There's been a great deal of change in my life lately! For one, check out my NEW HAIR!! I decided to do a little switcheroo to take control of my life, so it's purple/pink now! If you're interested in my process, I used Arctic Fox Bleach Please! (because my hair is black, and dye would never show if I didn't bleach first. Plus, I wanted vibrant color) and then went over that a week later with their Violet Dreams. It turned out a little too pink, so I'm trying their Purple Rain shade next because I love the quality of their dyes. My hair is completely undamaged, and remains super soft despite all the bleaching I did--their 35 volume lifted 8 levels. It was really blonde. I'll share pics of that soon, I didn't hate it! I also use Garnier's color-preserving shampoo, which I think I may be allergic to? It makes me sneeze so much whenever I use it, but it's great at keeping the color in my hair and not stripping it as a regular shampoo would, so whatever. I'll just suffer. In other news... nothing. I haven't read a book in so long, friends. Don't go to school. *drops head on desk* If I'm being honest, work and everything in my life is super draining, so I hope this week I get a moment to recharge and fall into a story again. I have a massive TBR pile glaring at me from my nightstand. Updates to come!
Thank you to the publisher for sharing an eARC in exchange for review!
After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus. A flying demon feeding on human energies. A secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down. And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw. The mage’s failure unlocks Bree’s own unique magic and a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital. Now that Bree knows there’s more to her mother’s death than what’s on the police report, she’ll do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the Legendborn as one of their initiates. She recruits Nick, a self-exiled Legendborn with his own grudge against the group, and their reluctant partnership pulls them deeper into the society’s secrets—and closer to each other. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur’s knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far she’ll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society down—or join the fight. Oh. My. God. Legendborn is an experience unto itself, and you cannot miss out. This sweeping contemporary fantasy blazes a new trail in the vein of City of Bones, and I’m so glad to have found my next long-term fantasy world! I know I’ll be sticking with Bree and Nick for a while—I have deep-seated adoration for this world and these characters. Let’s start with the magic. Inspired by Arthuriana, Legendborn features a secret society charged with fighting demons with the powers of the Knights of the Round Table, and eventually preventing the apocalypse, or Camlann. I am here for the dark academia vibes!! The Legendborn operate on the campus of UNC Chapel Hill, where Bree is a pre-college student. I’ve always been a fan of a good secret society, so that aspect drew me in quickly. It’s different from many contemporary settings, and I appreciated how Deonn tied the history of the school into the story, involving us in the landscape right with the characters. Bree herself is a phenomenal lead. Though she grieves her mother, she’s driven to find out what happened at the hospital and how she can avenge her death. As I always say, the best narrators have the deepest flaws. Bree is not without them—she struggles to openly mourn for her loss and she pushes away her best friend Alice—but she finds new connections and learns to both live in the present and appreciate her family’s history at the same time. She’s also genuinely kind. I don’t want to spoil anything (which is making this review so hard to write, y’all, there are so many plot twists!) but I will say that I was in awe of one particular choice Bree made that could have meant bodily harm, just because she cared so much about Nick. Wait. HOW did I get this far without mentioning Nick?? While not my favorite character (that’d be Bree by about 10 miles), Nick is her love interest. And their romance is EPIC!!! You couldn’t ask for a more perfect pair. Bree and Nick teaming up to solve the mystery and stop the apocalypse is everything to me. Theirs is a perfect balance of risking lives and wanting to protect the other, a demon-fighting duo for the ages. Of course, there are heavier moments too. Bree faces racism and bias when she involves herself more with the Legendborn, a historically white and powerful society. There is also the fact that UNC has a history with slavery, and we get to see Bree reckon with the world of privilege that sits literally on top of that blood-soaked ground. This was so gripping to me. I have been waiting to throw my energy into an expansive fantasy like this one that also has a BIPOC main character (Bree is Black) and addresses the systemic inequalities in my country. Again, Deonn is so thoughtful as to how she balances Arthuriana’s colonial dominance in storytelling and introduces different magic elements inspired by African American spiritual traditions. This adaptation (or addition to the Arthuriana canon) is an opportunity to be more inclusive and widen the world. (for the sake of no spoilers, I won’t mention more! It’ll be best if you’re immersed through the novel, not my review. Go buy this book!) Overall, Legendborn earns ALL the stars. Which for me, is a 5/5. I can’t tell you enough how much you need to read this book. You’re going to scream at the end, and you’ll laugh and cry and squeal in excitement a million times before then. Hi all! As you may know, I’m a co-organizer over at The Book Terminal Tours, a blog tour company. I just want to come on here and share that sign-ups are still open for our Lies Like Poison by Chelsea Pitcher blog tour. I’m sharing the cover and synopsis below—it’s a new thriller out November 10th from Margaret K. McElderry. Head over to The Book Terminal for a link to sign-ups! Poppy, Lily, and Belladonna would do anything to protect their best friend, Raven. So when they discovered he was suffering abuse at the hands of his stepmother, they came up with a lethal plan: petals of poppy, belladonna, and lily in her evening tea so she’d never be able to hurt Raven again. But someone got cold feet, the plot faded to a secret of the past, and the group fell apart. Three years later, on the eve of Raven’s seventeenth birthday, his stepmother turns up dead. But it’s only belladonna found in her tea, and it’s only Belladonna who’s carted off to jail. Desperate for help, Belle reaches out to her estranged friends to prove her innocence. They answer the call, but no one is prepared for what comes next. Now, everyone has something to lose and something equally dangerous to hide. And when the tangled web of secrets and betrayal is finally unwound, what lies at its heart will change the group forever. Hi all! Here today with a quick review and list of tv/film recs for Vampires Never Get Old! Thank you to the publisher for sharing a review copy & to Hear Our Voices for having me on this tour! The BookIn this delicious new collection, you’ll find stories about lurking vampires of social media, rebellious vampires hungry for more than just blood, eager vampires coming out―and going out for their first kill―and other bold, breathtaking, dangerous, dreamy, eerie, iconic, powerful creatures of the night. Welcome to the evolution of the vampire―and a revolution on the page. Vampires Never Get Old includes stories by authors both bestselling and acclaimed, including Samira Ahmed, Dhonielle Clayton, Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker, Tessa Gratton, Heidi Heilig, Julie Murphy, Mark Oshiro, Rebecca Roanhorse, Laura Ruby, Victoria “V. E.” Schwab, and Kayla Whaley. Review This anthology full of superstar writers is a powerful reminder that vampires aren’t over! We’re swept away in tales from all over the globe and all walks of life, to remind readers that vampire media can be incredibly white and heteronormative, but doesn’t have to be that way! Typically for anthologies, I’ll give one to two line reviews of each story and bold my favorites, without assigning star ratings. To be upfront, Vampires Never Get Old earned a 4/5 star rating from me. Some stories I really enjoyed, but others didn’t quite hit their mark. Seven Nights for Dying by Tessa Gratton I loved the agency given to our main character in her choice of whether or not to become a vampire! Gratton delays the transformation process in an interesting way, letting the MC take her time and think about the decision. Does this allow more room for regret, uncertainty? I’m not sure! But I really enjoyed this one. Mirrors, Windows & Selfies by Mark Oshiro This was cute, but I wish I had more information! Told through the blog posts of a young vampire who’s not supposed to exist and therefore must move around with his family, the story obsesses over the idea of reflection and what it means to look at oneself. I was left confused at the end… there was some implied consequence for the main group of vampires discovering Cisco’s existence, but we don’t know what it is and the story misses its mark. The House of Black Sapphires by Dhonielle Clayton YES. Yes, yes yes. Give me so much more of this! Dhonielle’s description of New Orleans (a fascinating city by all accounts) and its vampiric underbelly is beautiful, and I loved Bea’s relationship with her family. I just wish it hadn’t ended so abruptly—a common desire with stories in this collection. The Boys From Blood River by Rebecca Roanhorse Cowboy… vampires… ? I really liked the beginning of this story! Set in a diner, and our lead is a Native boy who is bullied for being gay. Then, a creepy jukebox and a gang of vampires show up, and it just gets weirder from there. I wish the folkloric grounding of this story had continued to guide its ending, because I could have gotten into that. Senior Year Sucks by Julie Murphy "Revamped” (haha) Buffy! Slayers and monster-hunters rank pretty high on my list of favorite tropes, so I super enjoyed this sapphic story that shows you don’t need a certain type of body to hunt vampires. I did think it was a little odd that our MC was also a cheerleader named Jolene (was this supposed to be a Dumplin’ reference?) but that’s a minor quibble. The Boy and the Bell by Heidi Heilig What would you do if you were blackmailed for being trans? This historical short story features a boy in medical school seeking cadavers in a local cemetery, when he hears a grave bell ringing—someone’s been buried alive. The atmosphere of this one is completely spooky and fall-appropriate, but it’s a great read all year round! In Kind by Kayla Whaley This is my favorite story of the entire anthology. It’s half epistolary, half narrated, and we see a 17 year old girl killed by her father in a “mercy killing” because she was disabled, and her body is missing. She’s the vampire in this story which doesn’t take away her neuromuscular disorder, only enables her to gain power and survive! I loved the idea that vampirism isn’t a “cure” for earthly diseases and the MC is already who she needs to be. A Guidebook for the Newly Sired Desi Vampire by Samira Ahmed This is easily another one of my favorites. Hilarious, ironic, and sarcastic, this short story is literally a guidebook to being a “Newly Sired Desi Vampire.” The anonymous support system outlined has suggestions for who to eat (colonizers, always!), who might have turned you (a British tourist in all likelihood), and how you can keep living in your culture. I was smiling the whole way through and it was a much-needed light moment in the middle of the anthology. Bestiary by Laura Ruby I’m sorry to say I just couldn’t understand this story. A young vampire lives in a zoo and has a telepathic connection with the animals (I think?). There’s also some sort of water crisis, possibly due to underfunding? Some parts were hard to connect with and the plot bounced all over the place, so I just wasn’t a big fan. If you’re into anti-capitalism messages and animal rights, though, it’s worth a read. Vampires Never Say Die by Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker I wasn’t quite sure how to feel about this one. On the one hand, the dramatic irony is interesting, but on the other hand… why would a 200 year old vampire think it’s okay to befriend a 15 year old on Instagram? That just rubbed me the wrong way—the story takes place two years after they met, so she’s 17 now, but still. I’d have to reread and see if that still bugged me. First Kill by Victoria “V. E.” Schwab Oooh this one definitely hit me! I can’t say anything because there’s a really awesome plot twist that I’d hate to spoil for you, but it makes such a good ending to this collection! Vampy TV/Movies!
What a gorgeous Tuesday for some bookmail! I received The Last Best Story by Maggie Lehrman and Time of Our Lives by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegmund-Broka from Bookshop.org today, and promptly spent all day rereading The Last Best Story. It's His Girl Friday meets high school journalism and I couldn't love it more! As per my tradition, I ordered one book I've read before and didn't get a chance to buy and another that I'm discovering for the first time. I can't wait to feature these two in some upcoming blog posts and rec lists!
Another absolute highlight of my day was joining a meet-and-greet with Roshani Chokshi before her launch event for The Silvered Serpents (which I loved, here's my review!) because I preordered from Little Shop of Stories! She joined a Zoom with about 20 other fans, and we got to chat and hang out in a small group. I love Roshani's stories so much, and she's a genuinely kind and amazing person which makes them all the much sweeter. Thank you to Netgalley and Wednesday Books for sending me a copy in exchange for my honest review.
They are each other’s fiercest love, greatest danger, and only hope. Séverin and his team members might have successfully thwarted the Fallen House, but victory came at a terrible cost ― one that still haunts all of them. Desperate to make amends, Séverin pursues a dangerous lead to find a long lost artifact rumored to grant its possessor the power of God. Their hunt lures them far from Paris, and into icy heart of Russia where crystalline ice animals stalk forgotten mansions, broken goddesses carry deadly secrets, and a string of unsolved murders makes the crew question whether an ancient myth is a myth after all. As hidden secrets come to the light and the ghosts of the past catch up to them, the crew will discover new dimensions of themselves. But what they find out may lead them down paths they never imagined. A tale of love and betrayal as the crew risks their lives for one last job. A little note to say that this is a spoiler free review, for those who have not yet read The Gilded Wolves. I urge you to do so, it will only enrich your literary life. Another note: I am so incredibly thrilled to have read an early copy of The Silvered Serpents. Roshani Chokshi is one of my favorite authors, and I am constantly amazed by her stories. It is an absolute honor to review this novel. You all need to read this trilogy. Again, Roshani Chokshi blows me away. I am eternally stunned by her world and character-building, which came out in equal force to create the dynamics of Séverin’s team in icy, beautiful Siberia. The Silvered Serpents expands upon the tale wound up in The Gilded Wolves, a masterful sequel that does not suffer from second-book syndrome. I was already in love with these characters, but Chokshi used that to wrench my heart around, as I suspected would be the case. I am so incredibly torn that The Gilded Wolves is a trilogy and not a duology—I love these books so much, but my heart cannot take much more! Where, even, to start? Probably with the world and the prose. The depiction of the world in 1789 links history (colonization, European powers) with the magic of Forging and connections to ancient references (the tower of Babel, the Nine Muses), to a magical effect. Readers can understand and connect with each clue towards The Divine Lyrics (the object of desire for Séverin’s team) because of their cleverly crafted historical and magical significance within the real world. I especially loved seeing representations of the Nine Muses from Greek mythology, each with a special connection to an art or science. They each also had a symbolic item that signified their presence in a work, because they were otherwise indistinguishable from one another. My favorite muse has always been Urania, depicted with stars and compass. Chokshi’s prose is lyrical and devastating, as always. A couple of my favorite quotes are "What is magic but a science we cannot fathom?” and "Love does not always wear the face we wish." For me, the heart of this story (or, I should say, the characters in this story to which my heart belong) is Laila and Séverin’s plot thread. The two of them are so magnificent together, but are blocked by their own desires: Laila’s to live, and Séverin’s obsession with protecting his friends. I cannot evaluate the strength of their stories objectively, because every time they were on the page, my heart just screamed for these angel children (though, of course, they are neither angelic nor children. This is merely my intense affection taking over my rationality). The tension between them as they continue to hide their desires and intentions from each other builds in a tantalizing way, much as it does through the first book in the series. I especially liked the contrast between Séverin grappling with the concept of godhood and Laila simply wishing to live her mortal life to a longer end. Of course, the whole team is depicted in such a beautiful manner. Haunted by loss, and fractured after the events of The Gilded Wolves, they must find a way to focus on their mission while balancing high tension. Each of them is so well defined by the portrayal of their grief. Their individual arcs are given full attention within the scope of the story, which rounds out the novel. The plot never disappoints. In the novel, we continue the journey of Séverin’s team as they seek the key to divine power. Fast paced and exciting, there’s an exceptional balance between emotion and action in The Silvered Serpents. The tension between the characters changes state throughout the novel, and I found myself screaming, holding my breath, and crying at various moments while reading. The pacing was snappy and each beat precisely placed, exactly as I’d predicted. I didn’t expect The Silvered Serpents to be such a quick read for me, although perhaps this is due to the fact that once I picked it up, I couldn’t put it down. I never imagined finishing a day after I started. Overall, an amazing novel. I have exactly zero bad things to say about The Silvered Serpents, and am so excited for you all to fall in love with this series just like I have. 5/5 stars. I think I'm in an externally imposed reading slump. Before today, I hadn't picked up a book in about... five days, and that sucked. When I can't read, my mood takes a nosedive, I feel less satisfied, and I have a harder time wanting to come on here and create content. Luckily, I just turned in a project today, and I was able to pick up Chain of Gold, which has been on my TBR forever! I got a third of the way through before stopping for the day, and I'm so relieved that I could carve out that time.
Another note: LEGENDBORN is out today--I was lucky enough to receive an eARC which I unfortunately could not finish before release, but I promise it is amazing and you'll love it. We haven't had an Arthurian tale in a while, and Tracy Deonn pulled out all the stops with this one! I'm going to try and get my review ready for that later this week, but trust me, you're going to want to preorder and help it hit that NYT list on Sunday! Hi all! I have something sooo exciting for you today, which I've been keeping secret for a while! Thrilled to finally share this interview on contemporary world-building with the amazing Kayla Ancrum, author of The Wicker King (2017), The Weight of the Stars (2019), and Darling (2021). My questions (bolded) will hopefully help some of you aspiring writers out there, and offer a new insight into The Wicker King and The Weight of the Stars for readers and fans! Thank you so much to Ms. Ancrum for kindly agreeing to this interview--I am absolutely star-struck and feel like the luckiest blogger in the world! Welcome to The Baroness of Books! What aspect of your world-building do you approach differently now than when you started writing?
I’ve always been a really research focused person. When I did world-building research for my first book, I spent a lot of time researching things about the specific characters I was designing. But now I do a lot more research on the history of the topic I’ve chosen in fiction. I want to know what things readers who might be interested in my book, have read in the past. For my newest book DARLING, I spent a month before writing reading and researching Peter Pan adaptions from the past 20 years. In the beginning of my career, I might have chosen to spend more time researching the cultural background of my MC. What’s the first thing you start with when setting your stories? I’m actually really obsessed with setting multiple unrelated books in the same universe/location! Currently I have this town I created for my first book THE WICKER KING and by 2022 I’ll have 3 books set in this town set in 3 different time periods. THE WICKER KING is set in 2002, THE WEIGHT OF THE STARS is set in 2028 and UNTILED will be set in 2015. I’m hoping to have an additional novel set in the 1980s there as well. Its really cool because you get to keep some of the same characters but the readers get to see them at different ages. For example, the MCs in THE WICKER KING are 17 in that book but show up as background characters in THE WEIGHT OF THE STARS in their late 30s and in UNTITLED in their mid 20s. Its also cool because I’m an author that doesn’t do a lot of background description, so readers’ understanding of what the actual town looks like expands with each book. When I’m deciding to set a book outside of this town, I try to make sure I have personal connection to the location. Its easier to write contemporary of a real location when you have at least visited. There are things that don’t really translate unless you’ve seen what existing in that space is like. Even just watching walk throughs of the location and speaking to people who have lived there is massively helpful, if you cannot visit. How do you ensure that your stories’ backgrounds/settings are as diverse and inclusive as your main plot/“foreground”, so to speak? It comes to me instinctively. I grew up in a very diverse community in a large city so I tend to try to replicate that in my books. What are some challenging aspects of contemporary world building, and how do you combat them? Making sure everything is accurate. I tend to really place a lot of weight on technical probability. If I’m writing about a real place, I try not to make anything up at all. I want things that happen to my characters to be possible/probable and I want the location in which they’re occurring to make sense to people who live in the area. This is a ton of research of course, but its actually a part of this process where it really helps to have a strong editing team behind you. With my imprint, we actually have fact-checkers who hyperfocus on small cultural details and I’m very thankful to have access to this service. What’s your favorite part of creating a contemporary world? Definitely the time period. I adore “modern historical” and the cultural signifiers associated with certain eras. Writing about people using older technology with rose covered glasses about it is such a delight an definitely something we’ve seen spike in interest in other types of media, like Stranger Things. As a reader, what kind of world building best draws you in? Do any particular novels stand out to you as examples? I’m very fond of the “this world is normal but something very small but very abnormal and almost supernatural is happening in it”. And for this I love The Mysterious Benedict Society. It's such a fun and relatable world with just the tiniest bit of science fiction to spice it up. Which parts of the real world translate best to fiction, in your opinion? The way people treat each other and the way they navigate love-familial or otherwise. It’s timeless. Thank you to Candlewick Press for sending me a copy in exchange for my honest review.
