Let’s Talk Bookish: Reading Challenges

February 7, 2025 kerrimcbooknerd6 Comments

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly bookish meme created by Rukky @Eternity Books and co-hosted by Aria @Book Nook Bits and Dini @dinipandareads! This meme has a discussion format, where participants get to talk about certain topics, share opinions, and spread the blogging love by visiting other posts. You can learn more about this meme here!

LTB Topic of the Week
Reading Challenges: Do We Love Them or Hate Them

Prompts: What do you think of reading challenges—do they motivate you or do they feel restrictive and end up making reading feel like a chore? Are there any challenges you participate in yearly? What reading challenges are you joining in 2025?

Hello, reader!

It’s a new year and, today, a new bookish meme on the blog! I’ve seen so many Let’s Talk Bookish posts on various blogs and always enjoy reading the discussions, yet I’ve never jumped in on the fun. Why? …Honestly, I have no idea 😂 But now, I want in on the action! Now I’m here to talk all about reading challenges and my feelings about them. Come join me for my first foray into this gabby meme.

What do you think of reading challenges—do they motivate you or do they feel restrictive and end up making reading feel like a chore?

You know, that answer changes as the year goes on, haha. At the beginning of the year, I find reading challenges to be super motivating! They make me excited for the new year because I love going through the prompts of the challenge once I’ve finished a book and seeing where I can squeeze it in. I love watching the prompts slowly get checked off. It gives me a sense of accomplishment.

…For about three months. Then, after I’ve knocked out a lot of the easier prompts and my random reads start to not check off anymore boxes, I realize that I might have to find specific books for said prompts and my reader soul REVOLTS. I’m a mood reader at heart. I always have been and, anytime I try to pretend I’m not, it never ends well. Actually, it usually ends in a reading slump 😅 So when I start having to pick books that I might not be in the mood to read, my urge to finish my reading challenges quickly wanes. Anytime reading starts to feel like a chore, my brain wants out.

That being said, it doesn’t stop me from trying every year, haha!

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www wednesday

WWW Wednesday: February 5th, 2025

February 5, 2025 kerrimcbooknerd5 Comments

It’s time for another WWW Wednesday! This is a bookish meme hosted by Taking on a World of Words where bloggers answer the 3 Ws:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

If you’d like to learn more about any of these books, click on the cover to be taken to the Goodreads page.

Current Reads

Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillig

Unlike my last update involving this book, I’m not longer barely into it and I have thoughts! I think I may be enjoying the second installment in The Shepard King duology and I think I may love it more than I did One Dark Window. I’m only 50 or so pages away from the end and, as long as the conclusion isn’t complete trash, this is going to be a 4.5 star read at the very least. I was almost late coming back from lunch today because I did not want to stop reading!

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book reviews

Book Review: Court of Wanderers by Rin Chupeco

February 3, 2025March 3, 2025 kerrimcbooknerdLeave a comment

Title: Court of Wanderers
Author: Rin Chupeco
Publisher: Saga Press
Genre: Fantasy
Age Group: Adult
Content/Trigger Warnings: Violence, body horror, blood, xenophobia, grief, self-harm
Book Links: Bookshop::B&N::Amazon::Goodreads

Remy Pendergast and his royal vampire companions return to face an enemy that is terrifyingly close to home in Rin Chupeco’s queer, bloody Gothic epic fantasy series for fans of Samantha Shannon’s The Priory of the Orange Tree and the adult animated series Castlevania.

Remy Pendergast, the vampire hunter, and his unexpected companions, Lord Zidan Malekh and Lady Xiaodan Song, are on the road through the kingdom of Aluria again after a hard-won first battle against the formidable Night Empress, who threatens to undo a fragile peace between humans and vampires. Xiaodan, severely injured, has lost her powers to vanquish the enemy’s new super breed of vampire, but if the trio can make it to Fata Morgana, the seat of Malehk’s court—dubbed “the Court of Wanderers”—there is hope of nursing her and bringing them back.

En-route to the Third Court, Remy crosses paths with his father, the arrogant, oftentimes cruel Lord of Valenbonne. He also begins to suffer strange dreams of the Night Empress, whom he has long suspected to be Ligaya Pendergast, his own mother. As his family history unfolds during these episodes, which are too realistic to be coincidence, he realizes that she is no ordinary vampire—and that he may end up having to choose between the respective legacies of his parents.

Posing as Malek and Xiaodan’s human familiar, Remy contends with Aluria’s intimidating vampire courts and a series of gruesome murders with their help—and more, as the three navigate their relationship. But those feelings and even their extraordinary collective strength will be put to the test as each of them unleashes new powers in combat at what may be proven to be the ultimate cost.

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first lines friday

First Lines Friday: January 31st, 2025

January 31, 2025 kerrimcbooknerdLeave a comment

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines? If you want to make your own post, feel free to use or edit the banner above, and follow the rules below:

Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Finally… reveal the book!

If you’re using Twitter, don’t forget to use #FirstLinesFridays!

Hello, reader!

Welcome to another First Lines Friday! I’m happy to gotten through another work week and not have to worry about working the weekend. Two whole days off of work? Whatever shall I do with myself? (Spoiler alert: I’ll be reading 😂) For this week, I’m featuring a sequel that I just picked up and am already loving. If you’ve been paying attention around here, you’ll probably be able to guess what it is without even the first line, haha.

That being said, let’s see if the first lines can pull you into the story.

The Line(s):

“The darkness bled into itself – no beginning, no end. I floated, buoyant on a tide of salt water. Above me, the night sky had blackened – moon and stars masked by heavy, water-laden clouds that never receded.”

The Build Up:

The Reveal:

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www wednesday

WWW Wednesday: January 29th, 2025

January 29, 2025 kerrimcbooknerd1 Comment

It’s time for another WWW Wednesday! This is a bookish meme hosted by Taking on a World of Words where bloggers answer the 3 Ws:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

If you’d like to learn more about any of these books, click on the cover to be taken to the Goodreads page.

Current Reads

Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillig

I quite literally just picked up this book because I just finished my last physical read! That means I don’t have much to share about my feelings for the sequel to One Dark Window other than I’m happy to be back in this world. There’s something about the winter time that lends itself to a nice, gothic atmosphere and this book certainly has that in spades. I’m hoping to love it as much as I did the first book. Fingers crossed for me!

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book reviews

Book Review: The Grimoire of Grave Fates edited by Hanna Alkaf and Margaret Owen

January 27, 2025 kerrimcbooknerdLeave a comment

Title: The Grimoire of Grave Fates
Edited by: Hanna Alkaf and Margaret Owen
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Genre: Fantasy
Age Group: Young Adult
Content/Trigger Warnings: Violence, murder, blood, racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, bullying
Book Links: Bookshop::B&N::Amazon::Goodreads

Crack open your spell book and enter the world of the illustrious Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary. There’s been a murder on campus, and it’s up to the students of Galileo to solve it. Follow 18 authors and 18 students as they puzzle out the clues and find the guilty party.

Professor of Magical History Septimius Dropwort has just been murdered, and now everyone at the Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary is a suspect.

A prestigious school for young magicians, the Galileo Academy has recently undergone a comprehensive overhaul, reinventing itself as a roaming academy in which students of all cultures and identities are celebrated. In this new Galileo, every pupil is welcome—but there are some who aren’t so happy with the recent changes. That includes everyone’s least favorite professor, Septimius Dropwort, a stodgy old man known for his harsh rules and harsher punishments. But when the professor’s body is discovered on school grounds with a mysterious note clenched in his lifeless hand, the Academy’s students must solve the murder themselves, because everyone’s a suspect.

Told from more than a dozen alternating and diverse perspectives, The Grimoire of Grave Fates follows Galileo’s best and brightest young magicians as they race to discover the truth behind Dropwort’s mysterious death. Each one of them is confident that only they have the skills needed to unravel the web of secrets hidden within Galileo’s halls. But they’re about to discover that even for straight-A students, magic doesn’t always play by the rules. . . .

Contributors include: Cam Montgomery, Darcie Little Badger, Hafsah Faizal, Jessica Lewis, Julian Winters, Karuna Riazi, Kat Cho, Kayla Whaley, Kwame Mbalia, L. L. McKinney, Marieke Nijkamp, Mason Deaver, Natasha Díaz, Preeti Chhibber, Randy Ribay, Tehlor Kay Mejia, Victoria Lee, and Yamile Saied Méndez

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first lines friday

First Lines Friday: January 24th, 2025

January 24, 2025 kerrimcbooknerdLeave a comment

Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Finally… reveal the book!

If you’re using Twitter, don’t forget to use #FirstLinesFridays!

Hello, reader!

Welcome to another First Lines Friday! For this week’s installment, I didn’t have a specific book in mind. I’m really stuck in Babylonia at the moment and it has taken over the bookish corner of my brain, haha. So we’re gonna be completely random with this one and grab something off my full-to-bursting bookshelf!

Perhaps reading the first line will not only make you want to read it, but me as well.

The Line(s):

“The legend they tell about me goes something like this:

First, you’ll see a streak of silver across the sky, like a comet burning through the fog.

Then, the clock hands will still halfway between this second and the next.

The world will fall silent, and the Reaper will knock three times on your bedroom door.”

The Build Up:

The Reveal:

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www wednesday

WWW Wednesday: January 22nd, 2024

January 22, 2025 kerrimcbooknerd2 Comments

It’s time for another WWW Wednesday! This is a bookish meme hosted by Taking on a World of Words where bloggers answer the 3 Ws:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

If you’d like to learn more about any of these books, click on the cover to be taken to the Goodreads page.

Current Reads

Babylonia by Costanza Casati

I’m a slow reader, y’all, so I’m still making my way through this one. The start, though it definitely has exciting parts, is a bit slow, but I think it works with the kind of story that is being told. We’re really focusing in on two people, Semiramis and Ninus, and how they view the world and navigate through it. So far, it’s fascinating and, now that I’m deeper into the novel, it’s starting to get beautifully politically twisty, too. One of my favorite things!

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book reviews

Book Review: Weyward by Emilia Hart

January 20, 2025 kerrimcbooknerd5 Comments

Title: Weyward
Author: Emilia Hart
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Genre: Historical Fiction
Age Group: Adult
Content/Trigger Warnings: For a list of potential trigger warnings, check out BookTriggerWarnings.com.
Book Links: Bookshop::B&N::Amazon::Goodreads

I am a Weyward, and wild inside.

2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great aunt she barely remembers. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she begins to suspect that her great aunt had a secret. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.

1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer who was stampeded to death by his herd. As a girl, Altha’s mother taught her their magic, a kind not rooted in spell casting but in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But unusual women have always been deemed dangerous, and as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom.

1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family’s grand, crumbling estate. Straitjacketed by societal convention, she longs for the robust education her brother receives––and for her mother, long deceased, who was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weyward scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom.

Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Emilia Hart’s Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.

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first lines friday

First Lines Friday: January 17th, 2025

January 17, 2025 kerrimcbooknerdLeave a comment

Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Finally… reveal the book!

If you’re using Twitter, don’t forget to use #FirstLinesFridays!

Hello, reader!

Happy Friday, everyone! And, possibly, happy long weekend if you celebrate Martin Luther King Jr Day in your neck of the woods. This is the first time in a loooong time that I actually have all three days off! That’s the life of being a healthcare worker for ya. To kick off a weekend of rest, relaxation, and lots of reading, it’s time for another First Lines Friday. Today’s pick is a novel that explores a culture that isn’t usually visited in historical fiction novels. I’m having an incredible time reading it, so far, and I have to say, the first line definitely pulled me in!

Now, let’s see if the first line will be intriguing enough to pull you in, as well.