That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted A Love Potion At A Warewolf – Kimberly Lemming: This is a funny monster romance. The spicy scenes were a bit too rough for me, but the author warned about those before the story started so I knew kinda what was coming. 3/5 stars.
The Spanish Love Deception– Elena Armas: At the start of this book there were a couple of things I did feel a bit weird about, for example the persistence of the guy. But in the end I thought it worked and I was fearing a third act breakup that would be worse than it was. 4/5 stars
One More Last Time – Eric Ugland: I would probably not picked up this one if it had not been for it being recommended to me. I am glad I did. Funny and unpredictable and I have already read three more in this series. 4/5
Plucked by the Orc – Jenna Larkin: Another monster romance. There were things I chose to not look too closely at because the story might not hold up super well. But I did enjoy the reading and will probably read more by this author. 4/5 stars (might have been a little generous with this rating)
The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir– Jennifer Ryan: Read in Swedish with the title Damkören i Chilbury. Sometimes you find yourself at a place without a self-brought book to read. Then you can check out the other books in the vicinity. I chose this one and it was a good pick. I enjoyed following the different characters and the different diary and letter entries. It made me want to pick up a couple of other books in the same time era. 4/5 stars.
People We Meet on Vacation – Emily Henry: Read in Swedish with the title Sommarmöten. It did make me cry. It did also bore me a little. A hard one to rate. Will probably read more by this author to get another feel of the author. 3,5/5 stars
The Unicorn Herd – Arizona Tape: This did unfortunately fall short. Did feel quite “childish” in the way it was told and the whole long distance relationship part felt unnecessary and annoying. 2/5 stars
After crocheting years on and off on the granny square blanket – it is finally finished! It has been fun to work on but all the colour switches created a lot of ends to weave in. My next project is a purple poncho.
I have recently been enjoying the first couple of books in the series The Good Guys by Eric Ugland.
I have not read so many books that takes place inside a game, mostly because I thought that would not be my cup of tea. But I did get this series recommended to me as a very funny series and that the narrator did a great job with the audiobooks. I am currently on the fifth book (the fourth book did get four stars as well) and I do agree. The narrator does a great job, and I never know what turns the story takes (except for that early slide down the mountain). Highly recommend!
It is time to choose a new book for the work book circle. We haven’t finished the current one but this time we are choosing the book earlier to strip down the waiting time in between the books. We have picked the theme to be horror and will probably start a voting round today or tomorrow. For the Uni book circle we are between books at the moment.
Hot and Badgered – Shelly Laurenston Series: The Honey Badger Chronicles Type of book: Audiobook Narrrator: Traci Odom Length: 13h 15 min
Synopsis from Goodreads: It’s not every day that a beautiful naked woman falls out of the sky and lands face-first on grizzly shifter Berg Dunn’s hotel balcony. Definitely they don’t usually hop up and demand his best gun. Berg gives the lady a grizzly-sized t-shirt and his cell phone, too, just on style points. And then she’s gone, taking his XXXL heart with her. By the time he figures out she’s a honey badger shifter, it’s too late.
Honey badgers are survivors. Brutal, vicious, ill-tempered survivors. Or maybe Charlie Taylor-MacKilligan is just pissed that her useless father is trying to get them all killed again, and won’t even tell her how. Protecting her little sisters has always been her job, and she’s not about to let some pesky giant grizzly protection specialist with a network of every shifter in Manhattan get in her way. Wait. He’s trying to help? Why would he want to do that? He’s cute enough that she just might let him tag along—that is, if he can keep up . . .
This book is a bit bananas and quite absurd. I do not think it tries to be anything else and that is what makes it work. I do have a few thoughts.
I like that family is present in this book. There are some people missing, some people that we (the main characters) do not like and then there is the three sisters that stick together. I feel like the main character often is isolated from family and sometimes also friends in a lot of books so it was pleasant to have some family present and close.
There was not a lot of shifting. I thought that we would see a lot more of shifted shifters, especially when we were in more shifter territory. Maybe we will get more shifting in the upcoming books when we have a different main character?
There are some unanswered questions, things that I did not feel like I got an answer to. But, since it is part of a series, perhaps we get those answers later.
For quite some time, I felt like the cover of this book was quite misplaced. I do imagine that the books that typically has these covers has more naked in them than fighting than the other way around. I do still think that the cover could have been different, I would have liked the sisters or a badger or something on the cover, but the last part of the book was maybe more to what the cover promises. I do wish that there would have been more spoken consent. We did not get anything that either character did not want but it would have been nice to have the question, at least waiting for an encouragement or something before diving in.
There is some mental illness representation in this book. I have not done any research about the book nor author so I do not know the background of why it is here but my interpretation of it is a kind of normalising about the topic that is done in a jokingly kind of manner.
A lot of things happens in this book. It almost feels like this book could have been separated into several books. The red line throughout the book was not very clear, things just keep happening and the direction was a bit fuzzy. the events were no really connected in a way that drove the plot forward. Since the whole book is a bit bananas, I accept and take it.
I gave this book 3 out of 5 stars – I enjoyed it and I have already started on the next book in the series.
Spring has finally come! The grass is green, the leaves on the trees are coming and spring flowers are blooming. Today was a warm summery kind of day and we had a long walk in the sunshine. These coming images are actually from last weeks evening walk, today’s walk had more tulips but not many photographed.
I am currently listening to Cursed Claws, book number three in the series Nine Lives Magic by Danielle Garrett. It is a cozy listen and a bit different to the Beechwood Harbor Magic Mystery series. I like the cat, she is my favourite character.
I do a lot of other crafts at the moment and my reading is therefore a bit slow. I mostly do crocheting and puzzling at the moment. Those are great things to do while listening to audiobooks but sometimes I just enjoy the silence, or keep a tv series in the background.
I am a couple of books behind in my Goodreads goal. Since it is still early in the year, I feel like I have time to catch up, I do have a couple of books that I know will be quick reads coming up. I did for example finish a Nancy Drew today, not a favourite but a bit entertaining amd a quick read. A good in-between book.
A blog called Lost in a Story started with the Down the TBR Hole posts. I have written more about this in my first post in Swedish. Shortly it’s about cleansing your to be read (TBR) shelf on Goodreads.
It’s been a while since I last did one of these posts. I felt like it was time to do give them a go again! The first two books were in the last post as well (I was thinking of trying to explain as to why they happen to be here but lets just roll with it) but as they happen to be here today, let’s take a look and see if we still want to keep them.
Perfected – Kate Jarvik Birch I did have it home from the library after the last post but did not get around to actually reading it. I am still interested in reading it though so I will keep it for now. Verdict: Stays.
Outlander – Diana Gabaldon Last time I added this one to my audiobook service and it ss still there waiting for me. I think I still want to read it at some point so lets keep it. Verdict: Stays.
The Nightingale – Kristin Hannah It feels like someone might have recommended this one to me. I am torn as to whether I think I would enjoy this one or not but I am a bit intrigued. I will keep it a little while longer Verdict: Stays.
Witchstruck – Victoria Lamb This book is not available at my audiobook service or the library. I am a bit hesitant towards buying it but I am intrigued. Staying? Verdict: Stays.
Cherry Ames (book 19, 20, 22, 13, 21, 18, 24) – Helen Wells x7 I am still making my way through this series. They are very cosy books and I understand why they were so big during their time. I am missing the next book in my collection to be able to continue so I need to track the next one down. Verdict: Stays.
Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death – James Runcie I have seen a couple of episodes of BBC’s tv series based on these books. I think that this series is something that I could really enjoy, question is when I will come to it Verdict: Stays.
How did it go this time? Books in the TBR shelf at start: 240 Number of staying books: 12 Number of leaving books: – Total amount of leaving books: 46 Number of reserved books at the library: 0 Number of books put in to-borrow-shelf: 0 Number of books added to audiobook-account: 0 Current amount of books in my TBR shelf: 260
Maybe a bit boring results from this round, no leaving books. It has been a while since I made one of these posts and I have added a bunch of new books to my shelves during this time. My to-read-shelf has now more books in it than when I started making these posts. I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing, I enjoy finding new things to read and I have actually been reading stuff from my TBR shelf as well! But, I could be better at actively picking up books from this list.
I enjoyed the Pick a random number challenge that I did a while back, I could try to do more of those to to prioritize some of these books.
Have you read any of these books? Are there any that I should try to prioritize?
Baka bullar – Fredrik Nylén Typ av bok: Inbunden Förlag: Semic
Beskrivning från förlagets hemsida: Välkommen till Fredriks härliga bakvärld!
Finns det något bättre än nybakade bullar? Att få till en smidig deg, grädda bullarna och fylla huset med doften av hembakat är magiskt.
Här hittar du de bästa tipsen på hur du lyckas med ditt bullbak! Pröva över 30 recept med allt från klassiker som kanelsnurror och solskensbullar till helt nya skapelser som citronknyten, bananbullar och bulltårta. Dessutom härliga fyllningar och recept på en riktigt god glutenfri bulldeg som passar bra till många av recepten.
När jag fyllde år för flera år sedan fick jag en bok full av bullrecept. En mycket passande present eftersom jag tycker mycket om att baka. Nu har ett par månader (och några år, för jag publicerade aldrig recensionen när jag skrev den) fått och jag har hunnit provbaka en del ur boken. Jag har bakat kanelbullar, chokladsnurror, bananbullar, solskensbullar, hastbullar, de glutenfria bullarna och lussebullar.
Recepten i boken är lätta att följa och bullarna blir saftiga och goda. Jag äger (ännu) ingen bra maskin som kan hjälpa till att blanda bullsmet men det är inga problem, det resulterar bara i en lite tröttare armar efter lite längre vevande.
Det här är en mycket bra bullrecept-bok! Känner jag för att baka lite bullar är det här definitivt en av böckerna jag bläddrar i. Bara att skriva om boken gör mig sugen att bläddra och se vad jag skulle kunna testa på härnäst.
Bluebeard and the Outlaw – Tara Grayce Series: A Villain’s Ever After #3 Type of book: audiobook Narrator: Liz Brand Length: 5 h 2 min
Synopsis from Goodreads: Marriage: the ultimate heist. Robin of the Wood spends her days robbing from the rich to feed the poor. But she and her merry band of brothers never seem to get anywhere. The more she steals, the more the evil Lord Guy “Bluebeard” taxes the villagers. When Robin discovers that Lord Guy plans to marry yet again, she conceives a plan for a final, big score. As Guy’s wife, she will have access to his wealth. The lord is notorious for killing his wives shortly after he marries them, but Robin has no plans to be dead wife number four. The only problem is that Lord Guy is devastatingly handsome, brooding, and nothing at all what she expected. If she isn’t careful, she might just find that he steals her heart before she can rob his riches.
I felt like this story had quite the potential but not did not really live up to what it could have been. Where do I start?
It was fun that Hood’s band was her brothers but that did not help the story. It felt a bit forced that all of them were siblings and that they just followed everything Robin says blindly. It felt like Robin could not do anything wrong, she did not have any faults. Even when she did play a noblewoman quite poorly, no-one questioned whether she was the person she was pretending to be or not.
I would have expected that someone who had spent a lot of time chasing a person would have suspected something? And they could have done more with the sheriff, there was a potential for him to take a bigger character role in the beginning of the book? Now it did not really make sense as to why he was spending so much time at that house?
As an archer I always find it fascinating to read descriptions of shooting arrows and bows in books. This one was perhaps not spot on but it was not any major errors that poked me in the eye while reading anyway.
I think that I am giving this book a weak 3 stars out of 5. I did enjoy listening to this book, it was a fun variant of the Robin Hood story, but it could have been so much more.
I am still reading Blood Heir, but am nearing the end. I like it, a lot of things are happening all the time but it does not call on me to pick it up, to keep reading.
I am currently listening to Hot and Badgered by Shelly Laurenston. It has a bit of humour in it and is a bit absurd. A lot of things that are not explained and I am not sure that we will get the answer to it. It is a fun listen anyway and I might continue the series also after I have finished this one. I find the idea of badger shifters quite fun. So far we have not seen very few full shifts, though, I was kind of expecting more. I am not too fond of the audiobook cover, I would rather have had a badger or something on it. Or the three sisters. I know that this cover is common on certain books but I do not think that this represents the content of the book.
