Gathering up some cozy magic for a Winter’s Respite of reading

 Already halfway through to the middle of the first month of this new year and I’m all signed up for my first readathon of 2024!

Seasons of Reading (hosted by the excellent Michelle Miller) will be holding its annual Winter’s Respite readathon this upcoming February  which lasts the whole month long. You can read what you want, no theme necessary but I chose to do a themed TBR here.

My general idea for this challenge is “cosy magic”, a genre that’s getting more popular these days.

Not trying to bandwagon my book reading yet it does sound so appealing right about now that it is hard to resist.

Since the supernatural fits into this category (for me, anyway), my first selection is My Roommate is a Vampire by Jenna Levine. 

Cassie is an artist living in Chicago who just lost the lease on her apartment and spots an almost too good to be true online ad for a new place. One if the catches is that this is a roommate situation, with the current resident keeping nighttime hours.

Despite her doubts, Cassie takes the deal and most of her communications with the mysterious Frederick J. Fitzwilliam are by thoughtful notes left for her, which is weirdly charming. However, one day she discovers bags of blood in the fridge and confronts him only to learn that yes, he’s a vampire and no, his intentions are not devious.

As it turns out, Frederick has awoken from a hundred years sleep and is really looking for a mortal friend to help ease him into modern society. Cassie decides to help him out but is their relationship going to be truly friendly or potentially something a bit more romantic?

I picked this book up as part of my after holiday shopping and it arrived in the nick of time for this readathon TBR lineup. Vampire stories are usually a favorite of mine and this light hearted approach to the genre should be quite entertaining:

For my next pick, I went with Kate Robb’s This Spells Love, which was a BOMC selection from last year (how odd it is to say “last year “ regarding a few months ago!).

Our leading lady is Gemma, who decides to get over a bad breakup by performing a spell with her giddy Aunt Livi that goes seriously awry. Due to spell casting under the influence of alcohol, Gemma wakes up to a whole new life that doesn’t include her best friend Dax(who she kissed as part of the enchantment).

While kissing Dax again could break the spell, it’s not as easy as it sounds since Dax has no idea who she is or once was to him. Along with getting reacquainted with him, Gemma finds better opportunities in this alternate universe than in her previous life and starts to wonder if this present reality is worth trading in after all.

With Valentines Day coming soon (according to all of the candy displays set up everywhere right now), this seems to be an ideal read indeed:

Speaking of ideal, Bookshops & Bonedust, the prequel to Travis Baldree’s Legends & Lattes, was destined to be on my reading list.

Apparently, the author intended to write a sequel that had a Murder She Wrote vibe to it originally but it just wasn’t working. Eventually, he chose to add a bookish take to the backstory of Viv, a warrior woman that ends up running a coffeehouse after her fighting days are done.

Just goes to show you that creativity is not a straight nor narrow path there and sometimes that is truly for the best:

Happy reading to all who sign up for this(or any other) readathon and there is a link above to check Winter’s Respite out if you’re interested. 

February is a good time to catch up on your reading since the weather is usually pretty rough around that time and it looks as if we might be getting some real snow falling soon. A good steady flow of snow is perfect for cozy winter reading, if you ask me: