It is that time of week when I post a top 10 things to read. The prompt provided for this week by The Artsy Reader is new to me authors I discovered in 2023. That was just too hard so we are going with new to me authors that I have not yet tried but want to in 2024. I own so many books, of authors I have never tried. So below are some authors of which I own books but haven't read anything or haven't read enough and authors that intrigue me to try them. 1. T. Kingfisher T. Kingfisher is a pen name used by Ursula Vernon. I just want to say, such an amazing pen name, that was the first thing that intrigued me. One of my favorite Booktubers Ashleigh of A Frolic Through Fiction has been a big fan of her work and when she first described one of the books I was like yes, give this to me. I need this in my life. Also, I want to read more horror books, I enjoyed Mexican Gothic and House of Hollow, which were my first two horror books. T. Kingfisher's " What Moves The Dead " revolves around fungi in horror. So I am looking forward to that. I do not own any of the T. Kingfisher books at the moment so it doesn't have top priority but I hope I will manage to read at least one this year. Also, horror fairy tale retellings are something I am down for as well. 2. Travis Baldree I think in the fantasy book world if you haven't heard of Travis Baldree yet, you have been living under a very large rock. As Legends and Lattes have a hype around it that is the likes of Sarah J. Maas. It has been read, reviewed, and mentioned by almost all my favorite Booktubers, and has been all over the place. It is such a cool thing to see an author come from self-publishing a book, getting picked up by traditional publishing, and seeing how it has grown into the hype it has now. I like these kinds of success stories. No, getting that out of the way, a cozy story about an Orc wanting to open a coffee shop, sounds just like my kind of read. I got this one for Christmas and I can tell you that I have already started it last night, next to Queen of Shadows, which I am also still reading. I was so surprised that I got this one, I had not expected this book, but I am so happy to have it and finally read it! 3. Stephen Graham Jones Stephen Graham Jones has made a name for himself in the horror genre as well. The title of his book The Only Good Indians , got stuck in my head, so when I saw it in the books store you know what happened, I took it home. There are in total 4 books on my want-to-read list, I just keep piling them on, so I should at least see if I like his writing style. Also, can I just say that I love the cover for The Only Good Indians? Anytime you put a deer on a cover I am bound to at least consider buying it. The same goes for foxes by the way. 4. Brandon Sanderson Brandon Sanderson is still as popular as ever in the fantasy and science fiction genre. All of his series are highly regarded and have been on my to-read pile for the longest time. Brandon Sanderson scares me a bit, I don't exactly know why, it is not that I am scared of reading big books. Says the girl who just received 2 over 800-page books. So that is not why this author scares me. I think it is more a case of What if I do not like it? I will be divining in with sky-high expectations, so what if I don't like them, is not something I would like the conclusion to be. I own Elantris , so I could dive into my first Brandon Sanderson book whenever I feel like it. 5. Joe Abercrombie If you haven't figured it out by now, I am a fantasy reader. So it is probably not surprising that I am posting almost all the greats in the genre. This was kind of accidental though, back to Joe Abercrombie. I do own the first book in the First Law trilogy, called The Blade Itself. It is currently sitting nearby where I am writing this post, down on the windowsill, with a couple more books all staring me down, fighting for my attention, shouting, when are you going to read me? There is a change, my boyfriend decides to pick it up before I do, this has happened before, and he has devoured the Green Bone Saga in record time. I wish I could read as fast as he can, so I can finish more books on my TBR. 6. Jeff VanderMeer I have read Annihilation the first of the Southern Reach trilogy, it was such a fascinating book, full of strange things and not a clue as to what we are dealing with in this strange piece of our world, but is it? I kind of like this sort of mysterious story, it was very well executed and so damn cool. And yet I still have to continue reading the rest of the series. I am sure that I am going to love it, and I am curious about what else he has written, all the covers of the other books are so bizarre and I love them for it. Before I can treat myself to any of his other works I will have to finish Southern Reach first. Wish me luck it will take me a while probably. 7. Jim Butcher Now having all the epic fantasy writers down, let's move on to some urban fantasy. Jim Butcher has been on my wish list for years, however, there is where his works remained until last year when I finally picked up the first book of the immensely popular Dresden Files, Storm Front . I have a special place in my heart for urban fantasy, I have enjoyed the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs and Bitten by Kelley Armstrong. The above were both written by women, I am curious if there is a difference between the urban fantasy worlds women write and males write. I think Jim Butcher will be a great place to start. 8. Jay Kristoff The books that first caught my eye were the books you can see here on the right, the Nevernight Chronicles, which is also sitting on that same windowsill, other unread books on my shelves are the Empire of the Vampire in the stunning Illumicrate edition and in my upstairs library there is also a copy of Illuminea. I think my first attempt will be at the Nevernight series, I just want to know if I will love what is beneath the beautiful covers. 9. Diana Wynne Jones Howl's Moving Castle is by far my favorite of the Studio Ghibli films, it is my go-to movie for when I am sad or mad or just want to be happy. I have not read the source material yet that was written by Diana Wynne Jones in the 1980s. I want to fall in love with the world of Howl's Moving Castle in a new way. Also, I have always thought that there was much more to the story than we see in the film. I want to find out which parts are different or missing. Would you be interested in reading about a comparison between the movie and the book? Let me know and I might try this out. 10. Nicki Pau Preto Concluding this list, is the newest, new to me author, Nicki Pau Preto. I was an active FairyLoot subscriber for as long as I could afford it, I had to cancel my subscription a while ago as I could not anymore. But not before The Bone Smith arrived in my mailbox. I think Fairyloot has outdone itself with this edition. Also, the synopsis caught my attention and this now is a must-read book for 2024. What do you think of my free interpretation list of this week's TTT?

Title : Evocation Author : S.T. Gibson Series or standalone : The Summoner's Circle, book 1 Age Category : Adult Published by:  28th of May 2024 Pages: 301   p. Genre: Urban Fantasy, occultism About Evocation The devil has come to claim what is his … David Aristarkhov was a child prodigy, raised by a cruel occultist father. At the age of 13, his father died freeing David from his torment. Now David's thirtieth is rapidly approaching, but the successful life he has crafted for himself has started to crumble together with his health. David reaches out to the only person he has ever trusted, his ex-boyfriend Rhys, who is now happily married to Moria and is his main rival within the society of Occultist. Can they ever mend the trust that was broken? And resolve the demon deal that is hot on David's trail? My thoughts on Evocation Content warning: this review will contain spoilers for the book they will not be pointed out, proceed with caution. Also, I received a review copy in exchange for my honest opinion. Review copy provided by Angry Robots via Netgalley. Getting all the official stuff out of the way, let us dive into this book because I think I will have a lot to say about it. Let us start with my overall feeling: I want more of this. When I first saw this book announced I thought like, yes this is right up my alley, I love the occult and I was really curious as to how deep the lore would be. This being said, I would have liked to see more of the occult practices in the book. There is a little bit of it in the book, but it only scratches the surface. This might sound like a harsh critic but it is not, because I loved this book nonetheless. I just wish there were more spells, ceremonies, and divination in there, that would have made it even more delicious. The book focuses more on the character relations between David, Moira, and Rhys. There is a lot of frustration between David and Rhys. At the beginning of the book we do not learn why their relationship is so strained, it is revealed much later in the book. This left me hanging with lots of questions throughout the book. A lot of hints were dropped but most of them are not explained at any point, this is my only criticism of Evocation. It is for me a minor issue, not enough the take cats of my rating. It can however be an issue for some readers so I wanted to point it out so that you can be prepared if this is a thing that would bother you. I would also suggest reading Odd Spirits first if you have the chance, as it will help you understand the characters just a little bit more. Another thing I want to point out is that if you go in intending to read a book that is all about the occult, you will be sourly disappointed. There are splashes of the occult, but it is a book about love, relationships, and friendship. It hints at a polyamory relationship which is not for everyone. I did not mind it at all, I liked the sexual tension between all the characters. At times David could be a little bit obnoxious, but understanding where he is coming from, an abusive parental relationship, I can kind of relate to his personality. The alcoholism, closed-off personality, and non-communication all fit in with a character that has been a victim of abuse. To me that at least makes a lot of sense. It doesn't make David a very likable character. Moira helps us in a lot of ways to understand the character of David, by pointing out his true feelings, that she can feel through their special connection. I think that this is a very clever trick by the author. It helps take the sharp edges of David's character. I am going to sound like an uber critic now, but I would have loved to see more depth in this story, more world-building, more occult, more character background, just all-around more of everything. This was a nice introduction to the world and the characters, it leaves me wanting a lot more, fortunately, we already know that there is going to be more. Rating Evocation I have already pointed out some of the things that bothered me or might be issues for some readers. Overall I have enjoyed my time with the book, I rate not only based on issues, but mostly on feeling, and how long it took me to finish if I wanted to get back to the book when I stopped reading. It might be sounding strange that I would still give this a 5-star rating. This book did tick all the boxes for me, it made me feel things, I wanted to get back to it as soon as I put it down and it did not take me a huge amount of time to finish. I was never bored by the book, nor did I dislike the main characters. The story made sense to me, it did not feel unrealistic or lacking, even though I want more of everything as stated above. It is a solid first book, so I am sticking to the 5 cats it is getting. Now I just need to get my hands on a physical copy of the book, to show off in my bookcase, and while I am at it, also a copy of Odd Spirits, so I can see the beautiful art in print. It was announced recently that this series will be four full-length books: Evocation, Ascension, Divination, Transmutation, and a novella called Odd Spirits which has been re-released this month in a beautifully illustrated edition. A review for the novella is coming next week. The books will all focus on a different character, the next book is Rhys's story, Divination is about Moria and Transmutation focuses on Leda, who is only briefly mentioned in this first book, she is David's half-sister.

