Holiday book haul, part one!

Now that the holiday season is mostly over for now, we can get back to the regular business of books. However, it’s still soon enough to chat about our holiday book hauls!

This year, I let my Book of the Month selections be given to me as family Christmas gifts (easier shopping that way) and I’ve already started one them, Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Torzs. This debut novel focuses on two sisters, Joanna and Esther, who deal with the family legacy of caretaking magical books in different ways.

Esther moves from place to place, never staying longer than a year due to her father’s warning that those who destroyed her mother will be able to find her if she lingers too long somewhere. With her father being recently deceased, Esther decides to ignore that order but it turns out that maybe her dad was right all along…

Meanwhile, her half sister Joanna is stuck at home, tending the library alone and trying to unlock the secrets of the book that killed their father. If only Esther would come back to help her out…

So far, this book is an engaging slow yet steady burn that I know will be better to take my time with than to hurry up to get to the end. Magic books in any form are literary catnip to me:

Next, Nita Prose’s The Mystery Guest promises to be an unexpected delight. This follow-up to The Maid has the quirky Molly the Maid still working at the Grand Regency Hotel only now as head housekeeper.

When a famous mystery writer literally drops dead at a press conference in the hotel ballroom, Molly is considered a prime suspect due to serving him the last cup of tea that he would ever drink.

While she’s innocent of his murder, the victim is no stranger to Molly as she and her late grandmother used to be his house cleaner in the past. Can her insider knowledge help her find the real killer here?

While I thought the first book was good enough on it’s own to not need a sequel, this new story looks to be as smartly entertaining as an episode of Molly’s favorite mystery TV show, Columbo, which I have grown to love as well:

For something completely different, my last choice was Gwen & Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher.

Art is a royal descendant of King Arthur’s son Mordred who is meant to marry Gwen, a reigning princess of Camelot. Neither of them like each other on first sight but the marriage is still to take place so they have to figure out some way of getting along.

It turns out that they do share one thing in common and that mutual secret helps them become allies who cover each other’s backs in that regard. With both of them falling in love with other people, can this friendly arrangement lead them to a true happy ever after one way or another?

YA historical romance is not something that I read often yet this story sounded like a welcome change of pace there. Nice to see certain genre tropes get shaken up a little in the best sense:

Lastly, I did receive one book that wasn’t a BOMC selection. Usually, prequels aren’t my jam but Bookshops & Bonedust is clearly the exception to such a rule.

This early look at the leading warrior woman from Travis Baldre’s Legends & Lattes shows Viv back in her mercenary days, having to temporarily leave her crew due to an injury.

Her reluctance to stay behind while her friends hunt down a necromancer brings Viv to channel her energies towards the local bookshop, where bookseller Fern has a nearly magical knack for finding the right book for any reader. As time goes by, Viv makes some new friends and perhaps an enemy yet despite enjoying her stay, is determined to rejoin the merc crew no matter what.

L&L was such a wonderful read that even a look into Viv’s backstory is a real treat indeed. This should tide over fans of that charming cozy fantasy until we get another book from Baldee. At the very least, it’s a great excuse to reread L&L, something a certain Disney princess would approve of:

Well, this was a Merry Christmas for me, book wise but those after holiday sales peaked my interest too, which means that I have a part two of this post as soon as the rest of those books come in!

Meanwhile, I hope you had a great holiday season of reading and find many more page turning treasures in this new year. As much as I like winter, this spring to come does give us a new season of Bridgerton that happens to be a two parter to boot! Perhaps duets will be the literary theme for this year, we shall see: