October Wrap-up and November TBR

Hey guys!! Happy Halloween!!

How has your month been?

I had a pretty good reading month this time. I didn’t really stick to my TBR but otherwise I managed to read quite some books and really enjoyed many of them! how was your month??

Check out what I’ve read this month:

October Wrap-up

• Lock & Key Vol. 2
• A Cosy Christmas at Bridget’s Bicycle Bakery
• A Slow Fire Burning
• Later
• Invisible Girl
• Anna Dressed in Blood
• Bridge of Souls
• A Secret Gift
• One Last Stop
• Girl of Nightmares
• Lily the Thief

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TOP book of the month:

One Last Stop was probably my fav book of month. I absolutely loved the idea of the book and it gripped me from the very first page!

Overall I enjoyed a ton of them this month tho. There were some really good reads and I’m especially glad I got to finally read Anna Dressed in Blood!

What were your favorite reads in October? Have you read any of the books I mentioned? Let’s discuss in the comments below!

November TBR

What’s on your TBR for November? Are you excited for any of these or have you read any of them? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston – Review

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
Series: N/A
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Published June 1st 2021
Genres: YA, LGBT, Contemporary
Pages: 422
Format: Paperback
Buy: Book Depository | Amazon

From the New York Times bestselling author of Red, White & Royal Blue comes a new romantic comedy that will stop readers in their tracks…

For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can’t imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures.

But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.

Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.

Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop is a magical, sexy, big-hearted romance where the impossible becomes possible as August does everything in her power to save the girl lost in time.

This is the story of a 23yr bisexual girl named August. She hasn’t had the most normal of childhoods and recently moved from another state and another university to an all-kinds of a new life – as in, new university, new rented room, new friends in New York. She tires and tries to find herself, after all her life being passed helping her mom solve a case from the 70s. And this time it might be just right. She feels that this time she might just belong.

Litjoy Magical Classes July 2021

Hey guys!

FINALLY it’s time to unbox LitJoy Magical Classes for July. They are quarterly and it’s kinda late but it’s all kinds of AMAZING. So, let’s get started!!

This box was designed by @davideortuillustration.

Owlcrate Unboxing September 2021

Hey guys! Here’s the unboxing for Owlcrate September’s box! Hope you enjoy! The theme of the month is Haunted Hearts!

Owlcrate is an amazing YA bookish subscription box that I would highly recommend getting. Plus, if you live in Europe like me, it still arrives incredibly fast and somehow  (for me) it doesn’t get more expensive than any other box coming from Europe – although obviously, it changes from country to country…

If you want to check out what this box included, just keep reading! I will show photos of all the items, information on them and some of my thoughts!

A Secret Gift by Amanda James – ARC Review

A Secret Gift by Amanda James

Series: N/A

Publisher: One More Chapter (HarperCollins UK)

Expected publication: October 30th 2021

Genres: Holiday Romance

Pages: 384

Format: ARC

Buy: Amazon

* Received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you very much! This doesn’t affect the review in any way. My opinions are, as always, my own.*

Escape to Cornwall for an enchanting, heartwarming new novel about friendship, hope and second chances…

Three years ago, Joy Pentire lost her firefighter husband and she still hasn’t returned to the woman she once was. But then she meets Hope, one of the residents at the nursing home where she’s a carer.

Hope has a secret gift that she wants to pass on.
And Joy’s life is forever changed.

Surrounded by the community in her Cornish hometown, Joy’s unexpected inheritance soon leads to new opportunities, new friends, new love, and the part of herself she’d thought forever lost … her joy.

A heart-warming, joyful story of the power of personal connection.

Three years ago Joy Pentire lost her husband, but no matter how much time passes, her grief doesn’t seem to subdue as much as she hoped. She puts all her heart into helping the residents at the nursing home she works at. One of the residents she is particularly attached to, Hope, is at the end of her life. But before she passes, she gives Joy a jar full of pebbles with a short explanation. The pebbles change her life. As the story unfolds we see the power they wield and how much that changes Joy and her feelings towards life.

Bridge of Souls by Victoria Schwab – Review

Bridge of Souls by Victoria Schwab
Series: Cassidy Blake #3
Publisher: Scholastic
First published March 2nd 2021
Genres: Middle Grade, Paranormal
Pages: 300
Format: Paperback
Buy: Book Depository | Amazon

Where there are ghosts, Cassidy Blake follows … unless it’s the other way around?

Cass thinks she might have this ghost-hunting thing down. After all, she and her ghost best friend, Jacob, have survived two haunted cities while travelling for her parents’ TV show.

But nothing can prepare Cass for New Orleans, which wears all of its hauntings on its sleeve. In a city of ghost tours and tombs, raucous music and all kinds of magic, Cass could get lost in all the colourful, grisly local legends. And the city’s biggest surprise is a foe Cass never expected to face: a servant of Death itself.

Cass takes on her most dangerous challenge yet…

REVIEW FOR FIRST BOOK HERE

“This is Cassidy’s story, she can walk the world of the dead as well as the living. Her parents love anything to do with history and ghosts and recently started a TV show. The first filming is made in Scotland, Edinburgh, which is where all of Cassidy’s and her ghostly best friend Jacob’s adventures will start.” In the second book, we got to see Paris and the Catacombs – and now New Orleans, where their adventure is about to get a whole lot more dangerous!