I want to do something new in 2025, I want to clean my Kindle TBR. I have been accumulating ebooks on my Kindle since 2013 when I got it for my birthday, and yes, it still works flawlessly, in case you are wondering. There was this big hype around the new Kindle colour soft, and TikTok says you need more than one to use it. It is fine if you have various devices, but you can only read on one device at a time, so one will be enough. Do not let anyone tell you that you need multiple E-readers to read, it is all right if you have just one, it is all right if you read on the Kindle app on your phone, tablet, or computer. Before I got my e-reader, I read ebooks on my laptop through the Kindle app. I still use the app on my phone when I cannot sleep at night or if I am in public and forget to take my Kindle. The app is free, at the time I started getting into ebooks, I was still in school and did not have a lot of money. It made my small world a lot brighter and I have read so many interesting books that I would otherwise never have picked up. In the 12 years I have been using Kindle I have accumulated 2447 books, that remain unread. I have not picked up my Kindle in a while and I miss reading Indie books, as most of the ones I own are self-published and free at one point. To push me to read some of those I would like to do something more fun. I would like my audience to pick my next Kindle read. Giving you all the 2447 books as an option at once, I would like to start by monthly reading one book chosen by you. Each month I will make a poll on the socials and here on the blog, with three options you can choose from once all the votes are in I will read the book with the most votes, and delete the two books that were not chosen. This way I hope to cut down the amount of books remaining unread on my Kindle to a more manageable length. I want to start with the oldest books on my Kindle library, going with the ones that fit within the genres I discuss here on the blog, there are also some other genres I read but I do not review them, these are just for pleasure and to keep me from stop reading and reviewing. Let's start with the first three books on my Kindle. I will put a poll at the end of this post. The first three will all be young adult books. Let's dive in. Predator Girl by S.B. Roozenboom I purchased this book on January, 20th of 2013, it was free at the time. It is categorized as a Young Adult paranormal romance book. It has an average rating of 3.63 and 289 ratings. This does not have many ratings. It is of average length with 350 pages. The story is about a girl, that is the leader of a werewolf pack. When in town she meets Jared, who finds the supernatural for the government, to make sure they will go undetected. Jared can't figure out what kind of creature the new girl is and gets pulled into her world. It is a paranormal romance with a setting in this world. This author published 4 books, most of which have around 200 ratings, the author has not been active on Goodreads since 2021 and the website mentioned is no longer active. It makes me a bit worried that this may not be the greatest read, I will wait and see what you will vote. Amethyst by Heather Bowhay This one I thought this was YA, it is categorized as such on Goodreads, but I feel this should be in the New Adult age range, even by reading just the synopsis, it feels a bit older. This book has a lot more ratings than the previous one in total 2.678 ratings with an average of 3,83 stars. This looks promising, it is a little shorter with 271 pages, which is fine with me. The book is about Lexi, who has premonitions about people's deaths, she tries to save as many as she can but she would like to put herself first for once and ignores one of the premonitions that results in innocent people losing their lives. In her next premonition, she sees her death. Then there is a twist in the synopsis, which feels a bit weird to me because it is talking about a co-worker, but I thought she was a college student, so where is she working? Her co-worker is part of a group that hunts the beings stealing people's life force called Essence, but is this group to be trusted? There are many secrets to be revealed. I am not sure if this should be in the paranormal romance category or the urban fantasy, but it cannot be both. That is another thing that is confusing me. I purchased this on the same day as Predator Girl. Blue Hearts of Mars by Nicole Grotepas This is a young adult SciFi story, a love story between an android and a human, set against a backdrop of a crumbling society. Something is brewing, and our main characters have to figure out how to stop it. The synopsis of this one sounds promising, it sounds like it will have some dystopian features, but I think the love story takes priority. This book does not have a lot of ratings, only 209, and an average score of 3,62 stars. This author is still active on social media and has published books up to 2021, so she is the one who has published the most recent of these three authors. Why do I point out if an author is active or not you might wonder. The truth is that there are many authors that I have enjoyed in the past that have published one or two books and then disappeared from the face of the earth, and have not returned. I often wonder what happened to them or if the primary reason for writing was money. I do not want to waste my time reading books by authors who are not enjoying the process of writing and connecting with the audience or authors who just write to make money. To me, that feels like a waste of my valuable time. So authors if you made it to the end of this post, feel free to reach out to me, I would be curious to hear about why you write, and why you discontinued if you have, and just generally enjoy having a good conversation with you. Now let us continue with the vote!

Title : Odd Spirits Author : S.T. Gibson Series or standalone : The Summoner's Circle, book 0.5, novella Age Category : Adult Published by:  8th October 2024 Pages: 115   p. Genre: Urban Fantasy, occultism About Odd Spirits This is the story of how Rhys and Moira met, we get to meet these two characters a bit better through their story of how they are dealing with a malevolent spirit in their own home, and how they overcome the struggles they are facing. My thoughts on Odd Spirits Content warning: this review will contain spoilers for the book they will not be pointed out, proceed with caution. Also, I received a review copy in exchange for my honest opinion. Review copy provided by Angry Robots via Netgalley. I was so happy that I was approved for this one as well, in October I have already published my review for the first book in the Summoner's Circle series, Evocation , which I loved. I was thrilled that I got the chance to review this as well. The first thing I want to say about this little novella is that I would have preferred to read this before Evocation, I think it would have been a better introduction to the series. Also, this situation has been hinted at in Evocation, in which we do not get much explanation for what happened back then. Therefore I am glad that this story exists. What I loved even more is that this story includes how Rhys and Moira met, I found this so exciting, and I was so cute! We get so much character out of this story, it really helped me love these characters even more than I already did. I also feel that there are many more of the occult practices woven into this one story than was in Evocation, something I missed, I would like to see more of the society rituals and Moira's spell work as well, and I do hope that we will be getting it in the rest of the series. I am excited to explore the rest of the series as it comes out, and will also be continuing with S.T. Gibson's other novels An Education of Malice and Dowry of Blood. The last one being inspired by Dracula, is of course a vampire story that I haven't read in a while. Rating Odd Spirits This novella was lots of fun, it packs a punch and explores a side of the characters Rhys and Moira from Evocation that we have not yet seen before. This edition is beautifully illustrated which makes it even more appealing for the book collectors that we are. The story has so much magic and character exploration in it, that adds to the reading experience of the series in general. As said in the full review, I would read this before starting with Evocation.

