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The Smoke and the Sea by Katie Cross

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Britt is a dragon keeper, charged with keeping her brother’s dragon safe. But her brother never returned from his mission and now his dragon will die if it’s not reunited with him soon. Henrik is a soldat, a ruthless soldier, secretly looking for the family he was stolen from when he was only five years old. When they meet, a deal is struck: if she helps him find his mother, he’ll help her find her brother. This was a bit of light reading for me, I needed a break from the intensity of the books I’ve been reading and thought I’d dive into a light-hearted romantasy. The first thing that stood out to me was that it was an interesting twist on dragons. Instead of these gargantuan lizards, the dragons in this book are small enough to fit in a pocket. But I don’t really understand the system in which dragons are bonded with people… I suppose there’s a benefit to the dragon: being so small means it would have a much bigger protector. But on the other hand there seems to be no benefit to the h...
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Book Beginnings & Book Blogger Hop

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Book Beginnings on Fridays  now hosted by Bemused & Bookish - Share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now. “Robert Stephens held his breath and counted to three, hoping to see Mama.” The Reformatory by Tananarive Due This is my Halloween read; I broke into it early. I’m only about 70 pages in and I already feel anxious. Book Blogger Hop Q: What’s the best investment you’ve made for your blog? (submitted by Billy @ Coffee-Addicted Writer) A: I’ve actually spent no money on my blog, the biggest thing I’ve invested here is time. I know my followers are few, but I really enjoy the time spent blogging regardless. Life gets a little busier each year and I feel like my love of books keeps me grounded and I want to share that passion.
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Top Ten Fall TBR

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Okay, so my top ten ‘Seasonal’ To Read lists are super repetitive. I’m not a fast reader and I collect books faster. For example, some of these books were on my Summer TBR List but I didn’t read fast enough, and a few other books got read instead. But these are the books currently on my radar and are listed in no particular order. 1. Victorious by VE Schwab 2. Galinda by Gregory Maguire 3. Fairytale by Stephen King 4. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne 5. Justify: 111 Days to Triple Crown Glory by Lenny Shulman 6. Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros 7. Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo 8. Murtagh by Christopher Paolini 9. The Reformatory by Tananarive Due 10. Paradise-1 by David Wellington I'm actually reading The Reformatory now, getting my October horror fix, though it is a long book and I'm not sure when I will have the review done. Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl
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The Child by Fiona Barton

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“It’s not your fault.” Kate Waters is a reporter, investigating the death of a baby found at a construction site. Angela becomes convinced the baby is her long lost infant, kidnapped from the maternity ward in the 70s. Emma is an emotionally fragile housewife following the case, even inserting herself into it, because she’s hiding dark secrets of her own. Jude, Emma’s mother, has a strained relationship with her daughter after throwing her out of the house when she was a teenager. The formatting of this book is unusual. The book blurb on the cover of my edition insists that Kate is the main character of the story, but Emma’s chapters are written in 1st person point of view which makes it seem as though she’s the most important person in the book. Kate, Angela and Jude all have chapters written in 3rd person POV which makes it seem like all three should take a backseat to Emma. I believe Kate does in fact have the most chapters dedicated to her investigation into how the three other wom...
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The Room in the Ground by John Ajvide Lindqvist

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  “It’s true, I want to understand. But more than that, I want you to understand." In part two of the Bloodstorm trilogy, Julia Malmros and Kim Ribbing are back with a new adventure, this time with Astrid Helander’s help. This time Julia isn’t just using Kim for companionship, she’s become infatuated with him.  To me, a love story feels like the natural progression of their relationship after they’ve survived the events of the last book but turns out to be deeply unfortunate for Julia as Kim’s a bit of a psychopath and appears to be incapable of reciprocating. Astrid Helander, troubled and angry and apparently left without a conscience after her parents’ murder, appoints herself as Kim’s partner in crime (literally). Julia, who feels insulted when a tv producer compares her mystery novels to fantasy, begins research on a new book, looking into a political party called the True Swedes, their affiliates the Apostates, and Project: Sweden. All I could think of was MAGA Extremist...
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The Sunday Post

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  Happy Sunday everyone! I hope you are all having a great weekend! The Sunday Post is a news meme created by CaffeinatedReviewer . I'm also linking up with Sunday Salon at ReaderBuzz . I will be posting on the first Sunday of each month and I hope you'll join me. The month of August has been beautiful, mostly. Not too hot with cool nights signaling summer’s end drawing near. And even though I love the fall, I’m always sad to see summer go. My blog became a bit stale in August. I did one review and it was my only post: Two Little Girls in Blue by Mary Higgins Clark I’m blaming the book I’m currently reading: The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker . The writing is beautiful but the plot is a slogfest as nothing is happening and the characters appear to be going nowhere in a hurry. I hate to DNF a second book this year, having already bailed out on Hidden Pictures , but if the point of this book doesn’t materialize soon I’ll have to move on to something else. It’s not as though...
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Two Little Girls in Blue by Mary Higgins Clark

 Margaret and Steve Frawley return home from a party after a disturbing phone call from their babysitter to find their daughters Kelly and Kathy have become the victims of a kidnapping. The kidnapper, who calls himself the Pied Piper, and his two henchmen demand a ransom for the safe return of the girls. But the panicked parents can’t afford to pay the ransom on their own and so begins the descent into deceit. This is the first Mary Higgins Clark book I’ve read in a long time. The first book I ever read by her was about a woman who solves a crime, almost becomes the criminal’s next victim, and is saved by her love interest… I read two more books by her and was disappointed to find they followed the same formula. So imagine my surprise when I cracked this novel open and found a book that didn’t follow that formula. This is less of a mystery, the identities of the kidnappers are revealed pretty early on, and more of a thriller as the FBI attempts to track down the girls before someth...
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