Bayley's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 01 May 2025 08:19:08 -0700 60 Bayley's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Edge of Impropriety 3359931
Anthony's uncle, the noted scholar and antiquarian, Jasper James Hedges, has arrived in London to appraise the art of a wealthy collector. In Marina he sees a priceless work of art of another kind. And for all of Marina's passionate inventions, nothing can compare to what Jasper delivers—an erotic adventure of intrigue and betrayal...a dangerous voyage to the edge of impropriety and beyond.]]>
336 Pam Rosenthal 045122230X Bayley 0 to-read 3.31 2008 The Edge of Impropriety
author: Pam Rosenthal
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/01
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (Big Bad Wolf, #4)]]> 53142062 Agent Cooper Dayton and his partner, Oliver Park, are going undercover—at a retreat for couples who need counselling. They do say the best cover story is one that’s close to the truth�

Agent Cooper Dayton is almost relieved to get a phone call from his former boss at the Bureau of Special Investigations. It means a temporary reprieve from tensions created by house hunting with Oliver Park, his partner both in work and in life. Living together in a forever home is exactly what Cooper wants. He’s just not keen on working out the details.

With a former alpha werewolf missing, Cooper and Park are loaned to the BSI to conduct the search at a secluded mountain retreat. The agents will travel to the resort undercover…as a couple in need of counseling.

The resort is picturesque, the grounds are stunning and the staff members are all suspicious as hell.

With a long list of suspects and danger lurking around every cabin, Cooper should be focusing on the case. But he’s always been anxious about the power dynamics in his relationship with Park, and participating in the couples� activities at the retreat brings it all to the surface. A storm is brewing, though, and Cooper and Park must rush to solve the case before the weather turns. Or before any more guests—or the agents themselves—end up dead.]]>
268 Charlie Adhara 1488074747 Bayley 0 currently-reading 4.42 2020 Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (Big Bad Wolf, #4)
author: Charlie Adhara
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/01
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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<![CDATA[Thrown to the Wolves (Big Bad Wolf, #3)]]> 42282304 Agent Cooper Dayton is going to meet his boyfriend’s werewolf family. Unarmed. On their turf.

And he’s bringing his cat.

When Agent Cooper Dayton agreed to attend the funeral for Oliver Park’s grandfather, he didn’t know what he was getting into. Turns out, the deceased was the alpha of the most powerful werewolf pack on the eastern seaboard. And his death is highly suspicious. Regardless, Cooper is determined to love and support Park the way Park has been there for him.

But Park left him woefully unprepared for the wolf pack politics and etiquette. Rival packs? A seating order at the dinner table? A mysterious figure named the Shepherd? The worst is that Park didn’t tell his family one key thing about Cooper. Cooper feels two steps behind, and reticent Park is no help.

There are plenty of pack members eager to open up about Park and why Cooper is wrong for him. Their stories make Cooper wonder if he’s holding Park back. But there’s no time to get into it…as lethal tranquilizer darts start to fly, Cooper needs to solve the mystery of the alpha’s death and fight for the man he loves—all before someone else dies.]]>
263 Charlie Adhara 1488089388 Bayley 5 2025, made-me-laugh, want
But I am not cool and quippy, I am repetitive and wordy.

I am obsessed with this series. Truly having a whale of a time reading it.

After book two being about meeting Coopers family it was not surprising that it was Park's turn this time. I am surprised by how surprised I was that Park's backstory got to be so interesting to watch unfold. I particularly like how Adhara really does a great job with using her unreliable narrator (sorry Cooper, you are not always to be trusted) to just make the reader not think super hard about why Park has been putting up with Cooper avoiding every problem and feeling. It becomes a problem that Park is doing the same exact thing when Cooper has committed himself to changing. It is really very well done conflict. It gave me many stomach aches (highest praise available).

As a slight aside. I have been having slight trouble reading books lately, I have mostly been listening to audiobooks but even that has been on a decline. I started this series with the audiobook, and when even I cannot be reading it with my eyes I do switch over the the (quite good!!) audiobook, but partly due to the fact that I find it easier to read things that make me nervous than I do to listen and partly because eyes are faster than ears I have been using my eyes to read most of this series and I feel like it had fixed my ability to read books. Which is very fun. I just like it so much it made me actually want to read. Like so much so that I had to make a concerted effort to stop so I could shower and eat.

I am very ready to go to sleep so I can wake up in the morning and start book four. Tea and seeing what is going to make Cooper Dayton concerned next shall be an excellent start to my day. ]]>
4.36 2019 Thrown to the Wolves (Big Bad Wolf, #3)
author: Charlie Adhara
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/30
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: 2025, made-me-laugh, want
review:
If I was one of those cool quippy reviewers my review would read: Is it a werewolf microaggression to say he's got that dog in him??

But I am not cool and quippy, I am repetitive and wordy.

I am obsessed with this series. Truly having a whale of a time reading it.

After book two being about meeting Coopers family it was not surprising that it was Park's turn this time. I am surprised by how surprised I was that Park's backstory got to be so interesting to watch unfold. I particularly like how Adhara really does a great job with using her unreliable narrator (sorry Cooper, you are not always to be trusted) to just make the reader not think super hard about why Park has been putting up with Cooper avoiding every problem and feeling. It becomes a problem that Park is doing the same exact thing when Cooper has committed himself to changing. It is really very well done conflict. It gave me many stomach aches (highest praise available).

As a slight aside. I have been having slight trouble reading books lately, I have mostly been listening to audiobooks but even that has been on a decline. I started this series with the audiobook, and when even I cannot be reading it with my eyes I do switch over the the (quite good!!) audiobook, but partly due to the fact that I find it easier to read things that make me nervous than I do to listen and partly because eyes are faster than ears I have been using my eyes to read most of this series and I feel like it had fixed my ability to read books. Which is very fun. I just like it so much it made me actually want to read. Like so much so that I had to make a concerted effort to stop so I could shower and eat.

I am very ready to go to sleep so I can wake up in the morning and start book four. Tea and seeing what is going to make Cooper Dayton concerned next shall be an excellent start to my day.
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<![CDATA[All This Safety Is Killing Us: Health Justice Beyond Prisons, Police, and Borders--Abolitionist frameworks and practices from clinicians, organizers, and incarcerated activists]]> 216524173 A multi-discipline, multimedia guide to abolition through the lens of healthcare and medicine � featuring writings and artwork from 10+ incarcerated and post-detention activists

Exposing how marginalized communities are vilified by “carceral safety� systems, educators and health justice advocates Carlos Martinez and Ronica Mukerjee call for a radical break with reformist strategies in favor of ones grounded in grassroots organizing and abolition

Prisons, border security, and police forces are meant to protect. Yet for the most vulnerable, they more often cause harm. Funded in response to a never ending “crime wave,� people with disabilities, Black and brown people, trans and queer people, people with mental health diagnoses, and survivors of trauma and abuse are targeted by punitive carceral policies. These policies perpetuate physical, psychological, and intergenerational harm. And they don’t keep anyone safe.

All This Safety is Killing Us reflects this view, combining political strategy with evidence-based medical and social science research to envision a post-carceral society.

With contributions from scholars, activists and artists, All This Safety is Killing Us marks a radical break from punitive frameworks. Special features Ěý

Contributions from nurses, doctors, doulas, public health workers, physical therapists, acupuncturists, and disability justice workers.Woodcuts, comics, mini-zines, infographics, and drawings by community activists, queer and trans/gender expansive-focused writers, current prisoners, deportees, and survivors of state-sanctioned violence.Interviews with leading abolition and health justice scholars.
Bringing scholarly research into public conversation, this book shows that those working within public health and medical fields have a critical role to play in creating a truly safe and flourishing society.]]>
366 Ronica Mukerjee Bayley 0 to-read 0.0 All This Safety Is Killing Us: Health Justice Beyond Prisons, Police, and Borders--Abolitionist frameworks and practices from clinicians, organizers, and incarcerated activists
author: Ronica Mukerjee
name: Bayley
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Wolf at Bay (Big Bad Wolf #2)]]> 39675787 Going home digs up bad memories, so it’s something Bureau of Special Investigations agent Cooper Dayton tries to avoid. When he’s guilted into a visit, Cooper brings along Oliver Park, his hot new werewolf partner, in the hopes the trip will help clarify their status as a couple…or not.

When Park’s keen shifter nose uncovers a body in the yard and Cooper’s father is the prime suspect, Cooper knows they’re on their own. Familial involvement means no sanctioned investigation. They’ll need to go rogue and solve the mystery quietly or risk seeing Cooper’s dad put behind bars.

The case may be cold, but Park and Cooper’s relationship heats up as they work. And yet if Cooper can’t figure out what’s going on between them outside of the bedroom, he’ll lose someone he� Well, he can’t quite put into words how he feels about Park. He knows one thing for he’s not ready to say goodbye, though with the real killer inching ever closer…he may not have a choice.

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328 Charlie Adhara 1488089361 Bayley 5
I will forever love an emotionally repressed idiot. This book is Cooper sort of having his feelings tackle him from behind and force him to acknowledge them. It was great. I cried! I laughed! I was glued to the page!]]>
4.36 2018 The Wolf at Bay (Big Bad Wolf #2)
author: Charlie Adhara
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/30
date added: 2025/04/29
shelves: 2025, books-that-gave-me-anxiety, made-me-cry, want
review:
I don't think anything is going to top the hand kiss scene from book one but this book as a whole is even better than book one. And I really loved book one!

I will forever love an emotionally repressed idiot. This book is Cooper sort of having his feelings tackle him from behind and force him to acknowledge them. It was great. I cried! I laughed! I was glued to the page!
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<![CDATA[The Wolf at the Door (Big Bad Wolf, #1)]]> 36480253 An ex-FBI agent is partnered with the enemy in this suspenseful first installment of Charlie Adhara’s Big Bad Wolf series

Hunting for big bad wolves was never part of agent Cooper Dayton’s plan, but a werewolf attack lands him in the carefully guarded Bureau of Special Investigations. A new case comes with a new partner: ruggedly sexy werewolf Oliver Park.

Park is an agent of The Trust, a werewolf oversight organization working to ease escalating tensions with the BSI. But as far as Cooper’s concerned, it’s failing. As they investigate a series of mysterious deaths unlike anything they’ve seen, every bone in Cooper’s body is suspicious of his new partner—even when Park proves himself as competent as he is utterly captivating.

When more people vanish, pressure to solve the case skyrockets. And though he’d resolved to keep things professional, Cooper’s friction with Park soon erupts...into a physical need that can’t be contained or controlled. But with a body count that’s rising by the day, werewolves and humans are in equal danger. If Cooper and Park don’t catch the killer soon, one—or both—of them could be the next to go.]]>
252 Charlie Adhara 1488089329 Bayley 5 2025
If this author didn't write (or at least read) Sterek fanfiction I will eat my hat. It doesn't map onto Teen Wolf fic perfectly, I am not claiming this was originally fanfic, but there are so many elements of this story that just feel like building blocks of that fandom in particular. I mean this very positively.

The book is about BSI Agent Cooper Dayton. He was an FBI Agent until he was injured by a werewolf at work and was invited to join the secret part of the FBI that deals with werewolves, the BSI. We are going down a path of systematic corruption, secret organizations, and compliance that is really well layered.

The book is primarily a romance between Cooper and Agent Park, a werewolf Cooper has to team up with to solve a serial killer case and pilot the idea of humans and werewolves working together. The mystery is engaging, there were many points where the story is quite action packed, but this relationship is a really excellent emotional throughline for this whole story. The pairs relationship is so compelling throughout the story. Seeing them unable to fully be honest with each other while still clearly trying to build some sort of relationship is so fun to watch. The tension is also just superb. There is a hand kiss scene in this novel that is hotter than so many romance novelists entire body of work.

I am excited to have Adhara put me through the emotional wringer four more times in this series. Truly I love being distressed. ]]>
4.17 2018 The Wolf at the Door (Big Bad Wolf, #1)
author: Charlie Adhara
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/28
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves: 2025
review:
You know what I am always going to love? An emotionally constipated hedgehog of a person. Cooper is stuck in a loop of lashing out at people and then being upset when they behave as if he has lashed out at them. He also is pretty desperate for approval from people who the reader very quickly clocks as awful. But he is also an incredible compelling point of view for this story.

If this author didn't write (or at least read) Sterek fanfiction I will eat my hat. It doesn't map onto Teen Wolf fic perfectly, I am not claiming this was originally fanfic, but there are so many elements of this story that just feel like building blocks of that fandom in particular. I mean this very positively.

The book is about BSI Agent Cooper Dayton. He was an FBI Agent until he was injured by a werewolf at work and was invited to join the secret part of the FBI that deals with werewolves, the BSI. We are going down a path of systematic corruption, secret organizations, and compliance that is really well layered.

The book is primarily a romance between Cooper and Agent Park, a werewolf Cooper has to team up with to solve a serial killer case and pilot the idea of humans and werewolves working together. The mystery is engaging, there were many points where the story is quite action packed, but this relationship is a really excellent emotional throughline for this whole story. The pairs relationship is so compelling throughout the story. Seeing them unable to fully be honest with each other while still clearly trying to build some sort of relationship is so fun to watch. The tension is also just superb. There is a hand kiss scene in this novel that is hotter than so many romance novelists entire body of work.

I am excited to have Adhara put me through the emotional wringer four more times in this series. Truly I love being distressed.
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<![CDATA[Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia]]> 127489378 The definitive takedown of fatphobia, drawing on personal experience as well as rigorous research to expose how size discrimination harms everyone, and how to combat it—from the acclaimed author of Down Girl and Entitled

“An elegant, fierce, and profound argument for fighting fat oppression in ourselves, our communities, and our culture.”—Roxane Gay, author of Hunger

For as long as she can remember, Kate Manne has wanted to be smaller. She can tell you what she weighed on any significant her wedding day, the day she became a professor, the day her daughter was born. She’s been bullied and belittled for her size, leading to extreme dieting. As a feminist philosopher, she wanted to believe that she was exempt from the cultural gaslighting that compels so many of us to ignore our hunger. But she was not.

Blending intimate stories with the trenchant analysis that has become her signature, Manne shows why fatphobia has become a vital social justice issue. Over the last several decades, implicit bias has waned in every category, from race to sexual orientation, except body size. Manne examines how anti-fatness operates—how it leads us to make devastating assumptions about a person’s attractiveness, fortitude, and intellect, and how it intersects with other systems of oppression. Fatphobia is responsible for wage gaps, medical neglect, and poor educational outcomes; it is a straitjacket, restricting our freedom, our movement, our potential.

In this urgent call to action, Manne proposes a new politics of “body reflexivity”—a radical reevaluation of who our bodies exist in the world ourselves and no one else. When it comes to fatphobia, the solution is not to love our bodies more. Instead, we must dismantle the forces that control and constrain us, and remake the world to accommodate people of every size.]]>
297 Kate Manne 0593593847 Bayley 0 to-read 4.18 2024 Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia
author: Kate Manne
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/24
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[A Dirty, Filthy Book: Annie Besant versus the Victorians, 1877-1888]]> 62698527 Sex and Scandal in the Victorian 'trial of the century'

June, 1877: the petite 29-year-old Annie Besant stands motionless before the 75-year-old Judge towering over her in the Palace of Westminster. Lord Chief Justice Cockburn is presiding over the scandalous 'trial of the century' where Annie Besant and her confidante Charles Bradlaugh have been charged with the unforgiveable crime of publishing and selling a guide to birth control. Charged with obscenity, she argued -- controversially and outrageously, for the time -- that it was a woman's right to be able to choose to have children. The riveting trial over freedom of speech and the rights of women captivated the British public, caused outrage across the grey Victorian establishment and helped transform Annie Besant into one of the most famous women in the Empire.

Drawing on unpublished archives, private papers and court-room transcripts, and an incredible cast of characters including Queen Victoria, George Bernard Shaw, Charles Darwin, and JS Mill, A Dirty, Filthy Book tells a gripping story of double standards that will horrify and delight in equal measure. At its heart is one of the most fascinating women of Victorian society, a little-known pioneer who single-handedly refused to accept the role that the establishment assigned her. Annie's trial lit the flame of social change, free speech and women's rights that is still burning around the world almost 150 years later.]]>
0 Michael Meyer 0753559935 Bayley 0 to-read 3.12 A Dirty, Filthy Book: Annie Besant versus the Victorians, 1877-1888
author: Michael Meyer
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.12
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[What Feasts at Night (Sworn Soldier, #2)]]> 127306440
Retired soldier Alex Easton returns in a horrifying new adventure.

After their terrifying ordeal at the Usher manor, Alex Easton feels as if they just survived another war. All they crave is rest, routine, and sunshine, but instead, as a favor to Angus and Miss Potter, they find themself heading to their family hunting lodge, deep in the cold, damp forests of their home country, Gallacia.

In theory, one can find relaxation in even the coldest and dampest of Gallacian autumns, but when Easton arrives, they find the caretaker dead, the lodge in disarray, and the grounds troubled by a strange, uncanny silence. The villagers whisper that a breath-stealing monster from folklore has taken up residence in Easton’s home. Easton knows better than to put too much stock in local superstitions, but they can tell that something is not quite right in their home. . . or in their dreams.]]>
151 T. Kingfisher 1250830850 Bayley 3
This series makes me think of my favorite novella series The Singing Hills Cycle occasionally. The stories are different but have interesting points of overlap, so I keep feeling like I should be way more into this series than I am.

One aspect that isn't the fault of the author is I listened to the audiobook and I am unsure if that was a good choice for me in this case. The narrator didn't do anything I hated, but I just had the sense that maybe I would enjoy this story more if I was reading it.

I liked the character elements we got in this installment, the PTSD exploration particularly was well and interestingly done.

I kind of feel like I am floundering to grasp at why I wasn't super into this book. I just sort of thought it was fine! I also thought the first book in this series was fine. Interestingly it seems like quite a few people who loved book one just think book two is fine but I found them very similar?]]>
3.78 2024 What Feasts at Night (Sworn Soldier, #2)
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/22
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: new-in-2024, 2025, books-i-own
review:
This is my fourth T. Kingfisher book and I think in all of them I have loved the same things but I am less sure if I have disliked the same aspects? I always think she knocks the setting outta the park, I am always so interested in the place and atmosphere and the way people literally interact with their surroundings. In this particular case I was less into the story being told and I am unable to figure out why exactly.

This series makes me think of my favorite novella series The Singing Hills Cycle occasionally. The stories are different but have interesting points of overlap, so I keep feeling like I should be way more into this series than I am.

One aspect that isn't the fault of the author is I listened to the audiobook and I am unsure if that was a good choice for me in this case. The narrator didn't do anything I hated, but I just had the sense that maybe I would enjoy this story more if I was reading it.

I liked the character elements we got in this installment, the PTSD exploration particularly was well and interestingly done.

I kind of feel like I am floundering to grasp at why I wasn't super into this book. I just sort of thought it was fine! I also thought the first book in this series was fine. Interestingly it seems like quite a few people who loved book one just think book two is fine but I found them very similar?
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<![CDATA[The Narrow Road to the Deep North]]> 17905709
Richard Flanagan's story � of Dorrigo Evans, an Australian doctor haunted by a love affair with his uncle's wife � journeys from the caves of Tasmanian trappers in the early twentieth century to a crumbling pre-war beachside hotel, from a Thai jungle prison to a Japanese snow festival, from the Changi gallows to a chance meeting of lovers on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Taking its title from 17th-century haiku poet Basho's travel journal, The Narrow Road to the Deep North is about the impossibility of love. At its heart is one day in a Japanese slave labour camp in August 1943. As the day builds to its horrific climax, Dorrigo Evans battles and fails in his quest to save the lives of his fellow POWs, a man is killed for no reason, and a love story unfolds.]]>
467 Richard Flanagan Bayley 0 to-read 4.02 2013 The Narrow Road to the Deep North
author: Richard Flanagan
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: to-read
review:

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Don't Sleep with the Dead 211004130 Don't Sleep with the Dead, a standalone companion novella to The Chosen and the Beautiful, her acclaimed reimagining of The Great Gatsby.

Nick Carraway―paper soldier and novelist―has found a life and a living watching the mad magical spectacle of New York high society in the late thirties. He's good at watching, and he's even better at pretending: pretending to be straight, pretending to be human, pretending he's forgotten the events of that summer in 1922.

On the eve of the second World War, however, Nick learns that someone's been watching him pretend and that memory goes both ways. When he sees a familiar face at a club one night, it quickly becomes clear that dead or not, damned or not, Jay Gatsby isn't done with him.

In all paper there is memory, and Nick's ghost has come home.]]>
112 Nghi Vo 125036261X Bayley 5
Want to return to flesh out my thoughts, but I am unreliable at this task. The Bayley elements of this story were: WWI, Ghosts , Partial lack of a name, NYE, People actually doing bad things, Faustian bargains, creating your own lover, and a Circular ending. ]]>
3.71 2025 Don't Sleep with the Dead
author: Nghi Vo
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/17
date added: 2025/04/17
shelves: 2025, 2025-favorites, books-i-own, novella
review:
Bayley loved a Nghi Vo book is the most 'fork found in kitchen' statement. But oh boy did Bayley love this Nghi Vo book.

Want to return to flesh out my thoughts, but I am unreliable at this task. The Bayley elements of this story were: WWI, Ghosts , Partial lack of a name, NYE, People actually doing bad things, Faustian bargains, creating your own lover, and a Circular ending.
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<![CDATA[The Isles of the Gods (The Isles of the Gods, #1)]]> 62562898 464 Amie Kaufman 0593479289 Bayley 4
I really like having read most (I haven't read her middle grade books or the sequel to this book) of an authors work. Seeing the way the develop similar threads and then go in new directions or seeing a familiar element in a new setting. In this book I saw echos of Lilac and her fathers ship in both Selly and Leander, thought about The Other Side of the Sky, Geminae, Aurora, and Unearthed. It is genuinely just so fun to make a map in your head of how Kaufman likes to build a story. This was also a really excellent addition because it is the first of hers that I have read that is a solo project. It is fun to get more of a sene of what Kaufman's voice on her own is, and how she plots a story without a co-writer (not that I am anti co-writer, I truly will read all of her YA book no matter who she writes them with).

I went into this book having listened to some of Kaufman's podcast where she detailed the writing process of this book, but it has been quite a while since I've listened to it. So I did have a vague idea of the shape of the start of the story, but I did not expect how many POV characters there were in this story. I really liked all four characters who told the story, I particularly hope Jude gets more page time in book two because I really liked his character and was constantly wanting more.

I thought this book was well paced, fun, and had great, if sometimes slightly familiar, characters and plot points. I am very much looking forward to reading the second book despite having just resolved to read fewer books I do not currently own, sometimes you have to be a hypocrite. ]]>
3.88 2023 The Isles of the Gods (The Isles of the Gods, #1)
author: Amie Kaufman
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/16
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: 2023-anticipated, 2025, books-i-own
review:
Amie Kaufman is one of the YA authors who has cemented herself in my rotation even if I am generally far less likely to pick up a YA book in the past few years.

I really like having read most (I haven't read her middle grade books or the sequel to this book) of an authors work. Seeing the way the develop similar threads and then go in new directions or seeing a familiar element in a new setting. In this book I saw echos of Lilac and her fathers ship in both Selly and Leander, thought about The Other Side of the Sky, Geminae, Aurora, and Unearthed. It is genuinely just so fun to make a map in your head of how Kaufman likes to build a story. This was also a really excellent addition because it is the first of hers that I have read that is a solo project. It is fun to get more of a sene of what Kaufman's voice on her own is, and how she plots a story without a co-writer (not that I am anti co-writer, I truly will read all of her YA book no matter who she writes them with).

I went into this book having listened to some of Kaufman's podcast where she detailed the writing process of this book, but it has been quite a while since I've listened to it. So I did have a vague idea of the shape of the start of the story, but I did not expect how many POV characters there were in this story. I really liked all four characters who told the story, I particularly hope Jude gets more page time in book two because I really liked his character and was constantly wanting more.

I thought this book was well paced, fun, and had great, if sometimes slightly familiar, characters and plot points. I am very much looking forward to reading the second book despite having just resolved to read fewer books I do not currently own, sometimes you have to be a hypocrite.
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Fear 13572935 On the front line in World War I, six soldiers face a suicide mission.
Ěý
A classic of Italian literature, Fear is often compared to All Quiet on the Western Front.

At a hot mountain outpost during World War I, Lieutenant Alfani wishes something would break the tedium of the day. Within hours he will regret that wish as he and his men will face a deadly, terrifying suicide mission. Alfani must send his men through an unprotected stretch of land to reoccupy a critical lookout position, but a Hungarian sniper is picking them off one by one. Brave Gusmaroli, family-man Zocchi, religious Ricci, and the great war hero Morana—each will be forced to face the agonizing nature of war.

A gripping tale, filled with superb description, and revealing psychological and cultural details, Fear is a devastating war story told by one of Italy’s great realists. It calls to mind the All Quiet on the Western Front or Paths of Glory in its unadorned look at the The Great War.]]>
Federico De Roberto 1612191223 Bayley 0 to-read 0.0 1921 Fear
author: Federico De Roberto
name: Bayley
average rating: 0.0
book published: 1921
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions]]> 33608721 Tell Me How It Ends (an expansion of her 2016 Freeman's essay of the same name) humanizes these young migrants and highlights the contradiction of the idea of America as a fiction for immigrants with the reality of racism and fear both here and back home."]]> 128 Valeria Luiselli 1566894956 Bayley 0 to-read 4.41 2016 Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions
author: Valeria Luiselli
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: to-read
review:

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People Collide 75302296 256 Isle McElroy 0063283751 Bayley 0 to-read 3.53 2023 People Collide
author: Isle McElroy
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/09
shelves: to-read
review:

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The Rose Bargain 211742041 The Cruel Prince meets The Selection in this captivating duology opener brimming with heart-pounding romance, vicious competition, and beautiful, cruel fae, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Witch Haven, Sasha Peyton Smith.

Every citizen of England is granted one bargain from their immortal fae queen.

High society girls are expected to bargain for qualities that will win them suitors: a rare talent for piano in exchange for one’s happiest childhood memory. A perfect smile for one’s ability to taste.

But Ivy Benton’s debut season arrives with a shocking twist: a competition to secure the heart of the Queen’s fae son, Prince Bram. A prize that could save Ivy’s family from ruin� and free her sister from the bargain that destroyed her.

Yet every glittering fae deal has a rotting heart—and at the center of this contest is a dark plot that could destroy everything Ivy knows.

Sweepingly romantic and deceptively enchanting, this alternate history romantasy will enthrall readers of Holly Black, Stephanie Garber, and Adalyn Grace.]]>
400 Sasha Peyton Smith 0063372525 Bayley 0 to-read 3.97 2025 The Rose Bargain
author: Sasha Peyton Smith
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1)]]> 36510196
The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-- and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.

Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.

John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine--and what he will become is far stranger.]]>
318 John Scalzi Bayley 0 to-read 4.25 2005 Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1)
author: John Scalzi
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Kaiju Preservation Society]]> 57693406
What Tom doesn't tell Jamie is that the animals his team cares for are not here on Earth. Not our Earth, at least. In an alternate dimension, massive dinosaur-like creatures named Kaiju roam a warm and human-free world. They're the universe's largest and most dangerous panda and they're in trouble.

It's not just the Kaiju Preservation Society that's found its way to the alternate world. Others have, too--and their carelessness could cause millions back on our Earth to die.]]>
264 John Scalzi 0765389126 Bayley 0 to-read 3.93 2022 The Kaiju Preservation Society
author: John Scalzi
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Last Hour Between Worlds (The Echo Archives, #1)]]> 182761345
Kembral Thorne is spending a few hours away from her newborn, and she's determined to enjoy herself at this party no matter what. But when the guests start dropping dead, Kem has no choice but to get to work. She is a Hound, after all, and she can't help picking up the scent of trouble.Ěý

She’s not the only one. Her professional and personal nemesis, notorious burglar Rika Nonesuch, is on the prowl. They quickly identify what’s causing the a mysterious grandfather clock that sends them down an Echo every time it chimes. In each strange new layer of reality, time resets and a sinister figure appears to perform a blood-soaked ritual.Ěý

As Kem and Rika fall into increasingly macabre versions of their city, they’ll need to rely on their wits—and each other—to unravel the secret of the clock and save their home.Ěý]]>
432 Melissa Caruso 031630347X Bayley 0 to-read 3.78 2024 The Last Hour Between Worlds (The Echo Archives, #1)
author: Melissa Caruso
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Raven Scholar (Eternal Path Trilogy, #1)]]> 212174157 From an electrifying new voice in epic fantasy comes The Raven Scholar, a masterfully woven and playfully inventive tale of imperial intrigue, cutthroat competition, and one scholar’s quest to uncover the truth.

Let us fly now to the empire of Orrun, where after twenty-four years of peace, Bersun the Brusque must end his reign. In the dizzying heat of mid-summer, seven contenders compete to replace him. They are exceptional warriors, thinkers, strategists—the best of the best.

Then one of them is murdered.

It falls to Neema Kraa, the emperor’s brilliant, idiosyncratic High Scholar, to find the killer before the trials end. To do so, she must untangle a web of deadly secrets that stretches back generations, all while competing against six warriors with their own dark histories and fierce ambitions. Neema believes she is alone. But we are here to help; all she has to do is let us in.

If she succeeds, she will win the throne. If she fails, death awaits her. But we won’t let that happen.

We are the Raven, and we are magnificent.]]>
656 Antonia Hodgson 152933988X Bayley 0 to-read 4.49 2025 The Raven Scholar (Eternal Path Trilogy, #1)
author: Antonia Hodgson
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Sword Catcher (The Chronicles of Castellane, #1)]]> 36679274
Kel is an orphan, stolen from the life he knew to become the Sword Catcher—the body double of a royal heir, Prince Conor Aurelian. He has been raised alongside the prince, trained in every aspect of combat and statecraft. He and Conor are as close as brothers, but Kel knows that his destiny is to die for Conor. No other future is possible.

Lin Caster is one of the Ashkar, a small community whose members still possess magical abilities. By law, they must live behind walls within the city, but Lin, a physician, ventures out to tend to the sick and dying of Castellane. Despite her skills, she cannot heal her best friend without access to forbidden knowledge.

After a failed assassination attempt brings Lin and Kel together, they are drawn into the web of the mysterious Ragpicker King, the criminal ruler of Castellane’s underworld. He offers them each what they want most; but as they descend into his world of intrigue and shadow, they discover a conspiracy of corruption that reaches from the darkest gutters of Castellane to the highest tower of its palaces.

As long-kept secrets begin to unravel, they must ask themselves: Is knowledge worth the price of betrayal? Can forbidden love bring down a kingdom? And will their discoveries plunge their nation into war—and the world into chaos?]]>
624 Cassandra Clare 0525619992 Bayley 4
I understand the 'this is A Darker Shade of Magic in a different font' accusations. I do certainly see the parallels, although I do not think it is fair or reasonable to call it a direct rip-off as so many here are doing. V.E. Schwab did not invent the idea of a fantasy narrative about a royal and their bodyguard/friend. It is very funny to have a Kel in this story, which leads me to the assumption that it is meant to be a tip of the hat. I do think it is very silly to assert that surface level tropes and archetypes are what makes the core of a story. I think even if Clare set out to write ADSOM in a different font, which I don't think was the intention, that would be fine actually? But again, she clearly named a character Kel as an acknowledgement of the similarities. I also kinda think it is funny that people are mentioning the ADSOM similarities and not the Six of Crows similarities, although I have indicated I find this line of thought to be reductive so I am not sure why I am writing such a long paragraph on the topic.

Two aspects of this book that I am torn on are the portrayal of sex work and the queer normative world building. I am more torn on the first and generally don't love the second. With sex work in this novel I did really like the inclusion of sex workers. The most positive aspects of their inclusion are the scene where sex workers are directly discussing their jobs in a manner any other job would be discussed (with direct nods to their material conditions being positive), and the scene where Silla, the sex worker Kel is fond of, sleeps with Connor and all of Kel's annoyance is directed towards Connor and not Silla. I also liked that the sex workers that had the most page time were all spoken of positively. No one was trying to save them, it is treated like a job, they discuss it as a job. I didn't love the scene where Lin comes across women implied to being doing survival sex work in clearly exploitive conditions. Not because I don't think that story necessarily doesn't belong (although I would prefer it come from maybe a different pen), but because those women were clearly just mentioned to serve as a mirror to Silla and her ilk and really served no narrative function on their own. I also think the narrative was sometimes maybe overly coddling the reader? But also it was probably necessary for a chunk of people so I understand the choice. I also did kind of like that Kel was explicitly mean to Silla once, so the audience was put on her side against a character that is mostly very sympathetic. I don't think I have said much of value here but I am trying to iron out my own feelings.

On the topic of a queer normative world I have Thoughts And Feelings. Those thoughts and feelings are that I do not think I have ever read a queer normative fantasy world that I actually think made sense? My particular gripe with this book was that in real life it does seem like their is pretty major overlap with homophobia and sexism, particularly the idea that some aspects of homophobia stem from anger that people are not preforming their gender roles 'correctly'. And this world does not at all address the ways in which everyone is just very chill about the gays across the board but the world is still incredibly sexist? I think this kind of approach is well intentioned, but the idea that the world otherwise filled with pretty incredible inequity will just have not even a whiff of homophobia feels more poorly considered than positive approach to me. It doesn't even need to be a world that is deeply homophobic, I just am confused by the zero homophobia thing. I do also think despite us being told that this is a queer normative world, characters do not actually act like they are in a queer normitive world very often. Connor discusses marrying women or men but the other character who has marriage drama only thinks about heterosexual pairings despite it being clear this is not at all a love match being sought and the fact that a lesbian relationship would have explicitly solved some of the characters issues. There were other instances of the world not actually feeling queer normative despite what we are told, but this is already quite long.

Outside of the shakey queer normativity I did largely enjoy the world building. Clare is not reinventing the wheel with this world, but I do think she is approaching a vaguely medieval European inspired fantasy world well. She is a Jewish person clearly pulling from Jewish medieval history for Lin's people. A lot of the aspects for the broader world are things that exist all over the genre but I think she is doing a good job writing a fun and engaging world in this well trod territory. Aside from my earlier complaint I think the world makes internal sense and is fun to read.

I will perhaps come back and fill my review out a little bit more. But generally I found the plot engaging, I liked the characters, and I enjoyed reading Clare's adult debut! I did think that Kel had a more engaging story than Lin, but I still enjoyed Lin as a character and liked the as the choice for the second POV character. I really liked the surprise of them not being each other's love interests!]]>
3.79 2023 Sword Catcher (The Chronicles of Castellane, #1)
author: Cassandra Clare
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: 2023-anticipated, 2025, books-i-own
review:
I really love it when a book does exactly what I expect in a completely different manner than I anticipated. Which this book very much does.

I understand the 'this is A Darker Shade of Magic in a different font' accusations. I do certainly see the parallels, although I do not think it is fair or reasonable to call it a direct rip-off as so many here are doing. V.E. Schwab did not invent the idea of a fantasy narrative about a royal and their bodyguard/friend. It is very funny to have a Kel in this story, which leads me to the assumption that it is meant to be a tip of the hat. I do think it is very silly to assert that surface level tropes and archetypes are what makes the core of a story. I think even if Clare set out to write ADSOM in a different font, which I don't think was the intention, that would be fine actually? But again, she clearly named a character Kel as an acknowledgement of the similarities. I also kinda think it is funny that people are mentioning the ADSOM similarities and not the Six of Crows similarities, although I have indicated I find this line of thought to be reductive so I am not sure why I am writing such a long paragraph on the topic.

Two aspects of this book that I am torn on are the portrayal of sex work and the queer normative world building. I am more torn on the first and generally don't love the second. With sex work in this novel I did really like the inclusion of sex workers. The most positive aspects of their inclusion are the scene where sex workers are directly discussing their jobs in a manner any other job would be discussed (with direct nods to their material conditions being positive), and the scene where Silla, the sex worker Kel is fond of, sleeps with Connor and all of Kel's annoyance is directed towards Connor and not Silla. I also liked that the sex workers that had the most page time were all spoken of positively. No one was trying to save them, it is treated like a job, they discuss it as a job. I didn't love the scene where Lin comes across women implied to being doing survival sex work in clearly exploitive conditions. Not because I don't think that story necessarily doesn't belong (although I would prefer it come from maybe a different pen), but because those women were clearly just mentioned to serve as a mirror to Silla and her ilk and really served no narrative function on their own. I also think the narrative was sometimes maybe overly coddling the reader? But also it was probably necessary for a chunk of people so I understand the choice. I also did kind of like that Kel was explicitly mean to Silla once, so the audience was put on her side against a character that is mostly very sympathetic. I don't think I have said much of value here but I am trying to iron out my own feelings.

On the topic of a queer normative world I have Thoughts And Feelings. Those thoughts and feelings are that I do not think I have ever read a queer normative fantasy world that I actually think made sense? My particular gripe with this book was that in real life it does seem like their is pretty major overlap with homophobia and sexism, particularly the idea that some aspects of homophobia stem from anger that people are not preforming their gender roles 'correctly'. And this world does not at all address the ways in which everyone is just very chill about the gays across the board but the world is still incredibly sexist? I think this kind of approach is well intentioned, but the idea that the world otherwise filled with pretty incredible inequity will just have not even a whiff of homophobia feels more poorly considered than positive approach to me. It doesn't even need to be a world that is deeply homophobic, I just am confused by the zero homophobia thing. I do also think despite us being told that this is a queer normative world, characters do not actually act like they are in a queer normitive world very often. Connor discusses marrying women or men but the other character who has marriage drama only thinks about heterosexual pairings despite it being clear this is not at all a love match being sought and the fact that a lesbian relationship would have explicitly solved some of the characters issues. There were other instances of the world not actually feeling queer normative despite what we are told, but this is already quite long.

Outside of the shakey queer normativity I did largely enjoy the world building. Clare is not reinventing the wheel with this world, but I do think she is approaching a vaguely medieval European inspired fantasy world well. She is a Jewish person clearly pulling from Jewish medieval history for Lin's people. A lot of the aspects for the broader world are things that exist all over the genre but I think she is doing a good job writing a fun and engaging world in this well trod territory. Aside from my earlier complaint I think the world makes internal sense and is fun to read.

I will perhaps come back and fill my review out a little bit more. But generally I found the plot engaging, I liked the characters, and I enjoyed reading Clare's adult debut! I did think that Kel had a more engaging story than Lin, but I still enjoyed Lin as a character and liked the as the choice for the second POV character. I really liked the surprise of them not being each other's love interests!
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<![CDATA[They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us]]> 33947154
In the wake of the nightclub attacks in Paris, he recalls how he sought refuge as a teenager in music, at shows, and wonders whether the next generation of young Muslims will not be afforded that opportunity now. While discussing the everyday threat to the lives of black Americans, Abdurraqib recounts the first time he was ordered to the ground by police officers: for attempting to enter his own car.

In essays that have been published by the New York Times, MTV, and Pitchfork, among others—along with original, previously unreleased essays—Abdurraqib uses music and culture as a lens through which to view our world, so that we might better understand ourselves, and in so doing proves himself a bellwether for our times.]]>
291 Hanif Abdurraqib Bayley 0 to-read 4.57 2017 They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us
author: Hanif Abdurraqib
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Nobody's Baby But Mine (Chicago Stars, #3)]]> 73080 Librarian Note: There is an Alternate Cover Edition for this edition of this book here.

Genius physics professor Dr. Jane Darlington desperately wants a baby. But finding a father won’t be easy. Jane’s super-intelligence made her feel like a freak when she was growing up, and she’s determined to spare her own child that suffering. Which means she must find someone very special to father her child. Someone who’s more comfortable working out his muscles than exercising his brain.

Cal Bonner, the Chicago Stars� legendary quarterback, seems like the perfect choice. But his champion good looks and down-home ways are deceiving. Dr. Jane is about to learn a little too late that this good ol� boy is a lot smarter than he lets on—and he’s not about to be used and abandoned by a brainy, baby-mad schemer.]]>
374 Susan Elizabeth Phillips 0380782340 Bayley 0 to-read 4.03 1997 Nobody's Baby But Mine (Chicago Stars, #3)
author: Susan Elizabeth Phillips
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Miracle of Dunkirk (Wordsworth Collection)]]> 36315081
In May 1940, the remnants of the French and British armies, broken by Hitler’s blitzkrieg, retreated to Dunkirk. Hemmed in by overwhelming Nazi strength, the 338,000 men gathered on the beach were all that stood between Hitler and Western Europe. Crush them, and the path to Paris and London was clear.

Unable to retreat any farther, the Allied soldiers set up defense positions and prayed for deliverance. Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered an evacuation on May 26, expecting to save no more than a handful of his men. But Britain would not let its soldiers down. Hundreds of fishing boats, pleasure yachts, and commercial vessels streamed into the Channel to back up the Royal Navy, and in a week nearly the entire army was ferried safely back to England.

Based on interviews with hundreds of survivors and told by “a master narrator,� The Miracle of Dunkirk is a striking history of a week when the outcome of World War II hung in the balance (Arthur Schlesinger Jr.).]]>
232 Walter Lord Bayley 0 to-read 4.06 1982 The Miracle of Dunkirk (Wordsworth Collection)
author: Walter Lord
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1982
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read
review:

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Girls Like Girls 61885082 Trailblazing pop star, actor, and director, Hayley Kiyoko debuts her first novel, a coming-of-age romance based on her breakthrough hit song and viral video, GIRLS LIKE GIRLS.

It’s summertime and 17-year-old Coley has found herself alone, again. Forced to move to rural Oregon after just losing her mother, she is in no position to risk her already fragile heart. But when she meets Sonya, the attraction is immediate.

Coley worries she isn't worthy of love. Up until now, everyone she's loved has left her. And Sonya's never been with a girl before. What if she's too afraid to show up for Coley? What if by opening her heart, Coley's risking it all?

They both realize that when things are pushed down, and feelings are forced to shrivel away, Coley and Sonya will be the ones to shrink. It’s not until they accept the love they fear and deserve most, that suddenly the song makes sense.

Based on the billboard-charting smash hit song and viral music video GIRLS LIKE GIRLS, Hayley Kiyoko's debut novel is about embracing your truth and realizing we are all worthy of being loved back.]]>
320 Hayley Kiyoko 1250817633 Bayley 0 2023-anticipated, to-read 3.74 2023 Girls Like Girls
author: Hayley Kiyoko
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: 2023-anticipated, to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Think of England (England World, #2)]]> 34715257
England, 1904. Two years ago, Captain Archie Curtis lost his friends, fingers, and future to a terrible military accident. Alone, purposeless and angry, Curtis is determined to discover if he and his comrades were the victims of fate, or of sabotage.

Curtis’s search takes him to an isolated, ultra-modern country house, where he meets and instantly clashes with fellow guest Daniel da Silva. Effete, decadent, foreign, and all too obviously queer, the sophisticated poet is everything the straightforward British officer fears and distrusts.

As events unfold, Curtis realizes that Daniel has his own secret intentions. And there’s something else they share—a mounting sexual tension that leaves Curtis reeling.

And when the house party’s elegant facade cracks to reveal treachery, blackmail and murder, Curtis finds himself needing clever, dark-eyed Daniel as he has never needed a man before…]]>
239 K.J. Charles 0995799008 Bayley 0 to-read 4.17 2014 Think of England (England World, #2)
author: K.J. Charles
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Beginner's Luck (Chance of a Lifetime, #1)]]> 54311376 When three friends impulsively buy a lottery ticket, they never suspect the many ways their lives will change—or that for each of them, love will be the biggest win of all.

Kit Averin is anything but a gambler. A scientist with a quiet, steady job at a university, Kit’s focus has always been maintaining the acceptable status quo. A sudden windfall doesn’t change that, with one exception: the fixer-upper she plans to buy, her first and only real home. It’s more than enough to keep her busy, until an unsettlingly handsome, charming, and determined corporate recruiter shows up in her lab—and manages to work his way into her heart...

Ben Tucker is surprised to find that the scientist he wants for Beaumont Materials is a young woman—and a beautiful, sharp-witted one at that. Talking her into a big-money position with his firm is harder than he expects, but he’s willing to put in the time, especially when sticking around for the summer gives him a chance to reconnect with his dad. But the longer he stays, the more questions he has about his own future—and who might be in it.

What begins as a chilly rebuff soon heats up into an attraction neither Kit nor Ben can deny—and finding themselves lucky in love might just be priceless...]]>
246 Kate Clayborn Bayley 0 to-read 3.99 2017 Beginner's Luck (Chance of a Lifetime, #1)
author: Kate Clayborn
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Hunting Moon (The Luminaries, #2)]]> 58163757 The Hunting Moon is the highly anticipated sequel to The Luminaries by New York Time s bestselling author Susan Dennard.

Winnie Wednesday has gotten everything she thought she wanted. She passed the deadly hunter trials, her family has been welcomed back into the Luminaries, and overnight, she has become a local celebrity.

The Girl Who Jumped. The Girl Who Got Bitten.

Unfortunately, it all feels wrong. For one, nobody will believe her about the new nightmare called the Whisperer that's killing hunters each night. Everyone blames the werewolf, even though Winnie is certain the wolf is innocent.

On top of that, following her dad's convoluted clues about the Dianas, their magic, and what happened in Hemlock Falls four years ago is leaving her with more questions than answers.

Then to complicate it all, there is still only one person who can help Jay Friday, the boy with plenty of problems all his own.

As bodies and secrets pile up around town, Winnie finds herself questioning what it means to be a true Wednesday and a true Luminary—and also where her fierce-hearted loyalties might ultimately have to lie.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]>
272 Susan Dennard 1250194164 Bayley 0 2023-anticipated, to-read 3.94 2023 The Hunting Moon (The Luminaries, #2)
author: Susan Dennard
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: 2023-anticipated, to-read
review:

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House of Leaves 337907
Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story—of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.]]>
709 Mark Z. Danielewski Bayley 0 to-read 4.03 2000 House of Leaves
author: Mark Z. Danielewski
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read
review:

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Wool Omnibus (Silo, #1) 13453029
The first Wool story was released as a standalone short in July of 2011. Due to reviewer demand, the rest of the story was released over the next six months.

This is the story of mankind clawing for survival, of mankind on the edge. The world outside has grown unkind, the view of it limited, talk of it forbidden. But there are always those who hope, who dream. These are the dangerous people, the residents who infect others with their optimism. Their punishment is simple. They are given the very thing they profess to want: They are allowed outside.

Alternate cover for B0071XO8RA]]>
509 Hugh Howey Bayley 0 to-read 4.22 2012 Wool Omnibus (Silo, #1)
author: Hugh Howey
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years #1)]]> 92141 When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?

Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.

]]>
560 Gregory Maguire 0061350966 Bayley 4
This definitely ľ±˛ő˛Ô’t a book that coddles its reader, and it absolutely requires readers to be comfortable in ambiguity and immorality and detachment. I also think there are parts of this book that don’t work if you’re not very familiar with the movie The Wizard of Oz, specifically the last 60 ish pages of the novel.

Starting off, I really was obsessed with the language used in this book. It’s so quippy. There are dozens of lines that I feel like you could pull out and they would feel funny or incisive or poignant on their own without the context of the novel, but obviously they still work very well in context. The narration style is also just incredibly strong. This book absolutely has a bold voice and I really enjoyed it.

I like a lot of people came to this book through the musical, and they really do defang the political messaging of the book as it was translated into a musical, which is a lot of peopleâ€s big critique of the musical that it’s kind of not saying anything. But this book is absolutely willing to actually take hold of it subject matter and explore it pretty thoroughly.

I also really enjoyed that Elphaba ľ±˛ő˛Ô’t powerful magically in this book. That her impact stems from her ideals and will to act and not from her being special and like chosen by the universe. I also love how willing this book was to not be happy and not make Elphaba be secretly a really good person the way the musical does. The book lets her be complex and cruel and thorny as well as magnetic and funny and bold.

I really think I need to reread this book to get a better hold on my thoughts and feelings around it, but I am very glad that I have finally read this book. I’ve been meaning to do so for around a decade and I’m really glad I finally did it. It was a super interesting read. ]]>
3.43 1995 Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West  (The Wicked Years #1)
author: Gregory Maguire
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1995
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: rory-gilmore-tbr, 2025, made-me-laugh
review:
This is such a hard book to write a review for! I read it basically in two chunks about a month and a half apart, which probably wasn’t the best way for me to read a book. I also think coming to this book after hearing so much about how weird and offputting the book is was a strange experience because that’s such a flattening way to present this book, it would be flattening to present any book like that, but I do think it put me on a weird foot as a reader.

This definitely ľ±˛ő˛Ô’t a book that coddles its reader, and it absolutely requires readers to be comfortable in ambiguity and immorality and detachment. I also think there are parts of this book that don’t work if you’re not very familiar with the movie The Wizard of Oz, specifically the last 60 ish pages of the novel.

Starting off, I really was obsessed with the language used in this book. It’s so quippy. There are dozens of lines that I feel like you could pull out and they would feel funny or incisive or poignant on their own without the context of the novel, but obviously they still work very well in context. The narration style is also just incredibly strong. This book absolutely has a bold voice and I really enjoyed it.

I like a lot of people came to this book through the musical, and they really do defang the political messaging of the book as it was translated into a musical, which is a lot of peopleâ€s big critique of the musical that it’s kind of not saying anything. But this book is absolutely willing to actually take hold of it subject matter and explore it pretty thoroughly.

I also really enjoyed that Elphaba ľ±˛ő˛Ô’t powerful magically in this book. That her impact stems from her ideals and will to act and not from her being special and like chosen by the universe. I also love how willing this book was to not be happy and not make Elphaba be secretly a really good person the way the musical does. The book lets her be complex and cruel and thorny as well as magnetic and funny and bold.

I really think I need to reread this book to get a better hold on my thoughts and feelings around it, but I am very glad that I have finally read this book. I’ve been meaning to do so for around a decade and I’m really glad I finally did it. It was a super interesting read.
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Comfort Me with Apples 56179382
It's just that he's away so much. So often. He works so hard. She misses him. And he misses her. He says he does, so it must be true. He is the perfect husband and everything is perfect.

But sometimes Sophia wonders about things. Strange things. Dark things. The look on her husband's face when he comes back from a long business trip. The questions he will not answer. The locked basement she is never allowed to enter. And whenever she asks the neighbors, they can't quite meet her gaze...

But everything is perfect. Isn't it?]]>
103 Catherynne M. Valente 1250816211 Bayley 0 to-read 3.57 2021 Comfort Me with Apples
author: Catherynne M. Valente
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Female Husbands: A Trans History]]> 51771013 Female Husbands offers a dynamic, varied, and complex history of the LGBTQ past.]]> 350 Jen Manion 1108483801 Bayley 0 to-read 4.05 2020 Female Husbands: A Trans History
author: Jen Manion
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Rethinking Fandom: How to Beat the Sports-Industrial Complex at Its Own Game]]> 58845782 A fundamental reevaluation of how to be a sports fan by an acclaimed baseball writer.

Sports fandom ľ±˛ő˛Ô’t what it used to be. Owners and executives increasingly count on the blind loyalty of their fans and too often act against the team’s best interest. Intentionally tanking a season to get a high draft pick, scamming local governments to build cushy new stadiums, and actively subverting the players have become business as usual in professional sports.

In Rethinking Fandom, sportswriter (and lifelong sports fan) Craig Calcaterra argues that fans have more power than they realize to change how their teams behave. With his characteristic wit and piercing commentary, Calcaterra calls for a radical reexamination of what it means to be a fan in the twenty-first century.]]>
232 Craig Calcaterra 1953368239 Bayley 0 to-read 3.94 2022 Rethinking Fandom: How to Beat the Sports-Industrial Complex at Its Own Game
author: Craig Calcaterra
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection]]> 220341389 John Green, the #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and a passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest disease.

Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.

In 2019, John Green met Henry, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone while traveling with Partners in Health. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal and dynamic advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, treatable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing 1.5 million people every year.

In Everything is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.]]>
208 John Green 0525556575 Bayley 5
I really enjoyed reading this book! I mostly listened to the audiobook, which is narrated by John Green, and thought the narration was really great. He speaks at a pace that is very possible to listen to without itching to speed it up. Not to cast aspersions, but very many professional audiobook narrators speak unlistanably slow.

This book seems incredibly well researched; I particularly liked the further reading section, finding many things that I would very much like to further read. Green covers the history of the disease, its process to scientific categorization, histories of diagnosis, treatment, and cures, some history of Sierra Leone, as well as touching on the ways TB impacted culture.

Greens voice really comes through very well. If you are familiar with him from his other nonfiction or his internet presence you will be experiencing a John Green you are already familiar with. Interestingly he has been talking about a lot of the content that is in this book on the internet for the past few years but I was still very invested in what was actually on page. The information is expanded, but the book is just so well structured, the information and narrative and emotion so well blended, that my attention was sort of riveted. This is a very 2025 sentiment but I was so invested in reading this book that it made me forget the season 2 finale of Severance comes out today. Writing this review is my way to not just obsess while I wait for 9 pm.

I also just love an exploration of a personal obsession and Green is so transparent that this is in part what he is doing. You cannot really explain why something catches your interest, but you can lay out the events that lead to the interest and the knowledge gained that particularly sticks for you. Green does this very well. Also, my own personal obsession, the first world war, comes up four maybe five times, which is just nice for me.

tl;dr I really loved this book! I learned, I cried, I was inspired to learn more. All the good things. Also go watch Severance. ]]>
4.51 2025 Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
author: John Green
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: 2025, audiobooks-i-own, books-i-own, made-me-cry
review:
We should not be very surprised that I cried four times.

I really enjoyed reading this book! I mostly listened to the audiobook, which is narrated by John Green, and thought the narration was really great. He speaks at a pace that is very possible to listen to without itching to speed it up. Not to cast aspersions, but very many professional audiobook narrators speak unlistanably slow.

This book seems incredibly well researched; I particularly liked the further reading section, finding many things that I would very much like to further read. Green covers the history of the disease, its process to scientific categorization, histories of diagnosis, treatment, and cures, some history of Sierra Leone, as well as touching on the ways TB impacted culture.

Greens voice really comes through very well. If you are familiar with him from his other nonfiction or his internet presence you will be experiencing a John Green you are already familiar with. Interestingly he has been talking about a lot of the content that is in this book on the internet for the past few years but I was still very invested in what was actually on page. The information is expanded, but the book is just so well structured, the information and narrative and emotion so well blended, that my attention was sort of riveted. This is a very 2025 sentiment but I was so invested in reading this book that it made me forget the season 2 finale of Severance comes out today. Writing this review is my way to not just obsess while I wait for 9 pm.

I also just love an exploration of a personal obsession and Green is so transparent that this is in part what he is doing. You cannot really explain why something catches your interest, but you can lay out the events that lead to the interest and the knowledge gained that particularly sticks for you. Green does this very well. Also, my own personal obsession, the first world war, comes up four maybe five times, which is just nice for me.

tl;dr I really loved this book! I learned, I cried, I was inspired to learn more. All the good things. Also go watch Severance.
]]>
<![CDATA[The Remedy: Robert Koch, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Quest to Cure Tuberculosis]]> 18079760 The riveting history of tuberculosis, the world’s most lethal disease, the two men whose lives it tragically intertwined, and the birth of medical science.
Ěý
In 1875, tuberculosis was the deadliest disease in the world, accountable for a third of all deaths. A diagnosis of TB—often called consumption—was a death sentence. Then, in a triumph of medical science, a German doctor named Robert Koch deployed an unprecedented scientific rigor to discover the bacteria that caused TB. Koch soon embarked on a remedy—a remedy that would be his undoing.
Ěý
When Koch announced his cure for consumption, Arthur Conan Doyle, then a small-town doctor in England and sometime writer, went to Berlin to cover the event. Touring the ward of reportedly cured patients, he was horrified. Koch’s "remedy" was either sloppy science or outright fraud.
Ěý
But to a world desperate for relief, Koch’s remedy wasn’t so easily dismissed. As Europe’s consumptives descended upon Berlin, Koch urgently tried to prove his case. Conan Doyle, meanwhile, returned to England determined to abandon medicine in favor of writing. In particular, he turned to a character inspired by the very scientific methods that Koch had formulated: Sherlock Holmes.
Ěý
Capturing the moment when mystery and magic began to yield to science, The Remedy chronicles the stunning story of how the germ theory of disease became a true fact, how two men of ambition were emboldened to reach for something more, and how scientific discoveries evolve into social truths.]]>
320 Thomas Goetz 159240751X Bayley 0 to-read 3.87 2014 The Remedy: Robert Koch, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Quest to Cure Tuberculosis
author: Thomas Goetz
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Realm of Ice and Sky: Triumph, Tragedy, and History's Greatest Arctic Rescue]]> 211003941 Two-time National Outdoor Book Award-winning author Buddy Levy's thrilling narrative of polar exploration via airship�and the men who sacrificed everything to make history.

Arctic explorer and American visionary Walter Wellman pioneered both polar and trans-Atlantic airship aviation, making history’s first attempts at each. Wellman has been cast as a self-promoting egomaniac known mostly for his catastrophic failures. Instead he was a courageous innovator who pushed the boundaries of polar exploration and paved the way for the ultimate conquest of the North Pole—which would be achieved not by dogsled or airplane, but by airship.

American explorer Dr. Frederick Cook was the first to claim he made it to the North Pole in 1908. A year later, so did American Robert Peary, but both Cook’s and Peary’s claims had been seriously questioned. There was enough doubt that Norwegian explorer extraordinaire Roald Amundsen—who’d made history and a name for himself by being first to sail through the Northwest Passage and first man to the South Pole—picked up where Walter Wellman left off, attempting to fly to the North Pole by airship. He would go in the Norge, designed by Italian aeronautical engineer Umberto Nobile. The 350-foot Norge flew over the North Pole on May 12, 1926, and Amundsen was able to accurately record and verify their exact location.

However, the engineer Nobile felt slighted by Amundsen. Two years later, Nobile returned, this time in the Italia, backed by Prime Minister Benito Mussolini. This was an Italian enterprise, and Nobile intended to win back the global accolades and reputation he believed Amundsen had stripped from him. The journey ended in disaster, death, and accusations of cannibalism, launching one of the great rescue operations the world had ever seen.

Realm of Ice and Sky is the thrilling narrative of polar exploration via airship―and the men who sacrificed everything to make history.]]>
384 Buddy Levy 1250289181 Bayley 0 to-read 4.17 2025 Realm of Ice and Sky: Triumph, Tragedy, and History's Greatest Arctic Rescue
author: Buddy Levy
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: to-read
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Alchemy of Secrets: A Novel 222706197 The HOTLY ANTICIPATED adult debut novel by the beloved, #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING author of the Caraval and Once Upon a Broken Heart series

It starts with a class in an old movie theater.

Folklore 517: Local Legends and Urban Myths, taught by a woman called the Professor. Most students believe the Professor’s stories are just fiction, but Holland St. James has always been convinced that magic is real. When she tracks down a local legend named the Watch Man, who can supposedly tell you when you’ll die, the world finally makes sense. Except that the Watch Man tells her she will die at midnight tomorrow unless she finds an ancient object called the Alchemical Heart.

With the clock ticking, Holland is pulled deeper into this magical world in the heart of Los Angeles—and into the path of a magnetic stranger. Everything about him feels like a bad idea, but he promises Holland that her sister sent him to protect her. As they chase clues and stories that take them closer to the Alchemical Heart, Holland realizes everyone in this intoxicating new world is lying to her, even this stranger. And if she can’t figure out whom to trust, not even the Alchemical Heart will save her.]]>
336 Stephanie Garber 125078915X Bayley 0 to-read 4.70 2025 Alchemy of Secrets: A Novel
author: Stephanie Garber
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.70
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration]]> 110244
Emphasizing the importance of kinship, labor, and networks of communication, A Nation under Our Feet explores the political relations and sensibilities that developed under slavery and shows how they set the stage for grassroots mobilization. Hahn introduces us to local leaders, and shows how political communities were built, defended, and rebuilt. He also identifies the quest for self-governance as an essential goal of black politics across the rural South, from contests for local power during Reconstruction, to emigrationism, biracial electoral alliances, social separatism, and, eventually, migration.

Hahn suggests that Garveyism and other popular forms of black nationalism absorbed and elaborated these earlier struggles, thus linking the first generation of migrants to the urban North with those who remained in the South. He offers a new framework--looking out from slavery--to understand twentieth-century forms of black political consciousness as well as emerging battles for civil rights. It is a powerful story, told here for the first time, and one that presents both an inspiring and a troubling perspective on American democracy.]]>
624 Steven Hahn 067401765X Bayley 0 to-read 4.11 2003 A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration
author: Steven Hahn
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Punish Treason, Reward Loyalty: The Forgotten Goals of Constitutional Reform after the Civil War (Constitutional Thinking)]]> 131801151 416 Mark A. Graber 0700635033 Bayley 0 to-read 4.50 Punish Treason, Reward Loyalty: The Forgotten Goals of Constitutional Reform after the Civil War (Constitutional Thinking)
author: Mark A. Graber
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Daughter of No Worlds (The War of Lost Hearts, #1)]]> 49826643
Ripped from a forgotten homeland as a child, Tisaanah learned how to survive with nothing but a sharp wit and a touch of magic. But the night she tries to buy her freedom, she barely escapes with her life.

Desperate to save the best friend she left behind, Tisaanah journeys to the Orders, the most powerful organizations of magic Wielders in the world. But to join their ranks, she must complete an apprenticeship with Maxantarius Farlione, a handsome and reclusive fire wielder who despises the Orders.

The Orders� intentions are cryptic, and Tisaanah must prove herself under the threat of looming war. But even more dangerous are her growing feelings for Maxantarius. The bloody past he wants to forget may be the key to her future� or the downfall of them both.

But Tisaanah will stop at nothing to save those she abandoned. Even if it means gambling in the Orders� deadly games. Even if it means sacrificing her heart.

Even if it means wielding death itself.

Fans of epic romantic fantasy like Sarah J. Maas and Raven Kennedy will devour this tale of dark magic, passionate romance, vengeance, and redemption.]]>
520 Carissa Broadbent Bayley 0 to-read 4.03 2020 Daughter of No Worlds (The War of Lost Hearts, #1)
author: Carissa Broadbent
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Bone Conjurers (The Chronicles of Castellane, #3)]]> 216417412 Cassandra Clare Bayley 0 to-read 4.61 The Bone Conjurers (The Chronicles of Castellane, #3)
author: Cassandra Clare
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.61
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

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The September House 64623481 A woman is determined to stay in her dream home even after it becomes a haunted nightmare in this compulsively readable, twisty, and layered debut novel.

When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street—for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price—they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee.

Margaret is not most people.

Margaret is staying. It’s her house. But after four years Hal can’t take it anymore, and he leaves abruptly. Now, he’s not returning calls, and their daughter Katherine—who knows nothing about the hauntings—arrives, intent on looking for her missing father. To make things worse, September has just begun, and with every attempt Margaret and Katherine make at finding Hal, the hauntings grow more harrowing, because there are some secrets the house needs to keep.]]>
352 Carissa Orlando 0593548612 Bayley 0 to-read 3.87 2023 The September House
author: Carissa Orlando
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

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Sky Daddy 216247489 Subversive and unexpectedly heartwarming, Sky Daddy hijacks the classic love story, exploring desire, fate, and the longing to be accepted for who we truly are.

Linda is doing her best to lead a life that would appear normal to the casual observer. Weekdays, she earns $20 an hour moderating comments for a video-sharing platform, then rides the bus home to the windowless garage she rents on the outskirts of San Francisco. But on the last Friday of each month, she indulges in her true passion: taking BART to SFO for a round-trip flight to a regional hub. The destination is irrelevant because each trip means a new date with a handsome stranger—a stranger whose intelligent windscreens, sleek fuselages, and powerful engines make Linda feel a way that no human ever could.

Linda knows that she can’t tell anyone she’s sexually obsessed with planes—nor can she reveal her belief her destiny is to “marry� one of her suitors by dying in a plane crash, thereby uniting her with her soulmate plane for eternity. But when an opportunity arises to hasten her dream of eternal partnership, and the carefully balanced elements of her life begin to spin out of control, she must choose between maintaining the trappings of normalcy and launching herself headlong toward the love she’s always dreamed of.]]>
368 Kate Folk 059323149X Bayley 0 to-read 4.01 2025 Sky Daddy
author: Kate Folk
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[A Mad Catastrophe: The Outbreak of World War I and the Collapse of the Habsburg Empire]]> 18210782
As prizewinning historian Geoffrey Wawro explains, the disorganization of these doomed conscripts perfectly mirrored Austra-Hungary itself. For years, the Dual Monarchy had been rotting from within, hollowed out by complacency and corruption at the highest levels. Germany goaded Austria into a longed-for fight with Russia and her allies before the monarchy collapsed completely, but the severity of the fighting was too much for the weakened Empire. By the time 1914 ended, the Habsburg army lay in ruins, and the course of the war seemed all but decided.

Reconstructing the climax of the Austrian campaign in gripping detail, Wawro offers a riveting account of how Austria-Hungary plunged the West into a tragic and unnecessary war.
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440 Geoffrey Wawro 0465028357 Bayley 0 currently-reading 3.90 2014 A Mad Catastrophe: The Outbreak of World War I and the Collapse of the Habsburg Empire
author: Geoffrey Wawro
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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Notes from a Regicide 211004138 Notes from a Regicide is a heartbreaking story of trans self-discovery with a rich relatability and a science-fictional twist from award-winning author Isaac Fellman.

When your parents die, you find out who they really were.

Griffon Keming’s second parents saved him from his abusive family. They taught him how to be trans, paid for his transition, and tried to love him as best they could. But Griffon’s new parents had troubles of their own � both were deeply scarred by the lives they lived before Griffon, the struggles they faced to become themselves, and the failed revolution that drove them from their homeland. When they died, they left an unfillable hole in his heart.

Griffon’s best clue to his parents� lives is in his father’s journal, written from a jail cell while he awaited execution. Stained with blood, grief, and tears, these pages struggle to contain the love story of two artists on fire. With the journal in hand, Griffon hopes to pin down his relationship to these wonderful and strange people for whom time always seemed to be running out.

In Notes from a Regicide, a trans family saga set in a far-off, familiar future, Isaac Fellman goes beyond the concept of found family to examine how deeply we can be healed and hurt by those we choose to love.]]>
336 Isaac Fellman 1250329108 Bayley 0 to-read 3.90 2025 Notes from a Regicide
author: Isaac Fellman
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/05
shelves: to-read
review:

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Robbergirl 44011097 201 S.T. Gibson Bayley 0 to-read 3.75 2019 Robbergirl
author: S.T. Gibson
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/05
shelves: to-read
review:

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His Lordship's Mistress 958497 214 Joan Wolf 0451114590 Bayley 0 to-read 3.80 1982 His Lordship's Mistress
author: Joan Wolf
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1982
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/05
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Song of the Magpie (Darnalay Castle #4)]]> 220686759 A tale of resilience and redemption.

Caitlin Blackwell’s life has been shaped by the whims of men—the cruel landlord who evicted her family when she was a child; the dirty grinders who bought her favors in the alleyways of Cork; and the uncaring husband who was forced upon her when she arrived as a convict in Australia twenty years ago. But at last, she’s a widow. She’s inherited a farm of her own, and she’s determined to seize control of her destiny.

There’s only one thing stopping her from becoming the prosperous, independent woman she’s always dreamed she could she’s illiterate.

Enter Michael Dunn, a man haunted with guilt. After six months of hell and hard labor at Moreton Bay penal colony—for a crime he should have known better than to commit—he’s more than haunted. He’s broken. Empty. A shell of a man.

But somehow, he’s given another chance. A glimmer of hope in an unexpected assignment to teach an Irish widow to read.

As Caitlin and Michael’s new life blooms amidst the vast Australian landscape, they uncover a secret that threatens to snatch away everything they hold dear. Can they face the demons of their pasts and embrace an uncertain future?

�...one of the best redemption stories I've ever read. I loved it.� - Reader review

The Song of the Magpie is the fourth and final book in the Darnalay Castle Series, although all of the books in the series can be read as standalones. It contains themes which may be disturbing to some readers (see the author’s note in the sample pages), and several spicy open-door scenes.]]>
254 Louise Mayberry Bayley 0 to-read 5.00 The Song of the Magpie (Darnalay Castle #4)
author: Louise Mayberry
name: Bayley
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/05
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Proper English (England World, #1)]]> 44420645
That’s not Pat’s biggest problem. She’s visiting her old friend, the Earl’s heir Jimmy Yoxall—but she wants to spend a lot more time with Jimmy’s fiancée. The irrepressible Miss Fenella Carruth, with her laughing eyes and lush curves, is the most glorious woman Pat’s ever met, and it quickly becomes impossible to remember why she needs to stay at arm’s length.

But while the women’s attraction grows, the tensions at Rodington Court get worse. Affairs, secrets, betrayals, and blackmail come to light. And when a body is discovered with a knife between the shoulderblades, it’s going to take Pat and Fen’s combined talents to prevent the murderer destroying all their lives.]]>
243 K.J. Charles 1912688107 Bayley 0 to-read 3.96 2019 Proper English (England World, #1)
author: K.J. Charles
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/05
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[How Goes The World? (The Will Darling Adventures, #3.5; England World, #2.5)]]> 58921527
Epilogue to Think of England/Will Darling Adventures]]>
23 K.J. Charles Bayley 0 to-read 4.20 2021 How Goes The World? (The Will Darling Adventures, #3.5; England World, #2.5)
author: K.J. Charles
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/05
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Subtle Blood (The Will Darling Adventures, #3)]]> 52238002
And then a brutal murder in a gentleman’s club plunges them back into the shadow world of crime, deception, and the power of privilege. Worse, it brings them up against Kim’s noble, hostile family, and his upper-class life where Will can never belong.

With old and new enemies against them, and secrets on every side, Will and Kim have to fight for each other harder than ever—or be torn apart for good.]]>
290 K.J. Charles Bayley 5 2025, 2025-favorites
Again I do not have anything smart to say about this book I just have a really truly wonderful time reading it.

I think Charles does a really excellent job of pacing this book really perfectly both on the romance and the mystery/thriller front. I think I am particularly partial to romances that span multiple books and I think Charles nailed the arc of this relationship across these three installments. I was very invested in this couples relationship throughout, and I am in fact a bit shattered that I cannot continue to read about these two being involved in havoc every few months for the rest of their lives (which would lead us into the Second World War eventually). I also like the level of complexity the mysteries have. They aren't super hard for the reader (at least in my experience) to solve pretty quickly but they understandably take the characters a very appropriate amount of the book. And there is always a big red herring that is pretty easy to fall for as the reader. But Charles writes a mystery that is still very fun to read about no matter how invested in solving it the reader is.

Sometimes in romance I have issue with external conflict in a relationship, but it worked for me here. I think due to a combination of the previous two having lots of internal conflict, and the fact that the external conflict here would not inherently break them up, but an acknowledgment of this external factor would just make the agreements they have come to on their previous internal conflicts untenable at some point in the future.

This series is so much fun and so good and feelings and now I shall have to go acquire my own copies as I got these from my library. ]]>
4.41 2021 Subtle Blood (The Will Darling Adventures, #3)
author: K.J. Charles
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/05
date added: 2025/03/05
shelves: 2025, 2025-favorites
review:
Well!!! This series has been just the most wonderful time!

Again I do not have anything smart to say about this book I just have a really truly wonderful time reading it.

I think Charles does a really excellent job of pacing this book really perfectly both on the romance and the mystery/thriller front. I think I am particularly partial to romances that span multiple books and I think Charles nailed the arc of this relationship across these three installments. I was very invested in this couples relationship throughout, and I am in fact a bit shattered that I cannot continue to read about these two being involved in havoc every few months for the rest of their lives (which would lead us into the Second World War eventually). I also like the level of complexity the mysteries have. They aren't super hard for the reader (at least in my experience) to solve pretty quickly but they understandably take the characters a very appropriate amount of the book. And there is always a big red herring that is pretty easy to fall for as the reader. But Charles writes a mystery that is still very fun to read about no matter how invested in solving it the reader is.

Sometimes in romance I have issue with external conflict in a relationship, but it worked for me here. I think due to a combination of the previous two having lots of internal conflict, and the fact that the external conflict here would not inherently break them up, but an acknowledgment of this external factor would just make the agreements they have come to on their previous internal conflicts untenable at some point in the future.

This series is so much fun and so good and feelings and now I shall have to go acquire my own copies as I got these from my library.
]]>
<![CDATA[Gild (The Plated Prisoner, #1)]]> 56483061 The fae abandoned this world to us. And the ones with power rule.

Gold.

Gold floors, gold walls, gold furniture, gold clothes. In Highbell, in the castle built into the frozen mountains, everything is made of gold.

Even me.

King Midas rescued me. Dug me out of the slums and placed me on a pedestal. I’m called his precious. His favored. I’m the woman he Gold-Touched to show everyone that I belong to him. To show how powerful he is. He gave me protection, and I gave him my heart. And even though I don’t leave the confines of the palace, I’m safe.

Until war comes to the kingdom and a deal is struck.

Suddenly, my trust is broken. My love is challenged. And I realize that everything I thought I knew about Midas might be wrong.

Because these bars I’m kept in, no matter how gilded, are still just a cage. But the monsters on the other side might make me wish I’d never left.

The myth of King Midas reimagined. This compelling adult fantasy series is as addictive as it is unexpected. With romance, intrigue, and danger, the gilded world of Orea will grip you from the very first page.

Please Note: This book contains explicit content and darker elements, including mature language, violence, and rape. It is not intended for anyone under 18 years of age. This is book one in a series.

An alternative cover edition for this ASIN can be found here.]]>
402 Raven Kennedy Bayley 0 to-read 3.60 2020 Gild (The Plated Prisoner, #1)
author: Raven Kennedy
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?]]> 6784311 Contested Will makes clear, much more than proper attribution of Shakespeare’s plays is at stake in this authorship controversy. Underlying the arguments over whether Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, or the Earl of Oxford wrote Shakespeare’s plays are fundamental questions about literary genius, specifically about the relationship of life and art. Are the plays (and poems) of Shakespeare a sort of hidden autobiography? Do Hamlet, Macbeth, and the other great plays somehow reveal who wrote them?

Shapiro is the first Shakespeare scholar to examine the authorship controversy and its history in this way, explaining what it means, why it matters, and how it has persisted despite abundant evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays attributed to him. This is a brilliant historical investigation that will delight anyone interested in Shakespeare and the literary imagination.]]>
352 James Shapiro 1416541624 Bayley 0 to-read 4.04 2010 Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?
author: James Shapiro
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The You You Are: A Spiritual Biography of You]]> 60841708 This book is drawn from the universe of Severance, the globally acclaimed hit Apple Original series from director and executive producer Ben Stiller and creator Dan Erickson.

Are you ready to meet the person who truly makes you “You�: You?

In his quinquennial tome, Dr. Ricken Lazlo Hale, PhD guides You on a brave journey of self-learnedness. Fertile with mind-engorging insights, The You You Are is an invitation to merge with your true “You,� and expel from your essence the dead-eyed conventionalism that has defined your life since infancy.

For the first time ever, Dr. Ricken’s luminous writings are available in digital format, only on Apple Books. Though librarians strongly urge reading his complete oeuvre, this ebook � featuring the inaugural eight chapters from The You You Are � is sure to tickle both the completist and the layman. In addition, enjoy an exclusive letter of apology from the author himself, addressed to none other than YOU.

In Severance, Mark Scout (Adam Scott) leads a team at Lumon Industries, whose employees have undergone a severance procedure, which surgically divides their memories between their work and personal lives. This daring experiment in “work-life balance� is called into question as Mark - a widower who happens to be Dr. Ricken Hale’s brother in law - finds himself at the center of an unraveling mystery that will force him to confront the true nature of his work � and of himself.

Watch Severance, now streaming on Apple TV+.]]>
39 Ricken Lazlo Hale Bayley 5 2025
This book does exactly what you want it to do. It lets the reader revel in the wacky mind of Ricken, provides a glimpse into the Devon/Ricken relationship, context to his childhood, and a really heartbreaking look at his relationships with Gemma and Mark. I actually got way more out of this book than I expected to.

It is a very fun read that I would recommend for anyone who likes this show. ]]>
4.44 2022 The You You Are: A Spiritual Biography of You
author: Ricken Lazlo Hale
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/03
date added: 2025/03/03
shelves: 2025
review:
Being incredibly careful while in this state of partial enlightenment.

This book does exactly what you want it to do. It lets the reader revel in the wacky mind of Ricken, provides a glimpse into the Devon/Ricken relationship, context to his childhood, and a really heartbreaking look at his relationships with Gemma and Mark. I actually got way more out of this book than I expected to.

It is a very fun read that I would recommend for anyone who likes this show.
]]>
<![CDATA[To Trust Man On His Oath (The Will Darling Adventures, #2.5)]]> 58341732
Set a week after the ending of The Sugared Game (so contains
mild spoilers for that book).]]>
11 K.J. Charles Bayley 5 2025
Very good tiny bonus scene! Probably indicative of the conflict in book three! Which has been the conflict of the series! Which is the conflict of good romance!]]>
4.21 2021 To Trust Man On His Oath (The Will Darling Adventures, #2.5)
author: K.J. Charles
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/03
date added: 2025/03/03
shelves: 2025
review:
“If you promise, I’ll believe you.�

Very good tiny bonus scene! Probably indicative of the conflict in book three! Which has been the conflict of the series! Which is the conflict of good romance!
]]>
<![CDATA[The Sugared Game (The Will Darling Adventures, #2)]]> 52237997
But when Will encounters a face from the past in a disreputable nightclub, Kim turns up, as shifty, unreliable, and irresistible as ever. And before Will knows it, he's been dragged back into Kim's shadowy world of secrets, criminal conspiracies, and underhand dealings.

This time, though, things are underhanded even by Kim standards. This time, the danger is too close to home. And if Will and Kim can't find common ground against unseen enemies, they risk losing everything.

A 1920s m/m romance trilogy in the spirit of Golden Age pulp fiction.]]>
288 K.J. Charles 1912688174 Bayley 5 2025, 2025-favorites
I particularly loved sad Will pining and confused as to why Kim dropped him. I love destress. I also loved the conversations and actions that are leading to less heartache. But I loved the heartache first.

Again, I have nothing amert to say, I am just here to gush. This book kicked ass. ]]>
4.26 2020 The Sugared Game (The Will Darling Adventures, #2)
author: K.J. Charles
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/03
date added: 2025/03/03
shelves: 2025, 2025-favorites
review:
Book two even better than book one! What delightful news.

I particularly loved sad Will pining and confused as to why Kim dropped him. I love destress. I also loved the conversations and actions that are leading to less heartache. But I loved the heartache first.

Again, I have nothing amert to say, I am just here to gush. This book kicked ass.
]]>
Katabasis 210223811 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.]]>
400 R.F. Kuang Bayley 0 to-read 4.03 2025 Katabasis
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: to-read
review:

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Confess 22609310
For once, Auburn takes a chance and puts her heart in control, only to discover that Owen is hiding a huge secret. The magnitude of his past threatens to destroy everything Auburn loves most, and the only way to get her life back on track is to cut Owen out of it—but can she do it?]]>
306 Colleen Hoover 1476791457 Bayley 4 2015, books-i-own 4.14 2015 Confess
author: Colleen Hoover
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2015/06/21
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: 2015, books-i-own
review:

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<![CDATA[Slippery Creatures (The Will Darling Adventures, #1)]]> 52237989
Will has no idea what that information is, and nobody to turn to, until Kim Secretan—charming, cultured, oddly attractive—steps in to offer help. As Kim and Will try to find answers and outrun trouble, mutual desire grows along with the danger.

And then Will discovers the truth about Kim. His identity, his past, his real intentions. Enraged and betrayed, Will never wants to see him again.

But Will possesses knowledge that could cost thousands of lives. Enemies are closing in on him from all sides—and Kim is the only man who can help.

A 1920s m/m romance trilogy in the spirit of Golden Age pulp fiction.]]>
265 K.J. Charles 1912688158 Bayley 5
I feel like I should have something smart and interesting to say about this book. But I just want to gush so that is what I shall do.

I like that Will is basically surrounded by spies and criminals and spends a lot of time being baffled that these people keep hoodwinking him. Also, that he cannot clock a lesbian. Twice. He still does smart things! Just cannot put puzzle pieces together more than once a book I assume. His other contradiction is that he is kinda a sweetie and also hugely pro violence.

I also really enjoy it when characters are actually mean to each other. And truly poor Will was put through the physical and emotional wringer. I loved how down K.J. Charles was with letting her characters actually be in real conflict with each other.

This is not to say everyone runs around being abomadable to each other all the time. I think Charles balances the emotions in the story really well. There are heartachingly tender scenes, scenes that do play with the betrayal scenes quite well, but also just really lovely moments that stand on their own. And the friendships are really particularly a highlight of mine.

The plot was great! Very good World War I integration! Love a bookshop owner who is NOT charmed by a bookshop! Someone was called a knave! Just had an all around swell time. Going to go read book two now. ]]>
4.00 2020 Slippery Creatures (The Will Darling Adventures, #1)
author: K.J. Charles
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: 2025, made-me-laugh, wwi, 2025-favorites
review:
I do very much like this book. I like literally everything about it I think. It is also the kind of book that makes you not only like it but want to read more books which is always my favorite kind of book.

I feel like I should have something smart and interesting to say about this book. But I just want to gush so that is what I shall do.

I like that Will is basically surrounded by spies and criminals and spends a lot of time being baffled that these people keep hoodwinking him. Also, that he cannot clock a lesbian. Twice. He still does smart things! Just cannot put puzzle pieces together more than once a book I assume. His other contradiction is that he is kinda a sweetie and also hugely pro violence.

I also really enjoy it when characters are actually mean to each other. And truly poor Will was put through the physical and emotional wringer. I loved how down K.J. Charles was with letting her characters actually be in real conflict with each other.

This is not to say everyone runs around being abomadable to each other all the time. I think Charles balances the emotions in the story really well. There are heartachingly tender scenes, scenes that do play with the betrayal scenes quite well, but also just really lovely moments that stand on their own. And the friendships are really particularly a highlight of mine.

The plot was great! Very good World War I integration! Love a bookshop owner who is NOT charmed by a bookshop! Someone was called a knave! Just had an all around swell time. Going to go read book two now.
]]>
The Vampire Viscount 1598113
Leonore Farleigh shuddered when she learned she was to marry the Viscount St. Vire. What sort of monster would take advantage of her father's debts to buy her has his bride?

But one meeting with her future husband turned her dismay to desire. Lord Nicholas St. Vire was blindingly handsome and supremely seductive. It was only after they were man and wife that questions began to poison her perfect marriage. Why did he fear to go out in the light of day? What fueled the hellfire torment in his eyes? How was he linked to the ravishing Lady Mercia Lazlo, about whom such dark rumours flew? Could the most irresistible lord in London be the most horrifying creatures of the night? Lenore had to find out as her marriage moved to its ultimate moment of truth - when the viscount's all-consuming kiss would crown her eternal happiness - or seal her undying doom....]]>
224 Karen Harbaugh 0451183193 Bayley 0 to-read 3.37 1995 The Vampire Viscount
author: Karen Harbaugh
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.37
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves: to-read
review:

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Our Wives Under the Sea 58659343
Moving through something that only resembles normal life, Miri comes to realize that the life that they had before might be gone. Though Leah is still there, Miri can feel the woman she loves slipping from her grasp.

Our Wives Under The Sea is the debut novel from Julia Armfield, the critically acclaimed author of Salt Slow. It’s a story of falling in love, loss, grief, and what life there is in the deep deep sea.]]>
240 Julia Armfield 152901722X Bayley 0 to-read 3.75 2022 Our Wives Under the Sea
author: Julia Armfield
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves: to-read
review:

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Overdue 222376487 Is it time to renew love or start a new chapter?

Ingrid Dahl, a cheerful twenty-nine-year-old librarian in the cozy mountain town of Ridgetop, North Carolina, has been happily dating her college boyfriend, Cory, for eleven years without ever discussing marriage. But when Ingrid’s sister announces her engagement to a woman she’s only been dating for two years, Ingrid and Cory feel pressured to consider their future. Neither has ever been with anybody else, so they make an unconventional decision. They'll take a one-month break to date other people, then they'll reunite and move toward marriage. Ingrid even has someone in mind: her charmingly grumpy coworker, Macon Nowakowski, on whom she’s secretly crushed for years. But plans go awry, and when the month ends, Ingrid and Cory realize they’re not ready to resume their relationship� and Ingrid’s harmless crush on Macon has turned into something much more complicated.

Overdue is a beautiful, slow-burn romance full of lust and longing about new beginnings and finding your way.]]>
416 Stephanie Perkins 1250313465 Bayley 0 to-read 3.87 2025 Overdue
author: Stephanie Perkins
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything]]> 33572516
A humorous book that delves into some of the wacky but true ways that humans have looked to cure their ills. Leeches, mercury, strychnine, and lobotomies are a few of the topics that explore the lengths society has gone in the search for health.]]>
344 Lydia Kang 0761189815 Bayley 0 to-read 3.98 2017 Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything
author: Lydia Kang
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

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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 Bayley 0 to-read 3.62 2025 Victorian Psycho
author: Virginia Feito
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read
review:

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Hild (The Hild Sequence, #1) 17332243
Hild is the king’s youngest niece. She has the powerful curiosity of a bright child, a will of adamant, and a way of seeing the world—of studying nature, of matching cause with effect, of observing human nature and predicting what will happen next—that can seem uncanny, even supernatural, to those around her. She establishes herself as the king’s seer. And she is indispensable—until she should ever lead the king astray. The stakes are life and death: for Hild, her family, her loved ones, and the increasing numbers who seek the protection of the strange girl who can read the world and see the future.

Hild is a young woman at the heart of the violence, subtlety, and mysticism of the early medieval age—all of it brilliantly and accurately evoked by Nicola Griffith’s luminous prose. Recalling such feats of historical fiction as Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter, Hild brings a beautiful, brutal world—and one of its most fascinating, pivotal figures, the girl who would become St. Hilda of Whitby—to vivid, absorbing life.]]>
546 Nicola Griffith 0374280878 Bayley 0 to-read 3.80 2013 Hild (The Hild Sequence, #1)
author: Nicola Griffith
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Menewood (The Hild Sequence #2)]]> 60784675 In the much anticipated sequel to Hild, Nicola Griffith's Menewood transports readers back to seventh-century Britain, a land of rival kings and religions poised for epochal change.

Hild is no longer the bright child who made a place in Edwin Overking's court with her seemingly supernatural insight. She is eighteen, honed and tested, the formidable Lady of Elmet, now building her personal stronghold in the valley of Menewood.

But Edwin needs his most trusted advisor. Old alliances are fraying. Younger rivals are snapping at his heels. War is brewing--bitter war, winter war. Not knowing who to trust he becomes volatile and unpredictable. Hild begins to understand the true extent of the chaos ahead, and now she must navigate the turbulence and fight to protect both the kingdom and her own people.

Hild will face the losses and devastation of total war, and then she must find a new strength, the implacable determination to forge a radically different path for herself and her people. In the valley, her last redoubt, her community slowly takes root. She trains herself and her unexpected allies in new ways of thinking as she prepares for one last wager: risking all on a single throw for a better future...

In the last decade, Hild has become a beloved classic of epic storytelling. Menewood picks up where that journey left off, and exceeds it in every way.]]>
720 Nicola Griffith 0374208085 Bayley 0 to-read 4.46 2023 Menewood (The Hild Sequence #2)
author: Nicola Griffith
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Severance - The Lexington Letter]]> 60644263 From the minds behind the series, this is the story of Lumon Industries employee Margaret "Peg" Kincaid.
When Peg gets hired at Lumon, she undergoes Severance, a surgical procedure pitched by the company as an effortless way to separate her personal and work lives. Everyone has their reasons for wanting the easy solution Severance promises, but when Peg realizes that not all is as it seems at the company, she uncovers a reality that's far worse than the problems she wanted to escape.
At the heart of this story, Peg's shocking confession reveals the darkest side of corporate America. It raises a chilling question: How far will Lumon Industries go to protect its secrets?]]>
43 Anonymous Bayley 5
But the short story was great! I literally gasped out loud once. And I love that it sort of follows the lines of 'everything has become a rule because somebody once did it'.]]>
4.15 2022 Severance - The Lexington Letter
author: Anonymous
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/20
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: 2025, books-i-own, e-books-i-have
review:
This is exactly what you would expect! A Severance short story paired with a Lumen Employee Handbook. I have not managed to scour for clues yet. But probably will as I am sick.

But the short story was great! I literally gasped out loud once. And I love that it sort of follows the lines of 'everything has become a rule because somebody once did it'.
]]>
The History of Sound 199373354
In twelve luminous stories set across three centuries, The History of Sound examines the unexpected ways the past returns to us and how love and loss are entwined and transformed over generations. In Ben Shattuck's ingenious collection, each story has a companion story, which contains a revelation about the previous, paired story. Mysteries and murders are revealed, history is refracted, and deep emotional connections are woven through characters and families.

The haunting title story recalls the journey of two men who meet around a piano in a smoky, dim bar, only to spend a summer walking the Maine woods collecting folk songs in the shadow of the First World War, forever marked by the odyssey. Decades later, in another story, a woman discovers the wax cylinders recorded that fateful summer while cleaning out her new house in Maine. Shattuck’s inventive, exquisite stories transport readers from 1700s Nantucket to the contemporary woods of New Hampshire and beyond—into landscapes both enduring and unmistakably modern. Memories, artifacts, paintings, and journals resurface in surprising and poignant ways among evocative beaches, forests, and orchards, revealing the secrets, misunderstandings, and love that linger across centuries.

Written with breathtaking humanity and humor, The History of Sound is a love letter to New England, a radiant conversation between past and present, and a moving meditation on the abiding search for home.]]>
320 Ben Shattuck 059349038X Bayley 0 to-read 4.36 2024 The History of Sound
author: Ben Shattuck
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win]]> 210246742 A clear and concise guide to the politics of post-Roe America, for readers eager to understand the attacks on our bodies and freedom—and to do something about it

In this, her most urgent book yet, New York Times–bestselling author Jessica Valenti dispels misinformation and cuts through the headline overwhelm to illuminate the full-scale assault conservative lawmakers have launched on women’s freedom—and fundamental human rights. Valenti provides the language to talk about abortion with confidence and the facts to convince.

American voters overwhelmingly support abortion rights and have for decades. In the years since Roe v. Wade was overturned, that support has been growing, as nearly seventy-percent of Americans want abortion to be legal in the first three months of pregnancy, and sixty-three percent want abortion medication to be legal. Abortion is among the key tools conservatives use to roll back decades of advances for women, but here Valenti arms readers with the truth needed to fight back and win, not only at the dinner table but at the polling station and all the way to the Supreme Court.]]>
256 Jessica Valenti 0593800230 Bayley 0 to-read 4.70 2024 Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win
author: Jessica Valenti
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.70
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves: to-read
review:

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Between Two Fires 13543121
Is it delirium or is it faith? She believes she has seen the angels of God. She believes the righteous dead speak to her in dreams. And now she has convinced the faithless Thomas to shepherd her across a depraved landscape to Avignon. There, she tells Thomas, she will fulfill her mission to confront the evil that has devastated the earth, and to restore to this betrayed, murderous knight the nobility and hope of salvation he long abandoned.

As hell unleashes its wrath, and as the true nature of the girl is revealed, Thomas will find himself on a macabre battleground of angels and demons, saints, and the risen dead, and in the midst of a desperate struggle for nothing less than the soul of man.]]>
432 Christopher Buehlman 1937007863 Bayley 0 to-read 4.20 2012 Between Two Fires
author: Christopher Buehlman
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/11
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[House of Lilies: The Dynasty That Made Medieval France]]> 198493964 Ěý
In House of Lilies , historian Justine Firnhaber-Baker tells the epic story of the Capetian dynasty of medieval France, showing how their ideas about power, religion, and identity continue to shape European society and politics today.

Reigning from 987 to 1328, the Capetian kings became the most powerful monarchy of the Middle Ages and established the foundations of a shared French culture. Consolidating a fragmented realm that eventually stretched from the Rhône to the Pyrenees, they were the first royal house to adopt the fleur-de-lys, displaying this lily emblem to signify their divine favor and legitimate their rule. The Capetians played a part in some of the most dramatic and far-reaching episodes in European history, including the Crusades, bloody waves of religious persecution, and a series of wars with England. The Capetian age saw the emergence of Gothic architecture, the romantic ideals of chivalry and courtly love, and the Church’s role at the center of daily life.

Evocatively interweaving these pivotal developments with the human stories of the rulers who drove them, House of Lilies is the definitive history of the dynasty that forged France—and Europe—as we know it.]]>
448 Justine Firnhaber-Baker 154160475X Bayley 0 to-read 4.20 2024 House of Lilies: The Dynasty That Made Medieval France
author: Justine Firnhaber-Baker
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Ring of Fire: A New Global History of the Outbreak of the First World War]]> 220838810 Ring of Fire will resolve these misconceptions to describe this first pivotal year of the war, that would eventually reshape nations, empires and continents.

Travelling throughout Europe, the authors have gained access to an enormous quantity of primary material largely untouched by general histories. From this trove they will tell the story of 1914 with verve, empathy, and an eye on presenting a truly comprehensive and inclusive popular history of the war. This will be a people's view of the war, using unparalleled access to primary sources and collective knowledge of nine languages, Ring of Fire will tell a pacy, touching, and relentlessly surprising narrative of a year we all think we know.]]>
528 Alexandra Churchill 1035903423 Bayley 0 to-read 5.00 2025 Ring of Fire: A New Global History of the Outbreak of the First World War
author: Alexandra Churchill
name: Bayley
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/07
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Legends & Lattes (Legends & Lattes, #1)]]> 61219635 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250886088.

A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes.

After a lifetime of bounties and bloodshed, Viv is hanging up her sword for the last time.

The battle-weary orc aims to start fresh, opening the first ever coffee shop in the city of Thune. But old and new rivals stand in the way of success—not to mention the fact that no one has the faintest idea what coffee actually is.

If Viv wants to put the blade behind her and make her plans a reality, she won't be able to go it alone.

But the true rewards of the uncharted path are the travelers you meet along the way. And whether drawn together by ancient magic, flaky pastry, or a freshly brewed cup, they may become partners, family, and something deeper than she ever could have dreamed.]]>
304 Travis Baldree Bayley 0 to-read 4.17 2022 Legends & Lattes (Legends & Lattes, #1)
author: Travis Baldree
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s]]> 195790601
With the Soviet Union extinct, Saddam Hussein defeated, and U.S. power at its zenith, the early 1990s promised a “kinder, gentler America.� Instead, it was a period of rising anger and domestic turmoil, anticipating the polarization and resurgent extremism we know today.

In When the Clock Broke , the acclaimed political writer John Ganz tells the story of America’s late-century discontents. Ranging from upheavals in Crown Heights and Los Angeles to the advent of David Duke and the heartland survivalists, the broadcasts of Rush Limbaugh, and the bitter disputes between neoconservatives and the “paleo-con� right, Ganz immerses us in a time when what Philip Roth called the “indigenous American berserk� took new and ever-wilder forms. In the 1992 campaign, Pat Buchanan's and Ross Perot’s insurgent populist bids upended the political establishment, all while Americans struggled through recession, alarm about racial and social change, the specter of a new power in Asia, and the end of Cold War–era political norms. Conspiracy theories surged, and intellectuals and activists strove to understand the “Middle American Radicals� whose alienation fueled new causes. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton appeared to forge a new, vital center, though it would not hold for long.

In a rollicking, eye-opening book, Ganz narrates the fall of the Reagan order and the rise of a new and more turbulent America.]]>
432 John Ganz 0374605440 Bayley 0 to-read 4.08 2024 When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s
author: John Ganz
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Fires of Lust: Sex in the Middle Ages]]> 57402618 Ěý
The medieval humoral system of medicine suggested that it was possible to die from having too much—or too little—sex, while the Roman Catholic Church taught that virginity was the ideal state. Holy men and women committed themselves to lifelong abstinence in the name of religion. Everyone was forced to conform to restrictive rules about who they could have sex with, in what way, how often, and even when, and could be harshly punished for getting it wrong. Other experiences are more familiar. Like us, medieval people faced challenges in finding a suitable partner or trying to get pregnant (or trying not to). They also struggled with many of the same social issues, such as whether prostitution should be legalized. Above all, they shared our fondness for dirty jokes and erotic images. By exploring their sex lives, the book brings ordinary medieval people to life and reveals details of their most personal thoughts and experiences. Ultimately, it provides us with an important and intimate connection to the past.]]>
320 Katherine Harvey 1789144892 Bayley 0 to-read 3.98 The Fires of Lust: Sex in the Middle Ages
author: Katherine Harvey
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.98
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812]]> 15594
Between 1785 and 1812 a midwife and healer named Martha Ballard kept a diary that recorded her arduous work (in 27 years she attended 816 births) as well as her domestic life in Hallowell, Maine. On the basis of that diary, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich gives us an intimate and densely imagined portrait, not only of the industrious and reticent Martha Ballard but of her society. At once lively and impeccably scholarly, A Midwife's Tale is a triumph of history on a human scale.]]>
444 Laurel Thatcher Ulrich 0679733760 Bayley 0 to-read 3.96 1990 A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812
author: Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: to-read
review:

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Thornhedge 61884932 There’s a princess trapped in a tower. This ľ±˛ő˛Ô’t her story.

Meet Toadling. On the day of her birth, she was stolen from her family by the fairies, but she grew up safe and loved in the warm waters of faerieland. Once an adult though, the fae ask a favor of Toadling: return to the human world and offer a blessing of protection to a newborn child. Simple, right?

But nothing with fairies is ever simple.

Centuries later, a knight approaches a towering wall of brambles, where the thorns are as thick as your arm and as sharp as swords. He's heard there's a curse here that needs breaking, but it's a curse Toadling will do anything to uphold…]]>
116 T. Kingfisher 1250244099 Bayley 4 (example of me crashing out over one of these books). But this book does not do that!

Another thing that gets a lot of praise (that I have less of an issue with" is a "strong female character". I don't mind a strong female character. But I will always love a weak and wishy-washy female character. Toadling gets manipulated and mistreated and takes it lying down! She is also deeply fascinating and emotionally compelling. I loved her tenderness and willingness to continue to trust and do what others want despite it having not worked out for her in the past. And I loved getting to watch her thought spirals over everything, but especially when she is presented the ability to make a choice. I just think she is such a great character and I have not read the bad reviews of this book mostly because I would want to leave mean comments directed at people who critique Toadling's inaction and cowardice. Her inaction is such a compelling part of this narrative!

This book has lots of aspects that I just generally love, dual timeline, an overly apologetic man, ugly people! I really liked how deftly Kingfisher used the dual timeline to keep the reader's mind working to figure out which elements of Sleeping Beauty were at play in this book. It was such an enjoyable aspect of the narrative.

I thought the relationship was so incredibly sweet. I am always impressed by sweetness that doesn't turn saccharin or trite. I was so compelled by the way the conversation unfolded. The worry and dread, and tenderness, and clumsy words. I loved it so much.

This is the second fairytale-esque book I have read by Kingfisher and third overall and I am so excited to keep reading her work. ]]>
3.95 2023 Thornhedge
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/04
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: 2025, books-i-own, made-me-laugh
review:
I really love a fairytale retelling! But I am also used to encountering (bad) retellings that are bashing the reader over the head with the social messaging the author is trying to impart, which one could argue this is in line with the usual ethos of a fairytale but I argue is bad if you aren't (and for real some of the time if you are) writing for literal children. This happens a lot with "feminist" retellings that have an incoherent political ideology (example of me crashing out over one of these books). But this book does not do that!

Another thing that gets a lot of praise (that I have less of an issue with" is a "strong female character". I don't mind a strong female character. But I will always love a weak and wishy-washy female character. Toadling gets manipulated and mistreated and takes it lying down! She is also deeply fascinating and emotionally compelling. I loved her tenderness and willingness to continue to trust and do what others want despite it having not worked out for her in the past. And I loved getting to watch her thought spirals over everything, but especially when she is presented the ability to make a choice. I just think she is such a great character and I have not read the bad reviews of this book mostly because I would want to leave mean comments directed at people who critique Toadling's inaction and cowardice. Her inaction is such a compelling part of this narrative!

This book has lots of aspects that I just generally love, dual timeline, an overly apologetic man, ugly people! I really liked how deftly Kingfisher used the dual timeline to keep the reader's mind working to figure out which elements of Sleeping Beauty were at play in this book. It was such an enjoyable aspect of the narrative.

I thought the relationship was so incredibly sweet. I am always impressed by sweetness that doesn't turn saccharin or trite. I was so compelled by the way the conversation unfolded. The worry and dread, and tenderness, and clumsy words. I loved it so much.

This is the second fairytale-esque book I have read by Kingfisher and third overall and I am so excited to keep reading her work.
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The God Eaters 613268 448 Jesse Hajicek 1847288650 Bayley 0 to-read 4.11 2006 The God Eaters
author: Jesse Hajicek
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Complete Shakespeare Sonnets]]> 553564 19 William Shakespeare 1885608209 Bayley 0 to-read, rory-gilmore-tbr 4.39 1609 The Complete Shakespeare Sonnets
author: William Shakespeare
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1609
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/28
shelves: to-read, rory-gilmore-tbr
review:

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The Warm Hands of Ghosts 154462576 New York Times bestselling author of The Bear and the Nightingale

January 1918. Laura Iven was a revered field nurse until she was wounded and discharged from the medical corps, leaving behind a brother still fighting in Flanders. Now home in Halifax, Canada, she receives word of Freddie’s death in combat, along with his personal effects—but something doesn’t make sense. Determined to uncover the truth, Laura returns to Belgium as a volunteer at a private hospital. Soon after arriving, she hears whispers about haunted trenches, and a strange hotelier whose wine gives soldiers the gift of oblivion. Could Freddie have escaped the battlefield, only to fall prey to something—or someone—else?

November 1917. Freddie Iven awakens after an explosion to find himself trapped in an overturned pillbox with a wounded enemy soldier, a German by the name of Hans Winter. Against all odds, the two men form an alliance and succeed in clawing their way out. Unable to bear the thought of returning to the killing fields, especially on opposite sides, they take refuge with a mysterious man who seems to have the power to make the hellscape of the trenches disappear.

As shells rain down on Flanders, and ghosts move among those yet living, Laura’s and Freddie’s deepest traumas are reawakened. Now they must decide whether their world is worth salvaging—or better left behind entirely.]]>
325 Katherine Arden 0593128257 Bayley 5
I think this book is basically perfect, my feelings have been obliterated like twelve ways (an actual review coming soon hopefully)

I sort of think this book was perfect. I do really love a historical fantasy, I am currently very interested in the First World War, I love getting my feelings hurt, books with chapter titles are my favorite, I love the character work and the mystery and the romance and the pain. I am just so into this book.

This book seems like it was meticulously researched. In an author's note at end end of the novel Arden specifically says she read many first hand accounts and I think you can really see those voices coming onto the page in addition to her excellent integration of historical events and details that are more broadly accessible in history texts.

Emotionality

Romances

Plotting and mystery

Setting

Time

Chapter titles

War widows, art, war poetry,]]>
3.96 2024 The Warm Hands of Ghosts
author: Katherine Arden
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/24
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves: new-in-2024, 2024, 2024-favorites, books-i-own, books-that-gave-me-anxiety, made-me-cry, favorites-non-series, favorites, favorite-adult, wwi, to-read-again, 2025
review:
Will finish soon

I think this book is basically perfect, my feelings have been obliterated like twelve ways (an actual review coming soon hopefully)

I sort of think this book was perfect. I do really love a historical fantasy, I am currently very interested in the First World War, I love getting my feelings hurt, books with chapter titles are my favorite, I love the character work and the mystery and the romance and the pain. I am just so into this book.

This book seems like it was meticulously researched. In an author's note at end end of the novel Arden specifically says she read many first hand accounts and I think you can really see those voices coming onto the page in addition to her excellent integration of historical events and details that are more broadly accessible in history texts.

Emotionality

Romances

Plotting and mystery

Setting

Time

Chapter titles

War widows, art, war poetry,
]]>
<![CDATA[Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear (Wayward Children, #10)]]> 57185878 Giant turtles, impossible ships, and tidal rivers ridden by a Drowned girl in search of a family in the latest in the bestselling Hugo and Nebula Award-Winning Wayward Children series from Seanan McGuire.

Nadya had three mothers: the one who bore her, the country that poisoned her, and the one who adopted her.

Nadya never considered herself less than whole, not until her adoptive parents fitted her with a prosthetic arm against her will, seeking to replace the one she'd been missing from birth.

It was cumbersome; it was uncomfortable; it was wrong.

It wasn't her.

Frustrated and unable to express why, Nadya began to wander, until the day she fell through a door into Belyyreka, the Land Beneath the Lake--and found herself in a world of water, filled with child-eating amphibians, majestic giant turtles, and impossible ships that sailed as happily beneath the surface as on top. In Belyyreka, she found herself understood for who she was: a Drowned Girl, who had made her way to her real home, accepted by the river and its people.

But even in Belyyreka, there are dangers, and trials, and Nadya would soon find herself fighting to keep hold of everything she had come to treasure.]]>
160 Seanan McGuire Bayley 0 currently-reading 4.03 2025 Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear (Wayward Children, #10)
author: Seanan McGuire
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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These Summer Storms 220239075 New York Times bestselling author Sarah MacLean’s first foray into contemporary fiction, with a sharp, sexy novel about a wealthy New England family's long-overdue reckoning with hidden desires, destructive secrets…and one week that threatens to tear them apart

Alice isn't like the other Storm siblings. While the rest stayed to battle for their parents' approval, attention, and untold billions, she left, building her own life beyond the family’s name and influence. Nothing could induce her to come back, except the shocking death of her larger-than-life father. Now back on the family’s private island off the Rhode Island coast, she plans to keep her head down, pay the last of her respects, and leave the minute the funeral is over.

Unfortunately, her father had other plans. The eccentric, manipulative patriarch left his widow and their grown children a final challenge--an inheritance game designed to humiliate, devastate, and unravel the Storm family in ways both petty and life-altering. The rules of the game are clear: stay on the island for one week, complete the tasks, receive the inheritance.

One week on Storm Island is an impossible task for Alice. Every corner of the sprawling old house is bursting dysfunctional chaos: Her older sister’s secret love affair. Her brother’s incessant mansplaining. Her sister-in-law’s unapologetic greed. Her younger sister’s obsession with "vibes". Her mother’s penchant for stirring up competition between her children. And all under the stern, watchful gaze of Jack Dean, her father’s enigmatic, unfairly good-looking, second-in-command. It will be a miracle if Alice manages to escape the week unscathed.

A story about the transformative power of grief, love, and family, this luscious novel is at once deliciously clever and surprisingly tender, exploring past secrets, present truths, and futures forged in the wake of wild summer storms.]]>
400 Sarah MacLean 0593972252 Bayley 0 to-read 4.27 2025 These Summer Storms
author: Sarah MacLean
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: to-read
review:

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These Summer Storms 220273379 New York Times bestselling author Sarah MacLean’s first foray into contemporary fiction, with a sharp, sexy novel about a wealthy New England family's long-overdue reckoning with hidden desires, destructive secrets…and one week that threatens to tear them apart

Alice isn't like the other Storm siblings. While the rest stayed to battle for their parents' approval, attention, and untold billions, she left, building her own life beyond the family’s name and influence. Nothing could induce her to come back, except the shocking death of her larger-than-life father. Now back on the family’s private island off the Rhode Island coast, she plans to keep her head down, pay the last of her respects, and leave the minute the funeral is over.

Unfortunately, her father had other plans. The eccentric, manipulative patriarch left his widow and their grown children a final challenge--an inheritance game designed to humiliate, devastate, and unravel the Storm family in ways both petty and life-altering. The rules of the game are clear: stay on the island for one week, complete the tasks, receive the inheritance.

One week on Storm Island is an impossible task for Alice. Every corner of the sprawling old house is bursting dysfunctional chaos: Her older sister’s secret love affair. Her brother’s incessant mansplaining. Her sister-in-law’s unapologetic greed. Her younger sister’s obsession with "vibes". Her mother’s penchant for stirring up competition between her children. And all under the stern, watchful gaze of Jack Dean, her father’s enigmatic, unfairly good-looking, second-in-command. It will be a miracle if Alice manages to escape the week unscathed.

A story about the transformative power of grief, love, and family, this luscious novel is at once deliciously clever and surprisingly tender, exploring past secrets, present truths, and futures forged in the wake of wild summer storms.]]>
400 Sarah MacLean 0593972260 Bayley 0 to-read 4.35 2025 These Summer Storms
author: Sarah MacLean
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[These Hollow Vows (These Hollow Vows, #1)]]> 53422971 From New York Times best-selling author Lexi Ryan, Cruel Prince meets A Court of Thorns and Roses in this sexy, action-packed fantasy about a girl who is caught between two treacherous faerie courts and their dangerously seductive princes.

Brie hates the Fae and refuses to have anything to do with them, even if that means starving on the street. But when her sister is sold to the sadistic king of the Unseelie court to pay a debt, she'll do whatever it takes to get her back—including making a deal with the king himself to steal three magical relics from the Seelie court.

Gaining unfettered access to the Seelie court is easier said than done. Brie's only choice is to pose as a potential bride for Prince Ronan, and she soon finds herself falling for him. Unwilling to let her heart distract her, she accepts help from a band of Unseelie misfits with their own secret agenda. As Brie spends time with their mysterious leader, Finn, she struggles to resist his seductive charm.

Caught between two dangerous courts, Brie must decide who to trust with her loyalty. And with her heart.]]>
448 Lexi Ryan Bayley 0 to-read 3.95 2021 These Hollow Vows (These Hollow Vows, #1)
author: Lexi Ryan
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Woman in Suite 11 (Lo Blacklock, #2)]]> 220161593 In this follow-up to #1 New York Times bestselling author Ruth Ware’s multi-million copy mega-hit The Women in Cabin 10, Lo Blacklock returns to attend the opening of a luxury hotel, only to find herself in a white-knuckled race across Europe.

When the invitation to attend the press opening of a luxury Swiss hotel—owned by reclusive billionaire Marcus Leidmann—arrives, it’s like the answer to a prayer. Three years after the birth of her youngest child, Lo Blacklock is ready to reestablish her journalism career, but post-pandemic travel journalism is a very different landscape from the one she left ten years ago.

The chateau on the shores of Lake Geneva is everything Lo’s ever dreamed of, and she hopes she can snag an interview with Marcus. Unfortunately, he proves to be even more difficult to pin down than his reputation suggests. When Lo gets a late-night call asking her to come to Marcus’s hotel room, she agrees despite her own misgivings. She’s greeted, however, by a woman claiming to be Marcus’s mistress, and in life-or-death jeopardy.

What follows is a thrilling cat-and-mouse pursuit across Europe, forcing Lo to ask herself just how much she’s willing to sacrifice to save this woman…and if she can even trust her?]]>
400 Ruth Ware 1668025620 Bayley 0 to-read 3.83 2025 The Woman in Suite 11  (Lo Blacklock, #2)
author: Ruth Ware
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: to-read
review:

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The Library at Hellebore 217388265 A deeply dark academia novel from USA Today bestselling author Cassandra Khaw, perfect for fans of A Deadly Education and The Atlas Six who are hungry for something a little more diabolical.

The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted is the premier academy for the dangerously the Anti-Christs and Ragnaroks, the world-eaters and apocalypse-makers.

Hellebore promises redemption, acceptance, and a normal life after graduation. At least, that’s what Alessa Li is told when she’s kidnapped and forcibly enrolled.

But there’s more to Hellebore than meets the eye. On graduation day, the faculty go on a ravenous rampage, feasting on Alessa’s class. Only Alessa and a group of her classmates escape the carnage. Trapped in the school’s library, they must offer a human sacrifice every night, or else the faculty will break down the door and kill everyone.

Can they band together and survive, or will the faculty eat its fill?]]>
288 Cassandra Khaw 1250877814 Bayley 0 to-read 3.65 2025 The Library at Hellebore
author: Cassandra Khaw
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: to-read
review:

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Buried Deep and Other Stories 203956677 A thrilling collection of thirteen short stories that span the worlds of the New York Times bestselling author of the Scholomance Trilogy, including a sneak peek at the land where her next novel will be set.

From the dragon-filled Temeraire series and the gothic, magical halls of the Scholomance trilogy to the fairy tale worlds of Spinning Silver and Uprooted, this stunning collection takes us from fairy tale to fantasy, myth to history, and mystery to science fiction as we travel through Naomi Novik’s most beloved stories.

In Buried Deep, we move from ancient Greece and Rome, through the Middle Ages and the Black Death, and into the modern era. We meet Mark Antony, Sherlock Holmes, and Elizabeth Bennet, in ways we have never seen them before. We visit exotic fantasy cities and alien civilizations among the stars.

Though the stories are vastly different, there is a unifying theme: the act of finding and seizing one’s destiny, and the lengths one will go to achieve that—be it turning pirate, captaining a fighting dragon, or shifting from marriage to seek your destiny with a sword.

And in the two tales original to this collection, we first reenter the remade Scholomance in the wake of El’s revolution and see what life is like for the new crop of students. Then, we get a glimpse at the world of Novik’s upcoming series, a deserted land, populated only by silent and enigmatic architectural behemoths whose secrets are yet to be unlocked.]]>
430 Naomi Novik 0593600355 Bayley 0 currently-reading 3.99 2024 Buried Deep and Other Stories
author: Naomi Novik
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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Overgrowth 217387964 Annihilation meets Day of the Triffids in this full-on body horror/alien invasion apocalypse.

This is just a story. It can't hurt you anymore.

Since she was three years old, Anastasia Miller has been telling anyone who would listen that she's an alien disguised as a human being, and that the armada that left her on Earth is coming for her. Since she was three years old, no one has been willing to listen.

Now, with an alien signal from the stars being broadcast around the world, humanity is finally starting to realize that it's already been warned, and it may be too late. The invasion is coming, Stasia's biological family is on the way to bring her home, and very few family reunions are willing to cross the gulf of space for just one misplaced child.

What happens when you know what’s coming, and just refuse to listen?]]>
480 Mira Grant 1250768233 Bayley 0 to-read 4.09 2025 Overgrowth
author: Mira Grant
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read
review:

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Below the Grand Hotel 216075905 The Great Gatsby meets Hellraiser in this 1920s horror novel of glitz, glamor, and demons.

Mabel Rose Dixon will do anything to become a Ziegfeld girl—including picking the pockets of the wealthy NYC elite to fund her way to stardom. When she picks the wrong pocket, Mabel loses her soul to a hotel run by demons and tumbles into the world of The Grand Hotel, a place where any artist can make it big.

Mabel’s greatest wish to be famous is granted. Every night, she performs as the starring act to a crowded theater and finds she is never without patrons. But Mabel quickly learns that losing her soul to get everything she ever wanted comes at a much steeper cost than what she bargained for. She must steal her soul back before the Grand’s annual May’s Eve Ball or become a demon herself forever.

With stylish art deco design and beautiful illustrations by the author, this stunning debut novel by renowned New England artist Cat Scully is a crown jewel for the dark gothic horror lover’s collection. Welcome to The Grand Hotel. We hope you enjoy your stay.]]>
290 Cat Scully 1960988581 Bayley 0 to-read 3.58 Below the Grand Hotel
author: Cat Scully
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.58
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read
review:

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Out of Air 217420991 The deeper you go, the darker you fall.

Phoebe “Phibs� Ray is never more at home than when she’s underwater. On a dive six months ago, she and her four closest friends discovered a handful of ancient gold coins, rocketing them into social media fame. Now, their final summer together after high school, they’re taking one last trip to a distant Australian island to do what they love most � scuba dive.

While diving a local reef, Phibs discovers a spectacular underwater sea cave, rumored to be a lost cave with a buried treasure. But when Phibs and her best friend Gabe surface from the cave, they notice that they're undergoing strange changes. Oozing gashes that don’t heal. Haunting whispers in their heads... Something has latched onto them, lurking beneath their skin, transforming them from the inside out.

When treasure hunters arrive, desperate to find the location of the cave and hold Phibs� group for ransom, she’ll do anything to keep her friends safe. In the process she learns that, of all the dreadful creatures of the sea, she might be the most terrifying of them all.]]>
304 Rachel Reiss 1250366143 Bayley 0 to-read 3.88 2025 Out of Air
author: Rachel Reiss
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read
review:

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They Bloom at Night 211003894
Now, Noon is stuck navigating the submerged town with her mom, who believes their dead family has reincarnated as sea creatures. Alone with the pain of what happened that night at the cove, Noon buries the truth: she is not the right shape.

When Mercy’s predatory leader demands Noon and her mom capture the creature drowning residents, she reluctantly finds an ally in his deadly hunter of a daughter and friends old and new. As the next storm approaches, Noon must confront the past and decide if it’s time to answer the monster itching at her skin.]]>
272 Trang Thanh Tran 1547611111 Bayley 0 to-read 3.59 2025 They Bloom at Night
author: Trang Thanh Tran
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read
review:

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The Starving Saints 217896248 From the nationally bestselling author of The Luminous Dead and The Death of Jane Lawrence, a transfixing, intensely atmospheric fever dream of medieval horror.

Aymar Castle has been under siege for six months. Food is running low and there has been no sign of rescue. But just as the survivors consider deliberately thinning their number, the castle stores are replenished. The sick are healed. And the divine figures of the Constant Lady and her Saints have arrived, despite the barricaded gates, offering succor in return for adoration.

Soon, the entire castle is under the sway of their saviors, partaking in intoxicating feasts of terrible origin. The war hero Ser Voyne gives her allegiance to the Constant Lady. Phosyne, a disorganized, paranoid nun-turned-sorceress, races to unravel the mystery of these new visitors and exonerate her experiments as their source. And in the bowels of the castle, a serving girl, Treila, is torn between her thirst for a secret vengeance against Voyne and the desperate need to escape from the horrors that are unfolding within Aymar’s walls.

As the castle descends into bacchanalian madness—forgetting the massed army beyond its walls in favor of hedonistic ecstasy—these three women are the only ones to still see their situation for what it is. But they are not immune from the temptations of the castle’s new masters� or each other; and their shifting alliances and entangled pasts bring violence to the surface. To save the castle, and themselves, will take a reimagining of who they are, and a reorganization of the very world itself.]]>
352 Caitlin Starling 0063418819 Bayley 0 to-read 4.05 2025 The Starving Saints
author: Caitlin Starling
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read
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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´Çłľ±đ˛ő 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 Bayley 0 to-read 3.32 2025 At Dark, I Become Loathsome
author: Eric LaRocca
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years]]> 8162151
In The Fever , the journalist Sonia Shah sets out to answer these questions, delivering a timely, inquisitive chronicle of the illness and its influence on human lives. Through the centuries, she finds, we’ve invested our hopes in a panoply of drugs and technologies, and invariably those hopes have been dashed. From the settling of the New World to the construction of the Panama Canal, through wars and the advances of the Industrial Revolution, Shah tracks malaria’s jagged ascent and the tragedies in its wake, revealing a parasite every bit as persistent as the insects that carry it. With distinguished prose and original reporting from Panama, Malawi, Cameroon, India, and elsewhere, The Fever captures the curiously fascinating, devastating history of this long-standing thorn in the side of humanity.]]>
320 Sonia Shah 0374230013 Bayley 0 to-read 3.87 2010 The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years
author: Sonia Shah
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Ebola: The Natural and Human History of a Deadly Virus]]> 23316552

Extracted from Spillover by David Quammen, updated and with additional material.]]>
128 David Quammen 0393351556 Bayley 0 to-read 4.16 2014 Ebola: The Natural and Human History of a Deadly Virus
author: David Quammen
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read
review:

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Earthed 220062074 Get ready for an erotic story that defies gravity. Meet Celeste, the brilliant anthropologist who discovers that our planet is in trouble. The world isn't what it seems, in fact, it's bigger and thicker than we could have ever imagined. Not to mention, it's about to explode. The only way to save our world is for Celeste to journey beyond the stars and transform into a giant woman. As she explores the vastness of space, she discovers a love as immense as the universe a passionate bond with none other than the Earth. Prepare for an out of this world experience when you read "Earthed".]]> Holly Wilde Bayley 3
This is the kind of book that I don’t know how to rate because I didn’t think it was great. There were some world building holes (did she squish the trees?), but also I do think this book was exactly what it was trying to be and I had fun reading, which is normally my definition of a five star book. Or at least a four. I definitely wouldn’t give it lower than a three because it was really very funny.

And I know the book says it is a romance. And it absolutely is not haha. These people literally do not converse. One of the plot holes is that he learns her name without her saying it. At least I think that’s one of them. Truly, this book is so wild. I feel like I can be forgiven for forgetting a few details.]]>
3.40 Earthed
author: Holly Wilde
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.40
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/13
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves:
review:
I considered not putting this on Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ, but I’m not a coward. Also, truly, this book is hilarious. I read it with a little group of friends, which is an experience I highly recommend.

This is the kind of book that I don’t know how to rate because I didn’t think it was great. There were some world building holes (did she squish the trees?), but also I do think this book was exactly what it was trying to be and I had fun reading, which is normally my definition of a five star book. Or at least a four. I definitely wouldn’t give it lower than a three because it was really very funny.

And I know the book says it is a romance. And it absolutely is not haha. These people literally do not converse. One of the plot holes is that he learns her name without her saying it. At least I think that’s one of them. Truly, this book is so wild. I feel like I can be forgiven for forgetting a few details.
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<![CDATA[Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus]]> 13403051 Rabid is a fresh and often wildly entertaining look at one of humankind’s oldest and most fearsome foes.]]> 275 Bill Wasik 0670023736 Bayley 0 to-read 3.70 2012 Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus
author: Bill Wasik
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Fireborne Blade (The Fireborne Blade, #1)]]> 195791340
It’s that, or end up like countless knights before her, as a puddle of gore and molten armor.

Maddileh is a knight. There aren’t many women in her line of work, and it often feels like the sneering and contempt from her peers is harder to stomach than the actual dragon slaying. But she’s a knight, and made of sterner stuff.

A minor infraction forces her to redeem her honor in the most dramatic way possible, she must retrieve the fabled Fireborne Blade from its keeper, legendary dragon the White Lady, or die trying. If history tells us anything, it's that “die trying� is where to wager your coin.

Maddileh’s tale contains a rich history of dragons, ill-fated knights, scheming squires, and sapphic love, with deceptions and double-crosses that will keep you guessing right up to its dramatic conclusion. Ultimately, The Fireborne Blade is about the roles we refuse to accept, and of the place we make for ourselves in the world.]]>
168 Charlotte Bond 1250290317 Bayley 0 currently-reading 3.75 2024 The Fireborne Blade (The Fireborne Blade, #1)
author: Charlotte Bond
name: Bayley
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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<![CDATA[The angels of Mons: The bowman and other legends of the war,]]> 135649855 0 Arthur Machen Bayley 0 currently-reading 4.00 1914 The angels of Mons: The bowman and other legends of the war,
author: Arthur Machen
name: Bayley
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1914
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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