This #SpelltheMonthinBooks features books from my TBR pile that I hope to read this 2021
This is going to be interesting.
Welcome to my very first “Spell the Month in Books” challenge. Hosted by Reviews From the Stacks, #SpelltheMonthinBooks, and I hope she will forgive that I put my own spin on it.
I don’t actually remember who I first saw do this challenge(I’m sorry!) But I came across it @ Secret Library Book Blog‘s recently and I realized that there was no reason I couldn’t join the fun!
I did change it a bit because(believe it or not) my ‘Must Read Before I Die‘ pile is getting out of control!
This is my TBR edition.
(Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, purchases made through my links may earn me a small commission, at no cost to you.)
A haunted, surreal debut novel about an otherworldly young woman, her father, and her lover that culminates in a shocking moment of betrayal—one that upends our understanding of power, predation, and agency.
Ada and her father, touched by the power to heal illness, live on the edge of a village where they help sick locals—or “Cures”—by cracking open their damaged bodies or temporarily burying them in the reviving, dangerous Ground nearby. Ada, a being both more and less than human, is mostly uninterested in the Cures, until she meets a man named Samson. When they strike up an affair, to the displeasure of her father and Samson’s widowed, pregnant sister, Ada is torn between her old way of life and new possibilities with her lover—and eventually comes to a decision that will forever change Samson, the town, and the Ground itself.
Follow Me to Ground is fascinating and frightening, urgent and propulsive. In Ada, award-winning author Sue Rainsford has created an utterly bewitching heroine, one who challenges conventional ideas of womanhood and the secrets of the body. Slim but authoritative, Follow Me to Ground lingers long after its final page, pulling the reader into a dream between fairy tale and nightmare, desire and delusion, folktale and warning.
I am so excited to read this book! (And it may just be that I’m somewhat biased..) You see, I won this book in a giveaway on Goodreads and it has been killing me to wait for it to get here. I have never won anything like this and that my first time doing so was a book? That is was such an interesting one? I’ve died.. and this is a dream.
The cover is beautiful and catches your eye immediately but(as we all know) it’s what’s on the inside that counts.. Did you read that killer summary? Talk about an original idea.
No surprise at all then that this would be my first choice for the letter ‘F’.
E cho North
Echo Alkaev’s safe and carefully structured world falls apart when her father leaves for the city and mysteriously disappears. Believing he is lost forever, Echo is shocked to find him half-frozen in the winter forest six months later, guarded by a strange talking wolf—the same creature who attacked her as a child. The wolf presents Echo with an ultimatum: if she lives with him for one year, he will ensure her father makes it home safely. But there is more to the wolf than Echo realizes.
In his enchanted house beneath a mountain, each room must be sewn together to keep the home from unraveling, and something new and dark and strange lies behind every door. When centuries-old secrets unfold, Echo discovers a magical library full of books- turned-mirrors, and a young man named Hal who is trapped inside of them. As the year ticks by, the rooms begin to disappear and Echo must solve the mystery of the wolf’s enchantment before her time is up otherwise Echo, the wolf, and Hal will be lost forever.
Oh, man.. This sounds like a dark fairy tale meets the story of Hades and Persephone.
Echo seems like a pretty scrappy character. Somehow she manages to overcome the disappearance of her father and the reappearance of some dangerous mystical talking creature who needs her to break some curse and save the day. What’s not to love?
This book grabs you from go and I can’t wait to see if it lives up to expectation.
by Kim Ligget
The last words Ash hears her mother say are, “When you fall in love, you will carve out your heart and throw it into the deepest ocean. You will be all in—blood and salt.”
Determined to find her mother when she disappears, Ash follows her to Quivara, Kansas, the spiritual commune she escaped long ago. But something sinister and ancient waits among the rustling cornstalks of this village lost to time.
Her mother is nowhere to be found, but Ash is plagued by memories of her ancestor, Katia, which harken back to the town’s history of unrequited love, murder, alchemy, and immortality. Charming traditions give way to a string of deaths. And Ash feels herself drawn to Dane, a mysterious, forbidden boy with secrets of his own.
As the community prepares for a ceremony five hundred years in the making, Ash fights to save her mother, her lover, and herself. She must discover the truth about Quivara before it’s too late. Before she’s all in—blood and salt.
