˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚'s bookshelf: all en-US Tue, 29 Apr 2025 21:08:02 -0700 60 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚'s bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Winter of the Witch (The Winternight Trilogy, #3)]]> 36621586 Following their adventures in The Bear and the Nightingale and The Girl in the Tower, Vasya and Morozko return in this stunning conclusion to the bestselling Winternight Trilogy, battling enemies mortal and magical to save both Russias, the seen and the unseen.


Now Moscow has been struck by disaster. Its people are searching for answers—and for someone to blame. Vasya finds herself alone, beset on all sides. The Grand Prince is in a rage, choosing allies that will lead him on a path to war and ruin. A wicked demon returns, stronger than ever and determined to spread chaos. Caught at the center of the conflict is Vasya, who finds the fate of two worlds resting on her shoulders. Her destiny uncertain, Vasya will uncover surprising truths about herself and her history as she desperately tries to save Russia, Morozko, and the magical world she treasures. But she may not be able to save them all.

Advance praise for The Winter of the Witch

“Katherine Arden’s Winternight Trilogy isn’t just good—it’s hug-to-your-chest, straight-to-the-favorites-shelf, reread-immediately good, and each book just gets better. The Winter of the Witch plunges us back to fourteenth-century Moscow, where old gods and new vie for the soul of Russia and fate rests on a witch girl’s slender shoulders. Prepare to have your heart ripped out, loaned back to you full of snow and magic, and ripped out some more.”�Laini Taylor]]>
400 Katherine Arden 1101886005 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, series-to-finish 4.48 2019 The Winter of the Witch (The Winternight Trilogy, #3)
author: Katherine Arden
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/29
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<![CDATA[The Girl in the Tower (The Winternight Trilogy, #2)]]> 34050917 The Bear and the Nightingale, Katherine Arden’s enchanting first novel, introduced readers to an irresistible heroine. Vasilisa has grown up at the edge of a Russian wilderness, where snowdrifts reach the eaves of her family’s wooden house and there is truth in the fairy tales told around the fire. Vasilisa’s gift for seeing what others do not won her the attention of Morozko—Frost, the winter demon from the stories—and together they saved her people from destruction. But Frost’s aid comes at a cost, and her people have condemned her as a witch.

In The Girl in the Tower, Vasilisa faces an impossible choice. Driven from her home by frightened villagers, she has only two options left: marriage or the convent. She cannot bring herself to accept either fate and instead chooses adventure, dressing herself as a boy and setting off astride her magnificent stallion Solovey.

But after she prevails in a skirmish with bandits, everything changes. The Grand Prince of Moscow anoints her a hero for her exploits, and she is reunited with her beloved sister and brother, who are now part of the Grand Prince’s inner circle. She dares not reveal to the court that she is a girl, for if her deception were discovered it would have terrible consequences for herself and her family. Before she can untangle herself from Moscow’s intrigues—and as Frost provides counsel that may or may not be trustworthy—she will also confront an even graver threat lying in wait for all of Moscow itself.]]>
360 Katherine Arden 1101885963 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, series-to-finish 4.34 2017 The Girl in the Tower (The Winternight Trilogy, #2)
author: Katherine Arden
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/29
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I, Medusa 228142988 From New York Times bestselling author Ayana Gray comes a new kind of villain origin story, reimagining one of the most iconic monsters in Greek mythology as a provocative and powerful young heroine.

Meddy has spent her whole life as a footnote in someone else’s story. Out of place next to her beautiful, immortal sisters and her parents—both gods, albeit minor ones—she dreams of leaving her family’s island for a life of adventure. So when she catches the eye of the goddess Athena, who invites her to train as an esteemed priestess in her temple, Meddy leaps at the chance to see the world beyond her home.

In Athens� colorful market streets and the clandestine chambers of the temple, Meddy flourishes in her role as Athena’s favored acolyte, getting her first tastes of purpose and power. But when she is noticed by another Olympian, Poseidon, a drunken night between girl and god ends in violence, and the course of Meddy’s promising future is suddenly and irrevocably altered.

Her locs transformed into snakes as punishment for a crime she did not commit, Medusa must embrace a new identity—not as a victim, but as a vigilante—and with it, the chance to write her own story as mortal, martyr, and myth.

Exploding with rage, heartbreak, and love, I, Medusa portrays a young woman caught in the cross currents between her heart’s deepest desires and the cruel, careless games the Olympian gods play.]]>
504 Ayana Gray ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.41 I, Medusa
author: Ayana Gray
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.41
book published:
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Year of the Reaper 59969666
Before an ambush by enemy soldiers, Lord Cassia was an engineer's apprentice on a mission entrusted by the king. But when plague sweeps over the land, leaving countless dead and devastating the kingdom, even Cas� title cannot save him from a rotting prison cell and a merciless sickness.

Three years later, Cas wants only to return to his home in the mountains and forget past horrors. But home is not what he remembers. His castle has become a refuge for the royal court. And they have brought their enemies with them.

When an assassin targets those closest to the queen, Cas is drawn into a search for a killer…one that leads him to form an unexpected bond with a brilliant young historian named Lena. Cas and Lena soon realize that who is behind the attacks is far less important than why. They must look to the past, following the trail of a terrible secret—one that could threaten the kingdom’s newfound peace and plunge it back into war.]]>
324 Makiia Lucier ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 currently-reading, cr-read 3.91 2021 Year of the Reaper
author: Makiia Lucier
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/29
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Malice (Malice Duology, #1) 51530580 A princess isn’t supposed to fall for an evil sorceress. But in this darkly magical retelling of “Sleeping Beauty,� true love is more than a simple fairy tale.

Once upon a time, there was a wicked fairy who, in an act of vengeance, cursed a line of princesses to die. A curse that could only be broken by true love’s kiss.

You’ve heard this before, haven’t you? The handsome prince. The happily-ever-after.

Utter nonsense.

Let me tell you, no one in Briar actually cares about what happens to its princesses. Not the way they care about their jewels and elaborate parties and charm-granting elixirs. I thought I didn’t care, either.

Until I met her.

Princess Aurora. The last heir to Briar’s throne. Kind. Gracious. The future queen her realm needs. One who isn’t bothered that I am Alyce, the Dark Grace, abhorred and feared for the mysterious dark magic that runs in my veins. Humiliated and shamed by the same nobles who pay me to bottle hexes and then brand me a monster. Aurora says I should be proud of my gifts. That she . . . cares for me. Even though it was a power like mine that was responsible for her curse.

But with less than a year until that curse will kill her, any future I might see with Aurora is swiftly disintegrating—and she can’t stand to kiss yet another insipid prince. I want to help her. If my power began her curse, perhaps it’s what can lift it. Perhaps, together, we could forge a new world.

Nonsense again.

Because we all know how this story ends, don’t we? Aurora is the beautiful princess. And I�

I am the villain.]]>
470 Heather Walter 1984818651 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 currently-reading, cr-audio 3.92 2021 Malice (Malice Duology, #1)
author: Heather Walter
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/28
shelves: currently-reading, cr-audio
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<![CDATA[The Latch Key (Regency Faerie Tales, #1.5)]]> 60731784
This short, exclusive novella, written from Lord Elias Wilder’s perspective, takes place just after the events of Half a Soul and includes glimpses of the Lord Sorcier’s childhood in faerie.]]>
42 Olivia Atwater ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 2 3.76 2022 The Latch Key (Regency Faerie Tales, #1.5)
author: Olivia Atwater
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/28
date added: 2025/04/28
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Grey Dog 202929527 “Gish’s prose is as sharp as a scalpel.� � Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Grey Dogis a bewitching tale of the horrors of spinsterhood in the early 1900s, with madness and magic threaded through every sentence.� —Heather O’Neill, author ofWhen We Lost Our Heads and Lullabies for Little Criminals

A subversive literary horror novel that disrupts the tropes of women’s historical fiction with delusions, wild beasts, and the uncontainable power of female rage

The year is 1901, and Ada Byrd � spinster, schoolmarm, amateur naturalist � accepts a teaching post in isolated Lowry Bridge, grateful for the chance to re-establish herself where no one knows her secrets. She develops friendships with her neighbors, explores the woods with her students, and begins to see a future in this tiny farming community. Her past � riddled with grief and shame � has never seemed so far away.

But then, Ada begins to witness strange and grisly a swarm of dying crickets, a self-mutilating rabbit, a malformed faun. She soon believes that something old and beastly � which she calls Grey Dog � is behind these visceral offerings, which both beckon and repel her. As her confusion deepens, her grip on what is real, what is delusion, and what is traumatic memory loosens, and Ada takes on the wildness of the woods, behaving erratically and pushing her newfound friends away. In the end, she is left with one What is the real horror? The Grey Dog, the uncontainable power of female rage, or Ada herself?]]>
391 Elliott Gish 1778522610 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 3.91 2024 Grey Dog
author: Elliott Gish
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/27
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<![CDATA[The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy, #1)]]> 34069813
After Vasilisa's mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa's new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.

And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa's stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent.

As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed--this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse's most frightening tales.]]>
347 Katherine Arden 1101885955 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 currently-reading, cr-read 4.14 2017 The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy, #1)
author: Katherine Arden
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: currently-reading, cr-read
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<![CDATA[Ten Thousand Stitches (Regency Faerie Tales, #2)]]> 60420293 Regency housemaid Euphemia Reeves has acquired a faerie godfather. Unfortunately, he has no idea what he's doing.

Effie has most inconveniently fallen in love with the dashing Mr Benedict Ashbrooke. There's only one problem; Effie is a housemaid, and a housemaid cannot marry a gentleman. It seems that Effie is out of luck until she stumbles into the faerie realm of Lord Blackthorn, who is only too eager to help Effie win Mr Ashbrooke's heart. All he asks in return is that Effie sew ten thousand stitches onto his favourite jacket.

Effie has heard rumours about what happens to those who accept help from faeries, but life as a maid at Hartfield is so awful that she is willing to risk even her immortal soul for a chance at something better. Now, she has one hundred days - and ten thousand stitches - to make Mr Ashbrooke fall in love and propose. . . if Lord Blackthorn doesn't wreck things by accident, that is. For Effie's greatest obstacle might well prove to be Lord Blackthorn's overwhelmingly good intentions.

From the author of HALF A SOUL comes a whimsical fantasy romance with a Cinderella twist. Pick up TEN THOUSAND STITCHES, and dive into another enchanting faerie tale set in Olivia Atwater's charming, magical version of Regency England!]]>
288 Olivia Atwater 031646290X ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 3 3.91 2020 Ten Thousand Stitches (Regency Faerie Tales, #2)
author: Olivia Atwater
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/27
date added: 2025/04/27
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The Favorites 211399784 To the world, they were a scandal. To each other, an obsession.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER � An epic love story set in the sparkling, savage sphere of elite figure skating, starring a woman determined to carve her own path on and off the ice

“P Wuthering Heights and part Daisy Jones & The Six, this novel is as brilliantly choreographed as a gold medal performance and will keep you guessing until its last page.”—Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of By Any Other Name

She might not have a famous name, funding, or her family’s support, but Katarina Shaw has always known that she was destined to become an Olympic skater. When she meets Heath Rocha, a lonely kid stuck in the foster care system, their instant connection makes them a formidable duo on the ice. Clinging to skating—and each other—to escape their turbulent lives, Kat and Heath go from childhood sweethearts to champion ice dancers, captivating the world with their scorching chemistry, rebellious style, and roller-coaster relationship.

