Sunday Post 23 | The Week of The Lost Days

Clicking on any book cover in this post will take you to its site on Goodreads in a separate tab!

Like I said last week, I got my 2nd vaccination shot on Monday and had a root canal on Wednesday. I had no side effects from the shot, other than a very sore arm. The funny thing was that I played my Oculus when I got home on Monday because I heard that moving your arm helps ensure that you don’t experience that pesky vaccination site pain, and the Oculus has a wonderful exercise program called Supernatural that I love which is heavy on the arm exercises. So, over the beaches of Thailand, I popped bubbles until I worked up a nice glisten (because, as we know, ladies don’t sweat). Yet, my arm soreness was worse than the first time. lol. At least I got my exercise for the day in.

My root canal went fine, but I did lose some days – Thursday, in particular. I just slept and slept and slept the day away. It may have been because they have to give me the good drugs since I can’t take ibuprofen, but I think it was actually because my body said, “Enough is enough. You have put me through a lot this week and I need a break.” So, I gave my poor poked and poked-some-more body a much needed break and just slept.

How was your week?

I am so excited about all of these books – I can’t even begin to tell you. I just feel so lucky ❤

Random House sent me a widget for the latest Chuck Wendig thriller The Book of Accidents, which is a paranormal thriller. I almost didn’t take it because I was worried it was too scary but then I decided, I can always DNF if it is too much and just explain to the publisher because… hey, it’s Chuck Wendig and he’s an awesome writer. And Simon & Schuster sent me the widget for A History of Wild Places which just looks extraordinary. Plus Celadon Books FINALLY approved me for The Maidens which I totally have been lusting over. The other 3 books look equally as amazing. I can’t wait to read all of these books 🙂

$1.99 sale (thru BookBub)

Part fairy tale, part mystery, part coming-of-age novel, this novel tells the story of Isobel Fairfax, a girl growing up in Lythe, a typical 1960s British suburb. But Lythe was once the heart of an Elizabethan feudal estate and home to a young English tutor named William Shakespeare, and as Isobel investigates the strange history of her family, her neighbors, and her village, she occasionally gets caught in Shakespearean time warps. Meanwhile, she gets closer to the shocking truths about her missing mother, her war-hero father, and the hidden lives of her close friends and classmates. A stunning feat of imagination and storytelling, Kate Atkinson’s Human Croquet is rich with the disappointments and possibilities every family shares. 

NetGalley ARC Approvals/Widgets

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Patient comes a spellbinding tale of psychological suspense, weaving together Greek mythology, murder, and obsession, that further cements “Michaelides as a major player in the field” (Publishers Weekly).

Edward Fosca is a murderer. Of this Mariana is certain. But Fosca is untouchable. A handsome and charismatic Greek Tragedy professor at Cambridge University, Fosca is adored by staff and students alike—particularly by the members of a secret society of female students known as The Maidens.

Mariana Andros is a brilliant but troubled group therapist who becomes fixated on The Maidens when one member, a friend of Mariana’s niece Zoe, is found murdered in Cambridge.

Mariana, who was once herself a student at the university, quickly suspects that behind the idyllic beauty of the spires and turrets, and beneath the ancient traditions, lies something sinister. And she becomes convinced that, despite his alibi, Edward Fosca is guilty of the murder. But why would the professor target one of his students? And why does he keep returning to the rites of Persephone, the maiden, and her journey to the underworld?

When another body is found, Mariana’s obsession with proving Fosca’s guilt spirals out of control, threatening to destroy her credibility as well as her closest relationships. But Mariana is determined to stop this killer, even if it costs her everything—including her own life.

