Sunday Post #9| I Smell Snow

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme

My sister, who lives in Delaware, texted me Thursday night and wanted to know how I, living in North Carolina, was going to get snow before them. (Her young sons really wanted some snow to play in, apparently.) But, I just laughed when I got the text, because having snow forecasted in North Carolina (if you don’t live in the mountains) is always a funny occasion.

Snow was supposed to start very early Friday morning and not stop until the evening – a 90% chance of snow. Here’s the reality though, the first snow forecasted for the year rarely happens at all. You wake up in the morning, expecting to see a beautiful white blanket but, when you look out the window, you are almost always met with your normal scene. Not a spec of snow anywhere and snow is no longer in the forecast.

This was the case on Friday, until around sunset and then we received about an hours worth of snow fall. No accumulation, of course, because here is the other thing you have to know about snow in the south – the ground stays warm much further into the winter than it does up north, so the snow melts as soon as it hits the ground. Though I did smell snow and see flakage, I am not in a winter wonderland setting as I write this. Oh, well!

Maybe next time…

How was your week? Did you get any snow this week? Or have any weather-related events?

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

I’m not doing a review post for Legendborn by Tracy Deonn yet, but I finished it this week and it is an AMAZING book, so I thought I would do a spotlight look at it here. I read it for my town’s town-wide annual book club, and I will post a review of the events that I attend and maybe the book itself, later this year. I haven’t seen a schedule yet, so I have no idea when that post will happen. Let me just say, it totally deserves all of the hype that it has been experiencing.

What I Loved

• The fantasy world is extremely immersive. It sucked me in and I didn’t want to leave.
• The characters are complex and many have shared childhood scars that are compelling to explore.
• Diversity is a huge component of the story and it is handled expertly with a finesse that came across as highly respectful of the characters and the readers.
• The main plotline is a fascinating twist on Arthurian legend.

What I Wish

• I wish the use of they/them when referring to a character named Greer had been explained. If it was, I did not catch it, and boy it confused me.
• I wish that a fictional college had been used. The book is set set UNC Chapel Hill, and it is a campus that I know so well that the discrepancies between the fictional Chapel Hill and the real Chapel Hill were very distracting and disconcerting for me.
• I wish that the book had a discernible conclusion. It didn’t end in a cliff hanger or have a concluding ending. For me, it seemed to just stop. I kept tapping the screen because I was sure there had to be a last chapter to be read.

I will just leave you with this: I highly recommend this book!!!

Purchased

Simon & Schuster sends out a newsletter periodically that shows the books for sale from their imprints, and this week I picked up two of them that were $1.99/each (and I was able to use credits I had – yay! – so they were free.)

Book Description

In this brilliant debut fantasy, a story of secrets, rebellion, and murder are shattering the Hollows, where magic costs memory to use, and only the son of the kingdom’s despised traitor holds the truth.

Michael is branded a traitor as a child because of the murder of the king’s nine-year-old son, by his father David Kingman. Ten years later on Michael lives a hardscrabble life, with his sister Gwen, performing crimes with his friends against minor royals in a weak attempt at striking back at the world that rejects him and his family.

In a world where memory is the coin that pays for magic, Michael knows something is there in the hot white emptiness of his mind. So when the opportunity arrives to get folded back into court, via the most politically dangerous member of the kingdom’s royal council, Michael takes it, desperate to find a way back to his past. He discovers a royal family that is spiraling into a self-serving dictatorship as gun-wielding rebels clash against magically trained militia.

What the truth holds is a set of shocking revelations that will completely change the Hollows, if Michael and his friends and family can survive long enough to see it.

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Book Description

From the USA TODAY bestselling author of Do No Harm and The Night Olivia Fell—an “emotionally charged mystery” (Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author)—comes a thrilling new suspense novel about the insidious nature of family secrets…and their deadly potential.

If you can’t remember it, how do you prove you didn’t do it?

Eva Hansen wakes in the hospital after being struck by lightning and discovers her mother, Kat, has been murdered. Eva was found unconscious down the street. She can’t remember what happened but the police are highly suspicious of her.

Determined to clear her name, Eva heads from Seattle to London—Kat’s former home—for answers. But as she unravels her mother’s carefully held secrets, Eva soon realizes that someone doesn’t want her to know the truth. And with violent memories beginning to emerge, Eva doesn’t know who to trust. Least of all herself.

Told in alternating perspectives from Eva’s search for answers and Kat’s mysterious past, Christina McDonald has crafted another “complex, emotionally intense” (Publishers Weekly) domestic thriller. Perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell’s I Found You and Karin Slaughter’s Pieces of Her, Behind Every Lie explores the complicated nature of mother-daughter relationships, family trauma, and the danger behind long-held secrets.

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NetGalley

This week my Not Active NetGalley shelf was all approved and is now empty. These are the ARCs I was granted.

Book Description

Elzbieta Cherezinska’s The Widow Queen is the epic story of a Polish queen whose life and name were all but forgotten until now.

The bold one, they call her—too bold for most.

To her father, the great duke of Poland, Swietoslawa and her two sisters represent three chances for an alliance. Three marriages on which to build his empire.

But Swietoslawa refuses to be simply a pawn in her father’s schemes; she seeks a throne of her own, with no husband by her side.

The gods may grant her wish, but crowns sit heavy, and power is a sword that cuts both ways.

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Book Description

#1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Charlaine Harris is at her best in this alternate history of the United States where magic is an acknowledged but despised power in this third installment of the Gunnie Rose series.

Picking up right where A Longer Fall left off, this thrilling third installment follows Lizbeth Rose as she takes on one of her most dangerous missions yet: rescuing her estranged partner, Prince Eli, from the Holy Russian Empire. Once in San Diego, Lizbeth is going to have to rely upon her sister Felicia, and her growing Grigori powers to navigate her way through this strange new world of royalty and deception in order to get Eli freed from jail where he’s being held for murder.

Russian Cage continues to ramp up the momentum with more of everything Harris’ readers adore her for with romance, intrigue, and a deep dive into the mysterious Holy Russian Empire.

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Book Description

Two best friends create a computer that can predict the future. But what they can’t predict is how it will tear their friendship—and society—apart.

“A fantastic page-turner and a future classic.”—Peter Clines, New York Times bestselling author of 14 and Paradox Bound

If you had the chance to look one year into the future, would you? 

For Ben Boyce and Adhi Chaudry, the answer is unequivocally yes. And they’re betting everything that you’ll say yes, too. Welcome to The Future: a computer that connects to the internet one year from now, so you can see who you’ll be dating, where you’ll be working, even whether or not you’ll be alive in the year to come. By forming a startup to deliver this revolutionary technology to the world, Ben and Adhi have made their wildest, most impossible dream a reality. Once Silicon Valley outsiders, they’re now its hottest commodity. 

The device can predict everything perfectly—from stock market spikes and sports scores to political scandals and corporate takeovers—allowing them to chase down success and fame while staying one step ahead of the competition. But the future their device foretells is not the bright one they imagined.

Ambition. Greed. Jealousy. And, perhaps, an apocalypse. The question is . . . can they stop it?

Told through emails, texts, transcripts, and blog posts, this bleeding-edge tech thriller chronicles the costs of innovation and asks how far you’d go to protect the ones you love—even from themselves.

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Book Description

Pittacus Lore finished telling the story of the Lorien Nine. Now, he’s back to recount an all-new adventure rooted in the real mysteries surrounding Roswell, New Mexico, that will enthrall fans of Jay Kristoff, Amie Kaufman, and Brandon Sanderson.

We have waited generations for you…

Syd Chambers knows that there’s life on other planets because he’s descended from it. His father was from a distant world called Denza, and has been missing—presumed dead—for years.

When Syd discovers a device his father left behind that shows not only that he’s alive, but where he is, Syd must set out on a mission of his own. But along the way, he discovers a deadly, unbearable secret that could destroy Denza, Earth, and the universe.

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Book Description

The Perfect Daughter is a thriller that explores the truth or lies behind a teenage girl’s multiple personality disorder, from D.J. Palmer, the author of The New Husband.

Grace never dreamt she’d visit her teenaged daughter Penny in the locked ward of a decaying state psychiatric hospital, charged with a shocking and brutal murder. There was not much question of her daughter’s guilt. Police had her fingerprints on the murder weapon and the victim’s blood on her body and clothes. But they didn’t have a motive.

Grace blames herself, because that’s what mothers do—they look at their choices and wonder, what if? But hindsight offers little more than the chance for regret.

None of this was conceivable the day Penny came into her life. Then, it seemed like a miracle. Penny was found abandoned, with a mysterious past, and it felt like fate brought Penny to her, and her husband Arthur. But as she grew, Penny’s actions grew more disturbing, and different “personalities” emerged.

Arthur and Grace took Penny to different psychiatrists, until one diagnosed a severe multiple personality disorder. As Penny awaits trial in a state mental hospital, she is treated by Dr. Mitchell McHugh, a psychiatrist battling demons of his own. Grace’s determination to understand the why behind her daughter’s terrible crime fuels Mitch’s resolve to help the Francone family. Together, they set out in search of the truth about Penny, but discover instead a shocking hidden history of secrets, lies, and betrayals that put all their lives in grave danger.

In case you missed any of my posts last week, you can find them here:

• Tuesday (1/5): Book Review | Bone Canyon by Lee Goldberg (Mystery ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
• Wednesday (1/6): WWW Wednesday
• Thursday (1/7): Book Review & Excerpt | Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder by T.A. Willberg (Mystery ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
• Friday (1/8): Book Blogger Hop: What upcoming books are you intrigued to read in 2021?

This week, I will be posting the following:

• 1/12/2021 (Tuesday) – Book Review | The Conjurer by Luanne G. Smith (The Vine Witch #3) – Fantasy ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
• 1/13/2021 (Wednesday) – WWW Wednesday
• 1/14/2021 (Thursday) – Book Review | Dishonoured by Jem Tugwell – Psychological Thriller (no stars have been assigned yet)
• 1/15/2021 (Friday) – Book Blogger Hop
• 1/16/2021 (Saturday) – Book Review | Duology: Diamond City and Shadow City by Francesca Flores – Fantasy ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (both)

I have AMC streaming app for the month, so I’m going to binge watch Discovery of Witches this week. I loved the books and I have heard the TV series is wonderful. I was just waiting until season 2 dropped to start it.

I’ve also started the 3rd season of Cobra Kai – I’m a sucker for this walk down Karate Kid memory lane – and the final season of Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. I’m still not sure how I feel about Sabrina but yet I keep watching it.

How was your week? Did you read, watch, or do anything fun?