Random Musings of a Bibliophile

Top Ten Tuesday  is a Meme hosted by  The Broke and the Bookish This week's TTT topic: Most Anticipated Books for Second Half of 2017 I can't believe half the year is almost gone! Here are the books I'm looking forward to reading in the last half of the year. The MG: The YA:  The Adult: What are you looking forward to reading in the last half of the year?

My feelings for Clair LaZebnik's books have run from lukewarm to extreme love. I was on the fence about reading Things I Should Have Known because I knew it dealt with autism, and I was worried about how that would go. All her other books I've read have been fluffy, romantic modern Austen retellings. I was thoroughly pulled into this story and characters though. This is definitely on the extreme love end of my LaZebnik book rankings. Chloe's sister Ivy has autism so even though Ivy is older, Chloe has always felt like the older sibling who has to take care of and watch out for Ivy. When Ivy walks in on Chloe making out with her boyfriend and begins asking a lot of questions about feelings and romance, Chloe thinks Ivy wants a boyfriend. After assessing all of Ivy's friends at her special school, Chloe encourages Ivy to text a boy named Ethan who is also on the spectrum. Ivy agrees to meet with Ethan for yogurt, but only if Chloe goes with her. When they arrive, Chl...

Any regular reader of this blog knows that I have strong feelings about The Queen's Thief series. I talk about them kind of a lot. They are in so many of my lists: Favorite Books, Favorite Series, Favorite Female Characters, Favorite Male Characters, Favorite Secondary Characters, Favorite Romantic Relationships....well you get the point. I've reread the first four books in the series so many times I've lost count, and each time I find things I had not noticed before. I never grow tired of reading them. That doesn't mean I haven't wanted with a desperation the next book in the series. Waiting for it has been hard. Really it's only been 7, but in publishing years 7 feels like 84. AND TODAY IT SHALL BE MINE! My love for these books is such that I don't review them. I talk about them a lot, but I don't review them. I can't. Because of this, I passed up several opportunities to get an ARC. I don't regret that decision. At all. And I wan...

This is a feature I am starting to highlight upcoming books I'm particularly excited about. If you would like to join me, you are welcome. Please just link back to this post in your own. I've included a Mr. Linky at the bottom. Right now I'm only going to do it the 2nd Friday of the month, but I'm open to doing it more often if there is enough interest. When Ghost  came out last year, I didn't realize that each book in the series was going to feature a different kid as the main character. I'm even more excited about this sequel knowing that and who it is about. Patina, or Patty, runs like a flash. She runs for many reasons—to escape the taunts from the kids at the fancy-schmancy new school she’s been sent to since she and her little sister had to stop living with their mom. She runs from the reason WHY she’s not able to live with her “real” mom any more: her mom has The Sugar, and Patty is terrified that the disease that took her mom’s legs will...

Stephanie Burgis became an auto-buy author for me because I know I can always count on her books to be both well written and the among the best of whatever fantasy angle and age category it falls in. Her newest release, The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart , is a perfect example of this. Aventurine is a young dragon who has yet to find her passion in life. All dragons have them. Her brother studies philosophy. Her sister is an oh so perfect epic poet. Adventurine doesn't want to study books and she doesn't want to stay safe inside her family's mountain. Knowing she is old enough and just needs to prove herself, she sneaks out of her mountain. In doing so she finds her life's passion: Chocolate. Unfortunately for her, the chocolate comes from a human who enchants it. Aventurine finds herself in a human body quite incapable of avenging herself on the Food Mage she was planning to take back to her family as a treat. Alone and forced to find her way in her new state, Aventur...

Stephanie Burgis is an auto-buy favorite author of mine. Her latest MG book combines some of my favorite things: dragons, strong girls, female friendships, and chocolate. I am so pleased to debut the trailer for the book today. The trailer was created by Lodestar Author Services  ( @lodestaras ). The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart  is currently available in the UK and releases in the US on May 30th. You can read the first chapter here at Stephanie's website . Links: Amazon Barnes and Noble Goodreads Indie Trust me. You want to read this one. And have plenty of chocolate on hand when you do.

Top Ten Tuesday  is a Meme hosted by  The Broke and the Bookish This week's TTT topic: Cover Freebie I decided to do books that have covers mainly featuring my favorite color. Green has been my favorite color for as long as I can remember. I went through a Pre-K peer pleasing phase where it was pink for like two weeks. But other than that it's always been green. Looking at my book shelf, I discovered a lot of my favorite books have green covers too. Is it because I'm attracted to that color so I read more green covered books? I don't know, but these books are all excellent in contents as well.