Knives as Bookmarks

Time to spend all your Christmas/ holiday money on new books. Note: most of the books coming out in December are sequels so that's why there aren't the usual 5 books. Would Like to Meet by Rachel Winters Genre: Adult, Romance, Contemporary Release Date: December 3 29-year-old Evie Summers has been working for the last seven years as an assistant at a TV and film agency and is ready to finally get the promotion she deserves. However, Evie's on the verge of losing her job unless she can get the agency's biggest and most arrogant client, Ezra Chester, to finish writing his script for a Hollywood rom-com, and of course, Ezra is suffering from writer's block and he'll only write if Evie can prove to him that you can fall in love like you can in the movies. The Wives by Tarryn Fisher Genre: Adult, Mystery, Thriller Release Date: December 3  You know that your husband has two other wives. You've never met them, you don't know each other, and y

 It's time to give thanks... for these great new releases. The Deep by Rivers Solomon Genre: Adult, Sci-Fi, Fantasy Release Date: November 5  Yetu is the historian of her people, water-dwelling descendants of African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners. The memories, traumatic and wonderful, are destroying her, so she flees to the surface, trying to escape the role of historian. The Toll by Neal Shusterman Genre: YA, Sci-Fi, Dystopian, Fantasy Release Date: November 5 We're finally getting the finale for Scythe! So, avoiding spoilers, but the series of Scythe is about a world where death is obsolete. The only way to die is to be gleaned by a scythe, mainly done for population control. But this book continues three years after the conclusion of Thunderhead and all hell has broken loose. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern Genre: Adult, Fantasy Release Date: November 5  Zachary Rawlins, a graduate student from Vermont, disco

Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky Genre: Adult, Horror Release Date: October 1  Escaping an abusive relationship, single mother Kate Reese takes her son Christopher in the middle of the night to a small, tight-knit town called Mill Grove. At first, it seems like the perfect place to settle down until Christopher vanishes for six days. Then he returns, although he's not harmed, he comes back with a voice in his head. The voice's mission for Christopher is to build a treehouse in the woods by Christmas or the town will never be the same again. The Beautiful by Renee Ahdieh Genre: YA, Fantasy, Historical Fiction Release Date: October 8  Seventeen-year-old Celine Rousseau has been forced to flee her life as a dressmaker in Paris to the Ursuline convent in New Orleans. Celine quickly becomes enamored by the vibrant city and becomes lured into the city's underworld, known as La Cour des Lions, run by the enigmatic Sebastien Saint Germain. Once the body of o

  Holy Toledo am I excited for these new releases (sorry I couldn't think of anything September related) The Testaments by Margaret Atwood Genre: Sci-Fi, Dystopia, Feminism Release Date: September 10 Now, not a lot has been released about this sequel, but if you can't tell by the cover it's a sequel for the acclaimed book The Handmaid's Tale. For the maybe 10 people that haven't read it, this is set in a dystopian world where women, handmaids, are essentially used as incubators. Now The Testaments follows Offred 15 years after the ending of The Handmaid's Tale. The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr by Susan Holloway Scott Genre: Historical Fiction Release Date: September 24 Following the massive Broadway show Hamilton, he all know Burr as the SOB that shot Hamilton, but before that, there were claims that Burr was a man who was unafraid of claiming whatever he believed should be his. Mary Emmons was sold into slavery as a child in India and

  It's back to school, which means more time to read unless you're a student in which case: sucks to suck. Don't worry these books will be staring at you while you're being forced to read Walden. The Third Mrs. Durst by Ann Aguirre Genre: Thriller, Mystery Release Date: August 8   Marlena Altizer Durst is controlled by her powerful husband. He tells her what to wear, what to eat, and who she can be friends with and of course, there are consequences if she obeys. While the world believes she lives a fairy-tale life, no one would believe her truth. She might be able to escape, like his first and second wives via death. That is unless she flips the switch... and gets away with murder. The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa Genre: Japanese Literature, Science Fiction, Dystopia Release Date: August 15  To the people on the island, things disappear and when they do they no longer have meaning. You can burn them, throw them in the river, or hand them over

    If you want a book that is an LGBTQIA+ book that isn't just L, G, or B then do I have the book for you. The main character, as well as the author, are non-binary, and the book is about Ben De Becker and their life after coming out to their parents as non-binary. Within the first chapter, their parents kick them out and so they call their sister who they haven't talked to since she left and they stay with her and her husband during their last semester of high school. At the new school, Ben decides not to come out at their new school in fear of what they will face.   Honestly, in terms of a synopsis, I don't want to give much more because I highly recommend people read this. I, like probably many other people, had never read a book by a non-binary person and I think this book felt... real. It didn't feel like Ben's entire personality revolved around them being non-binary. I also love the strained relationship between Ben and their sister, I feel like most nov

