Always Me

  Happy Thursday everyone!  I hope everyone's been staying healthy and happy.  I can't believe it's almost October already.  Anyway, that means that I've now completed 18 tasks of  Book Riot's 2021 Read Harder Challenge .  The tasks I completed this month required me to read a fat-positive romance  and  a book about a non-Western world leader.   I selected  Spoiler Alert  ( Spoiler Alert  #1) by Olivia Dade  and  The Woman Who Would Be King  by Kara Cooney .   Read on to see my mini reviews and what's coming up for October: ❋  ❋  ❋ Spoiler Alert  ( Spoiler Alert  #1) by Olivia Dade  is a cute romance with good characters.  I'll be the first to admit that romance isn't really my sort of thing at all.  Generally, I prefer minimal romance or romance that takes a backseat to the rest of plot.  This novel is primarily a romance, but I did like the geeky ...

    Happy Tuesday everyone!  Welcome to the Top Ten Tuesday now hosted by  That Artsy Reader Girl .  This week's topic is a freebie and I've decided to feature Completed YA Series I Want To Finish.  Each title in my list is the next book in the series that I need to jump into next.  Here we go, in alphabetical order by title: The Dark Days Deceit ( Lady Helen #3) by Alison Goodman The Dead-Tossed Waves ( The Forest of Hands and Teeth #2) by Carrie Ryan End of Days ( Penryn and the End of Days #3) by Susan Ee Hero at the Fall ( Rebel of the Sands #3) by Alywn Hamilton Like A River Glorious ( The Gold Seer Trilogy #2) by Rae Carson The Prey ( The Hunt #2) by Andrew Fukuda Ten Thousand Skies Above You ( Firebird #2) by Claudia Gray The Treatment ( The Program #2) by Suzanne Young UnSouled ( The Unwind Dystology #3) by Neal Shusterman The Winner's Crime ( The Winner's Trilogy #2) by Marie Rutkowski Have you completed any of these series?  Ha...

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!  This week I'm sharing a couple of my favorite tracks from Tim Janis .  I love this musician.  He composes all of his own original music and it's incredibly relaxing and peaceful.  If you like Howard Shore's music of the Shire for Lord of the Rings , I have a feeling you'll enjoy his style.  Give a listen to Sandpiper and Ever I Love You  down ...

Happy Sunday Funday everyone!  Today I'm featuring my TBR for the Magical Hop-A-Thon which runs the entire month of October and is hosted by Rachel ( @rachelceryx_xo ).  This sounds like it's going to be a really fun readathon that celebrates Disney World's 50th Anniversary.  You can check out Rachel's original announcement video here .  The goal is to read books to visit and then hop between the four Disney parks, if you wish.  To have a successful visit to each park you have to read four books by fulfilling the prompt for your park entrance ticket, visiting an attraction, eating a snack, and seeing a show.  You can try to read each prompt in each park or you can select one from each category.  My goal is to successfully visit all four parks by reading sixteen books.  No guarantees that I'll be able complete my goal, but I have picked out all of the books I'd like to get to for this challenge.  Keep reading to see my TBR for the Magical-Hop...

Happy Saturday everyone!  This September I've been following the Novice Path for the  Magical Readathon , hosted by  G. @ Book Roast .  The readathon is based around a magical academy (Orilium) and taking part in the Novice Path this month features our journey to the academy.  The character creation aspect (the Scholar's Key) of this readathon is open to complete up until April 2022.  You can come up with several aspects of your character's story yourself, but there are also 3 prompts to select some background elements.  This October I am going to work my way through those prompts and begin to focus a little more on creating my character for the main part the readathon coming in April 2022.  As of now, though, I'm hoping my character will be a dwarf who lives in an urban setting in the province of Daerune.  I don't know about you, but that sounds really cool to me.  Without further ado, keep reading to see the books I plan on reading as ...

On Friday's I take part in three 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 current Mythothon reads,  Dark Moon of Avalon  ( Twilight of Avalon  #2) by Anna Elliott .  The first book in this trilogy was absolutely fantastic and I'm so happy to be back in this world. Beginning:  Little now than the words remai...

❋   ❋  ❋   ❋ I received an ecopy from Reedsy Discovery in exchange for an honest review. What is a twelve year old girl to do when she finds herself in the silver boom town of Tombstone, Arizona, in 1880, and her only home is a brothel and her only parent is a drug-addicted mother? If she is Carissa Beaumont, she outsmarts the evil madam and figures a way out. After tricking the madam, Miss Lucille, into summoning a doctor for her mother, Lisette, she discovers that Miss Lucille has been drugging her. She and the kind doctor make a plan to try to save Lisette by dosing her down on the drug. Doctor Henderson tells Carissa that the only source for the drug is a Chinese immigrant named China Mary, who lives in Hoptown, at the other end of Tombstone. Carissa has no choice but to go to the powerful woman for help. Many say that China Mary is the one who really controls Tombstone. China Mary admires Carissa's brave spirit, and uses her influence to get her a job at the new G...

  Happy Tuesday everyone!  Welcome to the Top Ten Tuesday now hosted by  That Artsy Reader Girl .  This week's topic is Books on My Fall 2021 TBR.  This week my list will include a few ARCs and some challenge books I'll be reading for Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge and the Popsugar Reading Challenge .  Here we go, in alphabetical order by title: ARCs Alex McKenna and the Academy of Souls ( Alex McKenna #2) by Vicki-Ann Bush All of Us Villains ( All of Us Villains #1) by Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman The Return of the Pharaoh: From the Reminisces of John H. Watson, M.D. ( Nicholas Meyer Holmes Pastiches #5) by Nicholas Meyer A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow Year of the Reaper by Makiia Lucier Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge Notes From A Young Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi and Joshua David Stein The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf Popsugar Reading Challenge Fingersmith by Sarah Waters Guilty Pleasures ( Anita Blake, Vampire Hunt...

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!  This week I'm sharing a couple of my favorite songs from Olivia Rodrigo .  I wasn't particularly interested all that much when I first heard drivers license, but then I heard good 4 u and really like the sound of that.  I'm glad I decided to check out more of her music since then.  I think she's going to have quite a career ahead of her - I can...

On Friday's I take part in three 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 current Mythothon reads,  Master Assassins  ( The Fire Sacrament  #1) by Robert V.S. Redick .  I just happened to pick this up at Goodwill awhile back.  I hadn't heard of it before, but it sounds like it has a lot of potential. Beginn...

Happy Tuesday everyone!  Welcome to the Top Ten Tuesday now hosted by  That Artsy Reader Girl .  This week's topic is Books With Numbers In the Title.  Keep reading to see some of my favorites in alphabetical order: The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton The 13th Continuum ( The Continuum Trilogy #1) by Jennifer Brody Gideon the Ninth ( The Locked Tomb #1) by Tamsyn Muir Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore ( Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore #1)   by Robin Sloan Ninth House ( Alex Stern #1) by Leigh Bardugo The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid Six of Crows ( Six of Crows #1) by Leigh Bardugo The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow The Woman in Cabin 10  by Ruth Ware Zero World  by Jason M. Hough Have you read any of these books?  What are some of you favorite books with numbers in them?  As always, thanks for visiting my blog and perhaps even commenting down below!