Welcome back to Such a Fun to Read.
I've been trying to be good.
I have been trying not to purchase books online or go to the bookstore.
But after that performance by the Ohio State coaching staff a couple weeks ago, a couple sirees ago,
I've decided that buying books makes me happy.
I deserve to be happy.
So I've bought some books.
Actually, yeah, I bought some books.
I've gone to Barnes and Noble twice in the last week as well as ordered a couple books online.
And I have a couple books from Book of the Month.
I don't know.
But that's what I've done.
Let's just let's just get into what I've purchased lately.
So here is my min...
I wanted to call it a mini book haul, but I don't know how many this is.
Anyway, here are the books I bought.
So the first one I have here is Impossible Creatures by Katherine Bondo.
This is Children's.
I don't know if this is young and daughter middle grade, but it is a children's book.
And it was apparently Barnes and Noble's Book of the Year, at least one of them.
I think this was a Book of the Year in the children's category.
I don't know what made me purchase this today.
I because I got this today.
I actually went to the bookstore on my lunch break.
I have this and another one.
But I don't know what made me purchase this.
But I think I was either reading something online or watching or watching a YouTube video or something.
And I was just thinking, I want to start this.
I think this is a book I'm going to end up reading first out of all of these.
But let's let's take a look at the book summary because hilariously, I haven't done that yet.
I don't know.
The day that Christopher rescued a drowning baby griffin from a hidden lake would change his life forever.
It's the day he learned about the archipelago, a cluster of unmapped islands where magical creatures of every kind have thrived for thousands of years until now.
And it's the day he met Mal, a girl on the run in desperate need of his help.
Mal and Christopher embark on a wild adventure racing from island to island searching for someone who can explain why the magic is fading and why magical creatures are suddenly dying.
They consult Sphinx's.
What?
They consult.
I can't say this word.
They consult Sphinx's, battle Kraken and negotiate with dragons.
But the closer they get to the dark truth of what's happening, the clearer it becomes.
No one else can fix this.
If the archipelago is to be saved, Mal and Christopher will have to do it themselves.
Next up, the other one I end up getting today is Eir by Sabaa Tahir.
I still need to finish her other series.
What is that series called?
And then Burning Ashes.
I'll probably restart that one.
Anyway, I still need to finish that.
I do have all the books in that series, but I wanted to pick this one up as well.
This is a Younger.Fantasy and that's all I know.
I just know I like her writing.
So let's see what this one's about.
An orphan and outcast, a prince and a killer who will bring an empire to its knees.
Growing up in the K'gari slums, eyes have seen her share of suffering.
An old tragedy fuels her need for vengeance, but it is love of her people that propels her.
Until one hot-headed mistake lands her in an inescapable prison where the embers of her wrath ignite.
Banished from her people for an unforgivable crime,
Sersha is a down-on-her-luck tracker who uses magic to trace her marks.
Destitute, she agrees to hunt down a killer who has murdered children across the martial empire.
All she has to do is carry out the job and get paid.
But when a chance encounter leads to an unexpected attraction,
Sersha learns her mission might cost her far more than she's willing to give up.
Quill is the crown prince of the empire and nephew of a venerated empress.
But he's loath to take the throne with his aunt steps down.
As a son of a reviled emperor, he, better than anyone, understands that power corrupts.
When a vicious new enemy threatens the survival of the empire,
Quill must ask himself if he can rise above his tragic lineage and be the heir his people need.
Now I'm curious if this is set in the same world as An Ember in the Ashes.
Hmm, I guess I'll find out.
The next one I have is The Sword of Kaigen by Emma Wang.
This is a book I added in my 10 books I want to read in 2025.
And yeah, I still want to do that.
On a mountainside at the edge of the Kaigenese empire lived the most powerful warriors in the world,
superhumans capable of raising the sea and wielding blades of ice.
For hundreds of years, the fires 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 Kasaguni's legendary Matsuda family, 14-year-old Mamora 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 of Kaigen's alleged Age of Peace,
Mamora 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.
Masaki told herself that she left the passions of her youth behind when she married into the Masuda 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, Masaki finds the fighter in her clawing its way back to the surface.
When the winds of war reach their peninsula, will the Masuda family have the strength to defend their empire,
or will they tear each other apart before the true enemies even reach their shores?
And I also picked over Blood Over Brighthaven by Elma Wang.
So I got two books by this author.
For 20 years, Sayona has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic,
fueled by a mad desire to achieve the impossible to be the first woman ever admitted to the high magistrate at the University of Magics and Industry.
When Sayona finally passes the qualifying exam and becomes a high mage, she finds her challenges have just begun.
Her new colleagues are determined to make her feel unwelcome, and instead of a qualified lab assistant, they give her a janitor.
When neither Sayona or her peers realize it's that her taciturn assistant was not always a janitor.
Ten years ago, he was a nomadic hunter who lost his family on their perilous journey from the wild plains to the city.
But now he sees the opportunity to understand the forces that decimated his tribe, drove him from his homeland, and keep the privilege and power.
At first, mage and outsider have a fractious relationship, but working together they uncover an ancient secret that could change the course of magic forever if it doesn't get them killed first.
Next up, I have One Dark Window and Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillick.
Actually, I don't remember when I bought One Dark Window. I think I bought it a couple months ago. I'm not really sure.
But I do know I recently bought the sequel to Twisted Crowns. I figured, hey, maybe I'll want to do a bench. Maybe I'll do a bench read of these two books.
I might as well go ahead and get the sequel now. But I'll give a summary of One Dark Window.
Elspeth needs a monster. The monster might be her.
Elspeth Spindle needs more than luck to stay safe in the eerie, mist-locked kingdom of Blunder.
She needs a monster. She calls in the nightmare, an ancient, mercurial spirit trapped in her head.
He protects her. He keeps her secrets. But nothing comes for free, especially magic.
When Elspeth meets a mysterious highwayman on the forest road, her life takes a drastic turn.
Thrust into a world of shadow and deception, she joins a dangerous quest to cure Blunder of the dark magic infecting it.
Except the highwayman just so happens to be the king's own nephew, captain of the most dangerous men in Blunder and guilty of high treason.
So I caved. I ended up picking up Ice Like Fire and Frost Like Night, the second and third book in the Snow Like Ashes trilogy by Sarah Rausch.
I caved. I said I wasn't going to get these yet. I was going to wait. But I caved.
Again, I just want to be happy. And owning these books was going to make me happy.
Now, I don't want to give up what those are about because that's spoilers. So let's talk about what Snow Like Ashes is about.
16 years ago, the Kingdom of Winter was conquered and its citizens enslaved, leaving them without magic or a monarch.
Now the Wintarians only hope for freedom is the eight survivors who managed to escape and who have been searching for the chance to steal back Winter's magic and rebuild the kingdom ever since.
Orphaned as an infant during Winter's defeat, Myrra has lived her whole life as a refugee.
Trained to be a warrior and desperately in love with her best friend and future king, Mather, she would do anything to help Winter rise to power again.
So when scouts discovered the location of the ancient locket that can restore their magic, Myrra decides to go after it only to find herself thrust into a world of evil magic and dangerous politics.
And to realize that her destiny is not, never has been, her own.
Okay, two more books left. These are the books I got from Book of the Month.
So the first one I ended up getting is The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ali Carter.
This is definitely something I want to read very soon because it is a Christmas themed book, a Christmas themed mystery, romance mystery actually.
The bridge is out, the phones are down, and the most famous mystery writer in the world just disappeared out of a locked room three days before Christmas.
Meet Maggie Chase and Evan Wyatt. She's the new queen of the cozy mystery. He's Mr. Big Time Thriller Guy.
She hates his guts. He thinks her name is Marcy, no matter how many times she's told him otherwise.
But when they both accept a cryptic invitation to attend a Christmas house party at the English estate of a reclusive fan, neither is expecting their host to be the most powerful author in the world, Eleanor Ashley, the Duchess of Death herself.
That night, the weather turns and the next morning Eleanor is gone. She vanished from a locked room and Maggie has to wonder, is Eleanor in danger or is it all some kind of test?
Is Ethan the competition or is he the only person in that snowbound mansion she can trust?
As the snow gets deeper and the stakes get higher, every clue will bring Maggie and Ethan closer to the truth and each other.
Because this Christmas these two rivals are going to have to become allies and maybe more if they have any hope of saving Eleanor, assuming they don't kill each other first.
And the last book I end up getting is The Thirteenth Child by Aaron A. Craig.
Hazel Trepass has always known she wasn't like her siblings. A thirteenth child promised to one of the gods, she spends her childhood waiting for her benefactor, Merrick the god of death, to arrive and take her away.
When he does, he lays out exactly what he's planned for Hazel's future.
She will become a great and celebrated healer. To aid her endeavors, Merrick blessed Hazel with a gift, the ability to instantly deduce the exact cure needed to treat the sick. But all gifts come with a price.
Hazel can see when death has claimed a patient and is tasked with ending their suffering permanently.
Haunted by the ghosts of those she's killed, Hazel longs to run. But destiny brings her to the royal court where she meets Leopold, a rakish prince with a disdain for everyone and everything.
And that's where Hazel faces her biggest dilemma yet. Should she save the life of the king, Mark, to die? Hazel knows what she is meant to do and what her heart is urging her toward. But what will happen if she goes against the will of death himself?
And that's it. Well, so far that's it. Hopefully that is my book haul for the end of the year, meaning I'm not getting any other books before 2025. Hopefully. We'll see.
But let me know if you've acquired any new books lately. I'm curious. Also, let me know which of these books do you think I should read soon.
And thank you all so much for listening. Don't forget to subscribe so that you don't miss new episodes and we'll speak soon. Happy reading.