ThatBookish_deviant's bookshelf: read en-US Fri, 04 Jul 2025 05:44:48 -0700 60 ThatBookish_deviant's bookshelf: read 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Perfume & Pain 199797848 A controversial Los Angeles author attempts to revive her career and finally find true love in this hilarious nod to 1950s lesbian pulp fiction.

Having recently moved both herself and her formidable perfume bottle collection into a tiny bungalow in Los Angeles, mid-list author Astrid Dahl finds herself back in the Zoom writer’s group she cofounded, Sapphic Scribes, after an incident that leaves her and her career lightly canceled. But she temporarily forgets all that by throwing herself into a few sexy distractions—like Ivy, a grad student who smells like metallic orchids and is researching 1950s lesbian pulp, or her new neighbor, Penelope, who smells like patchouli.

Penelope, a painter living off Urban Outfitters settlement money, immediately ingratiates herself in Astrid’s life, bonding with her best friends and family, just as Astrid and Ivy begin to date in person. Astrid feels judged and threatened by Penelope, a responsible older vegan, but also finds her irresistibly sexy.

When Astrid receives an unexpected call from her agent with the news that actress and influencer Kat Gold wants to adapt her previous novel for TV, Astrid finally has a chance to resurrect her waning career. But the pressure causes Astrid’s worst vice to rear its head—the Patricia Highsmith, a blend of Adderall, alcohol, and cigarettes—and results in blackouts and a disturbing series of events.

Unapologetically feminine yet ribald, steamy yet hilarious, Anna Dorn has crafted an exquisite homage to the lesbian pulp of yore, reclaiming it for our internet- and celebrity-obsessed world.]]> 352 Anna Dorn 1668047179 ThatBookish_deviant 4 own-paperback, lgbtqia2s 3.75/5 3.87 2024 Perfume & Pain
author: Anna Dorn
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/07/04
date added: 2025/07/04
shelves: own-paperback, lgbtqia2s
review:
3.75/5
]]> The Buffalo Hunter Hunter 214565614 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians comes a tale of the American West, writ in blood.

This chilling historical novel is set in the nascent days of the state of Montana, following a Blackfeet Indian named Good Stab as he haunts the fields of the Blackfeet Nation looking for justice.

It begins when a diary written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall in 2012. What is unveiled is a slow massacre, a nearly forgotten chain of events that goes back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow, told in the transcribed interviews with Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar and unnaturally long life over a series of confessional visits.

This is an American Indian revenge story, captured in the vivid voices of the time, by one of the new masters of literary horror, Stephen Graham Jones.]]> 435 Stephen Graham Jones 1668075083 ThatBookish_deviant 2 own-hardcover, vampires 4.13 2025 The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
author: Stephen Graham Jones
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/07/03
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: own-hardcover, vampires
review:

]]> Wasps in the Ice Cream 60037977
Summer 1987: Mark Prewitt's only priority is to avoid his dad's new wife and waste time with his friends, but idle nights are the devil's handiwork. When his friends decide to pull a cruel prank on the reclusive and strange Farrow sisters, Mark regrets caving in to peer pressure.

Wanting to make amends, Mark is drawn into the mysterious world of the Farrow girls, finding a kindred spirit in the middle sister, George. She is unlike anyone he's ever known; a practicing witch who uses folk magic to protect her family. They bond over books, loneliness, and homemade spells. She even invites Mark to join a séance to contact her dead sister, who died under mysterious circumstances.

Keeping their relationship secret, Mark learns that living a double life in a town this small is impossible. When the secret is exposed, and his friends plot to punish the witch sisters for stealing one of their own, Mark is forced to choose between these two worlds.]]> 282 Tim McGregor ThatBookish_deviant 5 witches, summertime
Story about outcasts, witches and ghosts set amid the backdrop of summertime, 1987. This coming-of-age story takes place in small-town, USA where peer pressure has a strangle hold on awkward teen residents. The plot revolves around Mark, who recently lost his Mom and is reluctantly living with his Dad and new stepmom. Soon Mark befriends a girl who lives nearby, George Farrow.

George, descended from a local family of folk witches, is mourning the death of a sister who passed under mysterious circumstances. Her sister’s ghost may or may not also be haunting Mark’s bedroom. While Mark struggles to repress his burgeoning feelings for the ostracized Farrow witch, George faces increased violence at home and among her peers.

While this novel deals with heavy issues like grief and bullying it’s also oddly sweet and cozy. It tackles issues most of us can relate to, particularly when reminiscing about those uncertain teen years when you’re just trying to figure out your place in the world. This was such a pleasantly surprising read as I had no expectations prior to actually digging into the text. I forgot that I’d read another novel by the author, Tim McGregor, called Eynhallow which I also really liked. This makes two big hits now by McGregor which have me looking forward to reading more from him.]]> 4.02 2023 Wasps in the Ice Cream
author: Tim McGregor
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/07/03
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: witches, summertime
review:
4.5/5

Story about outcasts, witches and ghosts set amid the backdrop of summertime, 1987. This coming-of-age story takes place in small-town, USA where peer pressure has a strangle hold on awkward teen residents. The plot revolves around Mark, who recently lost his Mom and is reluctantly living with his Dad and new stepmom. Soon Mark befriends a girl who lives nearby, George Farrow.

George, descended from a local family of folk witches, is mourning the death of a sister who passed under mysterious circumstances. Her sister’s ghost may or may not also be haunting Mark’s bedroom. While Mark struggles to repress his burgeoning feelings for the ostracized Farrow witch, George faces increased violence at home and among her peers.

While this novel deals with heavy issues like grief and bullying it’s also oddly sweet and cozy. It tackles issues most of us can relate to, particularly when reminiscing about those uncertain teen years when you’re just trying to figure out your place in the world. This was such a pleasantly surprising read as I had no expectations prior to actually digging into the text. I forgot that I’d read another novel by the author, Tim McGregor, called Eynhallow which I also really liked. This makes two big hits now by McGregor which have me looking forward to reading more from him.
]]> The Children Act 21965107
Fiona Maye is a High Court judge in London presiding over cases in family court. She is fiercely intelligent, well respected, and deeply immersed in the nuances of her particular field of law. Often the outcome of a case seems simple from the outside, the course of action to ensure a child's welfare obvious. But the law requires more rigor than mere pragmatism, and Fiona is an expert in considering the sensitivities of culture and religion when handing down her verdicts.

But Fiona's professional success belies domestic strife. Her husband, Jack, asks her to consider an open marriage and, after an argument, moves out of their house. His departure leaves her adrift, wondering whether it was not love she had lost so much as a modern form of respectability; whether it was not contempt and ostracism she really fears. She decides to throw herself into her work, especially a complex case involving a seventeen-year-old boy whose parents will not permit a lifesaving blood transfusion because it conflicts with their beliefs as Jehovah's Witnesses. But Jack doesn't leave her thoughts, and the pressure to resolve the case - as well as her crumbling marriage - tests Fiona in ways that will keep readers thoroughly enthralled until the last stunning page.]]> 221 Ian McEwan 0385539703 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 3.69 2014 The Children Act
author: Ian McEwan
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Pirate Women: The Princesses, Prostitutes, and Privateers Who Ruled the Seven Seas]]> 32202167
Author Laura Sook Duncombe also looks beyond the stories to the storytellers and mythmakers. What biases and agendas motivated them? What did they leave out? Pirate Women explores why and how these stories are told and passed down, and how history changes depending on who is recording it. It’s the most comprehensive overview of women pirates in one volume and chock-full of swashbuckling adventures that pull these unique women from the shadows into the spotlight that they deserve. ]]> 264 Laura Sook Duncombe 1613736010 ThatBookish_deviant 0 3.23 2017 Pirate Women: The Princesses, Prostitutes, and Privateers Who Ruled the Seven Seas
author: Laura Sook Duncombe
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.23
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: nautical, nonfiction, currently-reading
review:

]]> Swordheart (Swordheart, #1) 42747739 426 T. Kingfisher 1614504636 ThatBookish_deviant 0 currently-reading 4.06 2018 Swordheart (Swordheart, #1)
author: T. Kingfisher
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Pretenders to the Throne of God (The Tyrant Philosophers)]]> 231387493 Arthur C. Clarke winner and Sunday Times bestseller returns to a world steeped in magic – and the Tyrant Philosophers' campaign to bring reason, logic and 'perfection' to it.

Eres Ffenegh - “the City on the Back of a Crab” - is the next state slated for conquest by the Palleseen, but its citizens won't give up sovereignty easily, and the siege has now dragged into the harsh Eresi winter. The defenders – both locals and Pal renegades – hold an uneasy alliance against the enemy at the gates, while the Pal army is constantly looking over its shoulder for the next self-destructive dictate of their government back home.

Within the city, Devil Jack is the apprentice to the notorious conjurer and bawd known as the Widow, a good man driven to bargaining with hell to get back what he's lost. Meanwhile Kiffel ea Leachan is the city's champion, a child of privilege who's just lost everything to the invaders. We follow the ups and downs of both as they try to survive the siege and make their own destinies in a world that's cut them loose.

Outside the city, the Pals have been desperately waiting for reinforcements so they can finally take the city, but when new soldiers finally march in with the winter it's the worst kind of help, enough to damn the entire army.

THE TYRANT PHILOSOPHERS
1. City of Last Chances: portrait of Ilmar, a city under Palleseen occupation
2. House of Open Wounds: portrait of the Palleseen war machine at work.
3. Days of Shattered Faith: portrait of a kingdom consumed, piece-by-piece, by Palleseen diplomatic subterfuge.
3.1 Lives of Bitter Rain: a prequel novella to Days of Shattered Faith, portrait of a life in the Palleseen diplomatic corps.
4. Pretenders to the Throne of God: portrait of a city under siege.
5. The Grave of Perfection: will take us back to Ilmar, the 'City of Last Chances' where our story began.]]> 544 Adrian Tchaikovsky 1035914972 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read, own-hardcover 0.0 Pretenders to the Throne of God (The Tyrant Philosophers)
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: to-read, own-hardcover
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dreams of Fire (Gael Song, #0.5)]]> 207572085
Rónnat and Fódla are Descendants of the Tuatha Dé Danann. They live a peaceful life with their aged warrior father in the north of Ireland. The Fomorians – age-old enemies of their kind – are thought to be battle-vanquished, for no conflict has been fought between their immortal races for generations.

But rumours of war and endless shifting allegiances mean that the Descendants' position is not secure in the mortal world. There are powerful voices among the Descendants who want their kind to dwell permanently in strongholds hidden from mortals – threatening Rónnat's love of freedom.

And the Fomorians, though greatly reduced in number, are far from vanquished. Led by their mighty prince, Balorach, the remaining Fomorians, with their gift of fire-magic, seek to destroy the Descendants.

The Descendants have the advantage of their own magical powers, and mighty warriors defend them... but if they cannot be beaten, why do the voices Rónnat hears on the wind speak of death and destruction?]]> 105 Shauna Lawless 103590215X ThatBookish_deviant 0 4.47 2024 Dreams of Fire (Gael Song, #0.5)
author: Shauna Lawless
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: to-read, witches, historical-fiction, mythology, novellas, own-kindle
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dreams of Sorrow (Gael Song, #2.5)]]> 213849716 A tale of magic, power and heartbreak set in the tumultuous world of medieval Ireland, Dreams of Sorrow is the powerful second novella in Shauna Lawless's Gael Song series.

Senna is fifteen and deeply in love. When a traumatic event leads to her unleashing powers she never knew she had, she learns her true her grandmother was a witch and a Descendant of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the legendary former rulers of Ireland.

But such gifts are hard to control, and Senna's abilities mean that she might forever lose her place in the mortal world.

When she encounters other Descendants with similar powers, things start to look brighter. Anaile, old and wise, can help guide her path. Tomas, deeply ambitious, reveals the truth behind many strange mysteries. And Gobnat, a vivacious young witch, shows Senna how to control her magic.

But torn between a mortal existence and a magical one, Senna must make a decision that will shape her life... in more ways than she could ever expect.]]> 101 Shauna Lawless 1035902184 ThatBookish_deviant 0 4.52 2024 Dreams of Sorrow (Gael Song, #2.5)
author: Shauna Lawless
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: to-read, witches, historical-fiction, mythology, novellas, own-kindle
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dreams of Chaos (Gael Song, #0.6)]]> 223610896 A young Irish prince must forge his own path in a land of war and magic. Part of Shauna Lawless's critically acclaimed Gael Song fantasy series set in medieval Ireland.

Murchad is born into one of the royal families of Munster. His uncle is king, and his father is the mighty warrior Brian Boru, who is often away fighting to keep their borders safe.

When he is still a boy, Murchad's world is torn apart when Viking raiders assail his homeland. Having witnessed the carnage, Murchad grows up in a whirl of conflict, as thoughts of vengeance and rage mingle with his desire for peace.

In an Ireland where strength of arms or weight of gold convey the ultimate power, can Murchad tread his own path, or will he be destroyed by the weight of expectations in a world caught between a legendary past and a dangerous future?

Reviews for the Gael Song series

'Lawless blends fantasy with historical fiction to great effect' SFX
'Lawless's writing is absolutely luminous' Irish Independent
'Swept me along and refused to be put down' H.M. Long
'A Celtic Last Kingdom with wild magic and fierce heroines' Anna Smith Spark
'An excellent read' Mark Lawrence]]> 160 Shauna Lawless 103590893X ThatBookish_deviant 0 4.85 2025 Dreams of Chaos (Gael Song, #0.6)
author: Shauna Lawless
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.85
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: to-read, mythology, novellas, own-kindle
review:

]]> Indiana, Indiana 61141201
As a young man, Noah, a true innocent, fell deeply in love with Opal, a young woman with a penchant for flames. Once married, the couple move into their own house on his family’s farm. After forty-two idyllic days, Opal is overcome by her fascination with fire and institutionalized. Though Noah embarks on a journey to save her, he cannot, and must instead rely on her letters, his memories, and the strength of his family to sustain him.

Written in a masterful elegiac style that echoes Faulkner and Steinbeck, Indiana, Indiana is a compellingly beautiful and surreal Midwestern saga firmly grounded in an Indiana landscape populated by farmers, drifters, sheriffs, and ministers, and overflowing with musical saws, family bibles stuffed with flowers, and appliances rusting in the fields.]]> 200 Laird Hunt 1566896657 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 3.40 2003 Indiana, Indiana
author: Laird Hunt
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Evening Road 29977052 Two women, two secrets: one desperate and extraordinary day.

Meet Ottie Lee Henshaw, a startling, challenging beauty in small-town Indiana. Quick of mind, she navigates a stifling marriage, a lecherous boss, and on one day in the summer of 1930, an odyssey across the countryside to witness a dark and fearful event.

Meet Calla Destry, a young black woman desperate to escape the violence of her town, and to find the lover who has promised her a new life.

Every road leads to the bedlam of Marvel, a town where lives will collide and be changed forever. Reminiscent of the works of Louise Erdrich, Edward P. Jones and Marilynne Robinson, The Evening Road is the story of two remarkable women on the move through an America riven by fear and hatred, and eager to flee the secrets they have left behind.]]> 288 Laird Hunt 031639128X ThatBookish_deviant 5 own-hardcover, novellas
“It was just farmland. Indiana. Middle of an August night. Night full of trees and ropes.”

The Evening Road takes place in rural Jim Crow-era Indiana, 1930. The events occur during one evening as we follow a young woman, Ottie Lee Henshaw, as she travels across the countryside to attend a group lynching the next town over. Needless to say, it’s a somber and harrowing read.

“The world can shut your mouth for you sometimes. Get so big there right in front of you it won’t fit into your eyes.”

Laird Hunt’s fictional novella turns an unflinching gaze upon America’s brutal not-so-distant past. Racism, klansmen, and herd mentality turns average townsfolk into complicit, bloodthirsty bystanders. Thinking upon the atrocities committed against fellow citizens, less than a century ago, feels more pertinent today than ever, lest history repeat itself.]]> 2.81 2017 The Evening Road
author: Laird Hunt
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 2.81
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/26
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: own-hardcover, novellas
review:
4.25 ⭐️ (Rounded up for 카지노싸이트)

“It was just farmland. Indiana. Middle of an August night. Night full of trees and ropes.”

The Evening Road takes place in rural Jim Crow-era Indiana, 1930. The events occur during one evening as we follow a young woman, Ottie Lee Henshaw, as she travels across the countryside to attend a group lynching the next town over. Needless to say, it’s a somber and harrowing read.

“The world can shut your mouth for you sometimes. Get so big there right in front of you it won’t fit into your eyes.”

Laird Hunt’s fictional novella turns an unflinching gaze upon America’s brutal not-so-distant past. Racism, klansmen, and herd mentality turns average townsfolk into complicit, bloodthirsty bystanders. Thinking upon the atrocities committed against fellow citizens, less than a century ago, feels more pertinent today than ever, lest history repeat itself.
]]> We, the Drowned 7988467 We, the Drowned is the story of the port town of Marstal, whose inhabitants sailed the world’s oceans aboard freight ships for centuries. Spanning over a hundred years, from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of the Second World War – from the barren rocks of Newfoundland to the lush plantations of Samoa, from the roughest bars in Tasmania to the frozen coasts of northern Russia – We, the Drowned is a magnificent tale of love, war, and adventure, of the men who go to sea and the women they leave behind.

Ships are wrecked and blown up in wars, they are places of terror and violence, yet they continue to lure each generation of Marstallers. Among them are Laurids Madsen, who vanishes in the South Pacific; his son Albert, who searches the globe for his father; Knud Erik and his widowed mother, Klara, who takes on the town and the seas. There are cannibals here, shrunken heads, prophetic dreams, forbidden passions, cowards, heroes, devastating tragedies, and miraculous survivals – everything that a town like Marstal has actually lived. We, the Drowned is a novel destined to take its place among the greatest seafaring literature.]]> 678 Carsten Jensen 0151013772 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read, nautical 4.23 2006 We, the Drowned
author: Carsten Jensen
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: to-read, nautical
review:

]]> House of Frank 206777216 A warm and hopeful story of a lonely witch consumed by grief who discovers a whimsical cast of characters in a magical arboretum—and the healing power of found family.

Powerless witch Saika is ready to enact her sister’s final to plant her remains at the famed Ash Gardens. When Saika arrives at the always-stormy sanctuary, she is welcomed by its owner, an enormous, knit-cardiganed mythical beast named Frank, who offers her a role as one of the estate’s caretakers.

Overcome with grief, Saika accepts, desperate to put off her final farewell to her sister. But the work requires a witch with intrinsic power, and Saika’s been disconnected from her magic since her sister’s death two years prior. Saika gets by at the sanctuary using a fragment of a fallen star to cast enchantments—while hiding the embarrassing truth about herself.

As Saika works harder in avoidance of her pain, she learns more about Frank, the decaying house at Ash Gardens, and the lives of the motley staff, including bickering twin cherubs, a mute ghost, a cantankerous elf, and an irritating half witch, among others. Over time, she rediscovers what it means to love and be wholly loved and how to allow her joy and grief to coexist. Warm and inventive, House of Frank is a stirring portrait of the ache of loss and the healing embrace of love.]]> 352 Kay Synclaire 1959411667 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read, witches 4.02 2024 House of Frank
author: Kay Synclaire
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: to-read, witches
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women]]> 54860325 Cleopatra, Brown lays to rest the hoary myth that Viking society was ruled by men and celebrates the dramatic lives of female Viking warriors.

In 2017, DNA tests revealed to the collective shock of many scholars that a Viking warrior in a high-status grave in Birka, Sweden was actually a woman. The Real Valkyrie weaves together archaeology, history, and literature to imagine her life and times, showing that Viking women had more power and agency than historians have imagined.

Brown uses science to link the Birka warrior, whom she names Hervor, to Viking trading towns and to their great trade route east to Byzantium and beyond. She imagines her life intersecting with larger-than-life but real women, including Queen Gunnhild Mother-of-Kings, the Viking leader known as The Red Girl, and Queen Olga of Kyiv. Hervor’s short, dramatic life shows that much of what we have taken as truth about women in the Viking Age is based not on data, but on nineteenth-century Victorian biases. Rather than holding the household keys, Viking women in history, law, saga, poetry, and myth carry weapons. These women brag, “As heroes we were widely known—with keen spears we cut blood from bone.” In this compelling narrative Brown brings the world of those valkyries and shield-maids to vivid life.]]> 336 Nancy Marie Brown 1250200849 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read, nonfiction 3.84 2021 The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women
author: Nancy Marie Brown
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: to-read, nonfiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman]]> 2273001 320 Nancy Marie Brown 0156033976 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read, nonfiction 3.69 2007 The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman
author: Nancy Marie Brown
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: to-read, nonfiction
review:

]]> Saturday 5015
Later, as Perowne makes his way through London streets filled with hundreds of thousands of anti-war protestors, a minor car accident brings him into a confrontation with Baxter, a fidgety, aggressive young man, on the edge of violence. To Perowne's professional eye, there appears to be something profoundly wrong with him. But it is not until Baxter makes a sudden appearance as the Perowne family gathers for a reunion, that Henry's fears seem about to be realised.]]> 289 Ian McEwan 1400076196 ThatBookish_deviant 0 currently-reading 3.64 2005 Saturday
author: Ian McEwan
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Machines like Me 42086795 Britain has lost the Falklands war, Margaret Thatcher battles Tony Benn for power and Alan Turing achieves a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. In a world not quite like this one, two lovers will be tested beyond their understanding.

Machines Like Me occurs in an alternative 1980s London. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first batch of synthetic humans. With Miranda’s assistance, he co-designs Adam’s personality. This near-perfect human is beautiful, strong and clever – a love triangle soon forms. These three beings will confront a profound moral dilemma. Ian McEwan’s subversive and entertaining new novel poses fundamental questions: what makes us human? Our outward deeds or our inner lives? Could a machine understand the human heart? This provocative and thrilling tale warns of the power to invent things beyond our control.]]> 306 Ian McEwan 1787331679 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 3.52 2019 Machines like Me
author: Ian McEwan
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Lure 71998739
When a new god drifts into the bay, the menfolk fear nothing as they reach for their spears; but capturing Her may be their last act of reckless bravado. Her very presence brings dissent and madness. Her voice threatens to tear the starving, angry community apart.

Setting a siege of relentless horror against the backdrop of brine and blood, Lure blurs the line between natural disaster and self-destruction.]]> 130 Tim McGregor 1737982307 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read, novellas 4.09 2022 Lure
author: Tim McGregor
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: to-read, novellas
review:

]]> Hearts Strange and Dreadful 56149247
When a deadly plague comes to town, Hester becomes indispensable as a healer. Yet as Hester watches the town's residents rapidly fall ill, she realizes that something more dangerous than disease has come to Wickstead.

Soon the buried dead are exhumed on rumor of superstition, and occult fires burn fiercely into the night. As the townspeople turn on each other, a mysterious traveler arrives, furthering the growing paranoia.

Hester must confront the dark forces which have invaded Wickstead, or all who live there may be lost… their souls included.]]> 276 Tim McGregor 0578840510 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 4.24 2021 Hearts Strange and Dreadful
author: Tim McGregor
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Wonder Engine (Clocktaur War, #2)]]> 38352077
What could possibly go wrong?

In the sequel to CLOCKWORK BOYS, Slate, Brenner, Caliban and Learned Edmund have arrived in Anuket City, the source of the mysterious Clockwork Boys. But the secrets they're keeping could well destroy them, before the city even gets the chance...]]> 370 T. Kingfisher ThatBookish_deviant 3 own-audio
Sadly, it’s just not as good as the first book. ]]> 4.21 2018 The Wonder Engine (Clocktaur War, #2)
author: T. Kingfisher
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2025/07/03
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: own-audio
review:
3.0/5

Sadly, it’s just not as good as the first book.
]]> <![CDATA[Innamorata (The House of Teeth, #1)]]> 236772741 The next exciting novel from Sunday Times bestselling author Ava Reid.

'A gorgeously gruesome Gothic romance' Jacqueline Carey]]> 560 Ava Reid 0593722590 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 2.00 Innamorata (The House of Teeth, #1)
author: Ava Reid
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 2.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Forest, Darkly 233717449 A page-turning dark fantasy of witches, twisted magic, changelings and the sins that bind. Set in the award-winning author's acclaimed universe, this immersive story is perfect for fans of Ava Reid, Hannah Whitten and Lucy Holland.

Deep in the forest lives Mehrab the witch, coping with loneliness in her own strange ways and quietly battling her demons. One evening, a young woman appears on her doorstep seeking shelter, pursued by godhounds who wish to destroy all those practising magic, and Mehrab's solitary existence is disrupted as she teaches the girl how to control her powers. Together they forge a cure for their isolation with heartbreaking consequences...

Meanwhile, in the local village, children begin to disappear, sometimes returning forever changed – or not returning at all. Sinister offerings appear on Mehrab's doorstep, and a dark power pursues her through the trees. As the villagers turn hostile and the godhounds close in, Mehrab finds herself at the centre of a struggle to save the soul of the forest, the life of an old love – and her own new-formed family.

A bewitching gothic tale; haunting, gripping and written with wit and heart, this is a book to both savour and devour.]]> 356 A.G. Slatter 1835412564 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 0.0 2026 A Forest, Darkly
author: A.G. Slatter
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2026
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Shadow Cabinet (Her Majesty's Royal Coven, #2)]]> 62366354 In the second installment of Juno Dawson's irresistable fantasy trilogy (Lana Harper), a group of childhood friends and witches must choose between what is right and what is easy if they have any hope of keeping their coven--and their world--from tearing apart forever.

Niamh Kelly is dead. Her troubled twin, Ciara, now masquerades as the benevolent witch as Her Majesty's Royal Coven prepares to crown her High Preistess.

Suffering from amnesia, Ciara can't remember what she's done--but if she wants to survive, she must fool Niamh's adopted family and friends; the coven; and the murky Shadow Cabinet--a secret group of mundane civil servants who are already suspicious of witches. While she tries to rebuild her past, she realizes none of her past has forgotten her, including her former lover, renegade warlock Dabney Hale.

On the other end of the continent, Leonie Jackman is in search of Hale, rumored to be seeking a dark object of ultimate power somehow connected to the upper echelons of the British government. If the witches can't figure out Hale's machinations, and fast, all of witchkind will be in grave danger--along with the fate of all (wo)mankind.

Sharp, funny, provocative, and joyous, Juno Dawson's sequel reimagines everything you think you knew about her coven and her witches in a story that spans continents and dives deep into the roots of England and its witchcraft. Ciara, Leonie, Elle, and Theo are fierce, angry, sexy, warm--and absolutely unapologetic as they fight for what they believe in, all in the name of sisterhood.]]> 528 Juno Dawson 0143137158 ThatBookish_deviant 0 4.20 2023 The Shadow Cabinet (Her Majesty's Royal Coven, #2)
author: Juno Dawson
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/02
shelves: own-paperback, lgbtqia2s, witches, currently-reading
review:

]]> Womb City 210365488 WOMB CITY imagines a dark and deadly future Botswana, rich with culture and true folklore, which begs the question: how far must one go to destroy the structures of inequality upon which a society was founded? How far must a mother go to save the life of her child?

Nelah seems to have it all: wealth, fame, a husband, and a child on the way. But in a body her husband controls via microchip and the tailspin of a loveless marriage, her hopes and dreams come to a devastating halt. A drug-fueled night of celebration ends in a hit-and-run. To dodge a sentencing in a society that favors men, Nelah and her side-piece, Janith Koshal, finish the victim off and bury the body.

But the secret claws its way into Nelah's life from the grave. As her victim's vengeful ghost begins exacting a bloody revenge on everyone Nelah holds dear, she'll have to unravel her society's terrible secrets to stop those in power, and become a monster unlike any other to quench the ghost's violent thirst.]]> 433 Tlotlo Tsamaase 1645661016 ThatBookish_deviant 0 sci-fi, currently-reading 3.21 2018 Womb City
author: Tlotlo Tsamaase
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.21
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/02
shelves: sci-fi, currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Enchanted Greenhouse (Spellshop, #2)]]> 217388100
Terlu Perna broke the law because she was lonely. She cast a spell and created a magically sentient spider plant. As punishment, she was turned into a wooden statue and tucked away into an alcove in the North Reading Room of the Great Library of Alyssium.

This should have been the end of her story . . . Yet one day, Terlu wakes in the cold of winter on a nearly-deserted island full of hundreds of magical greenhouses. She’s starving and freezing, and the only other human on the island is a grumpy gardener. To her surprise, he offers Terlu a place to sleep, clean clothes, and freshly baked honey cakes—at least until she’s ready to sail home.

But Terlu can’t return home and doesn’t want to—the greenhouses are a dream come true, each more wondrous than the next. When she learns that the magic that sustains them is failing—causing the death of everything within them—Terlu knows she must help. Even if that means breaking the law again.

This time, though, she isn’t alone. Assisted by the gardener and a sentient rose, Terlu must unravel the secrets of a long-dead sorcerer if she wants to save the island—and have a fresh chance at happiness and love.

Funny, kind, and forgiving, The Enchanted Greenhouse is a story about giving second chances—to others and to yourself.]]> 384 Sarah Beth Durst 1250333989 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 4.40 2025 The Enchanted Greenhouse (Spellshop, #2)
author: Sarah Beth Durst
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Warbler 213356021 From the author of The Lies Among Us comes a magical tale about mothers and daughters, choices and consequences, and the real meaning of home when every place feels like a cage.

Ten months. That’s the longest Elisa has stayed anyplace, constantly propelled by her fear that if she puts down roots, a family curse will turn her into a tree.

But she’s grown tired of flitting from town to town and in and out of relationships. When she discovers a small town in Massachusetts where mysterious forces make it impossible for the residents to leave, she hopes she can change her fate.

As Elisa learns about the town’s history, she understands more about the women in her family, who seem doomed to never get what they want. Now she believes she’s stuck, too—is that a patch of bark on her arm? But her neighbor’s collection of pet birds sings secrets that Elisa can almost understand—secrets she must unravel in order to be truly alive.]]> 321 Sarah Beth Durst 1662524110 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 3.82 2025 The Warbler
author: Sarah Beth Durst
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/07/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Lake House 61232306
Until she arrives at an off-the-grid summer camp to find a blackened, burned husk instead of a lodge – and no survivors, except her and two other late arrivals: Reyva and Mariana.

When the three girls find a dead body in the woods, they realize none of this is an accident. Someone, something, is hunting them. Something that hides in the shadows. Something that refuses to let them leave.]]> 356 Sarah Beth Durst 0063214075 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 3.39 2023 The Lake House
author: Sarah Beth Durst
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Race the Sands 49950349 In this stand-alone fantasy, Durst introduces an imaginative new world in which a pair of strong and determined women risk their lives battling injustice, corruption, and deadly enemies in their quest to become monster-racing champions.

Life, death, and rebirth - in Becar, who you are in this life will determine your next life. Yet there is hope - you can change your destiny with the choices you make. But for the darkest individuals, there is no redemption: you come back as a kehok, a monster, and are doomed to be a kehok for the rest of time.

Unless you can win the Races.

After a celebrated career as an elite kehok rider, Tamra became a professional trainer. Then a tragic accident shattered her confidence, damaged her reputation, and left her nearly broke. Now, she needs the prize money to prevent the local temple from taking her daughter away from her, and that means she must once again find a winning kehok...and a rider willing to trust her.

Raia is desperate to get away from her domineering family and cruel fiancé. As a kehok rider, she could earn enough to buy her freedom. But she needs a first-rate trainer.

Impressed by the inexperienced young woman’s determination, Tamra hires Raia and pairs her with a strange new kehok with the potential to win - if he can be tamed.

But in this sport, if you forget you’re riding on the back of a monster, you die. Tamra and Raia will work harder than they ever thought possible to win the deadly Becaran Races - and in the process, discover what makes this particular kehok so special.]]> 528 Sarah Beth Durst 0062888617 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 4.30 2020 Race the Sands
author: Sarah Beth Durst
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Spellshop (Spellshop, #1) 217206125 The Spellshop is Sarah Beth Durst’s romantasy debut–a lush cottagecore tale full of stolen spellbooks, unexpected friendships, sweet jams, and even sweeter love.

Kiela has always had trouble dealing with people. Thankfully, as a librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium, she and her assistant, Caz—a magically sentient spider plant—have spent the last decade sequestered among the empire’s most precious spellbooks, preserving their magic for the city’s elite.

When a revolution begins and the library goes up in flames, she and Caz flee with all the spellbooks they can carry and head to a remote island Kiela never thought she’d see again: her childhood home. Taking refuge there, Kiela discovers, much to her dismay, a nosy—and very handsome—neighbor who can’t take a hint and keeps showing up day after day to make sure she’s fed and to help fix up her new home.

In need of income, Kiela identifies something that even the bakery in town doesn’t have: jam. With the help of an old recipe book her parents left her and a bit of illegal magic, her cottage garden is soon covered in ripe berries.

But magic can do more than make life a little sweeter, so Kiela risks the consequences of using unsanctioned spells and opens the island’s first-ever and much needed secret spellshop.

Like a Hallmark rom-com full of mythical creatures and fueled by cinnamon rolls and magic, The Spellshop will heal your heart and feed your soul.]]> 377 Sarah Beth Durst 1250333970 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read, witches 3.98 2024 The Spellshop (Spellshop, #1)
author: Sarah Beth Durst
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/02
shelves: to-read, witches
review:

]]> The Divers' Game 50496795 From the inimitable mind of award-winning author Jesse Ball, a novel about an unsettlingly familiar society that has renounced the concept of equality—and the devastating consequences of unmitigated power

The old-fashioned struggle for fairness has finally been abandoned. It was a misguided endeavor. The world is divided into two groups, pats and quads. The pats may kill the quads as they like, and do. The quads have no recourse but to continue with their lives.

The Divers’ Game is a thinly veiled description of our society, an extreme case that demonstrates a truth: we must change or our world will collapse.

What is the effect of constant fear on a life, or on a culture? The Divers’ Game explores the consequences of violence through two festivals, and through the dramatic and excruciating examination of a woman’s final moments.

Brilliantly constructed and achingly tender, The Divers’ Game shatters the notion of common decency as the binding agent between individuals, forcing us to consider whether compassion is intrinsic to the human experience. With his signature empathy and ingenuity, Jesse Ball’s latest work solidifies his reputation as one of contemporary fiction’s most mesmerizing talents.]]> 240 Jesse Ball 0062676121 ThatBookish_deviant 4
“We are maintained by a violence so complete, it is like air.”

]]> 3.20 2019 The Divers' Game
author: Jesse Ball
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/07/02
date added: 2025/07/02
shelves:
review:
4.25/5

“We are maintained by a violence so complete, it is like air.”


]]> Wearing the Lion 221481034 God. Hero. Idol. Monster. Murderer. The story of Hercules is one of the most famous ever told. But what if it's wrong? Locus and Nebula Award-winning author John Wiswell brings his gentle, human storytelling to the most infamous of stories and discovers the heart inside us all.

Furious with Zeus for once again siring a child with a mortal woman, Hera finds herself redirecting all her fury at the baby himself, Heracles, an innocent named in her honour. As Heracles grows into a man - an unfathomably strong, loving man - he thanks Hera for all the blessings he feels she's seen fit to bestow upon him.

In a moment of misdirected rage, however, Hera sends a fury to kill Heracles' family. Heracles sets out on an epic quest to discover the name of the god who set their murders in motion. Desperate to keep him busy until she can come up with a solution, Hera sets Heracles a series of tests, as impossible as they are the Nemean lion, the hydra, the Stymphalian birds, the Aegean stables . . .

But Heracles' innate kindness, along with his determination to discover the identity of the god who cost him everything he loves, carries him through each task. As his legend grows, so does Hera's desperation.

A novel of friendship, of found family, of kindness and of legend, this is the story of Hercules as it has never been told before.]]> 386 John Wiswell 1529431409 ThatBookish_deviant 0 currently-reading, mythology 3.50 2025 Wearing the Lion
author: John Wiswell
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/07/02
shelves: currently-reading, mythology
review:

]]> Census 35068746
When a widower receives notice from a doctor that he doesn’t have long left to live, he is struck by the question of who will care for his adult son—a son whom he fiercely loves, a boy with Down syndrome. With no recourse in mind, and with a desire to see the country on one last trip, the man signs up as a census taker for a mysterious governmental bureau and leaves town with his son. 

Traveling into the country, through towns named only by ascending letters of the alphabet, the man and his son encounter a wide range of human experience. While some townspeople welcome them into their homes, others who bear the physical brand of past censuses on their ribs are wary of their presence. When they press toward the edges of civilization, the landscape grows wilder, and the towns grow farther apart and more blighted by industrial decay. As they approach “Z,” the man must confront a series of questions: What is the purpose of the census? Is he complicit in its mission? And just how will he learn to say good-bye to his son? 

Mysterious and evocative, Census is a novel about free will, grief, the power of memory, and the ferocity of parental love, from one of our most captivating young writers.]]> 272 Jesse Ball 0062676156 ThatBookish_deviant 3 3.38 2018 Census
author: Jesse Ball
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2025/07/02
date added: 2025/07/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Housemaid Is Watching (The Housemaid, #3)]]> 199235727 A twisting, pulse-pounding thriller from Freida McFadden, the New York Times bestselling author of The Housemaid and The Coworker.

"You must be our new neighbors!" Mrs. Lowell gushes and waves across the picket fence. I clutch my daughter's hand and smile back: but the second Mrs. Lowell sees my husband a strange expression crosses her face. In that moment I make a promise. We finally have a family home. My past is far, far behind us. And I'll do anything to keep it that way…

I used to clean other people's houses―now, I can't believe this home is actually mine. The charming kitchen, the quiet cul-de-sac, the huge yard where my kids can play. My husband and I saved for years to give our children the life they deserve.

Even though I'm wary of our new neighbor Mrs. Lowell, when she invites us over for dinner it's our chance to make friends. Her maid opens the door wearing a white apron, her hair in a tight bun. I know exactly what it's like to be in her shoes. But her cold stare gives me chills…

The Lowells' maid isn't the only strange thing on our street. I'm sure I see a shadowy figure watching us. My husband leaves the house late at night. And when I meet a woman who lives across the way, her words chill me to the bone: Be careful of your neighbors.

Did I make a terrible mistake moving my family here?

I thought I'd left my darkest secrets behind. But could this quiet suburban street be the most dangerous place of all?

From New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Freida McFadden comes the next instalment of the unbelievably twisty, tension-packed and globally bestselling Housemaid series. This book can be enjoyed as a standalone read: and once you start, it will have you up all night racing through the pages until the final explosive twist.]]> 364 Freida McFadden 1464223319 ThatBookish_deviant 3 own-paperback 3.79 2024 The Housemaid Is Watching (The Housemaid, #3)
author: Freida McFadden
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/07/02
date added: 2025/07/02
shelves: own-paperback
review:

]]> <![CDATA[School of Shards (Vita Nostra, #3)]]> 212217962 The haunting final chapter of the modern classic Vita Nostra trilogy. The Dyachenkos’ magical dark academia novel brings the story of Sasha to a revelatory climax as she learns to take control of her powers and reshape the world...or destroy it forever. Beautifully translated from Russian by Julia Meitov Hersey.

The Institute of Special Technologies teaches students just one the magic that allows them to become parts of speech, and in doing so, transforming into a specific piece of grammar (a verb, or an adjective, or an article) so they will be able to shape the world around them. As the new provost, though, Sasha is facing an enormous the students in the world she just created, her “world without fear,” are unable to master the curriculum. Whether it’s the magic or the natural order of things, what they need to learn and become—Speech—is the basis of the material world.

And if she can’t teach it, Sasha knows that matter will soon cease to exist.

To protect the world, Sasha must collect fragments of her former reality. Only three people carry these fragments within her younger brother, Valya, and the Grigoriev twins, Arthur and Pashka, the sons of her former lover, Yaroslav Grigoriev. Sasha must lure these three to the Institute and make them learn—and understand—at any cost.

But she knows how difficult the path is, even more so from the other side of the teacher’s desk. Forced to act ever more ruthlessly, Sasha also notices the faster the world around the Institute changes. It is a vicious circle.

And one she must break.

To do so, she will have to shape reality again, one in which communication doesn’t break down and Speech once again needs to evolve and grow and flourish.

Sasha has already given up so much in pursuit of this dream—often her nightmare—and she might be asked to make one more sacrifice so that the world and Speech might live on.]]> 416 Marina Dyachenko 0063225476 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read, dark-academia 4.00 2025 School of Shards (Vita Nostra, #3)
author: Marina Dyachenko
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/02
shelves: to-read, dark-academia
review:

]]> The Macabre 222399120 From award-winning and USA Today bestselling author Kosoko Jackson comes his adult fantasy debut, a stand-alone novel blending of art history, time- and globe-hopping adventure, and dark horror and fantasy about ten cursed paintings and the lengths people will go to collect them, destroy them…or be destroyed.

?A picture is worth a thousand nightmares.

A struggling painter, Lewis Dixon is shocked when the British Museum shows an unusual interest in his art. While he’s always felt there’s something powerful about what he puts on canvas, he also felt there was something disturbing just under the surface—especially as he was compelled to make a painting of a painting—one that he has a connection the object of his art is one of the ten paintings his great-grandfather created over a hundred years ago. Only Lewis’s version is surreal…and maybe just a touch horrific.

Still, he accepts the invitation, only to find not a curated show, but a to see if he not only has the magic necessary to enter the paintings, but also the strength to escape them. Because unbeknownst to Lewis, there is power in his art, just as the ten paintings carry with them both immense eldritch abilities and a terrible curse—making them, perhaps, the most valuable works of art in the world.

And Lewis has been asked to destroy them all.

With orders from a mysterious museum official, Evangeline, and partnered with an alluring agent in her employ, Noah Rao, Lewis must plunge into a world of black markets, gothic magic, ancient history, and unspeakable terror to save those unlucky enough to call any of the paintings their own, and to hopefully locate the tenth painting in the series, long missing, the powers of which are suspected to be most devastating of all…]]> 400 Kosoko Jackson 0063394464 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 3.97 2025 The Macabre
author: Kosoko Jackson
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Matchmaking for Psychopaths 219520742
And that's exactly what Alex thinks she's found. Love. So she's floored when she arrives to her dinner with her boyfriend, expecting a ring in a little box, and instead finding her best friend sat at the table with him. They have news. They're together now. And apparently her birthday dinner is the best time to share the news.

Suddenly, Alex's world implodes. She has lost the two people in the world closest to her, her only support. She's utterly alone, her future in pieces. So when she unexpectedly bumps into a client, Rebecca, and Rebecca seems to want to be friends, it feels like a lifeline.

But then Alex's now ex turns up dead, then more people around her seem to be dropping like flies. And she can't help but wonder if this new friendship is a match made in hell.]]> 336 Tasha Coryell 0593640306 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 4.11 Matchmaking for Psychopaths
author: Tasha Coryell
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.11
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[When Swords Fall Silent: An Assassination Anthology]]> 79070282
The assassin.

The When Swords Fall Silent anthology showcases the imaginations and talents of more than a dozen of the best modern science-fiction and fantasy authors, with each tale centered around one or more characters burdened with a bloody task they will see to completion no matter the cost. Featuring writers such as Michael J. Sullivan, Terry Mancour, Andrew Rowe, Marie Brennan, and many more, every story takes you for a vicious ride through a world of shadow and death, each as unique in perspective and execution as the contracts carried out within.]]> 447 Bryce O'Connor 1955252424 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read, anthologies 3.75 2023 When Swords Fall Silent: An Assassination Anthology
author: Bryce O'Connor
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/02
shelves: to-read, anthologies
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Call of the Bone Ships (The Tide Child #2)]]> 52038981 A brilliantly imagined epic fantasy of honor, glory, and warfare, Call of the Bone Ships is the action-packed sequel to David Gemmell Award-nominated RJ Barker's The Bone Ships.



Dragons have returned to the Hundred Isles. But their return heralds only war and destruction.


When a horde of dying slaves are discovered in the bowels of a ship, Shipwife Meas and the crew of the Tide Child find themselves drawn into a vicious plot that will leave them questioning their loyalities and fighting for their lives.]]> 528 R.J. Barker 0316487996 ThatBookish_deviant 0 4.41 2020 Call of the Bone Ships (The Tide Child #2)
author: R.J. Barker
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/01
shelves: own-paperback, dragons-griffins-wyverns, nautical, own-audio, currently-reading, lgbtqia2s
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Clockwork Boys (Clocktaur War, #1)]]> 36618062
If they succeed, rewards and pardons await, but that requires a long journey through enemy territory, directly into the capital. It also requires them to refrain from killing each other along the way! At turns darkly comic and touching, Clockwork Boys puts together a broken group of people trying to make the most of the rest of their lives as they drive forward on their suicide mission.]]> 230 T. Kingfisher ThatBookish_deviant 4 own-audio 3.5/5 4.15 2017 Clockwork Boys (Clocktaur War, #1)
author: T. Kingfisher
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/07/01
date added: 2025/07/01
shelves: own-audio
review:
3.5/5
]]> Daggerbound (Swordheart, #2) 231425241 T. Kingfisher ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 3.00 2026 Daggerbound (Swordheart, #2)
author: T. Kingfisher
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2026
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Wolf Worm 231126842 Something darker than the devil stalks the North Carolina woods in Wolf Worm, a new gothic masterpiece from New York Times bestselling author T. Kingfisher.

The year is 1899 and Sonia Wilson is a scientific illustrator without work, prospects, or hope. When the reclusive Dr. Halder offers her a position illustrating his vast collection of insects, Sonia jumps at the chance to move to his North Carolina manor house and put her talents to use. But soon enough she finds that there are darker things at work than the Carolina woods. What happened to her predecessor, Halder’s wife? Why are animals acting so strangely, and what is behind the peculiar local whispers about “blood thiefs?”

With the aid of the housekeeper and a local healer, Sonia discovers that Halder’s entomological studies have taken him down a dark road full of parasitic maggots that burrow into human flesh, and that his monstrous experiments may grow to encompass his newest illustrator as well.

"Kingfisher is not afraid to twist the knife."―The Washington Post]]> 288 T. Kingfisher 1250829828 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 5.00 2026 Wolf Worm
author: T. Kingfisher
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2026
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Intruder 231819058 Who knows what the storm will blow in…

Casey's cabin in the wilderness is not built for a hurricane. Her roof shakes, the lights flicker, and the tree outside her front door is sways ominously in the wind. But she's a lot more worried about the girl she discovers lurking outside her kitchen window.

She’s young. She’s alone. And she’s covered in blood.

The girl won't explain where she came from or loosen her grip on the knife in her right hand. And when Casey makes a disturbing discovery in the middle of the night, things take a turn for the worse.

The girl has a dark secret. One she’ll kill to keep. And if Casey gets too close to the truth, she may not live to see the morning.

In this taut, deadly tale of survival and desperation, #1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden explores how far one girl will go to save herself.]]> 288 Freida McFadden 1464260915 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 4.26 2025 The Intruder
author: Freida McFadden
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lives of Bitter Rain (The Tyrant Philosophers, #2.5)]]> 222376918
City-by-city, kingdom-by-kingdom, the Palleseen have sworn to bring 'Perfection' and 'Correctness' to an imperfect world. But before these ruthless Tyrant Philosophers send in their legions, they despatch Outreach - the rain before the storm.

Outreach is that part of the Pal machine responsible for diplomacy - converting enemies into friends, achieving through words what an army of five thousand could not, for urging the oppressed to overthrow the bloody-handed priests, evil necromancers and greedy despots that subjugate them.

Angilly, twelve-years-old, a child of Pal soldiers stationed in occupied Jarokir, does not know it yet, but a sequence of accidents and questionable life choices will lead her to Outreach. As she travels from Jarrokir to Bracinta, Cazarkand, Lemas, The Holy Regalate of Stouk and finally, Usmai, she'll learn that the price of her nation's success is paid in compromise and lost chances, that the falling rain will always be bitter.]]> 144 Adrian Tchaikovsky 1035911442 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read, own-hardcover 5.00 2025 Lives of Bitter Rain (The Tyrant Philosophers, #2.5)
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/01
shelves: to-read, own-hardcover
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Last Stand of the Stone Fist (Songs of Chaos #0.5)]]> 202768208 A troubled past. War in the present. A dark future.

Brode grew up a bastard in Athra, looked down upon as a child of chaos. Sent away to the dragon riders as a squire, Brode counted it his luckiest day when Silas Brightbark of Coedhen vouched for him to join their ranks. Now a Champion in the Order he faces the largest incursion the world has ever seen.

Sent on a far flung mission to the Disputed Lands, Brode and Silas discover a remote town not on any map. It's a town of outcasts, of broken people, of folk that order has forgotten. As a scourge swarm gathers nearby, Brode and Silas face the toughest fight and decision of their lives.

This print edition also includes a bonus second novella called The Huntress set in the world of my first trilogy, The Dragon's Blade. There are also map images of both series, as well some concept sketches for The Dragon's Blade.]]> 228 Michael R. Miller 1739429052 ThatBookish_deviant 0 4.33 2024 Last Stand of the Stone Fist (Songs of Chaos #0.5)
author: Michael R. Miller
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/01
shelves: to-read, dragons-griffins-wyverns, novellas, own-hardcover
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Housemaid's Secret (The Housemaid, #2)]]> 62848145 As he continues showing me their incredible penthouse apartment, I have a terrible feeling about the woman behind closed doors. But I can't risk losing this job – not if I want to keep my darkest secret safe . . .

It's hard to find an employer who doesn't ask too many questions about my past. So I thank my lucky stars that the Garricks miraculously give me a job, cleaning their stunning penthouse with views across the city and preparing fancy meals in their shiny kitchen. I can work here for a while, stay quiet until I get what I want. It's almost perfect. But I still haven't met Mrs Garrick, or seen inside the guest bedroom. I'm sure I hear her crying. I notice spots of blood around the neck of her white nightgowns when I'm doing laundry. And one day I can't help but knock on the door. When it gently swings open, what I see inside changes everything...

That's when I make a promise. After all, I've done this before. I can protect Mrs. Garrick while keeping my own secrets locked up safe. Douglas Garrick has done wrong. He is going to pay. It's simply a question of how far I'm willing to go...]]> 318 Freida McFadden 1837901317 ThatBookish_deviant 3 own-paperback
A surprisingly predictable novel from Freida, nevertheless I had fun reading it.]]> 4.21 2023 The Housemaid's Secret (The Housemaid, #2)
author: Freida McFadden
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/07/01
date added: 2025/07/01
shelves: own-paperback
review:
3.0/5

A surprisingly predictable novel from Freida, nevertheless I had fun reading it.
]]> The Dream Hotel 218695937 A novel about one woman’s fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.

Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days.

The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.

Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.]]> 336 Laila Lalami 0593317602 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 3.60 2025 The Dream Hotel
author: Laila Lalami
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World]]> 56587381
The Ruin of All Witches tells the dark, real-life folktale of witch-hunting in a remote Massachusetts plantation. These were the turbulent beginnings of colonial America, when English settlers' dreams of love and liberty, of founding a 'city on a hill', gave way to paranoia and terror, enmity and rage. Drawing on uniquely rich, previously neglected source material, Malcolm Gaskill brings to life a New World existence steeped in the divine and the diabolic, in curses and enchantments, and precariously balanced between life and death.

Through the gripping micro-history of a family tragedy, we glimpse an entire society caught in agonized transition between supernatural obsessions and the age of enlightenment. We see, in short, the birth of the modern world.]]> 336 Malcolm Gaskill 0241413389 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read, nonfiction, witches 3.68 2021 The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World
author: Malcolm Gaskill
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/30
shelves: to-read, nonfiction, witches
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Bone Ships (The Tide Child, #1)]]> 43521682 A saga of honor, glory, and warfare, The Bone Ships is the launch of a new fantasy from R.J. Barker.

Two nations at war. A prize beyond compare.

For generations, the Hundred Isles have built their ships from the bones of ancient dragons to fight an endless war.

The dragons disappeared, but the battles for supremacy persisted.

Now the first dragon in centuries has been spotted in far-off waters, and both sides see a chance to shift the balance of power in their favour. Because whoever catches it will win not only glory, but the war.]]> 471 R.J. Barker 0316487961 ThatBookish_deviant 5 4.5/5<br /><br /> 3.98 2019 The Bone Ships (The Tide Child, #1)
author: R.J. Barker
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2025/06/30
date added: 2025/06/30
shelves: own-paperback, dragons-griffins-wyverns, nautical, own-audio
review:
4.5/5


]]> The Naked Light 228461183 A village haunted by stories. Two women bound by a secret.A haunting gothic tale of ancient darkness and a love that defies convention, from Sunday Times #1 bestseller Bridget Collins.

'Bridget Collins at her beguiling best' EMILIA HART

'I honestly never thought another author could rival Sarah Waters… but I was wrong. I haven't read a historical novel quite as good as this in years!' LOUISE MORRISH

Watching over the village of Haltington is an ancient carving in the ground, known to locals simply as the Face. It was first etched into the chalk when lives were ruled by superstition and stories; by fear of the unknown, of the shadows.

For centuries, the inhabitants of Bone Cottage have tended to it. But now that the Great War has decimated the population of even this most isolated of places, the Face stands neglected and overgrown.

When enigmatic outsider Kit moves into the cottage, the villagers are suspicious of her androgynous appearance and bohemian ways. In defiance of their disapproval, the vicar’s unmarried sister-in-law Florence finds herself inexplicably drawn to Kit, and the friendship that grows between them becomes a light in the dark for her.

But the Face calls things to it, and now Florence and Kit are in its path…

A haunting gothic tale of ancient darkness and a love that defies convention, from Sunday Times #1 bestseller Bridget Collins.

Bridget Collins's book 'The Silence Factory' was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 2024-04-29.]]> Bridget Collins 0008650985 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 4.00 The Naked Light
author: Bridget Collins
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Supplication 209078800 ‘There, within the suddenness of the unending present, I was born.’

An unnamed narrator comes to in a basement, tied to a chair, a man looming over her. Someone has a knife.

She emerges from her captivity into a mysterious and nightmarish city, searching for meaning in her new reality.

As figures emerge from the night, some offering sanctuary, and others judgement, she moves through a fever-dream narrative of alienation, fear, and the quest for respite.

Nour Abi-Nakhoul’s powerful debut novel, Supplication, is a hallucinatory literary horror set deep in the consciousness of a woman exploring a changed and frightening world.]]> 0 Nour Abi-Nakhoul 1910312657 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 2.54 2024 Supplication
author: Nour Abi-Nakhoul
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 2.54
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sinners: A fiery historical tale of rebellion and survival in Renaissance Rome - a bold feminist retelling]]> 221434327 Rome, 1599.

A young noblewoman accused of murder, awaits execution. Imprisoned in the Corte Savella, she has captured the hearts and sympathy of all Rome...

This is the true and tragic tale of Beatrice Cenci.

History has sold her short. She is no doe-eyed victim of her father’s brutality, nor the cunning murderer who plotted her father’s demise. No, this Beatrice - a woman pregnant by her lover, incarcerated in a remote castle by her father, and brim-full of white-hot rage - is both innocent and guilty, saint and sinner.

And she will stand tall in the face of the violence of men, no matter the cost.]]> 366 Elizabeth Fremantle 1405967900 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read, historical-fiction 4.52 Sinners: A fiery historical tale of rebellion and survival in Renaissance Rome - a bold feminist retelling
author: Elizabeth Fremantle
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.52
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/30
shelves: to-read, historical-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hag's Call (The Tide Child, #0.5)]]> 52506960 The Bone Ships, the first book in the Tide Child series, available for free on the author's blog.]]> R.J. Barker ThatBookish_deviant 4
This is a short, quick read that was originally written as a prologue to Barker’s first book in The Tide Child trilogy, “The Bone Ships”. It’s available, free, on his website and fans of the series will like the intro. It packs a lot of seafaring action into just a couple of pages. Such a shame it wasn’t included in the published book.]]> 3.93 2020 The Hag's Call (The Tide Child, #0.5)
author: R.J. Barker
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/29
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves: dragons-griffins-wyverns, nautical, short-stories
review:
4.0/5

This is a short, quick read that was originally written as a prologue to Barker’s first book in The Tide Child trilogy, “The Bone Ships”. It’s available, free, on his website and fans of the series will like the intro. It packs a lot of seafaring action into just a couple of pages. Such a shame it wasn’t included in the published book.
]]> <![CDATA[Be Gay, Do Crime: Sixteen Stories of Queer Chaos]]> 215612520
A trans woman makes increasingly frequent hoax calls to a business where she's had a negative experience, watching the consequences with perverse joy. A group of aging queers turns to bank robbery to stop the sale of their bungalow complex to a development company. As the president prepares to give a speech, two women lurk among the journalists, ready to shoot him. And an aspiring author takes to stealing items from strangers’ homes in a kind of cosmic redistribution each time one of her relationships fail.

In sixteen brilliant, wild-eyed stories, Be Gay, Do Crime delivers a celebration and reckoning of why queer people turn to crime– be it unintentionally, as a means of survival, as protest, as rescue, or to right injustices big and small.]]> 261 Molly Llewellyn 1938603311 ThatBookish_deviant 0 3.51 Be Gay, Do Crime: Sixteen Stories of Queer Chaos
author: Molly Llewellyn
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.51
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves: to-read, anthologies, lgbtqia2s
review:

]]> Blob: A Love Story 212994452 'A modern-day Mrs. Caliban, BLOB is a book that looks at identity and desire in profoundly interesting ways'
Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here

A hilarious and moving debut novel about a young woman who decides to turn a sentient blob into her perfect boyfriend...

The daughter of a Taiwanese father and white mother, Vi Liu has never quite fit into her Midwestern college town. Now at twenty-three, after getting dumped and dropping out of college, Vi works as a front desk attendant at a hotel where she refills cucumber water samovars and fends off overtures of friendship from her bubbly blond coworker, Rachel. But when Vi decides to accompany Rachel to a local drag show, her life changes forever. In the alley outside the bar, next to a trash can, is a blob with beady black eyes. Unable to leave it behind, Vi picks up the creature and, in a moment of drunken desperation, takes it home with her.

As her pet blob becomes sentient, Vi realizes it obeys her commands and she decides to mold the blob into her ideal partner. She feeds it sugary cereal and a stream of pop culture, and soon the creature transforms into a movie-star handsome white man. But as Vi's desire to be loved unconditionally threatens to spiral out of control, she is forced to confront her lonely childhood, the ex-boyfriend who has unfriended her, and the racial marginalization that has defined her relationships. Ultimately, Vi embarks on a journey of self-discovery and learns that it's impossible to control those you love.

Blending the familiar with the fantastical, BLOB tells a witty, heartfelt story of what it means to be human.

'An inventive, utterly unique debut'
Kimberly King Parsons, author of Black Light]]> 256 Maggie Su 0063358646 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 3.34 2025 Blob: A Love Story
author: Maggie Su
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.34
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Evil Genius 234344533 An exuberant, brutally hilarious novel about a young woman’s insatiable quest to carve her own path—even if she needs to step over a few dead bodies along the way

It’s 1974 and San Francisco is full of mystery and menace. Nineteen-year-old Celia Dent keeps telling herself how lucky she is to be working at a steady job and married to her Drew, a man who says he loves her. Celia’s contentment with her little life is shattered, though, when a woman she knows from work is murdered in a love tryst gone awry. What would that be like, Celia wonders, to die for love—or to kill for love? What would it be like to live each moment passionately and with full knowledge that each breath is bringing her closer to her last?

Before Celia knows it, her musings about love-and-death happenings are bleeding into daily life. Suddenly she’s playing hooky from work and searching for a love tryst of her very own. She’s practicing her marksmanship at a local gun range and thinking about how good it would feel to bury something sharp inside her domineering husband’s ear. It’s all pretend, though, until the night comes when Celia finally goes too far, and she and Drew are set on a deadly collision course.

Exhilarating, surreal, and bitingly clever, Evil Genius is a comic noir exploring obsession and desire—and what happens when a sweetly seditious young woman dares to imagine a better life.]]> Claire Oshetsky 006346649X ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 0.0 Evil Genius
author: Claire Oshetsky
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Overspill 236793350 Tender, brutal, devastating, OVERSPILL is the debut novel from incredible new literary talent, Charlotte Paradise.

Sara is twenty-five. She has never used a tampon without having a panic attack.

She starts dating Miles. For three months, they don’t touch. Miles respects her boundaries, though he longs for them to melt away. Sara desires Miles, but she knows her body, or rather she knows it is an unknowable thing.

Sara wants to be in love, to find a person who allows her to be herself. Someone who is happy with everything she is and everything she isn’t. Miles hopes he won’t hurt her.

But how do you navigate a relationship for which there is no blueprint? How do you love someone when your body is not your own, and how do you reclaim it?

Overspill is a luminous, shattering debut about love, trauma and self-acceptance, perfect for fans of Sally Rooney and Coco Mellors.]]> 402 Charlotte Paradise 0008560005 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 5.00 Overspill
author: Charlotte Paradise
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Out There 58446220
Prescient and wildly imaginative, Out There depicts an uncanny landscape that holds a mirror to our subconscious fears and desires. Each story beats with its own fierce heart, and together they herald an exciting new arrival in the tradition of speculative literary fiction.]]> 256 Kate Folk 0593231465 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read, short-stories 4.12 2022 Out There
author: Kate Folk
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves: to-read, short-stories
review:

]]> Greenwich 217388284 A riveting debut novel for readers of Celeste Ng, Greenwich explores the nature of desire and complicity against the backdrop of immense wealth and privilege, the ways that whiteness and power protect their own, and the uneasy moral ambiguity of redemption.

Summer, 1999. Rachel Fiske is almost eighteen when she arrives at her aunt and uncle’s mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. Her glamorous aunt is struggling to heal from an injury, and Rachel wants to help—and escape her own troubles back home. But her aunt is oddly spacey and her uncle is consumed with business, and Rachel feels lonely and adrift, excluded from the world of adults and their secrets. The only bright spot is Claudia, a recent college graduate, aspiring artist, and the live-in babysitter for Rachel’s cousin. As summer deepens, Rachel eagerly hopes their friendship might grow into more.

But when a tragic accident occurs, the family turns on Claudia in a desperate bid to salvage their reputation. Caught between her upbringing and her feelings for Claudia, her desire to do the right thing and to protect her future, Rachel must make a pivotal choice. She’s the only one who knows what really happened—and her decision has consequences far beyond what she could have predicted.]]> 304 Kate Broad 1250363047 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 3.59 2025 Greenwich
author: Kate Broad
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Lost Queen (The Lost Queen, #1)]]> 38355440 “Outlander meets Camelot” (Kirsty Logan, author of The Gracekeepers) in the first book of an exciting historical trilogy that reveals the untold story of Languoreth—a powerful and, until now, tragically forgotten queen of sixth-century Scotland—twin sister of the man who inspired the legendary character of Merlin.

Intelligent, passionate, rebellious, and brave, Languoreth is the unforgettable heroine of The Lost Queen, a tale of conflicted loves and survival set against the cinematic backdrop of ancient Scotland, a magical land of myths and superstition inspired by the beauty of the natural world. One of the most powerful early medieval queens in British history, Languoreth ruled at a time of enormous disruption and bloodshed, when the burgeoning forces of Christianity threatened to obliterate the ancient pagan beliefs and change her way of life forever.

Together with her twin brother Lailoken, a warrior and druid known to history as Merlin, Languoreth is catapulted into a world of danger and violence. When a war brings the hero Emrys Pendragon, to their door, Languoreth collides with the handsome warrior Maelgwn. Their passionate connection is forged by enchantment, but Languoreth is promised in marriage to Rhydderch, son of the High King who is sympathetic to the followers of Christianity. As Rhydderch's wife, Languoreth must assume her duty to fight for the preservation of the Old Way, her kingdom, and all she holds dear.

“Moving, thrilling, and ultimately spellbinding” (BookPage), The Lost Queen brings this remarkable woman to life—rescuing her from obscurity, and reaffirming her place at the center of the most enduring legends of all time. “Moving, thrilling, and ultimately spellbinding, The Lost Queen is perfect for readers of historical fiction like The Clan of the Cave Bear and Wolf Hall, and for lovers of fantasy like Outlander and The Mists of Avalon” (BookPage).]]> 527 Signe Pike 1501191411 ThatBookish_deviant 3 historical-fiction
The Lost Queen lost me. I’ve seen this recommended to fans of The Gael Song series by Shauna Lawless and I very much disagree. The writing is nowhere near as engaging and I struggled to maintain interest as the story progressed. I disliked the main character, Languoreth, who comes across naive and entitled.

While I enjoyed the historical fiction aspects and exploration of Medieval Scotland, it’s not enough to bring me back for books two and three.]]> 4.14 2018 The Lost Queen (The Lost Queen, #1)
author: Signe Pike
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2025/06/29
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves: historical-fiction
review:
3.25/5

The Lost Queen lost me. I’ve seen this recommended to fans of The Gael Song series by Shauna Lawless and I very much disagree. The writing is nowhere near as engaging and I struggled to maintain interest as the story progressed. I disliked the main character, Languoreth, who comes across naive and entitled.

While I enjoyed the historical fiction aspects and exploration of Medieval Scotland, it’s not enough to bring me back for books two and three.
]]> Piglet 141310697
In just over a fortnight, she is marrying Kit. Kit and his tasteful family present an opportunity for reinvention - when she had been growing up in Derby, this life, this man had been beyond her imagination. Together they are the picture of domestic bliss - effortless hosts in their new house and planning an immaculate, covetable wedding. Everything is coming together for Piglet - tied as tightly and perfectly as her apron strings. But, if a life looks too good to be true, it probably is...]]> 304 Lottie Hazell 0857529560 ThatBookish_deviant 4
“After he had told her, peeling back his flesh like a gill, showing her what she had not seen, there had not been a moment to think. Between his bouts of confession she had been preoccupied. As his truth ripped at her, she had held together the tatters of her body, picking up her shredded personhood from the bed around her like fallen confetti.”

“Their fledgling truths, as vulnerable and exposed as the membrane eyelid of a baby bird, held as they walked to the borough market.”

“Since he had told her, revealed how he had indulged his own pleasures, she had decided to follow her own. She did not entertain the idea of hurting him back and instead she permitted herself the kind of revenge that she could stomach. A revenge on him, a revenge on herself. With every mouthful she let herself believe that everything, still, was fine. It would be fine because she could make it so, imbibe it. Consume it until it was true. She had eaten her heart out, it had not changed a thing. She had found herself, despite her gorging, hollow.”

“She had plumbed the depths of this shallow life they had constructed and found there was nothing left to do but leave.”

Pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this one! Piglet is expertly crafted and I was completely ensnared. An impressively clever debut from Lottie Hazell. I’ll definitely be reading what she serves up next!]]> 3.60 2024 Piglet
author: Lottie Hazell
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/29
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves:
review:
4.25/5

“After he had told her, peeling back his flesh like a gill, showing her what she had not seen, there had not been a moment to think. Between his bouts of confession she had been preoccupied. As his truth ripped at her, she had held together the tatters of her body, picking up her shredded personhood from the bed around her like fallen confetti.”

“Their fledgling truths, as vulnerable and exposed as the membrane eyelid of a baby bird, held as they walked to the borough market.”

“Since he had told her, revealed how he had indulged his own pleasures, she had decided to follow her own. She did not entertain the idea of hurting him back and instead she permitted herself the kind of revenge that she could stomach. A revenge on him, a revenge on herself. With every mouthful she let herself believe that everything, still, was fine. It would be fine because she could make it so, imbibe it. Consume it until it was true. She had eaten her heart out, it had not changed a thing. She had found herself, despite her gorging, hollow.”

“She had plumbed the depths of this shallow life they had constructed and found there was nothing left to do but leave.”

Pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this one! Piglet is expertly crafted and I was completely ensnared. An impressively clever debut from Lottie Hazell. I’ll definitely be reading what she serves up next!
]]> <![CDATA[Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life]]> 32738672 221 Gary John Bishop ThatBookish_deviant 4 nonfiction 3.84 2016 Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life
author: Gary John Bishop
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2022/06/30
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves: nonfiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Born to Walk: The Transformative Power of a Pedestrian Act]]> 36394018 The case for getting back on our feet — now in paperback

The humble act of putting one foot in front of the other transcends age, geography, culture, and class and is one of the most economical and environmentally responsible modes of transit. Yet with our modern fixation on speed, this healthy pedestrian activity has been largely left behind.

At a personal and professional crossroads, writer, editor, and obsessive walker Dan Rubinstein traveled throughout the U.S., U.K., and Canada to walk with people who saw the act not only as a form of transportation and recreation, but also as a path to a better world. There are no magic-bullet solutions to modern epidemics like obesity, anxiety, alienation, and climate change. But what if there is a simple way to take a step in the right direction? Combining fascinating reportage, eye-opening research, and Rubinstein’s own discoveries, Born to Walk explores how far this ancient habit can take us and how much repair is within range, and guarantees that you’ll never again take walking for granted.]]> 304 Dan Rubinstein 1770414193 ThatBookish_deviant 0 4.08 2015 Born to Walk: The Transformative Power of a Pedestrian Act
author: Dan Rubinstein
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves: to-read, biography-memoir, nonfiction
review:

]]> Rebent Sinner 45045475 Tomboy Survival Guide, was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust of Canada Prize for Non-Fiction and was named an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book.

In their latest, Ivan takes on the patriarchy and the political, as well as the intimate and the personal in these beguiling and revealing stories of what it means to be trans and non-binary today, at a time in their life when they must carry the burden of heartbreaking history with them, while combatting those who would misgender them or deny their very existence. These stories span thirty years of tackling TERFs, legislators, and bathroom police, sure, but there is joy and pleasure and triumph to be found here too, as Ivan pays homage to personal heroes like Leslie Feinberg and Ferron while gently guiding younger trans folk to prove to themselves that there is a way out of the darkness.

Rebent Sinner is the work of an accomplished artist whose plain truths about their experience will astound readers with their utter, breathtaking humanity.]]> 224 Ivan E. Coyote 1551527731 ThatBookish_deviant 0 4.56 2019 Rebent Sinner
author: Ivan E. Coyote
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves: to-read, biography-memoir, nonfiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Examine a Wolverine: More Tales from the Accidental Veterinarian]]> 56996755 288 Philipp Schott 1770415882 ThatBookish_deviant 0 4.01 How to Examine a Wolverine: More Tales from the Accidental Veterinarian
author: Philipp Schott
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.01
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves: to-read, biography-memoir, nonfiction
review:

]]> Bad Houses 205481950 A boisterous collection of surreal, darkly humorous short stories that will delight fans of George Saunders and Alice Munro


From John Elizabeth Stintzi, the mind that created the daringly bizarre novel My Volcano, comes an electrifying collection of strange and dark tales.


In the surreal, often precarious realities of Bad Houses, a doctor discovers a double-edged cure for the Ebola virus, a college student loses a different body part each time they return home for the summer, Midas's hairdresser strives to keep his secrets, and a young girl develops a fascination with the trolls who harvest her father's pumpkin patch. At once humorous and horrifying, these stories will inevitably take residence in your mind.


Present throughout Bad Houses is a deep and abiding sense of humanity sprinkled with a dash of alienation, guilt, and instability. Filtered through a fabulist lens, these stories contemplate the struggles of modern existence. Each character lives their own haunted life, trying to navigate the path from bad houses to good homes.


Featuring Stintzi's own expressive ink illustrations, Bad Houses is a book that feels like it was penned by a trans Alice Munro mixed with a bubblier Franz Kafka. Enter if you dare.


This publication meets the EPUB Accessibility requirements and it also meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG-AA). It is screen-reader friendly and is accessible to persons with disabilities. This book is defined with accessible structural markup. This book contains various accessibility features such as alternative text for images, table of contents, page-list, landmark, reading order and semantic structure.]]> 264 John Elizabeth Stintzi 1551529610 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read, short-stories 3.90 Bad Houses
author: John Elizabeth Stintzi
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.90
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves: to-read, short-stories
review:

]]> Toil & Trouble: A Memoir 44509998 320 Augusten Burroughs 1250258367 ThatBookish_deviant 0 3.72 2019 Toil & Trouble: A Memoir
author: Augusten Burroughs
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves: to-read, biography-memoir, nonfiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike (Thorndike Press Large Print Basic Series)]]> 14305810 336 Augusten Burroughs 1410449130 ThatBookish_deviant 0 3.67 2012 This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike (Thorndike Press Large Print Basic Series)
author: Augusten Burroughs
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves: to-read, biography-memoir, nonfiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Fall of Giants (The Century Trilogy, #1)]]> 7315573
This is an epic of love, hatred, war and revolution. This is a huge novel that follows five families through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for votes for women.
It is 1911. The Coronation Day of King George V. The Williams, a Welsh coal-mining family is linked by romance and enmity to the Fitzherberts, aristocratic coal-mine owners. Lady Maud Fitzherbert falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German Embassy in London. Their destiny is entangled with that of an ambitious young aide to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and to two orphaned Russian brothers, whose plans to emigrate to America fall foul of war, conscription and revolution. In a plot of unfolding drama and intriguing complexity, "Fall Of Giants" moves seamlessly from Washington to St Petersburg, from the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty.]]> 985 Ken Follett 0525951652 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read, historical-fiction 4.31 2010 Fall of Giants (The Century Trilogy, #1)
author: Ken Follett
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves: to-read, historical-fiction
review:

]]> Strange Pictures 219579130 A Japanese mystery bestseller, revolving around a series of creepy drawings, in which the reader is the detective - from the Youtube sensation Uketsu.

A series of drawings made by a young woman before her death.

A child's disturbing picture of his home.

A desperate sketch made by a murder victim in his final moments.

Each contains a chilling warning.

Each reveals a terrible secret, hidden in plain sight.

Uketsu's eerie mysteries have captivated millions of readers. Can you find the clues in these strange pictures and uncover the sinister truth that connects them all?]]> 240 Uketsu 1805335391 ThatBookish_deviant 3 3.0/5 4.04 2022 Strange Pictures
author: Uketsu
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/06/29
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves:
review:
3.0/5
]]> The Drowning House 199426853
Now they'll have to put aside old rivalries and grudges if they want to find or save the man who brought them together in the first place―and on the way they'll learn a great deal about the sinister house on the beach, the man who built it, and the evil he's bringing back to Marrowstone Island.

From award-winning author Cherie Priest comes a deeply haunting and atmospheric horror-thriller that explores the lengths we'll go to protect those we love.]]> 421 Cherie Priest 1728292824 ThatBookish_deviant 3 haunted-house 3.25/5 3.33 2024 The Drowning House
author: Cherie Priest
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/06/29
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves: haunted-house
review:
3.25/5
]]> Disappoint Me 218153678 An electrifying story of love, betrayal, and the complicated allure of bougie domesticity.

You can fall in love with an outline, you can even make a home with one, but there will come a time where you can’t deny the bones their flesh. A person is no fewer than two things.

Thirty years old with a lifetime of dysphoria and irritating exes rattling around in her head, Max is plagued by a deep dissatisfaction. Shouldn’t these be the best years of her life? Why doesn’t it feel that way? After taking a spill down the stairs at a New Year’s Eve party, she decides to make some changes. First: a stab at good old-fashioned heteronormativity.

Max thinks she’s found the answer in Vincent. While his corporate colleagues, trad friends, and Chinese parents never pictured their son dating a trans woman, he cares for Max in a way she’d always dismissed as a foolish fantasy. But he is also carrying baggage of his own. When the fall-out of a decades-old entanglement resurfaces, Max must decide what forgiveness really means. Can we be more than our worst mistakes? Is it possible to make peace with the past?

Funny, sharp, and poignant, Disappoint Me is a sweeping exploration of love, loss, trans panic, race, millennial angst, and the relationships—familial and romantic—that make us who we are.]]> 320 Nicola Dinan 0593977874 ThatBookish_deviant 0 lgbtqia2s, currently-reading 4.03 2025 Disappoint Me
author: Nicola Dinan
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/28
shelves: lgbtqia2s, currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us]]> 33947154
In the wake of the nightclub attacks in Paris, he recalls how he sought refuge as a teenager in music, at shows, and wonders whether the next generation of young Muslims will not be afforded that opportunity now. While discussing the everyday threat to the lives of black Americans, Abdurraqib recounts the first time he was ordered to the ground by police officers: for attempting to enter his own car.

In essays that have been published by the New York Times, MTV, and Pitchfork, among others—along with original, previously unreleased essays—Abdurraqib uses music and culture as a lens through which to view our world, so that we might better understand ourselves, and in so doing proves himself a bellwether for our times.]]> 291 Hanif Abdurraqib ThatBookish_deviant 4

Highly recommend the audiobook for this essay collection, which Hanif Abdurraqib reads himself. I love when authors read their own work and we can hear the story told in their own unique voice.]]> 4.56 2017 They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us
author: Hanif Abdurraqib
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/28
date added: 2025/06/28
shelves: biography-memoir, nonfiction, short-stories
review:
4.25/5


Highly recommend the audiobook for this essay collection, which Hanif Abdurraqib reads himself. I love when authors read their own work and we can hear the story told in their own unique voice.
]]> The Woman in the Cabin 219630036
Deep in the woods, you can hide more than secrets...

Every day, in a remote cabin hidden deep in the woods in the Scottish Highlands, Mary wakes up before dawn to make breakfast from scratch. She tends the garden and feeds the animals. Every night, Mary makes sure she has dinner on the table for when her husband Cal gets home from work.

She puts on his favorite lipstick and greets him with a smile. 'I've missed you.' It's not true and he knows it. But he likes to hear it all the same.

Mary is the perfect wife and like any good wife she knows her job is to keep her husband happy.

But lately as she notices her first wrinkles appear, she can sense Cal change. A scowl at dinner not being ready on time, a too tight grip as he leads her to the bedroom tells her he's noticed too. And old memories are coming back too, of her life before the cabin...

Then she finds a stack of letters hidden under the floorboards detailing a life eerily similar to her own. They're addressed to her: 'To the next woman.'

If she's not the first to play the role of Cal's perfect wife, what happened to the woman in the cabin before her? And how long does she have until she is next?]]> 240 Becca Day 1471416437 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 3.84 2024 The Woman in the Cabin
author: Becca Day
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Toll 41555927 State Road 177 runs along the Suwannee River, between Fargo, Georgia, and the Okefenokee Swamp. Drive that route from east to west, and you’ll cross six bridges. Take it from west to east, and you might find seven.

But you’d better hope not.

Titus and Melanie Bell leave their hotel in Fargo for a second honeymoon canoeing the Okefenokee Swamp. But shortly before they reach their destination, they draw up to a halt at the edge of a rickety bridge with old stone pilings, with room for only one car . . .

When, much later, a tow-truck arrives, the driver finds Titus lying in the middle of the road, but Melanie is nowhere to be found.]]> 336 Cherie Priest 076537823X ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 3.39 2019 The Toll
author: Cherie Priest
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/06/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Rules Upheld By No One 58883292 that with anyone.

But the devil is at her back, tempting her with impure thoughts about her tutor, Samuel. Her parents, deeply ashamed of their libidinous daughter, do everything they can to keep Elisa's thoughts from bodily pleasures. When she finally finds refuge in the nunnery, Elisa breathes a sigh of relief. But shame and guilt about her true nature follow her everywhere and it becomes apparent that the rules of the nunnery are not being obeyed. There's a phallic shaped piece of wood hidden behind St Jerome's books in the library and there are even rumours that the nunnery's chaplain is defiling women. Elisabeth seeks shelter from the realities of the convent with Sister Constance and Sister Isabella, but with King Henry's commitment to dissolving the abbeys, the sisters are left to fend for themselves.

Elisa, not knowing where to turn, finds sanctuary in one of London's infamous stews.]]> 304 Amie McNee 0645190502 ThatBookish_deviant 0 currently-reading 4.24 The Rules Upheld By No One
author: Amie McNee
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.24
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/06/28
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Becoming the Boogeyman 101144676 411 Richard Chizmar 1668009161 ThatBookish_deviant 3 own-hardcover 4.06 2023 Becoming the Boogeyman
author: Richard Chizmar
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/06/28
date added: 2025/06/28
shelves: own-hardcover
review:

]]> Chasing the Boogeyman 55711747 The New York Times bestselling coauthor of Gwendy’s Button Box brings his signature prose to this story of small-town evil that combines the storytelling of Stephen King with the true-crime suspense of Michelle McNamara.

In the summer of 1988, the mutilated bodies of several missing girls begin to turn up in a small Maryland town. The grisly evidence leads police to the terrifying assumption that a serial killer is on the loose in the quiet suburb. But soon a rumor begins to spread that the evil stalking local teens is not entirely human. Law enforcement, as well as members of the FBI are certain that the killer is a living, breathing madman—and he’s playing games with them. For a once peaceful community trapped in the depths of paranoia and suspicion, it feels like a nightmare that will never end.

Recent college graduate Richard Chizmar returns to his hometown just as a curfew is enacted and a neighborhood watch is formed. In the midst of preparing for his wedding and embarking on a writing career, he soon finds himself thrust into the real-life horror story. Inspired by the terrifying events, Richard writes a personal account of the serial killer’s reign of terror, unaware that these events will continue to haunt him for years to come.

A clever, terrifying, and heartrending work of metafiction, Chasing the Boogeyman is the ultimate marriage between horror fiction and true crime. Chizmar’s writing is on full display in this truly unique novel that will haunt you long after you turn the final page.]]> 322 Richard Chizmar 1982175168 ThatBookish_deviant 4 own-paperback, serial-killers
“The night trekked over the town like a silent thief.”

This was a unique spin of metafiction based on true crime. Chizmar focuses the story around his childhood and family which was rather unexpected. While I knew I was reading a fictional story, the personal details of Chizmar’s life and hometown swept me into the narrative and had me blasting through the pages. I enjoyed it other than the “Jesus saved me from cancer” bit. So God saved you from ball cancer but allows children to die of cancer every day? I hate that shit.]]> 3.91 2021 Chasing the Boogeyman
author: Richard Chizmar
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/25
date added: 2025/06/27
shelves: own-paperback, serial-killers
review:
4.0/5

“The night trekked over the town like a silent thief.”

This was a unique spin of metafiction based on true crime. Chizmar focuses the story around his childhood and family which was rather unexpected. While I knew I was reading a fictional story, the personal details of Chizmar’s life and hometown swept me into the narrative and had me blasting through the pages. I enjoyed it other than the “Jesus saved me from cancer” bit. So God saved you from ball cancer but allows children to die of cancer every day? I hate that shit.
]]> Pew 56818426
Unable to agree on how to treat a person they cannot categorize - whether to adopt or imprison, help or harm them - this small town is quickly undone by Pew's terrifying silence. What remains is a foreboding, provocative, and amorphous fable about the world today: our borders and our boundaries, our fears and our woes.]]> 224 Catherine Lacey 1783785195 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 3.70 2020 Pew
author: Catherine Lacey
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Regrettably, I am About to Cause Trouble]]> 63946988 370 Amie McNee 0645190535 ThatBookish_deviant 5 witches, best-of-2025 If you’re into irreverent, clever, feminist writing drop what you’re doing and read this book! It’s crafted with a dash of magical realism within a cozy, historical setting that’s both heartwarming, and inspiring. ]]> 3.88 2022 Regrettably, I am About to Cause Trouble
author: Amie McNee
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/06/27
date added: 2025/06/27
shelves: witches, best-of-2025
review:
Love, love, love this weird and witchy novel! I can’t believe Amie McNee hasn’t blown up yet, this is fantastic.
If you’re into irreverent, clever, feminist writing drop what you’re doing and read this book! It’s crafted with a dash of magical realism within a cozy, historical setting that’s both heartwarming, and inspiring.
]]> <![CDATA[Pretenders to the Throne of God: The Tyrant Philosophers, Book 4]]> 236447650 Arthur C. Clarke winner and Sunday Times bestseller returns to a world steeped in magic – and the Tyrant Philosophers' campaign to bring reason, logic and 'perfection' to it.





Eres Ffenegh — "the City on the Back of a Crab" — is the next state slated for conquest by the Palleseen, but its citizens won't give up sovereignty easily, and the siege has now dragged into the harsh Eresi winter. The defenders – both locals and Pal renegades – hold an uneasy alliance against the enemy at the gates, while the Pal army is constantly looking over its shoulder for the next self-destructive dictate of their government back home.





Within the city, Devil Jack is the apprentice to the notorious conjurer and bawd known as the Widow, a good man driven to bargaining with hell to get back what he's lost. Meanwhile Kiffel ea Leachan is the city's champion, a child of privilege who's just lost everything to the invaders. We follow the ups and downs of both as they try to survive the siege and make their own destinies in a world that's cut them loose.





Outside the city, the Pals have been desperately waiting for reinforcements so they can finally take the city, but when new soldiers finally march in with the winter it's the worst kind of help, enough to damn the entire army.



THE TYRANT PHILOSOPHERS







City of Last Chances: portrait of Ilmar, a city under Palleseen occupation



House of Open Wounds: portrait of the Palleseen war machine at work.



Days of Shattered Faith: portrait of a kingdom consumed, piece-by-piece, by Palleseen diplomatic subterfuge.



3.1 Lives of Bitter Rain: a prequel novella to Days of Shattered Faith, portrait of a life in the Palleseen diplomatic corps.



Pretenders to the Throne of God: portrait of a city under siege.



The Grave of Perfection: will take us back to Ilmar, the 'City of Last Chances' where our story began.]]> Adrian Tchaikovsky ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 0.0 Pretenders to the Throne of God: The Tyrant Philosophers, Book 4
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/06/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> She's Come Undone 56415807
Meet Dolores Price. She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Stranded in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies.

When she finally orbits into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before she really goes under.

Length: 18 hrs 22 min]]> 465 Wally Lamb ThatBookish_deviant 4
“His words had burned me more times than they’d soothed me.”]]> 3.67 1992 She's Come Undone
author: Wally Lamb
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/27
date added: 2025/06/26
shelves:
review:
4.5/5

“His words had burned me more times than they’d soothed me.”
]]> <![CDATA[Redbird (The Sovereign Mountain Series, #1.5)]]> 209642283 71 Raya Morris Edwards ThatBookish_deviant 2 short-stories, smut 2⭐️2 4.01 Redbird (The Sovereign Mountain Series, #1.5)
author: Raya Morris Edwards
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.01
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2025/06/26
date added: 2025/06/26
shelves: short-stories, smut
review:
2⭐️2
]]> <![CDATA[Sovereign (The Sovereign Mountain #1)]]> 204878206 I have to have her.

I’ve been alone for so long. I never thought I would want to change that.

But when I saw her, I knew she was meant to be mine. And now that her husband is…gone, it’s time to make my move.

I’ve never felt like this about anyone. I want her everything, her body, her mind, her soul.

And I’ll do what it takes to make her mine. I’ll keep her safe, forgive her debts, and make everyone who’s ever hurt her pay.

All I need is her name on that dotted line.

“All roads lead to Sovereign Mountain.”

Set against the sweeping backdrop of northern Montana in winter, Sovereign is the perfect spicy love story for dark romance readers.

Keira Garrison has never known affection from her husband. After being tricked into giving up her family ranch, she finds herself lost and miserable in an unhappy marriage.

But one night, she meets the arresting Gerard Sovereign, her husband’s rival and the owner of the biggest cattle ranch in Montana.

Sparks fly. Their chemistry is undeniable.

But then tragedy strikes and Keira finds herself widowed and alone, unprotected from her late husband’s brothers who will stop at nothing to take the land she inherited.

With nowhere to go and no one to turn to, Keira finds herself at the mercy of Gerard Sovereign. He’s handsome, mysterious, dangerous, and hiding secrets that will turn her world upside down.

But he’s also her last hope.

Sovereign is a dual POV, dark, high heat romance with an anti-hero MMC. Please check content warnings before reading.]]> 351 Raya Morris Edwards ThatBookish_deviant 2 own-paperback, smut 2⭐️3 3.98 2024 Sovereign (The Sovereign Mountain #1)
author: Raya Morris Edwards
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/26
date added: 2025/06/26
shelves: own-paperback, smut
review:
2⭐️3
]]> Girl A 55271524 352 Abigail Dean ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 3.54 2021 Girl A
author: Abigail Dean
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Death of Us 216522696 The Death of Us is the story of a marriage turned inside out by a violent encounter that sets fire to the hairline faults that were there from the start.

Late on a summer’s evening when they are thirty years old, husband and wife Edward and Isabel’s home is invaded by a serial killer. Theirs was a classic story of young love that moves into true partnership—but their solid foundation implodes in the wake of this violence.

At fifty-eight, they are reunited for their tormentor’s trial and forced to confront their lifelong love the secrets, passions, and encounter that bind them still. Isabel has waited years for the man who nearly ended her life to be caught. As she’s tracked news of his increasingly violent criminal life, she’s connected with other survivors and prepared for the moment that she’d get to read her victim impact statement aloud in court. She is sure she’ll speak her truth and finally let the past go. Edward has spent the years since the break-in—and the breakdown of his marriage—trying to figure out how a near-miss with death killed so much else in their shared life. Unlike Isabel, he’s not eager to relive these terrible memories. Even though he’s moved on—he’s remarried, his old life almost unrecognizable ​to him now—he can’t resist accompanying Isabel to their intruder’s sentencing. What would revenge or justice feel like? Can closure set Isabel free? And what might that freedom mean for Edward?]]> 336 Abigail Dean 0593831136 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read, serial-killers 3.93 2025 The Death of Us
author: Abigail Dean
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/26
shelves: to-read, serial-killers
review:

]]> <![CDATA[It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over]]> 177148776 128 Anne de Marcken 0811237850 ThatBookish_deviant 0 3.68 2024 It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over
author: Anne de Marcken
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/26
shelves: to-read, novellas, pandemic-apocalypse
review:

]]> All the Fiends of Hell 201150997
Ordinary, unexceptional, directionless Karl, is one of the few who made it through the first night. In the company of two orphans, he flees south. But only into horrifying revelations and greater peril, where a transformed world and expanding race of ravening creatures await. Driven to the end of the country and himself, he must overcome alien and human malevolence and act in ways that were unthinkable mere days before.All The Fiends of Hell is a novel of alien horror from the four times winner of the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel.]]> 344 Adam L.G. Nevill 1739378415 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read, pandemic-apocalypse 3.98 2024 All the Fiends of Hell
author: Adam L.G. Nevill
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/26
shelves: to-read, pandemic-apocalypse
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Why Don't We Just Kill The Kid in the Omelas Hole]]> 207970983 10 Isabel J. Kim ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read, short-stories 3.93 2024 Why Don't We Just Kill The Kid in the Omelas Hole
author: Isabel J. Kim
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/26
shelves: to-read, short-stories
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Labyrinth's Heart (Rook & Rose #3)]]> 235970866 “Lush, engrossing and full of mystery and dark magic" (BookPage), Labyrinth's Heart is the thrilling conclusion to M. A. Carrick's Rook & Rose trilogy, in which a con artist, a vigilante, and a crime lord become reluctant allies in the quest to save their city from a dangerous ancient magic.

May you see the face and not the mask.

Ren came to Nadežra with a plan. She would pose as the long-lost daughter of the noble house Traementis. She would secure a fortune for herself and her sister. And she would vanish without a backward glance. She ought to have known that in the city of dreams, nothing is ever so simple.

Now, she is Ren, con-artist and thief. But she is also Renata, the celebrated Traementis heir. She is Arenza, the mysterious pattern-reader and political rebel. And she is the Black Rose, a vigilante who fights alongside the legendary Rook.

Even with the help of Grey Serrado and Derossi Vargo, it is too many masks for one person to wear. And as the dark magic the three of them helped unleash builds to storm that could tear the very fabric of the city apart, it's only a matter of time before one of the masks slips—and everything comes crashing down around them.]]> 742 M.A. Carrick 035652633X ThatBookish_deviant 0 3.80 2023 Labyrinth's Heart (Rook & Rose #3)
author: M.A. Carrick
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/26
shelves: to-read, own-paperback, own-hardcover
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Liar’s Knot (Rook & Rose, #2)]]> 235240412 Trust is the thread that binds us . . . and the rope that hangs us.

In Nadezra, peace is as tenuous as a single thread. The ruthless House Indestor has been destroyed, but darkness still weaves through the city’s filthy back alleys and jewel-bright gardens, seen by those who know where to look.

Derossi Vargo has always known. He has sacrificed more than anyone imagines to carve himself a position of power among the nobility, hiding a will of steel behind a velvet smile. He'll be damned if he lets anyone threaten what he's built.

Grey Serrado knows all too well. Bent under the yoke of too many burdens, he fights to protect the city’s most vulnerable. Sooner or later, that fight will demand more than he can give.

And Ren, daughter of no clan, knows best of all. Caught in a knot of lies, torn between her heritage and her aristocratic masquerade, she relies on her gift for reading pattern to survive. And it shows her the web of corruption that traps her city.

But all three have yet to discover just how far that web stretches. And in the end, it will take more than knives to cut themselves free...]]> 641 M.A. Carrick 0356526321 ThatBookish_deviant 0 4.29 2021 The Liar’s Knot (Rook & Rose, #2)
author: M.A. Carrick
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/26
shelves: to-read, own-paperback, own-hardcover
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Mask of Mirrors (Rook & Rose, #1)]]> 229073033 Nightmares are creeping through the city of dreams...

Renata Viraudax is a con artist who has come to the sparkling city of Nadezra -- the city of dreams -- with one goal: to trick her way into a noble house and secure her fortune and her sister's future.

But as she's drawn into the elite world of House Traementis, she realizes her masquerade is just one of many surrounding her. And as corrupt magic begins to weave its way through Nadezra, the poisonous feuds of its aristocrats and the shadowy dangers of its impoverished underbelly become tangled -- with Ren at their heart.]]> M.A. Carrick 0356526313 ThatBookish_deviant 0 3.88 2021 The Mask of Mirrors (Rook & Rose, #1)
author: M.A. Carrick
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/26
shelves: to-read, own-audio, own-paperback, own-hardcover
review:

]]> Once Was Willem 234072017 From the bestselling M. R. Carey comes an utterly unique and enchantingly dark epic fantasy fable like no other.

This is the tale of Once Was Willem, who - eleven hundred and some years after the death of Christ, in the kingdom that had but recently begun to call itself England - rose from the dead to defeat a great evil facing the humble village of Cosham.

Pennick for all its beauty was ever a place with a dark reputation. The forests of the Chase were said to be home to nixies and boggarts, and there was a common belief, passed down through many generations, that the castle housed an unquiet ghost of terrible and malign power. These rumours I can attest were all true; indeed they fell short of the truth by a long way . . .]]> 298 M.R. Carey 035652759X ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read, own-hardcover 4.20 2025 Once Was Willem
author: M.R. Carey
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/26
shelves: to-read, own-hardcover
review:

]]> All the Murmuring Bones 55302941
A spellbinding tale of dark family secrets, magic and witches, and creatures of myth and the sea; of strong women and the men who seek to control them.]]> 368 A.G. Slatter 1789094348 ThatBookish_deviant 0 to-read 3.84 2021 All the Murmuring Bones
author: A.G. Slatter
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Path of Thorns 59034614
Asher Todd comes to live with the mysterious Morwood family as a governess to their children. Asher knows little about being a governess but she is skilled in botany and herbcraft, and perhaps more than that. And she has secrets of her own, dark and terrible - and Morwood is a house that eats secrets. With a monstrous revenge in mind, Asher plans to make it choke. However, she becomes fond of her charges, of the people of the Tarn, and she begins to wonder if she will be able to execute her plan - and who will suffer most if she does. But as the ghosts of her past become harder to control, Asher realises she has no choice.

Dark magic, retribution and twisted family secrets combine to weave a bewitching and beautifully written gothic fairy tale.]]> 383 A.G. Slatter 1789094372 ThatBookish_deviant 0 governess, currently-reading 3.89 2022 The Path of Thorns
author: A.G. Slatter
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/26
shelves: governess, currently-reading
review:

]]> When the Wolf Comes Home 211004893
As they attempt to evade the boy's increasingly desperate father, horrifying incidents of butchery follow them. At first, Jess thinks she understands what they're up against, but she's about to learn there's more to these surreal and grisly events than she could've ever imagined.

And that when the wolf finally comes home, none will be spared.]]> 304 Nat Cassidy 125035434X ThatBookish_deviant 4 3.75/5 4.26 2025 When the Wolf Comes Home
author: Nat Cassidy
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/26
date added: 2025/06/26
shelves:
review:
3.75/5
]]> <![CDATA[The Summer that Melted Everything]]> 26114523 Fielding Bliss has never forgotten the summer of 1984:
the year a heatwave scorched the small town of Breathed, Ohio.
The year he became friends with the devil.


When local prosecutor Autopsy Bliss publishes an invitation to the devil to come to the country town of Breathed, Ohio, nobody quite expected that he would turn up. They especially didn't expect him to turn up a tattered and bruised thirteen-year-old boy.


Fielding, the son of Autopsy, finds the boy outside the courthouse and brings him home, and he is welcomed into the Bliss family. The Blisses believe the boy, who calls himself Sal, is a runaway from a nearby farm town. Then, as a series of strange incidents implicate Sal — and riled by the feverish heatwave baking the town from the inside out — there are some around town who start to believe that maybe Sal is exactly who he claims to be.


But whether he's a traumatised child or the devil incarnate, Sal is certainly one strange fruit: he talks in riddles, his uncanny knowledge and understanding reaches far outside the realm of a normal child — and ultimately his eerily affecting stories of Heaven, Hell, and earth will mesmerise and enflame the entire town.


Devastatingly beautiful, The Summer That Melted Everything is a captivating story about community, redemption, and the dark places where evil really lies.

]]> 320 Tiffany McDaniel 1250078067 ThatBookish_deviant 3
I wish I hadn’t read Tiffany McDaniels novel “Betty” first because it’s so good it makes this pale in comparison. This is a good book but my expectations were inordinately high and thus my enjoyment of it suffered.]]> 3.97 2016 The Summer that Melted Everything
author: Tiffany McDaniel
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2025/06/25
date added: 2025/06/25
shelves:
review:
3.5/5

I wish I hadn’t read Tiffany McDaniels novel “Betty” first because it’s so good it makes this pale in comparison. This is a good book but my expectations were inordinately high and thus my enjoyment of it suffered.
]]> Primal (Heathens Hollow #2) 217340376 The first time I meet him, he is the hunter and I am the prey.
The second time I see him, the reaper is knocking on my door.
The third time, I am told he will be my husband.
Every time we meet after that, I question if he will be my enemy or my lover.

He says he’ll teach me the rules and consequences to this world of ours.
It’s a dark place of give and most definitely take.
And as my future husband, he’s supposed to protect me at all costs from the shadows that threaten my family.
But am I ever truly safe when I’m with him?

Or with them?

Masked men tasked to watch over me. Stalk me. Rarely leaving my side.
If he can’t always be the hunter, he makes sure they can.

I may be able to run from one, secretly enjoying the primal chase.
But when there are three…


Primal Play
Dark Romance
Stalking
Masked Men
Why Choose
Obsession
Polyamorous]]> 376 Alta Hensley ThatBookish_deviant 2 smut 2.0 ⭐️ 3.0 3.89 Primal (Heathens Hollow #2)
author: Alta Hensley
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.89
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2025/06/24
date added: 2025/06/24
shelves: smut
review:
2.0 ⭐️ 3.0
]]> Cat's Cradle 8108445
Dr Felix Hoenikker, one of the founding fathers of the atomic bomb, has left a deadly legacy to the world. For he is the inventor of Ice-nine, a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet. The search for its whereabouts leads to Hoenikker's three eccentric children, to a crazed dictator in the Caribbean, to madness.

Will Felix Hoenikker's death wish come true? Will his last, fatal gift to humankind bring about the end that, for all of us, is nigh?

Told with deadpan humour and bitter irony, Kurt Vonnegut's cult tale of global apocalypse preys on our deepest fears of witnessing the end and, worse still, surviving it . . .]]> 206 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 0241951607 ThatBookish_deviant 4 3.75/5 3.91 1963 Cat's Cradle
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1963
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/24
date added: 2025/06/24
shelves:
review:
3.75/5
]]> <![CDATA[The Housemaid's Wedding (The Housemaid, #2.5)]]> 220921867 The Housemaid’s Wedding is a winter-themed short story meant to fill in the long gap between Book 2 of the Housemaid series (The Housemaid’s Secret) and Book 3 (The Housemaid is Watching). It can be read either between Book 2 and Book 3, or after Book 3.

Today is supposed to be the happiest day of my life.

I'm engaged to the man of my dreams, and in a few short hours, I'm going to stand before a judge, who will declare us husband and wife, till death does us part. Despite some bumps in the road, this day is everything I dreamed it would be.

There's only one problem:

Someone out there doesn't want me to live long enough to say my vows.

And if I'm not careful, they may very well get their wish.]]> 76 Freida McFadden ThatBookish_deviant 3 novellas
Super short little bite-sized novella. Not much of a suspenseful mystery and it’s lacking the usual Freida twist. I imagine this is intended to whet the appetite of rabid Housemaid fans while they await McFadden’s next full-length installment. It’s a lil dose of a day in the life of Millie and Enzo. I was simultaneously entertained and underwhelmed. There’s not much to muse on here, it’s rather unremarkable.]]> 3.39 2024 The Housemaid's Wedding (The Housemaid, #2.5)
author: Freida McFadden
name: ThatBookish_deviant
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/06/23
date added: 2025/06/23
shelves: novellas
review:
3.0/5

Super short little bite-sized novella. Not much of a suspenseful mystery and it’s lacking the usual Freida twist. I imagine this is intended to whet the appetite of rabid Housemaid fans while they await McFadden’s next full-length installment. It’s a lil dose of a day in the life of Millie and Enzo. I was simultaneously entertained and underwhelmed. There’s not much to muse on here, it’s rather unremarkable.
]]>