☀☀☀

Enola Holmes is the much younger sister of her more famous brothers, Sherlock and Mycroft. But she has all the wits, skills, and sleuthing inclinations of them both. At fifteen, she’s an independent young woman–after all, her name spelled backwards reads ‘alone’–and living on her own in London. When a young professional woman, Miss Letitia Glover, shows up on Sherlock’s doorstep, desperate to learn more about the fate of her twin sister, it is Enola who steps up. It seems her sister, the former Felicity Glover, married the Earl of Dunhench and per a curt note from the Earl, has died. But Letitia Glover is convinced this isn’t the truth, that she’d know–she’d feel–if her twin had died.

The Earl’s note is suspiciously vague and the death certificate is even more dubious, signed it seems by a John H. Watson, M.D. (who denies any knowledge of such). The only way forward is for Enola to go undercover–or so Enola decides at the vehement objection of her brother. And she soon finds out that this is not the first of the Earl’s wives to die suddenly and vaguely–and that the secret to the fate of the missing Felicity is tied to a mysterious black barouche that arrived at the Earl’s home in the middle of the night. To uncover the secrets held tightly within the Earl’s hall, Enola is going to require help–from Sherlock, from the twin sister of the missing woman, and from an old friend, the young Viscount Tewkesbury, Marquess of Basilwether!

☀☀☀

If you could erase all of your painful memories, would you?

Blue Owens wakes up one day with the strangest feeling that something is very wrong.

Everyone’s acting weird and she’s found a note in her closet telling her to get on the Little Blue Busat 7:45, which she does, meeting up with the exact person she was supposed to avoid: Adam Mendoza. Even though she has no idea who he is, something about him is so familiar. When the two are discovered by their families, the truth is revealed—Blue has paid to have her memories removed, and Adam is one of those memories.

What transpires is Blue’s journey to get her memories back, uncover the truth of why she had them removed in the first place, and ultimately decide whether they were too necessary to who she is to lose in the first place.

☀☀☀

Long ago, Nathan lived in a house in the country with his abusive father—and has never told his family what happened there.

Long ago, Maddie was a little girl making dolls in her bedroom when she saw something she shouldn’t have—and is trying to remember that lost trauma by making haunting sculptures.

Long ago, something sinister, something hungry, walked in the tunnels and the mountains and the coal mines of their hometown in rural Pennsylvania.

Now, Nate and Maddie Graves are married, and they have moved back to their hometown with their son, Oliver.

And now what happened long ago is happening again . . . and it is happening to Oliver. He meets a strange boy who becomes his best friend, a boy with secrets of his own and a taste for dark magic.

This dark magic puts them at the heart of a battle of good versus evil and a fight for the soul of the family—and perhaps for all of the world. But the Graves family has a secret weapon in this battle: their love for one another.

☀☀☀

The New York Times bestselling author of The Wicked Deep weaves a richly atmospheric adult debut following three residents of a secluded, seemingly peaceful commune as they investigate the disappearances of two outsiders.

Travis Wren has an unusual talent for locating missing people. Hired by families as a last resort, he requires only a single object to find the person who has vanished. When he takes on the case of Maggie St. James—a well-known author of dark, macabre children’s books—he’s led to a place many believed to be only a legend.

Called Pastoral, this reclusive community was founded in the 1970s by like-minded people searching for a simpler way of life. By all accounts, the commune shouldn’t exist anymore and soon after Travis stumbles upon it…he disappears. Just like Maggie St. James.

Years later, Theo, a lifelong member of Pastoral, discovers Travis’s abandoned truck beyond the border of the community. No one is allowed in or out, not when there’s a risk of bringing a disease—rot—into Pastoral. Unraveling the mystery of what happened reveals secrets that Theo, his wife, Calla, and her sister, Bee, keep from one another. Secrets that prove their perfect, isolated world isn’t as safe as they believed—and that darkness takes many forms.

Hauntingly beautiful, hypnotic, and bewitching, A History of Wild Places is a story about fairy tales, our fear of the dark, and losing yourself within the wilderness of your mind.

Of course, I gave Shadow and Bone on Netflix a look-see. I watched the first two episodes and I like it. I didn’t read the book, so I’m not sure how it stacks up to that but, I enjoyed it as someone who is unfamiliar with the story.

I also watched the last episode of the season of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. It made me so happy to see Sam in his new and improved Captain America suit – a flying Capt. America, how cool is that? – but I’m sad this was the last episode of the season. It felt like the story was just getting started.

Did you read, watch, or do anything fun this week?

I’m posting my WWW post here instead of separately on Wednesday TEMPORARILY (just until June). I will reblog this whole post on Wednesday, so anyone who may have missed it has a quick link to find it.

This week holds no blog tour books – it’s all books I chose, and I felt so lucky that I was granted – much like my book haul. Such a crazy week health-wise but such a great week book-wise!

Just Finished

I absolutely adored this book!

Book Blurb: Jessica Darling is devastated when her best friend moves away from Pineville, New Jersey. With Hope gone, Jessica has no one she can really talk to. She doesn’t relate to the boy-and-shopping obsessed girls at school, or her dad’s obsession with track meets, and her mom is too busy planning big sister Bethany’s lavish wedding. Jessica is lost more than ever, and her nonexistent love life is only making things worse.

Fresh, funny, and utterly compelling, readers fell in love with Jessica Darling’s poignant, hilarious voice and have stayed with her through her ups and downs (and her mixed-up feelings about her first love, Marcus Flutie). A modern classic, readers will be excited to return to Pineville, New Jersey and Jessica Darling’s world with Sloppy Firsts. Now with a foreword from New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Serle and a new author’s note from Megan McCafferty!

Currently Reading

I am just starting this today, but I’ve been looking forward to reading it for awhile.

Blurb: Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone. Or does he?

An irresistible interstellar adventure as only Andy Weir could deliver, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian—while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.

Reading Next

I’m such a geek when it comes to Roman/Greek Mythology that I jumped for joy when this ARC was approved. I hope it doesn’t disappoint.

Blurb: Ariadne, Princess of Crete, grows up greeting the dawn from her beautiful dancing floor and listening to her nursemaid’s stories of gods and heroes. But beneath her golden palace echo the ever-present hoofbeats of her brother, the Minotaur, a monster who demands blood sacrifice.

When Theseus, Prince of Athens, arrives to vanquish the beast, Ariadne sees in his green eyes not a threat but an escape. Defying the gods, betraying her family and country, and risking everything for love, Ariadne helps Theseus kill the Minotaur. But will Ariadne’s decision ensure her happy ending? And what of Phaedra, the beloved younger sister she leaves behind?

Hypnotic, propulsive, and utterly transporting, Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne forges a new epic, one that puts the forgotten women of Greek mythology back at the heart of the story, as they strive for a better world.

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

• Monday (4/19): (Fantasy – BBYNA 2020 winner ) SPOTLIGHT | The Lore of Prometheus by Graham Austin King
• Tuesday (4/20): (YA Fantasy ☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️) Book Review | These Feathered Flames by Alexandra Overy
• Wednesday (4/21): (Psychological Thriller ☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️) Book Review | The Perfect Daughter by D.J.Palmer
• Thursday (4/22): Mini Book Reviews (☀️☀️☀️☀️) | Dead Secret by Noelle Holten and Maggie Finds Her Muse by Dee Ernst
• Friday (4/23): Book Blogger Hop – what do you blog on

I hope you come back to see the following:

• Tuesday (4/27): (Mystery ☀️☀️☀️☀️) Book Review | Buried for Good by Alex Coombs
• Wednesday (4/28): (YA Rom Com ☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️) Book Review | Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty
• Thursday (4/29): (YA Fantasy ☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️) Book Review | Gilded Serpent by Danielle Jensen
• Friday (4/30): Book Blogger Hop
• Friday (4/30): (YA Sci Fi Thriller ☀️☀️☀️☀️) Book Review | Things to do Before the End of the World by Emily Barr

Thank you for stopping by this week. I look forward to chatting with you in the comments. 😊