In The Solarium

   Hello Bookworms and happy autumn! I am back with a monthly update since I actually read something in September.  In September I finished 7 books. Over My Dead Body  by Sweeney Boo. 5/5⭐️ Cackle  by Rachel Harrison.  5/5⭐️ Can't Spell Treason without Tea  by Rececca Thorne.  5/5⭐️ Back in a Spell  (ARC) by Lana Harper.  5/5⭐️ Shady Hollow  by Juneau Black.  5/5⭐️ In the Company of Witches  by Auralee Wallace.  5/5⭐️ Secretly Yours  (ARC) by Tessa Bailey. 4 /5⭐️ Favorite: Can't Spell Treason without Tea. Another cozy fantasy that was just so freaking cute! Least Favorite:  Secretly Yours . It wasn't bad, but I am not the biggest fan of romances to begin with.  ARC's: Only the two ARCs this month. I tried to work through my physical TBR list.  Currently, I am on a bit of a cozy mystery binge and am working my way through Gunpowder Green  by Laura Childs.  For October my main goal is to ju...

5/5  ⭐ *Potential spoilers ahead, read with care.  This was so much more than I could have ever imagined. It left me in a state for days after finishing where all I could do was think about it. It consumed me.  The Change  follows three women Nessa, Harriet, and Jo. All at different stages in their lives but come together with a common goal to right the wrongs that led to the death of an unidentified teen that the police seem keen to ignore.  Not all is well in this picturesque coastal town as the women dig deep and investigate they are met with threats, danger and new friends.    Nessa hears the voices of the dead, Harriet grows more than one might think in her wild gardens, and Jo can channel her anger and rage into something fiery. And together they force to be reckoned with that this town is just not ready for. These changes all come about with 'The Change' or menopause. Or if you are Blanche Devereaux, "The Curse."  I was cautiously optimisti...

5/5 ⭐ A run-down, falling-down house surrounded by the sea and a visiting family so fractured it’s a wonder if they are even related. Daisy Darker has died so many times. Ever since she was young with a heart too weak to beat properly. Her life has been one big question mark of when will it happen next. It’s no surprise that I was drawn to this one. The mere mentions of anything Agatha Christie inspired whatever has me interested. And I was not disappointed. This novel starts dark and gets darker as it plays out. One by one people start to die, clues and hints, and macabre poems are left for the remaining to find. Building the tension here is something Alice Feeney does masterfully. Blending beautifully tragic laced prose with delicate and deceiving dialogue left me on the edge of my seat the entire time I was reading. While familiar elements to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None were there, Feeney creates her own mystery masterpiece that is sure to please many. Thank you ...

5/5 ⭐ TBR: 9/6/22 And she is back with another bone-chilling, keep you up all night, make your heart pound horror. If you’ve been around you know that I love Darcy Coates' work. And any and every chance I get, I try to get a copy to read and review. When I saw that she was releasing a second novel this year I squealed and immediately when on the hunt for the arc. Enter Margot Hull, daughter of the recently deceased Hugh and Maria Hull, owners of the world-renowned Gallows Hill Winery. Margot knows little about her parents and her family as she was sent away at a young age and never went back until the day of the funeral. When she arrives at her old family home, secrets long buried come to light as Margot is forced to face the nightmares that curse the land. This is a slow burn tense and foreboding atmospheric masterpiece. And what I thought was going to be a ghost story turned out to be so much more, in the best way possible. This haunted house tale comes with it all. A tragic, blo...

5/5 ⭐ In this mind-blowing sequel to the equally amazing A Psalm for the Wild-Built , Chambers has once again made me stop to think and question things I had never considered before. I am relatively new to Becky Chamber’s work but so far I have loved everything I have been fortunate enough to read. Chamber’s has a way of writing that makes you feel exposed yet comforted in knowing that the thoughts and ideas that have been plaguing you are familiar to someone else as well. In Crown-Shy, Mosscap and Dex are journeying through towns and farmlands on their way into the City. Mosscap is given its chance to ask the question it’s been holding on to and Dex is able to finally get the bath they so desperately desire. There is more exploration of the question “What do people want?” and in turn that becomes what do people value and what is purpose. I think, similar to others that have read this, that seeing Dex and their dealings with burnout in relation to our current world and own feelings and...

💜 AHAHAHAHHAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHH Ahem. Sorry about that. I have a lot of feelings about this. A lot of them are just incoherent noises about how much I freaking loved this book. It was just freaking incredible. It is a comforting, warm cup of tea cozy sci-fi. First of all, we have Sibling Dex, our non-binary Tea Monk as our main character, who is in search of something. They don’t know what more they could want when they have everything they could have ever wanted. And I think a lot of us can relate to that. And while on the journey meets Mosscap, a robot who wants to know ‘what do people need?’. They decide to travel together and learn from each other. This story may not expand a lot on the why and how their reality became the way it did, which for some might be disappointing, but worked perfectly for me. Instead, this story focused on exploring one's self value, slowing down, and learning to just simply live. Cause that’s enough. Safe to say I am eagerly waiting for book 2. 5/31/22 *...

5/5 ⭐ A collogue of mine is the one that recommended this title to me, and boy was I not disappointed. If you’ve been around, you know that I am interested in sci-fi but have struggled to get into it for one reason or another. Finding something that wasn’t overwhelming, well balanced, and interesting enough to keep me hooked is hard to find. But I found it here. Where do I even begin? The dialogue. Let’s start there. It is so hecking hilarious, slightly over the top, but it never felt ingenuine to the characters. Or just there for shock value. It made them even more realistic and lovable. And boy, did I love those characters. Meeting the crew of the Wayfarer, Ashby, Kizzy, and Jenks, to name a few, were just the freaking best. I loved the characters, all of them. But I loved their relationships with each other even more. The love they shared for one another, familial and romantic, is heartwarming and touching. And so well done, I can't put it into words. All you really need to know...

  💜 Travis Baldree’s debut fantasy novel is not one to miss. I found this title through TikTok, from a fellow librarian I follow who couldn’t recommend it enough and I finally bit the bullet and ordered myself a copy. And let me just say, one of the best purchases I made. Ever. I saw one person describe this as a cozy fantasy and I couldn’t agree more. It is everything one could want in a low-stakes, slice-of-life fantasy story. It hits all the buttons and then some. The story follows Viv, a retired orc barbarian, tired of the adventurer life and looking to settle down and open a coffee shop in a little town that had never even heard of coffee. And while at first glance it looks like this will just be another coffee shop story with a fantasy background, it’s not. It is so much more. Baldree gives us elements of found family, the importance of old friendships, and building new relationships. And oof the relationships. I loved the quality of characters Baldree gave us. There weren’t...

5/5 ⭐ Darcy Coates is back with another enthralling, adrenaline-pumping, horror sure to keep you up at night. This time, we’re taken to sea as a group of adventure/treasure hunters are deep diving to the abandoned ship the SS Arcadia to hopefully find answers about what happened to it all those years ago. When I first saw that a new book by Coates was coming I knew I had to request it. Also, order it for my library but I digress. Instead of a dilapidated house or haunted graveyard, this time she takes us to the water and deep below its depths. A larger cast of characters also greets us and instead of the potential for a mess of too many POVs, she manages to make it flow perfectly and it never felt like we were getting jerked back and forth. The alternating timelines also helped to build the tension as we were slowly exposed to the events leading up to the demise of the ship and the shocking conclusion of the divers' own experiences. I love the way Coates creates an environment and ...

5/5 ⭐ I love Japanese mystery novels. I can't quite put my finger on it but they offer something that just appeals to me. That being said, of course, I had to read the first Kindaichi mystery! I have read the manga adaptation about his grandson called 'Kindaichi Case Files' (there are actually a few different series and even an anime) and that sort of spurred my interest in them but when I saw that it was being republished I had to read it. Because I am used to Kindaichi being referred to as a grandfather, I was pleasantly shocked to see him presented as a younger man with unkempt hair and semi disheveled clothes. I was amused at his habits of scratching at his head and his hair becoming even more unruly. His stutter that would become more prominent the more excited he got. It was fun. That's the best word for it. As for the story itself, I was hooked. I have always appreciated Japanese culture and history so the little details and explanations for what everything was v...

5/5 ⭐ It's hard to put into words what I was left feeling after finishing Almond. This was one that I had on my TBR list for a long time before I was given the chance to read it and once I started, I couldn't put it down. As a psychology student, I was vaguely familiar with the condition Yunjae had. It was something we had talked briefly about in my neuropsychology class when we were studying parts of the brain. But that was brief and only talked about it in a clinical sense. Reading Yunjae's thoughts and how he looked at things and how he 'felt' about things was fascinating. At times I laughed at his bluntness and how uninterested he seemed. Other times I cried for how sad he must have been without knowing how to feel. To grieve. I think it does raise the question is it ever a good thing to not feel emotions. To keep a clear head and not be reactive. And after reading this, I think the answer is no. To not feel is to not live. To not experience. And if anything Yun...

5/5 ⭐ 💜   Possible Spoilers - Read with care Whatever I expected before picking this one up was thrown out the window and obliterated. I had known that TJ Klune was a popular and well-written author. I knew that this book was going to be good. I just didn't realize how good it would be. There is something reassuring about his writing that doesn't drag you down into it or anything like that. Rather it welcomes you in, offers you something comforting, and invites you to stay. And that is an invitation you can't turn down. Because you don't want to. You want to sit and stay and feel every emotion and feeling he writes, the happy and the sad. Because it feels genuine. This is a story that talks about death at length and at points in vivid detail. It walks you through the five stages of grief in such a way that you almost forget that it is essential to the story. Not that it becomes insignificant, rather it happens so fluidly and naturally. It's never choppy or overly i...

5/5 ⭐ I have a fascination with the macabre, as many of us do. And I think that is part of why this one called to me. A former sanatorium turned chic hotel on a swiss mountain takes center stage where this drama was to take place. And boy what a drama it was. With quickly deteriorating weather conditions, Sarah Pearse takes us on a dark and twisted journey into the tragic past of the hotel. And her main character Elin who is struggling after a horrific ordeal at work. She gives trauma center stage as she presents the different ways her characters deal with it head-on and in the aftermath. It was refreshing to see it treated not as just an after-effect of an event but as something happening at the moment and how it can have such an impact on a person for years to come. The dynamics Pearse creates between her characters never felt forced or shallow. The differences between Elin and Isaac's sibling issues versus Cecile and Lucas's makes for an interesting comparison. The tragic ev...

5/5 ⭐ Based on the best-selling novel by the same name, this manga adaptation of the Decagon House Murders will keep you entrapped until the very end. I love a good mystery. It tends to be my go-to genre for reading. But there is something, just exciting about a mystery/thriller manga. I didn't hesitate to request this one when I saw it and I devoured it in one sitting. Opening up with the arrival at an island littered with tragedy, the introduction of the peculiar mystery club is nothing short of dramatic and attention-grabbing. The reveal that each member adopts the moniker of a famous mystery author made the story even more entertaining. This first volume focused on building the plot and introducing the cast of this mystery as well as a previous, unsolved mystery. The going back and forth between the members on the island and the two members that stayed behind and how the mysteries intertwined kept the plot moving and the reader engaged. Now for the art, It is amazing. I tend to...

  5/5 ⭐   Daniel is desperate for a job, and when he finally gets one that seems too good to be true he wonders if it's really all worth it. A groundskeeper position at a hidden, derelict mansion. Room and board included with only a few simple rules that he must follow. Could his luck really have turned around that quickly? Craven Manor is a falling down dilapidated old home with a crypt. The mysterious owner only communicating through letters and gold coins. A murder of crows lurking in the treetops and a cat watching his every move. Spooky much? This is a horror/supernatural story and I think is technically my first one in a pure horror genre and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I dislike horror movies and most scary entertainment but I devoured this story in a matter of days. Like two days. Not only is the story rich in description and detail, but the characters we are introduced to are also unique and so fascinating. Even though I wanted to wack Kyle upside the he...