Until a shocking incident at the Olympic Games brings their partnership to a sudden end.

As the ten-year anniversary of their final skate approaches, an unauthorized documentary reignites the public obsession with Shaw and Rocha, claiming to uncover the “real story� through interviews with their closest friends and fiercest rivals. Kat wants nothing to do with the documentary, but she can’t stand the thought of someone else defining her legacy. So, after a decade of silence, she’s telling her story: from the childhood tragedies that created her all-consuming bond with Heath to the clash of desires that tore them apart. Sensational rumors have haunted their every step for years, but the truth may be even more shocking than the headlines.]]>
448 Layne Fargo 0593732049 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.17 2025 The Favorites
author: Layne Fargo
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/26
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Remarkably Bright Creatures 58733693 Remarkably Bright Creatures, an exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope, tracing a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.

Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors--until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late.

Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.]]>
368 Shelby Van Pelt 0063204150 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 3 4.35 2022 Remarkably Bright Creatures
author: Shelby Van Pelt
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/26
date added: 2025/04/26
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<![CDATA[Tales from the Thousand and One Nights]]> 774368 Tales from the Thousand and One Nights - sometimes known as the Arabian Nights - is translated with an introduction by N.J. Dawood in Penguin Classics.

The tales told by Scheherazade over a thousand and one nights to delay her execution by the vengeful King Shahryar have become among the most popular in both Eastern and Western literature. From the epic adventures of 'Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp' to the farcical 'Young Woman and her Five Lovers' and the social criticism of 'The Tale of the Hunchback', the stories depict a fabulous world of all-powerful sorcerers, jinns imprisoned in bottles and enchanting princesses. But despite their imaginative extravagance, the Tales are also anchored to everyday life by their bawdiness and realism, providing a full and intimate record of medieval Eastern world.

In this selection, N.J. Dawood presents the reader with an unexpurgated translation of the finest and best-known tales, preserving their spirited narrative style in lively modern English. In his introduction, he discusses their origins in the East and their differences from Classical Arabic literature, and examines English translations of the tales since the eighteenth century.

If you enjoyed Tales from the Thousand and One Nights, you might like Snorri Sturlson's The Prose Edda, also available in Penguin Classics.]]>
416 Anonymous 0140442898 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 3 4.01 1775 Tales from the Thousand and One Nights
author: Anonymous
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1775
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/26
date added: 2025/04/26
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<![CDATA[Dramatic Paws (Kitten Witch Mysteries #1)]]> 54644531
Ember McNair owns a pub that serves the tastiest treats in Louisiana. But when someone starts targeting her customers with death, all signs point to her. Luckily, Ember has a few aces up her sleeve. See, she’s not just a small business owner. She’s a witch.

Too bad you don’t need magic to see the whole town start to talk, suggesting she killed her problem customers.

It’s not like the victims were pillars or society or anything. One was a boyfriend-stealing bully. The others were just as bad.

Who had the motive? Seems everyone had reasons to hate them. And plenty of people in this sleepy little town had things to hide.

It’s up to Ember, her bat shifter bestie, the ghost of her ancestor, and Kali, her cat familiar who quotes Sun Tzu’s Art of War to piece it all together.

They better hurry. Because right now, all roads lead to Ember as the murderer. And sure, Sheriff Jamison might be giving her the benefit of the doubt, but he’s only going to tolerate her butting around in his investigation for so long.

Can his hazel eyes get lost in hers long enough so she can uncover the clues?]]>
106 Corrine Winters ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.29 2020 Dramatic Paws (Kitten Witch Mysteries #1)
author: Corrine Winters
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: to-read
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The Grace Year 43263520
In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. They believe their very skin emits a powerful aphrodisiac, the potent essence of youth, of a girl on the edge of womanhood. That’s why they’re banished for their sixteenth year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage. But not all of them will make it home alive.

Sixteen-year-old Tierney James dreams of a better life—a society that doesn’t pit friend against friend or woman against woman, but as her own grace year draws near, she quickly realizes that it’s not just the brutal elements they must fear. It’s not even the poachers in the woods, men who are waiting for a chance to grab one of the girls in order to make a fortune on the black market. Their greatest threat may very well be each other.

With sharp prose and gritty realism, The Grace Year examines the complex and sometimes twisted relationships between girls, the women they eventually become, and the difficult decisions they make in-between.]]>
416 Kim Liggett 1250145449 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, boop 4.11 2019 The Grace Year
author: Kim Liggett
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/25
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<![CDATA[The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1)]]> 34314712 THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS FOR THE LAST TIME.

IT STARTS WITH THE GREAT RED RIFT
across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun.

IT STARTS WITH DEATH,
with a murdered son and a missing daughter.

IT STARTS WITH BETRAYAL
and long dormant wounds rising up to fester.

This is the Stillness, a land familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.]]>
449 N.K. Jemisin 0316229296 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.36 2015 The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1)
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/25
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<![CDATA[The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)]]> 58416952 At the elite Catenan Academy, a young fugitive uncovers layered mysteries and world-changing secrets in this new fantasy series by internationally bestselling author of The Licanius Trilogy, James Islington.

AUDI. VIDE. TACE.

The Catenan Republic � the Hierarchy � may rule the world now, but they do not know everything.

I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilised society in allowing my strength, my drive and my focus � what they call Will � to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do.

I tell them that I belong, and they believe me.

But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart.

And that I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family.

To survive, though, I will still have to rise through the Academy’s ranks. I will have to smile, and make friends, and pretend to be one of them and win. Because if I cannot, then those who want to control me, who know my real name, will no longer have any use for me.

And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.]]>
639 James Islington 1982141190 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.60 2023 The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)
author: James Islington
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/25
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The Measure 58884736
"A story of love and hope as interweaving characters display: how all moments, big and small, can measure a life. If you want joy, love, romance, and hope—read with us." —Jenna Bush Hager
A luminous, spirit-lifting blockbuster that asks: would you choose to find out the length of your life?

Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice.

It seems like any other day. You wake up, drink a cup of coffee, and head out.

But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. The contents of this mysterious box tells you the exact number of years you will live.

From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise?

As society comes together and pulls apart, everyone faces the same shocking choice: Do they wish to know how long they’ll live? And, if so, what will they do with that knowledge?

The Measure charts the dawn of this new world through an unforgettable cast of characters whose decisions and fates interweave with one another: best friends whose dreams are forever entwined, pen pals finding refuge in the unknown, a couple who thought they didn’t have to rush, a doctor who cannot save himself, and a politician whose box becomes the powder keg that ultimately changes everything.

Enchanting and deeply uplifting, The Measure is an ambitious, invigorating story about family, friendship, hope, and destiny that encourages us to live life to the fullest.]]>
353 Nikki Erlick 0063204207 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, boop 3.96 2022 The Measure
author: Nikki Erlick
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/25
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Chain-Gang All-Stars 61190770
Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America's increasingly dominant private prison industry. It's the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.

In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games, but CAPE's corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar's path have devastating consequences.

Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system's unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means.]]>
367 Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah 0593317335 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, bubblegum 4.13 2023 Chain-Gang All-Stars
author: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: to-read, bubblegum
review:

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Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel 223239524
But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride�) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.

Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.]]>
400 Bonnie Garmus 0593314484 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 5 4.5 4.32 2022 Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel
author: Bonnie Garmus
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/25
date added: 2025/04/25
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review:
4.5
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Choke 7052586 Victor Mancini, a medical-school dropout, is an antihero for our deranged times.Needing to pay elder care for his mother, Victor has devised an ingenious he pretends to choke on pieces of food while dining in upscale restaurants. He then allows himself to be “saved� by fellow patrons who, feeling responsible for Victor’s life, go on to send checks to support him.When he’s not pulling this stunt, Victor cruises sexual addiction recovery workshops for action, visits his addled mom, and spends his days working at a colonial theme park.His creator, Chuck Palahniuk, renowned author of classics like Fight Club, is the visionary we need and the satirist we deserve.]]> 231 Chuck Palahniuk 1400032709 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 3.68 2001 Choke
author: Chuck Palahniuk
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: to-read
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달러구트 � 백화� 55303607 여기� 잠들어야� 입장� � 있는 ‘달러구� � 백화점’입니다. 잠들어야� 입장� � 있는 독특� 마을. 그곳� 들어� 잠든 손님들에� 가� 인기 있는 곳은, 온갖 꿈을 한데 모아 판매하는 ‘달러구트의 � 백화점’이�. � 잠을 자는 사람들은 물론이고, 짧은 낮잠� 자는 사람들과 동물들로 매일매일 대성황� 이룬�.
범상� 않은 혈통� 주인� ‘달러구트�, 그리� 그의 최측근에� 일하� � 신참 직원 ‘페니�, 꿈을 만드� 제작� ‘아가� 코코�, 그리� 베일� 둘러싸인 비고 마이어스…등� 등장한다.
《달러구� � 백화점》은 ‘무의식에서� 존재하는 꿈을 정말 사고 � � 있을�?’라� 기발� 질문� 답을 찾아가�, 꿈을 만드� 사람, 파는 사람, 사는 사람� 비밀스런 에피소드� 담고 있는 판타지 소설이다. 텀블벅 펀� 1812% 달성, 전자� 출간 즉시 베스트셀� 1위를 3주간 기록하며 수많은 독자들의 요청으로 종이책으� 출간하게 되었�.]]>
300 Lee Mi-ye ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 3.91 2020 달러구트 꿈 백화점
author: Lee Mi-ye
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: to-read
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The Invasion (The Call, #2) 35292343
Meanwhile, with the help of a real traitor, the enemy come pouring into Ireland at the head of a terrifying army. Every human they capture becomes a weapon. Anto and the last students of his old school must find a way to strike a blow at the invaders before they lose their lives, or even worse, their minds. But with every moment Anto is confronted with more evidence of Nessa's guilt.

For Nessa, the thought of seeing Anto again is the only thing keeping her alive. But if she escapes, and if she can find him, surely he is duty-bound to kill her...]]>
336 Peadar Ó Guilín 1338045628 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 2 1.5 3.72 2018 The Invasion (The Call, #2)
author: Peadar Ó Guilín
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/24
date added: 2025/04/24
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review:
1.5
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Ace of Spades 55518780 Gossip Girl meets Get Out in Ace of Spades, a YA contemporary thriller by debut author Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé about two students, Devon & Chiamaka, and their struggles against an anonymous bully.

When two Niveus Private Academy students, Devon Richards and Chiamaka Adebayo, are selected to be part of the elite school’s senior class prefects, it looks like their year is off to an amazing start. After all, not only does it look great on college applications, but it officially puts each of them in the running for valedictorian, too.

Shortly after the announcement is made, though, someone who goes by Aces begins using anonymous text messages to reveal secrets about the two of them that turn their lives upside down and threaten every aspect of their carefully planned futures.

As Aces shows no sign of stopping, what seemed like a sick prank quickly turns into a dangerous game, with all the cards stacked against them. Can Devon and Chiamaka stop Aces before things become incredibly deadly?