I have seen almost all my favorite Booktubers do this, going through their physical TBR, so it is high time to tackle my TBR. No I have not made a video for you all, as I am definitely not comfortable with video yet, maybe sometime in the future but for now I have done a head count and came to 223 books. Oops that is actually less then I anticipated but it is still a lot of books to get through. Some points of clarification, this to be read pile only includes fiction, non-fiction is an entirely different story, I did not think it was fair to include this, if you want to see a list of these books, let me know in the comments. I do track my non-fiction reading progress on Goodreads, but I do not have a TBR or anything going for this, at the moment. Also I have excluded all manga and graphic novels from this list, I want to keep this separate as I feel this is just a different category all together. I am not going to track these on my Goodreads, that is just for actually full length books without pictures so to say. Also for if you did not gather this from the title, ebooks are also excluded from this list. A TBR for this would be impossible to make, I have around 3000 books on my Amazon kindle account, these mostly consists of free ebooks, lots of them by self-published authors, every once in a while I do try to clean this list up, remove all that I am not interested in. I mostly read these as pallet cleansers, or when I do not know what I want to read then I pick up something that looks interesting. And usually around Christmas I pick up some of the Christmas romances just because I like the feeling it gives me, they almost all give me the Hallmark Christmas movie feel, except for Christmas Magic , which is actually a really well done fantasy story. I am not going to go through the entire list of 223 book, but you can find my entire list here on Goodreads . Let me know which books I should prioritize! I thought it would be fun to at least highlight some of the books that are there, so let's get started shall we? The longest book on my TBR The longest books on my TBR are both bind ups of series, the entire Earthsea series by Ursela Leguin, counting 1008 pages total and the Duivel trilogy by Adrian Stone, which is a dutch paperback edition, signed by the author, very nice guy by the way, this also has 1008 pages. However it doesn't really seem fair to have them be the largest book, so the largest single book award goes to Kingdom of Ash, the conclusion of the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas. I am hoping to finish this series this year, as I really should finish all the series I own and started. I am currently half way through Heir of Fire. I am loving how the world got so much bigger there is even more world building then in the first 2 books in the series, so I thrilled, so I am pretty sure I will be able to stick it out now until the end. What do you think of the reprints that have been happening for this series, I honestly don't get the cover change, I absolutely love the original covers for this series. The shortest book on my TBR The shortest book on my TBR is Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, I have always thought this would be longer, it is only a 120 pages, if I remember correctly the movie was rather long. I have a couple of classics in English in the same editions as this one, they kind of scare me as I have tried to read Emma in the past, I had a real hard time with it and did not finish it, so I am not sure if I will ever attempt to pick this one up, or any of the others that I own, maybe I should make a challenge out of it, as they are all pretty short, except for Uncle Tom's Cabin. The book with the highest average rating on Goodreads. Well that is interesting, the book with the highest average rating is Kingdom of Ash 4.67 (430.212 ratings, 42.947 reviews), the conclusion of the Throne of Glass series, which we have already talked about as being also the book with the largest page count. It has a rating of 4,67 (21.386 ratings, 4290 reviews). So we are moving on the with the runner up, with an average rating of 4,65, is another conclusion to a series, Jade Legacy, by Fonda Lee. Boyfriend is currently devouring the Green Bone Saga, he is on to the second book Jade War and he is loving it. I own the beautiful Illumicrate editions of these books. He can of course not tell me anything about it, because I still need to read them, but it sometimes works very well that he has read a series before me, because he will push me into reading and finishing a series so that we can talk about it together. That is what happened with the Arc of Scythe trilogy. The book with the lowest average rating on Goodreads. The book with the lowest average rating is Wormwood by G.P. Taylor with a rating of 3,10 (1814 ratings 174 reviews) , this is a book I found when I was in London, in a very cute vintage book store. It was such a joy to visit a bookstore with so many unknown books. I picked it up because at the time I thought it looked interesting, however, I am not sure if I will ever read it, it just doesn't call out to me like some books on this TBR. I think it is considered a science fiction book, which is also not my main reading genre. Other books in the lowest regions of the TBR are Witches Steeped In Gold average rating 3,21 (5.606 ratings, 1.504 reviews) by Ciannon Smart and Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar average rating of 3,30 (7.807 ratings, 1927 reviews). I am not surprised by the last one, but I was by Witches Steeped In Gold scoring so low, it was so hyped at the time it came out and was part of many book boxes as well. It is on my Witchy reading list for 2024 as well, so I guess I will find out. The book that has been on my TBR the longest The book that has been on my TBR the longest is Living Dead In Dallas, book two in the Sookie Stackhouse series, by Charlaine Harris. This is one of the books that came home with me from Canada, I have lived there in total 1,5 years. The last stay was 6 months in Manitoba where I have done an internship. I bought this book in my favorite book store in Brandon. I read the first book Dead Until Dark on the train from Manitoba to Toronto. I do not recommend this by the way, just fly from Winnepeg, it is the same price and twice as fast. I never gotten around to pick up the second book, I did enjoy the first. Now I feel like I would have to re-read the first before I can move on to this one, plus I would want to have the rest of the series too so I can continue, else it will end up like this one being stuck on my TBR for years. Let me know in the comments if the series is worth my time, I am curious to your opinions. The book that I have added most recently to my TBR I got this for Christmas from my boyfriend! I am so excited to read this, and I hadn't expected to get this one, I was really suprised that he remembered that I wanted to read this. The hype for this one has been enormous and I want on that train! You can take a look at my TBR, you can find it at my Goodreads , your always welcome to send me a friend request if you would like to get in touch with there.

Almost spring! I am glad because I am done with the weather we have been having, I hope we will get more 20-degree sunny days where I can sit outside to read my books. This week's prompt is Movies/TV shows that would have made amazing books. The thing with this one is, that most of the things I have watched already have existing books for it, I could not think of 10 of them, here are a few though: Bones, Lucifer, and Grimm. I am swapping the current prompt for last week, as I have not been able to post in a while. I am figuring out how to balance my new life, which is a bit of a struggle as I am still dealing with my mental health, I have good days and bad days. That being said let us dive into 10 books I would like to read this spring. Evocation - ST Gibson I am so excited that I can read this soon, I got approved on Netgalley for an eARC of this, and I can't wait to get started on this. First I will need to finish The Famine Witch by Stephen Black, which is pretty good so far, it is a historical setting. It is set in Northern Ireland which is something different from the USA for once. Anyway, Evocation is about the occult, mediums, and the devil, sign me up any day for such a story. Circe - Madeline Miller I have read the first couple of pages of this once, I did not continue as I was in the middle of another book, maybe I should have because I haven't picked it up since. I feel a little sad about it, I love any book that focuses on a part of mythology, it being Greek or German or Keltic all of them fascinate me. Authority - Jeff VanderMeer I mentioned in my new to me authors post back in January that I wanted to continue reading more Jeff VanderMeer books, I enjoyed Annihilation, which was a strange and beautiful story. Beautiful Darkness - Kami Garcia & Margareth Stohl I loved Beautiful Creatures when I read it back in the day. As I have discussed before I am really bad at finishing series, like about 30 more series, I still need to finish this as well. I might as well start early this spring. Witches of East End - Melissa de la Cruz Did anyone enjoy the TV series when it came out? I must say I enjoyed that one as well, such a pity that it got canceled after one season. This book is a re-read for me, I want to highlight it as a Witchy post because these are cozy traditional witches. Kingdom of the Wicked - Kerri Maniscalco I have been obsessed with the cover since it came out, I want to find out if the hype train is worth it. I guess I will have to read it now, I have the beautiful Fairyloot edition of this book. It is even more gorgeous than the regular edition. Rebel of the Sands - Alwyn Hamilton I meant it when I said I want to finish some series this year, this book was phenomenal, I read it in one sitting, and ended up reading until 3 o'clock when I first read it. This book is amazing and I am ashamed that I never continued the series. Storm Front - Jim Butcher Urban fantasy is a genre I enjoy and would like to consume more of. The thing is I am a little bit scared of starting this, it is a long series, 17 books and counting. You have already read how good I am with finishing series, is this worth the commitment? Let me know if you read any. Pantomime - Laura Lam A main character who is both male and female, that is what piqued my interest. This is an older YA release from back in the day when the initial hype started. My copies of this series are also signed as I met the author at Dutch Comiccon. Honey Witch - Sydney J. Shields This will be coming out on the 14th of May, it sounds like a cozy witchy story. Sometimes you don't need high stakes, as Legends and Lattes has proven. Sometimes you just want to read something uncomplicated and cute. This sounds like such a book, read cottage, tiny Isle, and witch training. What is on your spring TBR?

The prompt for this week is May flowers, the tulip fields in the Netherlands are still in bloom, but not as many as at the end of April. For this prompt, I will include horror books with flowers on the covers and books with flowers or plants as the main theme. There are a couple of these that I have already read. I would love to read more books like Mexican Gothic, House of Hollow, and Annihilation. These were all great and all of them were very atmospheric as well. Wilder Girls by Rory Power This has been out for some years, and the opinions about Wilder Girls vary. This book has creepy dangerous woods, a Tox that is affecting the human population and it has flowers on the cover. What more would you need from an atmospheric YA horror? I have not read this one yet but after reading the synopsis I am intrigued. What Moves The Dead by T. Kingfisher The synopsis reads "nightmare fungal growth and possessed wildlife. That was all I needed to add this to my wish list. I can only hope it will be as good as Mexican Gothic, which we will get to later on this list. I know that T. Kingfisher's horror is really good, it has been recommended by many. I still have not gotten into any of her work yet. As I do not own any of her work I think it will be a while before I finally do. I love this cover, by the way, it is so creepy. The Beauty by Aliya Whiteley This cover is stunning, I had not heard of this one before I started looking for horror books with flowers on the cover. Mushrooms growing out of dead women. That is all I got from the prompt but when doing some further research this falls into the category of "plant" horror. So I am adding this to the list. If someone has read this please let me know, I am curious what you thought of it. The Book of Koli by M.R. Carey I have seen this book around, but did not know anything about it, of course, I have now done my research, and I have to conclude that this is perfect for this list. The book is about a small village, that is surrounded by dangerous plant life. Koli the main character has never been out of his little town. The setting is post-apocalyptic and sounds like something I would read. It is a trilogy. There are two more books in the series, The Trials of Koli and The Fall of Koli. Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer The first book in the Southern Reach Trilogy, and I have read it. This was an amazing read, and I think I would want to re-read it so that I can give my readers a review of it, to encourage you to read it. It was a damn good book, the horror in this one is not really at the forefront, it is more subtle and evenly distribute throughout the book. This was such a fascinating read and also is set in nature, nature that can be unforgiving. House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland This book is a standalone, it is a young adult horror book. I read this a while ago, it was such an interesting story. It had an ending I had not seen coming, a very original story. I don't want to spoil anything but if you like a very atmospheric story with plants growing out of people, then look no further this is the story for you. Small Favors by Erin A. Craig If you look at the cover of this book it does not scream horror does it? I would have thought it was a romance book, but looks can be deceiving. I think I should have called this small-town horror because most of these are in small towns, but I will stick with this title. This story as you now guess also set in a small town, the synopsis talks about devils in the woods that grant wishes, that never can end well. I am very curious about this one, as the cover is so misleading. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia This book set me on the horror path, this was stunning, although I was not very fond of the ending. Still, this was such a beautiful horror story. I also enjoyed that it was not set in the USA for a change. The whole vibe is this mysterious English family living in Mexico. The rules of High Place are strange and do not make a whole lot of sense. She Is A Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran I was talking about Mexican Gothic being set in Mexico, this is set in Vietnam. Already this is making it more interesting to me, I love to read about different cultures and different countries. This is more of a haunted house story I think but still sounds like something that will fit on this list. Belladonna by Adalyn Grace If you have not heard of this book, then you might have been living under a very big rock. This series has been the latest hype, maybe not as big as that of Fourth Wing, but definitely one of the bigger hyped-up books. The covers are gorgeous and have deadly flowers, that is why they get a mention here. I am not sure if this one is horror perse, but it will be atmospheric, with it having a gothic setting. Let me know in the comments if this gets scary. What are your favorite atmospheric horror books?

Title: Hidden Gifts Author: Christine Pope Series: The Witches of Canyon Road book 1 Age Category: Young Adult Published by: Pages: 382 p. Genre: Urban fantasy About Hidden Gifts Miranda has known since her teens that she is supposed to marry a stranger. Long ago her mother made a bargain with the Santa Fe witch clan, in exchange for their help fighting an evil warlock. Miranda's parents have tried everything to save Miranda from this arranged marriage but the Santa Fe witches do not accept, even if Miranda has no powers of her own. Or does she? When she arrives at Santa Fe, her power sparks, just like the spark between her and the man she is supposed to marry. Can she figure out how to control them? My Thoughts on Hidden Gifts Happy New Year everyone I hope you have had a wonderful New Year’s Eve! Wow, 2024 already and this year is going to be an exciting year for me, with lots of changes. I am looking forward to this new chapter in my life. Before I dive into this review, I want to say that this review will contain spoilers. I just wanted to do a bit of a discussion for this one as this will be our first Witchy Read of the month! I never read about an arranged marriage story before, this was the first one for me. It was a little bit daunting for me, as I am not a big fan of being bound in that way to someone. What I liked about this story is that we get to see all the insecurities Miranda our main character feels about being shipped off to Santa Fe, not knowing anything about the guy she is to marry, and having no clue what he looks like. It would be my worst nightmare. Not only do we see Miranda’s side of the story we also have Rafe’s point of view. He also is not pleased about the arranged marriage, and he clashes with his mother about this every step of the way. However, he does also respect the family obligations, and when he finally meets Miranda, he starts to develop feelings for her. I also like Cat, this is Rafe’s sister, she tries to make Miranda feel at home, she is a great character, and we also see that she tries to protect Miranda from her mother. I think Cat makes the story a lot more pleasant for the audience. She is that bubbly fun friend we all want in our lives. Another side character that seems to be very nice to Miranda is Simon, she meets him on the bus when she travels to Santa Fe, and they hit it off, she feels very comfortable with him. He seems nice enough however, the book takes an interesting turn in the end. I had not seen this one coming, as Simon turned out to be the bad guy in this story. He also is not a normal human but also a witch, that was the most surprising part of the story. I hated the ending; Simon had put a curse on Rafe. The curse made Rafe tell Miranda in public that he did not wish to marry her. Crushing her soul and driving her right into the arms of Simon. This part was all fine but what came after is the part I have a problem with, it was the ease with which Miranda accepted Simon’s magic, no doubts, no mistrust nothing. And in the end, accepting Simon’s help to train her without knowing a damn thing about it. Come on, I know that she has grown up sheltered and is a bit naïve, but this is just too easy. I would have also liked to see that the story wraps up a bit more, not just ending on the scene I just described. It could have given us more of a tease so we will be eager to read the next book in the series. For me this ending fell a bit flat, I would continue the series, but the ending really could use some improvement. The witchy rating of Hidden Gifts On the witchy side of things, we have a coven, we have witches with individual powers. We do not have a whole lot of spell casting or usage of power in this book. There are some splashes here and there like Miranda finding her power of being able to talk to ghosts and jump from one place to another. There is a lot of individual use of powers, but not joined as you see in some witchy stories. I like that these witches have adjusted to modern times. The setup for this book is great but I would like to dive much deeper into this covens magic. I hope that the rest of the series goes into more depth on that front. The focus of this story was more on the world-building and character-building. It was important too, to make the characters likable and believable. Overall we had average witchyness so therefore I give it three cauldrons: I want more. Overall rating I loved the overall feel of the book, the character-building seems very realistic. I like that we are building up a relationship with our characters and there is a lot of overall world-building. The one letdown was how this book was wrapped up. It just ended in the middle of a scene, or that is what it felt like for me at least. I like that even though a book is part of a series, it either ends on a cliffhanger that keeps us begging for the next book, or we get a rounded ending with some open ends that will leave you wondering if they get answered in the next installment. The ending leaves this book stranded at three cats. Just another side note, I would not have picked this up based on the cover alone, I picked up the Witching Hour box set which contains 10 full-length witch books, I was just searching for something fun to read. The cover does not tell you anything. about what the story is about. It would not have been a trigger for me to pick it up. Luckily I am a sucker for boxsets on Amazon so it got my attention through that. I don't want to be rude, but I do want to tell you my honest opinion, and I hope that that will be appreciated.

