Tomorrow, at 5 pm Pacific time, Becca and the Books 48 hr live bookopolathon starts! I’m so excited to join in as much as possible with the live sprints and for the three future rolls that haven’t happened yet. I’m linking Becca’s video here so you can find out all the details and I hope you find it just as fun as I do!

There are two boards to choose from which means each roll will have two prompts. My main goal is to combine both prompts and come up with one book that fits both. If I manage to read that book before the next roll drop then I will read a book that fits only one of the prompts. So for this first roll drop I have come up with three books. The first book that I chose that fits both prompts is a novella and with the way that I have been reading there is a good chance that I will finish it within the first 12 hours. So I have two back ups. But I only anticipate choosing one book each roll drop and then if I manage to finish it before the next roll drop then I will think about picking another book. I also might choose from the stack of books that I have already started when I was struggling with my reading so I can stop having them on the back of my mind constantly.

Fantasy (2021 board) + Dark Cover (bookopolathon board)

Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.

Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti’s stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach.

If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the gifts of her people and the wisdom enshrined within the University, itself – but first she has to make it there, alive.

Binti is Nnedi Okorafor’s first story set in space. 

Dark Cover

In the sprawling, half-timbered mansion in the affluent suburb of Swinly Dean, Aristide Leonides lies dead from barbiturate poisoning. An accident? Not likely. In fact, suspicion has already fallen on his luscious widow, a cunning beauty fifty years his junior, set to inherit a sizeable fortune, and rumored to be carrying on with a strapping young tutor comfortably ensconced in the family estate. But criminologist Charles Hayward is casting his own doubts on the innocence of the entire Leonides brood. He knows them intimately. And he’s certain that in a crooked house such as Three Gables, no one’s on the level…

Fantasy

Vampires who knit 
A troublemaking witch 
Who killed Granny — and is she really dead?  

At a crossroads between a cringe-worthy past (Todd the Toad) and an uncertain future (she’s not exactly homeless, but it’s close), Lucy Swift travels to Oxford to visit her grandmother. With Gran’s undying love to count on and Cardinal Woolsey’s, Gran’s knitting shop, to keep her busy, Lucy can catch her breath and figure out what she’s going to do. 

Except it turns out that Gran is the undying. Or at least, the undead. But there’s a death certificate. And a will, leaving the knitting shop to Lucy. And a lot of people going in and out who never use the door—including Gran, who is just as loving as ever, and prone to knitting sweaters at warp speed, late at night. What exactly is going on? 

When Lucy discovers that Gran did not die peacefully in her sleep, but was murdered, she has to bring the killer to justice without tipping off the law that there’s no body in the grave. Between a hot 600-year-old vampire and a dishy detective inspector, both of whom always seem to be there for her, Lucy finds her life getting more complicated than a triple cable cardigan. 
The only one who seems to know what’s going on is her cat … or is it … her familiar?

~Cassie