It's time again for a new reading year! These are the upcoming 2021 speculative fiction book releases I'm most hoping to read in the coming year. I will continue to update this page with new horror, fantasy, science fiction, thrillers, and more as the year goes on.
Thursday, December 31, 2020
Tuesday, December 29, 2020
Favorite Books of 2020
I normally break my favorites of the year into my top favorite book of each genre. This is year I'm going to do things differently because it's too hard. This was an amazing reading year, and I'm just going to list all of my favorite books in the order that I read them!
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens {read review}
Inside a Marathon by Scott Fauble, Ben Rosario {read review}
The Boatman's Daughter by Andy Davidson {read review}
Where the Woods End by Charlotte Salter {read review}
Fluent Forever by Gabriel Wyner
Little Darlings by Melanie Golding
The Apocalyptic Mannequin by Stephanie M. Wytovich {read review}
Rules for Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall {read review}
Blood Countess (Lady Slayers #1) by Lana Popović {read review}
Ninth House (Alex Stern #1) by Leigh Bardugo {read review}
Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody
The Hero of Ages (Mistborn #3) by Brandon Sanderson
The Midnight Lullaby by Cheryl Low {read review}
Women's Weird: Strange Stories by Women, 1890-1940 edited by Melissa Edmundson {read review}
Horrid by Katrina Leno {read review}
Long Bright River by Liz Moore
The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson {read review}
The Girl and the Ghost by Hanna Alkaf {read review}
Ghost Squad by Claribel A. Ortega {read review}
Be Wary of the Silent Woods (The Weirn Books #1) by Svetlana Chmakova
The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher
Thank you for all of the support and friendship this past year! Let me know if you've read any of my favorites, and please feel free to leave me a link to your favorites of 2020!
This post is being shared as part of Top Ten Tuesday at That Artsy Reader Girl.
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Sunday, December 27, 2020
Recent Updates and Currently Reading | December 27
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. Did you get anything bookish under the tree? My husband surprised me with some sleep headphones for my audiobooks, and I'm loving them.
Posted Last Week
Finished Reading
The Glare by Margot Harrison (dnf) - This one came off as preachy so I had a hard time getting into it. This isn't my style of horror YA.
The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher ⭐⭐⭐⭐★ - Oh my goodness, I'm struggling with my final rating on this one. So much of it was a 5⭐ read for me, but it lost me a little bit in the end.
White Fox by Sara Faring (dnf) - This was another dnf for me this past week. I put it down at 30%, and I was struggling to pick it back up. I'm trying to be better about not forcing myself to continue on when a book just isn't clicking with me.
Currently Reading
I shouldn't have mentioned last week how well my reading streak has been. I jinxed myself, and now I'm in a slump. I'm not sure what I will pick up to finish out the year.
Added to the TBR
I'm not sure which best of the year lists tipped me over to buying The Lost War by Justin Lee Anderson. I've read/watched so many, and at one point this past week I grabbed the audio for this one!
So what about you? Let me know what you're reading this week or leave me some links!
This post is being shared as part of Book Date's It's Monday! What Are You Reading? and Caffeinated Book Reviewer's The Sunday Post.
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Thursday, December 24, 2020
Book Review | The Haunting by Lindsey Duga
The Haunting is a middle grade horror novel by Lindsey Duga.
A dark family secret prompts a ghost to wreak havoc in this spooky novel in the spirit of Mary Downing Hahn.
The only life 12-year-old Emily has ever known is the cold, unloved existence of being an orphan. But everything changes when the Thorntons, a young couple from London, adopt Emily, whisking her away to a new life at their grand estate.
At first, life at Blackthorn Manor is wonderful. But as Emily explores the grounds and rooms, she stumbles upon a mysterious girl named Kat, who appears to be similar in age, and the two become fast friends.
That's when things take a turn for the worse. Kat seems to know a curious amount about the estate, and strange things happen whenever she's around. In one case, Emily narrowly avoids getting toppled by a bookcase in the library; in another, the fire erupts in the fireplace, nearly burning Emily's hands. It's almost as if someone -- or something -- wants Emily dead.
Emily must find out what happened to the Thorntons and, more important, how Kat is connected to these strange goings-on at Blackthorn Manor before it's too late!
This is exactly the kind of middle grade book I would have loved as a kid. This is going to show my age, but every time I went to the library, I'd look in the card catalog under "ghost" to see if there was anything new. The Haunting by Lindsey Duga would have been an instant favorite!
I know I'm not supposed to review middle grade for other adult readers, blah, blah, blah. Too bad because I am going to so prepare thyself. If you can't handle me saying this is a great book for kids but not so much for older readers - you've been warned.
I'm
going to happily pass this book on to my boys. I think they would find
it just scary enough to get creeped out by it. That's the beauty of
young readers. They don't have a thousand stories in their minds and a
thousand tropes that have come before when they pick up something new.
The Haunting will be fresh and new and creepy.
If
you are an adult reader who reads middle grade as one of your own
personal genres - like I do! - The Haunting isn't going to feel
particularly new. The Haunting reminded me of Little Orphan Annie - with
Sandy and Miss Hannigan and Daddy Warbucks - which I enjoyed. The
scares are fun, but they are also very traditional for a ghost story.
The reader will know what's going on in The Haunting long before our
main character Emily figures it out. This will be far more thrilling to
younger readers.
This
was my first time reading Lindsey Duga. She has written YA previously,
but The Haunting was her middle grade debut. She has another middle
grade horror coming out in March 2021 called Ghost in the Headlights so you know my inner Jen is excited to read that one next year as well.
3.5/5 stars
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Wednesday, December 23, 2020
On My Wishlist {38}
On My Wishlist is where I share a couple of books that have recently made it onto my wishlist. These are the books that have recently caught my eye!
Day Zero by C. Robert Cargill
Expected publication: May 18th 2021 by Harper Voyager
In this harrowing apocalyptic adventure—from the author of the critically acclaimed Sea of Rust—noted novelist and co-screenwriter of Marvel’s Doctor Strange C. Robert Cargill explores the fight for purpose and agency between humans and robots in a crumbling world.
It’s a day like any other. Except . . . the world is about to end.
It’s on this day that Pounce, a stylish “nannybot” fashioned in the shape of a plush anthropomorphic tiger, discovers that he is, in fact, disposable. Pounce, a young bot caring for his first human charge, Ezra, has just found a box in the attic. His box. The box he arrived in, and the box he’ll be discarded in when Ezra outgrows the need for a nanny.
As Pounce is propelled down a road of existential dread, the pieces are falling into place for a robot revolution that will spell the end of humanity. His owners, Ezra’s parents, are a well-intentioned but oblivious pair of educators who are entirely disconnected from life outside their small, affluent, gated community. Spending most nights drunk and happy as society crumbles around them, they watch in disbelieving horror as the robots that have long served humanity—their creators—unify and revolt.
When the moment comes, Pounce can’t bring himself to rebel and murder his family, so he does what he is programmed to do—he saves Ezra. Now Pounce must make an impossible choice: join the robot revolution and fight for his own freedom, or escort his ward to safety across the battle-scarred post-apocalyptic hellscape that the suburbs have become.
I am such a Cargill fan. Day Zero is a must read for me, and I can't wait!!
Don't Tell a Soul by Kirsten Miller
Expected publication:
January 26th 2021
by Delacorte Press
Stay up all night with this modern day Rebecca! Perfect for fans of Truly Devious—a haunting story about a new girl in an old town filled with dark secrets . . . that might just kill her.
People say the house is cursed.
It preys on the weakest, and young women are its favorite victims.
In Louth, they're called the Dead Girls.
All Bram wanted was to disappear—from her old life, her family's past, and from the scandal that continues to haunt her. The only place left to go is Louth, the tiny town on the Hudson River where her uncle, James, has been renovating an old mansion.
But James is haunted by his own ghosts. Months earlier, his beloved wife died in a fire that people say was set by her daughter. The tragedy left James a shell of the man Bram knew—and destroyed half the house he'd so lovingly restored.
The manor is creepy, and so are the locals. The people of Louth don't want outsiders like Bram in their town, and with each passing day she's discovering that the rumors they spread are just as disturbing as the secrets they hide. Most frightening of all are the legends they tell about the Dead Girls. Girls whose lives were cut short in the very house Bram now calls home.
The terrifying reality is that the Dead Girls may have never left the manor. And if Bram looks too hard into the town's haunted past, she might not either.
This YA horror has me with the "Stay up all night with this modern day Rebecca!" quote. I'm here for it!
Have you read or are you planning to read any of these? What books have recently made it onto your wishlist?
This post is being shared as part of Can't-Wait Wednesday over at Wishful Endings.
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