en-US Tue, 22 Apr 2025 05:53:11 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 218572920 Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry.

Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years—or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century.

When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game.

One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over.

Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication.

Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition.

But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.

And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.]]> 427 Emily Henry Arden 0 to-read 4.40 2025
author: Emily Henry
name: Arden
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216247489 Subversive and unexpectedly heartwarming, Sky Daddy hijacks the classic love story, exploring desire, fate, and the longing to be accepted for who we truly are.

Linda is doing her best to lead a life that would appear normal to the casual observer. Weekdays, she earns $20 an hour moderating comments for a video-sharing platform, then rides the bus home to the windowless garage she rents on the outskirts of San Francisco. But on the last Friday of each month, she indulges in her true passion: taking BART to SFO for a round-trip flight to a regional hub. The destination is irrelevant because each trip means a new date with a handsome stranger—a stranger whose intelligent windscreens, sleek fuselages, and powerful engines make Linda feel a way that no human ever could.

Linda knows that she can’t tell anyone she’s sexually obsessed with planes—nor can she reveal her belief her destiny is to “marry�� one of her suitors by dying in a plane crash, thereby uniting her with her soulmate plane for eternity. But when an opportunity arises to hasten her dream of eternal partnership, and the carefully balanced elements of her life begin to spin out of control, she must choose between maintaining the trappings of normalcy and launching herself headlong toward the love she’s always dreamed of.]]> 368 Kate Folk 059323149X Arden 0 to-read 4.01 2025
author: Kate Folk
name: Arden
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58912892 GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK

"The Change is like a guttural rage scream (and somehow a soft, tearful hug) of a book, and I couldn't have loved it any more." --Emily Henry

Big Little Lies meets The Witches of Eastwick--a gloriously entertaining and knife-sharp revenge fantasy about three women whose midlife crisis brings unexpected new powers--putting them on a collision course with the evil that lurks in their wealthy beach town.

"A roar of rage, a pacy page-turner, I loved it with all my broken heart. Read it. You'll love it."--New York Times bestselling author Marian Keyes

"Miller triumphs...THE CHANGE is that rare a suspenseful story with great pacing, memorable characters, and an engaging voice. Fantastic in every way, this fierce anthem against misogyny is a smash."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A pointed, punchy, and potent thriller...wry and clever, serious and exacting, and masterfully suspenseful."--Booklist (starred review)

In the Long Island oceanfront community of Mattauk, three different women discover that midlife changes bring a whole new type of empowerment...

After Nessa James's husband dies and her twin daughters leave for college, she's left all alone in a trim white house not far from the ocean. In the quiet of her late forties, the former nurse begins to hear voices. It doesn't take long for Nessa to realize that the voices calling out to her belong to the dead--a gift she's inherited from her grandmother, which comes with special responsibilities.

On the cusp of 50, suave advertising director Harriett Osborne has just witnessed the implosion of her lucrative career and her marriage. She hasn't left her house in months, and from the outside, it appears as if she and her garden have both gone to seed. But Harriett's life is far from over--in fact, she's undergone a stunning and very welcome metamorphosis.

Ambitious former executive Jo Levison has spent thirty long years at war with her body. The free-floating rage and hot flashes that arrive with the beginning of menopause feel like the very last straw--until she realizes she has the ability to channel them, and finally comes into her power.

Guided by voices only Nessa can hear, the trio of women discover a teenage girl whose body was abandoned beside a remote beach. The police have written the victim off as a drug-addicted sex worker, but the women refuse to buy into the official narrative. Their investigation into the girl's murder leads to more bodies, and to the town's most exclusive and isolated enclave, a world of stupendous wealth where the rules don't apply. With their newfound powers, Jo, Nessa, and Harriett will take matters into their own hands...]]> 352 Kirsten Miller 0063144069 Arden 0 to-read 4.20 2022
author: Kirsten Miller
name: Arden
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 27208 The last of O'Brien's novels to be published, The Third Policeman joins O'Brien's other fiction (At Swim-Two-Birds, The Poor Mouth, The Hard Life, The Best of Myles, The Dalkey Archive) to ensure his place, along with James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, as one of Ireland's great comic geniuses.]]> 200 Flann O'Brien 156478214X Arden 0 to-read 4.00 1967
author: Flann O'Brien
name: Arden
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1967
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 54408033 436 Christopher Buehlman Arden 3 horror 4.24 2012
author: Christopher Buehlman
name: Arden
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: horror
review:

]]> 50706476 A new book of poetry from internationally acclaimed, award-winning and bestselling author Margaret Atwood

In���ٱ𲹰�����, Margaret Atwood’s first collection of poetry in over a decade, Atwood addresses themes such as love, loss, the passage of time, the nature of nature and - zombies. Her new poetry is introspective and personal in tone, but wide-ranging in topic. In poem after poem, she casts her unique imagination and unyielding, observant eye over the landscape of a life carefully and intuitively lived.


While many are familiar with Margaret Atwood’s fiction—including her groundbreaking and bestselling novels��The Handmaid’s Tale,��The Testaments,��Oryx and Crake, among others—she has, from the beginning of her career, been one of our most significant contemporary poets. And she is one of the very few writers equally accomplished in fiction and poetry.����This collection is a stunning achievement that will be appreciated by fans of her novels and poetry readers alike.]]> 124 Margaret Atwood 006303249X Arden 3 poetry 3.75 2020
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Arden
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/04
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: poetry
review:

]]> 55298364 A Children’s Bible follows a group of twelve eerily mature children on a forced vacation with their families at a sprawling lakeside mansion. Contemptuous of their parents, the children decide to run away when a destructive storm descends on the summer estate, embarking on a dangerous foray into the apocalyptic chaos outside. Lydia Millet’s prophetic and heartbreaking story of generational divide offers a haunting vision of what awaits us on the far side of Revelation.]]> 224 Lydia Millet 0393867382 Arden 3 dystopian A Children’s Bible is a story about climate change. The weather has been getting worse and disaster occurs, but the children are more equipped to handle the crisis than the adults who have created the problem. I would call this genre ‘apocalypse lite.��

Not a bad novel, but had nothing new to add to the conversation. I can already feel myself forgetting pieces of this story. ]]> 3.70 2020
author: Lydia Millet
name: Arden
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: dystopian
review:
A Children’s Bible is a story about climate change. The weather has been getting worse and disaster occurs, but the children are more equipped to handle the crisis than the adults who have created the problem. I would call this genre ‘apocalypse lite.��

Not a bad novel, but had nothing new to add to the conversation. I can already feel myself forgetting pieces of this story.
]]> 59851774 From John Darnielle, the New York Times bestselling author and the singer-songwriter of the Mountain Goats, comes an epic, gripping novel about murder, truth, and the dangers of storytelling.

Gage Chandler is descended from kings. That’s what his mother always told him when he was a child. Years later, he is a true crime writer, with one grisly success—and a movie adaptation—to his name, along with a series of subsequent less notable efforts. But now he is being offered the chance for the big break: to move into the house where a pair of briefly notorious murders occurred, apparently the work of disaffected teens during the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. Chandler finds himself in Milpitas, California, a small town whose name rings a bell—his closest childhood friend lived there, once upon a time. He begins his research into the murders with diligence and enthusiasm, but soon the story leads him into a puzzle he never expected—back into his own work and what it means, back to the very core of what he does and who he is.

Devil House is John Darnielle’s most ambitious work yet, a book that blurs the line between fact and fiction, that combines daring formal experimentation with a spellbinding tale of crime, writing, memory, and artistic obsession.]]> 411 John Darnielle 1250862884 Arden 4 Devil House has been done an extreme disservice by being marketed as “horror.�� So many readers have picked this novel up expecting something like Amityville Horror and have found themselves disappointed, frustrated or enraged. I understand why. I’m frustrated as well. Down to the retro horror novel cover and the blurb about an author moving into a haunted property, Devil House has been dressed in quite the misleading costume by its publisher.

Devil House is, in my opinion, an excellent novel. But it is not horror. It is an introspective piece of literary fiction, a somber blending of fictionalized true crime, Arthurian legend and American poverty.

It is an exploration, like many of Darnielle’s songs and other novels, of the stories we tell ourselves. And of why the telling matters. Devil House is built upon themes of found family, of belonging, of grief, guilt and remorse.

You will be kept guessing. But there is not a murder to solve or a crime to understand. There is, however, something to be understood about humanity, about what we look away from, what we can stomach to look in the eye, and the reckoning we must undertake to reconcile those two.

I really enjoyed this novel, I think other thoughtful readers will as well, and I will be thinking about it for some time to come!]]> 3.05 2022
author: John Darnielle
name: Arden
average rating: 3.05
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/01
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves:
review:
Devil House has been done an extreme disservice by being marketed as “horror.�� So many readers have picked this novel up expecting something like Amityville Horror and have found themselves disappointed, frustrated or enraged. I understand why. I’m frustrated as well. Down to the retro horror novel cover and the blurb about an author moving into a haunted property, Devil House has been dressed in quite the misleading costume by its publisher.

Devil House is, in my opinion, an excellent novel. But it is not horror. It is an introspective piece of literary fiction, a somber blending of fictionalized true crime, Arthurian legend and American poverty.

It is an exploration, like many of Darnielle’s songs and other novels, of the stories we tell ourselves. And of why the telling matters. Devil House is built upon themes of found family, of belonging, of grief, guilt and remorse.

You will be kept guessing. But there is not a murder to solve or a crime to understand. There is, however, something to be understood about humanity, about what we look away from, what we can stomach to look in the eye, and the reckoning we must undertake to reconcile those two.

I really enjoyed this novel, I think other thoughtful readers will as well, and I will be thinking about it for some time to come!
]]> 213618143 The brilliant detective Ana Dolabra may have finally met her match in the gripping sequel to The Tainted Cup—from the bestselling author of The Founders Trilogy.

In the canton of Yarrowdale, at the very edge of the Empire’s reach, an impossible crime has occurred. A Treasury officer has disappeared into thin air—abducted from his quarters while the door and windows remained locked from the inside, in a building whose entrances and exits are all under constant guard.

To solve the case, the Empire calls on its most brilliant and mercurial investigator, the great Ana Dolabra. At her side, as always, is her bemused assistant Dinios Kol.

Before long, Ana’s discovered that they’re not investigating a disappearance, but a murder—and that the killing was just the first chess move by an adversary who seems to be able to pass through warded doors like a ghost, and who can predict every one of Ana’s moves as though they can see the future.

Worse still, the killer seems to be targeting the high-security compound known as the Shroud. Here, the Empire's greatest minds dissect fallen Titans to harness the volatile magic found in their blood. Should it fall, the destruction would be terrible indeed—and the Empire itself will grind to a halt, robbed of the magic that allows its wheels of power to turn.

Din has seen Ana solve impossible cases before. But this time, with the stakes higher than ever and Ana seemingly a step behind their adversary at every turn, he fears that his superior has finally met an enemy she can’t defeat.]]> 465 Robert Jackson Bennett 0593723821 Arden 0 to-read 4.55 2025
author: Robert Jackson Bennett
name: Arden
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217388302 DELUXE EDITION—a gorgeous hardcover edition featuring bright green sprayed edges, a foil stamp on the casing, and custom endpapers illustrated by the author.

From New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award-winning author T. Kingfisher comes Hemlock & Silver, a dark reimagining of “Snow White�� steeped in poison, intrigue, and treason of the most magical kind

Healer Anja regularly drinks poison.

Not to die, but to save—seeking cures for those everyone else has given up on.

But a summons from the King interrupts her quiet, herb-obsessed life. His daughter, Snow, is dying, and he hopes Anja’s unorthodox methods can save her.

Aided by a taciturn guard, a narcissistic cat, and a passion for the scientific method, Anja rushes to treat Snow, but nothing seems to work. That is, until she finds a secret world, hidden inside a magic mirror. This dark realm may hold the key to what is making Snow sick.

Or it might be the thing that kills them all.]]> 368 T. Kingfisher 1250342031 Arden 0 to-read 4.32 2025
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Arden
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211004837 Hipnotyzująca opowieść o ambicji, przetrwaniu i kobiecej sile w świecie, gdzie jedno błędne słowo może oznaczać śmierć.

Złoty Wiek. Hiszpania. W nędznym domu, na nędznej ulicy, w nowej stolicy �� Madrycie �� mieszka Luzia Cotado, która wykorzystuje swoje magiczne zdolności, by przetrwać ciężki los pomywaczki. Gdy inni odkrywają jej moc, dziewczyna zostaje wciągnięta w świat arystokratycznych intryg, gdzie może stać się pionkiem w grze o władzę�� lub jego królową.

Jej pokazy początkowo są zwykłą rozrywką dla znudzonej elity. Wkrótce sprawy jednak przybierają niebezpieczny obrót, gdy Luzia przyciąga uwagę Antonio Péreza �� obdarzonego złą sławą sekretarza hiszpańskiego króla. Król wciąż próbuje się podnieść po druzgocącej porażce swojej armii, ale nie ustaje w wysiłkach, by zdobyć przewagę nad Anglią. A Pérez, pragnący odzyskać zaufanie i przychylność króla, nie cofnie się przed niczym.

Zdeterminowana, by wykorzystać swoją jedyną szansę na lepsze życie, Luzia rzuca się w świat proroków, alchemistów, świętych, handlarzy, w wir magii, nauki i oszustwa. Ale wraz z rozgłosem przychodzi niebezpieczeństwo, że jej istnienie przyciągnie gniew inkwizytorów. Luzia będzie musiała użyć całego swojego sprytu i siły, by przetrwać �� nawet jeżeli oznacza to zasięgnięcie pomocy u Guilléna Santagnela, zgorzkniałego nieśmiertelnika, którego własne sekrety mogą doprowadzić do śmierci ich obojga.]]> 400 Leigh Bardugo 1250884276 Arden 0 to-read 3.90 2024
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Arden
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211051861 If you find your way here, you’re already lost.

Inside
A year ago Sophie Wickham stumbled into the isolated Lancashire village of Withered Hill, naked, alone and with no memory of who she is.

Surrounded by a thick ring of woodland, its inhabitants seem to be of another world, drenched in pagan, folklorish traditions.

As Sophie struggles to regain the memories of her life from before, she quickly realises she is a prisoner after multiple failed escape attempts. But is it the locals who keep her trapped, with smiles on their faces, or something else, lurking in the woods?

Outside
In London, Sophie leads a chaotic life, with too many drunken nights, inappropriate men and boring temp jobs. But things take a turn as she starts to be targeted by strange messages warning her that someone, or something, is coming for her.

With no idea who to trust, or where to turn for help, the messages become more insistent and more intimidating, urging Sophie to make her way to a place called Withered Hill��

An utterly bewitching, dual timeline folk horror novel, with a truly devastating twist you have to read to believe.]]> 337 David Barnett 1804367575 Arden 0 to-read 4.13 2024
author: David Barnett
name: Arden
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 200982373 Once upon a time, Andrew had cut out his heart and given it to this boy, and he was very sure Thomas had no idea that Andrew would do anything for him. Protect him. Lie for him.

Kill for him.

High school senior Andrew Perrault finds refuge in the twisted fairytales that he writes for the only person who can ground him to reality―Thomas Rye, the boy with perpetually ink-stained hands and hair like autumn leaves. And with his twin sister, Dove, inexplicably keeping him at a cold distance upon their return to Wickwood Academy, Andrew finds himself leaning on his friend even more.

But something strange is going on with Thomas. His abusive parents have mysteriously vanished, and he arrives at school with blood on his sleeve. Thomas won't say a word about it, and shuts down whenever Andrew tries to ask him questions. Stranger still, Thomas is haunted by something, and he seems to have lost interest in his artwork―whimsically macabre sketches of the monsters from Andrew's wicked stories.

Desperate to figure out what's wrong with his friend, Andrew follows Thomas into the off-limits forest one night and catches him fighting a nightmarish monster―Thomas's drawings have come to life and are killing anyone close to him. To make sure no one else dies, the boys battle the monsters every night. But as their obsession with each other grows stronger, so do the monsters, and Andrew begins to fear that the only way to stop the creatures might be to destroy their creator...]]> 336 C.G. Drews 1250895669 Arden 0 to-read 4.11 2024
author: C.G. Drews
name: Arden
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 22609310
For once, Auburn takes a chance and puts her heart in control, only to discover that Owen is hiding a huge secret. The magnitude of his past threatens to destroy everything Auburn loves most, and the only way to get her life back on track is to cut Owen out of it—but can she do it?]]> 306 Colleen Hoover 1476791457 Arden 2 contemporary-romance
But unfortunately, Miss Hoover's work is just not to my taste. After reading Ugly Love, and hating it, I should have known. I should have stayed away. But everyone seems to love her books! There is so much praise! The blurbs are always so tempting, like candy!

So, I tried Confess. *Sigh* Where do I even begin?

I could not take the plot seriously. Hoover has a revolting tendency to sensationalize tragedy. I honestly would not be surprised if she has tragic backstories pinned up wheel-of-fortune style, and just gives it a spin each time she decides to write a new novel. They are that unbelievable. And really, playing wheel-of-fortune with people's lives pretty accurately describes how much tact she employs when handling the emotional malatov-cocktails she cooks up. It always seems more like I'm watching a Lifetime drama, than reading about some delicate and emotionally traumatic affair. Situations like [spoilers removed] are serious topics, not to be trifled with unless it is with a delicate, respectful touch and an understanding mindset. These are heartbreaking realities for many people, and they need to be handled concordantly. Hoover does not seem capable of this.

But even disregarding this, what bothered me most when reading this novel, what I could not seem to get past, was my complete and utter detachment from the characters. I could not care for them. Hoover sets up our protagonists as victims. They are never the sort to stray into moral grey areas. Even if it seems like they've made a bad choice, don't worry, it was for a sickeningly good reason! Like saving a cancer patient or solving world hunger or something. Despite what they might claim, they are never selfish, never rude, never feel disgust at babies or anger at waiters that serve the wrong food, god-forbid. And even if they are painted like assholes at first, don't worry because they are always good people in the end. They had absolutely no control over the dark circumstances of their past, and they're just unfortunate victims of circumstance, completely absolved of any blame. Honestly, I just could not seem them as real people?! It was absurd.

If I try to read another Colleen Hoover novel, someone please hit me. I think those two stars might be too generous.]]> 4.14 2015
author: Colleen Hoover
name: Arden
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2017/02/22
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: contemporary-romance
review:
I wanted to like this book. I really did. He's a swoon worthy artist and she's a girl with a tragic past. I could totally get into that!

But unfortunately, Miss Hoover's work is just not to my taste. After reading Ugly Love, and hating it, I should have known. I should have stayed away. But everyone seems to love her books! There is so much praise! The blurbs are always so tempting, like candy!

So, I tried Confess. *Sigh* Where do I even begin?

I could not take the plot seriously. Hoover has a revolting tendency to sensationalize tragedy. I honestly would not be surprised if she has tragic backstories pinned up wheel-of-fortune style, and just gives it a spin each time she decides to write a new novel. They are that unbelievable. And really, playing wheel-of-fortune with people's lives pretty accurately describes how much tact she employs when handling the emotional malatov-cocktails she cooks up. It always seems more like I'm watching a Lifetime drama, than reading about some delicate and emotionally traumatic affair. Situations like [spoilers removed] are serious topics, not to be trifled with unless it is with a delicate, respectful touch and an understanding mindset. These are heartbreaking realities for many people, and they need to be handled concordantly. Hoover does not seem capable of this.

But even disregarding this, what bothered me most when reading this novel, what I could not seem to get past, was my complete and utter detachment from the characters. I could not care for them. Hoover sets up our protagonists as victims. They are never the sort to stray into moral grey areas. Even if it seems like they've made a bad choice, don't worry, it was for a sickeningly good reason! Like saving a cancer patient or solving world hunger or something. Despite what they might claim, they are never selfish, never rude, never feel disgust at babies or anger at waiters that serve the wrong food, god-forbid. And even if they are painted like assholes at first, don't worry because they are always good people in the end. They had absolutely no control over the dark circumstances of their past, and they're just unfortunate victims of circumstance, completely absolved of any blame. Honestly, I just could not seem them as real people?! It was absurd.

If I try to read another Colleen Hoover novel, someone please hit me. I think those two stars might be too generous.
]]> 55868456 Two warriors shepherd an ancient god across a broken land to end the tyrannical reign of a royal family in this new epic fantasy from the author of The Vanished Birds.

The people suffer under the centuries-long rule of the Moon Throne. The royal family—the despotic emperor and his monstrous sons, the Three Terrors—hold the countryside in their choking grip. They bleed the land and oppress the citizens with the frightful powers they inherited from the god locked under their palace.

But that god cannot be contained forever.

With the aid of Jun, a guard broken by his guilt-stricken past, and Keema, an outcast fighting for his future, the god escapes from her royal captivity and flees from her own children, the triplet Terrors who would drag her back to her unholy prison. And so it is that she embarks with her young companions on a five-day pilgrimage in search of freedom—and a way to end the Moon Throne forever. The journey ahead will be more dangerous than any of them could have imagined.

Both a sweeping adventure story and an intimate exploration of identity, legacy, and belonging, The Spear Cuts Through Water is an ambitious and profound saga that will transport and transform you—and is like nothing you’ve ever read before.
]]> 525 Simon Jimenez 0593156595 Arden 0 to-read 4.17 2022
author: Simon Jimenez
name: Arden
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 221473209 The first book in Maggie Stiefvater's��#1 NYT bestselling series The Raven Cycle, now gorgeously illustrated as a graphic novel!

Blue Sargent comes from a family of psychics. Only, she has never had the same clairvoyant abilities they had and has always felt too ordinary within the magic that surrounded her. Enter Gansey, a rich student from Aglionby, the town’s all-boys private school teeming with wealth, privilege, and trouble. Blue's always made it a point to stay away from its students, the Raven Boys.

But when Gansey asks her to join him and three other Raven Boys on his quest to find a long-forgotten Welsh king rumored to be sleeping beneath the mountains of their quiet Virginia town, Blue doesn’t hesitate. She jumps at the chance to finally be a part of something real and full of magic, a world she was born into yet one that always stood just out of reach. Soon enough, she’s swept into a strange and shifting world woven into theirs, one far more dangerous than anything they could have dreamt up.

Now reimagined as a stunning full-color graphic novel adapted by Stephanie Williams and illustrated by Sas Milledge, The Raven Boys unravels a thrilling plot around a cast of characters impossible to forget.]]> 256 Stephanie Williams 0593621182 Arden 0 to-read 4.33 2025
author: Stephanie Williams
name: Arden
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 218559595 Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry.

Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years--or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century.

When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game.

One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over.

Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication

Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition.

But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.

And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.]]> 432 Emily Henry Arden 0 to-read 4.22 2025
author: Emily Henry
name: Arden
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61150781 Squid Game meets The Left Hand of Darkness meets Under the Skin in this radical literary sensation from South Korea about an alien's hunt for food that transforms into an existential crisis about what it means to be human.

After crashing their spacecraft in the middle of nowhere, a shapeshifting alien find themself stranded on an unfamiliar planet and disabled by Earth's gravity. To survive, they will need to practice walking. And what better way than to hunt for food? As they discover, humans are delicious.

Intelligent, clever, and adaptable, the alien shift their gender, appearance, and conduct to suit a prey's sexual preference, then attack at the pivotal moment of their encounter. They use a variety of hunting tools, including a popular dating app, to target the juiciest prey and carry a backpack filled with torturous instruments and cleaning equipment. But the alien's existence begins to unravel one night when they fail to kill their latest meal.

Thrust into an ill-fated chase across the city, the alien is confronted with the psychological and physical tolls their experience on Earth has taken. Questioning what they must do to sustain their own survival, they begin to understand why humans also fight to live. But their hunger is insatiable, and the alien once again targets a new prey, not knowing what awaits. . . .

Dolki Min's haunting debut novel is part psychological thriller, part searing critique of the social structures that marginalize those who are different--the disabled, queer, and nonconformist. Walking Practice uncovers humanity in who we consider to be alien, and illuminates how alienation can shape the human experience.

Walking Practice features 21 black-and-white line drawings throughout.

Translated from the Korean by Victoria Caudle]]> 166 Dolki Min 0063258617 Arden 0 to-read 3.62 2022
author: Dolki Min
name: Arden
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 333766
It stands unconquered, the last great summit of the Alps. Only one man has ever dared to approach the top, and that man died in his pursuit. He was Josef Matt, Rudi Matt's father.

At sixteen, Rudi is determined to pay tribute to the man he never knew, and complete the quest that claimed his father's life. And so, taking his father's red shirt as a flag, he heads off to face the earth's most challenging peak. But before Rudi can reach the top, he must pass through the forbidden Fortress, the gaping chasm in the high reaches of the Citadel where his father met his end. Rudi has followed Josef's footsteps as far as they will take him. Now he must search deep within himself to find the strength for the final ascent to the summit—to plant his banner in the sky.

His father died while trying to climb Switzerland's greatest mountain—the Citadel—and young Rudi knows he must make the assault himself.]]> 288 James Ramsey Ullman 0064470482 Arden 4 thanks-english-class 3.85 1954
author: James Ramsey Ullman
name: Arden
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1954
rating: 4
read at: 2008/01/01
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: thanks-english-class
review:

]]> 53629 270 Dương Thu Hương 0060505591 Arden 4 thanks-english-class 3.78 1988
author: Dương Thu Hương
name: Arden
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1988
rating: 4
read at: 2018/01/01
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: thanks-english-class
review:

]]> 4671 The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald’s family and from his lifelong publisher.

This edition is the enduring original text, updated with the author’s own revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and with a new introduction by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward.

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published by Scribner in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.]]> 180 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0743273567 Arden 4 lit-fic, thanks-english-class 3.93 1925
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Arden
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1925
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/13
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: lit-fic, thanks-english-class
review:

]]> 123183412
This commitment to authenticity has never been more on display than in Down the Drain . With writing that is both eloquent and accessible, Fox recounts her turbulent path to cultural her parents�� volatile relationship that divided her childhood between Italy and New York City and left her largely raising herself; a possessive and abusive drug-dealing boyfriend whose torment continued even from within Rikers Island; her own trips to jail as well as to a psychiatric hospital; her work as a dominatrix that led to a complicated entanglement with a sugar daddy; a heroin habit that led to New Orleans trap houses and that she would kick only after the fatal overdose of her best friend; her own near-lethal overdoses and the deaths of still more friends from drugs and suicide; an emotionally explosive, tabloid-dominating romance with a figure she dubs “The Artist��; a whirlwind, short-lived marriage and her trials as a single parent striving to support her young son. Yet as extraordinary as her story is, its universality is what makes it so powerful. Fox doesn’t just capture her improbable evolution from grade-school outcast to fashion-world icon, she captures her transition from girlhood to womanhood to motherhood. Family and friendship, sex and death, violence and love, money and power, innocence and experience—it’s all here, in raw, remarkable and riveting detail.

More than a year before the book’s publication, Fox’s description of it as “a masterpiece�� in a red carpet interview went viral. As always, she was just being honest. Down the Drain is a true literary achievement, as one-of-a-kind as its author.]]> 318 Julia Fox 1668011506 Arden 4 memoir
She has seemingly done it all--forged counterfeit currency, overcome drug addiction, fled a foreign country, collected her own missing posters, dated famous musicians... The list is never ending! She is a compelling woman. Motivational. Hilarious. Passionate. And a good writer!

In her memoir, Fox shares about her background in creative writing and that comes across on the page. Unlike many of her contemporaries, I can actually believe she wrote this novel without a ghost writer. And she did a wonderful job! I wish her nothing but success in her future creative projects. She's earned it!]]> 4.38 2023
author: Julia Fox
name: Arden
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: memoir
review:
Julia Fox makes me feel like either: 1) I have led quite the boring life, or 2) she may be one the most interesting people you will ever have the pleasure of meeting.

She has seemingly done it all--forged counterfeit currency, overcome drug addiction, fled a foreign country, collected her own missing posters, dated famous musicians... The list is never ending! She is a compelling woman. Motivational. Hilarious. Passionate. And a good writer!

In her memoir, Fox shares about her background in creative writing and that comes across on the page. Unlike many of her contemporaries, I can actually believe she wrote this novel without a ghost writer. And she did a wonderful job! I wish her nothing but success in her future creative projects. She's earned it!
]]> 29939268
Jeremy works at the counter of Video Hut in Nevada, Iowa. It’s a small town—the first “a�� in the name is pronounced ay—smack in the center of the state. This is the late 1990s, pre-DVD, and the Hollywood Video in Ames poses an existential threat to Video Hut. But there are regular customers, a predictable rush in the late afternoon. It’s good enough for Jeremy: It’s a job; it’s quiet and regular; he gets to watch movies; he likes the owner, Sarah Jane; it gets him out of the house, where he and his dad try to avoid missing Mom, who died six years ago in a car wreck.

But when Stephanie Parsons, a local schoolteacher, comes in to return her copy of Targets, starring Boris Karloff—an old movie, one Jeremy himself had ordered for the store—she has an odd complaint: “There’s something on it,�� she says, but doesn’t elaborate. Two days later, Lindsey Redinius brings back She’s All That, a new release, and complains that there’s something wrong with it: “There’s another movie on this tape.��

So Jeremy takes a look. And indeed, in the middle of the movie the screen blinks dark for a moment and She’s All That is replaced by a black-and-white scene, shot in a barn, with only the faint sounds of someone breathing. Four minutes later, She’s All That is back. But there is something profoundly disturbing about that scene; Jeremy’s compelled to watch it three or four times. The scenes recorded onto Targets are similar, undoubtedly created by the same hand. Creepy. And the barn looks a lot like a barn just outside of town.

Jeremy doesn’t want to be curious. In truth, it freaks him out, deeply. This has gone far enough, maybe too far already. But Stephanie is pushing, and once Sarah Jane takes a look and becomes obsessed, there’s no more ignoring the disturbing scenes on the videos. And all of a sudden, what had once been the placid, regular old Iowa fields and farmhouses now feels haunted and threatening, imbued with loss and instability and profound foreboding. For Jeremy, and all those around him, life will never be the same . . .]]> 214 John Darnielle 0374282102 Arden 4 horror 3.18 2017
author: John Darnielle
name: Arden
average rating: 3.18
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/31
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: horror
review:

]]> 58510253
Mercy never has a moment to herself. She’s been single-handedly keeping Birdsall & Son Undertakers afloat in defiance of sullen jerks like Hart, who seems to have a gift for showing up right when her patience is thinnest.

After yet another exasperating run-in with Mercy, Hart finds himself penning a letter addressed simply to “A Friend��. Much to his surprise, an anonymous letter comes back in return, and a tentative friendship is born.

If only Hart knew he’s been baring his soul to the person who infuriates him most �� Mercy. As the dangers from Tanria grow closer, so do the unlikely correspondents. But can their blossoming romance survive the fated discovery that their pen pals are their worst nightmares �� each other?]]> 449 Megan Bannen 0356518655 Arden 4 4.04 2022
author: Megan Bannen
name: Arden
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/05
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves:
review:

]]> 75302266 Angharad—Emrys Myrddin’s epic about a mortal girl who falls in love with the Fairy King, then destroys him—is the only thing keeping her afloat. So when Myrddin’s family announces a contest to redesign the late author’s estate, Effy feels certain it’s her destiny.

But musty, decrepit Hiraeth Manor is an impossible task, and its residents are far from welcoming. Including Preston Héloury, a stodgy young literature scholar determined to expose Myrddin as a fraud. As the two rivals piece together clues about Myrddin’s legacy, dark forces, both mortal and magical, conspire against them—and the truth may bring them both to ruin.]]> 378 Ava Reid 0063211505 Arden 4 gothic 3.73 2023
author: Ava Reid
name: Arden
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: gothic
review:

]]> 224103430 The new novel from the bestselling author of If We Were Villains and Graveyard Shift—a vivid and immersive tale of one woman’s reckless mission to make sense of the events that shattered her childhood, and made her who she is

Summer, 1989: ten-year-old Suzanne is drawn like a magnet to her father’s forbidden world of electric guitars and tricked-out cars. When her mother remarries, she jumps at the chance to tag along on the concert tour that just might be Gil and the Kills�� wild ride to glory. But fame has sharper fangs than anybody realized, and as the band blazes up the charts, internal power struggles set Gil and his group on a collision course destined for a bloody reckoning—one shrouded in mystery and lore for decades to come.

The only witness to a desperate act of violence, Suzanne spends the next twenty-nine years trying to disappear. She trades the music and mayhem of her youth for the quiet of the suburbs and the company of her mild-mannered husband Rob. But when her father’s sudden death resurrects the troubled past she tried so hard to bury, she leaves it all behind and hits the road in search of answers. Hitching her fate and Gil’s beloved car to two vagabonds who call an old Airstream trailer home, she finds everything she thought she’d lost desire, adventure, and the woman she once wanted to be. But Rob refuses to let her go. Determined to bring her back where she belongs, he chases her across the country—and drives her to a desperation all her own.

Drenched in knock-down drag-out rock and roll, Hot Wax is a raucous, breakneck ride to hell and back—where getting lost might be the only way to find yourself and save your soul.]]> 400 M.L. Rio 1668070022 Arden 0 to-read 4.13 2025
author: M.L. Rio
name: Arden
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217313011
In Daretana’s greatest mansion, a high imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree erupted from his body. Even here at the Empire’s borders, where contagions abound and the blood of the leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death both terrifying and impossible.

Assigned to investigate is Ana Dolabra, a detective whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities. Rumor has it that she wears a blindfold at all times, and that she can solve impossible cases without even stepping outside the walls of her home.

At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol, magically altered in ways that make him the perfect aide to Ana’s brilliance. Din is at turns scandalized, perplexed, and utterly infuriated by his new superior—but as the case unfolds and he watches Ana’s mind leap from one startling deduction to the next, he must admit that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.

As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.

By an “endlessly inventive�� (Vulture) author with a “wicked sense of humor�� (NPR), The Tainted Cup mixes the charms of detective fiction with brilliant world-building to deliver a fiendishly clever mystery that’s at once instantly recognizable and thrillingly new.]]> 432 Robert Jackson Bennett 1984820710 Arden 0 to-read 4.37 2024
author: Robert Jackson Bennett
name: Arden
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217387837 Set in the unforgiving maw of the Rocky Mountains, Nowhere Burning is the latest harrowing novel from bestselling author Catriona Ward, perfect for fans of Riley Sager and the hit series Yellowjackets.

A refuge for lost children may also be their prison.

In the middle of the night, Riley pulls her younger brother Oliver out of bed, and the two run away from home. Riley is intent on joining a group of teenagers squatting in the abandoned ruins of an infamous movie star’s ranch, Nowhere. For actor Leaf Winham, Nowhere was a place to hide from his fame, and to hide his crimes―until a fire ravaged his home and exposed him as a murderer.

It is rumored that the ranch nestled in the peaks of the Rocky Mountains is now home to group of feral children, a place where adults cannot enter, and Riley hopes to find a new family there. But the Nowhere Kids are fierce in defending their turf and their clan, and Riley quickly realizes that while she and Oliver may have left the devil they knew, this group is a new type of diabolical.

For something dark lives in the burned shell of Nowhere, something which asks a terrible price for sanctuary...]]> 304 Catriona Ward 1250860059 Arden 0 to-read 5.00 2025
author: Catriona Ward
name: Arden
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 213243955 An unforgettable dark fairy tale that asks, Can love save us from ourselves?

Birdie’s keeping it together; of course she is. So she’s a little hungover sometimes, and she has to bring her daughter, Emaleen, to her job waiting tables at an Alaskan roadside lodge, but she’s getting by as a single mother in a tough town. Still, Birdie can remember happier times from her youth, when she was free in the wilds of nature.

Arthur Neilsen, a soft-spoken and scarred recluse who appears in town only at the change of seasons, brings Emaleen back to safety when she gets lost in the woods. Most people avoid him, but to Birdie he represents everything she’s ever longed for. She finds herself falling for Arthur and the land he knows so well. Against the warnings of those who care about them, Birdie and Emaleen move to his isolated cabin in the mountains on the far side of the Wolverine River.

It’s just the three of them in the vast black woods, far from roads, telephones, electricity, and outside contact, but Birdie believes she has come prepared. At first, it’s idyllic, but soon Birdie discovers that Arthur is something much more mysterious and dangerous than she could have imagined, and that like the Alaska wilderness, a fairy tale can be as dark as it is beautiful.]]> 306 Eowyn Ivey 0593231023 Arden 0 to-read 3.69 2025
author: Eowyn Ivey
name: Arden
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217582926 From New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award-winning author T. Kingfisher comes Hemlock & Silver, a dark reimagining of “Snow White�� steeped in poison, intrigue, and treason of the most magical kind.

Healer Anja regularly drinks poison.

Not to die, but to save�� seeking cures for those everyone else has given up on.

But a summons from the King interrupts her quiet, herb-obsessed life. His daughter, Snow, is dying, and he hopes Anja’s unorthodox methods can save her.

Aided by a taciturn guard, a narcissistic cat, and a passion for the scientific method, Anja rushes to treat Snow, but nothing seems to work. That is, until she finds a secret world, hidden inside a magic mirror. This dark realm may hold the key to what is making Snow sick.

Or it might be the thing that kills them all.]]> 368 T. Kingfisher 125034204X Arden 0 to-read 4.13 2025
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Arden
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 219551319 A woman who wields magical tarot cards lands herself in a false engagement with the headmaster of a mysterious academy in this first installment of an enthralling romantasy series from the bestselling author of A Deal with the Elf King.

Clara Graysword has survived the underworld of Eclipse City through thievery, luck, and a whole lot of illegal magic. After a job gone awry, Clara is sentenced to a lifetime in prison for inking tarot cards-a rare power reserved for practitioners at the elite Arcana Academy.

Just when it seems her luck has run dry, the academy's enigmatic headmaster, Prince Kaelis, offers her an escape-for a price. Kaelis believes that Clara is the perfect tool to help him steal a tarot card from the king and use it to re-create an all-powerful card long lost to time.

In order to conceal her identity and keep her close, Kaelis brings Clara to Arcana Academy, introducing her as the newest first-year student and his bride-to-be.

Thrust into a world of arcane magic and royal intrigue, where one misstep will send her back to prison or worse, Clara finds that the prince she swore to hate may not be what he seems. But can she risk giving him power over the world-and her heart? Or will she take it for herself?]]> 576 Elise Kova 0593726340 Arden 0 to-read 4.36 2025
author: Elise Kova
name: Arden
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 17742 198 M. John Harrison 1597800406 Arden 0 to-read 3.88 1992
author: M. John Harrison
name: Arden
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 212276037 A brand-new epic fantasy from New York Times bestselling author Joe Abercrombie, featuring a notorious band of anti-heroes on a delightfully bloody and raucous journey

Holy work sometimes requires unholy deeds.

Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Sacred City, where he is certain a commendation and grand holy assignment awaits him. But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters. The mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures from them all in order to achieve its righteous ends.

Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions and comfort. With a hellish journey before him, it's a good thing Brother Diaz has the devils on his side]]> 560 Joe Abercrombie 125088005X Arden 0 to-read 4.44 2025
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Arden
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 39090430
Our life is brief . . .

Sasha Samokhina has been accepted to the Institute of Special Technologies.

Or, more precisely, she’s been chosen.

Situated in a tiny village, she finds the students are bizarre, and the curriculum even more so. The books are impossible to read, the lessons obscure to the point of maddening, and the work refuses memorization. Using terror and coercion to keep the students in line, the school does not punish them for their transgressions and failures; instead, it is their families that pay a terrible price. Yet despite her fear, Sasha undergoes changes that defy the dictates of matter and time; experiences which are nothing she has ever dreamed of . . . and suddenly all she could ever want.

A complex blend of adventure, magic, science, and philosophy that probes the mysteries of existence, filtered through a distinct Russian sensibility, this astonishing work of speculative fiction—brilliantly translated by Julia Meitov Hersey—is reminiscent of modern classics such as Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, Max Barry’s Lexicon, and Katherine Arden’s The Bear and the Nightingale, but will transport them to a place far beyond those fantastical worlds.]]> 417 Marina Dyachenko Arden 0 to-read 3.98 2007
author: Marina Dyachenko
name: Arden
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 16054217 The #1 New York Times bestselling series finale and sequel to A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night

Bringing the magic and suspense of the All Souls Trilogy to a deeply satisfying conclusion, this highly anticipated finale went straight to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. In The Book of Life, Diana and Matthew time-travel back from Elizabethan London to make a dramatic return to the present—facing new crises and old enemies. At Matthew’s ancestral home, Sept-Tours, they reunite with the beloved cast of characters from A Discovery of Witches—with one significant exception. But the real threat to their future has yet to be revealed, and when it is, the search for Ashmole 782 and its missing pages takes on even more urgency.]]> 561 Deborah Harkness 0670025593 Arden 2 4.15 2014
author: Deborah Harkness
name: Arden
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 220999062 A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

Daphne always loved the way her fiancé, Peter, told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it... right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.

Which is how Daphne begins her new story: stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.

Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned-up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex... right?]]> 416 Emily Henry 0593441214 Arden 0 to-read 4.21 2024
author: Emily Henry
name: Arden
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 49083140
Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol, and extreme cinema. The news triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centred around Irina’s relationship with her obsessive best friend, and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention��

Boy Parts is the incendiary debut novel from Eliza Clark, a pitch-black comedy both shocking and hilarious, fearlessly exploring the taboo regions of sexuality and gender roles in the twenty-first century.]]> 304 Eliza Clark 1910312649 Arden 0 to-read 3.74 2020
author: Eliza Clark
name: Arden
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199026522 In the latest jaw-dropping thriller from New York Times bestselling author Riley Sager, a man must contend with the long-ago disappearance of his childhood best friend—and the dark secrets lurking just beyond the safe confines of his picture-perfect neighborhood.

The worst thing to ever happen on Hemlock Circle occurred in Ethan Marsh’s backyard. One July night, ten-year-old Ethan and his best friend and neighbor, Billy, fell asleep in a tent set up on a manicured lawn in a quiet, quaint New Jersey cul de sac. In the morning, Ethan woke up alone. During the night, someone had sliced the tent open with a knife and taken Billy. He was never seen again.

Thirty years later, Ethan has reluctantly returned to his childhood home. Plagued by bad dreams and insomnia, he begins to notice strange things happening in the middle of the night. Someone seems to be roaming the cul de sac at odd hours, and signs of Billy’s presence keep appearing in Ethan’s backyard. Is someone playing a cruel prank? Or has Billy, long thought to be dead, somehow returned to Hemlock Circle?

The mysterious occurrences prompt Ethan to investigate what really happened that night, a quest that reunites him with former friends and neighbors and leads him into the woods that surround Hemlock Circle. Woods where Billy claimed monsters roamed and where a mysterious institute does clandestine research on a crumbling estate.

The closer Ethan gets to the truth, the more he realizes that no place—be it quiet forest or suburban street—is completely safe. And that the past has a way of haunting the present.]]> 367 Riley Sager 0593472373 Arden 3 thriller-suspense Stranger Things and It. A boy has gone missing and the search to find him is a story told across two timelines, one painted in sepia tones and populated by suburban kids on bikes, and the other a more cynical, modern perspective narrated by the adults those children have become.

I enjoyed the plot--very classic who dun it--but my reading experience was ruined by choosing an audiobook over a physical book...the audiobook narrator was complete dogshit! Anytime he voiced a woman it was simpering, painfully whiny and annoying. The voices of children were similarly poor, but less high pitched and airy than the adult women. Honestly, it would have been better if he had just narrated the entire book in his own voice. He natural tone is quite nice, but his take on women felt like a hate crime. ]]> 3.65 2024
author: Riley Sager
name: Arden
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/07
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves: thriller-suspense
review:
Very strongly reminiscent of Stranger Things and It. A boy has gone missing and the search to find him is a story told across two timelines, one painted in sepia tones and populated by suburban kids on bikes, and the other a more cynical, modern perspective narrated by the adults those children have become.

I enjoyed the plot--very classic who dun it--but my reading experience was ruined by choosing an audiobook over a physical book...the audiobook narrator was complete dogshit! Anytime he voiced a woman it was simpering, painfully whiny and annoying. The voices of children were similarly poor, but less high pitched and airy than the adult women. Honestly, it would have been better if he had just narrated the entire book in his own voice. He natural tone is quite nice, but his take on women felt like a hate crime.
]]> 215085760 She made a deal with the Dakkari devil. Now, he owns her.

On the unforgiving planet of Dakkar, I did what all the humans in our village did: kept my head down, worked to provide for my family, and I certainly didn’t break any Dakkari laws to risk inciting the alien race’s merciless wrath.

Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for my brother and one careless mistake brings a horde of the nomadic, barbarian Dakkari straight to our doorstep, led by their powerful horde king—a cold, ruthless, battle-scarred warrior demanding retribution.

In order to save my brother’s life, I do the unthinkable.

I sell myself to the horde king as his war prize. I agree to warm his furs, to travel with his horde across the wild lands of Dakkar, and to never see my family again.

But as I struggle with my new reality, I discover that the surly, mysterious, dominant horde king never intended for me to be his concubine��

He wants me as his queen.]]> 327 Zoey Draven Arden 3 3.70 2019
author: Zoey Draven
name: Arden
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/19
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves: kindle-unlimited, sci-fi-romance
review:

]]> 61215384
The inspiration for the upcoming original series on Prime Video, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

The Return of the King is the third part of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic adventure The Lord of the Rings.

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

The Dark Lord has risen, and as he unleashes hordes of Orcs to conquer all Middle-earth, Frodo and Sam struggle deep into his realm in Mordor.

To defeat Sauron, the One Ring must be destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom. But the way is impossibly hard, and Frodo is weakening. The Ring corrupts all who bear it and Frodo’s time is running out.

Will Sam and Frodo succeed, or will the Dark Lord rule Middle-earth once more?]]> 432 J.R.R. Tolkien Arden 4 4.67 1955
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Arden
average rating: 4.67
book published: 1955
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/29
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves:
review:

]]> 61215372
The inspiration for the upcoming original series on Prime Video, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

The Two Towers is the second part of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic adventure The Lord of the Rings.

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Frodo and his Companions of the Ring have been beset by danger during their quest to prevent the Ruling Ring from falling into the hands of the Dark Lord by destroying it in the Cracks of Doom. They have lost the wizard, Gandalf, in a battle in the Mines of Moria. And Boromir, seduced by the power of the Ring, tried to seize it by force. While Frodo and Sam made their escape, the rest of the company was attacked by Orcs. Now they continue the journey alone down the great River Anduin—alone, that is, save for the mysterious creeping figure that follows wherever they go.]]> 448 J.R.R. Tolkien Arden 4 4.60 1954
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Arden
average rating: 4.60
book published: 1954
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/10
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves:
review:

]]> 61215351 One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell into the hands of Bilbo Baggins, as told in The Hobbit.

In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.]]> 432 J.R.R. Tolkien Arden 5 friggin-amazing-fantasy 4.52 1954
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Arden
average rating: 4.52
book published: 1954
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/25
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves: friggin-amazing-fantasy
review:

]]> 61326735
Honestly, it’s a pretty sweet gig—until her carefully constructed Elsie-verse comes crashing down. Because Jack Smith, the annoyingly attractive and broody older brother of her favorite client, turns out to be the cold-hearted experimental physicist who ruined her mentor’s career and undermined the reputation of theorists everywhere. And that same Jack who now sits on the hiring committee at MIT, right between Elsie and her dream job.