I have finished my shawl crocheting project! I have really enjoyed this colour shifting yarn and I am now trying to decide on my next project with a similar yarn. This pattern was very easy so I think that I would like to try something a little more advanced next. I do also have other projects started that I will spend some time on while I think.
A friend of mine told me about this challenge where you pick random number between 1 and the amount of books you have in your “to-read” shelf on Goodreads. The number that gets picked, that book you have to read (if you can get ahold of the book).
I decided to try it out straight away and and got number 192. Number 192 was #TheReadCinderella by Yesenia Vargas. I love to dive in to a retelling of Cinderella and started as soon as I’d said goodbye to my friend.
#TheRealCinderella – Yesenia Vargas Narrator: Kyla Garcia Series: #BestFriendsForever #1
Synopsis from Goodreads: Geeky Ella Reyes is at the bottom of the totem pole at Westwood High. Her ultra-popular stepsisters refuse to be seen with her at school, and every day she comes home to a mountain of chores.
Ella’s only friend (and maybe crush) lives on the other side of her phone’s screen. She and Baller929 know everything about each other, except their real names.
When they have a chance to meet at her school’s Halloween ball, Ella must figure out a way to get there without her stepmom or stepsisters finding out.
Is revealing her identity to Baller929 worth risking the one good thing left in her life? Or is he too good to be true?
I’m not crying, you’re crying! No but for reals, I got a little teary eyed at the end with the apologizing from the step sisters.
This is a tricky book to rate. On one hand, I got very invested and love the Cinderella type of story. But there are also things that do not really fit nicely in the story. For example, the dress. They had no real indication that the dress was actually for her, they just assumed and took it?
I usually do not complain so much on character development and similar but here it feels like I need to a little bit. She was too nice all the way throughout the story. She was the only one apologizing. Now, it has been a while since I finished this book but in my notes from this book, it seems like the step sisters apologizes to Ella but that she also apologizes (but perhaps can be interpreted as a “I am sorry you felt that way” kind of sorry). The guy though, he did not apologize and that made me a bit mad.
Ella also had a lot of thoughts about her appearance, that she did not look as good as all the other girls in the school and that her glasses was a part of this (she did become a lot pretties without them?). I would have loved to see a much clearer insight that this did not matter, that she would have realized that this does not matter. She does realize that she can save herself but the appearance leaves us hanging. Why do they need to chase the pretty-ness? Also, glasses are not something that makes people less pretty and it is weird that this still is something that authors choose to write.
Initial thought was to give this book a 4, but because of the apologizing and the character development, I think I will leave it at a 2.5 out of 5 stars.
I do not think I am the only one planning to do so many things and then not being able to do them all. It does not really bother me that I cannot do everything but some things are always the thing that gets the prioritization later. I always read, sometimes more and sometimes less, but writing about what I read often get the prioritization later. And then I often have this okay, now is the day I am going to start writing for real. Today is one of those days. I like writing so lets see if I can prioritize it a bit for a little while.
What am I currently reading? A couple of things. I currently have a bunch of books in a stack that I have started but mostly I am reading Blood Heir by Amélie Wen Zhao. There is magic and conmen and I hope this is a successful combo, so far so good.
I am currently listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling. I regularly listen to Harry Potter, mostly in English with Stephen Fry (great narrator!) but seldom to the last two books in the series. I have currently about two hours left and I am not sure what to listen to next.
I recently found that my audiobook service is now allowing me to listen to books in more language than Swedish, English, Finnish and Arabic. I learned German for several years in school and have always had the ambition to continue to learn German and now I am trying to find the right book to listen to. Since my German is not the best it has ever been, I want to find something familiar with a not too advanced language. I was sad to find that they did not have the Harry Potter books in German because that would have been the obvious pick. I have read the first book in German with my eyes and have started the second but I would find it nice to listen to it at the same time as reading it with my eyes to enhance the learning a bit.
I am a bit behind in my Goodreads goal so far this year. It is one of the few book goals I set each year. But there is a lot left of this year so we will see how it goes. I have plans to read a bunch of my thinner books on my shelves and a few thicker ones and then there are those German ones.
What have I been doing otherwise? I crochet, put up new wallpaper in the house we are renting, puzzle, think about repotting my plants, bake, cook and attend a lot of different activities.
Have You Read This One? 