Under The Book Cover: nat cassidy

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Most Recent Books I Did Not Finish

c.r. gray 8:00:00 AM

Hi hello and welcome to Top Ten Tuesday! This weekly post is hosted by the wonderful Jana from That Artsy Reader Girl so please be sure to go check out her post with all of the information about TTT. The topic this week is the ten most recent books you haven’t finished. I wasn’t sure if I was going to do this topic or not because I typically don’t talk about books I DNF, but this ended up being helpful for me! It allowed me to remember some of the books I had forgotten about and now I plan to pick those up soon. So yay for more reading! Plus, I feel like DNF’ing books doesn’t need to and definitely shouldn’t feel like a bad thing, so it’s good to talk about them more. Let’s get started!

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1. The Handler by L.T. Ryan & C.R. Gray
I think I just got distracted and ended up putting this aside for another book, which happens often because I’m easily distracted and forgetful! But I read the prequel and loved it, and was really enjoying The Handler when I was reading it, so I’ll absolutely be picking this back up soon.

2. Little Fox by M. Violet

I’m not ashamed to admit that I enjoy smutty spicy romance books. And for the most part, I don’t mind the direction these books tend to go. I don’t think I’ve ever really been bothered by anything I’ve read and I typically enjoy every book I read in the genre. But Little Fox just ended up being too much for me. I enjoyed the first novella and was excited about a sequel, but it unfortunately just ended up being a lot and I guess I found my limit, and I wasn’t able to finish it.

3. The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

This book and I just didn’t vibe and that’s pretty much it. Sometimes you pick up a book and it just doesn’t end up being a good fit for you as a reader and that’s okay!

4. Episode Thirteen by Craig DiLouie

I was reading this and really enjoying the format of how the story was laid out, but I think when I realized how long it was, I set it aside because I just wasn’t in the mood for a long book at the time. What I read was really good and I was excited to see where the plot was going (I’d heard really good things about the book) so I’ll probably pick it back up around October!

5. Lavender House by Lev A.C. Rosen

This is one that I have no idea why I put down because I was so excited to read it and was loving it when I was reading! I think it’s just another case of “Megan found a shiny cover that distracted her and now she’s put down her current read for the new one” and like I said, that happens a lot.

6. Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

This should not be a surprise to anyone who has (somehow) managed to read this one. I have tried reading Gideon the Ninth at least six times by now and I just can’t do it. It’s so confusing and I can’t stay focused because I don’t understand what’s happening, so I get frustrated and put it down. I want to read this so bad but my brain is the worst. Maybe I’ll try to buddy read it with someone and see if having another person to help me understand will make it easier to read for me.

7. Mary by Nat Cassidy

This one is tough to remember why I put it down. Was I not enjoying it? Did I get distracted? Did I just simply forget about it? I know I was liking the weirdness of it but something happened and I just never picked it back up. This might be one I have to finish out of principle because why did I stop reading?!

8. Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff

Have I finished reading this? No. Do I have three copies of it? Yes. Look, I’m a sucker for a pretty book cover and this book had some pretty editions and I fell for them. I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever pick this back up for reasons but I guess at least I have some pretty covers on my shelf, right?

9. House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas

Honestly, I don’t think I made it even 5 chapters in to this before my brain was screaming from being overwhelmed with information. I want to read this because I’ve heard it’s really good and that the sequel is even better, but the info dumping right at the start absolutely killed me.

10. The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune

Okay listen I got really far into this before I got distracted. I think I was somewhere around 80% of the way through and I knew in my soul this was a five star read. My mom loved it and wanted me to pick it up so I did and what I read was so good! It’s one of V.E. Schwab’s favorite books so like, obviously I have to read it, you know? Another case of shiny cover distraction but this is one I really do plan on finishing because I am dying to know how it all ends. And it better be a happy ending!

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And that’s it for this Top Ten Tuesday! As I said above, I’m glad I did end up doing this prompt because now I want to pick up several of these books I had forgotten about. And I don’t think I didn’t finish most of these because they were bad, but because I just got distracted and forgot that I was reading them. It’s frustrating, especially when I think back and remember that I was enjoying most of these when I was reading, but it’ll be nice to revisit and finish these worlds I’ve dipped my toes into! Have you read any of the books I talked about? Have you DNF’d any books on my list? What’s one book that you DNF’d but are considering picking up again? Let me know in the comments below! Thanks for stopping by and I’ll see you in the next chapter!

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Top Ten Tuesday: Books With One-Word Titles

adalyn grace 6:00:00 AM

Hi hello and welcome to Top Ten Tuesday! This weekly post is hosted by the wonderful Jana from That Artsy Reader Girl so please be sure to go check out her post with all of the information about TTT. The topic this week is books with one-word titles and this was both harder than I thought and really fun! I never noticed before just how many books have multiple words in their title until I was searching for ones that only had one word. I think I picked out some good ones, though, and maybe one or two you've been thinking about picking up to read or will add on your TBR. Let's get started!
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1. Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

"Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in publishing. But Athena's a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn't even get a paperback release. Nobody wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena's death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena's just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during World War I. So what if June edits Athena's novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song--complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn't this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That's what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree. But June can't get away from Athena's shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June's (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves."

2. Playground by Aron Beauregard

"Three low-income families have been given a handsome retainer to join Geraldine Borden for a day at her cliffside estate. All the parents must do to collect the rest of their money is allow their children to test out the revolutionary playground equipment Geraldine has been working on for decades. But there’s a reason the structures in the bowels of her gothic castle have taken so long to develop—they were never meant to see the light of day.

When a band of dysfunctional children is suddenly thrust into a diabolical realm of violence, they must grow up instantly to have a chance at survival. Will they find a way to put their differences aside, or be swallowed up by the insidious architecture all around them?"

3. Chlorine by Jade Song

"Ren Yu is a swimmer. Her daily life starts and ends with the pool. Her teammates are her only friends. Her coach, her guiding light. If she swims well enough, she will be scouted, get a scholarship, go to a good school. Her parents will love her. Her coach will be kind to her. She will have a good life. But these are human concerns. These are the concerns of those confined to land, those with legs. Ren grew up on stories of creatures of the deep, of the oceans and the rivers. Ones that called sailors to their doom. Ones that dragged them down and drowned them. Ones that feasted on their flesh. Ones of the creature that she's always longed to become: mermaid. Ren aches to be in the water. She dreams of the scent of chlorine--the feel of it on her skin. And she will do anything she can to make a life for herself where she can be free. No matter the pain. No matter what anyone else thinks. No matter how much blood she has to spill."

4. Vicious by V.E. Schwab

"Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong. Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end?"

5. Sundial by Catriona Ward

"All Rob wanted was a normal life. She almost got it, too: a husband, two kids, a nice house in the suburbs. But Rob fears for her oldest daughter, Callie, who collects tiny bones and whispers to imaginary friends. Rob sees a darkness in Callie, one that reminds her too much of the family she left behind. She decides to take Callie back to her childhood home, to Sundial, deep in the Mojave Desert. And there she will have to make a terrible choice.

Callie is worried about her mother. Rob has begun to look at her strangely, and speaks of past secrets. And Callie fears that only one of them will leave Sundial alive…

The mother and daughter embark on a dark, desert journey to the past in the hopes of redeeming their future."

6. Mary by Nat Cassidy

"Mary is a quiet, middle-aged woman doing her best to blend into the background. Unremarkable. Invisible. Unknown even to herself. But lately, things have been changing inside Mary. Along with the hot flashes and body aches, she can’t look in a mirror without passing out, and the voices in her head have been urging her to do unspeakable things. Fired from her job in New York, she moves back to her hometown, hoping to reconnect with her past and inner self. Instead, visions of terrifying, mutilated specters overwhelm her with increasing regularity and she begins auto-writing strange thoughts and phrases. Mary discovers that these experiences are echoes of an infamous serial killer.

Then the killings begin again.

Mary’s definitely going to find herself."

7. Nightstrider by Sophia Slade

"Wren has spent her life doing the bidding of her cruel creator Para Warwick in the dream world known as the Reverie. When she learns of a weapon with the power to destroy him, she jumps at the chance to steal it. Her plan goes awry and she finds herself in the clutches of the rebellion and the rogue Alaric, a nightmare himself with twisted horns and dark magic. When a plea from a strange being known as a dreambreaker reaches them, the two ’mares find themselves thrown together in a desperate mission to save her before time runs out. Meanwhile, in the waking world, Caine Fallon, son of King Warwick and Prince of Wolfhelm, prepares to wed Ila Enevoldson, the young queen from the wild kingdom of Galesborough. But Ila is more than a queen. She is a weaver, a protector of the ancient Boundary that separates the Reverie and the Wake. Three nights before their wedding, Caine catches Ila in the act of opening a portal to the dream world and follows her, landing himself in a universe stranger than he could have imagined—a realm where his father is more monstrous than he ever could have fathomed. Now, the fates of four strangers will become intricately entwined, and the fate of their worlds will be sewn by their choices."

8. Bride by Ali Hazelwood

"Misery Lark, the only daughter of the most powerful Vampyre councilman of the Southwest, is an outcast—again. Her days of living in anonymity among the Humans are over: she has been called upon to uphold a historic peacekeeping alliance between the Vampyres and their mortal enemies, the Weres, and she sees little choice but to surrender herself in the exchange—again. Weres are ruthless and unpredictable, and their Alpha, Lowe Moreland, is no exception. He rules his pack with absolute authority, but not without justice. And, unlike the Vampyre Council, not without feeling. It’s clear from the way he tracks Misery’s every movement that he doesn’t trust her. If only he knew how right he was. Because Misery has her own reasons to agree to this marriage of convenience, reasons that have nothing to do with politics or alliances, and everything to do with the only thing she's ever cared about. And she is willing to do whatever it takes to get back what’s hers, even if it means a life alone in Were territory…alone with the wolf."

9. Rouge by Mona Awad

"For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes, Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Méduse, the same lavish, culty spa to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) obsession with the mirror—and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass."

10. Belladonna by Adalyn Grace

"Orphaned as a baby, nineteen-year-old Signa has been raised by a string of guardians, each more interested in her wealth than her well-being—and each has met an untimely end. Her remaining relatives are the elusive Hawthornes, an eccentric family living at Thorn Grove, an estate both glittering and gloomy. Its patriarch mourns his late wife through wild parties, while his son grapples for control of the family’s waning reputation, and his daughter suffers from a mysterious illness. But when their mother’s restless spirit appears claiming she was poisoned, Signa realizes that the family she depends on could be in grave danger and enlists the help of a surly stable boy to hunt down the killer. However, Signa’s best chance of uncovering the murderer is an alliance with Death himself, a fascinating, dangerous shadow who has never been far from her side. Though he’s made her life a living hell, Death shows Signa that their growing connection may be more powerful—and more irresistible—than she ever dared imagine."

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And that does it for this Top Ten Tuesday! I don't think it was surprising that I had Yellowface on my list because of how much I've been talking about it ever since I read it. Vicious was honestly probably another unsurprising pick, simply because it's my favorite book! I'm really excited to see the wide variety of choices for the topic this week, mostly because I'll have new books to add to my TBR and that's never a bad thing. What books were on your list this week? Have you read (or do you want to read) any of the books that I listed? Be sure to let me know in the comments below and link me your post if you participated in the topic this week. Also, don't forget to visit That Artsy Reader Girl to see Jana's post and check out some of the other wonderful bloggers that have shared their links. Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you in the next chapter!

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Blogtober 2022 Day 12: Spooky Book Covers

blogtober 12:00:00 PM

Hi hello ghouls and goblins and welcome to Blogtober day 12! Today, I’m going to be sharing some of my favorite spooky book covers. Personally, I feel like spooky can mean a number of things when it comes to the vibes and the Halloween season, don’t you? Spooky can be an umbrella term for something that’s generally scary, sure, but what about spooky cute? Just like my banner that I created for this year's Blogtober posts (and the adorable pastel Halloween decor that Michaels releases), I feel like spooky cute is definitely a thing! But these are just some book covers that I think fit the Halloween season aesthetic. Let’s get spooky!
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Starting off with a book cover that’s definitely on the creepy side, we have You’ve Lost A Lot of Blood by Eric LaRocca. There are two different versions of this cover, but I feel like this one just gives off a much creepier and uncomfortable vibe. This is a fantastic book that I read for Summerween this year and I really enjoyed it! But as for the cover, I think this one is more simple but more straightforward with its creepiness. Sometimes you don’t need to be super in your face with horror and this cover proves that.

Next up, we have The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling. With the previous cover, I mentioned how you don’t always have to be so blunt with horror and how simple can sometimes be more beneficial than direct. In the case of this cover (which is absolutely stunning), I think it does a good job of blending the direct and simple approaches. This cover 100% gives off a creepy vibe with the hand, the ominous glow, and the way that the title is almost hidden in the shadows. It shows you what you can expect from the book without doing something super over the top. Subtle but effective!

You want spooky cute? You’ve got spooky cute! This Blood That Binds Us by S.L. Cokeley is a stunning example of how to blend something that could be considered spooky (a human heart) with something cute (pastel frickin pink, y’all)! I’ve been following the author on TikTok for a while now and watching this book come to life has been such a treat. And when the cover was revealed to be this gorgeous pastel peachy pink, (which is not what anyone usually expects of a vampire book, right?) I could not believe what a beauty it turned out to be! It’s a great mix of the expected and unique and pulls off spooky cute so well!