Anna Dressed in Blood – Review

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake
Series: Anna #1
Publisher: Tor Teen
First published October 17th 2011
Genres: YA, Horror, Paranormal
Pages: 316
Format: Paperback
Buy: Book Depository | Amazon

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father’s mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. They follow legends and local lore, destroy the murderous dead, and keep pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

Searching for a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas expects the usual: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he’s never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

Yet she spares Cas’s life.

Theseus Cassio Lowood aka Cas is a ghost hunter. When he was young his father was killed by a ghost while hunting it. Since then, Cas took his father’s job and made it his own, killing with the athame knife all his ancestors killed with.

Cas and his mom are used to moving all over the place for the next ghost stop, and this time that ghost is Anna Korlov – a ghost who has been murdering anyone that enters her house.

Cas soon realises Anna is not like the others and it will take more than himself to be able to do his job.

Invisible Girl by Lisa Jewell – Review

Invisible Girl by Lisa Jewell
Series: N/A
Publisher: Arrow
First published October 13th 2020
Genres: Mystery, Thriller
Pages: 432
Format: Paperback
Buy: Book Depository | Amazon

LONDON:On a fine avenue of grand houses, big cars and electronic gates, lies a neglected urban wasteland

It is nearly midnight, and very cold. Yet in this dark place of long grass and tall trees where cats hunt and foxes shriek, a girl is waiting…

When Saffyre Maddox was ten something terrible happened and she’s carried the pain of it around with her ever since. The man who she thought was going to heal her didn’t, and now she hides from him, invisible in the shadows, learning his secrets; secrets she could use to blow his safe, cosy world apart.

Owen Pick is invisible too. He’s thirty-three years old and he’s never had a girlfriend, he’s never even had a friend. Nobody sees him. Nobody cares about him.

But when Saffyre Maddox disappears from opposite his house on Valentine’s night, suddenly the whole world is looking at him. Accusing him. Holding him responsible.

Because he’s just the type, isn’t he? A bit creepy?

INVISIBLE GIRL: A story of secrets and injustices, and of how we look in the wrong places for the bad people while the real predators walk among us in plain sight.

Cate and her family just recently moved into a beautiful area while their house is being built. Owen lives across the street from them in an old house owned by his aunt. Saffyre is a teenage girl that goes missing. Nothing seems to connect and yet everything is connected.

Cate’s family is far from perfect. Owen might seem to not fit in anywhere. And lastly Saffyre, who is both brave and damaged and not knowing how to deal with it.

Later by Stephen King – Review

Later by Stephen King
Series: N/A
Publisher: Hard Case Crime
Published March 2nd 2021
Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Paranormal, Horror
Pages: 264
Format: Paperback
Buy: Book Depository | Amazon

The son of a struggling single mother, Jamie Conklin just wants an ordinary childhood. But Jamie is no ordinary child. Born with an unnatural ability his mom urges him to keep secret, Jamie can see what no one else can see and learn what no one else can learn. But the cost of using this ability is higher than Jamie can imagine – as he discovers when an NYPD detective draws him into the pursuit of a killer who has threatened to strike from beyond the grave.

Later is Stephen King at his finest, a terrifying and touching story of innocence lost and the trials that test our sense of right and wrong. With echoes of King’s classic novel IT, Later is a powerful, haunting, unforgettable exploration of what it takes to stand up to evil in all the faces it wears.

This is a coming-of-age story about a boy named Jamie. He is a regular kid with one exception. He has a scary gift; a secret that his mom urges him to hide.

Jamie lives alone with is mother Tia. Everything was going great until some money related problems started to happen and changed their lives’ course.

His mother knows what he can do, but it scares her too. Seeing herself with no other choice, she decides to use his gift to save their lives. However, that exposes Jamie’s gift to Tia’s police officer girlfriend, Liz.

After their relationship ends badly, Liz continues to keep an an eye on Jamie. She knows what he can do now and it might just come in handy…

A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins – Review

A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins
Series: N/A
Publisher: Doubleday 
First published August 25th 2021
Genres: Thriller, Mystery, Fiction
Pages: 320
Format: Paperback
Buy: Book Depository | Amazon

‘What is wrong with you?’

Laura has spent most of her life being judged. She’s seen as hot-tempered, troubled, a loner. Some even call her dangerous. 

Miriam knows that just because Laura is witnessed leaving the scene of a horrific murder with blood on her clothes, that doesn’t mean she’s a killer. Bitter experience has taught her how easy it is to get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Carla is reeling from the brutal murder of her nephew. She trusts no one: good people are capable of terrible deeds. But how far will she go to find peace? Innocent or guilty, everyone is damaged. Some are damaged enough to kill. 

Look what you started.

We start this book with a murder followed by different timelines and character backgrounds until we know what really happened – not only to the murdered character but to every single character in their past and what lead them where they are now. We follow:

Laura, a girl wrong by life in all ways possible, after an accident in her youth that left her both mentally and physically scared.

Theo and his wife Carla, who had the perfect marriage until their little boy of 3 died in an accident.

Angela, Carla’s sister who, after the accident, was never the same. Going into alcoholism and living a miserable life.

Her son Daniel, who has a really bad relationship with his mother and a tough life.

Miriam, a middle aged woman living just near where Daniel was murdered. And suffering herself from a tragic youth and a dealing with her life being stolen.

And finally Irene, a sweet old lady friend to Angela and Lauren – the latter of whom she tried to help the best she could, treating her like the child she never had.