913
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[A Magic Steeped in Poison (The Book of Tea, #1)]]> 56978089
When Ning hears of a competition to find the kingdom's greatest shennong-shi—masters of the ancient and magical art of tea-making—she travels to the imperial city to compete. The winner will receive a favor from the princess, which may be Ning's only chance to save her sister's life.

But between the backstabbing competitors, bloody court politics, and a mysterious (and handsome) boy with a shocking secret, Ning might actually be the one in more danger.]]> 374 Judy I. Lin 1250767083 Dee 0 to-read 3.81 2022 A Magic Steeped in Poison (The Book of Tea, #1)
author: Judy I. Lin
name: Dee
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Herbwitch's Apprentice (Witches of Olderea, #1)]]> 61239775
In the kingdom of Olderea, dabbling in witchcraft is a sure way to the guillotine.

When sixteen-year-old debutante Amarante Flora finds out she’s half witch, all she wants is to get rid of her magic. After all, zapping Prince Ash in the midst of high society’s Season certainly won’t help her troublemaking reputation.

But the more her powers grow, the more she realizes magic—and the witches who possess it—are not as dangerous as she was led to believe. When the queen falls mysteriously ill, Amarante knows there are far more dangers lurking in the palace than in Witch Village.

Among potion-brewing and glittering receptions, Amarante joins Prince Ash in an investigation before innocent witches are condemned. However, uncovering the culprit’s schemes could mean exposing her magic. And exposing her magic would mean her very life—and the contempt of the prince she is trying to help.]]> 424 Ireen Chau Dee 0 to-read 4.03 2021 The Herbwitch's Apprentice (Witches of Olderea, #1)
author: Ireen Chau
name: Dee
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2021
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]]> Swordheart 218624103 448 T. Kingfisher 1250400228 Dee 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.10 2018 Swordheart
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Dee
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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]]> The Thirteenth Child 205181098 This is the story of Hazel, a young healer navigating a ruthless court to save the life of the king, grappling with a pantheon of gods with questionable agendas as she fights for agency and true love in her own life as the goddaughter of none other than Death himself.

All gifts come with a price.

Hazel Trépas has always known she wasn’t like the rest of her siblings. A thirteenth child, promised away to one of the gods, she spends her childhood waiting for her godfather—Merrick, the Dreaded End—to arrive.

When he does, he lays out exactly how he’s planned Hazel’s future. She will become a great healer, known throughout the kingdom for her precision and skill. To aid her endeavors, Merrick blesses Hazel with a gift, the ability to instantly deduce the exact cure needed to treat the sick.

But all gifts come with a price. Hazel can see when Death has claimed a patient—when all hope is gone—and is tasked to end their suffering, permanently. Haunted by the ghosts of those she’s killed, Hazel longs to run. But destiny brings her to the royal court, where she meets Leo, a rakish prince with a disdain for everything and everyone. And it’s where Hazel faces her biggest dilemma yet—to save the life of a king marked to die. Hazel knows what she is meant to do and knows what her heart is urging her toward, but what will happen if she goes against the will of Death?

From the astonishing mind of Erin A. Craig comes the breathtaking fairy tale retelling readers have been waiting for� what does a life well-lived mean, and how do we justify the impossible choices we make for the ones we love?]]> 512 Erin A. Craig 0593482581 Dee 5 4.08 2024 The Thirteenth Child
author: Erin A. Craig
name: Dee
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/02
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This book made me cry at the end and I resent that.
]]> <![CDATA[The Curse of Soulwaker (The Soulwaker Trilogy)]]> 219416985
But the Curse never forgets its servants.

While she struggles with her newfound mortality and haunting visions, Silnus, a dark figure from the past, returns. Dunegray must prevent him from harnessing the Curse, or else she will be Cursed again and forced to destroy the people she’s learning to love, obliterating the last remnants of her humanity in the process.

To save her people and this new world she misunderstands, Dunegray and Zerael are commanded to search for new allies in the coming war. This journey throughout Nahmval will reveal hidden motives and a secret that could unravel both Zerael’s country and Dunegray’s identity.]]> 398 Sharon Elwood 2959338111 Dee 0 to-read 3.88 The Curse of Soulwaker (The Soulwaker Trilogy)
author: Sharon Elwood
name: Dee
average rating: 3.88
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date added: 2025/03/02
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]]> The Capital of Dreams 216148070 â€�The Capital of Dreams is not so much a novel to read but one to live (and dream) in. A dark, wistfully comic fable that's as imaginative as it is poignant. An entire world that only Heather O'Neill could create.â€â€”Iain Reid, bestselling author of We Spread and Foe

From the hugely acclaimed author beloved by literary lights, including Emily St. John Mandel, Kelly Link, and Mona Awad, a dark dystopian fairytale about an idyllic country ravaged by war—and a girl torn between safety and loyalty.Ìý

Sofia Bottom lives in Elysia, a small country forgotten by Europe. But inside its borders, the old myths of trees that come alive and faeries who live among their roots have given way to an explosion of the arts and the consolations of philosophy. From the clarinetists to the cabaret singers, no artist is as revered as Sofia’s brilliant mother, the writer Clara Bottom. How can fourteen-year-old Sofia, with her tin ear and enduring love of ancient myths, ever hope to win her mother’s love?