Let’s take a sharp left away from cute and turn into downright creepy, shall we? Into the Sublime by Kate A. Boorman has probably one of my favorite covers I’ve ever seen because it reminds me so much of not only The Luminous Dead, but also one of my all-time favorite horror films called The Descent. Immediately upon looking at this cover, you’ll feel a chill running down your spine when you realize there’s a girl on the cover just…staring at you. Then you notice the water and what appears to be a cave setting? The font choice and how it graduates from small to large and the bright, almost blood red, color of the book title just lends to the creepy factor. All of the elements involved come together to make an unsettling and incredibly memorable book cover, and definitely one for this list!

I may be in the minority here, but this next one is spooky, sure, but also beautifully horrific. Plastic Monsters by Daniel J. Volpe caught my eye with the cover first and then the synopsis had me flying to add this to my TBR! If you’ve ever played the original Bioshock video game, you’ll (hopefully) remember the demented and tortured artist Sander Cohen. Sure, he’s a little out of his mind but hey, we all go a little mad sometimes. This book instantly reminded me of one of my favorite characters from one of my favorite video games so of course I’m going to talk about it! It’s a simple cover that gets more and more almost painful the longer you look at it. But in its horror, it leads you to want to learn more about why it has this cover design, which is the beauty of the terrifying image you see. Yet another case of a cover being simple but very effective and successful!

It took me multiple times of looking at this cover to notice that something just isn’t quite right. Look at it. Then look again. Yeah, that’s a hand coming out of the water to grab her. And also she has a pillowcase on her head which I thought was maybe a rag or towel to block out the light. Nope, pillowcase. Mary: An Awakening of Terror by Nat Cassidy seems to be a big hit with a lot of horror fans, and I think it’s for a good reason. Unfortunately for me, I put it down and haven’t picked it back up yet, but I’ve seen rave reviews for this and one thing that a lot of people have mentioned is this cover. I love it when horror isn’t super in your face and it takes you a bit to really notice something could be off, just like this cover. It’s subtle but also not at all, if that makes any sense? It makes you wonder if the cover is this creepy, how horrific are the pages beneath? From what I read and have seen in reviews, it’s pretty darn horrific. The cover does a wonderful job at preparing you for the story, although I don’t think you’ll be prepared by how bloody it is!

I think we can all collectively agree that Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo has a spooky cover, yes? Make no mistake, it is stunning, but something about the white and grey tones with the creepy rabbit just gives me the, well, mega creeps. Of course, I mean that with all the love in the world because the excitement I have for this book is insane, but I won’t deny that this cover is infinitely more unsettling than Ninth House was. I think that’s what makes it so effective as a cover, though. This isn’t even a horror book but it has a horrifying cover that will make people want to pick it up because what the heck is up with it?! I can only hope that my future book will have a cover as cool as Hell Bent.

And last, but certainly not least, I want to discuss something that seems to be the new “book snake” trend which is people covered in flowers. Horrid by Katrina Leno is the first book with a cover like this that came to mind when I was thinking about this trend and yeah, it’s pretty spooky. There are so many books that follow this trend and I think it’s a really effective one, especially when it’s done the way that Horrid is done. Surely, your first thought when seeing this cover was “Why are there flowers coming out of her eyes?” And maybe you even wondered why they were black roses (it’s part of the plot and it’s creepy) because those can’t be normal, right? Having a book cover that’s covered in flowers always gives me ominous vibes for some reason, even if the book isn’t supposed to be scary at all. I love when things that are supposed to be inherently beautiful are twisted and made into something horrific, which is probably why I love the flower trend so much. But Horrid did it in a very effective way, I feel, and it still remains one of my favorite covers for a horror book!

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And that does it for some of my favorite spooky book covers! Honestly, this post was more of a self-indulgent one because I absolutely love looking at and talking about book covers, especially ones I think are spooky in some fashion. So, thank you for sticking around and reading my rambles! I would love to know what some of your favorite spooky book covers are so let me know in the comments below. Tomorrow is day 13 and I’ll be doing the Friday the 13th Book Tag, so be sure to come back tomorrow for some Camp Crystal Lake fun. Just make sure to leave your camp counselor shirts behind because I’ve heard rumors of people wearing them and going missing. I’m sure it’s nothing. Thanks for stopping by and I’ll scare ya later!

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Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Most Recent Books I Did Not Finish

Top Ten Tuesday: Books With One-Word Titles

Blogtober 2022 Day 12: Spooky Book Covers

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