Hello, friends! As you read this, I have made it through my first two weeks of full-time work! But this post is not about that! Instead, is about something much more relaxing: winter anytime reads! This is the sequel to Summer Anytime Reads (which I did a few years ago) and Autumnal Anytime Reads (which I did three months ago), and it was much easier to write than either of them. There are a lot of books out there with a wintery vibe, even when you eliminate the Christmas ones. (And there's going to be quite a few more once the next few Arista Challenges happen!) ANYWAY. These books range from stories perfect for curling up with by a nice fire to books that reflect and redeem the darkness and coldness of these months, and they actually include some of my favorite books in the world . . . though, on a moment's reflection, that could be said for both of the previous posts in the series too. Apparently, the books I love best span all seasons. So, without further ado, let's go!

 

Winter Anytime Reads

1. Sabriel by Garth Nix. I mean, it takes place largely in winter, and the major magic used in the book has a tendency to produce frost. So there's that. But, as a book very concerned with death and a season of dying and trying not to die, it's a thematically wintery book too. And it has the sense of rising a challenge and triumphing over death that you really need in this season. Also, it has a cat and one of the better father-daughter relationships in fiction (even if a lot of that relationship is shown in the way Sabriel thinks of and acts towards her father and how he acts towards her), both of which are much appreciated in this very dreary time of year.
   
2. If you liked Sabriel, try: The rest of the Abhorsen series (for more of everything you loved in Sabriel — the series as a whole sits on the border between winter and spring reads) or Hexwood (for fantasy with an . . . unusual take on usual tropes, we'll say).
3. Jackaby by William Ritter. You can interpret this as either the whole series or just the first book and it'll be true. It starts in winter, and it might be winter again by the time the series ends — I don't recall for sure — but while Jackaby is an excellent read any time of year, it's especially delicious in this particular season. It starts off with a murder mystery (excellent for reading under blankets and by fires), and it's quick and enthralling and will make you forget how cold it is.
   If you liked Jackaby, try: The Invisible Library (for fantasy mystery featuring lots of influence of legends and fantastic lore, among other stories) or Seraphina (also for more fantasy mystery, albeit with more dragons and fewer other fantasy beings).
4. Illusionarium by Heather Dixon. All of Heather Dixon's books are actually excellent winter reads, but Illusionarium is the only one I don't associate with Christmas more than winter in general. Actually, I'd call Illusionarium a February sort of book. Steampunk is often a little dark, and the worlds in which this particular story takes place have been dark and cold and dying for a very long time, and it's ripe for renewal and rebirth. And the ending of the story is full of exactly the kind of hopefulness and warmth-despite-chill that you need during the coldest month of the year.
   If you liked Illusionarium, try: Entwined and The Enchanted Sonata (for more of Heather Dixon's delightful storytelling style and happy, hopeful endings), or Halayda (for steampunk stories of renewal).
5. Six of Crows duology by Leigh Bardugo. Arguably the darkest book or series on this list, I don't think this should be much of a surprise. Again, the first book is wintery in setting, but both books are winter-appropriate in the darkness and intensity of the stories they tell. Also, I feel like the mixture of humor and darkness and snarky levity is very fitting for these months.
   If you liked Six of Crows, try: Mistborn (for fantasy heists and non-standard fantasy settings) or the Shadow and Bone trilogy (for more of Bardugo's writing and world — this is arguably more wintery than Six of Crows, but I like Crows better).
6. Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George. It wouldn't be a winter reads list without a retelling of "East of the Sun, West of the Moon." Jessica Day George's take on the tale is my favorite — it's short and sweet and satisfying, and I very much love the Lass's relationship with Hans Peter, her oldest brother. I also love the why the author gave for the whole situation, arguably the most important part of any fairytale retelling.
   If you liked Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow, try: East by Edith Pattou (for another great retelling of "East of the Sun, West of the Moon") or Beauty by Robin McKinley (for a wintery Beauty and the Beast retelling).

What are your favorite wintery reads? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

July 2020 Doings!

Well, here we are! The end of another month! We're officially over halfway through the year and halfway through summer, and . . . yeah. I feel like this was a short month, but I also can barely remember the start of it, so . . . that's weird. Anyway. Let's get on with the Doings, shall we?

Writing!

• So, this was probably the chillest Camp NaNoWriMo of my life.
• I was editing The Midnight Show, you know. And I expected it to take most of the month — expected to still be scrambling to finish at the end. Instead, I went through more times than I planned and had time for a few extra people outside of my original betas to look at it as well. So, that's cool.
• Side note: either today or tomorrow is the last day to sign up for the Tattered Slippers blog tour. So if you haven't done that and you want to join the festivities, make sure you don't put it off any longer. Link is here.
• On a related topic: have you preordered The Midnight Show? If you're thinking of getting the ebook, preordering helps my rankings and such quite a lot. (Also, all the people who've read it so far have told me they really enjoy it! So I'm not the only person who thinks it's good!)
• Blood in the Soil/Earth is going slowly but steadily. I think I may have managed to move in towards the . . . pre-endgame? Pre-pre-endgame? Something. I still feel like I'm feeling my way along the story, but I also think I'm getting close to the point where I won't be second-guessing myself every page. Maybe I'll actually finish the book this year; that would be nice.
• And in terms of D&D writing, I spent most of the month worldbuilding dwarven cities, culture, and cuisine. It . . . was a lot. It's kind of one of those things where I know 75% of what I build won't actually get used, but I have very little idea which 25% I'll need, so I have to do all of it. On the upside, I should be able to use a lot of it in the future, so it's not like I'm wasting my time and effort.
• I also decided to reread what I wrote of Dust of Silver, which was a stupid decision because I had written less than I thought I did and I left off in a non-ideal spot, and I kind of want to work on it (half because I miss Poppy and Ivy; half because I really want to rewrite my Beauty and the Beast retelling), but I have no idea where I was going with the story. Gah. I have regrets.

 Reading!

• This was a slightly better reading month than last month was; I managed 13 books, seven of which were rereads and most of which I very much liked.
• My rereads included Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on Their Toes (both still excellent), the Abhorsen trilogy (I still love these books and this magic system SO MUCH and I can't even explain why), and The Hobbit (because I plan to reread The Lord of the Rings soon). So that was all very fun.
• On the new-to-me books front, I finally read Spindle's End and Beauty by Robin McKinley, which — oh my pumpernickel. They were both so good, y'all. I was a touch disappointed by the ending of Beauty, but even so, they were both so. storming. good. I should've read these sooner. They're both officially among my favorite retellings of their respective fairy tales.
• I also read the A is for Apple anthology, which is a set of five Snow White retellings. Contrary to what the name would suggest, it's really not a children's anthology. It had two really good stories — "The Poet's Missing Daughter" and "Skin Deep" (the former of which is an Asian mystery retelling; the latter of which is a contemporary about IG/YT influencers and is just really good) — and a few other meh or ok ones. If you're looking for Snow White retellings, though, it could be worth picking up just for "Skin Deep."
• Going back to books I should've read ages ago, we have Deep Secret (Diana Wynne Jones) and Truly Devious (Maureen Johnson). Deep Secret was fairly fun, not my favorite DWJ, but enjoyable enough. It did make me wonder what kind of conventions Jones had gone to, though. Truly Devious didn't amaze me either, but purely for personal reasons — the story was good, and the concept was interesting; I just didn't jive with the writing style and had trouble keeping track of characters. (Ok, and I didn't buy the romance. But that's mostly because I heartily disliked David pretty much all the way through.)
• Finishing up the month, we have a reread of Plenilune, and a first-read of Song of the Current. Plenilune, I didn't enjoy quite as much as I did the first time I read it, but was still excellent. I had an easier time keeping track of who's who and connected to what and where than I did the first time around. I do think I could've benefited from a map, though. And, I mean, Dammerung is pretty excellent, so that covers over quite a lot of flaws. Song of the Current was delightfully nautical and had a good story and good vibes, though there were a few things that made it less than perfect.

Watching!

• Most of what I've been watching this month is Critical Role, trying to cram in as much as I can in the time I have. I just finished Episode 18, and I'm facepalming a little (ok, a lot) at some of what goes on, but it's still fun. Caleb continues to be my favorite of the M9, though I love pretty much all of them. Though this does have the downside of making me want to make and play so many new D&D characters . . . I mean, it's made me more open to certain classes and races now that I see how they work, which is great, and has given me ideas on how to play the characters I have better, but everything looks fun and I want to do it alllllllllll and I caaaaan't.
• (I mean, yes, I can make them as NPCs/GMPCs and slip them into my game when appropriate. But it's not the same as actually playing the characters in a campaign; I have too many other things in my head to get the full experience.)
• Anyway. Other than Critical Role, everything I've watched has been stuff with my family. A lot of it was movies I'd heard a lot about but hadn't seen yet — sometimes classics, sometimes not. Unfortunately, I was uniformly frustrated with most of those.
• For example: we watched Phantom of the Opera (2004 version) about midway through the month, and while I admit the music is pretty good, the storyline is just . . . why? I spent half the movie just (mentally and sometimes verbally) yelling at Christine and Raoul and everyone and the other half telling the Phantom off for being a creeptastic stalker. So, yeah, I'm basically this one post:

• Anyway. Also disappointing: at my request, we watched Goldfinger (because I've never actually watched any James Bond). I very quickly regretted that request, but, hey! I've now officially watched something James Bond and I never have to watch another one. Seriously, though. Bond just kind of seduces his way through the movie, and pretty much anything he accomplishes, he does through 90% luck or getting a woman to do it for him, and I am not impressed.
• The best of the well-known-but-I've-never-seen group of movies was My Fair Lady, which we watched for my sister's birthday. It was great, but I now want to write a retelling that fixes the stupid ending. Seriously. It was really good (if sometimes awkward) up until the last two scenes. I loved Eliza's character arc, and I loved the fact that she grew enough to tell Professor Higgins off in the end and was fully prepared to make her own way in the world. But then the filmmakers screwed that up by having her reappear in that final scene when she had no reason to come back. Higgins hadn't redeemed himself to her; he barely redeemed himself to the audience — and that only if you stretch things. He sort of recognizes that he may have been wrong; we see no indication that he plans to change. And that's the essential ingredient in the arc of any character of his type. It is, in a way, a sort of Beauty and the Beast retelling where the Beast never becomes not a beast. And I do not approve.
• Anyway. Outside of that, we rewatched Secondhand Lions, which I really liked when I was younger and apparently still enjoy. It's kind of weird — it does not, on the outset, seem like the kind of movie I would like (as it's a real-world-ish story that relies as often as not on awkward situations), but then you watch it and it's like "Why would anyone not enjoy this?" It's got humor. It's got heartwarming moments. It's got swordfights. It's almost 100% about a family figuring itself out. It's great.
• Probably the best movie of the month was Where Eagles Dare, which was actually cooler than I expected. I fully admit that I'm prejudiced against war movies — I associate them with being dark and depressing and having a lot of characters I can't tell apart because they're all white guys with either black or blond hair and no one says names often enough for me to figure anything out. And, yeah, for the first thirty minutes of this movie, I had no idea who anyone was. I actually still don't know the names of several characters who I think I was supposed to be able to identify. But it was still really good and really twisty, but in a good way, and it's spies and stealthiness and secret identities and guile heroes, all of which I appreciate.
• Oh, and we watched The Man Who Knew Too Much, which I did not enjoy at all. I actually almost walked out halfway through the movie (because I'd said I'd give it a try for half an hour and had already given it more than that), but ended up coming back because I hoped it would get better (and I felt guilty for leaving). It did not get better. As a result of this (and other movies I've watched), I have come to two conclusions:
  1. I like Hitchcock movies best when Hitchcock didn't actually make them. Which is to say: the best Hitchcock-style movie I've seen is Charade, which isn't actually his. I have a suspicion that this is because Hitchcock doesn't seem to have a sense of lightness or humor, and I don't care how serious or thrilling of a story you're telling; you need moments that are lighter. You need to occasionally let the tension lift or else you either exhaust your audience or your audience just stops feeling it.
  2. Jimmy Stewart often plays one of two types of characters: the sensitive, moral guy who's trying to do right and the angry guy who doesn't know how to let anyone else (especially women) talk. I don't mind the first. I hate the second with a passion. This is probably part of why I'm one of the three people in the world who don't think It's a Wonderful Life is the absolute berries/best Christmas movie ever/whatever.
  3. (I also determined that, if given the chose between watching a movie with Jimmy Stewart in it and watching a movie with Cary Grant in it, I'm more likely to enjoy the Cary Grant movie. So apparently those names mean something now, as opposed to three months ago when I routinely became frustrated with my dad for saying "We could watch this; it's a Cary Grant movie, or this, which has [insert other famous classic actor here] in it" and not giving any other information about the movies. Yay, character development?)

Life!

• July was much quieter than June, which was nice. I spent most of the month reading, editing, writing, watching stuff, playing D&D, and occasionally baking.
• McKays, our favorite used bookshop, reopened for business recently, so I got to go there. And then I proceeded to spend about twice as much as I planned. But it's fiiiiiiiine. I got good books. It's worth it.
• My sister had her birthday this month, as I sort of mentioned earlier, which was fun. We didn't really do a whole lot other than watching My Fair Lady, but we did have chocolate cake. It was very yummy.
• But yeah. That's about it.

August Plans

• IT'S THE MIDNIGHT SHOW RELEASE MONTH, WHOOOOOO!
• That's at the end of the month, so I'll be spending a lot of this month prepping for that. So that'll be finishing up last edits and formatting stuff and writing things for the blog tour. Which, reminder, if you want to sign up for it, you should do that now!
• Outside of that, I'm figuring out job things still. I may be closer to a partial answer on that, but we'll see. I did apply for the Tor Books internship because it's virtual this year and it would be SO COOL to get actual experience in the big-press publishing industry, so, yeah. I'm praying that comes through and that they don't say "Nah, you graduated already; we don't need you. Get a full-time job already."
• (Unless they decide they want to hire me for a full-time remote job, in which case YES PLEASE AND THANK YOU VERY MUCH.)
• (It's funny; I spent a lot of time in college feeling like the only one who didn't want to go into the publishing industry, but now I've remembered that the publishing industry needs marketing and production people and I REALLY want to get in on that. Just . . . let being excited about books and making things related to books be my actual job. Please.)
• But yeah. Other than that, it's business as usual. I kinda want to write a new book but I also know I should try to hurry and finish Blood in the Soil/Earth. It's a struggle.

How was your July? Any exciting plans for August? How do you feel about Hitchcock movies? Have you watched Critical Role (or another D&D podcast), and if so, do you have this problem of wanting to play ALL the classes and races and characters? What's your favorite D&D character concept that you haven't gotten to play yet? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

Mid-Year Book Freakout 2019!

THE TIME HAS COME. The year is half gone, and that means it's time for my biannual book freakout! In which I actually don't freak out that much, but I DO review the reads of the last six months, yell about my favorites, and save myself a bunch of effort in December.

A few stats before we get started: I've read 99 books so far this year . . . which is only slightly less than the number I read all of last year. What the actual pumpernickel. How did I do this? (I know the answer, actually: I decided to get back in the habit of reading a chapter or two or ten before bed, plus I reread the Oz books and the Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus books. That adds up fast.) That comes out to roughly 40K pages, for those who are curious, so I've done the equivalent of reading Oathbringer 32 times, Illuminae 67 times, or Howl's Moving Castle 121 times. As you can guess, that means I have a lot of material to choose from here.

Mid-Year Book Freakout

1. Best book you've read so far in 2019:

As per the usual, this one's a tie between two AMAZING books:

Masque by W.R. Gingell

The Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher

So, on one hand, we've got a fantasy murder mystery crossed with a retelling of one of my favorite fairy tales (Beauty and the Beast), featuring a heroine who I fell in friend-love with approximately five seconds into the book and a thoroughly shippable main couple. And on the other hand, we've got a steampunk adventure involving pirates and intrigue and adventure and terrifying creatures and a noblewoman-diplomat with no sense of tact and all the other things that I can't help but love. You see why I can't pick?  

2. Best sequel you've read so far in 2019:

It's a three-way tie this time, 'cause I'm terrible at decisions. YOU CAN'T MAKE ME CHOOSE.

Honor: A Quest In by Kendra E. Ardnek

Staff & Crown by W.R. Gingell

The Mortal Word by Genevieve Cogman

Honor is the best yet of the released Bookania Quests (note that I said "released"; Hair is even better); it's got the after-ever-after angle that I can't get enough of these days. Staff & Crown is the third in the Two Monarchies series and my second-favorite after Masque. (Notably, both of these books involve Isabelle as a major character.) And, of course, I can't fail to mention my beloved Invisible Library books, especially since The Mortal Word is another proper murder mystery that involved all my favorite characters in one place HALLELUJAH.

3. New release you haven't read yet but want to: 

A Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson!

I really should've read this by now, but my library is slow at getting it. I am muchly displeased. I thought about buying the OwlCrate box that was supposed to have this book in it, but I decided to save my money and get just the book later. But I'm super excited; Rogerson's An Enchantment of Ravens was one of my most-yelled-about books last year and I can't wait to see what this one has in store!

4. Most anticipated release for the second half of the year:

The Golden Braids Arista Challenge Release!

This is possibly cheating because, A) it's actually five releases, and, B) one of those releases is my book. But I am immensely excited about it, moreso than I am for any other book that I'm seeing on my Want-to-Read list on Goodreads, so we're going for it. As a reminder: signups for the blog tour are still going. Your support would be much appreciated.

All that said, if I have to pick a single release that I'm not directly involved with . . .

Starsight by Brandon Sanderson

I mean, Sanderson has to make this list somehow. It's practically tradition. And I am looking forward to reading this, even if Skyward isn't my favorite of his books. If his past performance is any indication, Starsight will be even better than the first book . . . and I'm holding out hope that it'll be another nomance novel with primary focus on friendships and comraderie, but I'm also preparing to be disappointed on that front.

Speaking of disappointments . . .

5. Biggest disappointment:

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

This book. This storming book. It could have been amazing. It had so much potential — dystopian fantasy, Navajo mythology, a monster-hunting protagonist. And then it squandered all that possibility by persistently muddling around in darkness and distrust and treachery and blood. At times, it went full-on horror story (enough so that I wish I could blank the book from my memory altogether, other than the fact that I shouldn't read it). Yeah. Don't try this one.

Oh, and speaking of wasted potential . . .

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

I never imagined that monsters, superpowers, and time travel could be so boring. It didn't help that the main character seemed to go out of his way to make himself unlikeable, or that all the other characters were equally grumpy and miserable and messy. Add on top of it that it has the same aggressively bleak and "realistic" feel as some of the books that turned me off realistic fiction when I was younger, and this is just a solid nope.  

6. Biggest surprise:

Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman

I picked this one up more or less on a whim and went in with low expectations, having read a lot of meh/unimpressed reviews . . . but it was actually surprisingly good? It's basically the fantasy equivalent of the road-trip-to-deal-with-your-problems that the contemporary genre loves so much, and it was rather slow-paced and meandering as a result . . . but it was also thoughtful and even philosophical at times and very much character-driven and generally a nice change of pace. It did talk about some rather heavy topics at times, and I'd rate it at the older end of YA (or possibly even NA?) as a result, but still, I enjoyed it.

7. Favorite new-to-you author:

W.R. Gingell! I found out about her through Deborah O'Carroll, tried Masque in hopes that it would cure my Invisible Library book-hangover, and fell in love almost immediately. Her Two Monarchies books are my favorite; I devoured them all within a week or so of reading the first ones. They're magical and wonderful and almost Diana Wynne Jones-ish in style. But I also really enjoy her City Between urban fantasies, which have a healthy dose of humor and mysteriousness and are generally fun.

8. Newest fictional crush/ship:

Tragically, the book-verse still insists on pairing off every interesting male character, and I try not to make a habit of entertaining crushes on people who are already taken (whether they're fictional or real — doing it with former means I have practice in avoiding drama with the latter). So, no character crushes.

New favorite ships on the other hand . . . those I've got. A few I especially like:

•  Isabelle and Pecus from Masque. (A delightful detecting duo; they're both clever and strong-willed and loyal, but they work really well together, when they're not working around each other.) 
• Luck and Poly from Spindle. (The most Howl and Sophie-ish couple I've ever read, other than the original. Need I say more?)
• Robin and Eric from Honor: A Quest In. (Technically already a favorite couple of mine, but they just keep getting better.)

And there's one other couple that could make the list, but they're spoilery. Suffice it to say that they show up in the last two books (chronologically speaking) of the Abhorsen Chronicles and that I did not see the ship coming.

9. Newest favorite character:

Have I raved enough about Isabelle from Masque yet? She's smart and stubborn and sneaky; she has a head for intrigue and mysteries and making people do and think as she wants; she loves food and friends and fashion; and she's just so fun to read about. Plus, when I first met her, she's twenty-eight and happily single and probably would've stayed that way for the whole book if Lord Pecus wasn't such a good match for her. Basically, she's fabulous and I would be quite happy to be her, honestly.


A few other favorites who I absolutely love:

• Melchior from the Two Monarchies series. (He's dashing and clever and dramatic and was temporarily a cat; what more could you want?)
• Captain Grimm from The Aeronaut's Windlass.  (A noble rogue of an airship captain whose tactical ability is only outweighed by his loyalty to his crew and his courage in the face of danger. He's arguably the best part of the book.)
• Gwendolyn Lancaster, also from The Aeronaut's Windlass. (Again: smart, stubborn, clever, but with emphasis on the stubbornness. She and Isabelle would probably get along, though Gwen isn't half as subtle as Isabelle can be.)
• Athelas from the City Between books. (How could you not love a tea-loving, scheming fae who knows far more than he lets on and is, in general, a reasonably sensible person?)
• Sabriel from the Abhorsen Chronicles. (She's smart and practical and generally a protagonist who I appreciate very much. She may not know what she's doing, but she'll get stuff done all the same.)
• Mogget, also from the Abhorsen Chronicles. (He's a cat who's really more than a cat. What more could you want?)
  

10. A book that made you cry:

Um. I don't know. I guess I'll say the Strange the Dreamer duology by Laini Taylor. It didn't make me cry, per se, but it did have some parts that made me sad and others that made me very angry, so it counts. Right?

11. A book that made you happy:

Paws, Claws, and Magical Tales anthology

I should probably stop yelling about the Two Monarchies books for a bit, so I'm going to spotlight this one instead. I mean, it's a whole anthology about magical cats and cats in magical situations; that's pretty guaranteed to make anyone happy. There's one story, "Whisker Width" (H.L. Burke), that I especially like and wouldn't mind ending up in the middle of.

(Also, Spindle, Masque, and Staff & Crown, but I said I'd stop yelling about Two Monarchies books.)

12. Favorite reread this year:

(This is replacing "favorite book-to-movie adaptation you've seen this year" because I never have a good answer for the original question.)

Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan

I don't think this surprises anyone, but I am so glad I decided to reread these books. I'd forgotten how awesome they are and also how much I love Leo. Leo is great. So's Frank. Anyway. And they really do go in the category of books-that-are-better-the-second-time-round, mostly because you semi-remember what's coming and you can say "Oh, I see what you did there" and also "Ok, it's fine; you know they survive." So that helps too.

Also worth mentioning: my reread of L. Frank Baum's Oz series. These were some of my favorite books when I was younger, and it's interesting to reread them now — they're way more bizarre than I remembered. Still good books, though.  

13. Favorite post you've done so far this year:

My post on The Only Blind Dates I'll Ever Go On, in which I sing the praises of my college's Blind Date With a Book event! Runner-up: my post a few weeks ago on whether steampunk is sci-fi or fantasy. Both were fun to write, though for very different reasons, and let me yell about something that excites me.

14. Most beautiful book you've bought so far this year:

I haven't bought many physical books this year, but I did find The Aeronaut's Windlass at my local used bookstore recently. So that's pretty fabulous. I'm going with that one. (Also, I got Firefly!!!)

15. What books do you need to read by the end of the year?

Lots. And I have no idea which ones I'll actually read because lately I've had a policy of "read what you feel like reading" instead of "must read all the newest releases." (The exception, of course, is when I have a book that I agreed to review.) But a few that are on my list include:

• Empress of All Seasons by Emiko Jean. (Asian fantasy that comes recommended by C.G. Drews; it sounds super cool and I meant to read it last summer but didn't have time.)
• The Bird and the Blade by Megan Bannen. (More Asian fantasy, this one based on the Mongols. Like Empress, I meant to read it last summer and then didn't.)
• All Rights Reserved by Gregory Scott Katsoulis. (I don't read much dystopian anymore, but this sounds cool, so I'm making an exception.)
• Hertz to Be a Hero by Bryan Davis. (I keep forgetting this book exists, but I really enjoyed the first one in this series, so, yeah. I need to read it.)

Whew. That was a lot of books. How's your reading going so far this year? Any books you really loved (or were really disappointed in)? Please tell me in teh comments!

Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)