In a novel in verse, an award-winning author offers an eye-opening look at the life of Marilyn Monroe. From the day she was born into a troubled home to her reigning days as a Hollywood icon, Marilyn Monroe (née Norma Jeane Mortenson) lived a life that was often defined by others. Revisiting Marilyn's often traumatic early life--foster homes, loneliness, sexual abuse, teen marriage--through a hard-won, meteoric rise to stardom that brought with it exploitation, pill dependency, and depression, the narrative continues through Marilyn's famous performance at JFK's birthday party, three months before her death. This verse biography of Marilyn Monroe is an unexpected gem! I think this is the first biography-in-poetry I’ve read & reviewed here, so let’s dive in! I didn’t know that much about Marilyn’s life before I read this, and it did a great job of emulating her voice and telling her story at the same time. The novel is in Marilyn’s perspective, which makes it easier to sympathize with her and take her off of the celebrity pedestal. I definitely enjoyed some of the poems more than others—a few felt truly poetic but occasionally I’d find one that would have made more sense as a paragraph. I think overall the format worked for me, though, and it’s definitely more approachable than a regular biography. I liked feeling like I was really hearing from Marilyn, and Weatherford did a great job “erasing the author,” as it were, so I commend her for that. Some of my favorite poems in the novel dealt with Marilyn’s struggle with her “Norma Jeane" self vs. her “Marilyn” self. She felt most at home whenever she was performing or in the public eye, which I think is the opposite of how many celebrities feel nowadays, what with how easy it is for fans to become internet stalkers. Marilyn also had an exceedingly difficult childhood, and watching her make her own decisions and develop agency over the book is truly powerful. She advocated for herself with film studios, even founding a production company so she could choose the roles she liked best. She kept her modeling career when her first husband wanted her to be a homemaker. She loved to read. My favorite poem was “Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover,” about Marilyn’s thirst for knowledge which is little-known about her. Despite how most people see her, she loved to read and collect books. I think there’s something remarkable about how she chose not to fall completely in line with her surroundings, and recognized that reading widely could be a tool to connect more with others and herself. It saddens me that Marilyn’s not remembered more for her desire to grow past the “sexpot” stereotype she was stuck with. She wanted badly to star in intellectual roles and to be thought of as more than the Blonde Bombshell. Others poems fell flat. I think I have trouble connecting to free-verse poetry because occasionally it feels like a paragraph with random line breaks added, which I feel defeats the purpose of poetry: to let form help tell the story. As mentioned above, some of this novel would have been better served as mixed-media, where we could have the story told in verse where it makes sense and prose where it does not. My only other gripe is with the overall design of the book—I’m not sure if this is different in finished copies, but the images in the background of the ARCs seemed unnecessary to me. Mostly abstract, they didn’t add visual interest or play with the forms of the poems, so I found those distracting. This is personal, though, and didn’t really affect my perception of the content. I’d highly recommend picking up this verse biography—any film buffs among us will enjoy the breakdown of Marilyn’s movie roles! 3/5 stars. |
The BaronessHey, I'm Shreya! I love to read, write, travel, and drink tea. Disclosure: I am an affiliate of bookshop.org and I will earn a small commission if you click the above link and make a purchase.
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