This one seemed slightly reminiscent of “The Raven Boys” to me (which I loved) and that’s all the encouragement I need.
- Threat of tragic love? Check.
- Ignoring the warning to become infatuated with an obviously suspicious boy? Check.
- Ancient evil rising up to meet our protagonist in a potentially epic conclusion? I suppose we shall see..
This book doesn’t seem to be widely known but I’m still convinced it will be worth the read.
“Rose Petal Graves is a story of grief, family, mythical creatures and tremendous power, with at its very core the most haunting love story.”
— ASTRID ARDITI, USA Today Bestselling author of Olympian Challenger
The Vampire Diaries with faeries.
Welcome to Rowan…
Founded two centuries ago by a powerful tribe of Gottwa Indians, Rowan was a quiet town, so quiet that I fled after graduation. Staying away was the plan, but Mom died suddenly.
Dad said she suffered a stroke after she dug up one of the ancient graves in our backyard, which happens to be the town cemetery.
Creepy, I know. Creepier still, there was no corpse inside the old coffin, only fresh rose petals.
As we made preparations for Mom’s burial, new people began arriving in Rowan, unnervingly handsome and odd people.
I begged them to leave, but they stayed, because their enemies—my ancestors—were beginning to awaken.
“The vampire diaries with faeries“.. Okay. You have my attention.
There’s no drama like family drama and it looks like this one might just have that in spades! This book came out of nowhere. And with it’s promise of mystery and spooky supernatural elements.. It’s certainly no shock that I’m left with so many questions that my curiosity has remained doggedly engaged.
My expectations for now are undecided.. but I am definitely interested enough to see where it goes!
by Flynn Berry
How do you find your sister’s killer when no one will help you?
When Nora takes the train from London to visit her sister in the Oxfordshire countryside, she expects to find her waiting at the station, or at home cooking dinner. But when she walks into Rachel’s familiar house, what she finds is entirely different: her sister has been the victim of a brutal murder.
Stunned and adrift, Nora finds she can’t return to her former life. An unsolved assault in the past has shaken her faith in the police, and she can’t trust them to find her sister’s killer. Haunted by the murder and the secrets that surround it, Nora is under the harrow: distressed and in danger. As Nora’s fear turns to obsession, she becomes as unrecognizable as the sister her investigation uncovers.
A riveting psychological thriller, Under the Harrow explores the fierce love between two sisters and the terrifying power of the past.
As I have a sister myself, I couldn’t help empathizing with the position Nora finds herself in..
Right away this book shows you the heartbreaking situation our main character finds herself in and how the determination to get answers will propel her deeper into a web of secrets that she may be better off not knowing.
This one certainly looks pretty bleak. Fortunately, I’m a fan of darker themes so.. Here goes!
by Elise Kova
A library girl with a secret.
A dark and fiery prince.
When he awakens her magic, there’s no going back.
The Solaris Empire is one conquest away from uniting the continent, and the rare elemental magic sleeping in seventeen-year-old library apprentice Vhalla Yarl could shift the tides of war.
Vhalla has always been taught to fear the Tower of Sorcerers, a mysterious magic society, and has been happy in her quiet world of books. But after she unknowingly saves the life of one of the most powerful sorcerers of them all–the Crown Prince Aldrik–she finds herself enticed into his world. Now she must decide her future: Embrace her sorcery and leave the life she’s known, or eradicate her magic and remain as she’s always been. And with powerful forces lurking in the shadows, Vhalla’s indecision could cost her more than she ever imagined.
Get ready for an epic fantasy, filled with romance and adventure, in Air Awakens, the first book in a completed five book series. Are you ready? Scroll up and click buy now to see why readers love the Air Awakens series!
Anything that starts with “a library girl” is almost guaranteed to get a book lover’s interest.
I admit, this one has been floating around on my TBR for quite some time.. No reason that I haven’t read it. It’s just one of many getting overlooked by the continuous influx of new material. After all the amazing things I’ve heard, I’m more determined than ever to read this series!
To be or not TBR.. That is the question.
My name is Anastasia . . . The history books say I died . . . They don’t know the half of it.
Anastasia “Nastya” Romanov was given a single mission: to smuggle an ancient spell into her suitcase on her way to exile in Siberia. It might be her family’s only salvation. But the leader of the Bolshevik army is after them, and he’s hunted Romanov before.
Nastya’s only chances of saving herself and her family are either to release the spell and deal with the consequences, or to enlist help from Zash, the handsome soldier who doesn’t act like the average Bolshevik. Nastya has only dabbled in magic, but it doesn’t frighten her half as much as her growing attraction to Zash. She likes him. She thinks he might even like her.
That is, until she’s on one side of a firing squad . . . and he’s on the other.
Now this is a new addition to the ‘must read’ collection. New enough that I only heard of it a day or two ago.. but it made an impression.
History, magic, and a brave young girl bent on protecting her family from brute forces? Sounds like the kind of action packed adventure you can really sink your teeth into. And I’ve been assured it’s so much more.
I’m looking forward to seeing if this book is as fascinating as it sounds!
Y ou’ll Thank Me for This: A Novel
by Nina Siegal
A pulse-pounding psychological thriller based on the popular Dutch tradition of blindfolding and dropping teens and pre-teens in the middle of a forest — and what happens when it goes horribly wrong.
Twelve-year old Karin is blindfolded and dropped into the Hoge Veluwe National Forest with three other children. With nothing but a few basic supplies and emergency food, the children are tasked with working together to navigate one of the Netherlands’ most beautiful and wild locations and return to where their families are anxiously waiting.
Karin quickly finds herself at odds with two of the older teens, and suddenly looks up to see that the other children have vanished. As Karin struggles against the elements to find her way back, she soon realizes that something far more sinister lurks in the woods.
Grace, Karin’s mother and an American married to a Dutch husband, has been nervous about this practice from the start. At first she tells herself the space is good for her daughter, but as the hours begin to tick by and the children fail to arrive at their designated campsite, she becomes certain something has gone horribly wrong.
As Karin fights for survival, and Grace hastens to find her daughter, the night culminates in the reveal of a deadly secret—and a shocking confrontation—that will push each of them to her edge.
Wait.. did I read that right? This is based off a popular Dutch tradition of leaving your blindfolded kids in the woods?
Wow. That’s messed up. Where do I sign?
You have to admit there’s something to this book.. What kind of messed up crap are these people up to and what exactly is in the woods with their children? Why are you dumping them in the woods anyway? And how are you only just getting worried?
I have so many questions spinning around in my head about this one that it’s become necessary to read it.. for the greater good.
And those are my choices for February(TBR version)
What books are you looking forward to?
If you find yourself just as obsessed with these books as I am..
Join me in attempting to actually read them before the multitude of never-ending possibilities take over and slowly wears away at our strength to resist.
Ooh this is such a fun post- might have to give it a try at some point! All of these sound AMAZING! Hope you enjoy them all. 💜
Wait until March. March has less letters.. 😂
It was a lot of fun to do, you should definitely try it!
Sounds like a good plan 😂😂Aha I will definitely give it a go at least in the next couple months!
I hope you enjoy it! I will probably do it again next month! 🤭
Thankyou- I look forward to seeing it! 💜
You too! It’s interesting seeing what everyone comes with. 😄
😊🤗💜
Glad to have you join in Spell the Month in Books and put your own spin on it! Lots of exciting books on your list. If you want, feel free to add your link to the linkup toward the bottom of my February post so that others who participate can see it!
Happy Reading!
Of course I will and thank you so much! ☺
You’ve just made me add books to my never ever going to end TBR pile.
The story lines of Echo North and Romanov sound so so so interesting. Plus those book covers are gorgeous! I’m definitely picking them up in March after I finish the two books that I’m currently reading.
Lol! I would say I’m sorry but.. 🤭
Echo North is at the top of the absolutely have to read. I’m so excited to read all of them though and I’m glad you found something you liked too! Besides, if we die before our tbr’s are finished, we can just stay behind and read over peoples shoulders! 😁😂
Hahahahahaha that’s a great after life plan 😬😂
Ohmygosh. 😅
Well, at least I’ll be prepared. “No thanks, Death, I have a plan”.. 🤣