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Natural Beauty By Ling Ling Huang This is another book that attracted me based on the cover. I wrote a quick little summary previously about how excited I was for this book's publication. Now that I have a copy in my greasy paws, and I had gotten around to finishing Kunstlers in Paradise I wasn’t so sure this was the next book for me. I looked through the disgustingly growing to ‘be read’ pile and nothing seemed to jump out at me. So I found myself looking back at the first book I thought of reading. "Don't be so unimaginative. This is America. And not just America, but New York, and Helistik. I can be whoever I want to be." The book begins with learning that the protagonist is working at a restaurant as a dishwasher. A Chinese 2nd generation immigrant whose parents share their love for music to the protagonist at an early age. Through their direction, and their shared love for music the main character pretty much becomes a prodigy of music, more specifi...

I picked this book up purely based on the cover. I don’t know what actually drew me to the book initially, but when I saw it was a new book set to be published midway through March 2023 I added it to my ever growing to be read pile. Then as I progressed through the last book I finished (The Dark Window by Rachel Gillig) I could not stop thinking about this book. This book had me at hello, and there was no way to get it out of my head unless I actually sat down and cracked it open. What it’s about: This book follows Salomea “Mamie” Kunstler who travelled from Europe in 1939 with her family. When they landed in the United States, they landed in New York and eventually found their way to Los Angeles, where they finally settled.  Present day: Julian Kunsteler is Mamie’s grandson, 24 years old, who has no real direction in his life. He travels from hobby to hobby obsessing about them until he loses interest and moves on to the next idea, without completing the previous hobby before movi...

Starting off with Elspeth Spindle, a resident of Burden, who as a child wandered into the mist that seems to always be around the township. While in the mist Elspeth ended up contracting "the fever". It's said that people who survive the fever end up having a magical ability afterwards.  From the beginning of the story Elspeth has what seems like someone/something else in her mind, she can hear a voice. More than her own thought process, but less than another person. The magic caused by the mist is something that is feared by commoners, and is something that is hunted and by the ‘physicians’ locked up and destroyed. As I progressed into the book there is an introduction to two different sources of magic. There is magic that comes from surviving the fever, which is not completely understood. The other sources  of noninfected/fever magic is provided by enchanted cards, each card has a different colour, and symbol associated with their ability, and detriment. ...

I was looking back through my twitter account posts over the past year or so,From time to time I also enjoy posting about 4 books I have become quite excited about. Here are the 4 historical fiction books that I intended to keep an eye out for this year. I have already found a couple and finished them. This Twitter post, I posted this  in late February, and i mean I am still excited to find these books. Anyways here it is. i. Code Name Sapphire By Pam Jenoff It's a book by Pam Jenoff, and that right there means it generally is going to be top drawer. I thoroughly enjoyed The Lost Girls of Paris which is the unrelated book published by Pam Jenoff.  I have actually managed to get my trash panda paws on a copy this book. This book was unfortunately only mediocre for me, I didn't love it, but at the same time I also did not hate it either. By no means was it anything like The Lost Girls of Paris.  The book stars off with Hannah's entire world comes crashing down when she w...

Okay, so I think I have finally sat down and chosen a book that has piqued my interest. I have been humming and hawing, attempting to decide what genre would be next.  I am very much a mood reader, this creates a challenge in finding my next read. I can be excited for a book publication, but when I find that I have a moment, or a perfectly time reading gap,  I may not actually be in the mood to read that book. This all means that I have an aggressively growing to #toberead pile. I have a book from one of my favorite authors, that was published last year, I paid to have the book on publication day, and I have yet to read it. Everytime I attempt to read the book I read the first chapter, and end up putting the book down to read a completely different genre. I suppose at the same time I find myself discovering and rediscovering some old and new favorite genres. I started reading mostly police procedurals, it specifically had to be police procedurals, and nothing else. I found t...

The main premise of the book is about a book shop owner Ashlyn Greer, a rare book seller, who has this special ability to feel the feelings left on a book from an owner through what she calls echos. One day as she is going through a box of old books that a friend came across, she ends up feeling a great despair emanating from a particular book. After reaching out to the person she recieved the book from she finds out there there are 2 devastating novels both with feelings of despair associated with the echos given off from the books. The story is 2 sets of stories intertwined with unfolding as it is actualy happening, with a more of a realtime feel, and the other is taken from the found novels leaving a whole world of historical mystery.  I found that as I was reading the book, I was more interested in Ashlyns story, rather than the stories told by the authors from the discovered novels. All in all I did not find the main story and the other two discovered from the books too far ...