*Insert catchy opener, fireworks, something, blah blah blah* Wilder Girls by Rory Power Genre: YA, LGBT, Horror, Mystery Release Date: July 9th It's been 18 months since the Tox hit and put the Raxter School for Girls under quarantine. First, the teachers were dying off one by one and then it started to infect the students, mutating their bodies strange and foreign. Fearing the woods that surround the school, they stay in the school, waiting for the cure until Byatt goes missing. Lock Every Door by Riley Sager Genre: Thriller, Mystery Release Date: July 2nd Jules Larsen's new job as an apartment sitter at the Bartholomew, Manhattan's most high-profile and mysterious buildings, seems rather simple with only three rules: no visitors, no nights spent away from the apartment, and no disturbing the other residents. Jules finds herself drawn to another apartment sitter Ingrid, who disturbingly reminds her of her sister she lost eight years ago. When

  It's my birthday month which means it's time to throw more money at more books Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey Genre: Fantasy, Mystery Thriller Release Date: June 4th   Ivy Gamble is happy with her career as a private investigator and wants nothing to do with magic unlike her sister Tabitha, a magically gifted professor. But when a faculty member at Tabitha's private academy is murdered and Ivy is hired to investigate, she starts to lose herself in the life she could have had. Wicked Fox by Kat Cho Genre: YA, Fantasy Release Date: June 25th   Gu Miyoung is a gumiho, a nine-tailed fox who must devour the energy of men in order to survive, and since there are so many terrible men that no one will miss, she lives in Seoul to hide and hunt. She ends up crossing paths with Jihoon, a human boy, who was being attacked by a goblin and, against her better judgment, she saves him and loses her fox bead, her gumiho soul. However, Jihoon knows about M

   So, if any of you guys read my January new releases, you know how excited I was for this book and it didn't disappoint, well not really. So in the world of Kichona, there are warriors called Taigas who are blessed with powers by the Gods to protect the kingdom and since the Blood Rift Rebellion, the kingdom has been prosperous and peaceful. This book has duel perspectives between Sora and Daemon, two apprentice warriors on the cusp of graduating. Sora is top of the class and excels at using her Taiga magic, while her gemina, Daemon, is much more proficient at hand to hand combat. When they are assigned to a simple scouting mission, they come across an odd camp of mysterious soldiers and they decide to infiltrate the camp in order to prove themselves. Once they infiltrate they learn that peace may soon end for their kingdom and that they Gods blessed powers are no match for their potential opponents.    So let's get into what I loved and didn't love and by the way

 I'm slowly running out of things to say for these intros.                                                   Again but Better by Christine Riccio Genre: YA, Romance Release Date: 5/7 If for some reason you haven't heard about this book yet, it's about Shane who is in her final year of college and for her it's been fairly mundane and so she decides to sign up for a semester abroad in London to get the opportunity to relive her college experience.                                                  The Bride Test by Helen Hoang Genre: Romance Release Date: 5/7  So this book is set in the same world as The Kiss Quotient but follows Khai Diep, who will get irritated when people move his stuff around but doesn't feel important emotions, like grief or love. He feels like he's defective due to his autism, but his family understands that he just processes emotions differently and so his mother tries to help him find love by going back to Vietnam to find his

   On May 4, 1932, Lilly Lindestrom, a 32-year-old sex worker, was found murdered in her apartment in the Atlas area of Stockholm. She had been dead for a couple of days prior to the police finding her body and she was found completely naked, face-down on her bed. She had suffered from blunt force trauma to her head, saliva on her neck and body, and there were signs of sexual activity, although not sure whether it was consensual. A condom was found protruding from her and a bloodstained gravy ladle was found at the scene. The oddest part was that Lindestrom's body was drained of all her blood and the police suspected that the ladle was used by the perpetrator to drink her blood.    There were at least nine men suspected by the police, however, none of the names were ever released, and they were let go. There is a theory, however, that the man who killed Lindestrom was actually a cop, who left a bizarre crime scene to send his peers off on a wild goose chase.

   GUYS! I'm super excited to be reviewing Laura Dean because one I don't get many arcs (and I've never received a physical one until this one), but I also won it in  a Goodreads giveaway so thanks to them and MacMillan, but I just wanted to get that out of my system before I get into the actual review. Now, since this is a graphic novel, I'll try to show a couple of the pages so you can get an idea for the art style, so let's get into it.  I thoroughly enjoyed this overall, the story is about a Frederica Riley, aka Freddy, is on and off with the most popular girl in her high school Laura Dean, however, they keep breaking up and getting back together, so Freddy ends up writing to an online advice column Anna Vice. This book has SO MUCH REPRESENTATION in it: Freddy is an Asian American lesbian (or maybe bisexual, it's never explicitly stated), two of her close friends Eric and Buddy are a non-white gay couple (since it's a black and white graphic nove

        Elsie Sigel born in 1888 and was the granddaughter of General Franz Sigel. She did missionary work at the Chinatown Rescue Settlement and Recreation Room while her mother taught at a Chinese Sunday school class in St. Andrew's Church. On June 9, 1909, Elsie was last seen leaving her parents' apartment to visit her grandmother and was never seen again until June 18. On June 18, Elsie was found strangled inside of a trunk in  Leon Ling's apartment, a waiter in a Chinese restaurant. Sigel and her mother had met Ling at his chop suey restaurant years prior to her death. In his apartment,  police found 35 love letters signed by Sigel in his apartment, along with numerous letters from other women. However, Sigel also had sent love letters to Chu Gain, the manager of the Port Arthur Restaurant, and Chu also reported that he received an anonymous letter threatening Sigel's life if they didn't end their relationship, leading the police to believe that the mot

  Mary Phagan was born on June 1, 1899, in Georgia. Her father passed away before she was born and not long after her birth, her mother moved the family back to their hometown of Marietta, Georgia, then around 1907, they relocated to East Point, Georgia. Mary left school at the age of 10 to work part-time in a textile mill. In 1912, the family moved to Atlanta, when her mother married John William Coleman and Mary took a job at the National Pencil Company, where she earned ten cents an hour, working 55 hours per week. Her job was to operate a knurling machine that would insert rubber erasers into the metal tips of pencils, which was across the hall from Leo Frank's office. On April 21, 1913, Mary was laid off due to a shortage of brass sheet metal and on the 26th she went to the factory to claim her final paycheck of $1.20.     In the middle of the night the next day, Newt Lee, the factory's night watchman, went to the factory basement when he found Mary's body near t

   Finally, we're out of the backstock and I can now talk about books that I've read recently, for me recently means like a couple of days ago. To be honest, I had a lot of hope going into this book (thanks One Piece) and this book didn't fail, but it didn't exactly meet my expectations. So this book is about Alosa, the daughter of the pirate king, who allows herself to get captured in order to search the ship for a certain map. However, the ship's first mate, Riden, is making it much more complicated. What I loved was that Alosa was definitely a BAMF, and it definitely had a unique storyline to it. However, while Alosa is a BAMF it's almost stereotypical, she's incredibly brash about it, almost verging on the line of annoying and honestly you can see the romance plot coming from several miles away. This is definitely a book that isn't going to throw a complete curveball slam into your face, but it still has some twists in it. I would say if you enjo

    Janet Smith was born on June 25, 1902, in Perth, Scotland. In January 1923, she started taking care of Fredrick and Doreen Baker's newborn daughter. As the family moved to Paris and then Vancouver, she followed and once in Canada, they hired a Chinese houseboy named Wong Foon Sing, who moved to Canada in 1913. He became infatuated with Smith and would give her gifts, and Smith's friends would testify that she feared him, while her diary revealed otherwise. On July 26, 1924, Wong claimed that he heard a car backfire and he found Smith's body in the basement with a bullet wound in her temple and a.45 caliber revolver near her right hand.   Constable James Green was called to the scene and contaminated it by grabbing the potential murder weapon. Even though there was no bullet, no blood or brain tissue on the walls, or no powder burns on her face, her death was considered a suicide. Later, a coroner called the death a "self-inflicted but accidental death&q

  Springtime is finally here and I'm so excited because I can finally go outside to read again! Descendant of the Crane by Joan He Genre: YA, Fantasy Release Date: 4/2  Princess Hesina of Yan does not want to be royal, she wants an unremarkable life and shirks the responsibilities of the crown whenever she can, but when her father is found dead, she is thrust into being the queen of a surprisingly unstable kingdom. She soon learns that her court is full of dissemblers and deceivers eager to use her father's death for their own political gain, which makes Hesina believe that her father was murdered. So she turns to aid of a soothsayer to find out the truth about her father, even though magic was outlawed centuries ago and this act very well could be punishable by death. The Devouring Gray by Christine Lynn Herman Genre: YA, Fantasy Release Date: 4/2  Violet Saunders has been uprooted from the city to a small town in rural New York that one of her ancestors

     Rose Harsent, a servant girl at the Providence home, was stabbed to death by an unknown assailant on May 31, 1902. Even though she wasn't married, she was six months pregnant. While it was initially reviewed as a suicide, local clergyman William Gardiner was eventually arrested for Rose's murder. Allegations soon began to rise that Gardiner was the father of Harsent's unborn child and that they had an affair the year prior. Since Gardiner was somewhat prominent in town, he was the foreman at the local seed drill works, and he had a wife with six children, it would make sense why he wouldn't want the affair to be made public, and it didn't help that his home was within sight of the Providence house.    Gardiner was tried twice for the murder, but no verdict was ever reached. During the first trial, the jury was split 11 to 1, in favor of guilty, and the second trial was split 11 to 1, in favor of not guilty, and then the prosecution issued a writ of noel

  If you need a book that just leaves you saying "Whoa!" then oh boy do I have a book for you. This book is about fifteen-year-old Alice who has been held against her will for the past five years, honestly as a sex slave. The "man" who holds her, Ray, keeps her at home, away from anyone that she could tell, makes claims that Alice is mentally handicapped, so even if she tells anyone, no one would believe her, since he was "such an upstanding man." Also, Ray reminds her fairly often if she tells anyone, he will go and kill Alice's family. Alice knows that Ray will kill her because he keeps talking about her death and Alice is damned if she's not going out without a fight. Now, I'm gonna give heavy trigger warnings for rape and pedophilia. This book is so so so dark and twisted, but honestly probably accurate. I don't want to say more than that because I don't know what else to say because this isn't a long book (under 200 page