Books Archives - Page 6 of 50 - Brooke's Reviews and Sweeps

Books I Loved But Never Reviewed

By Brookelorren on August 11, 2020August 10, 202028 Comments

Hello! It’s Tuesday again, so you know what that means! It’s Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl)! I have to apologize, I went on a last minute camping trip (I guess that’s one advantage to having everyone in your family unemployed) and I just got back today, so I haven’t been able to visit people’s sites and reply to comments. I hope to get back into our routine tomorrow.

But today, we’re talking about books I loved but never reviewed. I hate to admit it, but that’s most books these days. Maybe it’s having my dh around all the time that’s keeping me from getting all my reading/reviews done, but this year has been less productive than normal. So here are some I missed this year, and some I read before I started reviewing books:

Timeline – Michael Crichton

I read this book a very long time ago, long before I had a book blog, so I never had the chance to review it. But I remember liking it a lot. Maybe if I reread it at a future date, I’ll review it.

Jo & Laurie – Margaret Stohl & Melissa de la Cruz

I listened to Jo & Laurie on audiobook last month, but haven’t reviewed it yet. I still could? Let’s see if I get around to it. I’m so far behind in my reading though.

Rilla of Ingleside – L. M. Montgomery

Rilla of Ingleside is the final book in the Anne of Green Gables octalogy, but I think it’s my favorite. I think I read these last in high school, so it’s been a while. I really should read these again.

Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour – Morgan Matson

I listened to this on audiobook just a couple weeks ago, but haven’t reviewed it. It’s a great book though! Perfect for summer. Maybe I’ll review it still? Don’t know.

The History of the Ancient World – Susan Wise Bauer

I just finished rereading this book last month, but I’ve never reviewed it. Unless someone wants me to review this book, I probably won’t. Especially not right now, when there are many other books I’ve recently read but haven’t gotten around to reviewing.

Twilight – Stephanie Meyer

I just read these books in the last couple of months. I probably won’t review them, 1) because I have so many other books to review and 2) because I’m sure a billion people have already reviewed this story.

My niece told me that Stephanie Meyer was doing an appearance in Shelton, Washington, for her new book, Midnight Sun, last Friday. I actually was within driving distance of Shelton last Friday, since I was camping up in the Olympic National Forest in Washington state (I live in Colorado), but I didn’t go.

The Autobiography of Malcom X – Malcom X, Alex Haley

I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X in high school, but even though I did a book report on it for Honors English, I never reviewed it here. I really liked it though.

The bottom of this book says “As told to Alex Haley.” Alex Haley is famous for writing Roots. True story: when I was taking AP History, we were going to get to meet Alex Haley (I think he was coming to our classroom). Unfortunately, he died the night before we were supposed to meet him, so I never got the chance. I’m still kinda bummed about that.

King of Scars – Leigh Bardugo

King of Scars is another book that I’ve read during the pandemic that I’ve never reviewed. I really liked it though. At least I read it though. I’ve been wanting to read it for a while, and finally got around to it on audiobook.

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy – Eric Metaxas

I really liked this book and would like to reread it at some point. Especially with the way the world is going.

The Weight of Feathers – Anna-Marie McLemore

I read this book shortly before I started book blogging. I never ended up getting around to reviewing this though. If I ever reread this story, I might review it, but there are so many books I want to read, I don’t know if it will ever get a reread. Especially if I keep reading at the slow-ass pace I have been.

What about you? What books have you read and loved but never reviewed? Next week we’re going to talk about books that should be adapted into Netflix shows/movies. I don’t watch a lot of TV, but I’m sure that there’d be a few books I’d be interested in seeing as movies. See you then!

Books with Colors In the Titles

By Brookelorren on August 4, 2020August 3, 20203 Comments

Hello! It’s Tuesday again, which means time for another Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl). Today we’re talking about books with colors in the title. I thought there’d be more books that I’ve read with colors in the title, but I actually don’t have that many in my GoodReads account.

Chain of Gold – Cassandra Clare

While gold is a metal, it’s also a color. I wasn’t able to come up with 10 books with colors that weren’t also something else (at least that I know I’ve read) so even though this chain is made out of the metal gold, since gold is a color too, I’m counting it.

The Rose & The Dagger – Renée Ahdieh

Rose is another color that is also an item. But again, I’ll take it.

Red Famine – Anne Applebaum

Red Famine is a nonfiction book about the Holodomor in Ukraine.

Of Silver and Shadow – Jennifer Gruenke

I had the chance to read an ARC of Of Silver and Shadow a couple months ago. Because of the coronavirus, the release date has been postponed until February 2021 though.

Song of the Crimson Flower – Julie C. Dao

I loved this book. Sadly, I heard that they’re not going to publish this book in paperback.

Blue Lily, Lily Blue – Maggie Stiefvater

This book is the third book in the Raven Boys tetralogy.

The Priory of the Orange Tree – Samantha Shannon

Here’s another book with a color that is also an item. It’s a brick of a book.

Red Queen – Victoria Aveyard

I’m guessing that I’ll see Red Queen a lot this week.

The Rose Society – Marie Lu

Again, rose is a flower as well as a color, but I’m using it here.

Island of the Blue Dolphins – Scott O’Dell

Island of the Blue Dolphins is based on a true story. My husband read this to my family several years ago.

So that’s this week’s Top Ten Tuesday! Next week we’re talking about books I loved but never reviewed. At the moment, since I’m having a difficult time finding time to review books, there’s a lot of those.

June/July 2020 Wrap-Up

By Brookelorren on August 1, 2020August 1, 2020Leave a Comment

Hello! I missed doing a monthly wrap-up last month, so this month I’m doing two months together.

Books Read:

Nine books seems to be what I’m reading every month right now. I’d like it to be more, but that’s not happening at the moment.

June

The Splendid and the Vile – Erik Larson
Fractures – Alice Reeds
Twilight – Stephanie Meyer
Divergent – Veronica Roth (reread)
The Bell Curve – Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray
King of Scars – Leigh Bardugo
New Moon – Stephanie Meyer
Eclipse – Stephanie Meyer
Insurgent – Veronica Roth (reread)

July

The Vanishing Deep – Astrid Scholte
Jo & Laurie – Melissa de la Cruz and Margaret Stohl
Breaking Dawn – Stephanie Meyer
Allegiant – Veronica Roth (reread)
All the Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr
The History of the Ancient World – Susan Wise Bauer
10 Things I Hate About Pinky – Sandhya Menon
Amy & Rogers Epic Detour – Morgan Matson
Four – Veronica Roth (reread)

Blog Stats:

Both Twitter followers and blog visits are slightly down. It might help if I’d post more.

Writing:

I haven’t been working on my fanfic, but there’s a good reason for that. I’ve been working with a critique partner to finish The Brightness of Shadow edits, so it’ll be ready for querying. I have about 100 pages left to edit with my critique partner’s input, then one final pass fixing up a few bigger issues, then it’s out to the agents. See where it goes after that. Then I can work on my fanfic, Saving Adelinetta, and start putting together my outline for NaNoWriMo2020. If I have time before NaNo, I should also do an overhaul of my NaNo2019 book, which is still untitled.

Life:

We didn’t get to visit my in-laws for my daughter’s 18th birthday, but we were able to visit them at the end of June (hence my not doing a recap last month). It was a good trip and I got a lot of swimming done.

I was going out running a lot, but maybe I was a little over-eager, because I seemed to injure my toes. So I’ve been going to the gym 3-4 times a week now instead of running. I ride on the bike for 15 minutes, work out my arms, and then swim until time is up. Due to the coronavirus, we have to make a reservation and our sessions last 90 minutes.

I will be on hiatus for a week starting on Tuesday. So… although I plan on putting up a Top Ten Tuesday post this upcoming week, I won’t be able to respond to posts. But my internet hiatus is for a good reason. I’ll be able to tell you about it next month (or maybe in posts before that).

My dh is still looking for a job. He passed an important certification exam, so hopefully it will help him get a job. So now he has over 15 years experience in human resources, a juris doctorate, and the SHRM-CP certification. Last time he was out of work he was unemployed for 10 months. He’s been out of work for 3 1/2 months so far–hope it doesn’t take him another 6 months or more to find work.

Well, that was the last two months. How has your summer been? Depressing because of coronavirus? Getting outside anyway? Hope you all have a great August!

Books Under Historical Fascism

By Brookelorren on July 28, 2020July 26, 202024 Comments

Hello! Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl)! This week is a freebie week, and I was thinking that I’ve read a lot of books about World War II lately. It seems like there are a lot of Victorian Era books, and then historical novels jump right to World War II. Fascism is defined in the dictionary, but briefly, it’s when the government controls nearly every aspect of your life. I think it’s good to know about what fascism was like so we can recognize it around us. Sometimes it feels like there are forces trying to push us in that direction. So I figured for this freebie, I’d compile some books where people live under fascism. These are historical books, not books with made up fascist worlds (although there are plenty of them).

Defying Hitler is Sebastian Hafner’s unfinished memoir. He starts by talking about living as a boy through World War I, then he talks about life under the Weimar Republic, and finally, being forced to attend one of Hitler’s patriotic camps (which was something like a cross between a pep-rally and an indoctrination session). Hafner never bought into it, but reading his memoir, I could see how some otherwise good people might have gotten sucked into it.

I recently finished reading All the Light We Cannot See, which focused on two teenagers who lived through World War II and eventually had a chance meeting. It was so well-written, but also details lives under fascism: Marie-Laure, who is a blind girl whose town is occupied by the Germans, and Werner Pfennig, whose goal in life is to become a scientist, but who ends up in the German military instead.

Germany wasn’t the only place that experienced a little bit of fascism. This Light Between Us is the story of an American boy of Japanese descent and his Jewish pen pal. I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say that life under the Japanese internment camps was like living in a fascist country.

I haven’t said much about My Real Name is Hanna recently, but I had the opportunity to read it a while ago and I thought it was good. Hanna is a Jewish girl who lived in Ukraine, but had to flee when the Germans occupied the region.

Spain had its period of fascim as well. The Fountains of Silence is the story of an American who travels to fascist Spain and realizes that things are definitely not like they are in the US.

Like Defying Hitler, In the Garden of Beasts talks about life under the early years of Hitler (before he became the mass-murdering warmonger). This story is mostly from the point of view of the family of an ambassador from America though.

I wasn’t a huge fan of The House of One Thousand Eyes, but if we’re talking about books where people live under fascism, this is another good example. Lena lives in East Germany while it was still under Soviet control. It was a place where you didn’t want to be subversive if you didn’t want to get into trouble. I don’t know about a lot of books about fascism in East Germany, so I decided to include it here.

The Last Year of the War is the story of two American girls: one with German parents, the other with Japanese parents. Both end up in an internment camp together and become friends. It is told from the perspective of the girl of German descent when she’s an old lady. This is a book that you’ll want the tissues for if you decide to read it.

Although the Soviet Union was economically communist, they were also a fascist country. Why else were so many people sent to Siberia? In Cilka’s Journey, Cilka is a Jew who is convicted (unjustly) of aiding the Germans during World War II. After surviving the concentration camps, she is sent to a prison in Siberia.

Fascism still seems to be going on today in places. Father of Lions talks about one man’s quest to save the Mosul Zoo in the middle of a war. But it wasn’t just the war that this book talks about. Our main character has to deal with a “government” that tells him and his family how they have to dress, how to wear their hair, what they can own, what they can read, etc.

So that’s 10! What did you talk about this week? Next week, we’re going to talk about books with colors in the titles.

Today Tonight Tomorrow

By Brookelorren on July 27, 2020July 26, 2020Leave a Comment

There are some books that, just hearing the title, brings a smile to your face. Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon is like that. I had the opportunity to receive an advanced reader copy (thank you Netgalley and Simon Pulse!) and this is a book that will probably get a reread from me sometime in the future.

Rowan Roth is an overachieving graduating senior at a Seattle high school. She always tries to be the best at everything. There’s only one thing that keeps her from being the best: Neil McNair.

They fight about being the best at everything. It’s the last day of school, and there’s only one more day to try to best Neil. Question 1: which one of them is going to be valedictorian? Question 2: will one of them win Howl, the senior year scavenger hunt, which comes with a pretty sweet prize?

Well, that I won’t give you the answer to. But I will tell you that circumstances force them to work together, and that over the course of the competition, they end up falling in love.

There are so many things I loved about this book! Before coronavirus closed down the gym, it was my hot tub book. I’d go to the gym, get a good workout in, and then reward myself by sitting in the hot tub with my waterproof Kindle, reading this book. I was happy to sit there and prune up because this book was so good. When the gym closed down, it was one of the things I was sad about. I had to find a new routine to finish this book.

For one, I loved Rowan and Neil’s competition. You know how in a book two characters say they hate each other, but as the book progresses, you realize that their professed hatred actually masks caring for each other? That’s what goes on in this book. It cumulates in a scene at the top of a Ferris wheel that put me in tears.

Another thing I loved about this book is that it focused on regrets. On wasted time. Haven’t we all been in a situation where we wished we had done something differently? Rowan realizes that maybe she should have spent a little more time living throughout high school rather than fighting with Rowan to be the best.

Since this is a romance, it does end with a happily ever after (or at least a happy for now). And of course, you can see on the cover that they eventually will get together. This is a wonderful journey with funny moments, touching moments, and moments that will leave you in tears. It has an overall happy vibe that–in this world currently overrun with social distancing and viruses–may be just the thing you need in this world. I highly recommend it.

10 Things I Hate About Pinky

By Brookelorren on July 26, 2020July 26, 2020Leave a Comment

Sandhya Menon’s books are always so amazing! Her most recent book (out last Tuesday) was 10 Things I Hate About Pinky. It’s the third book in the Dimpleverse, and if you haven’t read the others, you should! This latest book stands on its own, but! If you read them in order, you’ll be familiar with some of the characters and situations and it will be a little bit cooler.

I haven’t written a lot of reviews lately (I’d love to fix that at some point) but today’s review is going to be a little different than normal. I’m writing a list:

10 Things I Love about 10 Things I Hate About Pinky

1. Pinky. Pinky is such a great character! We meet her first in There’s Something About Sweetie, but we get to know her a lot better in this book. She’s such a sweet, caring person. I love how we get to see this side of her in this book.

2. Samir. Samir, who begins a fake-dating relationship with Pinky, is almost her opposite. While Pinky is a free-spirit, Samid has a planner and his life revolves around it. Over the course of 10 Things I Hate About Pinky, he learns that some things just can’t be planned. Including how he ended up fake-dating Pinky in the first place. It happens towards the beginning of the book, but I’ll leave that up to you to discover.

3. Family relationships. We mostly get to see the relationship between Pinky and her mother, but there are other relationships here. Her mother starts out as very antagonistic towards Pinky, but they work things out. Samir and his mother have some things to work out too. We don’t see much of her here, but their relationship does evolve.

4. Friendships. The main friendship here is between Pinky and Dolly, whom we haven’t met before. We hear a little from Ashish as well. Summer friendships are great!

5. Saving the World! Okay, Pinky and Samir don’t exactly save the world, but they do try to save their little part of the world, which is under threat. While I won’t say whether they succeed or not, they get involved in a little protesting.

6. Animals! Pinky rescues a wild animal early on in the book. Also, there’s a butterfly habitat that Pinky and Samir visit. Both animals play roles in the book.

