Preparing for a book haul vacation

As much as I love books, there are times when you need to slow your roll or risk being seriously overwhelmed by your to be read piles.

I’m at that point now so I plan to take what Bridget Jones would call a “mini break “ from book buying, at over the summer. Rest assured that I have plenty to read and talk about here(more on that in a moment) but for now, this is my last regular book haul post.

My Book of the Month Club(which I am going to take a break from also) selections include a thriller and a romance, the former being The Last Word by Taylor Adams. Our leading lady is Emma, a woman house sitting at a remote beach house during the offseason.

She is recovering from a personal loss, accompanied by her dog Laika and her only other human contact is a distant neighbor who communicates via whiteboard messages. 

Emma spends most of her time reading inexpensive thriller novels online and the most gruesome one that she’s read so far prompted her to give it a one star review at the bookseller’s website. Much to her surprise, the author who calls himself H.G, Kane sends her a message demanding that she take the review down or else!

Emma refuses to do so and a series of strange situations begins-I’m early in the story at this point but I can say that the dog is not harmed(even the author doesn’t consider that a spoiler!). I find the premise intriguing so far and haven’t indulged in a page tuning thrill ride like this in awhile:

I paired that with Christina Lauren’s latest, The True Love Experiment. It’s a follow up to The Soulmate Equation and focuses on Felicity aka Fizzy Chen, a romance writer looking for love in more ways than one.

Feeling the need to revive her spirits, Fizzy decides to work with Connor Prince, a reality show producer, to find her real life love via a dating show. As long as her list of demands are met, Fizzy is willing to tackle any challenges thrown her way yet things get more difficult when it appears that her real meant-to-be is the guy behind the scenes instead on camera with her.

The duo of Christina Lauren (yes, this is a writing partnership) are great at creating engaging and nuanced characters, making Fizzy’s chance to be in the storytelling spotlight all the more fun. 

If these books haven’t been optioned for film adaptation yet, that is such a crime and I nominate Liza Lapira to play Fizzy at some point in the future!

Meanwhile, there was a bit of belated birthday book shopping done at an actual bookstore (again!) and I chose a couple of fantasy books that have gotten quite a lot of good word on Booktube lately.

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree is being heralded as “cozy fantasy “ or as the author puts it “high fantasy with low stakes”. The premise for this book alone defines this genre nicely: a warrior orc decides to retire from her adventurer for hire life and open up a coffeehouse.

Viv has some of the usual problems in starting up a new business in Thune, a small town that doesn’t know her well. Finding the right staff, adjusting the menu to local tastes and hoping for a good opening day are par for course but when most people in Thune don’t even know what coffee is in the first place makes things ever so more tricky.

Plus, Viv has to pay off the local magical gangster on a regular basis and an elf who used to be part of her former gang comes into town to claim what he believes is due to him from a previous job. Turns out that she may require the magic of friendship rather than a battle ax to save the day here.

This does sound like gentle fun and I love that the name of Viv”s shop is Calamity Coffee. Just imagine Gilmore Girls in cottage core mode:

The other fantasy novel I picked up is practically on the opposite end of L&L’s scale.

Fonda Lee’s Jade City is the first entry in a trilogy known as The Green Bone Saga, set in Hong Kong where two rival forces use jade stones to power their magic.

Leadership of one of the clans, No Peak, has changed hands but the new Pillar is not as strong as his predecessor, giving his female counterpart in the Mountain clan an opportunity to take his whole family operation down. 

Her ruthlessness appears to hold no bounds but there may be a member of No Peak’s younger generation that can rise to the formidable occasion when push comes to shove.

I’ve heard many great things about this series, including that this first book is inspired by the iconic Godfather movies, which is a plus for me. If this book works for me, I can get the other two volumes later on but right now, this entrance point promises to be royally entertaining to say the least:

Putting my book buying on pause is a necessary thing to do but not a real hardship at all.

 Between the summer TV hiatus and the current writers strike (which I fully support because we wouldn’t be readers/viewers without writers and they deserve to be fairly compensated), there’s going to be plenty of reading time to enjoy.

Also, I have a couple of readathons to take part in such as Sci-Fi Summer next month and next week, my contribution to the book tour for The Late Mrs. Willoughby by Claudia Grey-the sequel to late year’s The Murder of Mr. Wickham-will be posted! For those who like Jane Austen and old school mysteries, this should be your particular cup of literary tea.

Plus, I have other bookish blog plans for this summer that will include a library haul at some point (have a stack of those borrowed books to tackle too!). Yes, this ought to be a great season for books indeed.

Speaking of great seasons, I did dive into Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story this past weekend and that was infinitely more edifying than a certain coronation taking place elsewhere. 

While I am eagerly awaiting season three of the regular Bridgerton series. this bonus insight into the strong women in this fictional world was a true dance of delight and those who insist otherwise are much mistaken indeed. Let folks have fun, people! These days, a staycation is looking to be the better option and a good book on hand or a binge worthy show can make that option all the more enticing in the best sense: