Hello book friends! I just wanted to give a quick status update on my progress through The Darkling Bride by Laura Andersen. As I may have mentioned in a earlier post, I received an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of this book from the publisher, Ballantine Books, in exchange for an honest review which has an expected publication date of April 2018.
I am currently just over 60% through this book. I am loving it! Originally, I went into the book thinking, historical fiction, but I have discovered it is really so much more than that. The book does weave a bit of historical fiction into what is actually more of a modern day murder mystery. The main storyline takes place in a very old (and possibly haunted) castle in the County Wicklow. Our protagonist, Carragh, is an archivist sent to the castle to archive their extensive historical library. There she finds not just books but mystery, suspense, gothic settings, a potential love match, long guarded family secrets and an unsolved murder that sees its investigation rekindled.
There is so much to love about this book and I am hoping that many, many readers get to enjoy it as much as I am once it is published in the Spring!
Good morning book lovelies! This morning prior to work, while drinking my first coffee of the day, I sat down to continue, Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris. This is my first Paris book and it is definitely an edge of your seat thriller. Truth be told, I am finding it really, really frustrating! I like it. I can’t put it down but I am getting so aggravated it is actually a wee bit stressful.
Firstly, I preordered this book based on the cover alone – it’s gorgeous! Luckily for me, this book is way more than a pretty cover. I was blown away – it was brilliant. 
Wow – what a book! I know I will be mentally processing this one for a while – thank heavens for Kindle highlighting. I did a lot of highlighting during the course of reading this book, not because the concepts were difficult to understand or follow but because they were so meaningful. Ian Mortimer, as many know, is a wonderful historian, and he doesn’t disappoint with this work. The Outcasts of Time is indeed a work of fiction but is replete with very specific historical details; it runs through every element of the story.
This weekend I finished up with a few books, one of them being A Whole New World by Liz Braswell. This is the first book in the Disney Press Twisted Tales series. I would give this 3.5 stars as I definitely liked it but it didn’t really blow me away.
I went into this book with all sorts of assumptions. Well, you know what they say about those. I learned about this book (and the author) through the bookstagram community on Instagram. I was seeing it everywhere! Finally, I caved. I bought my very own copy of the book and began to read it pretty much right away once I received it. By the time I was 100 pages in, I had ordered the next two books in the series.
Today I wanted to mention a book I finished a couple of weeks ago. Paintbrush by Hannah Bucchin. I received this YA-Contemporary novel as the book in one of my Once Upon a Book Club boxes. The first thing I was struck by was the cover – it is absolutely beautiful. After reading the synopsis, I knew this wasn’t the kind of book that I would generally seek out for myself but I am so glad that it was included in the box. It is a coming-of-age story; a story of first love. It was well written and the characters vibrant and well imagined. I was really impressed with this young author. She should be really proud of her work here. I don’t read ‘sweet’ books a lot so it was a nice change of pace for me. The setting at Paintbrush, the living community the two main characters are a part of, seemed to take on a life of its own within the pages; it almost became one of the characters itself. If you are looking for a nice tale of young love and the tribulations that go along with that, you should definitely check this one out. This may also be a good book to gift to a young woman in your life for the Christmas holiday!
Sooooo, my 40th birthday is next year. September 18, 2018 to be exact. I have been thinking about a King project to commence on that date. I have only mentioned it to one other person (a friend of mine on Instagram) and I am pretty nervous about it. It is a huge undertaking should I wish to proceed. Well, I am ready to reveal it now to the universe. Once you put it on social media, you know it’s true! My plan is to read all of Stephen King’s published novels in order of publication date (except for The Dark Tower series, which I am reading currently and is an entity unto itself).
I received an early release copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Unfortunately, for the book, that is what I am going to be – honest. I gave this book two out of five stars on Goodreads. This is unusual for me and frankly, hurts my heart a little bit. I usually at least ‘like’ a book, finding some reedeming qualities within its pages. This book however was very disappointing and I cannot think of one compliment to give it. 
I wanted to reread them in order to refresh my memory as to how close the movies actually are to the books. I am about a quarter of the way into the first book and it is blowing my mind all over again! The introduction to the country of Panem, the way it is all controlled by the capital and meeting our kickass warrior princess, Katniss Everdeen (that’s how I think of her anyway) – it is just a delicious reading experience. I think we all take for granted now how cutting edge this story truly was when it was published in 2008. It was unique and grabbed people’s hearts and minds, young and old alike.