I'm once more giving myself an ambitious TBR.
We'll start with my yearly reading challenges.
For AYearAthon:
It is hosted in a GoodReads group; the themes list can be found at https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/123987-ayearathon
Theme: Mythology, Fairytales, Retelling.
King of Battle & Blood and Queen of myth and monsters by Scarlett St. Clair. These are part of Adrian X Isolde trilogy.
We do not need to know much- the first lines of the book description should be enough.
"Their Union Is His Revenge.
Isolde de Lara considers her wedding day her death day. To end a years-long war, she is to marry vampire king, Adrian Aleksandr Vasiliev, and kill him.
But her assassination attempt is thwarted and Adrian threatens that if Isolde tries to kill him again, he will raise her as the undead."
Another one of St. Clair's series fits perfectly, Hades X Persephone retelling.
A touch of darkness. Another tale of forbidden love.
Blurb: Persephone is the Goddess of Spring by title only. The truth is, since she was a little girl, flowers have shriveled at her touch. After moving to New Athens, she hopes to lead an unassuming life disguised as a mortal journalist.
God of the Dead Hades, has built a gambling empire in the mortal world and his favorite bets are rumored to be impossible.
After a chance encounter with Hades, Persephone finds herself in a contract with the God of the Dead and the terms are impossible: Persephone must create life in the Underworld or lose her freedom forever.
However, the bet exposes Persephone’s failure as a goddess. As she struggles to sow the seeds of her freedom, love for the God of the Dead grows—and it’s forbidden.
This sounds exactly like my cup of tea. Now I need to see this unfold and also: why is it forbidden?
Circe by Madeline Miller.
Blurb: In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child--neither powerful like her father nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power: the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.
Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts, and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.
But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from or with the mortals she has come to love.
Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman.
Blurb: In Norse Mythology, Gaiman stays true to the myths in envisioning the major Norse pantheon: Odin, the highest of the high, wise, daring, and cunning; Thor, Odin’s son, incredibly strong yet not the wisest of gods; and Loki—son of a giant—blood brother to Odin and a trickster and unsurpassable manipulator.
Gaiman fashions these primeval stories into a novelistic arc that begins with the genesis of the legendary nine worlds and delves into the exploits of deities, dwarfs, and giants. Through Gaiman’s deft and witty prose, these gods emerge with their fiercely competitive natures, their susceptibility to being duped and to duping others, and their tendency to let passion ignite their actions, making these long-ago myths breathe pungent life again.
Painted Devils by Margaret Owen
Part of Little Thieves duology, the second and last part.
Blurb (this might contain a spoiler of the first book): Let’s get one thing straight—Vanja Schmidt wasn’t trying to start a cult.
After taking down a corrupt margrave, breaking a deadly curse, and finding romance with the vexingly scrupulous Junior Prefect Emeric Conrad, Vanja had one great mystery left: her long-lost birth family… and if they would welcome a thief. But in her search for an honest trade, she hit trouble and invented a god, the Scarlet Maiden, to scam her way out. Now, that lie is growing out of control—especially when Emeric arrives to investigate, and the Scarlet Maiden manifests to claim him as a virgin sacrifice.
For his final test to become a prefect, Emeric must determine if Vanja is guilty of serious fraud, or if the Scarlet Maiden—and her claim to him—are genuine. Meanwhile, Vanja is chasing an alternative sacrifice that may be their way out. The hunt leads her not only into the lairs of monsters and the paths of gods, but the ties of her past. And with what should be the simplest way to save Emeric hanging over their heads, he and Vanja must face a more dangerous question: Is there a future for a thief and a prefect, and at what price?
Bravely by Maggie Stiefvater.
Honestly, the book was picked because I loved the cover. Blurb: Merida goes on an all-new, life-changing adventure in this original YA novel set several years after the close of Brave!
What if you had one year to save everything you loved?
ONE PRINCESS. Merida of DunBroch needs a change. She loves her family—jovial King Fergus, proper Queen Elinor, the mischievous triplets— and her peaceful kingdom. But she’s frustrated by its sluggishness; each day, the same. Merida longs for adventure, purpose, challenge – maybe even, someday, love.
TWO GODS. But the fiery Princess never expects her disquiet to manifest by way of Feradach, an uncanny supernatural being tasked with rooting out rot and stagnation, who appears in DunBroch on Christmas Eve with the intent to demolish the realm – and everyone within. Only the intervention of the Cailleach, an ancient entity of creation, gives Merida a shred of hope: convince her family to change within the year – or suffer the eternal consequences.
THREE VOYAGES. Under the watchful eyes of the gods, Merida leads a series of epic journeys to kingdoms near and far in an attempt to inspire revolution within her family. But in her efforts to save those she loves from ruin, has Merida lost sight of the Clan member grown most stagnant of all – herself?
FOUR SEASONS TO SAVE DUNBROCH – OR SEE IT DESTROYED, FOREVER.
Buzzwordathon created by Keyla from Books and Lala- the whole list can be found at https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1111928-buzzwordathon or YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwmtVw9iJUg&t=596s
Theme: Game-related words
Playing for Pizza by John Grisham. This is a great opportunity to double up with another of my personal challenges- to read all of John Griham's backlog.
Blurb: Rick Dockery is cut from the Browns and shunned by all other teams. Arnie, his agent manages to find a team that needs him. Against enormous odds, Arnie finally locates just such a team and informs Rick that, miraculously, he can in fact now be a starting quarterback–for the mighty Panthers of Parma, Italy.
Yes, Italians do play American football, to one degree or another, and the Parma Panthers desperately want a former NFL player–any former NFL player–at their helm. So Rick reluctantly agrees to play for the Panthers–at least until a better offer comes along–and heads off to Italy. He knows nothing about Parma, has never been to Europe, and doesn’t speak or understand a word of Italian. To say that Italy holds a few surprises for Rick Dockery would be something of an understatement.
The Troop by Nick Cutter.
This book went around all over the bookish community, I am late to the wagon.
Blurb: Once a year, scoutmaster Tim Riggs leads a troop of boys into the Canadian wilderness for a three-day camping trip; a tradition as comforting and reliable as a good ghost story and a roaring bonfire. But when an unexpected intruder -- shockingly thin, disturbingly pale, and voraciously hungry -- stumbles upon their campsite, Tim and the boys are exposed to something far more frightening than any tale of terror. The human carrier of a bioengineered nightmare. An inexplicable horror that spreads faster than fear. A harrowing struggle for survival that will pit the troop against the elements, the infected ... and one another.
Literally Dead Book Club also created by Keyla from Books and lala, the group can be found at https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1065386-literally-dead-book-club
Monstrilio by Gerardo Samano Cordova
Blurb: A literary horror debut about a boy who transforms into a monster, a monster who tries to be a man, and the people who love him in every form he takes
Grieving mother Magos cuts out a piece of her deceased eleven-year-old son Santiago’s lung. Acting on fierce maternal instinct and the dubious logic of an old folktale, she nurtures the lung until it gains sentience, growing into the carnivorous little Monstrilio she keeps hidden within the walls of her family’s decaying Mexico City estate. Eventually, Monstrilio begins to resemble the Santiago he once was, but his innate impulses—though curbed by his biological and chosen family’s communal care—threaten to destroy this fragile second chance at life.
Classics:
One of the challenges was created by Emily Fox from @BookswithEmilyFox; the announcement can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZUXyMetiNw
We are reading one book every two months. For September-October, we have Middlemarch by George Elliot. This was published on 1872.
Blurb: A triumph of realist fiction, George Eliot’s A Study of Provincial Life explores a fictional nineteenth-century Midlands town in the midst of sweeping change. The proposed Reform Bill, the new railroads, and scientific advances are threatening upheaval on every front. Against this backdrop, the quiet drama of ordinary lives is played out by the novel’s complexly portrayed characters—until the arrival of two outsiders further disrupts the town’s equilibrium. Every bit as powerful and perceptive in our time as it was in the Victorian era, Middlemarch displays George Eliot’s clear-eyed yet humane understanding of characters caught up in the mysterious unfolding of self-knowledge.
2023 Classics hosted by erinbarton from Storygraph. It can be found at https://app.thestorygraph.com/reading_challenges/bd1df87f-c0c0-43d0-aee6-e902eecb1981
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Published on 1951
Blurb: It's Christmas time and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another school...
Fleeing the crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters—shooting the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central Park, getting beaten up by pimps and cut down by erstwhile girlfriends. The city is beautiful and terrible, in all its neon loneliness and seedy glamour, its mingled sense of possibility and emptiness. Holden passes through it like a ghost, thinking always of his kid sister Phoebe, the only person who really understands him, and his determination to escape the phonies and find a life of true meaning.
I Capture the castle by Dodie Smith. Published 1948.
I really want to read this one but it has been on my TBR for a few months now. This is it! I will manage to get to it.
Blurb: Through six turbulent months of 1934, 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain keeps a journal, filling three notebooks with sharply funny yet poignant entries about her home, a ruined Suffolk castle, and her eccentric and penniless family. By the time the last diary shuts, there have been great changes in the Mortmain household, not the least of which is that Cassandra is deeply, hopelessly, in love.
Moving on to my personal challenges.
Author backlog
John Grisham
The appeal
Published on January 29, 2008
Blurb: The stakes in the novel's plot are high: corporate crime on the largest scale. The duo of lawyers at the center of the narrative are Mary and Wes Grace, who succeed in a multimillion-dollar case against a chemical company, who have polluted a town with dumped toxic waste. A slew of agonizing deaths have followed this, but lawyers for the chemical company appeal, and a variety of legal shenanigans are employed -- and it is certainly not clear which way the scales of justice will be finally balanced.
Matt Haig
How to Stop Time
Published on July 2017
Blurb: Tom Hazard has just moved back to London, his old home, to settle down and become a high school history teacher. And on his first day at school, he meets a captivating French teacher at his school who seems fascinated by him. But Tom has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he's been alive for centuries. Tom has lived history--performing with Shakespeare, exploring the high seas with Captain Cook, and sharing cocktails with Fitzgerald. Now, he just wants an ordinary life.
Unfortunately for Tom, the Albatross Society, the secretive group which protects people like Tom, has one rule: Never fall in love. As painful memories of his past and the erratic behavior of the Society's watchful leader threaten to derail his new life and romance, the one thing he can't have just happens to be the one thing that might save him. Tom will have to decide once and for all whether to remain stuck in the past, or finally begin living in the present.
The truth Pixie goes to school. This is the next book in the Christmas series #3.6
Published August 2019.
Blurb: New school. New friends. Same old pixie.
'Aada started her new school,
And the pixie came too.
But this school was a place
Where it was hard to be true . . .'
An uplifting story that will delight younger readers and help them to be themselves in their school uniform. With words by the bestselling mastermind Matt Haig and pictures by the inky genius Chris Mould.
Series
I really am doing well on the completing series but can't let myself forget about it so let's keep it up. To start with we have a few translated works to double up with.
Vinland saga by Makoto Yukimura
Omnibus vol 12: Family Ties
Blurb: Sigurd returns home to Iceland to face the horrible Halfdan, but a father and a king can only be as good as his word - a blessing he refuses to bestow to Sigurd without a fight. All the while, Gudrid joins Thorfin and the crew on their journey to Thornfinn's childhood home, where Halfdan's presence looms mightily... However, with some help from fresh faces and promising volunteers, the day the ship set off for Vinland is imminent.
My Dear agent by Ebino Bisque
Volumen 1 and volume 2
Blurb: Riichi is a man everyone describes as being ice cold. He's a talented agent who manages bodyguards for the heir to a major financial conglomerate. One day, he's ordered to be a buddy for a bold but capable newbie who shows great promise, Tachibana. Tachibana uses up his salary right off the bat and says he doesn't even have an apartment to live in. Riichi allows Tachibana to stay with him and orders him around both in his work and private lives, but every day, he has his hands full with Tachibana's nonsense. And on top of all of that, Tachibana fell in love with him at first sight and tries to seduce him day and night!
I am really looking forward to reading this one!
The Queen's Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
A Conspiracy of Kings
Blurb: Sophos, under the guidance of yet another tutor, practices his swordplay and strategizes escape scenarios should his father's villa come under attack. How would he save his mother? His sisters? Himself? Could he reach the horses in time? Where would he go? But nothing prepares him for the day armed men, silent as thieves, swarm the villa courtyard ready to kill, to capture, to kidnap. Sophos, the heir to the throne of Sounis, disappears without a trace.
Tick as thieves #5
Blurb: Deep within the palace of the Mede emperor, in an alcove off the main room of his master’s apartments, Kamet minds his master’s business and his own. Carefully keeping the accounts, and his own counsel, Kamet has accumulated a few possessions, a little money stored in the household’s cashbox, and a significant amount of personal power. As a slave, his fate is tied to his master’s. If Nahuseresh’s fortunes improve, so will Kamet’s, and Nahuseresh has been working diligently to promote his fortunes since the debacle in Attolia.
A soldier in the shadows offers escape, but Kamet won’t sacrifice his ambition for a meager and unreliable freedom; not until a whispered warning of poison and murder destroys all of his carefully laid plans. When Kamet flees for his life, he leaves behind everything—his past, his identity, his meticulously crafted defenses—and finds himself woefully unprepared for the journey that lies ahead.
Pursued across rivers, wastelands, salt plains, snowcapped mountains, and storm-tossed seas, Kamet is dead set on regaining control of his future and protecting himself at any cost. Friendships—new and long-forgotten—beckon, lethal enemies circle, secrets accumulate, and the fragile hopes of the little kingdoms of Attolia, Eddis, and Sounis hang in the balance.
Whimbrel House by Charlie N. Homberg
The second and final book Heir of Uncertain Magic
Blurb: One man is on a journey to unravel his magical lineage in the next novel of the Whimbrel House series.
Thanks to house tamer Hulda Larkin, the mischief infesting Whimbrel House has calmed. But if Hulda’s job is done, what does that mean for Merritt Fernsby, inheritor of the remote Narragansett Bay estate, who’s only now coming to terms with his enchanted place in the world?
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
Rainbow Valley is #7
Blurb: Anne Shirley is grown up, has married her beloved Gilbert, and is the mother of six mischievous children. These boys and girls discover a special place all their own, but they never dream of what will happen when a strange family moves into an old mansion nearby. The Meredith clan is two boys and two girls—and a runaway named Mary Vance. Soon the Merediths join Anne's children in their private hideout, intent on carrying out their plans to save Mary from the orphanage, to help the lonely minister find happiness, and to keep a pet rooster from the soup pot. There's always an adventure brewing in the sun-dappled world of Rainbow Valley.
I hope to start enjoying them more. the last few ones have become a drag to read. Maybe I need to give the series a bit of a break before continuing.
Sandman by Neil Gaiman
Volume 3: Dream Country
Blurb: The third book of the Sandman collection is a series of four short comic book stories. In each of these otherwise unrelated stories, Morpheus serves only as a minor character. Here we meet the mother of Morpheus's son, find out what cats dream about, and discover the true origin behind Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream. The latter won a World Fantasy Award for best short story, the first time a comic book was given that honor.
Collects THE SANDMAN #17-20.
Volume 4: Season of Mist
Blurb: Ten thousand years ago, Morpheus condemned a woman who loved him to Hell. Now the other members of his immortal family, The Endless, have convinced the Dream King that this was an injustice. To make it right, Morpheus must return to Hell to rescue his banished love -- and Hell's ruler, the fallen angel Lucifer, has already sworn to destroy him.
Collects THE SANDMAN #21-28.
I hope the story piques my interest. After moving along a bit more I will try to catch up on the tv series.
Manners and Monsters Collection 2 by Tilly Wallace
This includes books 4 to 6.
#4: Vanity and Vampyres
Blurb: Someone is supping upon young noblemen and it’s up to Hannah and Wycliff to investigate. If only they could agree on how the men are being drained of their life’s blood. Is it a vampyre, known for their impeccable fashion sense, nocturnal roaming, and dislike of rain, who lurks in the shadows of London? Or is some more earthly method at play, like an attack of leeches?
With her best friend’s wedding imminent, Hannah is determined that the event be untouched by murder or mayhem. To ensure a magical fairytale event they must catch the murderer before the big day. Wycliff must seek the assistance of a man who raises his hackles and Hannah struggles with her growing feelings toward her guarded husband.
This pursuit will unearth long buried secrets that could have fatal consequences for those dearest to Hannah.
Vol #5: Sixpence and Selkies
Blurb: Hannah and Wycliff arrive at his ancestral estate in Dorset as tragedy strikes the coastal village. A young woman has lost her life to the tempestuous ocean, but only Hannah suspects the woman's death is anything but a horrible accident. As Hannah learns more about life in the closeknit community, she discovers two other women lost their lives to the sea. Or did they?
A rift grows between the young couple, as Wycliff refuses to believe another hand was responsible for the deaths. With her husband consumed by the needs of the long neglected estate, Hannah is left to her own devices and finds herself walking the same lonely path as the dead women.
Can Hannah and Wycliff heal the chasm in their relationship, or will Hannah succumb to the call of the ocean...?
Vol #6: Hessians and Hellhounds
Blurb: One of London’s most recognisable Afflicted is erased from the earth in a fiery way. Whispers spread that a hellhound prowls the streets, snatching the lost souls who have escaped the afterworld. Except, Wycliff is doing no such thing—could there possibly be another such creature in London?
While Hannah and Wycliff investigate the unnatural flames, unrest grows on the streets as someone seeks to unmask how the undead women stave off rot. Someone is agitating for all Afflicted to be eradicated, in a conspiracy that will set the common Englishman against the nobles.
To save the Afflicted and stop the uprising, Wycliff must face the void that whispers his name from an inky darkness. He plans to wrest Hannah free of the curse squeezing her heart, assuming they can get out alive.
A to Z challenge
Zorro by Isabel Allende
Blurb: Born in southern California late in the eighteenth century, Diego de la Vega is a child of two worlds. His father is an aristocratic Spanish military man turned landowner; his mother, a Shoshone warrior. At the age of sixteen, Diego is sent to Spain, a country chafing under the corruption of Napoleonic rule. He soon joins La Justicia, a secret underground resistance movement devoted to helping the powerless and the poor. Between the New World and the Old, the persona of Zorro is formed, a great hero is born, and the legend begins. After many adventures -- duels at dawn, fierce battles with pirates at sea, and impossible rescues -- Diego de la Vega, a.k.a. Zorro, returns to America to reclaim the hacienda on which he was raised and to seek justice for all who cannot fight for it themselves.
As usual, I'm sure I'll come up with more things I want to read as if I didn't already have a huge list to start with.
Wish me luck!
Feel free to share with me what your reading plans are for September.
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