Always Me

    Happy Halloween everyone!  Today, I'm sharing my wrap up and mini review for my Halloween Reads 2023.  I read a bunch of spooky things this month and of my original tbr I made my way through eight books, which I'd say is really great! Without further ado, read on to see my thoughts on them: ❋   ❋  ❋ Blood Riders  by Michael P. Spradlin  has a cool concept but it kind of doesn't take advantage of it to the fullest.  Historical fantasy is one of my favorite genres and the western is the genre I absolutely want to read more of, especially of the horror variety.  Even though I wish this went a slightly different route with the vampire storyline, I still appreciated just how scary they are in the story.  My favorite part of this was seeing Van Helsing here - that was just cool. My review is also on Goodreads . ❋   ❋  ❋ Daphne  by Josh Malerman  is a solid read if you're looking for something creepy.  I really enjoyed the ghostly and vengeful spirit aspects and how much

            Happy Tuesday everyone!  Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by  That Artsy Reader Girl .  This week's topic is a Halloween Freebie, so I'm featuring Upcoming Horror Books I Want To Read.  Without further ado, here we go in alphabetical order by title: The Bad Ones by Melissa Albert  - Release date: February 20th, 2024 - Honestly, Melissa Albert has become a must read author really quickly and I can tell this will be great! A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock - Release date: March 19th, 2024 - All I had to hear was Mexican Gothic meets Oscar Wilde and Mary Shelley.  The cover looks so cool, too! Ghost Station by S. A. Barnes  - Release date: April 9th, 2024 - Dead Silence was so good and I think this author's next sci-fi horror will be just as good.  Plus, the cover looks awesome! The House of Last Resort by Christopher Golden - Release date: January 30th, 2024 - This sounds exactly like my kind of story. The Invocations by Krystal Sutherland - Releas

        Happy Monday everyone and welcome back to Music Monday! Let's share some songs we've been enjoying lately!  If you would like to play and I really hope you do, please see the rules and link up below. Rules: Every Monday share a few songs you've been enjoying lately.  It doesn't have to be a specific genre, new, or one of your favorites - just something you'd like to share with others.  If possible, share a music or lyric video of the song and your thoughts on the song(s), artist(s), and/or music video(s). If you would like to participate in Music Monday, please join the link up by sharing your post's url. Happy Monday everyone!  All this month I'm spotlighting music perfect for the Halloween season.  This week I'm featuring three favorite ambient horror music playlists from  Arondight Studios .  These are all perfect for the day before Halloween!  Give a listen to Darkness Awakens , Tales of Darkness , and Shadlowlands : You are invited to the

Happy Sunday everyone! Today I'm sharing my thoughts on the book I read in October for the  Choose Your Own Adventure: Year In Adelia , an additional challenge to  G. @ Book Roast 's  Magical Readathon .  You can see my full tbr  here .  Without further ado, check out my mini review below. ❋  ❋    Priest of Bones  ( War for the Rose Throne  #1) by Peter McLean  had been on my tbr for a long time but I'm glad I finally got around to it.  I'm usually a fan of grimdark fantasy, but unfortunately this one didn't quite work for me as well as I would have liked it to.  I'd head it compared to Peaky Blinders and I definitely see the comparison to it.  As much as I enjoyed that tv show, this novel was just off-putting to me from fairly early on.  I'm glad I stuck with it to cross it of my tbr, but I won't be back for the rest of the series. My review is also on Goodreads . Are you participating in this challenge?  Have you read this book?  As always, thanks for

Happy Saturday everyone!  I hope everyone's been doing well.  I can't believe it's already almost Halloween.  Anyway, I've now competed twenty tasks of  Book Riot's 2023 Read Harder Challenge .  The tasks I completed this month required me to listen to an audiobook performed by a person of color of a book written by an author of color and read a social horror, mystery, or thriller novel   and I selected  Deathless Divide  ( Dread Nation  #2) by Justina Ireland  and  Ace of Spades  by Faridah Abike-Iyimide  respectively.   Read on to see my mini reviews and my plans for next month: ❋   ❋  ❋  ❋ Deathless Divide  ( Dread Nation  #2) by Justina Ireland   has been on my tbr for way too long.  I don't know why I put off reading it for so long after Dread Nation .  Now that I've finally completed this duology I can officially say that this is such a great sequel/ finale.  I really like this author's take on zombies and alternate history.  As much as I liked rea

              On Friday's I take part in two weekly link ups - The Friday 56, hosted by  Freda's Voice , and Book Beginnings, hosted by  Rose City Reader .  For The Friday 56, you choose a book, a book you have just finished, a book you are about to start, your current read, and share a line or a few lines that grab you (but don't spoil anything) from page 56 or 56% of the way through the ebook. Post it and share your post's url on Freda's most recent Friday 56 post. As for Book Beginnings, you share the first sentence or so and your initial thoughts, impressions, or whatever else it inspires, and then link up your post's url with Rose City Reader.  Happy Friday everyone!  This week I'm spotlighting one of my one of my  Halloween Reads 2023  books,  Dead Eleven  by Jimmy Juliano .  This sounds right up my alley.  I hope it's as good as it sounds. Beginning:  On December 14th, my sister went missing.  Her name was Willow.  I suppose I could have written h

          Happy Tuesday everyone!  Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by  That Artsy Reader Girl .  This week's topic is Atmospheric Books and I'm focusing on the horror genre in honor of the season.  Without further ado, here are some of my favorites in alphabetical order: The Diviners ( The Diviners #1) by Libba Bray Dracula by Bram Stoker The Hollow Places   by T. Kingfisher Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters The Monstrumologist ( The Monstrumologist #1) by Rick Yancey Night Film by Marisha Pessl Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert Scowler by Daniel Kraus The Sun Down Motel   by Simone St. James   What are some of your favorite atmospheric books?  Have your read any of these?  As always, thanks for visiting my blog and perhaps even commenting down below!

        Happy Monday everyone and welcome back to Music Monday! Let's share some songs we've been enjoying lately!  If you would like to play and I really hope you do, please see the rules and link up below. Rules: Every Monday share a few songs you've been enjoying lately.  It doesn't have to be a specific genre, new, or one of your favorites - just something you'd like to share with others.  If possible, share a music or lyric video of the song and your thoughts on the song(s), artist(s), and/or music video(s). If you would like to participate in Music Monday, please join the link up by sharing your post's url. Happy Monday everyone!  All this month I'm spotlighting music perfect for the Halloween season.  This week I'm featuring a couple of great playlists from Horror Music World .  I don't know about you, but these are perfect for this season.  Give a listen to Dead Space and Cursed : You are invited to the Inlinkz link party! Click here to e

Happy Saturday everyone! Today, I'm sharing the Creatures of the Night Book Tag 2023.  I did this tag on Tammy's blog ( Books, Bones & Buffy ) and it reminded me how fun it was to put my original post together back in 2021 (you can check it out here ), so I decided to do an updated version of the tag! October is the perfect month to share this tag, isn't it?  Just like Tammy, I'll be sharing a book I read recently and loved and one that's on my TBR for each category.  Without further ado, let's get to it! Vampire Read - Posthumous Education ( Fred, the Vampire Accountant #8) by Drew Hayes - This series has been amazing - and Fred is one of my favorite fictional vampires! If you haven't started reading this series yet, I can't recommend it enough especially on audio. On My TBR - Destined for an Early Grave ( Night Huntress #4) by Jeaniene Frost - I recently started reading this series after having it recommended to me several times.  I've really