7. Laugh out Loud. One of the things I love about Sandhya Menon’s books is that they are funny. There were several places where I couldn’t help but to laugh out loud.

8. The Cover. This is such a beautiful cover! I think it personifies Pinky perfectly. It would have been cooler, maybe, if there was a butterfly on the cover, but it matches the rest of the Pinky set, and it’s so happy.

9. Uh Oh. The Big Misunderstanding. Of course, not everything in this book could be as happy as the cover, could it? There are several misunderstandings that are cleared up, including a huge one that almost tears Pinky and Samir apart.

10. The Happily Ever After. You couldn’t call this book a romance without it.

So, was there anything I hated about 10 Things I Hate About Pinky? Absolutely not! I loved this book. It just came out last Tuesday, and I encourage you to go pick it up. If you like fake-dating and enemies to lovers, then you’ll probably like this too.

Authors I Met at Book Events

By Brookelorren on July 21, 2020July 20, 202028 Comments

Hello, and welcome to Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl)! Hopefully I’ll start getting some more reviews up soon, but for today, we have a new topic. It’s supposed to be “Book Events/Festivals I’d Love to Go to Someday” but I don’t think I could come up with very many? So on a (kinda) related topic, I’m going to talk about authors I met at book events (which include signings).

In October 2018 I wrote about Authors I’d Like to Meet Someday (another Top Ten Tuesday Topic) and some of these are on my list!

Sandhya/Lily Menon: Ms. Menon was a speaker at the Colorado Teen Literature Conference last year. I knew she’d be doing one of the keynotes, so I bought When Dimple Met Rishi so I could read it and get it signed. After that, I joined her street team. She lives in Colorado, so I got to go to her book signing for Of Curses and Kisses too.

Bill Konigsberg: He was also a speaker at the Colorado Teen Literature Conference last year. He described his upcoming book, The Bridge, and it put me in tears. I so want to read it.

Kiersten White: Ms. White was one of the authors I listed as an author I wanted to meet. I hadn’t even read any of her books at the time, but I had seen her on Twitter and she was always interesting. She is so funny too! I named a minor character in my book after her, and she was upset it wasn’t a villain, LOL (his name is Piersten because people sometimes accidentally spell her name that way when she goes to book events). And I know she’s judging me for never having watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I don’t watch much TV! Maybe I will watch it someday.

Marie Lu: On March 5th of this year, I got to meet two of the authors on my list of authors I’d love to meet! One of them was Marie Lu. She was gracious enough to sign a whole bag of books for me.

Astrid Scholte: Ms. Scholte was another author I got to meet at the Penguin Teen Tour this year, and was another author I wanted to meet someday! I thought that would never happen because she lives in Australia, but surprise! I did.

Melissa de la Cruz: Ms. de la Cruz was another author I got to meet in March. I hadn’t read a book by her at the time (and I’ve still only read the beginning of The Queen’s Assassin) but I have since read the audiobook of Jo & Laurie (loved it!). I have Alex and Eliza to read too. After watching Hamilton (and my kids are obsessed with the music–I like it too) I want to read that one.

Todd Fahnestock: Mr. Fahnestock was at the Colorado Teen Literature conference and gave one of the presentations. He inspired me to delete about 10,000 words from The Brightness of Shadow (gee thanks). Haha but the 10,000 words I deleted weren’t all that interesting anyway, and the book is close to the querying stage now.

Ginger Scott: Another one of the session presenters at the Colorado Teen Literature Conference. If you’re a writer and have the chance, I recommend you go to one of these events. You learn so much.

Tim Ballard: He did an author signing several years ago. I didn’t know at the time, but this guy’s a real hero. He started Operation Underground Railroad, which frees people from slavery.

Eric Metaxis: In this case, it wasn’t exactly an author signing, but he signed a book for me. Mr. Metaxis was giving a presentation and I got to go, and afterwards he signed my book.

So, there’s 10 authors I got to meet, mostly at book signings and events. Until this virus gets under control, we probably won’t be able to go out and meet many more, except virtually, but hopefully sometime next year that can resume.

Next week is a freebie week. Not sure what I’m doing yet. Hopefully I’ll have some book reviews out soon!

New to Me Authors

By Brookelorren on June 23, 2020June 23, 202017 Comments

Happy Birthday! Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) turned ten yesterday. I happen to share a birthday with Top Ten Tuesday. So to celebrate our birthdays, we’re having a special post! We have different options of what we want to post today. I’m choosing to update a post on New To Me Authors (original date January 14, 2019). Here is my original New-to-Me Author post. I thought I’d do this post again, with new to me authors from the first half of this year.

Stephanie Meyer – I might have gone my whole life without reading Twilight, but when Ms. Meyer decided to write Midnight Sun, I thought I’d check out the original books. They’re fairly entertaining. But she’s a new to me author this year.

Rachel Lynn Solomon – I adored Today Tonight Tomorrow! This isn’t her debut, but it’s the first book I’ve read by her. I would definitely read another book by her.

Cameron Lund – The Best Laid Plans was a cute book that I borrowed from the library this year. This is a best friends to lovers story that’s adorable. I may choose to read it again at some point.

Francesca Zappia – Eliza and her Monsters was a cute story too. It reminds me a little of Fangirl, which stars a creator with a large fanbase, but who is anonymous.

Emma Lord – One of the things that I love about the new-to-me authors topic is that there are always new authors out there to read. Tweet Cute was Emma Lord’s debut, and it’s also an adorable story.

Tessa Dare – Although there are plenty of new-to-me authors that are debuts, not all of the new authors are relatively new. Tessa Dare is a fairly prolific author, but I never read any of her stories before reading The Duchess Deal this year.

Andrew Fukuda – I don’t think I’ve read a lot of World War II fiction this year, but I did read This Light Between Us, which is the story of a Japanese boy in a concentration camp who has a Jewish pen pal. He was also a new-to-me author this year.

Eric Smith – I’ve seen Eric Smith on Twitter for quite a while, but Don’t Read the Comments was the first book I’ve read written by him.

Katerina King – Katerina is a friend of mine on Twitter and Malediction was her debut. There is supposed to be a second book in this series. Hopefully we’ll be able to see her second book at some point.

Rachael Allen – The Summer of Impossibilities is not Ms. Allen’s debut, but it’s the first book I’ve read by her. It’s a great book to read during the summer.

So there are a few new-to-me authors from this year! What did you choose to write about for Top Ten Tuesday’s 10th anniversary?

Next week we’re going to talk about books we’re anticipating in the future. I don’t know if I’ll limit my choices to the next six months or if I’ll go beyond that. It can be difficult for me to come up with ten books for the next six months.

Fractures

By Brookelorren on June 19, 2020June 19, 20201 Comment

It’s been a while since I read (and loved) Echoes by Alice Reeds. So when I got the chance to review Fractures, the sequel to Echoes, I was excited! Thank you Netgalley and Entanged Teen for the Advanced Reader Copy. Echoes was a twisty story with two different timelines. It ended on a cliffhanger, but when I originally read it, I wasn’t sure whether it was meant to be continued or not. The sequel did not disappoint. You can see my review of Echoes here.

Because this review is for the second book in a duology, there may be spoilers.

Things To Like

Just like in Echoes, it’s twisty and there’s two timelines! In the original book, it took a while to figure out what was going on. Are these two different timelines? Is one of them real and one of them not? What’s going on? Eventually you figure it out, as do Miles and Fiona, our main characters.

You get to know Miles and Fiona more. Some people thought there was instalove in the first book, although I liked how their relationship went, but we get to learn more about their characters here. Once again, they’re facing danger, and we get to find out more about them, their families, and how did they end up in this mess?

New characters! Fiona and Miles make new friends in their struggle (which I’m purposely being vague about). Can they be trusted in a world where nobody can figure out what is real and what is imagined? I can’t reveal that.

A satisfying ending. While the end of Echoes made me think ??? is this deliberately a weird ending like the rest of the book? Fractures has a logical and satisfying conclusion. We finally find out what happens to them!

Other Notes

I enjoyed this book, but I didn’t find it as compelling as Echoes. Perhaps it’s just because I’ve been having difficulty reading as much as I had been. I don’t know why. I couldn’t put the first book down and read it in one day. It took three days to read Fractures.

Conclusion

Are you looking for a duology that is twisty, mysterious, and keeps you turning pages? I recommend this duology. If you haven’t read Echoes yet, you’d definitely want to start there. If you have read Echoes, then you’ll probably want to find out what happens to our two main characters. You won’t be disappointed.

Summer 2020 TBR

By Brookelorren on June 16, 2020June 16, 202027 Comments

Hello! Another week has snuck by… but it’s Tuesday again, which means Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl). Today we’re talking about our TBRs! I love TBR week, although lately I haven’t been doing quite as well on my TBRs lately, but we’ll see that in a moment.

How did I do on my Spring TBR?

Between Burning Worlds – Jessica Brody and Joanne Rendell: Read
Chosen Ones – Veronica Roth: Read
Malediction – Katerina King: Read
Conquest – Celeste Harte: Unread
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes – Suzanne Collins: Read
1453 – Roger Crowley: Read
Descendent of the Crane – Joan He: Unread
Keeper – Kim Chance: Unread
99 Percent Mine – Sally Thorne: Read
Tell Me Everything – Sarah Enni: Read

So this quarter I had a 70% success rate. I might have finished a couple more, but I started reading the Twilight series.

So what do I hope to read this summer? There are no new must-read books for me, so the books listed here are: 1) the three I didn’t read in the spring and 2) books I picked from the TBR lottery.

Celeste Harte is one of the hosts of Character Chaos on Twitter. I’ve been wanting to read Conquest for a while. It was on my spring TBR, after all! I really want to get to this one first. I have a few ARCs to read that I need to get to, but this is probably the first book from my TBR I intend to conquer.

Descendant of the Crane has been on my list for quite a while too. I wanted to read this one since it was an ARC (I wasn’t approved). Let’s hope I can get to this one this summer.

Kim Chance used to host Chance2Connect on Twitter once a month. Sadly, June’s Chance2Connect was the last one, but I still want to read her book, Keeper. This was on my list of Spring 2020 books, but I didn’t get around to it.

Opposite of Always by Justin A. Reynolds has been on my radar for quite a while now. It sounds so interesting! He read some of his book at a Zoom event a couple months ago, and I liked what I heard so far!

Mirror Gate is the second book in The Harbinger series. I read Storm Glass last year, and I bought the rest of the series when it was on sale on Amazon.com (gotta love those $1.99 books) but I haven’t read past the first book yet.

The Bride Test has been on my radar for a while too. I liked The Kiss Quotient, and am looking forward to reading the second book in this series.

I first heard of Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour from my fellow Top Ten Tuesday bloggers. It sounded good, so I added it to my TBR. It won the lottery for this summer, and it seems like such a summery book!

It’s been a very long time since I read The Third Target, which is the first book in the J.B. Collins series. The First Hostage is the second book, and it won the TBR lottery for this season. It’s definitely different than the other books on this list, but it should be a nice change of pace. I love Joel C. Rosenberg’s books.

I got A Curse So Dark and Lonely on sale quite a while ago, but I haven’t read it yet. This is a Beauty and the Beast retelling. Hopefully it will be really good!

I never read Little Women (I have an antique copy and I think I read one page before I lost interest; I was really young at the time I tried to read it though). This was one of the books on Bookish First a month or so ago, and I liked the beginning (sadly, I was too late to use my points to get a copy). I do hope to read Jo & Laurie this summer though.

So these are the books I hope to read this summer! What books do you hope to read? Next week is Top Ten Tuesday’s 10th Anniversary! I don’t know what option I’m going to pick yet.