With heart-pounding suspense and relevant social commentary comes a high-octane thriller from debut author Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé.]]>
422 Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé 1250800811 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, owned-on-my-shelves 4.20 2021 Ace of Spades
author: Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read, owned-on-my-shelves
review:

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The Kadin (Kadin, #1) 1404813
Praised for her keen sense of history and remarkable storytelling powers, the bestselling author of The Spitfire displays the passionate magic that has made her a national favorite -sweeping the reader into the romantic past, from the magnificence of Renaissance Europe to the perfumed splendor of a Sultan's court.]]>
441 Bertrice Small 0380016990 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, owned-on-my-shelves 4.18 1978 The Kadin (Kadin, #1)
author: Bertrice Small
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1978
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read, owned-on-my-shelves
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Secret Fire 412935
From the tempestuous passion of that first encounter, across stormy seas, to the golden splendor of palaces in Moscow, she was his prisoner. But even as her fury defied his bold claim of ownership, an all-consuming need made her his slave. For theirs was a fever that fed upon itself, carrying them irrevocably toward a final surrender to the power of undeniable love.]]>
416 Johanna Lindsey 0380750872 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, owned-on-my-shelves 4.01 1987 Secret Fire
author: Johanna Lindsey
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read, owned-on-my-shelves
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<![CDATA[A Dangerous Love (The Border Chronicles #1)]]> 747320 407 Bertrice Small 0451219783 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, owned-on-my-shelves 3.96 2006 A Dangerous Love (The Border Chronicles #1)
author: Bertrice Small
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read, owned-on-my-shelves
review:

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<![CDATA[Rite of Conquest (William the Conqueror, #1)]]> 780918 384 Judith Tarr 0451460022 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, owned-on-my-shelves 3.41 2004 Rite of Conquest (William the Conqueror, #1)
author: Judith Tarr
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read, owned-on-my-shelves
review:

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Beauty 387339
Drawing on the wellspring of much-loved, well-remembered fairy tales, Tepper delivers a thought-provoking and finely crafted novel that thoroughly involves the reader in the life of one of the most captivating heroines in modern fantasy -- Beauty. On her sixteenth birthday Beauty is seemingly able to sidestep her aunt's curse. Instead she is transported to the future. Here begin her adventures as she travels magically back and forth in time to visit places both imaginary and real. Finally she comes to understand what has been her special gift to humanity all along.

For in Beauty, there is beauty. And in beauty, magic. Without our enchanted places, humanity is no more than an upstart ape. And this, we realize, is why Beauty must be saved, both in the fantastical world of Tepper's novel and in the actual world in which we live]]>
463 Sheri S. Tepper 0553295276 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, owned-on-my-shelves 3.85 1991 Beauty
author: Sheri S. Tepper
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read, owned-on-my-shelves
review:

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A Memory of Love 1800957
Spirited, iron-willed Rhonwyn is the bastard child of the Prince of Wales, raised more boy than girl, able to ride and fight with the best. Against her wishes, she is married off to an English lord, Edward de Beaumont, who is stunned to discover that his lovely gilt-haired bride is a fiery wildcat with a mind of her own. Slowly, he wins her trust and her heart, and she accompanies him on the Crusades to North Africa. But when Edward falls ill, Rhonwyn boldly leads his troops, only to become a captive of the sensual Emir of Cinnebar, a man who will teach her the ways of erotic love–passions that will be put to the test when she returns to England to battle once more . . . this time for the man who rules her heart.]]>
432 Bertrice Small 0345435184 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, owned-on-my-shelves 3.99 2000 A Memory of Love
author: Bertrice Small
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read, owned-on-my-shelves
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Missouri Flame 5302879 SHE WAS HIS FEVER
Missouri-bound Bevin O'Dea had never even met the farmer she was journeying to wed, but she believed a marriage based on practicality rather than passion would suit her fine...until she encountered the smoldering charisma of the brash Will Shoemaker. The man's broad shoulders and heated gazes had her insides practically melting! So she decided to avoid him completely...until she discovered him living under her new roof-for he was her fiance's stepbrother! Bevin would not go back on her promise to marry another, but denying the forbidden yearnings Will awakened was becoming as difficult as extinguishing a raging fire with dry leaves!


AND HE WAS BURNING UP
To Will Shoemaker, a drifter with an eye for the ladies, one glimpse at Bevin's gorgeous blue eyes and fiery red tresses had drawn his potent interest. How the hell could a woman so full
of hidden passion agree to wed his stepbrother-a cold fish of a man who simply wanted a housekeeper! Will knew he should forget the woman, yet he couldn't... she'd invaded his every dream and desire. He knew the same flames of love were building within Bevin too, and once he released them, they both know the sweet torment of igniting a....MISSOURI FLAME]]>
448 Gwen Cleary ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, owned-on-my-shelves 2.93 1991 Missouri Flame
author: Gwen Cleary
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 2.93
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read, owned-on-my-shelves
review:

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<![CDATA[The Conqueror (deWarenne Dynasty, #1)]]> 115306 The Invader
Like a pagan god, Rolfe the Relentless rode into Castle Aelfgar to claim it as his prize—and Lady Alice as his bride. Lauded for his bravery in France, in England he was the hated enemy. Once ensconced in his new domain, Rolfe became determined to tame the Saxon beauty Ceidre, Alice’s illegitimate sister, whose spirit and sensuality made him risk treason to have her—not Lady Alice—in his bed.

The Prize
Mysterious and seductive, she was no lady but a spy for the rebel cause of her noble half brothers. Refusing to bow to this arrogant warrior who ignited her forbidden passion, Ceidre was swept into a dangerous liaison tied to the fate of England and kings. Yet with his kisses on her lips, his skilful hands on her body, she would have to struggle not to surrender to…The Conqueror.]]>
432 Brenda Joyce 044020609X ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, owned-on-my-shelves 3.90 1990 The Conqueror (deWarenne Dynasty, #1)
author: Brenda Joyce
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read, owned-on-my-shelves
review:

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<![CDATA[China Rich Girlfriend (Crazy Rich Asians, #2)]]> 22674105 Kevin Kwan, bestselling author of Crazy Rich Asians, is back with a wickedly funny new novel of social climbing, secret e-mails, art-world scandal, lovesick billionaires, and the outrageous story of what happens when Rachel Chu, engaged to marry Asia's most eligible bachelor, discovers her birthfather.

On the eve of her wedding to Nicholas Young, heir to one of the greatest fortunes in Asia, Rachel should be over the moon. She has a flawless Asscher-cut diamond from JAR, a wedding dress she loves more than anything found in the salons of Paris, and a fiance willing to sacrifice his entire inheritance in order to marry her. But Rachel still mourns the fact that her birthfather, a man she never knew, won't be able to walk her down the aisle. Until: a shocking revelation draws Rachel into a world of Shanghai splendor beyond anything she has ever imagined. Here we meet Carlton, a Ferrari-crashing bad boy known for Prince Harry-like antics; Colette, a celebrity girlfriend chased by fevered paparazzi; and the man Rachel has spent her entire life waiting to meet: her father. Meanwhile, Singapore's It Girl, Astrid Leong, is shocked to discover that there is a downside to having a newly minted tech billionaire husband. A romp through Asia's most exclusive clubs, auction houses, and estates, China Rich Girlfriend brings us into the elite circles of Mainland China, introducing a captivating cast of characters, and offering an inside glimpse at what it's like to be gloriously, crazily, China-rich.]]>
378 Kevin Kwan 0385539088 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, series-to-finish 3.80 2015 China Rich Girlfriend (Crazy Rich Asians, #2)
author: Kevin Kwan
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read, series-to-finish
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The Call (The Call, #1) 28600081
Could you survive the Call?]]>
307 Peadar Ó Guilín 133804561X ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 3
I loved the idea behind this book. Potentially getting transported to the land of the fae at any given moment, totally naked, alone, and easily killed the moment you’re tracked down by the killer Sidhe who hate everything about you? That’s just plain terrifying. And then, when they do get you, the things they do to you? Yeah, I cringed at the imagery more than once, it was not a pretty picture, and it was never meant to be.

My biggest fault with this was that it wasn’t quite what I was expecting and that the prose wasn’t really my cuppa. It wasn’t badly written by any means, but I think I just personally conflicted with the storytelling. I had some trouble figuring out what was going on at times and confusion to who we were in the mind of, though Nessa was the main character. This was especially prevalent near the end, where I had to reread to understand what the sweet heck was going on because shit was really going down and I was reading faster than my mind could comprehend the reading.

It was definitely a good pick to read for Halloween, though, which is when I myself had picked it up to try. I ended up finishing it the day before, and it set the scene nicely, considering how horrific quite a few of the scenes I was given were. I wish there had been a bit more of an epilogue, though, I was kind of confused on what happened in that last chapter regarding the Sidhe. I’ll sic down some other reviews to see if they can explain it for me.

Edit: Is there a second book coming, now? That would be nice!]]>
3.83 2016 The Call (The Call, #1)
author: Peadar Ó Guilín
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/22
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves:
review:
I kept wavering between a three and a four when thinking about how many stars to rate this, but in the end I decided on a 3.5 that’s a little more 3 than 4.

I loved the idea behind this book. Potentially getting transported to the land of the fae at any given moment, totally naked, alone, and easily killed the moment you’re tracked down by the killer Sidhe who hate everything about you? That’s just plain terrifying. And then, when they do get you, the things they do to you? Yeah, I cringed at the imagery more than once, it was not a pretty picture, and it was never meant to be.

My biggest fault with this was that it wasn’t quite what I was expecting and that the prose wasn’t really my cuppa. It wasn’t badly written by any means, but I think I just personally conflicted with the storytelling. I had some trouble figuring out what was going on at times and confusion to who we were in the mind of, though Nessa was the main character. This was especially prevalent near the end, where I had to reread to understand what the sweet heck was going on because shit was really going down and I was reading faster than my mind could comprehend the reading.

It was definitely a good pick to read for Halloween, though, which is when I myself had picked it up to try. I ended up finishing it the day before, and it set the scene nicely, considering how horrific quite a few of the scenes I was given were. I wish there had been a bit more of an epilogue, though, I was kind of confused on what happened in that last chapter regarding the Sidhe. I’ll sic down some other reviews to see if they can explain it for me.

Edit: Is there a second book coming, now? That would be nice!
]]>
<![CDATA[All I Want is Everything (Gossip Girl, #3)]]> 22192
S and B have decided to kiss and make up, and it's about time. I mean, how long can you stay mad at someone who you took baths with in grade school? The question is, now that they're back together, what kind of crazy naughtiness are they going to get up to? Believe me, I'll be the first one to find out, and you'll be the second. It's not like I'm good at keeping secrets. . . .

You know you love me,
gossip girl]]>
215 Cecily von Ziegesar 0316912123 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 3 3.54 2003 All I Want is Everything (Gossip Girl, #3)
author: Cecily von Ziegesar
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2003
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/22
date added: 2025/04/22
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<![CDATA[Towards Zero (Superintendent Battle, #5)]]> 9899381
To the casual observer, apparently nothing. But when a house party gathers at Gull’s Point, the seaside home of an elderly widow, earlier events come to a dramatic head. As Superintendent Battle discovers, it is all part of a carefully laid plan � for murder.]]>
233 Agatha Christie 0062073540 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 3.92 1944 Towards Zero (Superintendent Battle, #5)
author: Agatha Christie
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1944
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: to-read
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The Wonder 28449257
An educated sceptic, Lib expects to expose the fast as a hoax right away. But as she gets to know the girl she becomes more and more unsure. Is Anna a fraud, or a 'living wonder'? Or is something more sinister unfolding right before Lib's eyes?

Written with all the propulsive tension that transported readers of Room, The Wonder asks what lengths we would go to for the love of a child.]]>
291 Emma Donoghue 0316393878 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 3.60 2016 The Wonder
author: Emma Donoghue
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: to-read
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If the Dead Belong Here 222175392 When a young girl goes missing, the ghosts of the past collide with her family’s secrets in a mesmerizing Native American Southern Gothic

When six-year-old Laurel Taylor vanishes without a trace, her family is left shattered, struggling to navigate the darkness of grief and unanswered questions. As their search turns to despair, Laurel’s older sister, Nadine, begins experiencing nightmares that blur the line between dream and reality, and she becomes convinced that Laurel’s disappearance could be connected to other family tragedies. Guided by her elders, Nadine sets out to uncover whether laying the ghosts to rest is the key to finding her sister and healing her fractured family.

Carson Faust captivates in this chilling literary debut that confronts the specter of colonization and the generational scars it leaves on Native American families. Steeped in Indigenous folklore and drawing from the author’s own family history, If the Dead Belong Here examines what it means to be haunted—both by the supernatural and by terrors of our own making. Faust crafts a powerful, kaleidoscopic tale about the complicated legacies of violence that shape our present, the importance of honoring our past, and the resilience of a family—and a people—determined to heal from old wounds.]]>
400 Carson Faust 059383089X ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 3.00 2025 If the Dead Belong Here
author: Carson Faust
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/20
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<![CDATA[Firebird (The Fire That Binds, #1)]]> 211004924 DELUXE EDITION—featuring beautiful original illustrated stenciled edges with a foil case stamp, and designed endpapers!

An instant New York Times bestseller!

House of the Dragon meets From Blood and Ash in this epic, scorching dark romantasy.

A conqueror captivated�
A witch prophesied to save them all�
An unforgiving world where dragons rule Rome.

Julian Dakkia, Roman general and nephew to the emperor, has played his role as conqueror well. Yet, the moment he laid eyes on Malina, he was enthralled by the Dacian dancer. Years later, the fierce beauty stands before him, a captive on a scarred battlefield, her life in danger. He instinctively shifts into his fierce dragon form to save her, an action that may mean his head on the imperial gate.

The rules of their world dictate that he is the conqueror and she is the captured. But he and his dragon know one thing: their bond has nothing to do with the laws of mighty Rome. She belongs to them. And they belong to her.

Fierce and powerful, twenty-one-year old Malina has survived the loss of her family and she is determined to fight until her dying breath. Still, she can’t believe that the centurion who had once bestowed a secret talisman on her is the Roman general of legendary brutality…and now holds her life in his hands. Nor can she deny how her soul has always seemed to answer his. Slowly she learns that Julian is caught in his mad uncle’s machinations for domination, and helps him plot the downfall of the empire itself.

As they navigate a world where flying deathriders conquer and burn, their love will ignite a firestorm that can only end in heartbreak or death. Or both.

Firebird is a fantasy with some dark themes, including elements of master/slave relationship, attempted sexual assault (not between MCs), and dubious consent (not between MCs). Readers who may be sensitive to these elements, please take note.]]>
400 Juliette Cross 1250339944 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 never-gonna-read-this-book 3.53 2025 Firebird (The Fire That Binds, #1)
author: Juliette Cross
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: never-gonna-read-this-book
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Curtain (Hercule Poirot, #44) 81903
Poirot’s final case, a mystery which brings him and Hastings back to Styles where they first solved a crime together. The story was both anticipated and dreaded by Agatha Christie fans worldwide, many of whom still refuse to read it, as it is known to contain Poirot’s death.

Agatha Christie wrote it during World War II, as a gift for her daughter should she not survive the bombings, and it was kept in a safe for over thirty years. It was agreed among the family that Curtain would be published finally in 1975 by Collins, her long-standing publishers, and that Sleeping Murder (the Marple story written during the war for her husband, Max) would follow.

The reception of Poirot’s death was international, even earning him an obituary in The New York Times; he is still the only fictional character to have received such an honour. The first actor to take on the role of portraying Poirot in his final hours was David Suchet, as the final episode of the series Agatha Christie’s Poirot for which he’d been playing the role for twenty-five years. The episode was adapted in 2013.]]>
215 Agatha Christie 0425173747 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, christie 4.09 1975 Curtain (Hercule Poirot, #44)
author: Agatha Christie
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1975
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves: to-read, christie
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<![CDATA[Crazy Rich Asians (Crazy Rich Asians, #1)]]> 18373213
On Nick’s arm, Rachel may as well have a target on her back the second she steps off the plane, and soon, her relaxed vacation turns into an obstacle course of old money, new money, nosy relatives, and scheming social climbers.]]>
527 Kevin Kwan 0345803787 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 3 3.85 2013 Crazy Rich Asians (Crazy Rich Asians, #1)
author: Kevin Kwan
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/19
date added: 2025/04/19
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Annie on My Mind 595375
Of the author and the book, the Margaret A. Edwards Award committee said, “Using a fluid, readable style, Garden opens a window through which readers can find courage to be true to themselves.”]]>
234 Nancy Garden 0374404143 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.02 1982 Annie on My Mind
author: Nancy Garden
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1982
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Rich People Problems (Crazy Rich Asians, #3)]]> 29864343 Crazy Rich Asians and China Rich Girlfriend, is back with an uproarious new novel featuring a family driven by fortune, an ex-wife driven psychotic with jealousy, a battle royal fought through couture-gown sabotage, and the heir to one of Asia's greatest fortunes locked out of his inheritance.

When Nicholas Young hears that his grandmother, Su Yi, is on her deathbed, he rushes to be by her bedside—but he's not alone. The entire Shang-Young clan has convened from all corners of the globe to stake claim to their matriarch's massive fortune. With each family member vying to inherit Tyersall Park—a trophy estate on sixty-four prime acres in the heart of Singapore—Nicholas' childhood home turns into a hotbed of backbiting and intrigue. As Su Yi's relatives fight over heirlooms, Astrid Leong is at the center of her own storm, desperately in love with her old sweetheart Charlie Wu but tormented by her ex-husband—a man hell-bent on destroying Astrid's reputation and relationship. Meanwhile, Kitty Pong, married to China's second richest man, Jack Bing, still feels upstaged by her new stepdaughter, famous fashionista Colette Bing.

In this sweeping tale that takes us from the elegantly appointed mansions of Manila to the secluded private islands in the Sulu Sea, from a kidnapping at Hong Kong's most elite private school to a surprise marriage proposal at an Indian palace that is caught on camera by the telephoto lenses of paparazzi, Kevin Kwan hilariously reveals the long-buried secrets of Asia's most privileged families and their rich people problems.]]>
398 Kevin Kwan 0385542232 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, series-to-finish 3.91 2017 Rich People Problems (Crazy Rich Asians, #3)
author: Kevin Kwan
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves: to-read, series-to-finish
review:

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<![CDATA[The Next Always (Inn BoonsBoro Trilogy, #1)]]> 11827244
After losing her husband and returning to her hometown, Clare Brewster soon settles into her life as the mother of three young sons while running the town’s bookstore. Busy, with little time for romance, Clare is drawn across the street by Beckett’s transformation of the old inn, wanting to take a closer look . . . at the building and the man behind it.

With the grand opening inching closer, Beckett’s happy to give Clare a private tour - one room at a time. It’s no first date, but these stolen moments are the beginning of something new - and open the door to the extraordinary adventure of what comes next . . .]]>
353 Nora Roberts ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.31 2011 The Next Always (Inn BoonsBoro Trilogy, #1)
author: Nora Roberts
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science]]> 55867888
FromNew York Timesbestselling author Sam Kean comes the gripping, untold history of science's darkest secrets, “a fascinating book [that]deserves a wide audience� (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

Science is a force for good in the world—at least usually. But sometimes, when obsession gets the better of scientists, they twist a noble pursuit into something sinister. Under this spell, knowledge isn’t everything, it’s the only thing—no matter the cost. Bestselling author Sam Kean tells the true story of what happens when unfettered ambition pushes otherwise rational men and women to cross the line in the name of science, trampling ethical boundaries and often committing crimes in the process.

The Icepick Surgeon masterfully guides the reader across two thousand years of history, beginning with Cleopatra’s dark deeds in ancient Egypt. The book reveals the origins of much of modern science in the transatlantic slave trade of the 1700s, as well as Thomas Edison’s mercenary support of the electric chair and the warped logic of the spies who infiltrated the Manhattan Project. But the sins of science aren’t all safely buried in the past. Many of them, Kean reminds us, still affect us today. We can draw direct lines from the medical abuses of Tuskegee and Nazi Germany to current vaccine hesitancy, and connect icepick lobotomies from the 1950s to the contemporary failings of mental-health care. Kean even takes us into the future, when advanced computers and genetic engineering could unleash whole new ways to do one anotherwrong.

Unflinching, and exhilarating to the last page, The Icepick Surgeon fuses the drama of scientific discovery with the illicit thrill of a true-crime tale. With his trademark wit and precision, Kean shows that, while science has done more good than harm in the world, rogue scientists do exist, and when we sacrifice morals for progress, we often end up with neither.]]>
368 Sam Kean 0316496502 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.00 2021 The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science
author: Sam Kean
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[You Know You Love Me (Gossip Girl, #2)]]> 37451 You Know You Love Me , the sequel to Gossip Girl, it's brunette vixen Blair Waldorf's seventeenth birthday, and she knows exactly what she wants� Nate, her studly troubles boyfriend of three years. But Blair's been too busy filling out Ivy League college applications to notice that Nate has found himself another playmate.]]> 240 Cecily von Ziegesar 0316911488 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 3 2.5 3.52 2002 You Know You Love Me (Gossip Girl, #2)
author: Cecily von Ziegesar
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/19
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves:
review:
2.5
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Chlorine 61387386 In the vein of The Pisces and The Vegetarian, Chlorine is a debut novel that blurs the line between a literary coming-of-age narrative and a dark unsettling horror tale, told from an adult perspective on the trials and tribulations of growing up in a society that puts pressure on young women and their bodies... a powerful, relevant novel of immigration, sapphic longing, and fierce, defiant becoming.

Ren Yu is a swimmer. Her daily life starts and ends with the pool. Her teammates are her only friends. Her coach, her guiding light. If she swims well enough, she will be scouted, get a scholarship, go to a good school. Her parents will love her. Her coach will be kind to her. She will have a good life.

But these are human concerns. These are the concerns of those confined to land, those with legs. Ren grew up on stories of creatures of the deep, of the oceans and the rivers. Ones that called sailors to their doom. Ones that dragged them down and drowned them. Ones that feasted on their flesh. Ones of the creature that she's always longed to become: mermaid.

Ren aches to be in the water. She dreams of the scent of chlorine--the feel of it on her skin. And she will do anything she can to make a life for herself where she can be free. No matter the pain. No matter what anyone else thinks. No matter how much blood she has to spill.]]>
256 Jade Song 0063257602 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 3 2.5 3.67 2023 Chlorine
author: Jade Song
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/17
date added: 2025/04/17
shelves:
review:
2.5
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<![CDATA[The Sea-Ogre's Eager Bride (Aspect and Anchor)]]> 227781692 Valessa is in danger. Her town has been captured by Aventinian raiders, the women taken, and now she's on a ship destined for nowhere good. But when a terrifying, four-armed sea-ogre pirate boards the ships and demands compensation, Valessa's luck changes.

The sea-ogre demands a bride. It's the perfect opportunity for her to escape.

Valessa volunteers. She tells everyone she's very experienced with sea-ogres and knows just how to please them. She's very descriptive about it, too.

Thing is...Valessa's a liar.

She's never met a sea-ogre in her life. But it can't be that hard to keep one man-slash-monster happy, can it?]]>
248 Ruby Dixon ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 4.06 2025 The Sea-Ogre's Eager Bride (Aspect and Anchor)
author: Ruby Dixon
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: to-read, summer-of-smut-and-sanderson-part-2
review:

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<![CDATA[To Kill a Kingdom (Hundred Kingdoms, #1)]]> 34499221
The ocean is the only place Prince Elian calls home, even though he is heir to the most powerful kingdom in the world. Hunting sirens is more than an unsavory hobby—it’s his calling. When he rescues a drowning woman in the ocean, she’s more than what she appears. She promises to help him find the key to destroying all of sirenkind for good—But can he trust her? And just how many deals will Elian have to barter to eliminate mankind’s greatest enemy?]]>
344 Alexandra Christo 1250112680 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 1 3.71 2018 To Kill a Kingdom (Hundred Kingdoms, #1)
author: Alexandra Christo
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2018
rating: 1
read at: 2025/04/16
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves:
review:
yay for the sapphic bit but the rest was a no.
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Outlander (Outlander, #1) 685403
Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life, and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.]]>
850 Diana Gabaldon 0440212561 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 3 4.30 1991 Outlander (Outlander, #1)
author: Diana Gabaldon
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1991
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/15
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves:
review:

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A Drop of Venom (Venom, #1) 133206531 Circe goes YA in this unapologetically feminist retelling of the Medusa myth steeped in Indian mythology, a YA epic fantasy addition to the Rick Riordan Presents imprint.

All monsters and heroes have beginnings. This is mine.

Sixteen-year-old Manisha is no stranger to monsters—she’s been running from them for years, from beasts who roam the jungle to the King’s army, who forced her people, the naga, to scatter to the ends of the earth. You might think that the kingdom’s famed holy temples atop the floating mountains, where Manisha is now a priestess, would be safe—but you would be wrong.

Seventeen-year-old Pratyush is a famed slayer of monsters, one of the King’s most prized warriors and a frequent visitor to the floating temples. For every monster the slayer kills, years are added to his life. You might think such a powerful warrior could do whatever he wants, but true power lies with the King. Tired after years of fighting, Pratyush wants nothing more than a peaceful, respectable life.

When Pratyush and Manisha meet, each sees in the other the possibility to chart a new path. Unfortunately, the kingdom’s powerful have other plans. A temple visitor sexually assaults Manisha and pushes her off the mountain into a pit of vipers. A month later, the King sends Pratyush off to kill one last monster (a powerful nagin who has been turning men to stone) before he’ll consider granting his freedom.

Except Manisha doesn’t die, despite the hundreds of snake bites covering her body and the venom running through her veins. She rises from the pit more powerful than ever before, with heightened senses, armor-like skin, and blood that can turn people to stone. And Pratyush doesn’t know it, but the “monster� he’s been sent to kill is none other than the girl he wants to marry.

Alternating between Manisha’s and Pratyush’s perspectives, Sajni Patel weaves together lush language, high stakes, and page-turning suspense, demanding an answer to the question “What does it truly mean to be a monster?”]]>
416 Sajni Patel 1368092683 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.06 2024 A Drop of Venom (Venom, #1)
author: Sajni Patel
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: to-read
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Strange Pictures 216670080
A pregnant woman’s sketches on a seemingly innocuous blog conceal a chilling warning.

A child’s picture of his home contains a dark secret message.

A sketch made by a murder victim in his final moments leads an amateur sleuth down a rabbit hole that will reveal a horrifying reality.

Structured around these nine childlike drawings, every one holding a disturbing clue, this novel invites readers to piece together the harrowing truth behind each and the overarching backstory that connects them all. Strange Pictures is the bestselling international debut from mystery-horror YouTube sensation Uketsu—an enigmatic masked figure who has become one of Japan's most talked about contemporary authors.]]>
236 Uketsu 0063433087 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 4 4.05 2022 Strange Pictures
author: Uketsu
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/09
date added: 2025/04/09
shelves:
review:

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The Count of Monte Cristo 7126 The epic tale of wrongful imprisonment, adventure and revenge, in its definitive translation

Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantès is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape, but also to use the treasure to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. Dumas� epic tale of suffering and retribution, inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment, was a huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s.

Translated with an Introduction by Robin Buss

An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here]]>
1276 Alexandre Dumas 0140449264 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 currently-reading, cr-read 4.29 1846 The Count of Monte Cristo
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1846
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/09
shelves: currently-reading, cr-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky, #1)]]> 50892360 The first book in the Between Earth and Sky trilogy, inspired by the civilizations of the Pre-Columbian Americas and woven into a tale of celestial prophecies, political intrigue, and forbidden magic.

A god will return
When the earth and sky converge
Under the black sun


In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world.

Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain.]]>
454 Rebecca Roanhorse 1534437673 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.17 2020 Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky, #1)
author: Rebecca Roanhorse
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: to-read
review:

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They Never Learn 124948406 From the author of the “raw, ingenious, and utterly fearless� (Wendy Walker, USA TODAY bestselling author) Temper comes a dynamic psychological thriller about two women who give bad men exactly what they deserve.

Scarlett Clark is an exceptional English professor. But she’s even better at getting away with murder.

Every year, she searches for the worst man at Gorman University and plots his well-deserved demise. Thanks to her meticulous planning, she’s avoided drawing attention to herself—but as she’s preparing for her biggest kill yet, the school starts probing into the growing body count on campus. Determined to keep her enemies close, Scarlett insinuates herself into the investigation and charms the woman in charge, Dr. Mina Pierce. Everything’s going according to her master plan…until she loses control with her latest victim, putting her secret life at risk of exposure.

Meanwhile, Gorman student Carly Schiller is just trying to survive her freshman year. Finally free of her emotionally abusive father, all Carly wants is to focus on her studies and fade into the background. Her new roommate has other ideas. Allison Hadley is cool and confident—everything Carly wishes she could be—and the two girls quickly form an intense friendship. So when Allison is sexually assaulted at a party, Carly becomes obsessed with making the attacker pay...and turning her fantasies about revenge into a reality.

Featuring Layne Fargo’s trademark “propulsive writing style� (Kirkus Reviews) and “sinister, of the moment� (Chicago Review of Books) suspense, They Never Learn is a feminist serial killer story perfect for fans of Killing Eve and Chelsea Cain.]]>
349 Layne Fargo ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 3.86 2020 They Never Learn
author: Layne Fargo
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: to-read
review:

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Fingersmith 8913370
One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives—Gentleman, an elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a naïve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, then they will all share in Maud’s vast inheritance. Once the inheritance is secured, Maud will be disposed of—passed off as mad, and madeto live out the rest of her days in a lunatic asylum.

With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Once in, however, Sue begins to pity her helpless mark and care for Maud Lilly in unexpected ways...But no one and nothing is as it seems in this Dickensian novel of thrills and reversals.]]>
592 Sarah Waters 1101057025 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 1 4.05 2002 Fingersmith
author: Sarah Waters
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2002
rating: 1
read at: 2025/04/07
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves:
review:

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Suffer the Children 20165178
A mysterious disease claims the world's children before bringing them back. To continue surviving, however, they need to ingest human blood. As the blood supply wanes, parents struggle and compete to keep their children alive.

In the end, the only source left will be each other.

For these parents, the ultimate question will be: How far would you go for someone
you love?]]>
353 Craig DiLouie ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.04 2014 Suffer the Children
author: Craig DiLouie
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: to-read
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Atmosphere 220817728 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six comes an epic new novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s Space Shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits.

Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s Space Shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space.

Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980, Joan begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist John Griffin, who are kind and easy-going even when the stakes are highest; mission specialist Lydia Danes, who has worked too hard to play nice; warm-hearted Donna Fitzgerald, who is navigating her own secrets; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer, who can fix any engine and fly any plane.

As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. In this new light, Joan begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe.

Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, everything changes in an instant.

Fast-paced, thrilling, and emotional, Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting readers to iconic times and places, with complex protagonists, telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love, this time among the stars.]]>
352 Taylor Jenkins Reid 0593158717 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.45 2025 Atmosphere
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Moving Finger (Miss Marple, #4)]]> 9949774 The placid village of Lymstock has more than its share of shameful secrets! But it seems the perfect place for Jerry Burton to recuperate from his accident under the care of his sister, Joanna. Soon a series of vicious poison-pen letters destroys the village's quiet charm, eventually causing one recipient to commit suicide. The vicar, the doctor, the servants-all are on the verge of accusing one another when help arrives from an unexpected quarter. The vicar's houseguest happens to be none other than Jane Marple.

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226 Agatha Christie 0062073621 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 4 3.84 1942 The Moving Finger (Miss Marple, #4)
author: Agatha Christie
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1942
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves:
review:

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We Used to Live Here 199798006
As a young, queer couple who flip houses, Charlie and Eve can’t believe the killer deal they’ve just gotten on an old house in a picturesque neighborhood. As they’re working in the house one day, there’s a knock on the door. A man stands there with his family, claiming to have lived there years before and asking if it would be alright if he showed his kids around. People pleaser to a fault, Eve lets them in.

As soon as the strangers enter their home, inexplicable things start happening, including the family’s youngest child going missing and a ghostly presence materializing in the basement. Even more weird, the family can’t seem to take the hint that their visit should be over. And when Charlie suddenly vanishes, Eve slowly loses her grip on reality. Something is terribly wrong with the house and with the visiting family—or is Eve just imagining things?

This unputdownable and spine-tingling novel “is like quicksand: the further you delve into its pages, the more immobilized you become by a spiral of terror. We Used to Live Here will haunt you even after you have finished it� (Agustina Bazterrica, author of Tender Is the Flesh).]]>
312 Marcus Kliewer 1982198788 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 3 3.67 2024 We Used to Live Here
author: Marcus Kliewer
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/28
date added: 2025/03/28
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The Sword of Kaigen 41886271 A son struggling to grasp his violent future,
A father blind to the danger that threatens them all.

When the winds of war reach their peninsula, will the Matsuda family have the strength to defend their empire? Or will they tear each other apart before the true enemies even reach their shores?

High on a mountainside at the edge of the Kaigenese Empire live the most powerful warriors in the world, superhumans capable of raising the sea and wielding blades of ice. For hundreds of years, the fighters of the Kusanagi Peninsula have held the Empire’s enemies at bay, earning their frozen spit of land the name ‘The Sword of Kaigen.�

Born into Kusanagi’s legendary Matsuda family, fourteen-year-old Mamoru has always known his purpose: to master his family’s fighting techniques and defend his homeland. But when an outsider arrives and pulls back the curtain on Kaigen’s alleged age of peace, Mamoru realizes that he might not have much time to become the fighter he was bred to be. Worse, the empire he was bred to defend may stand on a foundation of lies.