Elsie is prepared for an all-out war of scholarly sabotage but…those long, penetrating looks? Not having to be anything other than her true self when she’s with him? Will falling into an experimentalist’s orbit finally tempt her to put her most guarded theories on love into practice?]]> 389 Ali Hazelwood 1408725797 Arden 4 contemporary-romance 4.07 2023
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: Arden
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/07
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves: contemporary-romance
review:
4 stars. Charming, romantic and beautifully nerdy
]]> 65213595 A grim and gothic new tale from author Alix E. Harrow about a small town haunted by secrets that can't stay buried and the sinister house that sits at the crossroads of it all.

Eden, Kentucky, is just another dying, bad-luck town, known only for the legend of E. Starling, the reclusive nineteenth-century author and illustrator who wrote The Underland--and disappeared. Before she vanished, Starling House appeared. But everyone agrees that it’s best to let the uncanny house―and its last lonely heir, Arthur Starling―go to rot.

Opal knows better than to mess with haunted houses or brooding men, but an unexpected job offer might be a chance to get her brother out of Eden. Too quickly, though, Starling House starts to feel dangerously like something she’s never had: a home.

As sinister forces converge on Starling House, Opal and Arthur are going to have to make a dire choice to dig up the buried secrets of the past and confront their own fears, or let Eden be taken over by literal nightmares.

If Opal wants a home, she’ll have to fight for it.]]> 320 Alix E. Harrow 1250799058 Arden 5 favorites, gothic "Dreams are like stray cats, which will go away if I quit feeding them."

5 stars. Southern gothic perfection. For the girls who listen to Ethel Cain and read Donna Tartt. A gorgeous story penned with lyrical, evocative prose. A dreamlike fairytale about a girl who dreams of a rotting gothic mansion, about the man who lives inside (though these days he is barely living), about the pains we endure for family and about the struggle to write your own mythologies when the hand you've been dealt is filled with losing cards.

"It occurs to me that I was right: dreams are just like stray cats. If you don’t feed them they get lean and clever and sharp-clawed, and they come for the jugular when you least expect it. "]]> 3.77 2023
author: Alix E. Harrow
name: Arden
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/02
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves: favorites, gothic
review:
"Dreams are like stray cats, which will go away if I quit feeding them."

5 stars. Southern gothic perfection. For the girls who listen to Ethel Cain and read Donna Tartt. A gorgeous story penned with lyrical, evocative prose. A dreamlike fairytale about a girl who dreams of a rotting gothic mansion, about the man who lives inside (though these days he is barely living), about the pains we endure for family and about the struggle to write your own mythologies when the hand you've been dealt is filled with losing cards.

"It occurs to me that I was right: dreams are just like stray cats. If you don’t feed them they get lean and clever and sharp-clawed, and they come for the jugular when you least expect it. "
]]> 2187 Middlesex tells the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides, and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family, who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City and the race riots of 1967 before moving out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret, and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.]]> 529 Jeffrey Eugenides 0312422156 Arden 4
“Free Will is making a comeback. Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.��

Middlesex is a triumph. First and foremost a sweeping, generational family saga, it follows the Stephanides family from a small town in Greece to Prohibition-era Detroit, chronicling all of their foibles and triumphs, their white lies and love affairs and their running jokes and their family mythos, not unlike another great family saga, One Hundred Years of Solitude.

What Eugenides adds to this classic literary style --in addition to his dry wit, and wry tone which lends a conversational voice and easy readability to the novel--is his characterization of Calliope Stephanides, a hermaphrodite who is raised female, but chooses to transition to a male.

Some have criticized Eugenides's depiction of a hermaphrodite because he has not personally experienced the unique struggles, both mental and physical, that they must face. Others have pointed to the fact the depiction of a hermaphrodite experiencing gender dysphoria, and outlining her/his consideration of gender-affirming surgery, confuses the discussion surrounding transgender body dysphoria. Personally, I believe that Eugenides handles the conversation of gender with a commendable level of tact and openness. To quote the novel,"Sex is biological. Gender is cultural."

Calliope is depicted as a confused adolescent who must go on a journey of self exploration and forge her own identity. While this is not the novel to provide a roadmap for all young people experiencing questions of gender, I believe Middlesex adds a positive story to the larger conversation. It asks the reader to consider what it must be like to live in bodies that are built differently than our own, and questions not just whether gender is something comes from the body or mind, but whether that even matters at all. When so much of genetics is happy accident, chromosomes fumbled together by our parents and grandparents, are we not entitled to some degree of autonomy in deciding the lives we live with the bodies those genetics have created?

“Free will is making a comeback. Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.��]]> 4.03 2002
author: Jeffrey Eugenides
name: Arden
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/21
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: best-literary-fiction, lgbtqia
review:
4.5 stars.

“Free Will is making a comeback. Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.��

Middlesex is a triumph. First and foremost a sweeping, generational family saga, it follows the Stephanides family from a small town in Greece to Prohibition-era Detroit, chronicling all of their foibles and triumphs, their white lies and love affairs and their running jokes and their family mythos, not unlike another great family saga, One Hundred Years of Solitude.

What Eugenides adds to this classic literary style --in addition to his dry wit, and wry tone which lends a conversational voice and easy readability to the novel--is his characterization of Calliope Stephanides, a hermaphrodite who is raised female, but chooses to transition to a male.

Some have criticized Eugenides's depiction of a hermaphrodite because he has not personally experienced the unique struggles, both mental and physical, that they must face. Others have pointed to the fact the depiction of a hermaphrodite experiencing gender dysphoria, and outlining her/his consideration of gender-affirming surgery, confuses the discussion surrounding transgender body dysphoria. Personally, I believe that Eugenides handles the conversation of gender with a commendable level of tact and openness. To quote the novel,"Sex is biological. Gender is cultural."

Calliope is depicted as a confused adolescent who must go on a journey of self exploration and forge her own identity. While this is not the novel to provide a roadmap for all young people experiencing questions of gender, I believe Middlesex adds a positive story to the larger conversation. It asks the reader to consider what it must be like to live in bodies that are built differently than our own, and questions not just whether gender is something comes from the body or mind, but whether that even matters at all. When so much of genetics is happy accident, chromosomes fumbled together by our parents and grandparents, are we not entitled to some degree of autonomy in deciding the lives we live with the bodies those genetics have created?

“Free will is making a comeback. Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.��
]]> 58870280
Maybe I would be different too.

Maybe I wouldn’t need his hungry eyes and demanding hands in the dark.

But this is how we are together every time.

He's not my friend or my boyfriend, but sometimes I go to his room after the sun goes down. I need to. Not for sweet words or soft kisses but because his arms, like the flickering light of that one candle, are the only things that can hold back the night.

Haven is a short, steamy post-apocalyptical romance set in the near future after a global catastrophe and includes some violent content and (secondary) character death.]]> 169 Claire Kent Arden 3 dystopian
I understand I am being a bit nit-picky, but as a chemist, I find it infuriating to read dystopian novels where no one has basic drugs--stuff like ibuprofen or basic painkillers. Salicylic acid is found in willow bark and can be converted to ibuprofen with simple reagents. Paracetamol is also easily obtainable with simple reagents, things like alcohols that can be easily distilled or NaCl, table salt that would be scavenged easily.

If they are building houses and successfully harvesting crops, I find it hard to believe that they can't manage to make some basic painkillers... but whatever *shrugs shoulders* Maybe I'm getting too hung up on little details. ]]> 3.86 2021
author: Claire Kent
name: Arden
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/06
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: dystopian
review:
Couldn't sufficiently suspend my disbelief to enjoy this novel.

I understand I am being a bit nit-picky, but as a chemist, I find it infuriating to read dystopian novels where no one has basic drugs--stuff like ibuprofen or basic painkillers. Salicylic acid is found in willow bark and can be converted to ibuprofen with simple reagents. Paracetamol is also easily obtainable with simple reagents, things like alcohols that can be easily distilled or NaCl, table salt that would be scavenged easily.

If they are building houses and successfully harvesting crops, I find it hard to believe that they can't manage to make some basic painkillers... but whatever *shrugs shoulders* Maybe I'm getting too hung up on little details.
]]> 9481431 191 Penelope Fletcher 1452373213 Arden 3 fae 3.64 2010
author: Penelope Fletcher
name: Arden
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: fae
review:

]]> 56644004
Masochism is sexy, human, reviled, worshipped, and can be delightfully bizarre. Deliberate and consensual pain has been with us for millennia, encompassing everyone from Black Plague flagellants to ballerinas dancing on broken bones to competitive eaters choking down hot peppers while they cry. Masochism is a part of us. It lives inside workaholics, tattoo enthusiasts, and all manner of garden variety pain-seekers.
��
At its core, masochism is about feeling bad, then better—a phenomenon that is long overdue for a heartfelt and hilarious investigation. And Leigh Cowart would they are not just a researcher and science writer—they’re an inveterate, high-sensation seeking masochist. And they have a few Why do people engage in masochism? What are the benefits and the costs? And what does masochism have to say about the human experience?
��
By participating in many of these activities themselves, and through conversations with psychologists, fellow scientists, and people who seek pain for pleasure, Cowart unveils how our minds and bodies find meaning and relief in pain—a quirk in our programming that drives discipline and innovation even as it threatens to swallow us whole.
��]]> 237 Leigh Cowart 154179804X Arden 0 to-read 4.09 2021
author: Leigh Cowart
name: Arden
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 48635419
"Beautifully creepy." -- The New York Times
"You wont be able to stop reading." -- Refinery29
"Dark��and��twisty." -- Bustle

Five friends. Only one can survive. Who would you choose?

It's been one year since graduation, and Beatrice Hartley has mixed feelings about joining her friends a weekend reunion. She's right to be worried. After a night out, they narrowly avoid a collision with a car on a deserted road. Or so they believe...

Back at the mansion where they are staying, a mysterious man knocks on the door during a raging storm. He tells them that they must make a one of them will live, and the rest will die. And the decision must be unanimous.

Soon time backbends. Beatrice and her friends are forced to repeat that dreadful day so many times they lose count. With each replay, events twist and fears come alive in horrifying ways.

To escape, they have to vote. But how do you choose who to kill? And then how do you live with yourself?��This nightmare, this nothingness . . . this is the Neverworld Wake.

From critically acclaimed, literary sensation, Marisha Pessl, comes a spellbinding story that is "the kind of book you'll tear through and then want to talk about with everyone you know." ( Nylon).]]> 336 Marisha Pessl 0399553940 Arden 0 to-read 3.80 2018
author: Marisha Pessl
name: Arden
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 56988057
January 1942. The Avallon Hotel & Spa has always offered elegant luxury in the wilds of West Virginia, its mountain sweetwater washing away all of high society’s troubles.

Local girl-turned-general manager June Porter Hudson has guided the Avallon skillfully through the first pangs of war. The Gilfoyles, the hotel’s aristocratic owners, have trained her well. But when the family heir makes a secret deal with the State Department to fill the hotel with captured Axis diplomats, June must persuade her staff—many of whom have sons and husbands heading to the front lines—to offer luxury to Nazis. With a smile.

Meanwhile FBI Agent Tucker Minnick, whose coal tattoo hints at an Appalachian past, presses his ears to the hotel’s walls, listening for the diplomats�� secrets. He has one of his own, which is how he knows that June’s balancing act can have dangerous consequences: the sweetwater beneath the hotel can threaten as well as heal.

June has never met a guest she couldn’t delight, but the diplomats are different. Without firing a single shot, they have brought the war directly to her. As clashing loyalties crack the Avallon’s polished veneer, June must calculate the true cost of luxury.]]> 400 Maggie Stiefvater 0593655508 Arden 0 to-read 4.03 2025
author: Maggie Stiefvater
name: Arden
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57361474 People don’t just disappear without a trace....

Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connected? After an elusive search that yields more questions than answers, the case eventually goes cold.

Now, 11 years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but no one is prepared for what they’ll find....

In this smart and chilling thriller, master of suspense and New York Times best-selling author Mary Kubica takes domestic secrets to a whole new level, showing that some people will stop at nothing to keep the truth buried.]]> 356 Mary Kubica 077831166X Arden 3 thriller-suspense 4.10 2021
author: Mary Kubica
name: Arden
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/20
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves: thriller-suspense
review:
3 stars. Told from four different perspectives, and yet all the characters in this story managed to feel flat, wooden, and utterly lacking in passionate emotion. I did learn quite a bit about the relationship obstetricians and professional doulas, so I appreciated Kubica's knowledge and/or research on the subject of birth. The conclusion was far-fetched, but did manage to coax from me some audible gasps. Mediocre novel over-all.
]]> 174106002
As the daughter of a traveling chef, I grew up flitting around different galaxies, immersing myself in fascinating cultures, and rubbing noses with socialites. Coming to Krynn was a new chapter, a permanent place to finally call home .

But when tragedy strikes and I’m suddenly alone, broke, and desperate, I take work at a dyaan . An establishment where the Kylorr—blood-drinking, winged, fearsome aliens with berserker-like rages—come to feed on willing necks to satisfy their fierce hunger.

That’s where I meet him. Kythel of House Kaalium, the ruler of Erzos, with his mesmerizing eyes like fractured ice and a sinful voice that captivates me.

We’re polar opposites. I’m a hopeful optimist who always looks for silver linings. He’s guarded and mistrustful, a wealthy heir to a powerful legacy, who thrives on rigid, unbending control. Yet he craves my blood with a frenzy that maddens him, and he’ll stop at nothing to claim me.

But when the forbidden desire between us becomes too tempting to resist, I fear it will destroy us both...especially when an impossible choice threatens to be our Duty or love?]]> 396 Zoey Draven Arden 3 4.16 2023
author: Zoey Draven
name: Arden
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/05
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves:
review:
3 stars. Not enough groveling from the MMC to make up for this poor treatment of the FMC. Also, I don’t know if it was just me, but I found the pet name ‘Sasiral�� to be strongly reminiscent of ‘Sassenach�� from Outlander and it kept taking me out
]]> 51485441 She was beautiful the way the ocean was beautiful. In a new way every time one looked.

She is water, bright and alluring, fathomless and profound. He is a bridge between peoples, artist and criminal, vengeful and compassionate.

Amara Mutar has risen to the highest ranks of Tamar society by her wits and ambition. But it is not high enough to keep those she loves, and herself, safe from a past that will not release her.

Cassian Haydar has sunk as low as it is possible to sink, but he intends to take back what is his, and crush those who took everything that mattered from him—after he’s done stealing back all the other lives they’ve robbed.

In exchange for a betrothal that would secure Amara’s position and freedom, the Tamaran Sultana sends her on a dangerous hunt for lost mages of the Third House, in the last place any mage should be. Amara and Cassian, brought together deep inside the Republic, discover they have nothing, and everything, in common.

But their paths were never meant to converge, and there are horrors in the heart of a rising Empire that threaten both Amara’s plans and every mage in Tamar. Knowing the fate of the Circle rests in her hands, Amara must choose whether to serve her heart, or her people.

He was a shore upon which she crawled from the dark deep of her magic and fell against to breathe, and taste the air again. ]]> 420 J.D. Evans 195160704X Arden 3 4.06 2020
author: J.D. Evans
name: Arden
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/26
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves:
review:
The world building is just getting better and better. Loved the introduction of magic vs. manufacturing and industrialism as a new conflict. Loved to see the Grand Vizier and Sultana's political machinations brewing in the background. I only wish I was more attached to the romantic interests in this installment--Amara and Cassian were had to relate to. (Also I could not stop imagining Cassian from ACOTAR, despite my best efforts, and that kept taking me OUT).
]]> 50403674 “All you see is that I run. Why haven’t you realized I always come back?��


She is lightning and storm. A spy, driven out of her home by a tyrant ruler. He is granite and earth. A guard, ordered to keep her contained.

To protect herself and her family, she’s learned to go unnoticed, unseen. Suddenly a refugee in a land that once was enemy and now must be home, she isn’t certain where she belongs, or what her duty is beyond her family. She can’t protect them alone this time, but the only man who can help her is the only one she cannot ask.

He’s sworn his loyalty to the Sultana since she lifted him out of the gutter that made him. The arrival of a foreign spy loyal to the new prince makes him question himself and his orders, and his mistakes threaten the life of the ruler he swore to serve.