Title: Queen of Shadows Author: Sarah J. Maas Also by this Author: Crescent City Series: Throne of Glass, book 1 Age Category: Adult Published by: September 2015, Bloomsbury Publishing Pages: 648 p. Genre: Epic fantasy About Queen of Shadows Celeana has returned to Adarlan, with the information she was seeking from her aunt in Wendlyn. Much has changed, since the last time she has set foot in the capital city. She has now embraced her true identity Aelin Galathynius, the Queen of Terrasen. She will be the one, standing in the way of the King's plans. She will fight to free her friend and her cousin. Unite her crumbling kingdom and overthrow the king. An ambitious plan will her people stand by her and help her achieve victory? My thoughts on Queen of Shadows Disclaimer: This review will contain spoilers for the book, if you haven't read the book, it is not advised to continue reading this review. The books by Sarah J. Maas seem to become long the further you get into a series. Queen of Shadows was a lengthy one, with 648 pages, yet it was never boring. The first three books have been a setup for this book. Where we are back in Adarlan, in the capital city, and living there is more dreadful than it felt in the last two books. Dorian is now being possed by a demon, Chaol is being a real ass, Aedion is imprisoned by the King and Arobynn is trying to get Celeana back. This is where the story starts, and it feels heavy and dreadful. The book does a really good job of showing the reader, the feelings of the characters, but also shows a lot about the surroundings. It creates a certain atmosphere where everything seems lost, and we are holding on to little glimmers of hope, at the time. Celeana is now Aelin, and the book addresses her in this way. The characters that knew her from before, needed to get used to the new name, and she would also correct them. At the beginning of the book, Aelin sets out to rescue her cousin, who she thought was dead, Adion, who is being held by the King. It was supposed to be a lure to trap Aelin. She has a good plan in place to rescue Aedion and manages to do so. I felt that she got off easy, it was just too easy. I have thought about this a couple of times, and I have a theory of why it might have been so easy. Either the demon underestimated Aelin, or the King in his way tried to be disobedient. Either way, this part of the book was a bit of a letdown for me. Fortunately, this book is multiple points of view, and the chapters will switch point of view often. This book gets really dark, and I mean disturbingly dark. It makes me wonder if it was intended to be for a young adult audience. It was always my understanding that it is a young adult book, but the content in this book is really on the edge if you would ask me. I would not consider this for an audience under sixteen years old. The disclaimer at the beginning of this review is there because I want to get into why I found some of the parts of the book so disturbing. The dark side of the book is not so much tied to Aelin, but overall Manon is in a much more difficult position. In book three Manon Blackbeak, of the Ironteeth witches, was introduced as a character. We see her become Wing-Leader of the witches and she is now sent to Morach. For a while, we don't know why the witches are there. At first, I thought it would be to protect the tower, which has trapped magic, but after a while, the true horror of their purpose has been revealed. The witches are there to breed with the Valg demons. Unwilling test projects in a breeding program of horrors. I thought this was so disturbing, that I had to stop reading for a bit to process this information. Even though the above information horrified me, I just continued reading, it was so incredibly well written, that it keeps you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. Yes, it has some slower parts, but even in the slower parts of the book, something is happening. I also like the new side characters that were introduced, Nesryn, Elide, and Lysandra, all very strong female characters of course as that is what Sarah writes best. The other thing I like about this book is when we first got introduced to Manon's character in book three, I wondered to what end it served, then in this book, the character has a lot more pages, and there is much more depth to why this character is one of the main characters. Up until now, it was the character that was not connected to the rest of the characters, like Chaol and Dorian were there from the start and knew Aelin. Manon on the other hand knows of Aelin and Dorian, but up until now, these characters have not met. I love that there was a meeting between all the main characters. It seems like such a small detail but it makes me so happy. There are a lot of these small details in this book, that help the story along or close the book on a character. We do not have to keep wondering what happened to them. I think this might be the best book out of the series yet. Rating Queen of Shadows The Throne of Glass series seems to be less popular than the other two series, but so far it is working wonderfully for my taste in books. This series is a very well-crafted epic fantasy book, it has all the world-building you want, and it has a wide variety of characters. The first two books are a little different from books three and four, I think there are much more elements woven into the storyline in these two books. Queen of Shadows to me is even more compelling than Heir of Fire. There is never a dull moment in the story. The characters go through hell and back. And the story gets so dark, it is delicious and addictive. The reveal at the end of the book did come as a surprise to me, it was not what I was expecting. It is another one of those moments to treasure, in this wonderful fourth installment of the Throne of Glass Series. You know what is coming, the rating will be as the other books in the series 5 black cats coming your way Queen of Shadows.

Title: Heir of Fire Author: Sarah J. Maas Also by this Author: Crescent City series Series: Throne of Glass, book 3 Age Category: Adult Published by: September 2014, Bloomsbury Publishing Pages: 565 p. Genre: Epic fantasy About Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas Celaena Sardothien has survived in Adarlan for a long time, first in the salt mines of Endovier, now she is the King's Champion, but that is all about to change, as she is sent to Wendlyn to face her heritage. My thoughts on Heir of Fire When I first started the Throne of Glass series in 2014, I could not have imagined that the story would become as broad as it is becoming. I mean this as a compliment, not a criticism of the series. For years I have read only the first two books of the series, which mainly focus on Celaena, some side characters have their chapters, but the main focus remains Celaena. Heir of Fire begins upon Celaena's arrival in Wendlyn, she is in a lot of hurt and doesn't see the point in saving the world anymore. The way that Celaena acts at the beginning of the book makes her a very unlikeable character. It almost stopped me from reading further and never picking it back up again. However, I did pick it back up, out of pure curiosity thanks to the Fairyloot merch that said the book contains dragons, wyvern to be exact. I am delighted that I have pushed through on this series, because this third book, is something else. The amount of world-building done within this book is amazing and one of the things that makes me want to continue with this series. I can already confirm that I have now also finished Queen of Shadows, which I am also very excited to talk about. We are not talking about that one yet, we are continuing with Heir of Fire here. This part of Celeana's story is all about learning about her heritage, as we found out at the end of book two, that Celeana is Aelin, the assumed dead heir to the throne of Terrasen. Aelin has been Celeana for so long that, she does not know how to be Aelin anymore. She has put a wall around the trauma she endured as a child and would like to keep that in place, to not have to remember what happened all those years ago. To be able to learn about her fae powers, she also has to deal with her past, a past that has been haunting her for years. For the entirety of the book, Aelin remains in Wendlyn, learning how to use her powers and lots of time is spent training with Rowan. The rest of her time is mostly spent in the kitchen with Emrys and Luca, two of my favorite new side characters in this book. They are so wholesome, they give the dreary setting some cozy happy vibes. If we had only followed Aelin's story, the book would have been very boring, as she spends a lot of time training. The series has multiple points of view from the start, the main character is Celeana/Aelin but we also get chapters from Chaol, the captain of the Guard, and Dorian, the crown prince's point of view. Some smaller characters here and there are also added to help the plot. In this book a new character is added to the existing cast, enter Manon Blackbeak. Manon is an Ironteeth witch, these witches are badass. These witches are the stuff of nightmares, they come with iron teeth and iron claws/nails. They would not think twice about ripping a man apart. We first meet her when she is hunting but gets called home to meet her grandmother. Through Manon, we get some more insight into what the king is planning for Erilea. The king has ordered them to train with all the witch covens and ride the wyvern that the king has been breeding secretly. If Manon wins the war games she will become Wing-Leader, leading the army of witches. I like what Manon brings to the table. Through Manon's perspective, we can learn about the witch covens and their history, but it also gives us some insight into what kind of army the king is building. Meanwhile, we still have two pairs of eyes in Rifthold, through Dorian and Chaol's perspective. They are both struggling with Celeana leaving and on top of that Chaol is struggling to figure out where his allegiance lies. These multiple points of view are something I have been enjoying so much, not only give this insight into what the character thinks but also help with the world-building. I love this world even though it is becoming darker by the minute. Rating Heir of Fire Even though I have some criticism as to Celeana's character, especially at the beginning of the book, when you get through her rough patch it will get better. Luckily there are plenty of chapters filled with other characters like Manon, Chaol, and Dorian. This keeps you entertained when Celeana is not her lovely self. There is always a slow beginning of the books I have read so far from Sarah J. Maas, she likes to build up her stories well, with lots of character growth and world-building. The downside to this is that some of the parts of the book are very slow. It is always worth it in the end when everything wraps up, into an epic finally. The endings are so damn good that I always end up giving these books 5 stars. The same goes for Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas, 5 Cats rating for another masterpiece in the highly successful Throne Of Glass series.

How is your beginning of 2024, have you started any new years resolutions? In all honesty I have not yet sat down to figure out my goals for this year, I think they will involve a lot of reading, singing and guitar playing. More about my goals for 2024 later this month. For now let us dive into the upcoming book releases in the first half of 2024, I have picked out 5 Witchy reads for you and 5 non-witchy reads that I am excited for this year. Initially I wanted to do 10 witchy reads but that turned out to be very hard and I am also excited for some other releases so I thought this would also be more representative of what I am looking forward to. The Invocations by Krystal Sutherland, release date: 30 January 2024. A new book by Krystal Sutherland, I am so excited for this one. I loved House of Hollow so I am excited to dive into something else by this author. Also it has a powerful witch, that was all I needed to put this on my wishlist. I hope this is as creepy as House of Hollow. The nice thing about this book is also that it is a standalone, which is nice for me as I am not good with series. Projections by S.E. Porter, release date: 13 February 2024. S.E. Porter has also written various young adult books under the name Sarah Porter. This novel is her adult debut, and it sounds fascinating. A sorcerer sending out projections of himself into the world because he could not have the woman he loved. This concept sounds fascinating to me, and I think this will be very dark and sometimes that is just what I want to read. Remedial Magic by Melissa Marr, release date: 20 February 2024. This sounds like a wholesome kind of read. A cozy read to keep you company until A Witches Guide To Magical Inn Keeping is released in September. Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli, release date: 20 February 2024. Witch and Witch hunter falling in love. I have yet to read Serpent & Dove which of course is the first book you will think of when you hear this premise. This sounds like a great read, and of course perfect for this blog. The Honey Witch by Sydney J. Shields, release date: 14 May 2024. This is a debut author, and I have not yet heard anybody talk about this release, so I thought I would give it a little bit of love here. This also sounds like such a cozy read, sounds like a summer with witches to me. And there are bee's so that means there must be flowers as well, that makes me happy. House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas, release date: 30 January 2024. I think this one is on almost all the Sarah J. Maas fans wishlist already, maybe all of them have already preordered it. I think of all the releases on this list this is certainly the most hyped. And I am all for this hype because I loved House of Earth and Blood. I have yet to read House of Sky and Breath, but that is oké because then when I have finished it I already own House of Flame and Shadow, as I am going to order it right when it comes out. The Eternal Ones by Namina Forna, release date: 13 February 2024. Are you seeing my trend yet? This is the conclusion to the Gilded Ones trilogy. One of my goals is to finish some of the series I have started. I am incredibly bad in finishing series. So I am trying this a new way, now since this is the last installment in a trilogy, it will be an achievable goal for me to finish this series this year. I am thinking of preordering this book so that it will motivate me to finish the second book, and then when the pre-order arrives I can dive right into the last book. It will so good to finish a series this year. I am also working on finishing Throne of Glass this year, I am on to the fourth book now. An Education in Malice by S.T. Gibson, release date: 13 February 2024. I read: dark academia, dark magic and vampires, sold. I have not tried any dark academia books but I am eager to get into this. Also vampires! I have not read any vampire books in a while I kind of miss reading vampire books. Good excuse to pick this up. A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal, release date: 20 February 2024. Just the title alone is enough to put it on my TBR and I am not even English. Then there are vampires, are vampires making a comeback this year? I approve! Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan, release date: 27 February 2024. Water creatures are not usually my cup of tea, neither are pirates or anything else set at sea. However something about this sounds so damn good. What are your most anticipated reads for 2024?

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