Misaki told herself that she left the passions of her youth behind when she married into the Matsuda house. Determined to be a good housewife and mother, she hid away her sword, along with everything from her days as a fighter in a faraway country. But with her growing son asking questions about the outside world, the threat of an impending invasion looming across the sea, and her frigid husband grating on her nerves, Misaki finds the fighter in her clawing its way back to the surface.]]>
651 M.L. Wang ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, owned-on-my-shelves 4.46 2019 The Sword of Kaigen
author: M.L. Wang
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read, owned-on-my-shelves
review:

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Lonely Castle in the Mirror 125077742 Seven students find unusual common ground in this warm, puzzle-like Japanese bestseller laced with gentle fantasy and compassionate insight.

Bullied to the point of dropping out of school, Kokoro's days blur together as she hides in her bedroom, unable to face her family or friends. As she spirals into despair, her mirror begins to shine; with a touch, Kokoro is pulled from her lonely life into a resplendent, bizarre fairytale castle guarded by a strange girl in a wolf mask. Six other students have been brought to the castle, and soon this marvelous refuge becomes their playground.

The castle has a hidden room that can grant a single wish, but there are rules to be followed, and breaking them will have dire consequences. As Kokoro and her new acquaintances spend more time in their new sanctuary, they begin to unlock the castle's secrets and, tentatively, each other's.

Lonely Castle in the Mirror is a mesmerizing, heart-warming novel about the unexpected rewards of embracing human connection.]]>
384 Mizuki Tsujimura 1645660745 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, bubblegum 4.20 2017 Lonely Castle in the Mirror
author: Mizuki Tsujimura
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read, bubblegum
review:

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<![CDATA[The Sunbearer Trials (The Sunbearer Duology, #1)]]> 55878999 Welcome to The Sunbearer Trials, where teen semidioses compete in a series of challenges with the highest of stakes, in this electric new Mexican-inspired fantasy from Aiden Thomas, the New York Times bestselling author of Cemetery Boys.

“Only the most powerful and honorable semidioses get chosen. I’m just a Jade. I’m not a real hero.�

As each new decade begins, the Sun’s power must be replenished so that Sol can keep traveling along the sky and keep the evil Obsidian gods at bay. Ten semidioses between the ages of thirteen and eighteen are selected by Sol himself as the most worthy to compete in The Sunbearer Trials. The winner carries light and life to all the temples of Reino del Sol, but the loser has the greatest honor of all―they will be sacrificed to Sol, their body used to fuel the Sun Stones that will protect the people of Reino del Sol for the next ten years.

Teo, a 17-year-old Jade semidiós and the trans son of Quetzal, goddess of birds, has never worried about the Trials…or rather, he’s only worried for others. His best friend Niya―daughter of Tierra, the god of earth―is one of the strongest heroes of their generation and is much too likely to be chosen this year. He also can’t help but worry (reluctantly, and under protest) for Aurelio, a powerful Gold semidiós and Teo’s friend-turned-rival who is a shoo-in for the Trials. Teo wouldn’t mind taking Aurelio down a notch or two, but a one-in-ten chance of death is a bit too close for Teo’s taste.

But then, for the first time in over a century, Sol chooses a semidiós who isn’t a Gold. In fact, he chooses two: Xio, the 13-year-old child of Mala Suerte, god of bad luck, and…Teo. Now they must compete in five mysterious trials, against opponents who are both more powerful and better trained, for fame, glory, and their own survival.]]>
352 Aiden Thomas ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.31 2022 The Sunbearer Trials (The Sunbearer Duology, #1)
author: Aiden Thomas
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/26
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<![CDATA[Strange the Dreamer (Strange the Dreamer, #1)]]> 28449207 The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around�and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever.

What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving?

The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries—including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo’s dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? And if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real?

Welcome to Weep.]]>
532 Laini Taylor 0316341681 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, owned-on-my-shelves 4.27 2017 Strange the Dreamer (Strange the Dreamer, #1)
author: Laini Taylor
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/26
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How High We Go in the Dark 57850265
Among those adjusting to this new normal are an aspiring comedian, employed by a theme park designed for terminally ill children, who falls in love with a mother trying desperately to keep her son alive; a scientist who, having failed to save his own son from the plague, gets a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects-a pig-develops human speech; a man who, after recovering from his own coma, plans a block party for his neighbours who have also woken up to find that they alone have survived their families; and a widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter who must set off on cosmic quest to locate a new home planet.

From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead, How High We Go in the Dark follows a cast of intricately linked characters spanning hundreds of years as humanity endeavours to restore the delicate balance of the world. This is a story of unshakable hope that crosses literary lines to give us a world rebuilding itself through an endless capacity for love, resilience and reinvention. Wonderful and disquieting, dreamlike and all too possible.]]>
293 Sequoia Nagamatsu 0063072645 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, boop 3.81 2022 How High We Go in the Dark
author: Sequoia Nagamatsu
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/26
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I Am Not Jessica Chen 61374793
Now trapped inside Jessica’s body, with access to Jessica’s most private journals and secrets, Jenna soon discovers that being the top student at the elite, highly competitive Havenwood Private Academy isn’t quite what she imagined. Worse, as everyone—including her own parents—start having trouble remembering who Jenna Chen is, or if she ever even existed, Jenna must decide if playing the role of the perfect daughter and student is worth losing her true self forever.]]>
320 Ann Liang 133552312X ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, bubblegum 4.08 2025 I Am Not Jessica Chen
author: Ann Liang
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/26
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Fire and Hemlock 11736985
One is normal: school, home, friends. The other, stranger memories begin nine years ago, when she was ten and gate-crashed an odd funeral in the mansion near her grandmother's house. Polly's just beginning to recall the sometimes marvelous, sometimes frightening adventures she embarked on with Tom Lynn after that. And then she did something terrible, and everything changed.

But what did she do? Why can't she remember? Polly must uncover the secret, or her true love -- and perhaps Polly herself -- will be lost.

With an introduction by Garth Nix, and the text of "The Heroic Ideal—A Personal Odyssey," a speech by Diana Wynne Jones.]]>
438 Diana Wynne Jones 014242014X ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, owned-on-my-shelves 3.93 1985 Fire and Hemlock
author: Diana Wynne Jones
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
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Sunburn 75715117 Selected as an Evening Standard 'one to watch in 2023'

It's the early 1990s, and in the Irish village of Crossmore, Lucy feels out of place. Despite her fierce friendships, she's always felt this way, and the conventional path of marriage and motherhood doesn't appeal to her at all. Not even with handsome and doting Martin, her closest childhood friend.

Lucy begins to make sense of herself during a long hot summer, when a spark with her school friend Susannah escalates to an all-consuming infatuation, and, very quickly, to a desperate and devastating love.

Fearful of rejection from her small and conservative community, Lucy begins living a double life, hiding the most honest parts of herself in stolen moments with Susannah.

But with the end of school and the opportunity to leave Crossmore looming, Lucy must choose between two places, two people and two futures, each as terrifying as the other. But only one can offer her real happiness.

Sunburn is an astute and tender portrayal of first love, adolescent anxiety and the realities of growing up in a small town where tradition holds people tightly in its grasp.]]>
288 Chloe Michelle Howarth 0857308416 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.33 2023 Sunburn
author: Chloe Michelle Howarth
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/26
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<![CDATA[The Six Deaths of the Saint (Into Shadow, #3)]]> 62991463
Always mindful of the debt she owes, the girl finds her worth as a weapon in the hand of the Prince. Her victories make him a king, then an emperor. The bards sing her name and her enemies fear it. But the war never ends and the cost keeps rising—how many times will she repeat her own story?]]>
31 Alix E. Harrow 166250957X ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.32 2022 The Six Deaths of the Saint (Into Shadow, #3)
author: Alix E. Harrow
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/26
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<![CDATA[The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies (The Ill-Mannered Ladies, #1)]]> 62313333
Lady Augusta Colebrook, “Gus,� is determinedly unmarried, bored by society life, and tired of being dismissed at the age of forty-two. She and her twin sister, Julia, who is grieving her dead betrothed, need a distraction. One soon presents to rescue their friend’s goddaughter, Caroline, from her violent husband.

The sisters set out to Caroline’s country estate with a plan, but their carriage is accosted by a highwayman. In the scuffle, Gus accidentally shoots and injures the ruffian, only to discover he is Lord Evan Belford, an acquaintance from their past who was charged with murder and exiled to Australia twenty years ago.What follows is a high adventure full of danger, clever improvisation, heart-racing near misses, and a little help from a revived and rather charming Lord Evan.

Back in London, Gus can’t stop thinking about her unlikely (not to mention handsome) comrade-in-arms. She is convinced Lord Evan was falsely accused of murder, and she is going to prove it. She persuades Julia to join her in a quest to help Lord Evan, and others in need—society be damned! And so begins the beguiling secret life and adventures of the Colebrook twins.]]>
452 Alison Goodman 0593440811 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.14 2023 The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies (The Ill-Mannered Ladies, #1)
author: Alison Goodman
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/26
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<![CDATA[This Is How You Lose the Time War]]> 43352954 Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There's still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war.]]>
209 Amal El-Mohtar ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, bubblegum 3.86 2019 This Is How You Lose the Time War
author: Amal El-Mohtar
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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Rebecca 17899948 Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again...

The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working as a lady's maid, she can barely believe her luck. It is only when they arrive at his massive country estate that she realizes how large a shadow his late wife will cast over their lives--presenting her with a lingering evil that threatens to destroy their marriage from beyond the grave.

First published in 1938, this classic gothic novel is such a compelling read that it won the Anthony Award for Best Novel of the Century.]]>
449 Daphne du Maurier 0316323705 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, owned-on-my-shelves 4.28 1938 Rebecca
author: Daphne du Maurier
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1938
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
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Edenbrooke (Edenbrooke, #1) 12820360
From a terrifying run-in with a highwayman to a seemingly harmless flirtation, Marianne finds herself embroiled in an unexpected adventure filled with enough romance and intrigue to keep her mind racing. Will Marianne be able to rein in her traitorous heart, or will a mysterious stranger sweep her off her feet? Fate had something other than a relaxing summer in mind when it sent Marianne to Edenbrooke.]]>
264 Julianne Donaldson 1609089464 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, bubblegum 4.33 2012 Edenbrooke (Edenbrooke, #1)
author: Julianne Donaldson
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/26
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Nothing to See Here 42519313
Madison’s twin stepkids are moving in with her family and she wants Lillian to be their caretaker. However, there’s a catch: the twins spontaneously combust when they get agitated, flames igniting from their skin in a startling but beautiful way. Lillian is convinced Madison is pulling her leg, but it’s the truth.

Thinking of her dead-end life at home, the life that has consistently disappointed her, Lillian figures she has nothing to lose. Over the course of one humid, demanding summer, Lillian and the twins learn to trust each other—and stay cool—while also staying out of the way of Madison’s buttoned-up politician husband. Surprised by her own ingenuity yet unused to the intense feelings of protectiveness she feels for them, Lillian ultimately begins to accept that she needs these strange children as much as they need her—urgently and fiercely. Couldn’t this be the start of the amazing life she’d always hoped for?]]>
288 Kevin Wilson 0062913484 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 4 3.95 2019 Nothing to See Here
author: Kevin Wilson
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/03/24
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<![CDATA[The Lord Sorcier (Regency Faerie Tales, #0.5)]]> 60731802 My kingdom for a magician!

The year is 1812, and Mr Albert Lowe is the only soldier in his regiment with a decent pair of boots. As the English withdraw to Portugal for the winter, a dark pall lies upon the troops, who cannot seem to decide which will kill them first—the lack of supplies, the bitter winter weather, or Napoleon’s dread Lord Sorcier. The lack of ammunition does seem pressing—but what are muskets to the French when they have on their side a magician capable of summoning up a hurricane?

As a surgeon, Albert can fix gunshot wounds more readily than hurricanes. But when he discovers by chance a peculiar, low-born magician among the English ranks, Albert begins to hope that they may all yet survive to return home.]]>
44 Olivia Atwater ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 2 3.55 2020 The Lord Sorcier (Regency Faerie Tales, #0.5)
author: Olivia Atwater
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/03/23
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<![CDATA[Half a Soul (Regency Faerie Tales, #1)]]> 59522062 It's difficult to find a husband in Regency England when you're a young lady with only half a soul.

Ever since she was cursed by a faerie, Theodora Ettings has had no sense of fear or embarrassment - a condition which makes her prone to accidental scandal. Dora hopes to be a quiet, sensible wallflower during the London Season - but when the strange, handsome and utterly uncouth Lord Sorcier discovers her condition, she is instead drawn into dangerous and peculiar faerie affairs.

If Dora's reputation can survive both her curse and her sudden connection with the least-liked man in all of high society, then she may yet reclaim her normal place in the world. . . but the longer Dora spends with Elias Wilder, the more she begins to suspect that one may indeed fall in love, even with only half a soul.

Bridgerton meets Howl's Moving Castle in this enchanting historical fantasy, where the only thing more meddlesome than faeries is a marriage-minded mother.

Pick up HALF A SOUL, and be stolen away into Olivia Atwater's charming, magical version of Regency England!]]>
239 Olivia Atwater 0316462705 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 3 4.10 2020 Half a Soul (Regency Faerie Tales, #1)
author: Olivia Atwater
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/22
date added: 2025/03/21
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<![CDATA[The Bone King and the Starling]]> 228605599 They call him the bone king.

A massive, beast of a male who worships the gods and is all too willing to provide them their sacrifices. Human sacrifices. He and his warriors have come to visit Winterbren, a poor little village on the outskirts of Wrath and my home.

I’ve never been more grateful to be a thrall, for my low status will ensure that I remain outside of his notice. But when he requests � nay, requires � a willing female to warm his furs for the duration of his stay, his selection falls to me. All I can do is pray to the gods that I survive the night�

And beg the bone king for mercy.

This book contains dark themes, including a Black woman in the position of thrall, graphic depictions of torture, non-con, and discussions of early childhood abuse. A full list of warnings can be found on my website.]]>
198 Elizabeth Stephens 1954244916 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.13 The Bone King and the Starling
author: Elizabeth Stephens
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.13
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/21
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Five Little Pigs (Hercule Poirot, #25)]]> 9822415 Now, sixteen years later, in a posthumous letter, Mrs. Crale has assured her grown daughter that she was innocent. But instead of setting the young woman's mind at ease, the letter only raises disquieting questions. Did Caroline indeed write the truth? And if she didn't kill her husband, who did?

To find out, the Crale’s daughter asks Hercule Poirot to reopen the case. His investigation takes him deep into the conflicting memories and motivations of the five other people who were with the Crales on the fatal day. With his keen understanding of human psychology, he manages to discover the surprising truth behind the artist's death.]]>
266 Agatha Christie 0062073575 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 3 3.99 1942 Five Little Pigs (Hercule Poirot, #25)
author: Agatha Christie
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1942
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/21
date added: 2025/03/20
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<![CDATA[Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)]]> 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]>
387 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 5 favorites ow. 4.62 2025 Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.62
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/19
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: favorites
review:
ow.
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<![CDATA[A Caribbean Heiress in Paris (Las Leonas, #1)]]> 59040894 Paris, 1889

The Exposition Universelle is underway, drawing merchants from every corner of the globe. Luz Alana Heith-Benzan set sail from Santo Domingo armed with three hundred casks of rum, her two best friends and one simple rule: under no circumstances is she to fall in love.

The City of Light is where Luz Alana will expand Caña Brava, the rum business her family built over three generations. It’s a mission that’s taken on new urgency after her father’s untimely death and the news that her trust fund won’t be released until she marries. But buyers and shippers alike are rude and dismissive; they can’t imagine doing business with a woman…never mind a woman of color.

From her first tempestuous meeting with James Evanston Sinclair, Earl of Darnick, Luz Alana is conflicted. Why is this man—this titled Scottish man—so determined to help her? And why, honestly, is he so infuriatingly charming?

All Evan Sinclair ever wanted was to find a purpose away from his father’s dirty money and dirtier politics. Ignoring his title, he’s built a whiskey brand that’s his biggest—and only—passion. That is, until he’s confronted with a Spanish-speaking force of nature who turns his life upside down.

Evan quickly suspects he’ll want Luz Alana with him forever. Every day with her makes the earl wish for more than her magnificent kisses or the marriage of convenience that might save them both. But Luz Alana sailed for Paris with her eyes on liquor, money and new beginnings. She wasn't prepared for love to findher.

Las Leonas

Book 1: A Caribbean Heiress in Paris

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368 Adriana Herrera ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 3.89 2022 A Caribbean Heiress in Paris (Las Leonas, #1)
author: Adriana Herrera
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/17
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Darkfever (Fever, #1) 1451694 "My name is MacKayla, Mac for short. I'm a sidhe-seer, one who sees the Fae, a fact I accepted only recently and very reluctantly.

My philosophy is pretty simple—any day nobody's trying to kill me is a good day in my book. I haven't had many good days lately. Not since the walls between Man and Fae came down. But then, there's not a sidhe-seer alive who's had a good day since then."

When MacKayla's sister was murdered, she left a single clue to her death, a cryptic message on Mac's cell phone. Journeying to Ireland in search of answers, Mac is soon faced with an even greater challenge: staying alive long enough to master a power she had no idea she possessed—a gift that allows her to see beyond the world of man, into the dangerous realm of the Fae.

As Mac delves deeper into the mystery of her sister's death, her every move is shadowed by the dark, mysterious Jericho…while at the same time, the ruthless V'lane—an alpha Fae who makes sex an addiction for human women—closes in on her. As the boundary between worlds begins to crumble, Mac's true mission becomes clear: to find the elusive Sinsar Dubh before someone else claims the all-powerful Dark Book—because whoever gets to it first holds nothing less than complete control of both worlds in their hands.]]>
347 Karen Marie Moning ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 1 3.77 2006 Darkfever (Fever, #1)
author: Karen Marie Moning
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2006
rating: 1
read at: 2025/03/17
date added: 2025/03/17
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<![CDATA[Irish Brute (Diamond Ring: Irish Mob Trilogy #1)]]> 215499881
I’m the girl who got away, the woman who said no one would ever own me. I’m strong and brave and fiercely independent.

So how did I end up claimed by the cruelest don in the world?

The only man who can save me is the captain of the Irish Mob. But his help comes with a terrible price: Absolute submission.

Mafia or Mob? Either way, I’m ruined.

Content Note: This book may not be suitable for all readers. A complete trigger warning can be found on the author's website.

The Diamond Ring Dark Romances include:

The Irish Mob Trilogy

Irish Brute
Irish Vice
Irish Reign

The Kidnapped Series

Diamond Solitaire
Rough Diamond
Conflict Diamond
Priceless Diamond

Each series can be read on its own, but the books within each series should be read in order for the best heart-throbbing experience.

If your favorite dark romance tropes are alpha male, angst, billionaire, forced proximity, gothic, Jane Eyre retelling, Irish mob, Mafia, marriage of convenience, organized crime, strong woman, or tortured hero then this is the book for you!]]>
291 Alix Key ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.02 Irish Brute (Diamond Ring: Irish Mob Trilogy #1)
author: Alix Key
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.02
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/16
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Outdrawn 198542200
Noah Blue’s finally got her foot in the door. After clawing her way to the top of the charts with her webcomic, she’s garnered enough attention to earn a full-time position at a comic company re-launching their cult classic comic: Queen Leisah.

Queen Leisah is predicted to be an instant bestseller with movie deals already in the making. Things are falling into place. There’s nowhere to go but up…as soon as she gets one person out of her way.

Sage Montgomery has always been the best artist in every building she’s stepped foot in. Raw talent’s gotten her webcomic to the top of the charts every month for the past eight years. She’s been the best for as long as she can remember. Sure, her career has plateaued but that can be fixed with a big, mainstream comic.

She was promised full creative control over Leisah. Instead, she got a shared credit with the one artist who’s been breathing down her neck since college. The one artist who has a fighting chance of being better than her. Sage and Noah have to work as a team � or, at least appear to work as a team. They thought the hardest part of the relaunch would be drawing together. But that’s easy in comparison to resisting their feelings for each other.

__

Outdrawn is a slow-burn, rivals-to-lovers sapphic romance. This book is a standalone.]]>
328 Deanna Grey ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 3
do NOT listen to the audiobook.]]>
4.14 2023 Outdrawn
author: Deanna Grey
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves:
review:
2.5

do NOT listen to the audiobook.
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<![CDATA[The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn]]> 31086 458 Eric Ives 1405134631 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.20 2004 The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn
author: Eric Ives
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: to-read
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In Cold Blood 168642
As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.]]>
343 Truman Capote 0679745580 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.08 1966 In Cold Blood
author: Truman Capote
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1966
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: to-read
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The Wife Between Us 34189556
You will assume you are reading about a jealous ex-wife.

You will assume she is obsessed with her replacement � a beautiful, younger woman who is about to marry the man they both love.

You will assume you know the anatomy of this tangled love triangle.

Assume nothing.

Twisted and deliciously chilling, Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen's The Wife Between Us exposes the secret complexities of an enviable marriage - and the dangerous truths we ignore in the name of love.

Read between the lies.]]>
432 Greer Hendricks 1250130921 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 3 3.82 2018 The Wife Between Us
author: Greer Hendricks
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/15
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<![CDATA[The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games, #0)]]> 50794839 Ambition will fuel him.
Competition will drive him.
But power has its price.

It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.

The odds are against him. He’s been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined—every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute . . . and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.]]>
528 Suzanne Collins 1338635174 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 3 3.88 2020 The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games, #0)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/15
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<![CDATA[Last Night at the Telegraph Club]]> 35224992 A story of love and duty set in San Francisco's Chinatown during the Red Scare.

“That book. It was about two women, and they fell in love with each other.� And then Lily asked the question that had taken root in her, that was even now unfurling its leaves and demanding to be shown the sun: “Have you ever heard of such a thing?�

Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can’t remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club.

America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father—despite his hard-won citizenship—Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day.]]>
409 Malinda Lo 0525555250 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 3 3.5 4.21 2021 Last Night at the Telegraph Club
author: Malinda Lo
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/14
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves:
review:
3.5
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Adaptation (Adaptation, #1) 10744752
Across North America, flocks of birds hurl themselves into airplanes, causing at least a dozen to crash. Thousands of people die. Fearing terrorism, the United States government grounds all flights, and millions of travelers are stranded.

Reese and her debate team partner and longtime crush David are in Arizona when it happens. Everyone knows the world will never be the same. On their drive home to San Francisco, along a stretch of empty highway at night in the middle of Nevada, a bird flies into their headlights. The car flips over. When they wake up in a military hospital, the doctor won’t tell them what happened, where they are—or how they’ve been miraculously healed.

Things become even stranger when Reese returns home. San Francisco feels like a different place with police enforcing curfew, hazmat teams collecting dead birds, and a strange presence that seems to be following her. When Reese unexpectedly collides with the beautiful Amber Gray, her search for the truth is forced in an entirely new direction—and threatens to expose a vast global conspiracy that the government has worked for decades to keep secret.]]>
386 Malinda Lo 0316197963 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, boop 3.64 2012 Adaptation (Adaptation, #1)
author: Malinda Lo
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: to-read, boop
review:

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<![CDATA[Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI]]> 29496076
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.

Then, one by one, they began to be killed off. One Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, watched as her family was murdered. Her older sister was shot. Her mother was then slowly poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more Osage began to die under mysterious circumstances.

In this last remnant of the Wild West—where oilmen like J. P. Getty made their fortunes and where desperadoes such as Al Spencer, “the Phantom Terror,� roamed � virtually anyone who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll surpassed more than twenty-four Osage, the newly created F.B.I. took up the case, in what became one of the organization’s first major homicide investigations. But the bureau was then notoriously corrupt and initially bungled the case. Eventually the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including one of the only Native American agents in the bureau. They infiltrated the region, struggling to adopt the latest modern techniques of detection. Together with the Osage they began to expose one of the most sinister conspiracies in American history.

In Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann revisits a shocking series of crimes in which dozens of people were murdered in cold blood. The book is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, as each step in the investigation reveals a series of sinister secrets and reversals. But more than that, it is a searing indictment of the callousness and prejudice toward Native Americans that allowed the murderers to operate with impunity for so long. Killers of the Flower Moon is utterly riveting, but also emotionally devastating.]]>
359 David Grann 0385534256 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.12 2017 Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
author: David Grann
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/08
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<![CDATA[Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland]]> 40163119
Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders.

Patrick Radden Keefe writes an intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions.]]>
441 Patrick Radden Keefe 0385521316 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.47 2018 Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
author: Patrick Radden Keefe
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster]]> 1898
Into Thin Air is the definitive account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest by the acclaimed journalist and author of the bestseller Into the Wild. On assignment for Outside Magazine to report on the growing commercialization of the mountain, Krakauer, an accomplished climber, went to the Himalayas as a client of Rob Hall, the most respected high-altitude guide in the world. A rangy, thirty-five-year-old New Zealander, Hall had summited Everest four times between 1990 and 1995 and had led thirty-nine climbers to the top. Ascending the mountain in close proximity to Hall's team was a guided expedition led by Scott Fischer, a forty-year-old American with legendary strength and drive who had climbed the peak without supplemental oxygen in 1994. But neither Hall nor Fischer survived the rogue storm that struck in May 1996.

Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people -- including himself -- to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer's eyewitness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement.]]>
368 Jon Krakauer ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.24 1997 Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster
author: Jon Krakauer
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read
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The Six Wives of Henry VIII 10104 643 Alison Weir 0802136834 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, boop 4.11 1992 The Six Wives of Henry VIII
author: Alison Weir
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read, boop
review:

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<![CDATA[The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World]]> 53138220 The remarkable, little-known story of two trailblazing women in the Early Middle Ages who wielded immense power, only to be vilified for daring to rule.

Brunhild was a Spanish princess, raised to be married off for the sake of alliance-building. Her sister-in-law Fredegund started out as a lowly palace slave. And yet—in the 6th-century Merovingian Empire, where women were excluded from noble succession and royal politics was a blood sport—these two iron-willed strategists reigned over vast realms for decades, changing the face of Europe.

The two queens commanded armies and negotiated with kings and popes. They formed coalitions and broke them, mothered children and lost them. They fought a years-long civil war—against each other. With ingenuity and skill, they battled to stay alive in the game of statecraft, and in the process laid the foundations of what would one day be Charlemagne’s empire. Yet after Brunhild and Fredegund’s deaths—one gentle, the other horrific—their stories were rewritten, their names consigned to slander and legend.

In The Dark Queens, award-winning writer Shelley Puhak sets the record straight. She resurrects two very real women in all their complexity, painting a richly detailed portrait of an unfamiliar time and striking at the roots of some of our culture’s stubbornest myths about female power. The Dark Queens offers proof that the relationships between women can transform the world.]]>
384 Shelley Puhak 1635574919 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, boop 4.09 2022 The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World
author: Shelley Puhak
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read, boop
review:

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<![CDATA[The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women]]> 31409135 The incredible true story of the women who fought America's Undark danger

The Curies' newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of the First World War.

Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" are the luckiest alive—until they begin to fall mysteriously ill.

But the factories that once offered golden opportunities are now ignoring all claims of the gruesome side effects, and the women's cries of corruption. And as the fatal poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining girls find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America's early 20th century, and in a groundbreaking battle for workers' rights that will echo for centuries to come.

Written with a sparkling voice and breakneck pace, The Radium Girls fully illuminates the inspiring young women exposed to the "wonder" substance of radium, and their awe-inspiring strength in the face of almost impossible circumstances. Their courage and tenacity led to life-changing regulations, research into nuclear bombing, and ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

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479 Kate Moore 149264935X ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.13 2016 The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women
author: Kate Moore
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[The Royal Women Who Made England: The Tenth Century in Saxon England]]> 198354344 216 M.J. Porter 1399068431 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read, boop 3.83 The Royal Women Who Made England: The Tenth Century in Saxon England
author: M.J. Porter
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.83
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read, boop
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I Who Have Never Known Men 60811826 Deep underground, forty women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before.


As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl—the fortieth prisoner—sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.


Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation. Back in print for the first time since 1997, Harpman’s modern classic is an important addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.]]>
184 Jacqueline Harpman 1945492600 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 2 'In that case, what were men for?' I asked.
and that's a wrap.]]>
4.11 1995 I Who Have Never Known Men
author: Jacqueline Harpman
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1995
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/07
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves:
review:
'In that case, what were men for?' I asked.

and that's a wrap.
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<![CDATA[Eternal Captive (Blood Royale Book 1)]]> 209452485

Vesper

My entire life had been decided by a prophecy.

Born into a family proficient in killing every type of supernatural being on the planet, there was only one path for me.

But when it finally came to fulfill the prophecy, I found myself face to face with the most cruel yet breathtaking creature I had ever come to know.

The same one I was supposed to kill.

Yet how is it when every time I try, she's always one step ahead of me?

Aurelia

My father had turned me into a monster.

A cruel, unbreaking force that laughed in the face of all those who stood to face me.

And then he went and soldme to a bastard Prince who wanted to see nothing more than my own downfall. All while trying everything my later mother worked so hard to build.

And then she came.

She would have been a beautiful break in the constant downpour that had been my life... if she hadn't gone and ruined it all by putting her nose where it didn't belong.

But I would pay it back in full, and maybe even have some fun while I was at it.

Note: all TW will be on the author's website.
This is NOT a continuation of Contract Bound but is set in the same world far in the future after the downfall of The Order and the regaining of power of vampire royalty.]]>
333 Elle Mae 1959187139 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.02 Eternal Captive (Blood Royale Book 1)
author: Elle Mae
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.02
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: to-read
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Idol, Burning 60470072 The novel that lit the Japanese publishing world on fire: From a breathtaking up-and-coming writer, a twenty-first century Catcher in the Rye that brilliantly explores toxic fandom, social media, and alienated adolescence.

Akari is a high school junior obsessed with "oshi" Masaki Ueno, a member of the popular J-Pop group Maza Maza. She writes a blog devoted to him, and spends hours addictively scrolling for information about him and his life. Desperate to analyze and understand him, Akari hopes to eventually see the world through his eyes. It is a devotion that borders on the religious: Masaki is her savior, her backbone, someone she believes she cannot survive without--even though she's never actually met him.

When rumors surface that her idol assaulted a female fan, social media explodes. Akari immediately begins sifting through everything she can find about the scandal, and shares every detail to her blog--including Masaki's denials and pleas to his fans--drawing numerous readers eager for her updates.

But the organized, knowledgeable persona Akari presents online is totally different from the socially awkward, unfocused teenager she is in real life. As Masaki's situation spirals, his troubles threaten to tear apart her life too. Instead of finding a way to break free to save herself, Akari becomes even more fanatical about Masaki, still believing her idol is the only person who understands her.

A blistering novel of fame, disconnection, obsession, and disillusion by a young writer not much older than the novel's heroine, Idol, Burning shines a white-hot spotlight on fandom and "stan" culture, the money-making schemes of the pop idol industry, the seductive power of social media, and the powerful emotional void that opens when an idol falls from grace, only to become a real--and very flawed--person.]]>
144 Rin Usami 0063213281 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 3 2.5 3.20 2020 Idol, Burning
author: Rin Usami
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves:
review:
2.5
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<![CDATA[Spark of the Everflame (Kindred's Curse, #1)]]> 123471760 When old secrets catch fire, everything will burn.

In a mortal world colonized by the gods and ruled over by the Descended, their cruel offspring, Diem Bellator yearns to escape the insular life of her poor village.

Her mother’s sudden disappearance—and the discovery of a dangerous secret about her past—offer Diem an unexpected opportunity to enter the dark world of Descended royalty and unlock the web of mysteries her mother left behind.

With the dying King’s handsome, mysterious heir watching her every move, and a ruthless mortal alliance recruiting her to join the growing civil war, Diem will have to navigate the unwritten rules of love, power, and politics in order to save her family—and all of mortalkind.

Spark of the Everflame is the first book in The Kindred's Curse Saga, a four-book fantasy romance series. This slow burn, enemies-to-lovers epic is perfect for lovers of magic, dragons, angst, and banter and will appeal to fans of books like A Court of Thorns and Roses, From Blood and Ash, Gild, and The Serpent & the Wings of Night.]]>
438 Penn Cole ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 0 to-read 4.20 2023 Spark of the Everflame (Kindred's Curse, #1)
author: Penn Cole
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/06
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Kaikeyi 57127277 “I was born on the full moon under an auspicious constellation, the holiest of positions—much good it did me.�

So begins Kaikeyi’s story. The only daughter of the kingdom of Kekaya, she is raised on tales about the might and benevolence of the gods: how they churned the vast ocean to obtain the nectar of immortality, how they vanquish evil and ensure the land of Bharat prospers, and how they offer powerful boons to the worthy. Yet she watches as her father unceremoniously banishes her mother, listens as her own worth is reduced to the marriage alliance she can secure. And when she calls upon the gods for help, they never seem to hear.

Desperate for independence, she turns to the texts she once read with her mother and discovers a magic that is hers alone. With it, Kaikeyi transforms herself from an overlooked princess into a warrior, diplomat, and most favored queen.

But as the evil from her childhood stories threatens the cosmic order, the path she has forged clashes with the destiny the gods have chosen for her family. And Kaikeyi must decide if resistance is worth the destruction it will wreak—and what legacy she intends to leave behind.

The unforgettable tale of a woman determined to leave her mark in a world gods and men dictate the shape of things to come. "Patel's mesmerizing debut shines a brilliant light on the vilified queen from the Ramayana"
(Publishers Weekly, starred review).
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478 Vaishnavi Patel 0759557330 ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚ 4 4.18 2022 Kaikeyi
author: Vaishnavi Patel
name: ˚₊‧☾ space case ✩‧₊˚
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/05
shelves:
review:

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