When the country’s greatest enemy invades, and the Capital is under threat, Clara turns to her daughter to smuggle her new manuscript to safety on the last train evacuating children from the city. But when the train draws to a suspicious halt in the middle of a forest, Sofia is forced to run for her life and loses her mother’s most prized possession. Frightened and alone in a country at war, Sofia must find a way to reclaim what she has lost. On an epic journey through woods and razed towns, colliding with soldiers, survivors, and other lost children, Sofia must make the choice between kindness and her own survival.

In this stunning novel set in an imaginative world yet reflective of our own times, Heather O’Neill delivers a vivid, breathtaking dark fairytale of life, death, and betrayal.]]> 368 Heather O'Neill 0063437333 Dee 0 to-read, 2025-releases 3.33 2024 The Capital of Dreams
author: Heather O'Neill
name: Dee
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Wings of Starlight (Disney Fairies)]]> 212808316 Brimming with magic and romance, a young fairy queen must form an unlikely alliance or risk an unspeakable danger destroying all she holds dear in this standalone YA novel from New York Times bestselling author Allison Saft.

It’s been centuries since a warm-season fairy in Pixie Hollow has crossed into the Winter Woods, and while most fear the legends of monsters lurking in the frozen lands, Clarion, can’t help being intrigued by Winter’s stoic beauty. But under the watchful eyes of the current monarch and the court's seasonal ministers, Clarion has little time to dwell on daydreams while the days to her coronation dwindle away.

That is, until reports of a monster crossing from Winter into Spring make their way to the palace. Clarion sees defeating this threat as an opportunity to prove that she is worthy of her new role. But instead of finding a monster at the edge of Winter, she finds Milori, a young guardian of the Winter Woods. Together, they form an unlikely bond as they race to save their lands.

But as their alliance warms to something more, they will discover there is a reason a warm-season fairy and a winter fairy must not be together. And the cost could be just as deadly as the monsters that prowl the Winter Woods.

Discover the origin of the sweeping, star-crossed romance between the queen of Pixie Hollow and the lord of the Winter Woods.]]> 400 Allison Saft 1368098452 Dee 4 2025-releases 4.27 2025 Wings of Starlight (Disney Fairies)
author: Allison Saft
name: Dee
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/02/25
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]]> Sister Snake 199531653 A glittering, bold, darkly funny novel about two sisters—one in New York, one in Singapore—who are bound by an ancient secret.

Sisterhood is difficult for Su and Emerald. Su leads a sheltered, moneyed life as the picture-perfect wife of a conservative politician in Singapore. Emerald is a nihilistic sugar baby in New York, living from whim to whim as she freely uses her beauty and charms to make ends meet. But they share a secret; once they were snakes, basking under a full moon in Tang Dynasty China.

A thousand years later, their mysterious history is the only thing still binding them together. When Emerald experiences a violent encounter in Central Park and Su boards the next flight to New York, the two reach a tenuous reconciliation for the first time in decades. Su convinces Emerald to move to Singapore so she can keep an eye on her—but she soon begins to worry that Emerald’s irrepressible behavior will out them both, in a sparkling, affluent city where everything runs like clockwork and any deviation from the norm is automatically suspect.

Razor-sharp, hilarious, and raw in emotion, Sister Snake explores chosen family, queerness, passing, and the struggle against conformity. Reimagining the Chinese folktale “The Legend of the White Snake,â€� this is a novel about being seen for who you are—and, ultimately, how to live free.Ìý]]> 272 Amanda Lee Koe 006335506X Dee 0 to-read 3.79 2024 Sister Snake
author: Amanda Lee Koe
name: Dee
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/24
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]]> The God of the Woods 199700434 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide.

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 478 Liz Moore 0593418913 Dee 0 to-read 4.10 2024 The God of the Woods
author: Liz Moore
name: Dee
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #1)]]> 44421460 What would you change if you could go back in time?

In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.

In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer's, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?]]> 213 Toshikazu Kawaguchi 1529029589 Dee 4 books-i-own 3.67 2015 Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #1)
author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
name: Dee
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/19
date added: 2025/02/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)]]> 58416952 At the elite Catenan Academy, a young fugitive uncovers layered mysteries and world-changing secrets in this new fantasy series by internationally bestselling author of The Licanius Trilogy, James Islington.

AUDI. VIDE. TACE.

The Catenan Republic � the Hierarchy � may rule the world now, but they do not know everything.

I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilised society in allowing my strength, my drive and my focus � what they call Will � to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do.

I tell them that I belong, and they believe me.

But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart.

And that I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family.

To survive, though, I will still have to rise through the Academy’s ranks. I will have to smile, and make friends, and pretend to be one of them and win. Because if I cannot, then those who want to control me, who know my real name, will no longer have any use for me.

And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.]]> 639 James Islington 1982141190 Dee 0 to-read 4.61 2023 The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)
author: James Islington
name: Dee
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg (Disney Fairies, #1)]]> 141745 208 Gail Carson Levine 0786834919 Dee 0 to-read 3.86 2005 Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg (Disney Fairies, #1)
author: Gail Carson Levine
name: Dee
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Hampton Heights: One Harrowing Night in the Most Haunted Neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin]]> 199743722
On a cold winter’s evening in 1987, six middle-school paperboys wander an unfamiliar Milwaukee neighborhood, selling newspaper subscriptions, fueled by their manager Kevin’s promises of cash bonuses and dinner at Burger King. But the freaks come out at night in Hampton Heights. Sent out into the neighborhood in pairs, the boys will encounter a host of primordial monsters—and triumph over them.

Sigmone, who is bussed to a white school, is stuck with Joel, a white kid who idolizes Black culture. Mark, who's wrestling with his sexuality, joins his secret crush, Ryan. Nishu and Al are outsiders; one is a second-generation immigrant, the other a poor kid in a rich school. Over the course of one eventful evening, the three pairs will encounter the wild things of Hampton Heights—werewolves, witches with a centuries-old story to tell, and a creepy, ancient monster who feeds on memories. Meanwhile, Kevin is having an adventure of his own, seducing a beautiful woman in the neighborhood’s tavern . . . but who is actually in control? As the night nears its end, everyone will reunite for a cataclysmic finale.

Funny, thrilling, outrageous, and sneakily beautiful, Dan Kois’s Hampton Heights captures without sentimentality the dreams and fears of teenage boys in a tender horror-comedy about camaraderie, bravery, vulnerability, and the terrifying prospect of growing up.]]> 208 Dan Kois 0063358751 Dee 0 to-read 3.46 2024 Hampton Heights: One Harrowing Night in the Most Haunted Neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
author: Dan Kois
name: Dee
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/18
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review:

]]> Five Ways to Forgiveness 36366224 Set in the same universe as Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, these five linked Hainish stories follow far-future human colonies living in the distant solar system

Here for the first time is the complete suite of five linked stories from Ursula K. Le Guin’s acclaimed Hainish series, which tells the history of the Ekumen, the galactic confederation of human colonies founded by the planet Hain. First published as Four Ways to Forgiveness, and now joined by a fifth story, Five Ways to Forgiveness focuses on the twin planets Werel and Yeowe—two worlds whose peoples, long known as “owners� and “assets,� together face an uncertain future after civil war and revolution.

In “Betrayalsâ€� a retired science teacher must make peace with her new neighbor, a disgraced revolutionary leader. In “Forgiveness Day,â€� a female official from the Ekumen arrives to survey the situation on Werel and struggles against its rigidly patriarchal culture. Embedded within “A Man of the People,â€� which describes the coming of age of Havzhiva, an Ekumen ambassador to Yeowe, is Le Guin’s most sustained description of the Ur-planet Hain. “A Woman’s Liberationâ€� is the remarkable narrative of Rakam, born an asset on Werel, who must twice escape from slavery to freedom. Joined to them is “Old Music and the Slave Women,â€� in which the charismatic Hainish embassy worker, who appears in two of the four original stories, returns for a tale of his own. Of this capstone tale Le Guin has written, “the character called Old Music began to tell me a fifth tale about the latter days of the civil war . . . I’m glad to see it joined to the others at last.â€]]> 288 Ursula K. Le Guin Dee 0 to-read 4.39 2017 Five Ways to Forgiveness
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: Dee
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Passing of the Dragon 197351497
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 46 Ken Liu 1250333148 Dee 0 to-read 4.08 2023 The Passing of the Dragon
author: Ken Liu
name: Dee
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Grace of Kings (The Dandelion Dynasty, #1)]]> 18952341 640 Ken Liu 1481424270 Dee 0 to-read 3.77 2015 The Grace of Kings (The Dandelion Dynasty, #1)
author: Ken Liu
name: Dee
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> North and South 156538
In North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell skillfully fuses individual feeling with social concern, and in Margaret Hale creates one of the most original heroines of Victorian literature.]]> 521 Elizabeth Gaskell 0140620192 Dee 0 to-read 4.14 1855 North and South
author: Elizabeth Gaskell
name: Dee
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1855
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Blood of the Vampire: An independent woman in Europe with White-Black mixed race heritage]]> 65650079 Florence Marryat Dee 0 to-read 3.24 1897 The Blood of the Vampire: An independent woman in Europe with White-Black mixed race heritage
author: Florence Marryat
name: Dee
average rating: 3.24
book published: 1897
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ten Thousand Stitches (Regency Faerie Tales, #2)]]> 60420293 Regency housemaid Euphemia Reeves has acquired a faerie godfather. Unfortunately, he has no idea what he's doing.

Effie has most inconveniently fallen in love with the dashing Mr Benedict Ashbrooke. There's only one problem; Effie is a housemaid, and a housemaid cannot marry a gentleman. It seems that Effie is out of luck until she stumbles into the faerie realm of Lord Blackthorn, who is only too eager to help Effie win Mr Ashbrooke's heart. All he asks in return is that Effie sew ten thousand stitches onto his favourite jacket.

Effie has heard rumours about what happens to those who accept help from faeries, but life as a maid at Hartfield is so awful that she is willing to risk even her immortal soul for a chance at something better. Now, she has one hundred days - and ten thousand stitches - to make Mr Ashbrooke fall in love and propose. . . if Lord Blackthorn doesn't wreck things by accident, that is. For Effie's greatest obstacle might well prove to be Lord Blackthorn's overwhelmingly good intentions.

From the author of HALF A SOUL comes a whimsical fantasy romance with a Cinderella twist. Pick up TEN THOUSAND STITCHES, and dive into another enchanting faerie tale set in Olivia Atwater's charming, magical version of Regency England!]]> 288 Olivia Atwater 031646290X Dee 0 to-read 3.91 2020 Ten Thousand Stitches (Regency Faerie Tales, #2)
author: Olivia Atwater
name: Dee
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Half a Soul (Regency Faerie Tales, #1)]]> 60717747 It's difficult to find a husband in Regency England when you're a young lady with only half a soul.

Ever since she was cursed by a faerie, Theodora Ettings has had no sense of fear or embarrassment - a condition which makes her prone to accidental scandal. Dora hopes to be a quiet, sensible wallflower during the London Season - but when the strange, handsome and utterly uncouth Lord Sorcier discovers her condition, she is instead drawn into dangerous and peculiar faerie affairs.

If Dora's reputation can survive both her curse and her sudden connection with the least-liked man in all of high society, then she may yet reclaim her normal place in the world. . . but the longer Dora spends with Elias Wilder, the more she begins to suspect that one may indeed fall in love, even with only half a soul.

Bridgerton meets Howl's Moving Castle in this enchanting historical fantasy, where the only thing more meddlesome than faeries is a marriage-minded mother.

Pick up HALF A SOUL, and be stolen away into Olivia Atwater's charming, magical version of Regency England!]]> 304 Olivia Atwater Dee 0 to-read 4.04 2020 Half a Soul (Regency Faerie Tales, #1)
author: Olivia Atwater
name: Dee
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[We Love You, Bunny (Bunny, #2)]]> 223478303
When We Love You, Bunny opens, Sam has just published her first novel to critical acclaim. But at a New England stop on her book tour, her one-time frenemies, furious at the way they’ve been portrayed, kidnap her. Now a captive audience, it’s her (and our) turn to hear the Bunnies� side of the story. One by one, they take turns holding the axe, and recount the birth throes of their unholy alliance, their discovery of their unusual creative powers—and the phantasmagoric adventure of conjuring their first creation. With a bound and gagged Sam, we embark on a wickedly intoxicating journey into the heart of dark academia: a fairy tale slasher that explores the wonder and horror of creation itself. Not to mention the transformative powers of love and friendship, Bunny.

Frankenstein by way of Heathers, We Love You, Bunny is both a prequel and a sequel, and an unabashedly wild and totally complete stand-alone novel. Open your hearts, Bunny, to another dazzlingly original and darkly hilarious romp in the Bunny-verse from the queen of the fever-dream, Mona Awad.]]> Mona Awad Dee 0 to-read, 2025-releases 4.56 2025 We Love You, Bunny (Bunny, #2)
author: Mona Awad
name: Dee
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: to-read, 2025-releases
review:

]]> Sense and Sensibility 14935 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780141439662

'The more I know of the world, the more am I convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!'

Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love—and its threatened loss—the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.

This edition includes explanatory notes, textual variants between the first and second editions, and Tony Tanner's introduction to the original Penguin Classic edition.]]> 409 Jane Austen 0141439661 Dee 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.10 1811 Sense and Sensibility
author: Jane Austen
name: Dee
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1811
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Little Women (Little Women, #1)]]> 1934 This is an alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780451529305.

Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s most popular and enduring novel, Little Women. Here are talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War.

It is no secret that Alcott based Little Women on her own early life. While her father, the freethinking reformer and abolitionist Bronson Alcott, hobnobbed with such eminent male authors as Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne, Louisa supported herself and her sisters with "woman’s work,� including sewing, doing laundry, and acting as a domestic servant. But she soon discovered she could make more money writing. Little Women brought her lasting fame and fortune, and far from being the "girl’s book� her publisher requested, it explores such timeless themes as love and death, war and peace, the conflict between personal ambition and family responsibilities, and the clash of cultures between Europe and America.

]]> 449 Louisa May Alcott Dee 0 to-read, books-i-own 4.16 1868 Little Women (Little Women, #1)
author: Louisa May Alcott
name: Dee
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1868
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
review:

]]> The Invocations 59475768 Three girls, one supernatural killer on the loose . . .

Zara Jones believes in magic because the alternative is too painful to consider—that her murdered sister is gone forever and there is nothing she can do about it. Rather than grieving and moving on, Zara decides she will do whatever it takes to claw her sister back from the grave—even trading in the occult.

Jude Wolf may be the daughter of a billionaire, but she is also undeniably cursed. After a deal with a demon went horribly wrong, her soul has been slowly turning necrotic. It’s a miserable existence marred by pain, sickness, and monstrous things that taunt her in the night. Now that she’s glimpsed what’s beyond the veil, Jude’s desperate to ï¬nd someone to undo the damage she’s done to herself.

Enter Emer Byrne, an orphaned witch with a dark past and a deadly power, a.k.a. the solution to both Zara’s and Jude’s problems. Though Emer lives a hardscrabble life, she gives away her most valuable asset—her invocations—to women in desperate situations who are willing to sacriï¬ce a piece of their soul in exchange for a scrap of power. Zara and Jude are willing, but they ï¬rst have to ï¬nd Emer.

When Emer’s clients start turning up dead all over London, a vital clue leads Zara and Jude right to her. If a serial killer is targeting her clients, Emer wants to know why—and to stop them. She strikes a tenuous alliance with Zara and Jude to hunt a killer before they are next on his list, even if she can’t give them in return what Zara and Jude want most: a sister and a soul.]]> 400 Krystal Sutherland 0593532260 Dee 0 to-read 4.08 2024 The Invocations
author: Krystal Sutherland
name: Dee
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ender’s Game (Ender's Saga, #1)]]> 375802
But Ender is not the only result of the experiment. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway almost as long. Ender's two older siblings, Peter and Valentine, are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. While Peter was too uncontrollably violent, Valentine very nearly lacks the capability for violence altogether. Neither was found suitable for the military's purpose. But they are driven by their jealousy of Ender, and by their inbred drive for power. Peter seeks to control the political process, to become a ruler. Valentine's abilities turn more toward the subtle control of the beliefs of commoner and elite alike, through powerfully convincing essays. Hiding their youth and identities behind the anonymity of the computer networks, these two begin working together to shape the destiny of Earth-an Earth that has no future at all if their brother Ender fails.]]> 324 Orson Scott Card 0812550706 Dee 0 to-read 4.31 1985 Ender’s Game (Ender's Saga, #1)
author: Orson Scott Card
name: Dee
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Victorian Psycho 213395480 From the acclaimed author of Mrs. March comes the riveting tale of a bloodthirsty governess who learns the true meaning of vengeance.

Grim Wolds, England: Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect governess—she’ll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But long, listless days spent within the estate’s dreary confines come with an intimate knowledge of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family—Mr. Pounds can’t keep his eyes off Winifred’s chest, and Mrs. Pounds takes a sickly pleasure in punishing Winifred for her husband’s wandering gaze. Compounded with her disdain for the entitled Pounds children, Winifred finds herself struggling at every turn to stifle the violent compulsions of her past. French tutoring and needlework are one way to pass the time, as is admiring the ugly portraits in the gallery . . . and creeping across the moonlit lawns. . . .

Patience. Winifred must have patience, for Christmas is coming, and she has very special gifts planned for the dear souls of Ensor House. Brimming with sardonic wit and culminating in a shocking conclusion, Victorian Psycho plunges readers into the chilling mind of an iconic new literary psychopath.]]> 208 Virginia Feito 1631498630 Dee 0 3.63 2025 Victorian Psycho
author: Virginia Feito
name: Dee
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: to-read, 2025-releases, books-i-own
review:

]]> Your Blood, My Bones 124932778 A seductively twisted romance about loyalty, fate, the lengths we go to hide the darkest parts of ourselves . . . and the people who love those parts most of all.

Wyatt Westlock has one plan for the farmhouse she's just inherited -- to burn it to the ground. But during her final walkthrough of her childhood home, she makes a shocking discovery in the basement -- Peter, the boy she once considered her best friend, strung up in chains and left for dead.

Unbeknownst to Wyatt, Peter has suffered hundreds of ritualistic deaths on her family's property. Semi-immortal, Peter never remains dead for long, but he can't really live, either. Not while he's bound to the farm, locked in a cycle of grisly deaths and painful rebirths. There's only one way for him to break free. He needs to end the Westlock line.

He needs to kill Wyatt.

With Wyatt's parents gone, the spells protecting the property have begun to unravel, and dark, ancient forces gather in the nearby forest. The only way for Wyatt to repair the wards is to work with Peter -- the one person who knows how to harness her volatile magic. But how can she trust a boy who's sworn an oath to destroy her? When the past turns up to haunt them in the most unexpected way, they are forced to rely on one another to survive, or else tear each other apart.]]> 368 Kelly Andrew 1338885073 Dee 3
It was not bad by any means. Writing was 10/10. I think the ending was just unexpected. I don't mind sad endings but with the set up somehow it just felt .... off. I can't exactly describe what was off about it but for me it just was.

The only other thing that was a little meh was the world building. At times it was a little confusing as to what was accepted as normal and not normal. That could just be me though.

Overall a 3.5. ]]> 3.69 2024 Your Blood, My Bones
author: Kelly Andrew
name: Dee
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/06
date added: 2025/02/11
shelves: books-i-own, fantasy-is-king, ya-madness
review:
So I was expecting to like this more than I did.

It was not bad by any means. Writing was 10/10. I think the ending was just unexpected. I don't mind sad endings but with the set up somehow it just felt .... off. I can't exactly describe what was off about it but for me it just was.

The only other thing that was a little meh was the world building. At times it was a little confusing as to what was accepted as normal and not normal. That could just be me though.

Overall a 3.5.
]]> <![CDATA[Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, #1)]]> 62047992 The moving international sensation about new beginnings, human connection, and the joy of reading.

Hidden in Jimbocho, Tokyo, is a booklover's paradise. On a quiet corner in an old wooden building lies a shop filled with hundreds of second-hand books.

Twenty-five-year-old Takako has never liked reading, although the Morisaki bookshop has been in her family for three generations. It is the pride and joy of her uncle Satoru, who has devoted his life to the bookshop since his wife Momoko left him five years earlier.

When Takako's boyfriend reveals he's marrying someone else, she reluctantly accepts her eccentric uncle's offer to live rent-free in the tiny room above the shop. Hoping to nurse her broken heart in peace, Takako is surprised to encounter new worlds within the stacks of books lining the Morisaki bookshop.

As summer fades to autumn, Satoru and Takako discover they have more in common than they first thought. The Morisaki bookshop has something to teach them both about life, love, and the healing power of books.]]> 150 Satoshi Yagisawa 0063278677 Dee 4 books-i-own
I am not a huge fan of slice-of-life stories, but this one was a refreshing read. I think what makes this book is certainly the characters and the journey they go on. The main character is one I find myself easily able to relate to as she is young, heartbroken, and listless at the start of the story.

Seeing the recovery slowly happen and the people who help her is genuinely heart-warming.

Overall a 3.5. ]]> 3.67 2010 Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, #1)
author: Satoshi Yagisawa
name: Dee
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/10
date added: 2025/02/11
shelves: books-i-own
review:
A pleasant surprise!

I am not a huge fan of slice-of-life stories, but this one was a refreshing read. I think what makes this book is certainly the characters and the journey they go on. The main character is one I find myself easily able to relate to as she is young, heartbroken, and listless at the start of the story.

Seeing the recovery slowly happen and the people who help her is genuinely heart-warming.

Overall a 3.5.
]]> Most Ardently 111673641 A trans boy searches for a future―and a romance―in which he can live and love openly as himself in this heartrending young-adult reimagining of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, part of the Remixed Classics series.

London, 1812 . Oliver Bennet feels trapped—not just by the endless corsets, petticoats, and skirts he's forced to wear on a daily basis, but also by society's expectations. The world, and the vast majority of his family and friends, think Oliver is a girl named Elizabeth. He is therefore expected to mingle at balls wearing a pretty dress, entertain suitors regardless of his interest in them, and ultimately become someone's wife.

But Oliver can't bear the thought of such a fate. He finds solace in the few times he can sneak out of his family's home and explore the city rightfully dressed as a young gentleman. It's during one such excursion when Oliver becomes acquainted with Darcy, a sulky young man who had been rude to "Elizabeth" at a recent social function. But in the comfort of being out of the public eye, Oliver comes to find that Darcy is actually a sweet, intelligent boy with a warm heart, not to mention attractive.

As Oliver spends more time as his true self, often with Darcy, part of him dares to hope that his dream of love and life as a man can be possible. But suitors are growing bolder―and even threatening―and his mother is growing more desperate to see him settled into an engagement. Oliver will have to choose: settle for safety, security, and a life of pretending to be something he's not, or risk it all for a slim chance at freedom, love, and a life that can be truly his own.]]> 304 Gabe Cole Novoa 1250869803 Dee 3 ya-madness
If the goal is to get teens interested in classics, this is a good jumping off point. For people like me who's hyper fixation is Jane Austen novels and understanding the social-economic dynamics of the Regency-Era, this is not it.

There were a few glaring issues that have already been said in other reviews but it boils down to inaccuracy; the aging down of characters, the addition of character arcs that were absent in the original, the changing of the Bennet's home of Longbourn to London.

I think if you're going to write a historical story based off a historical novel and change so many of the aspects from the original: you might as well write a different story with different characters.

Overall a sad 2.5 rounded up to a 3.
]]> 3.96 2024 Most Ardently
author: Gabe Cole Novoa
name: Dee
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/02/11
shelves: ya-madness
review:
I'm not sure what I expected but it wasn't disappointment.

If the goal is to get teens interested in classics, this is a good jumping off point. For people like me who's hyper fixation is Jane Austen novels and understanding the social-economic dynamics of the Regency-Era, this is not it.

There were a few glaring issues that have already been said in other reviews but it boils down to inaccuracy; the aging down of characters, the addition of character arcs that were absent in the original, the changing of the Bennet's home of Longbourn to London.

I think if you're going to write a historical story based off a historical novel and change so many of the aspects from the original: you might as well write a different story with different characters.

Overall a sad 2.5 rounded up to a 3.

]]> Goodbye to Berlin 760702
In linked short stories, he says goodbye to Sally Bowles, to Fraulein Schroeder, to pranksters, perverts, political manipulators; to the very, very guilty and to the dwindling band of innocents. It is goodbye to a Berlin wild, wicked, breathtaking, decadent beyond belief and already -- in the years between the wars -- welcoming death in through the door, though more with a wink than a whimper.

~from the back cover]]> 208 Christopher Isherwood 0586047956 Dee 0 to-read 3.95 1939 Goodbye to Berlin
author: Christopher Isherwood
name: Dee
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1939
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Last Great Heir (Feast and Famine, #1)]]> 216594937
Merriment Feast's life is one constant party, complete with dazzling gowns and delicious pastries. Well, except for her aunt's physically grueling training. Merri believes it's her responsibility to protect her family's traditions and the power they've held for generations.

Rue Famine knows that only Feasts benefit from Feast rule. As the heir of House Famine, she spends her days studying potion-making in an enormous, dusty library and learning how to use her magic to help others.

Custom dictates that the heirs of Feast and Famine must duel on their thirteenth birthday. Only one family can rule the land of Fauret, and Merri and Rue have been raised as rivals. But as the contest draws near and dangers escalate, their true enemy may be a shared one…]]> 288 Carina Finn 1728298342 Dee 0 to-read 3.52 The Last Great Heir (Feast and Famine, #1)
author: Carina Finn
name: Dee
average rating: 3.52
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Wretched Waterpark (Sinister Summer, #1)]]> 57064814 A middle-grade mystery series that's spooky, creepy, and filled with gothic twists! Meet the Sinister-Winterbottom twins, who solve mysteries at increasingly bizarre summer vacation destinations in the hopes of being reunited with their parents—or at the very least finally finding a good churro.

Meet the Sinister-Winterbottoms: brave Theo, her timid twin, Alexander, and their older sister, Wil. They’re stuck for the summer with their Aunt Saffronia, who doesn’t know how often children need to eat and can’t use a smartphone, and whose feet never quite seem to touch the floor when she glides—er—walks.

When Aunt Saffronia suggests a week pass to the Fathoms of Fun Waterpark, they hastily agree. But the park is even stranger than Aunt Saffronia. The waterslides look like gray gargoyle tongues. The employees wear creepy black dresses and deliver ominous messages. An impossible figure is at the top of the slide tower, people are disappearing, and suspicious goo is seeping into the wave pool.

Something mysterious is happening at Fathoms of Fun, and it’s up to the twins to get to the bottom of it. The mystery, that is. NOT the wave pool. Definitely NOT the wave pool. But are Theo and Alexander out of their depth?]]> 235 Kiersten White Dee 0 to-read 3.73 2022 Wretched Waterpark (Sinister Summer, #1)
author: Kiersten White
name: Dee
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Lives of the Monster Dogs 301727
"An effective fantasy in the tradition of Robert Louis Stevenson and Mary Shelley. It is loaded with metaphor and reflection -- on nature and culture, on science, on the place of artists in society." -- The Wall Street Journal

"One of the most unique and unusual works of fiction to come along in many years....Like Frankenstein before it, Monster Dogs is a fabulous fable well told." -- Cathy Hainer, USA Today]]> 304 Kirsten Bakis 0446674168 Dee 0 to-read 3.71 1997 Lives of the Monster Dogs
author: Kirsten Bakis
name: Dee
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Cascade Failure (Ambit's Run, #1)]]> 127280776
There are only three real powers in the universe: the corporate power of the Trust versus the Union's labor's leverage. And between them, the Guild tries to keep everyone's hands above the table. It ain't easy.

Branded a Guild deserter, Jal "accidentally" lands a ride on a Guild ship. Helmed by an AI, with a ship's engineer/medic who doesn't see much of a difference between the two jobs, and a "don't make me shoot you" XO, the Guild crew of the Ambit is a little . . . different.

They're also in over their heads. Responding to a distress call from an abandoned planet, they find a mass grave, and a live programmer who knows how it happened. The Trust has plans. This isn't the first dead planet, and it's not going to be the last.

Unless the crew of the Ambit can stop it.]]> 407 L.M. Sagas 1250871255 Dee 0 to-read 3.83 2024 Cascade Failure (Ambit's Run, #1)
author: L.M. Sagas
name: Dee
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Misenchanted Sword (Ethshar, #1)]]> 317497
But now everything has changed: at a moment of great need, a hermit wizard crafted Valder a magic sword called Wirikidor - a blade at once cursed and enchanted, a misenchanted blade that makes him unbeatable.

Soon the tides of battle will turn, and once they've turned they'll turn forever.]]> 228 Lawrence Watt-Evans 1587152827 Dee 0 to-read 4.03 1985 The Misenchanted Sword (Ethshar, #1)
author: Lawrence Watt-Evans
name: Dee
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ship of Magic (Liveship Traders, #1)]]> 45100
For Althea Vestrit, the ship is her rightful legacy unjustly denied her--a legacy she will risk anything to reclaim. For Althea's young nephew Wintrow, wrenched from his religious studies and forced to serve aboard ship, Vivacia is a life sentence.

But the fate of the Vestrit family--and the ship--may ultimately lie in the hands of an outsider. The ruthless pirate Kennit seeks a way to seize power over all the denizens of the Pirate Isles...and the first step of his plan requires him to capture his own liveship and bend it to his will....


From the Paperback edition.]]> 880 Robin Hobb 000649885X Dee 0 to-read 4.20 1998 Ship of Magic (Liveship Traders, #1)
author: Robin Hobb
name: Dee
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Assassin's Apprentice (Farseer Trilogy, #1)]]> 77197
Born on the wrong side of the sheets, Fitz, son of Chivalry Farseer, is a royal bastard, cast out into the world, friendless and lonely. Only his magical link with animals - the old art known as the Wit - gives him solace and companionship. But the Wit, if used too often, is a perilous magic, and one abhorred by the nobility.

So when Fitz is finally adopted into the royal household, he must give up his old ways and embrace a new life of weaponry, scribing, courtly manners; and how to kill a man secretly, as he trains to become a royal assassin.]]> 435 Robin Hobb 055357339X Dee 0 to-read 4.21 1995 Assassin's Apprentice (Farseer Trilogy, #1)
author: Robin Hobb
name: Dee
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Those Who Hunt the Night (James Asher #1)]]> 176261
Once a spy for Queen Victoria, James Asher has fought for Britain on every continent, using his quick wits to protect the Empire at all costs. After years of grueling service, he marries and retires to a simple academic’s life at Oxford. But his peace is shattered one night with the arrival of a Spanish vampire named Don Simon. Don Simon can disappear into fog, move faster than the eye can see, and immobilize Asher—and his young bride—with a wave of his hand. Asher is at his mercy, and has no choice but to give his help.

Because someone is killing the vampires of London, and James Asher must find out who—before he becomes a victim himself.

This ebook features an illustrated biography of Barbara Hambly, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.]]> 350 Barbara Hambly 0345361326 Dee 0 to-read 3.84 1988 Those Who Hunt the Night (James Asher #1)
author: Barbara Hambly
name: Dee
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1988
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/06
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]]> Death of the Author 214329001 The future of storytelling is here.

Life has thrown Zelu some curveballs over the years, but when she's suddenly dropped from her university job and her latest novel is rejected, all in the middle of her sister's wedding, her life is upended. Disabled, unemployed and from a nosy, high-achieving, judgmental family, she's not sure what comes next.

In her hotel room that night, she takes the risk that will define her life - she decides to write a book VERY unlike her others. A science fiction drama about androids and AI after the extinction of humanity. And everything changes.

What follows is a tale of love and loss, fame and infamy, of extraordinary events in one world, and another. And as Zelu's life evolves, the lines between fiction and reality begin to blur.

Because sometimes a story really does have the power to reshape the world.]]> 448 Nnedi Okorafor 0063391155 Dee 0 to-read 4.06 2025 Death of the Author
author: Nnedi Okorafor
name: Dee
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/04
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]]> An Academy for Liars 203956639 A student will find that the hardest lessons sometimes come outside the classroom in this stunning dark academia novel from the acclaimed author of The Year of the Witching and House of Hunger.

Lennon Carter’s life is falling apart.

Then she gets a mysterious phone call inviting her to take the entrance exam for Drayton College, a school of magic hidden in a secret pocket of Savannah. Lennon has been chosen because—like everyone else at the school—she has the innate gift of persuasion, the ability to wield her will like a weapon, using it to control others and, in rare cases, matter itself.

After passing the test, Lennon begins to learn how to master her devastating and unsettling power. But despite persuasion’s heavy toll on her body and mind, she is wholly captivated by her studies, by Drayton’s lush, moss-draped campus, and by her brilliant classmates. But even more captivating is her charismatic adviser, Dante, who both intimidates and enthralls her.

As Lennon continues in her studies her control grows, and she starts to uncover more about the secret world she has entered into, including the disquieting history of Drayton College, and the way her mentor’s tragic and violent past intertwines with it. She is increasingly disturbed by what she learns. For it seems that the ultimate test is to embrace absolute power without succumbing to corruption . . . and it's a test she's terrified she is going to fail.]]> 464 Alexis Henderson 0593638301 Dee 0 to-read 3.45 2024 An Academy for Liars
author: Alexis Henderson
name: Dee
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/04
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]]> <![CDATA[The Year of the Witching (Bethel, #1)]]> 49789629 A young woman living in a rigid, puritanical society discovers dark powers within herself in this stunning, feminist fantasy debut.

In the lands of Bethel, where the Prophet’s word is law, Immanuelle Moore’s very existence is blasphemy. Her mother’s union with an outsider of a different race cast her once-proud family into disgrace, so Immanuelle does her best to worship the Father, follow Holy Protocol, and lead a life of submission, devotion, and absolute conformity, like all the other women in the settlement.

But a mishap lures her into the forbidden Darkwood surrounding Bethel, where the first prophet once chased and killed four powerful witches. Their spirits are still lurking there, and they bestow a gift on Immanuelle: the journal of her dead mother, who Immanuelle is shocked to learn once sought sanctuary in the wood.

Fascinated by the secrets in the diary, Immanuelle finds herself struggling to understand how her mother could have consorted with the witches. But when she begins to learn grim truths about the Church and its history, she realizes the true threat to Bethel is its own darkness. And she starts to understand that if Bethel is to change, it must begin with her.]]> 368 Alexis Henderson 0593099605 Dee 0 to-read, books-i-own 3.79 2020 The Year of the Witching (Bethel, #1)
author: Alexis Henderson
name: Dee
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read, books-i-own
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