Who doesn’t love a good TBR list? Here’s a non-exhaustive list of the books I plan to read over the rest of the year. If you’re a fellow fantasy fan, you’re in for a treat…
How flipping gorgeous are those covers? I love covers with women in beautiful dresses – especially if they’re holding a weapon!
This series is an adaptation of the Goose Girl fairytale, and Ivinya puts such a unique twist on every fairytale she chooses to adapt, plus her characters are diverse and inclusive, bringing old traditional tales right up to date.
The third and final installment of this stunning fae series is coming out very soon, so you and I will be able to binge read to our hearts’ content!
Miranda recently made the incredibly brave and admirable decision to change the title of book one, having built up a lot of exposure with the title Blood and Honor, after a fan contacted her to inform her of the terrible connotations behind that name. Something Miranda had been completely unaware of, and that she absolutely did not want her book to be associated with or to take lightly and potentially cause harm and offense.
I think Blood and Promise has an even better ring to it, and I can’t wait to jump into this series as soon as book three, Fate and Flame, is released!
Another set of eye-wateringly beautiful covers – I guess I’m a sucker for a good cover, but honestly who wouldn’t want these on their shelf? The Starlatten series is a contemporary sci-fi trilogy, and the final book just came out this week so it’s prime binge-reading material!
If you read and loved The Mirror Souls by Julia Scott, I can see this being your next must-read.
Now, Whispering Shadows doesn’t actually come out until June, but Sydney just revealed the cover and I couldn’t not include it here beside it’s equally gorgeous sister.
The Navarre Chronicles is a high fantasy series with royalty, magic, a warrior princess and a demon king – basically everything I love!
Hopefully you’ve seen something on this list that takes your fancy, I love supporting fellow indie authors and would love to know if you buy any of these or add them to your TBR!
What’s a book your really looking forward to reading this year?
Lyndsey
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Following on from my last post, I thought I’d join in with Top Ten Tuesday and share ten books I’m excited to read over the coming months. It’s a mix of wintry stories and books I’ve been looking forward to reading – some physical copies and some audio books (you know how much I love an audio book!), so hopefully there’s something for everyone on this list.
I’ve been sitting on this book for a while, it calls to me from my book shelf (I mean, look at that cover!), but I wanted to wait until it was appropriately frosty outside and cosy inside before I curl up with Wintersong. It’s a new take on the legend of the Goblin King, and sounds very Labyrinth, so I’m excited to sink into this one in the New Year.
I definitely think Winter is a time for dark, twisting fantasies, and The Hazel Wood is a perfect example. It’s got a hint of Scandi Noir about it, a Hans Christian Andersen kind of vibe that I am here for. Centred around a collection of pitch-dark fairy tales set in a supernatural realm called the Hinterland, which may or may not be fact rather than fiction, The Hazel Wood sounds like the perfect read for those long, dark nights. Just add hot chocolate and a blanket.
The Waking Land sounds like a lovely Spring read (and let’s be honest, with a young baby it’ll probably be Spring by the time I get round to it!). It’s got elements of The Cruel Prince, The Sin Eater’s Daughter and, to be honest, my novel The Fair Queen – so if that doesn’t mean I’m bound to love it, what does?
This has been on my TBR (and in my Audible library…) for quite a while, but 2019 is the year I finally jump feet first into this series! Book three, A Reaper at the Gates was released this year and everyone was obsessed, so I’m really excited to start An Ember in the Ashes. It’s inspired by Ancient Rome, similarly to Nevernight, which if you’ve been following my blog for a while you’ll know is an absolute favourite of mine, so I’ve got high hopes.
I’ve been dying to read Children of Blood and Bone ever since I took part in Pitch Wars 2017 and Tomi Adeyemi was a mentor. I’ve got the audio book, which I think was a good idea because I’m terrible at pronouncing the names of people and places in fantasy books, so at least I won’t have to worry about getting that wrong – it’s just the spelling I’ll get wrong now! It strikes me as a sort of Throne of Glass X Black Panther, so I’m pretty excited.
Rebel of the Sands is giving me very City of Brass vibes, which is definitely a good thing. It’s got a sort of Aladdin/Arabian Nights style cover, and is set in a desert nation where djinn and magic abound. It might be more of a summery read, so I’ll probably save this one for later in the year, but it’s been sitting on my shelf for a good while now and I’m looking forward to reading it, especially as the series is complete now so I can binge the entire trilogy.
If you haven’t read The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, then what have you been doing with your life? This is less of a sequel and more of a companion novel, as it follows Monty’s sister Felicity on her very own adventure across Europe as she tries to achieve her dream of becoming a doctor. As in TGGTVAV, nothing is straightforward and shenanigans ensue. And we wouldn’t have it any other way!
So after that brief segue into historical fiction, we’re right back at it with the fantasy. Dystopic fantasy, if we’re being precise. Gilded Cage is set in modern-day Britain, which I think will be fascinating as most magic-oriented fantasies are set in the past or future, or a completely fictional world with little resemblance to our own. With society divided into the Skilled, a powerful, magic-wielding upper-class, and the unskilled lower class who are forced into ten years of servitude to their superiors, two families become entwined as political tensions build to
This is my current read, I’m only 50 pages in and already hooked. I’ve been following Victoria Schwab on various social media for a while, but shockingly have never read one of her books, despite knowing they’d be exactly my cup of tea. I decided to rectify that this year and ordered A Darker Shade of Magic, as it seemed like a good place to start. The final book in the trilogy was published last year, and we all know how much I love to binge a complete series! I’m now obsessed and will be ordering the rest of Schwab’s published works immediately. (Did you see her post announcing that her debut, The Near Witch, was finally being published in the UK? Exciting!)
This is my current audio book, and it’s an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery, with a paranormal twist. Admittedly, it took a few chapters to get into, but now I’m well and truly gripped. The protagonist is completely unique and the concept is so fresh and original – every day Aiden Bishop wakes up in a different body, and every night Evelyn Hardcastle dies, unless Aiden can uncover the killer by the end of the 8th day. It’s really well executed, Turton has thought about absolutely everything, dropping clues expertly throughout the story, and I’m desperate to get to the end and find out who killed Evelyn, and more importantly, who’s behind the plague doctor mask…
And that’s just a few of the books on my TBR that I’m hoping to get through over the next few months. Have you read any of these? Let me know which one I should read next!
Happy holidays! I cannot believe 2018 is almost at an end, this year has been an absolute whirlwind. I thought I’d have a look back at my goals and how badly I did at achieving them, and then set some more for next year that I probably won’t achieve either! Ah, new motherhood. It’s all fun and games until somebody drops their biscuit.
So, last January I shared my Reading and writing goals for 2018 and announced that I was six months pregnant so my aim was set relatively low! Well, as you can imagine, I managed to completely undershoot that incredibly low goalpost. I decided to make 2018 the year of self-care and mindfulness, and despite failing to keep up with the journaling, I have tried to be kind to myself since my son arrived in April.
My first goal for 2018 was to journal every day or as often as I could. I also gave myself permission to put my journal down and pick it up later and not beat myself up if it had been weeks or even months since my last entry. Which is good, because I don’t think I have journaled once since I gave birth. But just reading my goals back and writing this post has got me itching to pick it back up again, so hopefully I can get back into it. No pressure though, it’s intended as self-care, not another thing I can berate myself for not being perfect at.
My reading goal was to read 24 books this year, 2 a month with one being an audio book (proud Audible member over here). So, that didn’t happen. Having a new baby is definitely not compatible with reading for pleasure at length. I’m currently at 13. Yep.
I did however manage to read the paperback of Tower of Dawn, even if it did take about 4 months. I think all the rest may have been audio books. Let’s look:
If you count 12 there, you’re exactly right. I actually DNF’ed The Lies of Locke Lamora and Goodreads has included it as I clicked Finished. I really thought I’d love this book, but it just didn’t do it for me – or maybe it was the narration, but either way, there are too many great books out there for me to force myself to finish something I wasn’t even enjoying.
I’m almost finished reading A Court of Frost and Starlight (perfect festive read, very Frozen), so I’m hoping to add at least another 2 books to my list before January 1st.
Ah, my writing goal. I’ll give you a quick recap. In the spirit of self-care, I gave myself permission to not write a single word in 2018. I’m proud to say that didn’t happen, I actually have over 10,000 words of a new WIP. That WIP, however, is neither of the stories I mentioned in my January post. What is it, you might ask? Well, I broke the first tenet of the querying writer – I started writing the sequel.
I know, I know, it’ll probably be a waste of words. If I ever get an agent for The Fair Queen my editor might tear the whole thing to shreds and book two will be a pointless heap of mulch. But I just needed to wrap myself in the world I’d created while writing The Fair Queen, spend some time with my characters and feel at home. I wanted to get the ideas and words out of my brain, even if it only bears a very vague resemblance to the book that ultimately becomes book two in The Fair Chronicles (I’m going with chronicles, saga could work too, but I feel my world has similarities to Narnia, so chronicles it is).
I’ve actually shelved Cockle Shells & Silver Bells. I think I’ll keep some of the characters and themes, but rework them into a completely different story. Later though, right now I’m lost in the Five Kingdoms with Aria and Xander. The Resurrectionist is still tugging at the corners of my mind, so I’ll definitely try and outline something once I’m happy with The Solitary King.
Goals for 2019
Reading goals
I’m revising my reading goal down to 16 books, so that’s 12 audio books and 4 paperbacks. If I can squeeze an actual physical book in every 3 months I’ll be happy. My TBR shelf is looking pretty jam packed and I even bought myself A Darker Shade of Magic (my very first V.E. Schwab!!!) a few months ago to tempt myself into reading more, but it just wasn’t happening. As soon as I finish ACOFAS though I’m jumping straight into that bad boy. I can just feel that I was meant to be a huge Schwab fan, it’s definitely happening. I mean, I’ve got THUG sitting there giving me a disapproving look – somebody tell my baby naps are life!
Writing goals
I really, really want to finish my first draft of The Solitary King and maybe even do a second draft before handing it over to a few trusted betas. I know it’s redundant at this point, but a couple of friends who read The Fair Queen and loved it have been badgering me for book two ever since, and they deserve to see what happens next for Aria, Xander and the gang. So, that’s at least 60,000 words. That’s achievable right? I’m saying yes. Wish me luck.
I’m also planning to dive back into the query trenches, as it’ll be a year since I sent any in January. It was a well deserved break, but I’m ready for the heartbreaking, soul-crushing rejection, and the little frisson of excitement every time I press send. Followed by ice-cold terror as I check my spelling and the agent’s name for the bazillionth time.
So, there you have it: read 16 books, finish the first draft of my current WIP, and send a few more queries. Pretty low expectations, but if 2019 is anything like 2018 it’ll be enough to know I’m still working towards my dream, whilst also taking care of myself and my new little family.
What are your reading and writing goals for the coming year? Let me know in the comments!
Lyndsey Hall | Author 