Literary Legionnaire Turns Three!!!

Hi friends! Soooooo it's been a long time and I'm sorry :( Life has been really hectic since last summer and I have barely read anything the past few months and have had basically no time for reading or blogging or any of this. I'm hoping to pick it up again for real this summer and hope to be more consistent throughout the year. But I figured I should post because it's technically my third blogoversary and even though I've deteriorated a bit over the past year, I'm still really proud of what I've made here and all the amazing people I've met and the community I've become a part of. So I don't have much to say in terms of how my blog's grown the past year since it hasn't (oops), and I forgot to write a blogoversary post last year (double oops), but I just want to say a major THANK YOU to everyone who's been here from the start and to everyone who has supported me throughout any stage of this little blog. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. You truly know how to make a book nerd happy. Here's to a better, more productive blogging year to come.

Waiting on Wednesday (115)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that you are eagerly anticipating.

From Twinkle, with Love by Sandhya Menon
Genre: Young Adult/Contemporary
Page Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication Date: June 5, 2018

About From Twinkle, with Love (via Goodreads):

Aspiring filmmaker and wallflower Twinkle Mehra has stories she wants to tell and universes she wants to explore, if only the world would listen. So when fellow film geek Sahil Roy approaches her to direct a movie for the upcoming Summer Festival, Twinkle is all over it. The chance to publicly showcase her voice as a director? Dream come true. The fact that it gets her closer to her longtime crush, Neil Roy—a.k.a. Sahil’s twin brother? Dream come true x 2.

When mystery man “N” begins emailing her, Twinkle is sure it’s Neil, finally ready to begin their happily-ever-after. The only slightly inconvenient problem is that, in the course of movie-making, she’s fallen madly in love with the irresistibly adorkable Sahil.

Twinkle soon realizes that resistance is futile: The romance she’s got is not the one she’s scripted. But will it be enough?

Told through the letters Twinkle writes to her favorite female filmmakers, From Twinkle, with Love navigates big truths about friendship, family, and the unexpected places love can find you.

Waiting on Wednesday (114)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that you are eagerly anticipating.

Furyborn by Claire Legrand
Series: The Empirium Trilogy #1
Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy
Page Length: 512 pages
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Publication Date: May 22, 2018

About Furyborn (via Goodreads):

The stunningly original, must-read fantasy of 2018 follows two fiercely independent young women, centuries apart, who hold the power to save their world...or doom it.

When assassins ambush her best friend, the crown prince, Rielle Dardenne risks everything to save him, exposing her ability to perform all seven kinds of elemental magic. The only people who should possess this extraordinary power are a pair of prophesied queens: a queen of light and salvation and a queen of blood and destruction. To prove she is the Sun Queen, Rielle must endure seven trials to test her magic. If she fails, she will be executed...unless the trials kill her first.

A thousand years later, the legend of Queen Rielle is a mere fairy tale to bounty hunter Eliana Ferracora. When the Undying Empire conquered her kingdom, she embraced violence to keep her family alive. Now, she believes herself untouchable--until her mother vanishes without a trace, along with countless other women in their city. To find her, Eliana joins a rebel captain on a dangerous mission and discovers that the evil at the heart of the empire is more terrible than she ever imagined.

As Rielle and Eliana fight in a cosmic war that spans millennia, their stories intersect, and the shocking connections between them ultimately determine the fate of their world--and of each other.

Top Ten of 2017

3.5 months late, but I figured I should still share some of my favorites from last year, so here we go!

1. Dear Martin by Nic Stone
2. Windwitch by Susan Dennard
3. A Crown of Wishes by Roshani Chokshi
4. Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
5. Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco
6. Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley
7. When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
8. Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
9. Love, Hate, and Other Filters by Samira Ahmed
10. First We Were IV by Alexandra Sirowy

Waiting on Wednesday (113)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that you are eagerly anticipating.

A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, edited by Ellen Oh & Elsie Chapman
Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy/Mythology
Page Length: 336 pages
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Publication Date: June 26, 2018

About A Thousand Beginnings and Endings (via Goodreads):

Star-crossed lovers, meddling immortals, feigned identities, battles of wits, and dire warnings. These are the stuff of fairy tale, myth, and folklore that have drawn us in for centuries.

Fifteen bestselling and acclaimed authors reimagine the folklore and mythology of East and South Asia in short stories that are by turns enchanting, heartbreaking, romantic, and passionate.

Compiled by We Need Diverse Books’s Ellen Oh and Elsie Chapman, the authors included in this exquisite collection are: Renee Ahdieh, Sona Charaipotra, Preeti Chhibber, Roshani Chokshi, Aliette de Bodard, Melissa de la Cruz, Julie Kagawa, Rahul Kanakia, Lori M. Lee, E. C. Myers, Cindy Pon, Aisha Saeed, Shveta Thakrar, and Alyssa Wong.

A mountain loses her heart. Two sisters transform into birds to escape captivity. A young man learns the true meaning of sacrifice. A young woman takes up her mother’s mantle and leads the dead to their final resting place. From fantasy to science fiction to contemporary, from romance to tales of revenge, these stories will beguile readers from start to finish. For fans of Neil Gaiman’s Unnatural Creatures and Ameriie’s New York Times–bestselling Because You Love to Hate Me.

Waiting on Wednesday (112)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that you are eagerly anticipating.

Sea Witch by Sarah Henning
Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy
Page Length: 368 pages
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Publication Date: July 31, 2018

About Sea Witch (via Goodreads):

Everyone knows what happens in the end.

A mermaid, a prince, a true love’s kiss.

But before that young siren’s tale, there were three friends.

One feared, one royal, and one already dead.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ever since her best friend, Anna, drowned, Evie has been an outcast in her small fishing town. A freak. A curse. A witch.

A girl with an uncanny resemblance to Anna appears offshore and, though the girl denies it, Evie is convinced that her best friend actually survived. That her own magic wasn’t so powerless after all. And, as the two girls catch the eyes—and hearts—of two charming princes, Evie believes that she might finally have a chance at her own happily ever after.

But her new friend has secrets of her own. She can’t stay in Havnestad, or on two legs, unless Evie finds a way to help her. Now Evie will do anything to save her friend’s humanity, along with her prince’s heart—harnessing the power of her magic, her ocean, and her love until she discovers, too late, the truth of her bargain.

The rise of Hans Christian Andersen’s iconic villainess is a heart-wrenching story of friendship, betrayal, and a girl pushed beyond her limits—to become a monster.

Waiting on Wednesday (111)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that you are eagerly anticipating.

Ash Princess by Laura Sebastian
Series: trilogy #1
Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: April 24, 2018

About Ash Princess (via Goodreads):

Theodosia was six when her country was invaded and her mother, the Queen of Flame and Fury, was murdered before her eyes. Ten years later, Theo has learned to survive under the relentless abuse of the Kaiser and his court as the ridiculed “Ash Princess.” Pretending to be empty-headed and naive when she's not enduring brutal whippings, she pushes down all other thoughts but one: Keep the Kaiser happy and he will keep you safe.

When the Kaiser forces her to execute her last hope of rescue, Theo can't keep her feelings and memories pushed down any longer. She vows revenge, throwing herself into a plot to seduce and murder the Kaiser's warrior son with the help of a group of magically gifted and volatile rebels. But Theo doesn't expect to develop feelings for the Prinz. Or for her rebel allies to challenge her friendship with the one person who's been kind to her throughout the last hopeless decade: her heart's sister, Cress.

Cornered into impossible choices and unable to trust even those who are on her side, Theo will have to decide how far she's willing to go to save her people and how much of herself she's willing to sacrifice to become queen.