War will force choices of them both. She—to remain a spy, or stand and lend her powerful, untamed magic to the Sultana of Tamar. He—to remain a loyal, unquestioning guard, or learn to trust his instincts, and his heart.

They are magic in opposition, earth and sky, steady and mutable. One immovable as stone, the other fast as the wind. Balance, sometimes, is chaos.

He needed the storm and wildness of her, he needed the way she broke him apart. ]]> 400 J.D. Evans 1951607031 Arden 4 4.03 2020
author: J.D. Evans
name: Arden
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/12
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves:
review:
Excellent actions scenes! The descriptions of mages and swordsmen fighting or sparring or dueling scenes were all excellent. And I also loved the competitive, almost bickering dynamic between Aysel and Bashir!
]]> 61049 Autobiography of Red, a stunning work that is both a novel and a poem, both an unconventional re-creation of an ancient Greek myth and a wholly original coming-of-age story set in the present.

Geryon, a young boy who is also a winged red monster, reveals the volcanic terrain of his fragile, tormented soul in an autobiography he begins at the age of five. As he grows older, Geryon escapes his abusive brother and affectionate but ineffectual mother, finding solace behind the lens of his camera and in the arms of a young man named Herakles, a cavalier drifter who leaves him at the peak of infatuation. When Herakles reappears years later, Geryon confronts again the pain of his desire and embarks on a journey that will unleash his creative imagination to its fullest extent. By turns whimsical and haunting, erudite and accessible, richly layered and deceptively simple, Autobiography of Red is a profoundly moving portrait of an artist coming to terms with the fantastic accident of who he is.

"A profound love story . . . sensuous and funny, poignant, musical and tender." -- The New York Times Book Review

"A deeply odd and immensely engaging book. . . . [Carson] exposes with passionate force the mythic underlying the explosive everyday."����-- The Village Voice

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR

National book Critics Circle Award Finalist]]> 160 Anne Carson 037570129X Arden 0 to-read 4.28 1998
author: Anne Carson
name: Arden
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 196056205 A mesmerising novel of two sisters on a Pacific Northwest island whose lives are upended by an unexpected visitor �� a tale of family, obsession, and a mysterious creature in the woods, by the celebrated, bestselling author of Disappearing Earth.

They were sisters and they would last past the end of time.

Sam and her sister, Elena, dream of another life. On the island off the coast of Washington where they were born and raised, they and their mother struggle to survive. Sam works long days on the ferry that delivers wealthy mainlanders to their vacation homes while Elena bartends at the local golf club, but even together they can’t earn enough to get by, stirring their frustration about the limits that shape their existence.

Then one night on the boat, Sam spots a bear swimming the dark waters of the channel. Where is it going? What does it want? When the bear turns up by their home, Sam, terrified, is more convinced than ever that it’s time to leave the island. But Elena responds differently to the massive beast. Enchanted by its presence, she throws into doubt the plan to escape and puts their long-held dream in danger.

A story about the bonds of sisterhood and the mysteries of the animals that live among us �� and within us �� Bear is a propulsive, mythical, rich novel from one of the most acclaimed young writers in America.]]> 304 Julia Phillips 0525520430 Arden 3 lit-fic 3.21 2024
author: Julia Phillips
name: Arden
average rating: 3.21
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/11
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: lit-fic
review:
I was lured in by the utterly gorgeous cover, but disappointed by this novel’s melodramatic tone and lack of substance. I came in expecting a huge depth of affection between the two sisters as they struggled together, battling their way through poverty to care for their ailing mother. I was expecting a mythic, fairytale-esque depiction of the girl’s relationship with the titular bear. But instead I was treated to a selfish, whiny protagonist and an abrupt ending. Utterly disenchanting.
]]> 50607309 “All magic is beautiful,�� she said, “and terrible. Do you not see the beauty in yours, or the terror in mine? You can stop a heart, and I can stop your breath.��

She is heir to a Sultanate that once ruled the world. He is an unwanted prince with the power to destroy.

She is order and intellect, a woman fit to rule in a man's place. He is chaos and violence and will stop at nothing to protect his people.

His magic answers hers with shadow for light. They need each other, but the cost of balance may be too high a price. Magic is dying and the only way to save it is to enlist mages who wield the forbidden power of death, mages cast out centuries ago in a brutal and bloody war.

Now, a new war is coming. Science and machines to replace magic and old religion.

They must find a way to save their people from annihilation and balance the sacred Wheel—but first, they will have to balance their own forbidden passion. His peace for her tempest, his restlessness for her calm��

Night and day, dusk and dawn, the end, and the beginning. ]]> 420 J.D. Evans 1951607015 Arden 4
Heavily inspired by J.D. Evans’s own time in the Levant as an army officer, Reign and Ruin does the Middle Eastern culture justice and shares some of its curiosities and nuances with a western audience. From the titles and honorifics used, to the style of dress, to simple phrases like “scanning the horizon and the hills and the wadis,�� the Middle Eastern influence makes for beautiful world-building. When combined with a unique, wheel-based magic system, and plentiful political intrigue, Evans has managed to create a truly compelling fantasy world. The romance comes as a bonus. (And it was awesome to see smart female characters carving their own place in a world of men. Badass!)]]> 4.17 2020
author: J.D. Evans
name: Arden
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/03
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: fantasy-romance, kindle-unlimited
review:
A wonderful novel with super creative world-building!

Heavily inspired by J.D. Evans’s own time in the Levant as an army officer, Reign and Ruin does the Middle Eastern culture justice and shares some of its curiosities and nuances with a western audience. From the titles and honorifics used, to the style of dress, to simple phrases like “scanning the horizon and the hills and the wadis,�� the Middle Eastern influence makes for beautiful world-building. When combined with a unique, wheel-based magic system, and plentiful political intrigue, Evans has managed to create a truly compelling fantasy world. The romance comes as a bonus. (And it was awesome to see smart female characters carving their own place in a world of men. Badass!)
]]> 21888223 The Magpies.

When Andrew Sumner meets beautiful, edgy Charlie, he is certain his run of bad luck has finally come to an end.

But as the two of them embark on an intense affair, Andrew wonders if his grasp on reality is slipping. Items go missing in his apartment. Somebody appears to be following him. And as misfortune and tragedy strike his friends and loved ones, Andrew is forced to confront the frightening truth.��

Is Charlie really the girl of his dreams�or the woman of his nightmares?]]> 348 Mark Edwards 1477824863 Arden 2 3.84 2014
author: Mark Edwards
name: Arden
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/11/19
shelves: kindle-unlimited, thriller-suspense
review:

]]> 40338442
In captivating, starkly beautiful language, The White Book offers a multilayered exploration of color and its absence, of the tenacity and fragility of the human spirit, and of our attempts to graft new life from the ashes of destruction.]]> 157 Han Kang 0525573062 Arden 0 to-read 3.86 2016
author: Han Kang
name: Arden
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 212806981 A competitive diver and an ace swimmer jump into forbidden waters in this steamy college romance from the New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis.

Scarlett Vandermeer is swimming upstream. A Junior at Stanford and a student-athlete who specializes in platform diving, Scarlett prefers to keep her head down, concentrating on getting into med school and on recovering from the injury that almost ended her career. She has no time for relationships—at least, that’s what she tells herself.

Swim captain, world champion, all-around aquatics golden boy, Lukas Blomqvist thrives on discipline. It’s how he wins gold medals and breaks records: complete focus, with every stroke. On the surface, Lukas and Scarlett have nothing in common. Until a well-guarded secret slips out, and everything changes.

So they start an arrangement. And as the pressure leading to the Olympics heats up, so does their relationship. It was supposed to be just a temporary, mutually satisfying fling. But when staying away from Lukas becomes impossible, Scarlett realizes that her heart might be treading into dangerous water...]]> 447 Ali Hazelwood 0593550447 Arden 0 to-read 4.10 2025
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: Arden
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 33313 A deluxe, annotated edition of Kitchen Confidential to celebrate the life of Anthony Bourdain, featuring new photo inserts

Over two decades ago, the New Yorker published a now infamous article, “Don’t Eat Before Reading This,�� by then little-known chef Anthony Bourdain. Bourdain spared no one’s appetite as he revealed what happens behind the kitchen door. The article was a sensation, and the book it spawned, the now iconic Kitchen Confidential, became an even bigger sensation and megabestseller. Frankly confessional, addictively acerbic, and utterly unsparing, Bourdain pulls no punches in this memoir of his years in the restaurant business.

Fans will love to return to this deliciously funny, delectably shocking banquet of wild-but-true tales of life in the culinary trade, laying out Bourdain’s more than a quarter-century of drugs, sex, and haute cuisine. Including a handwritten introduction and annotations done by Bourdain about a decade after the book was originally published, this edition also features previously unpublished photos to accompany the now-classic text.]]> 312 Anthony Bourdain 0060899220 Arden 4 nonfic-food-nutrition, memoir 4.17 2000
author: Anthony Bourdain
name: Arden
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/03
date added: 2024/10/21
shelves: nonfic-food-nutrition, memoir
review:

]]> 42747739 426 T. Kingfisher 1614504636 Arden 4 fantasy-romance Swordheart is no exception. Not just the main characters--though chivalrous bodyguard x clever widow is a phenomenal pairing--even the side characters are fantastic! Brindle is my favorite! Reminds me of Gus from Saga! ifykyk. And Zale is my heart. This was a thoroughly charming, lovely little read!!]]> 4.06 2018
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Arden
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/31
date added: 2024/10/21
shelves: fantasy-romance
review:
I love T. Kingfisher's personal brand of cozy fantasy. The World of the White Rat is populated with so many witty and lovable characters, and Swordheart is no exception. Not just the main characters--though chivalrous bodyguard x clever widow is a phenomenal pairing--even the side characters are fantastic! Brindle is my favorite! Reminds me of Gus from Saga! ifykyk. And Zale is my heart. This was a thoroughly charming, lovely little read!!
]]> 187044 here and here.

Lou, a shy and secretive young librarian is called to a remote Canadian island to inventory the estate of the recently deceased Colonel Cary. In a cabin on the island, she discovers the colonel had a secret as well. A bear is chained inside. Fascinated, Lou brings the bear into the house and slowly gains the animal’s trust. She sinks her fingers into the bear’s fur—and soon realizes her darkest desire is for this large, powerful animal to be her lover.

But there’s more to the story than the price to be paid for forbidden passion. This novel by award-winning author Marian Engel works within the logic of a fever dream as the young woman comes to an even greater, and unexpected, understanding of herself.

Bear was first published in 1976 and won the Canadian Governor General’s Award for English-language fiction. The novel has retained its power to shock, disturb, and move readers today.]]> 128 Marian Engel 0879236671 Arden 0 to-read 3.37 1976
author: Marian Engel
name: Arden
average rating: 3.37
book published: 1976
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 63059875 For two sisters, confronting the past could come at a terrible price in a riveting novel about a family tragedy—and family secrets—by the #1 Amazon Charts bestselling author Elle Marr.

Fiona and Violet Seng were just children when their family’s Cessna crash-landed in the Washington wilderness, claiming the lives of their parents. For twelve harrowing weeks, the girls fended for themselves before being rescued.

Twenty-five years later, they’re still trying to move on from the trauma. Fiona repurposes it into controversial works of art. Violet has battled addiction and failed relationships to finally progress toward normalcy as a writer. The estranged sisters never speak about what they call their Alone Time in the wild. They wouldn’t dare—until they become the subject of a documentary that renews public fascination with the “girl survivors�� and questions their version of the events.

When disturbing details about the Seng family are exposed, a strange woman claims to know the crash was deliberate. Fiona and Violet must come together to face the horrifying truth of what happened out there and what they learned about their parents and themselves. Before any other secrets emerge from the woods.]]> 316 Elle Marr Arden 2 The Alone Time when I was trying to scratch the itch for girl survivalist fiction that I was experiencing post YellowJackets, but The Alone Time was a poor substitute. Predictable and easily forgettable. And dropped soooo many plot lines [spoilers removed]]]> 3.57 2024
author: Elle Marr
name: Arden
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/08/06
date added: 2024/10/15
shelves: thriller-suspense, kindle-unlimited
review:
I picked up The Alone Time when I was trying to scratch the itch for girl survivalist fiction that I was experiencing post YellowJackets, but The Alone Time was a poor substitute. Predictable and easily forgettable. And dropped soooo many plot lines [spoilers removed]
]]> 63130733
Gemma Hara is drowning under the weight of her father’s debts. Working herself to the bone, she knows that if she doesn’t pay them off in time, the sadistic creditors will take everything: their home, their respected name, and, worst of all, her two beautiful sisters.

To save her family, Gemma agrees to do something reckless: marry a wealthy and mysterious stranger, who offers her a wicked bargain she can’t afford to refuse.

However, his bargain comes with one terrifying catch. Because her husband-to-be is a Kylorr.

One of the most fearsome alien races in the Four Quadrants, the Kylorr are beastly monsters, all muscle and menace, with powerful wings, depraved cravings, and berserker-like rages. The worst part?

They survive on blood.

Cold and cruel, Azur of House Kaalium, the High Lord of Laras, demands Gemma as his blood bride. To feed from her. To use her body in whatever way he wishes. For paying off her family’s debts, he expects her complete submission.

What neither of them predicts is how his bite doesn’t bring pain—it fills Gemma with more exquisite pleasure than she’s ever known. And as she finds her footing on a strange new planet, the one thing Gemma thought she’d never surrender might be at risk after all.

Her heart.

Too bad her new husband can’t seem to decide if he wants to break it…or keep it forever.]]> 428 Zoey Draven Arden 4 4.16 2022
author: Zoey Draven
name: Arden
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/01
date added: 2024/10/15
shelves: sci-fi-romance, guilty-pleasures, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 202289210 The tiny human hires me to shield her from the vengeance of a powerful organization. There’s nothing wrong with that, except she stole from them, got caught, and now I have to clean up her mess. Add to that her incessant chatter, and I’m in for the most unpleasant job in my career.

Until her enemies bring out the big guns, turning the irksome protection assignment into a lethal fight for survival. Necessity pushes my principal closer and closer—too close for comfort. Forced to hide in small spaces, her skin rubbing against my scales, her warm breath on my face, my exasperation gives way to lust.

It’s just physical attraction, I tell myself. All I want is to bury my two spikes in her tight body and feel her writhing under me in pleasure. Nothing more than that. Because it’s impossible I could want her–the annoying, ballsy little thief who makes the sun shine with a smile.

One thing is certain: this is no longer just a job. I’ll butcher everyone who wants to hurt her.

Monster Security Agency is the most elite bodyguard service in the world. These monster bodyguards are lethal, powerful, and determined to protect their clients at all costs. They shouldn't fall in love with their principals, but if they do? Things are bound to explode.

Here come spicy, romantic, and action-packed tales by your favorite paranormal and monster romance authors: Cassie Alexander, Layla Fae, and Cara Wylde. Dive into the world of the Monster Security Agency.

This book can be read as a standalone.]]> 246 Layla Fae Arden 3 sci-fi-romance 4.14
author: Layla Fae
name: Arden
average rating: 4.14
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/29
date added: 2024/10/15
shelves: sci-fi-romance
review:
r/fantasyromance. Need I say more?
]]> 16703
But homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster. He and his half-Tlingit partner, Berko Shemets, can't catch a break in any of their outstanding cases. Landsman's new supervisor is the love of his life—and also his worst nightmare. And in the cheap hotel where he has washed up, someone has just committed a murder—right under Landsman's nose. Out of habit, obligation, and a mysterious sense that it somehow offers him a shot at redeeming himself, Landsman begins to investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy. But when word comes down from on high that the case is to be dropped immediately, Landsman soon finds himself contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession, hopefulness, evil, and salvation that are his heritage—and with the unfinished business of his marriage to Bina Gelbfish, the one person who understands his darkest fears.

At once a gripping whodunit, a love story, an homage to 1940s noir, and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption, The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a novel only Michael Chabon could have written.
(front flap)]]> 414 Michael Chabon 0007149824 Arden 4 3.72 2007
author: Michael Chabon
name: Arden
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/21
date added: 2024/10/15
shelves: alternate-history, best-literary-fiction
review:

]]> 61852520
Renee should be thrilled to have been chosen as one of the final four contestants in The Catch, the world's biggest reality show. But now she, the other contestants, and Jeremy 'the Catch' have arrived on the remote, wooded island for the final show, Renee begins to wonder if there's something wrong. Is she taking a bigger risk than she realised?

And as she and the other contestants begin their final challenges, they slowly start to realise that the island they've been taken to is hiding a terrifying secret—one that could make the final Elimination Event all too real.]]> 242 Samantha Allen 0571378307 Arden 3 lgbtqia
What a bizarre, wild ride! I don't think I could possibly describe this book better than Lilly Wachowski's blurb: “Well, I guess Bigfoot-Lesbian-Romcom-Mystery-Horror is my new favorite genre!" ]]> 3.46 2022
author: Samantha Allen
name: Arden
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/28
date added: 2024/10/15
shelves: lgbtqia
review:
3.5 stars.

What a bizarre, wild ride! I don't think I could possibly describe this book better than Lilly Wachowski's blurb: “Well, I guess Bigfoot-Lesbian-Romcom-Mystery-Horror is my new favorite genre!"
]]> 18070641
First published in Epoch, Fall 1966. Included in Prize Stories: O Henry Award Winners (1968), and The Best American Short Stories (1967).

Her name was Connie. She was fifteen and she had a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was all right. Her mother, who noticed everything and knew everything...]]> 20 Joyce Carol Oates Arden 4 thanks-english-class 3.96 1966
author: Joyce Carol Oates
name: Arden
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1966
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/10/15
shelves: thanks-english-class
review:

]]> 213838324
Plague and famine stalk the land, monsters lurk in every shadow and greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions. Only one thing is certain: the elves will come again, and they will eat everyone.

Sometimes, only the darkest paths lead towards the light. Paths on which the righteous will not dare to tread...

And so, buried beneath the sacred splendour of the Celestial Palace, is the secret Chapel of the Holy Expediency. For its congregation of convicted monsters there are no sins that have not been committed, no lines that will not be crossed, and no mission that cannot be turned into a disastrous bloodbath.

Now the hapless Brother Diaz must somehow bind the worst of the worst to a higher cause: to put a thief on the throne of Troy, and unite the sundered church against the coming apocalypse.

When you're headed through hell, you need the devils on your side.]]> 512 Joe Abercrombie 1399603566 Arden 0 to-read 4.31 2025
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Arden
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 210367505 TOP SECRET: A clear and present threat exists. Open-ended. Existential. Confirmation via uncanny op. Nature of same: Unknown. Initiating entity: Unknown. Priority: High.

Ten years after the publication of Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance �� award winners and international bestsellers all, the first the basis for a now-classic film �� Jeff VanderMeer brings us back for a surprise fourth and final foray into Area X.

Absolution opens decades before Area X forms, with a science expedition whose mysterious end suggests terrifying consequences for the future �� and marks the Forgotten Coast as a high-priority area of interest for Central, the shadowy government agency responsible for monitoring extraordinary threats.

Many years later, the Forgotten Coast files wind up in the hands of a washed-up Central operative known as Old Jim. He starts pulling a thread that reveals a long and troubling record of government agents meddling with forces they clearly cannot comprehend. Soon, Old Jim is back out in the field, grappling with personal demons and now partnered with an unproven young agent, the two of them tasked with solving what may be an unsolvable mystery. With every turn, the stakes get higher: Central agents are being liquidated by an unknown rogue entity and Old Jim’s life is on the line.

Old Jim’s investigation culminates in the first Central expedition into what has now been labeled Area X. A border has come down, and a full team �� well trained but eccentric �� has been assembled to find Area X’s “off switch�� somewhere in the volatile, dangerous terrain that has mysteriously defied all attempts to be explored, mapped, or controlled. A landscape that, one way or another, seems to consume all who enter it.

Sweeping in scope and rich with ideas, iconic characters, and unpredictable adventure, Absolution converges the past, present, and future in terrifying, ecstatic, and mind-bending ways. It is the final word on one of the most provocative and popular speculative fiction series of our time.]]> 441 Jeff VanderMeer 0374616590 Arden 0 to-read 3.61 2024
author: Jeff VanderMeer
name: Arden
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 25566132
But when Bryony is caught in a snowstorm and takes refuge in an abandoned manor, she stumbles into a house full of dark enchantments. Is the Beast that lives there her captor, or a fellow prisoner? Is the house her enemy or her ally? And why are roses blooming out of season in the courtyard?

Armed only with gardening shears and her wits, Bryony must untangle the secrets of the house before she—or the Beast—are swallowed by them.
]]> 224 T. Kingfisher Arden 4 4.07 2015
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Arden
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/02
date added: 2024/10/03
shelves: fairytale-inspired, fantasy-romance
review:

]]> 5129 Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine�� (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New Worldd likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.

"Aldous Huxley is the greatest 20th century writer in English." —Chicago Tribune]]> 268 Aldous Huxley 0060929871 Arden 4 stellar-sci-fi 3.99 1932
author: Aldous Huxley
name: Arden
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1932
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/29
date added: 2024/09/30
shelves: stellar-sci-fi
review:

]]> 217391697 THIS BOOK IS NOT SAFE TO READ AT WORK. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.

Twenty year old Temperance Verus has never been kissed. But that's what the basilisk is for.

Along with thirteen other contestants, Tem must train with a basilisk to learn the power of seduction and win the prince's hand in marriage. When Tem is matched with Caspen, the Serpent King, she realizes she might actually stand a chance. But with tensions rising between the basilisks and the humans, Tem is suddenly torn in two directions. As her bond with Caspen deepens, so does her connection with the prince. And when she uncovers a terrible secret about the royal family, Tem finds herself caught between two neither of which she can survive without.

Guaranteed to make you blush (and then some), Split or Swallow is like if fanfic Draco Malfoy went on the Bachelor and had to compete with a snake. Sounds fun, doesn't it? That's because it is!!]]> 750 Lindsay Straube Arden 4 "Buckle up. Split or Swallow is unlike anything you’ve read before, and you may not read anything like it ever again.��

Perhaps the horniest book I’ve read this year, Split or Swallow is the tale of a chicken-farming village girl caught between her love for a basilisk and a prince. It can best be described as a wild and unhinged romp. I went into this with zero expectations, but found myself loving the ride. If you're interested in unconventional fantasy smut, this is the novel for you. ]]> 3.75
author: Lindsay Straube
name: Arden
average rating: 3.75
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/24
date added: 2024/09/30
shelves: fantasy-romance, kindle-unlimited
review:
As the author suggests at the beginning of the novel,"Buckle up. Split or Swallow is unlike anything you’ve read before, and you may not read anything like it ever again.��

Perhaps the horniest book I’ve read this year, Split or Swallow is the tale of a chicken-farming village girl caught between her love for a basilisk and a prince. It can best be described as a wild and unhinged romp. I went into this with zero expectations, but found myself loving the ride. If you're interested in unconventional fantasy smut, this is the novel for you.
]]> 186872432
In Helen Oyeyemi’s joyous new novel, the Czech capital is a living thing—one that can let you in or spit you out.


For reasons of her own, Hero Tojosoa accepts an invitation she was half expected to decline, and finds herself in Prague on a bachelorette weekend hosted by her estranged friend Sofie. Little does she know she’s arrived in a city with a penchant for playing tricks on the unsuspecting. A book Hero has brought with her seems to be warping her the text changes depending on when it’s being read and who’s doing the reading, revealing startling new stories of fictional Praguers past and present. Uninvited companions appear at bachelorette activities and at city landmarks, offering opinions, humor, and even a taste of treachery. When a third woman from Hero and Sofie’s past appears unexpectedly, the tensions between the friends�� different accounts of the past reach a new level.


An adventurous, kaleidoscopic novel, Parasol Against the Axe considers the lines between illusion and delusion, fact and interpretation, and weighs the risks of attaching too firmly to the stories of a place, or a person, or a shared history. How much is a tale influenced by its reader, or vice versa? And finally, in a battle between friends, is it better to be the parasol or the axe?]]> 272 Helen Oyeyemi 0593192362 Arden 4 lit-fic, magical-realism
The first half of this novel left me feeling slightly overwhelmed by the sheer breadth of narrative content and slightly underwhelmed by the aimlessness of the plot. But hold on, dear reader. Because Oyeyemi does it again, and manages to wrap up this curiosity shop of a novel into a very satisfying package by the final chapter.

“I think I wanted to say, to anybody else who was here, or who’s been here: ‘Hey, you’ve noticed it too, right? That this city might not actually be a city, but a dissociative state of some kind. A nonstop paternoster lift that’s too fast for history to step into without severed ankles. Could this Prague be a break, a snapping of the world’s wire? Isn’t this why any faction that has occupied this city has known deep down, must have known unless they were complete idiots, that the more they seem to get their way, the less they are in actual control of anything at all around here?��]]> 3.06 2024
author: Helen Oyeyemi
name: Arden
average rating: 3.06
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/18
date added: 2024/09/30
shelves: lit-fic, magical-realism
review:
A disorienting and kaleidoscopic novel narrated by an anthropomorphic city, told in a very haphazard, stream of consciousness fashion, involving a book whose story changes every time someone opens its cover.

The first half of this novel left me feeling slightly overwhelmed by the sheer breadth of narrative content and slightly underwhelmed by the aimlessness of the plot. But hold on, dear reader. Because Oyeyemi does it again, and manages to wrap up this curiosity shop of a novel into a very satisfying package by the final chapter.

“I think I wanted to say, to anybody else who was here, or who’s been here: ‘Hey, you’ve noticed it too, right? That this city might not actually be a city, but a dissociative state of some kind. A nonstop paternoster lift that’s too fast for history to step into without severed ankles. Could this Prague be a break, a snapping of the world’s wire? Isn’t this why any faction that has occupied this city has known deep down, must have known unless they were complete idiots, that the more they seem to get their way, the less they are in actual control of anything at all around here?��
]]> 210360523 A reluctant heroine finds unexpected love when she’s sent to assassinate a lonely dark lord in the first book of this cozy romantasy series.

Henrietta Doryn has never enjoyed fighting. She’d rather be in the kitchen baking cookies. But it’s her duty as Warrior Princess to face off against the forces of evil. As such, she’s unceremoniously shooed from her kingdom to go eliminate the all-powerful Dark Lord next door.

Keith Monfort has never enjoyed ruling with an iron fist. He’d prefer to be in his workroom tinkering with practical magic. But it’s his duty to lead the Dark Enchanted Forest and the forces of evil. So when Henrietta shows up at his door, he’s only too happy to invite her in for tea to talk it out instead.

Can this unlikely pair prevent war between their two kingdoms? Where do their true loyalties lie? And when will they finally confess their growing feelings for each other?

Blending the best of love stories, fairy tales, and whimsy—with just a dash of mystery provided by the soothsaying Madame Potts’s enigmatic announcements—I Ran Away to Evil is a deliciously delightful start to a charming romantic-comedy LitRPG series.

The first volume of the hit LitRPG romantasy series—with more than a million views on Royal Road—now available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Audible! ]]> 435 Mystic Neptune 1039454240 Arden 3 “How did this even happen? One minute he’d been challenged to a fight to the death by some girl with a big sword who smelled like scones, and the next he was dancing the night away and getting ready to propose.��

The cozy fantasy element was delightful, but the romance was all tell and no show. There was no longing or pining. No long glances, no steamy dreams, no grandiose descriptions of their paramours hair or eyes. There was only the sudden declaration that they were SO into each other. With other characters around them saying things like ‘Please.. you two are so into each other, a bridge troll could use you as the answer to ‘Who’s the most pining couple in the land?��

Ah well, at least the magical baking and dungeon delving was suitably charming. And there was a very healthy representation of healing from trauma:

“Keith didn’t know how to handle an emotionally fragile princess who smelled like cookies and expected him to end her�� but even he could recognize that she needed a bit of praise for a job well done. She deserved it, too.��]]> 4.18 2024
author: Mystic Neptune
name: Arden
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/02
date added: 2024/09/30
shelves: fantasy-romance, kindle-unlimited, litrpg
review:
“How did this even happen? One minute he’d been challenged to a fight to the death by some girl with a big sword who smelled like scones, and the next he was dancing the night away and getting ready to propose.��

The cozy fantasy element was delightful, but the romance was all tell and no show. There was no longing or pining. No long glances, no steamy dreams, no grandiose descriptions of their paramours hair or eyes. There was only the sudden declaration that they were SO into each other. With other characters around them saying things like ‘Please.. you two are so into each other, a bridge troll could use you as the answer to ‘Who’s the most pining couple in the land?��

Ah well, at least the magical baking and dungeon delving was suitably charming. And there was a very healthy representation of healing from trauma:

“Keith didn’t know how to handle an emotionally fragile princess who smelled like cookies and expected him to end her�� but even he could recognize that she needed a bit of praise for a job well done. She deserved it, too.��
]]> 214068069 Two vampires, a magical town, and a spoonful of spice...

Love sucks. Literally.

For Fiella, life in the magical village of Moonvale used to be peaceful. Her world is turned upside down when a magical attack destroys her trinket shop and everything she has worked for. She is devastated, but finds solace in her new friendship with an anonymous penpal, whose letters ease her troubled mind.

Redd has fled his home in Sunhaven as a last-ditch effort to get a fresh start and escape the bad luck that had been plaguing him. He finds himself in Moonvale, where all the annoyingly friendly local folk seem to need his help. His outlook changes when he lays eyes on a lovely fellow vampire, whose blue hair and fiery temperament ensnare his thoughts.

Limits are tested and bonds are forged when Fiella is forced to accept Redd’s help to rebuild her shop. With the help of friends, magical potions, the local cats, and a few goblets of cider, Fiella and Redd team up to restore what was lost. As the two vampires battle their thirst together through late nights and endless bickering, they might even learn to appreciate each other.

Love Letters and Thirst Tonics is the first book in a series of interconnected standalone fantasy romance novels that take place in a cozy, small town where folk of all species reside. Grab a warm cup of tea and dive into this world of magic, mayhem, critters, and lots and lots of lavender blueberry cider.]]> 308 Hailey Blackwood Arden 3 3.70
author: Hailey Blackwood
name: Arden
average rating: 3.70
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/15
date added: 2024/09/30
shelves: fantasy-romance, kindle-unlimited, vampires
review:

]]> 8498843
As the very land is blighted by the power of Ineluki's wrath, the tattered remnants of a once-proud human army flee in search of a last sanctuary and rallying point —THE Stone of Farewell, a place shrouded in mystery and ancient sorrow. And the widely scattered surviving members of the League of the Scroll desperately struggle to fulfill missions which will take them from the fallen citadels of humans to the hidden mountain caves of the Qanuc...across storm-tormented waters to discover the truth behind an almost-forgotten legend...through a forest alive with dangers no human could hope to brave...to the secret heartland of the Sithi, where the near-immortals must at last decide whether to ally with the race of men in a final war against those of their own blood....]]> 602 Tad Williams 1101160780 Arden 4 4.23 1990
author: Tad Williams
name: Arden
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at: 2020/02/20
date added: 2024/09/27
shelves:
review:

]]> 208500821
I risked my life to help fae flee a tyrant king. When my own escape goes wrong, I'm left stranded in the wilderness with an injured, arrogant fae mercenary. The last thing he wants is to claim his mortal soulmate, but we have to rely on each other, or die.

Unfortunately, he's half-basilisk, and a single glance will kill me. Unless we mate�� every three days.

He's cocky, aloof, and far too aware of what his venom does to me. From the wilderness to the fae High Court, he's my unwilling companion—and devoted, deadly protector. I can't help being drawn to his passion and the playfulness he only shows me.

I'm hunted by a king and cursed with deadly magic I can barely control. He's haunted by a past he refuses to acknowledge and secrets he can't avoid.

Alone, we don't stand a chance... but together, we might bring a kingdom to its knees.

"Caught in the Basilisk's Gaze" is a complete story with a guaranteed happily-ever-after. This steamy fated mates romance features leads with troubled pasts forced into alliance—and thrown into the midst of a high-stakes conflict between fae kings.]]> 461 Mallory Dunlin Arden 4 “I missed you,�� he said, almost whispering the words. One side of his mouth tilted up. ‘Isn’t that strange?��

This novel grows on you. At the beginning, I was not at all impressed. I was already half-believing that this was going to be my least favorite of the Monsters of Faery series. It felt mediocre. Tolerable, but unexciting. The beginning of the novel had quite disjointed pacing, jumping from place-to-place without much backstory or character introduction of any kind. And I couldn’t help but feel there was too much modernity (from Danica’s manner of speaking to daddy jokes from Vanduin) and not enough fantasy. And Vaduin was behaving like a supreme asshole!

But as the proverbial bandages are slowly pulled away, and both Vanduin and Danica’s traumas are revealed, I couldn’t help but begin to care for these two lovable weirdos. An affectionate basilisk and his badass soulmate, bickering and tail-flicking and being all adorably affectionate. I really came to enjoy this novel. And I was pleased to finally see one of the mortal characters embrace magic—mage powers and strange appendages and all! My desire for fantasy was assuaged!

... Also, I know the next novel is about Cass (and he deserves it!), but I would really love to read about Pelleas, Prince of Shadows. With his trickster behavior, many secrets, and incredible powers of glamor, I am getting a little bit of a Jareth vibe? Would love to see his story told. ]]> 4.17 2024
author: Mallory Dunlin
name: Arden
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/13
date added: 2024/09/14
shelves:
review:
“I missed you,�� he said, almost whispering the words. One side of his mouth tilted up. ‘Isn’t that strange?��

This novel grows on you. At the beginning, I was not at all impressed. I was already half-believing that this was going to be my least favorite of the Monsters of Faery series. It felt mediocre. Tolerable, but unexciting. The beginning of the novel had quite disjointed pacing, jumping from place-to-place without much backstory or character introduction of any kind. And I couldn’t help but feel there was too much modernity (from Danica’s manner of speaking to daddy jokes from Vanduin) and not enough fantasy. And Vaduin was behaving like a supreme asshole!

But as the proverbial bandages are slowly pulled away, and both Vanduin and Danica’s traumas are revealed, I couldn’t help but begin to care for these two lovable weirdos. An affectionate basilisk and his badass soulmate, bickering and tail-flicking and being all adorably affectionate. I really came to enjoy this novel. And I was pleased to finally see one of the mortal characters embrace magic—mage powers and strange appendages and all! My desire for fantasy was assuaged!

... Also, I know the next novel is about Cass (and he deserves it!), but I would really love to read about Pelleas, Prince of Shadows. With his trickster behavior, many secrets, and incredible powers of glamor, I am getting a little bit of a Jareth vibe? Would love to see his story told.
]]> 192505822
Hui-Seun expects a simple hunt and a clean kill. Instead she finds an angry, ancient half-dragon bent on conquering her home. Held captive by her prey, the dragonslayer must think on her feet—first to keep a beast with delusions of monarchy from putting flame to the countryside, and then to get free.

You don't become a dragonslayer without an interest in dragons, though, and forced proximity makes for a lot of learning opportunities. As the days roll past and walls come down, Hui-Seun learns more about the mysterious, beautiful half-dragon keeping her chained to a wall... and discovers that he's not the beast she imagined.

But dragons and dragonslayers have always been linked by the flight of an arrow, and when others come to finish the job, Hui-Seun must choose where her loyalties lie—with the people she's sworn to protect, or the creature she desires.]]> 69 Mallory Dunlin Arden 4 fantasy-romance 3.81
author: Mallory Dunlin
name: Arden
average rating: 3.81
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/10
date added: 2024/09/14
shelves: fantasy-romance
review:

]]> 199368216 I meant to slay the dragon—not save him.All my life, I've known what it means to be a human in Faery, and I've always fought back. But when my father attacks a half-dragon duke - and fails - I make the only bargain I can think my life for my his.I expect to be treated like a slave, but my new master keeps me in luxury. There's no escape from the beautiful, deadly fae duke—and I'm determined to use my position to help the other mortals in Faery.But the more I learn about him, the more I want to know. He's fascinating. Passionate. Every time he touches me, I want to beg him to never stop. There's far more to the Flame of Faery than I ever expected.His secrets bind him like thorned vines. His enemies lurk in the shadows. They know how to deal with a dragon... but they don't know how to deal with me.If I save him, my debt is paid. But I'm starting to fear that I'll never want to leave..."Claimed by the Flame of Faery" is a complete novel inspired by Beauty and the Beast. This enemies-to-lovers romance plays with the power dynamics between its spitfire couple and has a guaranteed happily-ever-after. For a full list of content warnings, please see .]]> 381 Mallory Dunlin Arden 4 guilty-pleasures "Holy gods. Someone had given this up? Had given him up? Her loss, holy fuck."

Best of the series so far!! I dream of Varistan, and I want to BE Bells. What a badass confidant warrior queen. And I loved them together. Such a lovely, mutually supportive dynamic. They were both capable of steering the ship if their partner needed to take a break and relive themselves of the pressure of their responsibilities. They were both intelligent, diplomatic leaders in their own right. Plus top tier banter!

“Varistan’s eyebrows crawled up. ‘I take it you murdered him and looted his corpse, then.�� I sniffed at him, unable to keep the smile off my face for long enough to appear serious. ‘You make it sound so pedestrian. I’ll have you know that when duchesses murder people and loot their corpses, it’s called emerging from a political discussion with capital gains.’��

Also [spoilers removed]]]> 4.08 2023
author: Mallory Dunlin
name: Arden
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/05
date added: 2024/09/14
shelves: guilty-pleasures
review:
"Holy gods. Someone had given this up? Had given him up? Her loss, holy fuck."

Best of the series so far!! I dream of Varistan, and I want to BE Bells. What a badass confidant warrior queen. And I loved them together. Such a lovely, mutually supportive dynamic. They were both capable of steering the ship if their partner needed to take a break and relive themselves of the pressure of their responsibilities. They were both intelligent, diplomatic leaders in their own right. Plus top tier banter!

“Varistan’s eyebrows crawled up. ‘I take it you murdered him and looted his corpse, then.�� I sniffed at him, unable to keep the smile off my face for long enough to appear serious. ‘You make it sound so pedestrian. I’ll have you know that when duchesses murder people and loot their corpses, it’s called emerging from a political discussion with capital gains.’��

Also [spoilers removed]
]]> 131847702 302 Mallory Dunlin Arden 3 In the Claws of the Raven Prince--it was interesting to see the origin of the Dain Sundamar we meet in the first book, and to see some of motivations and egos that contributed to the Annihilation War.

But compared to the first novel, Captured by the Fae Beast, there was loads more sex, more insta-love, and chapter-upon-chapter of furious fucking. Some readers will surely be thrilled by this, but I was a bit turned-off by the sheer gratuitousness of the spice. And there was such extreme overuse of petname 'darling'! It's usually one of my favorites, but 'darling' was butchered. Here lies it's corpse, affectionately rotting...]]> 3.73 2023
author: Mallory Dunlin
name: Arden
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/19
date added: 2024/09/14
shelves:
review:
I loved Ayre and Lily, and I loved the prequel-ish nature of In the Claws of the Raven Prince--it was interesting to see the origin of the Dain Sundamar we meet in the first book, and to see some of motivations and egos that contributed to the Annihilation War.

But compared to the first novel, Captured by the Fae Beast, there was loads more sex, more insta-love, and chapter-upon-chapter of furious fucking. Some readers will surely be thrilled by this, but I was a bit turned-off by the sheer gratuitousness of the spice. And there was such extreme overuse of petname 'darling'! It's usually one of my favorites, but 'darling' was butchered. Here lies it's corpse, affectionately rotting...
]]> 6388558
She eludes him for five years, but he has finally chased her to ground and stolen the jewel which commands her, giving him absolute power over her. While he possesses it, he can make her do anything, and he plans to in order for her to experience firsthand the agonizing, unending lust she'd purposely subjected him to for half a decade. Yet when Wroth realizes he wants more from her and frees her, will she come.

Note: First published in the 2006 anthology, Playing Easy to Get.]]> 163 Kresley Cole Arden 3 4.04 2006
author: Kresley Cole
name: Arden
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2020/03/07
date added: 2024/09/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 218718489 The extraordinary, genre-defying debut adult novel by the No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater.

AT THE AVALLON, REAL POWER COMES TO THOSE WHO WATCH AND LISTEN...

High in the Appalachian mountains is a place quite unlike any other. The Avallon Hotel and its enigmatic General Manager, June Hudson, are famed for offering unrivalled luxury, season after season, to those who come from far and wide to indulge in its beautiful hot springs and take the healing waters. Everything is perfect. Perhaps too perfect.

So when the Avallon is called upon to help the war effort - to oust its guests and host three hundred diplomats and Nazi sympathisers - June's priority is business as usual. But as dark alliances and unexpected attractions crack the polished veneer of the hotel, she is forced to reckon with the true price of luxury.

After all, only June knows the sacrifice required to keep everyone happy - her staff, the FBI and, above all, the tumultuous sweetwater running through the heart of the hotel.

The Listeners is a story of love, lies, secrets and betrayal, based on real events and steeped with eerie Appalachian magic - and brought to life by a truly unforgettable ensemble cast of characters.]]> 416 Maggie Stiefvater 1035406195 Arden 0 to-read 3.71 2025
author: Maggie Stiefvater
name: Arden
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58934632
Winterset Hollow follows a group of friends to the place that inspired their favorite book-a timeless tale about a tribe of animals preparing for their yearly end-of-summer festival. But after a series of shocking discoveries, they find that much of what the world believes to be fiction is actually fact, and that the truth behind their beloved story is darker and more dangerous than they ever imagined. It's Barley Day . . . and you're invited to the hunt.

Winterset Hollow is as thrilling as it is terrifying and as smart as it is surprising. A uniquely original story filled with properly unexpected twists and turns, Winterset Hollow delivers complex, indelible characters and pulse- pounding action as it storms toward an unforgettable climax that will leave you reeling. How do you celebrate Barley Day? You run, friend. You run.]]> 274 Jonathan Edward Durham 1625862083 Arden 4 horror, kindle-unlimited “Haven’t you ever read something and felt like it was written just for you?��

Winterset Hollow was a fascinating piece of fantasy horror. Competently written and quite eloquent. (Though at times the prose could become needlessly grandiose, I would attribute this to the growing pains of a debut author, and I imagine if Durham writes a second novel with a good editor, these few instances of purple prose will be wiped away like smudges on jewelry).

The novel tells the tale of three friends who embark upon a trip to a remote island somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. They are visiting the place where their favorite novel was written, hoping for a glimpse of the walled estate its author once called home, expecting an idyllic paradise, because that is the only thing they could imagine would have inspired such a charming and lovely book. What they find is something else entirely. Something dark and depraved and utterly wicked.

"You know, it’s been said that you should never meet your heroes, but I say better to know whom you place on that pedestal, don’t you agree?"

Winterset Hollow illuminates a few important lessons. When to separate the author from the art. The folly of falling prey to idolatry or hero worship. And the singular importance of finding your own identity, of knowing yourself, rather than calling yourself the sum of the art you have consumed.

This is an especially important lesson for those adults who fell in love with the universe of Harry Potter as children, but who now struggle to reconcile their beloved world of magic with the bigoted, hateful woman who created it. Do not fear, Slytherins and Gryffindors, it can be done. You can hold dear these precious childhood moments without making them the foundation of your adult life. You can abandon your adoration of J.K. Rowling without losing those morsels of courage and loyalty and bravery that you gained from reading her novels.

Reading Winterset Hollow might not show you how, but it will tell you why. And it will leave you with�� what shall we call it? An appreciation of all of life’s flavors�� Even the horrible ones.

"Life’s a funny thing, isn’t it? You spend it waiting for that one blinding moment of clarity�� that one magic thread that sews it all together. And then one day, you wake up an older thing than you’d ever thought you’d be, and you realize you’ve wasted your days looking for something that was never really there at all. There are no solutions in this life, Eamon. There are only moments in the sun�� and moments in the shade.. and the trick of it all is to understand where you’re standing before it’s all too late to call it home."]]> 3.89 2021
author: Jonathan Edward Durham
name: Arden
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/23
date added: 2024/09/13
shelves: horror, kindle-unlimited
review:
“Haven’t you ever read something and felt like it was written just for you?��

Winterset Hollow was a fascinating piece of fantasy horror. Competently written and quite eloquent. (Though at times the prose could become needlessly grandiose, I would attribute this to the growing pains of a debut author, and I imagine if Durham writes a second novel with a good editor, these few instances of purple prose will be wiped away like smudges on jewelry).

The novel tells the tale of three friends who embark upon a trip to a remote island somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. They are visiting the place where their favorite novel was written, hoping for a glimpse of the walled estate its author once called home, expecting an idyllic paradise, because that is the only thing they could imagine would have inspired such a charming and lovely book. What they find is something else entirely. Something dark and depraved and utterly wicked.

"You know, it’s been said that you should never meet your heroes, but I say better to know whom you place on that pedestal, don’t you agree?"

Winterset Hollow illuminates a few important lessons. When to separate the author from the art. The folly of falling prey to idolatry or hero worship. And the singular importance of finding your own identity, of knowing yourself, rather than calling yourself the sum of the art you have consumed.

This is an especially important lesson for those adults who fell in love with the universe of Harry Potter as children, but who now struggle to reconcile their beloved world of magic with the bigoted, hateful woman who created it. Do not fear, Slytherins and Gryffindors, it can be done. You can hold dear these precious childhood moments without making them the foundation of your adult life. You can abandon your adoration of J.K. Rowling without losing those morsels of courage and loyalty and bravery that you gained from reading her novels.

Reading Winterset Hollow might not show you how, but it will tell you why. And it will leave you with�� what shall we call it? An appreciation of all of life’s flavors�� Even the horrible ones.

"Life’s a funny thing, isn’t it? You spend it waiting for that one blinding moment of clarity�� that one magic thread that sews it all together. And then one day, you wake up an older thing than you’d ever thought you’d be, and you realize you’ve wasted your days looking for something that was never really there at all. There are no solutions in this life, Eamon. There are only moments in the sun�� and moments in the shade.. and the trick of it all is to understand where you’re standing before it’s all too late to call it home."
]]> 63106097
The daughter of a powerful but disgraced Blood Worker, Shan LeClaire has spent her entire life perfecting her blood magic, building her network of spies, and gathering every scrap of power she could. Now, to protect her brother, she assassinates their father and takes her place at the head of the family. And that is only the start of her revenge.

Samuel Hutchinson is a bastard with a terrible gift. When he stumbles upon the first victim of a magical serial killer, he's drawn into the world of magic and intrigue he's worked so hard to avoid - and is pulled deeply into the ravenous and bloodthirsty court of the vampire king.

Tasked by the Eternal King to discover the identity of the killer cutting a bloody swath through the city, Samuel, Shan and mysterious Royal Bloodworker Isaac find themselves growing ever closer to each other. But Shan's plans are treacherous, and as she lures Samuel into her complicated web of desire, treason and vengeance, he must decide if the good of their nation is worth the cost of his soul.]]> 432 K.M. Enright 0356521133 Arden 0 to-read 3.28 2024
author: K.M. Enright
name: Arden
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 45890523
Starve Acre is a devastating new novel by the author of the prize-winning bestseller The Loney. It is a novel about the way in which grief splits the world in two and how, in searching for hope, we can so easily unearth horror.]]> 256 Andrew Michael Hurley Arden 0 to-read 3.69 2019
author: Andrew Michael Hurley
name: Arden
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 6437061 427 N.K. Jemisin 0316043915 Arden 0 to-read 3.88 2010
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Arden
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59435615 384 Shola von Reinhold 1478018720 Arden 0 to-read 4.04 2020
author: Shola von Reinhold
name: Arden
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 19117
Fathers and Sons enraged the old and the young, reactionaries, romantics, and radicals alike when it was first published. At the same time, Turgenev won the acclaim of Flaubert, Maupassant, and Henry James for his craftsmanship as a writer and his psychological insight. Fathers and Sons is now considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century.

A timeless depiction of generational conflict during social upheaval, it vividly portrays the clash between the older Russian aristocracy and the youthful radicalism that foreshadowed the revolution to come—and offers modern-day readers much to reflect upon as they look around at their own tumultuous, ever changing world.

Introduction by Jane Costlow]]> 244 Ivan Turgenev 0451529693 Arden 0 to-read 3.99 1862
author: Ivan Turgenev
name: Arden
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1862
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 127306440
Retired soldier Alex Easton returns in a horrifying new adventure.

After their terrifying ordeal at the Usher manor, Alex Easton feels as if they just survived another war. All they crave is rest, routine, and sunshine, but instead, as a favor to Angus and Miss Potter, they find themself heading to their family hunting lodge, deep in the cold, damp forests of their home country, Gallacia.

In theory, one can find relaxation in even the coldest and dampest of Gallacian autumns, but when Easton arrives, they find the caretaker dead, the lodge in disarray, and the grounds troubled by a strange, uncanny silence. The villagers whisper that a breath-stealing monster from folklore has taken up residence in Easton’s home. Easton knows better than to put too much stock in local superstitions, but they can tell that something is not quite right in their home. . . or in their dreams.]]> 151 T. Kingfisher 1250830850 Arden 3 What Moves the Dead!

Still an entertaining gothic read populated with likable characters, but What Feasts at Night just could not live up to the excellence of it's predecessor. It couldn't quite capture the same eerie, creeping dread. ]]> 3.78 2024
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Arden
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/27
date added: 2024/09/02
shelves:
review:
Not as good as the What Moves the Dead!

Still an entertaining gothic read populated with likable characters, but What Feasts at Night just could not live up to the excellence of it's predecessor. It couldn't quite capture the same eerie, creeping dread.
]]> 76488 291 Kathryn Davis 0316014249 Arden 4 best-literary-fiction "Maybe we all died, ages and ages ago. We all died and continue dying, this being the hell we’re all too stupid to recognize we’ve fallen into, or too filled with wishful thinking to acknowledge. Such a sweet-smelling hell, though. Coffee and cut-grass, and the sumpy aroma of the river. Sweat and soap, ivory. The sweet-smelling sweat that forms just below the hairline. The dead come back sometimes this way, in the smells of the living."

The Thin Place is a novel for those who are willing to sacrifice plot in favor of truly beautiful, elegant prose. In her writing, Katheryn Davis captures the beauty that exists in the everyday--in suburbia and church on Sundays, in elementary school theatre productions and house cats lapping up melted ice cream.

And over the course of the novel, the reader becomes aware of the spiderweb thin thread that connects all these everyday things. Slowly, we are introduced to the overlap of the grounded physical world and the unseen, spiritual world. We are led into the titular ‘Thin Place,�� the membrane between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Though these two worlds are not so separate after all.

The Thin Place especially reminded me of Marilynn Robinson’s Housekeeping. Both have such a poetic writing style and so perfectly capture the poignancy of domestic banalities. Readers who enjoyed Housekeeping will find The Thin Place equally rewarding, but with a more cheerful setting and a stronger element of magical realism. Both share a strong theme of interconnectedness, between humans and animals, nature and the metaphysical forces of the divine. This is the story of a small town more than it is the story of any of the particular persons that live within it. The ethereal plot does not possess any particular protagonist, so much as it shines a light upon the veins of connection, love hate loyalty and leyline powers, that run through the town of Varennes.

“Of course, if a person looked at his life from above, he could see the whole thing for what it was. He’d only feel lost while he was living it. When he still hadn’t figured out that it was, in fact, a maze, and that both the way in and the way out led to the same enormous, empty place surrounding it.��]]> 3.30 2006
author: Kathryn Davis
name: Arden
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/30
date added: 2024/09/02
shelves: best-literary-fiction
review:
"Maybe we all died, ages and ages ago. We all died and continue dying, this being the hell we’re all too stupid to recognize we’ve fallen into, or too filled with wishful thinking to acknowledge. Such a sweet-smelling hell, though. Coffee and cut-grass, and the sumpy aroma of the river. Sweat and soap, ivory. The sweet-smelling sweat that forms just below the hairline. The dead come back sometimes this way, in the smells of the living."

The Thin Place is a novel for those who are willing to sacrifice plot in favor of truly beautiful, elegant prose. In her writing, Katheryn Davis captures the beauty that exists in the everyday--in suburbia and church on Sundays, in elementary school theatre productions and house cats lapping up melted ice cream.

And over the course of the novel, the reader becomes aware of the spiderweb thin thread that connects all these everyday things. Slowly, we are introduced to the overlap of the grounded physical world and the unseen, spiritual world. We are led into the titular ‘Thin Place,�� the membrane between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Though these two worlds are not so separate after all.

The Thin Place especially reminded me of Marilynn Robinson’s Housekeeping. Both have such a poetic writing style and so perfectly capture the poignancy of domestic banalities. Readers who enjoyed Housekeeping will find The Thin Place equally rewarding, but with a more cheerful setting and a stronger element of magical realism. Both share a strong theme of interconnectedness, between humans and animals, nature and the metaphysical forces of the divine. This is the story of a small town more than it is the story of any of the particular persons that live within it. The ethereal plot does not possess any particular protagonist, so much as it shines a light upon the veins of connection, love hate loyalty and leyline powers, that run through the town of Varennes.

“Of course, if a person looked at his life from above, he could see the whole thing for what it was. He’d only feel lost while he was living it. When he still hadn’t figured out that it was, in fact, a maze, and that both the way in and the way out led to the same enormous, empty place surrounding it.��
]]> 3115359 2666 has been greeted as his greatest achievement, surpassing even his previous work in its strangeness,beauty, and scope. Its throng of unforgettable characters include academics and convicts, an American sportswriter, an elusive German novelist, and a teenage student caring for her widowed, mentally unstable father. Their lives intersect in the desert sprawl of Santa Teresa--a fictional Juárez--on the US-Mexico border, where hundreds of young factory workers, in the novel as in life, have disappeared. Audacious, impassioned and profoundly inspired, 2666 is Roberto Bolaño’s masterwork.

]]> 898 Roberto Bolaño 0374100144 Arden 0 to-read 4.12 2004
author: Roberto Bolaño
name: Arden
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 97967
But as the unlikely allies venture farther into the south, they will face death in a land under the sway of a fanatical cult that would purge Gillengaria of all magic users. And they will come to realize that their only hope of survival lies in standing together…]]> 421 Sharon Shinn 0441013031 Arden 0 to-read 4.10 2005
author: Sharon Shinn
name: Arden
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 184419
As Jonathan Lethem remarks in his Introduction, The real characters are the ideas. Chesterton's nutty agenda is really quite simple: to expose moral relativism and parlor nihilism for the devils he believes them to be. This wouldn't be interesting at all, though, if he didn't also show such passion for giving the devil his due. He animates the forces of chaos and anarchy with every ounce of imaginative verve and rhetorical force in his body.]]> 182 G.K. Chesterton 0375757910 Arden 0 to-read 3.85 1908
author: G.K. Chesterton
name: Arden
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1908
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61391802 Seven ingeniously reinvented fairy tales that play out with astonishing consequences in the modern world

Finding seeds of inspiration in the Brothers Grimm, seventeenth-century French lore, and Scottish ballads, Kelly Link spins classic fairy tales into utterly original stories of seekers--characters on the hunt for love, connection, revenge, or their own sense of purpose.

In "The White Cat's Divorce," an aging billionaire sends his three sons on a series of absurd goose chases to decide which will become his heir. In "The Girl Who Did Not Know Fear," a professor with a delicate health condition becomes stranded for days in an airport hotel after a conference, desperate to get home to her wife and young daughter, and in acute danger of being late for an appointment that cannot be missed. In "Skinder's Veil," a young man agrees to take over a remote house-sitting gig for a friend. But what should be a chance to focus on his long-avoided dissertation instead becomes a wildly unexpected journey, as the house seems to be a portal for otherworldly travelers--or perhaps a door into his own mysterious psyche.

Twisting and winding in astonishing ways, expertly blending realism and the speculative, witty, empathetic, and never predictable--these stories remind us once again of why Kelly Link is incomparable in the art of short fiction.]]> 272 Kelly Link 0593449959 Arden 0 to-read 3.79 2023
author: Kelly Link
name: Arden
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 187542945 I never intended to become a princess. Or make a deal with a monster.

Lost in the wilderness, I thought the handsome stranger was my salvation—until I looked into the eyes of a beast.

They say not to bargain with the fae, but there was no other choice.

The deadly prince of Stag Court claims I belong to him. I only have a year and a day to convince him to let me go before I'm his forever.

He's without mercy, known as a ruthless killer. Yet he protects me. Defends me. Tells me his secrets. In front of the Court, he's the Beast, but behind closed doors he gives me the chance to choose him, or not.

The fae Court is a dangerous place, and the prince isn't the only terror lurking in the shadows. But I'm stronger than his enemies give me credit for. Together, he and I might be each other's salvation... or ruin.

"Captured by the Fae Beast" is a complete story loosely inspired by the story of Hades and Persephone, with a guaranteed happily-ever-after. This enemies-to-lovers slow burn romance features a possessive male lead and the sunshine mortal who can tame him.]]> 374 Mallory Dunlin Arden 3 fae, kindle-unlimited Captured by the Fae Beast was a fast read, and the writing was good. The plot and characters were absolutely absorbing (the MMC was such a simp and I ate it up) and I tore through this novel in day.

But when I look at this novel objectively, there were quite a few problems:

1) Weak worldbuilding. There was a lot of inconsistency with what mortal objects can or cannot be brought into the fae world, with little description of the process, and no scope of difficulty.

2) Dane was too soft for my taste. His loyalty and obsession were attractive, but there was too much prostrating and groveling and apologizing, and it began to overshadow his more endearing qualities.

3) The acknowledgment of romance tropes was amusing, but some of the author's choices began to feel performatively ‘woke'...for example when Kamharinda--a woman from Nigeria, and the FMC’s main/only friend--says her life and experiences do not expect to inform upon Leah’s, that felt powerful. A black woman's life does not exist as a foil to a white woman's. But then later the author makes off-hand mention that a belly button piercing on a man means that he is usually both slutty and gay. That's offensive as fuck. Now my perception of the earlier statement had been cheapened. It felt more like she had inserted a pro-black statement to appeal to progressive readers, and less like something that she genuinely believes.

I would still recommend Captured by the Fae Beast to fantasy romance fans because it is an enjoyable read for sure, just don't think too deeply about it. I think my own overthinking was what made this a 3 star read. ]]> 3.89 2022
author: Mallory Dunlin
name: Arden
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/17
date added: 2024/08/29
shelves: fae, kindle-unlimited
review:
Mixed feelings. Captured by the Fae Beast was a fast read, and the writing was good. The plot and characters were absolutely absorbing (the MMC was such a simp and I ate it up) and I tore through this novel in day.

But when I look at this novel objectively, there were quite a few problems:

1) Weak worldbuilding. There was a lot of inconsistency with what mortal objects can or cannot be brought into the fae world, with little description of the process, and no scope of difficulty.

2) Dane was too soft for my taste. His loyalty and obsession were attractive, but there was too much prostrating and groveling and apologizing, and it began to overshadow his more endearing qualities.

3) The acknowledgment of romance tropes was amusing, but some of the author's choices began to feel performatively ‘woke'...for example when Kamharinda--a woman from Nigeria, and the FMC’s main/only friend--says her life and experiences do not expect to inform upon Leah’s, that felt powerful. A black woman's life does not exist as a foil to a white woman's. But then later the author makes off-hand mention that a belly button piercing on a man means that he is usually both slutty and gay. That's offensive as fuck. Now my perception of the earlier statement had been cheapened. It felt more like she had inserted a pro-black statement to appeal to progressive readers, and less like something that she genuinely believes.

I would still recommend Captured by the Fae Beast to fantasy romance fans because it is an enjoyable read for sure, just don't think too deeply about it. I think my own overthinking was what made this a 3 star read.
]]> 418173 214 Megan Lindholm 0441894674 Arden 0 to-read 3.75 1986
author: Megan Lindholm
name: Arden
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59030015
After Nessa James’s husband dies and her twin daughters leave for college, she’s left all alone in a trim white house not far from the ocean. In the quiet of her late forties, the former nurse begins to hear voices. It doesn’t take long for Nessa to realize that the voices calling out to her belong to the dead—a gift she’s inherited from her grandmother, which comes with special responsibilities.

On the cusp of 50, suave advertising director Harriett Osborne has just witnessed the implosion of her lucrative career and her marriage. She hasn’t left her house in months, and from the outside, it appears as if she and her garden have both gone to seed. But Harriett’s life is far from over—in fact, she’s undergone a stunning and very welcome metamorphosis.

Ambitious former executive Jo Levison has spent thirty long years at war with her body. The free-floating rage and hot flashes that arrive with the beginning of menopause feel like the very last straw—until she realizes she has the ability to channel them, and finally comes into her power.

Guided by voices only Nessa can hear, the trio of women discover a teenage girl whose body was abandoned beside a remote beach. The police have written the victim off as a drug-addicted sex worker, but the women refuse to buy into the official narrative. Their investigation into the girl’s murder leads to more bodies, and to the town’s most exclusive and isolated enclave, a world of stupendous wealth where the rules don’t apply. With their newfound powers, Jo, Nessa, and Harriett will take matters into their own hands…]]> 470 Kirsten Miller 0063144042 Arden 0 to-read 4.06 2022
author: Kirsten Miller
name: Arden
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 11741 Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, their eccentric and remote aunt. The family house is in the small Far West town of Fingerbone set on a glacial lake, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck, and their mother drove off a cliff to her death. It is a town "chastened by an outsized landscape and extravagant weather, and chastened again by an awareness that the whole of human history had occurred elsewhere." Ruth and Lucille's struggle toward adulthood beautifully illuminates the price of loss and survival, and the dangerous and deep undertow of transience.]]> 219 Marilynne Robinson 0312424094 Arden 4 best-literary-fiction “For need can blossom into all the compensations it requires. To crave and have, are as like as a thing and it’s shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to taste it? And when is the taste refracted into so many hues and savors of ripeness and earth? And when do our senses know anything so utterly, as when we lack it?

And here again is a foreshadowing: the world will be made whole. For to wish for a hand on one’s hair is all but to feel it. So, whatever we may lose, the very craving gives it back to us again. Though we dream and hardly know it, longing, like an angel, fosters us. Smooths our hair. And brings us wild strawberries.��

Wow. What truly beautiful writing. Robinson has an incredible ability to render the smallest, simplest details and the most domestic banalities as things both painful and exquisite. “Performing the rituals of the ordinary as an act of faith.��

I am impressed. I would recommend Housekeeping for anyone who enjoys the atmosphere of novel more than it's plot, and who can appreciate beautiful writing for it's own sake, as this novel does not have a driving plot. It makes up for this with exemplary imagery and poignant characterization. ]]> 3.82 1980
author: Marilynne Robinson
name: Arden
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1980
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/22
date added: 2024/08/23
shelves: best-literary-fiction
review:
“For need can blossom into all the compensations it requires. To crave and have, are as like as a thing and it’s shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to taste it? And when is the taste refracted into so many hues and savors of ripeness and earth? And when do our senses know anything so utterly, as when we lack it?

And here again is a foreshadowing: the world will be made whole. For to wish for a hand on one’s hair is all but to feel it. So, whatever we may lose, the very craving gives it back to us again. Though we dream and hardly know it, longing, like an angel, fosters us. Smooths our hair. And brings us wild strawberries.��

Wow. What truly beautiful writing. Robinson has an incredible ability to render the smallest, simplest details and the most domestic banalities as things both painful and exquisite. “Performing the rituals of the ordinary as an act of faith.��

I am impressed. I would recommend Housekeeping for anyone who enjoys the atmosphere of novel more than it's plot, and who can appreciate beautiful writing for it's own sake, as this novel does not have a driving plot. It makes up for this with exemplary imagery and poignant characterization.
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