Matching into spring with a bountiful book haul

Despite the lingering chill in the air, spring is definitely coming upon us and the best way to get ready for that delightful season is by stacking up a few good books for reading.

My Book of the Month Club selections for this month include a special award winning book, awarded by the readers no less.

Abby Jimenez’s Yours Truly won the Book of the Year award (aka BOTY) from BOMC, voted on by the subscribers and this is my first time getting a BOTY edition, which I find pretty sweet!

While this novel is not a direct sequel to Part of Your World (I wound up getting a BOMC edition of that last month and so far, it’s a great read), one of the supporting characters from that story is in the central spotlight here.

Brianna Ortiz has enough to deal with as it is, with her brother desperately needing a kidney transplant and getting her divorce over and done with without having to handle a potential new rival at work.

As it turns out, Jacob Maddox is not interested in taking that promotion away from anyone; he’s just trying to handle this new job along with his social anxiety that tends to make bad impressions for him.

Brianna is less than thrilled with him but after receiving a letter of apology from Jacob for his rudeness towards her, she’s willing to give him another chance. As the two of them grow closer, they discover that each of them can help the other outside of work in ways neither of them could imagine.

When I finish up with Part of Your World, I fully intend to dive into this engaging tale of romance and emotional growth. Congratulations to Abby Jimenez for this win and I hope that her next book will be another BOMC favorite for all:

I paired that up with A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle L. Jensen, a fantasy novel with Norse mythology and a strong female lead.

Freya has been concealing the fact that she is one of those “blessed by blood” from the gods,destined to be a shield maiden who will fight for the next great king amongst her people for a long time.

However, when her cruel husband learns the truth, he is quick to bring her forth to Snorri, their tribal leader in order to get a divorce. Snorri grants that request and takes Freya as his bride, wanting to be the one who benefits from her intended fate.

He even assigns his firstborn son Bjorn as her personal protector, having no idea how attracted to each other they are. While Freya is still sorting out her place in court and dealing with her feelings for Bjorn, she knows one thing that they do not; a fated person has the final say on what their destiny will or won’t be.

I’ve been wanting to read more fantasy this year so this sounds like a great place to start. The book is the first in a new series and hopefully, I will be able to get the next one in a BOMC edition. Even if that doesn’t work out, having a warrior woman read on hand feels excellently awesome right about now:

Then I went to my local library and picked up the third book in the Tita Rosie’s Kitchen mystery series by Mia P. Manansala entitled Blackmail and Bibingka.

Bibingka is a traditional  dessert served around the winter holidays as we find coffee shop owner Lily and friends planning for at their growing business along with her aunt’s restaurant in the small town of Shady Palms.

When her cousin Ronnie comes back to town with a new winery ready to set up shop, Lily is naturally suspicious as he’s been known as Mr. Unreliable in more ways than one. However, his mother wants to give him the benefit of the doubt and asks Lily to go with her to meet his new business partners.

That meeting starts off well enough but when the wife of one of Ronnie’s new associates dies from drinking a bottle of wine that Ronnie prepared, it’s up to Lily to use those sleuthing skills of hers to save him from being unjustly punished for murder.

While there are plenty of suspects around, a blackmail demand sent before the killing points toward a past situation that may or may not involve Ronnie. Can Lily solve more than one mystery and still start the holiday season off right?

I do like this series as Manansala has a lively way with describing the food and family relationships that are truly delicious to read. Finding these titles at my library is such a tasty treat indeed:

Also, in pursuit of more fantasy books, I came across The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill by Rowenna  Millet.

Alaine learned about how one could strike a deal with the Fae on the title location from her grandmother , who claims that how her husband was able to get the family farm that she has inherited.

With the farm not doing well and her younger sister Delphine planning to marry a man that will move her to the city, Alaine starts to wonder if that old story was true and if so, can she make such a bargain to improve her own situation in life?

Turns out Delphine has a similar notion as she’s not that confident among the socialite class that she is trying to put a part of these days. As each sister makes her exchange with the Fae folk, the price they truly have to pay is most unexpected indeed.

This does sound interesting (not to mention that the cover is gorgeous!) so I’m willing to give it a go. Rowenna Miller is a new to me author and perhaps I might check out more of her work if the page turning magic clicks with me. It’s truly magical how one good book can lead you to another and another:

It will be nice to have a good full season of spring this year-lately it seems as if spring is a short bridge from winter to summer that keeps getting shorter all the time.

Hopefully, that path will extend out a little further this time around.

In the meanwhile, we have plenty of books ready to bloom on our shelves and before I go, I must mention that I gathered up a few books for future reading projects at a Leap Year sale at Better World Books.

Two of them I’ll talk about later this month but the other two are being set aside for my Meeting of the Marys challenge. Along side Romantic Outlaws(a duel bio about Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley), I will be rereading The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White as well as Shelley’s Frankenstein in a nice Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition.

The other new to me read will be Vindication of the Rights of Women by Wollstonecraft . Considering the state of things regarding women’s rights these days, I have a feeling that this early feminist work will be very relevant in a not so reassuring way.

With any luck, I will be able to start this challenge before the end of spring (need to complete my Jane Journey first!) and enjoy a little compare and contrast with this mother/daugther team , the latter being a most memorable literary diva whose influence still springs forward today: