#Advance Reading Copy

[tintededges]

The Lost Library

Children’s book about secrets, community and libraries I received a copy of this book courtesy of the publisher. Image is of “The Lost Library” by Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass. The eBook cover is of a street library with open doors. Behind the doors is are shelves with a young boy and a ghostly building. Sitting on top of the library is a ginger cat and some mice. “The Lost Library” by Rebecca…

[galina]

Just finished: The Amendments, Niamh Mulvey. I was sent an advance review copy by picador. It took me a while to warm up to this one, but in the end I really enjoyed the way Mulvey delivers complex difficult emotions using straightforward language, not wallowing in grief but also not flinching away from some of the hardest conversations around birth, death and religion. And I do have a soft spot for Irish writers, and multi-generational stories

[smile-files]

hello everyone, sorry again for being out for a few days! passover has been very lovely so far... the seders were fun (i hid the afikomen the first night!), i've got to spend time with my family, and i've read a good chunk of this intriguing murder mystery. i'll try to comb through my notifications and catch up on pl bluesky! i hope everyone's doing well <3

[scifrey]

I have finished assembling the ARCs and have set them up for distribution, so if you wanted to read a copy of the book FOR FREE in advance of it's release date (all you have to do in return is promise to post an honest review), then SIGN UP HERE.

[ranticore]

I've set a tentative deadline of xmas for finishing my book but hopefully before then I can have a lil rough sample up so ppl have something to read while i spend the next months editing

[topazadine]

It's ARC Time!

Orrinir Relickim's horse, Bannain, was a wedding present from his husband, Uileac Korviridi. The intemperate animal nearly ends his marriage, too. One swift kick to the ribs turns into a journey through magical medicine and the human heart, as Orrinir comes to better understand the man he swore to love.

There are only 50 spots available, so be sure to sign up quickly!

If ARCs are full, or you'd just like to read the book without the stress of a review hanging over your head, that's totally cool!

You can preorder Pride Before a Fall now to get your copy on the very first day of 2025.

Thank you in advance, readers! (see what I did there)

With your help, we can make Bannain a household name! Let's get everyone obsessed with this stupid piece of shit horse. And the rest of the gang too, of course.

[elliepassmore]

And the River Drags Her Down review

5/5 stars Recommended if you like: fantasy horror, resurrection, sisterly bonds, came back Wrong

Big thanks to Knopf Books, Netgalley and the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I'm going to be honest, I think Soojin shows a lot of restraint regarding her sister. The blurb makes it sound like she does ahead and resurrects Mirae right away, but in reality it takes her almost a year before she finally hits the point where she can't imagine continuing the rest of her life without her sister. She knows her dad wouldn't like the resurrection, and she figures she knows her sister's thoughts on it, but at the end of the day, grief is grief, and sometimes it can be too much. If you could bring back the dead...would you?

It's clear from the get-go that Soojin is prickly. But she's prickly because she feels deeply, and life has not been kind to her family. Her mother died when she was 10, resulting in her father retreating into himself for a while, and then seven years later her sister dies and due to her father's work, he yet again can't be around. She also doesn't particularly have a social life, leading to her being very lonely and often just left with her grief. Soojin loves her family, and her sister, dearly and it's clear in the way she's willing to risk everything just to have her sister with her again.

Over the course of the book, we see Soojin start to unfurl a little and open herself up to the other people around her. Part of that is borne from a desire for connection, and part of it is the joy of having Mirae around again. But clinging to the past just makes it that much harder to let go, and when you have a dead girl living in your house, things inevitably start going wrong. A lot of Soojin's journey in this book is about letting go, but it's also about seeing the family dynamics beyond herself and understanding that life has been unfair to her sister as well.

We don't get too much insight into Mirae, but we know that drowning has given her a special connection with water. She enjoys being alive again, getting to experience the delights of food and sunshine, but at the same time, vengeance calls to her. The Han family has been wronged more than once, by people still living happy lives in their town, and newly risen Mirae can't resist the call of revenge.

While this book is, in some ways, about vengeance, it's also about sisterly bonds and family responsibility. Soojin wants her sister back, but Mirae? Mirae wants life. She has since before she died. When Soojin brings her back, the whole family has to contend with their past and the actions they took that lead to where they are today. It was kind of cathartic to see Soojin and her dad finally talk about something of substance. They definitely needed that chat, but it was also a good reminder to Soojin that everyone makes small mistakes, but that doesn't mean they're at fault for the terrible things that happen.

The other character who's featured a lot in this is Mark, a childhood friend of Soojin and Mirae's whom Soojin drifted away from after their mother died. He provides somewhat of a stabilizing and soothing influence for Soojin as she grapples first with her sister's return and then later with the fact that the Mirae who came back isn't quite the same as the one who died. I liked Mark, he's very understanding and is pretty much a go-with-the-flow kind of person. He also is the one who finally puts his foot down regarding Mirae's behaviors, and though Soojin fights him on it, she knows he's right, and I think it was helpful to hear from someone outside the family.

Overall this is an excellent slow-burn horror with sisterly bonds, ancestral magic, and vengeance.

[paperconsumption]

i have an arc of the new ve schwab book

[marigoldbaker]

usually going through my stuff is psychically exhausting but reorganizing all the books in my apartment is adorable.

[bookishpixiereads]

“Rough Pages” by Lev C. Rosen

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️/5 Stars

Thanks to Tor Publishing Group/Forge Books for the eARC of this book. It dropped last week! All opinions are my own.

“Rough Pages” is the third book in the Evander Mills noir-ish, queer, historical fiction detective series set in 1950s San Francisco. Outside of the murderous plots, the series provides a well-researched look into how queer people lived during that time period. I adore this series. I already had pre-ordered this book before I even read the ARC and I never do that.  

Evander “Andy” Mills is a gay private detective for queer people who can’t go to the police because the police are not friendly to the LGBTQ community. He was a cop for the San Francisco Police Department before he was fired after they found out he was gay. 

A friend of Andy comes to him with a case. The two owners of a queer-friendly bookstore have gone missing. Along with selling queer books from a store front, they have a mail-order service where they mail queer books to subscribers. And the fear, along with the safety of the owners, is that the list of subscribers could fall into the wrong hands and at the worst, those people’s lives could be in danger and at best, they could become the object of blackmail. Also, at this point in history, mailing queer books is a federal crime.

And this list potentially puts people that Andy’s holds dear at great risk. And he wants to do everything he can to keep them and their newly adopted baby safe.

Were the bookstore owners arrested by the Feds? Was this a Mafia hit done out of fear of the possible outing of one of their own? Was there a crime at all and are they just on vacation?

Andy also has to deal with a reporter who is getting a little too close for comfort and his former boss, who is making implicit and explicit threats to Andy’s safety. And is his own romantic life falling apart?

“Rough Pages” comes during the current political climate of banning books. And it has beautiful things to say about representation in books, why books are dangerous (in a good way), and books as a whole.

What’s more important truth or secrets? Especially if the truth puts peoples’ lives in danger. 

[tintededges]

He Who Drowned the World

Queer Imperial Chinese fantasy and sequel to “She Who Became the Sun” I received a copy of this eBook courtesy of the publisher. Image is of “He Who Drowned the World” by Shelley Parker-Chan. The eBook cover is of sailing ships in yellow and blue sailing on a wavy yellow sea with a large blue moon at the top of the cover. “He Who Drowned the World” by Shelley Parker-Chan is the sequel to “She…

[lindira]

ARC Applications are now open for The Fall Before Flight!

What is an ARC? ARC stands for Advance Reader Copy. These are free copies of an upcoming book the author provides to select readers in exchange for an honest review on Amazon or Goodreads.

I'm looking for fantasy readers who like or would be interested in:

Old school epic fantasies by authors like David Eddings and Robert Jordan.

Characters with disabilities, where the disabilities have an impact on the story.

Ride-or-Die Friendships that are so ride-or-die that it causes Problems.

Immersive world-building and fantasy languages.

Non-spicy *SLOW* burn romances and unrequited love.

Strong female, LGBT+, and POC characters everywhere.

"War" in stories that is more about how characters are affected by the war than about the war itself.

A unique take on dragons/dragon folk.

Magic systems with consequences.

Blurb:

Rhu Farrier is determined to save her best friend and end the war between the Risen Union and the Kedrel Empire. She isn’t about to let losing a leg stop her. Two thousand years after a powerful mage Lessened dragons from enormous beasts to scaled humanoids, another decades-long war ravages the land of Obsthea. Rhu’s mission is simple: kill the Kedrelli emperor, no matter the cost. But when Rhu loses her leg in battle, her best friend Loren is sent to complete the mission in her stead. Rhu and Loren both know he won’t make it to the Kedrel capital alive. He’s not an assassin. He’s a simple soldier—honest and forthright and a terrible liar. Despite her new disability, Rhu journeys to Kedrel to help Loren complete the assassination that should have been hers to carry out. Daxian Cloud is a loyal dragon. Not like the Oathbreakers—rebels who have forsaken the oath of servitude all dragons took during the Lessening. A dragon without the Oath is a dragon without honor. So, when Oathbreakers strike his mistress’s estate, Daxian doesn’t question the order to execute them. Until the hood falls from an Oathbreaker’s face. Until his beloved little sister is revealed to be one of them. Everest Naught is a frail, asthmatic orphan—a little "nothing" in the world. When he meets a blacksmith's apprentice, his lonely life changes. He has a friend now and his own apprenticeship with the illustrious Lady of House Kleven. Everest longs to be powerful, to be more than nothing. But when the time comes to make sacrifices, is Everest prepared for them now that he has something to lose? These three disparate people cross paths in a mission to end the war that threatens their homelands. The lives of millions depend upon their decisions, but they may find that the oaths they made to the world are not the only ones they can break.

If you're interested, please fill out the application below and I will get back to you soon!

[libertyreads]

Book Review #18 of 2025--

A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett. Rating: 4.25 stars.

Read from March 16th to 18th.

Before I get into the review, a quick thank you to both NetGalley and the publishers over at Del Rey for allowing me access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review. A Drop of Corruption is the second book in a series following a Sherlock-and-Holmes style Investigator and her assistant as they travel through a Fantastical land and solve murders. In this second book, brilliant detective Ana Dolabra may have finally met her match at the edge of the Empire's reach. A Treasury officer has disappeared into thin air--abducted from his quarters while the doors and windows remained locked from the inside, in a building whose entrances and exits are all under constant guard. A Drop of Corruption comes out on April 1st and is available for preorder now.

I don't know how I'm leaving this book with it getting a higher rating than the first one. The first book was so good, but something about this mystery and this setting and these side characters just scratched an itch in my brain. This Mystery starts out as a locked-room (not murder, disappearance) mystery which is the jam of so many Mystery fans, including me. Adding in all of these other intricate plots that Dolabra has to somehow untangle and I'm hooked. Though, I will say that the big 'AH HA!' at the end was something I thought of very early on in this novel. It was still fun to see how everything played out. This setting was more interesting to me since it took place around this sea side with a canal where terrible things can lie in wait. I think the first one's setting felt pretty plain and boring, but I think that was in service to the plot. I think if the author had spent too much time in the first book creating such an interesting setting it would have detracted from the Mystery it was trying to maintain. In this one, we actually take the time to settle in to this setting (I know, bad joke). I could feel the humidity and smell the salt in the air. And the way it lent to the vibes of the book was great. I still love the Sherlock and Holmes characters of this world (especially the new information we got on our Sherlock!), but I enjoyed our side characters in book two so much more than the ones in book one. I feel like we really got to know them AND one of them might be seen again in a future novel. One can only hope.

I hope my first point against this novel doesn't come across the wrong way, but I think Dolabra lost some of her mysticisms in this one which made it a little less surprising when all of the Mysteries of this novel came together at the end. I had already picked up on one of them early on so maybe that also had something to do with it. I think some of the choices that Kol made were pretty poor. I think it kind of made me like him a little bit less than in book one. I can understand why he's behaving the way he is, it's stated pretty clearly towards the end of the book this heavy and empty feeling he gets after closing a case. But I feel like the choices he makes sometimes got in the way of his job. And maybe that was an intentional choice because people make stupid decisions sometimes. I just didn't enjoy that aspect of it.

Overall, this was so good. It was such a great continuation of this story. I'm already so ready to see where Dolabra and Kol end up next and what kind of insane murder is going to happen there. I think this is a good starting point for Mystery fans to jump into Fantasy. Or just good for Fantasy fans who want to break away from the norm.

[scifrey]

Okay, so remember how I've been Ded Of Editing this last year and just absolutely consumed by bookish stuff?

The bookish stuff is now out in the world.

TIME AND TIDE

Releases November 2024.

Exciting news: the eGalley is up on NetGalley and Edelweiss! This means, with the promise of an honest review, you could potentially read the book right now. However, if you're not interested in an ARC, you can preorder your Copy Here.

*

Historical fiction with a touch of time travel, for fans of Diana Gabaldon, Alexis Hall, and Olivia Waite’s Feminine Pursuits series, where a modern bisexual woman is thrown into Regency England and must figure out how to survive, while she falls in love with a woman who will become a famous author.

Just a twenty-first century gal with nineteenth-century problems…

When Sam’s plane crashes catastrophically over the Atlantic, it defies all odds for Sam to be the sole survivor. But it seems impossible that she’s rescued by a warship in 1805. With a dashing sea captain as her guide, she begins to find her footing in a world she’d only seen in movies.

Then Sam is betrayed. At the mercy of the men and morals of the time, and without the means to survive on her own, she’s left with no choice but to throw herself on the charity of the captain's sisters. She resigns herself to a quiet life of forever hiding her true self. What she doesn't expect is that her new landlady is Margaret Goodenough—the world-famous author whose yet-to-be-completed novel will contain the first lesbian kiss in the history of British Literature, and a clever woman. Clever enough to know her new companion has a secret.

As the two women grow ever closer, Sam must tread the tenuous line between finding her own happiness in a place where she doesn’t think she’ll ever fit in, and possibly (accidentally) changing the course of history.

[sizzlingstarlightsky]

My favorite part about working at a bookstore is getting free advance copies of books. I took home 8 just last shift.

Im gonna read The River Has Roots and either Moon Water or At Dark I Become Loathsome before I jump back into the ToG series.

I'm at 21/ 24 books for the year and need to crack down to meet my goal.

[garymerlow]

checked out an r.e.m. book from the library today (it's one that came out last year that i wanted to buy but the hardcover is fuckall expensive) and like. I've got three weeks with it but maaaan its so thick idk if I'll finish it in time :^p