“The Wedding Date” by Jasmine Guillory

This one has been receiving a lot of buzz lately. I listened to an interview featuring the author on First Draft Podcast and got curious enough to give the book a try.

Genre:

Romance; contemporary

Pubbed:

January 2018

Goodreads summary:

A groomsman and his last-minute guest are about to discover if a fake date can go the distance in a fun and flirty debut novel.

Agreeing to go to a wedding with a guy she gets stuck with in an elevator is something Alexa Monroe wouldn’t normally do. But there’s something about Drew Nichols that’s too hard to resist.

On the eve of his ex’s wedding festivities, Drew is minus a plus one. Until a power outage strands him with the perfect candidate for a fake girlfriend…

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“The Water Witch” by Juliet Dark

I completed the first book in the Fairwick Chronicles — The Demon Lover — in February and couldn’t wait long to jump into the second — The Water Witch.

These books are fluff reads with a slight dark side, and I love reading them! I enjoy the story and love the writing and am charmed by the setting. I get so swept up in the stories that I run through the books quickly.

Genre:

Paranormal/supernatural; romance

Pubbed:

September 2012

Goodreads summary:

After casting out a dark spirit, Callie McFay, a professor of Gothic literature, has at last restored a semblance of calm to her rambling Victorian house. But in the nearby thicket of the Honeysuckle Forest, and in the currents of the rushing Undine River, more trouble is stirring…

The enchanted town of Fairwick’s dazzling mix of mythical creatures has come under siege from the Grove: a sinister group of witches determined to banish the fey back to their ancestral land. With factions turning on one another, all are cruelly forced to take sides. Callie’s grandmother, a prominent Grove member, demands her granddaughter’s compliance, but half-witch/half-fey Callie can hardly betray her friends and colleagues at the college.

“Kintu” by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

Here’s the reason why I haven’t posted a review in a while: I’ve been procrastinating on Kintu. Not because I hated the book or because it’s bad. It’s because I enjoyed the book so much and got so much out of it that I needed time to process it all.

When I decided to sit and jot down some thoughts on it, I felt overwhelmed and indecisive. I didn’t know what to say, how much to say, or where to start. But I want to stop procrastinating on it and I want to urge everyone to read it, so as best as I can, I’ll just share what comes to mind as I think back on my reading experience with this book (and hope it all makes sense).

Genre:

Historical; literary; magical realism

Pubbed:

2014 in Uganda; 2017 in the U.S.

Goodreads summary:

Uganda’s history reimagined through the cursed bloodline of the Kintu clan in an award-winning debut.

In 1750, Kintu Kidda unleashes a curse that will plague his family for generations. In this ambitious tale of a clan and of a nation, Makumbi weaves together the stories of Kintu’s descendants as they seek to break from the burden of their shared past and reconcile the inheritance of tradition and the modern world that is their future. 

Weekend Reads #85: Book-to-Movie Adaptations – not everyone likes them; not everyone wants them

Weekend Reads is a weekly post in which I discuss a variety of topics and mention the books I’m currently reading.

This week’s topic:

Book-to-movie adaptations

Not everyone wants a book-to-movie adaptation to happen. But those who think this are few, fortunately…or unfortunately. The majority of us, me included, are open to seeing a beloved story told in another format or reimagined as something else.

From a reader/fan point of view, adaptations provide a new way for me to engage with the story and might even provide a fresh perspective. There’s much debate among book bloggers about how to approach adaptations, especially movie adaptations, which often doesn’t closely follow the source material.

Some peeps prefer to first read the book then see the movie so they can make comparisons or critique how closely the movie follows the book or simply understand what inspired the movie. Others, like me, prefer to read the book after seeing the show. Some people avoid this because watching the movie first spoils the book, but seeing the movie first makes me judge it a lot less harshly and stops me from becoming annoyed when I realize how much the movie had deviated from the book. I enjoy the movie more when I see it first, usual YA book-to-movie adaptations. Instead of focusing on the differences between the book and the movie, I just accept the movie for what it is.

Cake Flavored Book Tag

This is probably the fastest I’ve ever seen and done a book tag because I saw this on Rachel’s blog, Life of a Female Bibliophile, yesterday and BOOM! I post it today. 😀

I’d give myself a pat on the back if I could reach it, but I’m too lazy to stretch that far right now.

Anyway, I love me some cakes and books, so I thought “Hell yeah, I’ll do that cake flavor book tag!” I just wish I had some cake while I do it.

Chocolate: a dark book you absolutely love

That photo is actually of a chocolate tart, but I decided to use it because it makes my mouth water. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted a chocolate tart and that picture makes me think they’re scrumdiliumcious. I need one in my life!

The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

Down the TBR Hole #5: I Switch It Up Some

Here’s another edition of Down the TBR Hole, a meme created by Lia at Lost in a Story where we decide whether to keep or remove books on our TBR.

Since I have a lot of books on my Goodreads TBR (888 total at the time I’m writing this), which I use for this tag, I decided to switch it up and only include the books I’ll Kick Off my TBR. Otherwise, that would be a lot of books to include in this meme. I want to go through my TBR quicker because I’d really like to clear out the books I’m no longer interested in.

However, I wouldn’t say this is a final decision. A huge reason why I like this tag is because it gives me the opportunity to record on my blog the books I removed from my TBR, so I can look back on these posts months in the future and still choose one of these Kicked Off books to read, which, knowing myself, is totally possible.

The rules for Down the TBR Hole:

• Go to your goodreads to-read shelf.
• Order on ascending date added.
• Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books
• Read the synopses of the books
• Decide: keep it or should it go?

Batch #1

2017 Year in Review Book Tag

Here’s an interesting book tag created by booktuber Farah of A Booktube Book. She created a similar tag last year where she reviewed the major headlines of 2016 and use them to create book-related questions. The tag below is based on events that took place in 2017.

Note: I didn’t limit the books to just those I read in 2017 but most of them are.

First ever female Doctor Who: Favorite female protagonist

Velvet

The first answer to come to me was Velvet, the titular character in an espionage comic book series written by Ed Brubaker and illustrated by Steve Epting. Velvet works as a secretary at a covert agency, but only few know that she’s actually a spy. The story takes off when she’s framed for a colleague’s death.