Happy Fourth of July to my fellow Americans! If you are in another country then happy Tuesday! I’m hoping to make some progress on my Summer TBR as well as my Netgalley shelf. Last night I went through and read some synopsis of books that I have on there and I’m still just as excited to read them as I was when I received them. I just wasn’t very good at prioritizing them and it is something that I’m trying to get better at.
Jane Austen July (month long)
There are two buddy reads for Jane Austen July. The first part of the month we are reading Northanger Abbey and the second half we are reading some Juvenila of Austen. Northanger Abbey is a favorite of mine and I’m enjoying my reread of it. I think I might even love it more the second time around since I’m picking up on minor details that I missed the first time around. I also love Austen’s critique of society that bleeds through the story.
I don’t know if I’m going to read books for all the other prompts but I have been wanting to read The Mysteries of Udolpho since I first read Northanger Abbey and that was more than 2 years ago. This is a gothic romance from the end of the 1700’s and it is referenced multiple times in Northanger Abbey.
Summerween (July 7-13)
Prompt: read a book in the dark
One text message. A chilling warning. A husband’s deadly secret.
After a devastating house fire leaves their lives in tatters, Justin and Megan are looking for a fresh start.
They’ve lost everything in the fire and are desperate to rebuild their lives and repair the cracks in their marriage.
But the old lodge they move into on the Treloar estate, with its crooked chimneys and dark foreboding walls, is more sinister than Megan ever imagined.
She tries to make the best of it for her husband’s sake, but the house is haunted by the secrets of Justin’s past.
And when she discovers a phone hidden in the loft, her world is turned upside down once again.
A chilling, anonymous text message carries a warning she can’t ignore.
Whatever you do, don’t trust your husband…
Prompt: read a thriller
I have never wanted someone the way I want my boss.
Am I obsessed ? A little. I shouldn’t want him, but I do.
He’s sexy and commanding.
When we’re together on a work retreat, he makes his move – proving it wasn’t all in my head.
Every hot and illicit touch.
But then photos show up, blackmailing us.
I can’t tell if it’s someone in the office or something far more sinister.
Until I’m pulled into a game more dangerous than I ever could have imagined.
Fans of Kiersten Modglin and Freida McFadden will devour this twisted tale of an affair gone wrong.
Prompt: read a book with black or orange on the cover
“Mrs. Cass, we were hoping your son could answer a few questions about the girl who disappeared last night…”
Erika Cass has a perfect family and a perfect life. Until the evening when two detectives show up at her front door.
A high school girl has vanished from Erika’s quiet suburban neighborhood. The police suspect the worst–murder. And Erika’s teenage son, Liam, was the last person to see the girl alive.
Erika has always sensed something dark and disturbed in her seemingly perfect older child. She wants to believe he’s innocent, but as the evidence mounts, she can’t deny the truth–Liam may have done the unthinkable.
Now she must ask herself:
How far will she go to protect her son?
Prompt: read a comic/manga/novella
Stephen Graham Jones—New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians and My Heart is a Chainsaw—makes his ongoing comics debut with Earthdivers!
The year is 2112, and it’s the apocalypse exactly as expected: rivers receding, oceans rising, civilization crumbling. Humanity has given up hope, except for a group of outcast Indigenous survivors who have discovered a time travel portal in a cave in the middle of the desert and figured out where the world took a sharp turn for the worst: America.
Convinced that the only way to save the world is to rewrite its past, they send one of their own on a bloody, one-way mission back to 1492 to kill Christopher Columbus before he reaches the so-called New World. But taking down an icon is no easy task, and his actions could prove devastating for his friends in the future.
Join Stephen Graham Jones and artist Davide Gianfelice for Earthdivers #1, the beginning of an unforgettable ongoing historical/sci-fi slasher!
Prompt: A book set in fall
Gemma Doyle is back on the case in bestselling author Vicki Delany’s seventh Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mystery when a poisoned dart ends in demise.
It’s a crisp, early October weekend, and business is slowing down as fall descends at the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium and adjacent Mrs. Hudson’s Tea Room. Wealthy philanthropist and prominent Sherlockian David Masterson has rented Suffolk Gardens House, where he plans to entertain his friends in a traditional English country house weekend.
As the chosen caterers, Jayne Watson and Gemma Doyle get to work preparing lavish meals and setting up Sherlockian books and props for entertainment. Meanwhile, police detective Ryan Ashburton has taken time away from his duties to assist in the kitchen. It quickly becomes apparent that David’s guests don’t like each other–or their host. Plus, some of them aren’t even acquainted with the adventures of the Great Detective.
Before Gemma can ponder their relationships a poisoned dart sails through the window of the library, presenting Gemma Doyle with a three-book problem.
Books With Cassie 