New Releases for September 8, 2020

Happy Tuesday!

New week, new book releases! Does it get any better than that? Keep an eye out for the new book from Valerie Valdes who wrote the amazing Chilling Effect. As always, click on the covers for more information abut each title and ways to order. This post contains affiliate links.

For the Kids:

For Adults:

Blog Tour Time! Road Out of Winter by Alison Stine

Available Now

Reader Friends, if you want to dive real deep into the dark pandemic feelings, have I got the book for you! I am so excited to be a spot on the blog tour for Alison Stine’s Road Out of Winter. The book seems incredibly relevant, even though it’s disaster is a climate disaster and not a pandemic, with it’s feelings of uncertainty and wariness of strangers, it hits on many of the emotions many of us are feeling.

If you like your books with non-stop action and fast paced, this is the book for you.

When spring fails to arrive for the second year in a row, the never ending winter is threatening food and fuel shortages. As more and more people flee the Appalachian mountains, traveling becomes nearly as dangerous as staying put on land that can longer support you. Wylodine has always known poverty and never having enough. When her mother leaves town with her boyfriend, Wylodine is convinced that they will come back for her. But as time passes, living on their remote farm, known for growing illegal marijuana, becomes increasingly more dangerous. Packing up her truck with grow lights and a single packet of seeds, Wylodine begins the difficult journey to reunite with her mother in California. Dangerous road conditions, winter storms, violent cults, and a lifetime of distrusting strangers combine for an explosive and heart pounding adventure.

Road Out of Winter shows us the darkest parts of humanity and doesn't pull any punches. Wil is a complex character with a single focus-get to California. But what do we owe society? Especially if society, and your own mother, found it so easy to leave you behind. Wil knows she needs to help the people she crosses paths with on her journey, and she wants to, but she's incredibly pragmatic about the increase stress on rations and supplies. Her skill as a gardener is critical in a world without warmth and sunlight and her skills put her in constant danger.

Dark, tense, and fascinating, Road Out of Winter is a thrilling take on nature's effects on humanity.

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Want to read more about Road Out of Winter? Read on for an excerpt:

Chapter One

I used to have dreams that Lobo would be arrested. The sheriff and his deputies would roll up the drive, bouncing on the gravel, but coming fast, too fast to be stopped, too fast for Lobo to get away through the fields. Or maybe Lobo would be asleep, and they would surprise him, his eyes red, slit like taillights. My mama and I would weep with joy as they led him off. The deputies would wrap us in blankets, swept in their blue lights. We were innocent, weren’t we? Just at the wrong place at the wrong time, all the time, involved with the wrong man—and we didn’t know, my mama didn’t know, the extent.

But that wasn’t true, not even close.

I sold the weed at a gas station called Crossroads to a boy who delivered meals for shut-ins. Brown paper bags filled the back of his station wagon, the tops rolled over like his mama made him lunch. I supposed he could keep the bags straight. That was the arrangement Lobo had made years ago, that was the arrangement I kept. I left things uncomplicated. I didn’t know where the drugs went after the boy with the station wagon, where the boy sold them or for how much. I took the money he gave me and buried most of it in the yard.

After his station wagon bumped back onto the rural route, I went inside the store. There was a counter in the back, a row of cracked plastic tables and chairs that smelled like ketchup: a full menu, breakfast through dinner. They sold a lot of egg sandwiches at Crossroads to frackers, men on their way out to work sites. It was a good place to meet; Lisbeth would come this far. I ordered three cheeseburgers and fries, and sat down.

She was on time. She wore gray sweatpants under her long denim skirt, and not just because of the cold. “You reek, Wil,” she said, sliding onto the chair across from me.

“Lobo says that’s the smell of money,” I said.

“My mama says money smells like dirty hands.”

The food arrived, delivered by a waitress I didn’t know. Crinkling red and white paper in baskets. I slid two of the burgers over to Lisbeth. The Church forbade pants on women, and short hair, and alcohol. But meat was okay. Lisbeth hunched over a burger, eating with both hands, her braid slipping over her shoulder.

“Heard from them at all?” she asked.

“Not lately.”

“You think he would let her write you? Call?”

“She doesn’t have her own phone,” I said.

Lisbeth licked ketchup off her thumb. The fries were already getting cold. How about somethin’ home made? read the chalkboard below the menu. I watched the waitress write the dinner specials in handwriting small and careful as my mama’s.

“Hot chocolate?” I read to Lisbeth. “It’s June.”

“It’s freezing,” she said.

And it was, still. Steam webbed the windows. There was no sign of spring in the lung-colored fields, bordered by trees as spindly as men in a bread line. We were past forsythia time, past when the squirrels should have been rooting around in the trees for sap.

“What time is it now?” Lisbeth asked.

I showed her my phone, and she swallowed the last of her burger.

“I’ve got to go.”

“Already?”

“Choir rehearsal.” She took a gulp of Coke. Caffeine was frowned upon by The Church, though not, I thought, exclusively forbidden. “I gave all the seniors solos, and they’re terrified. They need help. Don’t forget. Noon tomorrow.”

The Church was strange—strange enough to whisper about. But The Church had a great choir; she had learned so much. They had helped her get her job at the high school, directing the chorus, not easy for a woman without a degree. Also, her folks loved The Church. She couldn’t leave, she said.

“What’s at noon?” I asked.

She paused long enough to tilt her head at me. “Wylodine, really? Graduation, remember? The kids are singing?”

“I don’t want to go back there.”

“You promised. Take a shower if you been working so my folks don’t lose their

minds.”

“If they haven’t figured it out by now, they’re never going to know,” I said, but Lisbeth

was already shrugging on her coat. Then she was gone, through the jangling door, long braid and layers flapping. In the parking lot, a truck refused to start, balking in the cold.

I ordered hot chocolate. I was careful to take small bills from my wallet when I went up to the counter. Most of the roll of cash from the paper bag boy was stuffed in a Pepsi can back on the floor of the truck. Lobo, who owned the truck, had never been neat, and drink cans, leaves, and empty Copenhagen tins littered the cab. Though the mud on the floor mats had hardened and caked like makeup, though Lobo and Mama had been gone a year now, I hadn’t bothered cleaning out the truck. Not yet.

The top of the Pepsi can was ripped partially off, and it was dry inside: plenty of room for a wad of cash. I had pushed down the top to hide the money, avoiding the razor-sharp edge. Lobo had taught me well.

I took the hot chocolate to go.

In the morning, I rose early and alone, got the stove going, pulled on my boots to hike up the hill to the big house. I swept the basement room. I checked the supplies. I checked the cistern for clogs. The creek rode up the sides of the driveway. Ice floated in the water, brown as tea.

No green leaves had appeared on the trees. No buds. My breath hung in the air, a web I walked through. My boots didn’t sink in the mud back to my own house in the lower field; my footprints were still frozen from a year ago. Last year’s walking had made ridges as stiff as craters on the moon. At the door to my tiny house, I knocked the frost from my boots, and yanked them off, but kept my warm coveralls on. I lit the small stove, listening to the whoosh of the flame. The water for coffee ticked in the pot.

I checked the time on the clock above the sink, a freebie from Radiator Palace.

“Fuck,” I said aloud to no one.

Excerpted from Road Out of Winter by Alison Stine, Copyright © 2020 by Alison Stine.

Published by MIRA Books

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ROAD OUT OF WINTER

Author: Alison Stine

ISBN: 9780778309925

Publication Date: September 1, 2020

Publisher: MIRA Books

Buy Links:

Harlequin 

Barnes & Noble

Amazon

Books-A-Million

Powell’s

ALISON STINE lives in the rural Appalachian foothills. A recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), she was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. She has written for The Atlantic, The Nation, The Guardian, and many others. She is a contributing editor with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

Want to connect with Alison?

Author Website

Twitter: @AlisonStine

Instagram: @AliStineWrites

Goodreads

Thank you to Netgalley and Mira for the opportunity to read and review this title. All opinions and mistakes are my own

New Releases for September 1, 2020

Happy Tuesday!

It’s another big week for new books! Most importantly, new Dog Man!!! These books are so popular at my Library and the kids can’t seem to get enough of them. The new Alyssa Cole, No One is Watching, sounds amazing and The Last Story of Mina Lee will break your heart in all the best ways. As always, click on the covers for more information and ways to order.

For the Kids:

For the Adults:

Blog Tour!!! The Last Story of Mina Lee by Nancy Jooyoun Kim

Available September 1, 2020 from Park Row Books

Reader Friends, I am so excited to share one of the most beautiful stories I have read this year. Nancy Jooyoun Kim gives the story of two women, mother and daughter, and the heartbreaking secrets that define their relationship. I loved how the two perspectives are intertwined into a compelling and gripping story of love, loss, and how inner strength can look so vastly different to different people. This is a fascinating tale of immigrating to the United States and the stresses that come with it. From securing housing and a job, to learning how to use a grocery store and public transportation, adjusting to a new country seems incredibly daunting. The way that Mina Lee was able to do that, all while mourning the devastating loss of her husband and daughter is amazing. Seeing her bravery and fortitude, over and over, and then to see how her daughter interpreted her mother’s actions was so interesting. Mina Lee held her former life and immigration experience so tightly that Margot never knew the extent of her mother’s experiences. Watching Margot slowly unfold the many layers of her mother’s life was both heartbreaking and beautiful. Reading this as a mother, I thought often about the many things I will never tell my son. Our drive to always protect our children will always keep a part of ourselves secret to them.

This is a gorgeous and compelling story that I know many of you will love. Read on for an excerpt and all the details you need to get a copy for yourself.

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Margot

2014

Margot's final conversation with her mother had seemed so uneventful, so ordinary—another choppy bilingual plod. Half-understandable.

Business was slow again today. Even all the Korean businesses downtown are closing.

What did you eat for dinner?

Everyone is going to Target now, the big stores. It costs the same and it's cleaner.

Margot imagined her brain like a fishing net with the loosest of weaves as she watched the Korean words swim through. She had tried to tighten the net before, but learning another language, especially her mother's tongue, frustrated her. Why didn't her mother learn to speak English?

But that last conversation was two weeks ago. And for the past few days, Margot had only one question on her mind: Why didn't her mother pick up the phone?

****

Since Margot and Miguel had left Portland, the rain had been relentless and wild. Through the windshield wipers and fogged glass, they only caught glimpses of fast food and gas stations, motels and billboards, premium outlets and "family fun centers." Margot’s hands were stiff from clenching the steering wheel. The rain had started an hour ago, right after they had made a pit stop in north Portland to see the famous 31-foot-tall Paul Bunyan sculpture with his cartoonish smile, red-and-white checkered shirt on his barrel chest, his hands resting on top of an upright axe.

Earlier that morning, Margot had stuffed a backpack and a duffel with a week's worth of clothes, picked up Miguel from his apartment with two large suitcases and three houseplants, and merged onto the freeway away from Seattle, driving Miguel down for his big move to Los Angeles. They'd stop in Daly City to spend the night at Miguel's family's house, which would take about ten hours to get to. At the start of the drive, Miguel had been lively, singing along to "Don't Stop Believing" and joking about all the men he would meet in LA. But now, almost four hours into the road trip, Miguel was silent with his forehead in his palm, taking deep breaths as if trying hard not to think about anything at all.

"Everything okay?" Margot asked.

"I'm just thinking about my parents."

"What about your parents?" Margot lowered her foot on the gas.

"Lying to them," he said.

"About why you're really moving down to LA?" The rain splashed down like a waterfall. Miguel had taken a job offer at an accounting firm in a location more conducive to his dreams of working in theatre. For the last two years, they had worked together at a nonprofit for people with disabilities. She was as an administrative assistant; he crunched numbers in finance. She would miss him, but she was happy for him, too. He would finally finish writing his play while honing his acting skills with classes at night. "The theatre classes? The plays that you write? The Grindr account?"

"About it all."

"Do you ever think about telling them?"

"All the time." He sighed. "But it's easier this way."

"Do you think they know?"

"Of course, they do. But..." He brushed his hand through his hair. "Sometimes, agreeing to the same lie is what makes a family family, Margot."

"Ha. Then what do you call people who agree to the same truth?"

"Uh, scientists?"

She laughed, having expected him to say friends. Gripping the wheel, she caught the sign for Salem.

"Do you need to use the bathroom?" she asked.

"I'm okay. We're gonna stop in Eugene, right?"

"Yeah, should be another hour or so."

"I'm kinda hungry." Rustling in his pack on the floor of the backseat, he found an apple, which he rubbed clean with the edge of his shirt. "Want a bite?"

"Not now, thanks."

His teeth crunched into the flesh, the scent cracking through the odor of wet floor mats and warm vents. Margot was struck by a memory of her mother's serene face—the downcast eyes above the high cheekbones, the relaxed mouth—as she peeled an apple with a paring knife, conjuring a continuous ribbon of skin. The resulting spiral held the shape of its former life. As a child, Margot would delicately hold this peel like a small animal in the palm of her hand, this proof that her mother could be a kind of magician, an artist who told an origin story through scraps—this is the skin of a fruit, this is its smell, this is its color.

"I hope the weather clears up soon," Miguel said, interrupting the memory. "It gets pretty narrow and windy for a while. There's a scary point right at the top of California where the road is just zigzagging while you're looking down cliffs. It's like a test to see if you can stay on the road."

"Oh, God,” Margot said. “Let's not talk about it anymore."

As she refocused on the rain-slicked road, the blurred lights, the yellow and white lines like yarn unspooling, Margot thought about her mother who hated driving on the freeway, her mother who no longer answered the phone. Where was her mother?

The windshield wipers squeaked, clearing sheets of rain.

"What about you?" Miguel asked. "Looking forward to seeing your mom? When did you see her last?"

Margot's stomach dropped. "Last Christmas," she said. "Actually, I've been trying to call her for the past few days to let her know, to let her know that we would be coming down." Gripping the wheel, she sighed. "I didn't really want to tell her because I wanted this to be a fun trip, but then I felt bad, so..."

"Is everything okay?"

"She hasn't been answering the phone."

"Hmm." He shifted in his seat. "Maybe her phone battery died?"

"It's a landline. Both landlines—at work and at home."

"Maybe she's on vacation?"

"She never goes on vacation." The windshield fogged, revealing smudges and streaks, past attempts to wipe it clean. She cranked up the air inside.

"Hasn't she ever wanted to go somewhere?"

"Yosemite and the Grand Canyon. I don't know why, but she's always wanted to go there."

"It's a big ol' crack in the ground, Margot. Why wouldn't she want to see it? It's God's crack."

"It's some kind of Korean immigrant rite of passage. National Parks, reasons to wear hats and khaki, stuff like that. It's like America America."

"I bet she's okay,” Miguel said. “Maybe she's just been busier than usual, right? We'll be there soon enough."

"You're probably right. I'll call her again when we stop."

A heaviness expanded inside her chest. She fidgeted with the radio dial but caught only static with an occasional glimpse of a commercial or radio announcer's voice.

Her mother was fine. They would all be fine.

With Miguel in LA, she'd have more reasons to visit now.

The road lay before them like a peel of fruit. The windshield wipers hacked away the rivers that fell from the sky.

Excerpted from The Last Story of Mina Lee by Nancy Jooyoun Kim, Copyright © 2020 by Nancy Jooyoun Kim Published by Park Row Books

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THE LAST STORY OF MINA LEE

Author: Nancy Jooyoun Kim

ISBN: 9780778310174

Publication Date: September 1, 2020

Publisher: Park Row Books

Buy Links: 

Harlequin 

Barnes & Noble

Amazon

Books-A-Million

Powell’s

Social Links:

Author Website

Twitter: @njooyounkim

Instagram: @njooyounkim

Goodreads

Author Bio: 

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Nancy Jooyoun Kim is a graduate of UCLA and the MFA Creative Writing Program at the University of Washington, Seattle. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Guernica, The Rumpus, Electric Literature, Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s The Margins, The Offing, the blogs of Prairie Schooner and Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. Her essay, “Love (or Live Cargo),” was performed for NPR/PRI’s Selected Shorts in 2017 with stories by Viet Thanh Nguyen, Phil Klay, and Etgar Keret. THE LAST STORY OF MINA LEE is her first novel.

A big thank you to Park Row Books for providing an advanced copy of this title. All opinions and mistakes are my own.

The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson

Available Now

This book is incredible! Just an absolutely amazing and horrifying novel. Set in the lands of Bethel during an unknown time, the Prophet rules over all. Living in a compound named Haven with his many wives and children, he determines who lives, who dies, and what is considered moral. Living under this tight rule is already difficult, but even more so when your very life is considered a crime. Born to an outsider father, Immanuelle's mother was married to the Prophet when she defied his controlling rule and fell in love with another man. Left to be raised by her grandparents when her father is burned at the stake and her mother disappears, Immanuelle is constantly reminded of her mother's sin and disgraceful expulsion from the community.

Immanuelle is tasked with caring for her family's flock of sheep and spends her days in the fields or selling the animals or wool in the town's market. When she is sent to sell off one of the rams, the beast escapes her and runs into the Darkwood, a dark and mysterious forest that the town is convinced will destroy the soul of anyone who enters. Immanuelle, balancing the risk of the Darkwood and her grandparent's disappointment, decides she has no choice but to enter the woods. When she discovers two women laying together on the forest floor, she is convinced they are witches and flees for her life. With the cries of the tortured ram following her, Immanuelle escapes to the safety of her family's farm, but discovers she has been given a journal by the witches. A journal that belonged to her mother.

Reading her mother's diary uncovers secrets long held by the family, and a connection to the witches living in the Darkwood. When an inexplicable plague reigns down on the people of Bethel, Immanuelle is convinced that the nightmares brought on by her mother's journal may be a reality. Convinced she is the cause of everyone's suffering, she sets out on dangerous mission to reverse the curse.

As Immanuelle tries to discover her mother's ties to the witches and the betrayal to the Prophet, she attracts the attention of Ezra, son to the Prophet. Torn between wanting to pursue the friendship of Ezra but knowing she must use his access to the secret libraries of Haven and the gate guards to discover the spell she needs to reverse the plagues.

All the while, her best friend has been married to the Prophet and is in danger, the plagues have become more deadly, her family is ill and in danger, and Immanuelle is closer and closer to losing herself to the Prophet or worse, the witches of the Darkwood.

Whew! There is a lot that is going on in this book and it moves at an exciting clip. Alexis Henderson drops us into a controlling and strictly religious community with a heavy dose of toxic patriarchy. You can feel the oppression the women live with everyday and their only hope for escape is becoming a wife to the Prophet, who has many, or hopefully find a decent man to marry you. Don't go looking for a decent woman-they'd probably burn you at the stake. Outside the walls of Bethel is an unknown. At one point Immanuelle is able to leave to for a short time to meet with someone, but it's unknown whether she will be allowed back in. Threats of banishment and exile are to be taken seriously, but it's unclear what is really going on in the outside world. Also, I was never really clear about when this all took place. It had such an oppressive and otherworldly feel that it could have been any time period-men do like telling women what they can and cannot wear. So. 2020 or 1820, doesn't matter when you have a crazy cult involved.

I loved how Henderson describes the connection between Immanuelle and the magic of the witches. The lore behind the women and their powers was fascinating and I love a "coming into our powers" story. Will they use it for good or evil? I love that struggle. Immanuelle is also a character who is incredibly well written. She's complex and is thrown into one harrowing situation after another and all the while, has so many different people she has to try and protect and also, needs to protect herself. It would be so easy to give in to the demands of the community, the magic, her family's pressures, or just run away. She deals with a lot of pressure and feels so real about her choices.

This is an excellent novel for readers who love their magic on the darker side-there's a lot of horror and disturbing images in this one. It's so good people.  So good. 

If you would like a copy of this for yourself, you can grab one here:

This post contains affiliate links which means I earn from qualifying purchases.

New Releases for August 25, 2020

Happy Tuesday!

If you’ve recently started school, whether remotely, in-person, or doing a some type of hybrid model, you deserve a book! This is going to be a wild fall and everyone, parents or not, should buckle in and treat yourself to a new escapist read. There are some excellent reads out this week like Adriana Herrera’s latest and new Kevin Hearne! Click on the links for more information and yes, these are affiliate links so I earn from qualified purchases.

Happy Reading!

For the Grown-ups:

For Non-Adults:

New Releases for August 18, 2020

Happy Tuesday!

It’s time for new books! Click on the covers for more information about the title and remember, these are affiliate links.

For the Kids:

For the Adults:

The Shadows by Alex North

Available Now

Content warning for child death and child abuse.

This is another brilliant dark and disturbing thriller from Whisper Man author, Alex North. After learning his mother has been placed in hospice, Paul Adams is forced to return to the town he left twenty-five years ago. His mother seems deeply disturbed and is convinced that something is in her house. What Alex finds convinces him that she knew more about the horrific murder of a child decades ago, a murder Alex has tried to forget. When a copycat killer strikes in a nearby town, Alex is forced to face his past in order to prevent the needless murders of more children. 

I made the mistake of taking this book with me while on vacation with my boys. We rented a cabin on a lake, surrounded by a beautiful forest. Nothing like reading a book where children are murdered in a forest commonly known as The Shadows, while in a literal forest.  In The Shadows, a group of teenage boys become obsessed with the idea of lucid dreaming. They are convinced that they can enter each other’s dreams and that a being known as Red Hands can help them get revenge against their enemies. This lucid dreaming creates this almost supernatural feeling to the book where it’s easy to question every fact about the suspects and the killings. There are discussions on the dark web questioning whether the original killer, Charlie Crabtree is still alive, or he is a dark spirit lurking around The Shadows waiting to be called upon. North is very skilled at keeping the tension between those two theories and you are always left questioning what is really going on. The lore surrounding The Shadows adds to the constant menacing feel of the book. They’re always described as dark and dangerous and Paul has a visceral reaction every time he looks out at them. Very spooky.

The characters are really well done and I loved how complex they were. Paul leaves town for college and never looks back. He even goes so far as to not see his mother for twenty-five years, that is how traumatizing his friend’s murder is. He never makes it as a writer and is living an ok life, but nothing he was really hoping for. His guilt over not taking better care of his mother is pretty intense but it leaves you wondering if he had come home earlier, could he handle taking care of his mother?  Would he have the emotional and mental strength to do so? 

I really like the character of Detective Amanda Beck. She is living in the shadow of her recently deceased father, a lifelong police officer. Struggling to find peace with the horrors she faces everyday, she is convinced that she is nothing more than a disappointment. But she is incredibly intuitive and driven. She knows how to best use her connections and is really good at reading people. North is really good at giving us characters who feel incredibly real and relatable. 

If you liked Whisper Man, I highly recommend picking this one up. It has the same tense, dark feel and the way that lucid dreaming was woven in was really interesting. 

This was my July Book of the Month pick and once again, BOTM did not disappoint. 

You can get a copy of this for yourself here:

This post contains affiliate links and I earn from qualifying purchases.

New Releases for August 11, 2020

Happy Tuesday!

It’s another week of great new releases. Click on the covers for more information and remember, these are affiliate links.

For the Kids:

For the Adults:

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

Available August 4, 2020

This book was fascinating! Set in a future where we have discovered the existence of the multiverse, a group of scientists and explorers travel between the worlds documenting the similarities and differences between the worlds. Scientists quickly discovered that people could only travel to alternate worlds where their alternate has died. Within the 380 worlds that scientists can travel to, Cara has died on 373 of them, making her the perfect traverser. Those who grow up privileged in one world, tend to live privileged lives amongst all the alternate worlds. The same goes for the poor and impoverished, making poor people of color perfect for the program. 

Cara has worked hard to establish her place within the city. She is on the path to citizenship, has an apartment, and is willing to work double shifts, even when it threatens her health. Her handler Dell keeps her at arm’s length, no matter how much flirting Cara throws her way. 

It’s during a standard data pull on an alternate world that Cara realizes she’s been sent to a world where she still lives. Violating protocol, she struggles to stay alive long enough for someone to rescue her and allow Cara to further investigate the world. Meeting her doppelganger is a mind-bending experience and leads to Cara having to reckon with her deepest and darkest secrets. Secrets so big, they could tear her world apart. 

This book was so good! It’s such a tightly written story that too much discussion will lead to spoilers. I loved the world-building and the way that Cara has to balance between two very different societies. Her family lives out in the desert where many of the poor live, and where Cara never felt like she fit in. But, Cara doesn’t feel like she belongs within the wealthy, walled city either. She has to change her language, her wardrobe, the way she holds herself when she is around her family. When she returns to the city, she has to again change her persona to match societal expectations. Neither persona feels real to Cara and that duality plagues her throughout the book.  

The relationship between Dell and Cara is fraught with high emotions and cold responses. Dell, her handler and woman of her dreams, is way out of her league and Cara is constantly flirting and teasing her, almost she can’t help herself. Dell never responds in kind, in fact, she acts almost insulted everytime Cara flirts with her. Their relationship was fascinating to watch develop over the course of the story. 

I loved how fast paced this story was. It’s a deeply woven story-there’s government conspiracies, corruption, societal unrest, personal secrets, and a slow burn romance. Cara has to constantly decide how her past and alternate selves will shape her future, all while trying to figure out who the person she wants to be now. The fact that Cara knows how her other selves have died on other worlds-what a weight to carry. The writing is just fantastic and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. 

Want a copy for yourself? You can get one here:

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read and review this story. All opinions and mistakes are my own. 

This post contains affiliate links. I earn from qualifying purchases.

New Releases for August 4, 2020

Happy Tuesday!

It’s Harrow the Ninth Day!!! Like last week, there are other books coming out but seriously, it’s Harrow the Ninth Day!

Click on the covers for more information about each title. This post contains affiliate links.

For the Kids:

For the Adults:

New Releases for July 28, 2020

Happy Tuesday!

It’s Deal With The Devil Day!!! There’s more books out today, but I’m most excited about Kit Rocha’s newest release. I read it months ago and it’s pub date got bumped back to due to the pandemic so I have been waiting forever to share this with you. Well, I’ll share it Thursday. Today is all about the new releases for today. Click on the covers for more information and this post does contain affiliate links.

For the Kids:

For the Adults: