YAY! There are only two really creepy covers in this stack, Preaching to the Choir and Stay Buried. I finished Preaching to the Choir yesterday, and the story is even creepier than the cover. But it’s fascinating AND fantastic, as you’ll see in the review this coming week.

As We Fall Through Time and  Life Out of Order both having interesting covers with VERY similar themes. Which fits, as the books look rather similar as well. But I think I’m going to have to finally read The Time Traveler’s Wife to make sense out of Life Out of Order.

The covers in this stack seem to be in pairs more than I first thought, as Ship Happens and Tattered Tides ALSO look and sound a bit alike.

And, in opposition, at least of a sort, the book I’m most curious about in this stack is A Study in Sparkling, while Morfran, Dark Lord Reformed, is a book I was curious about so I’ve already read it. The whole sub-sub-genre in fantasy about reformed villains turning to the light side of the Force (Thank you Violet Thistlewaite!) has been lots of fun so far.

What about you? What’s got your attention in your stack this week?

For Review:
As We Fall Through Time by Claire North
Blood River Witch by T.J. Martinson
Clawed and Dangerous (Mrs. Murphy #34) by Rita Mae Brown
The Dorians by Nick Cutter
Exhumation by Nicholas Binge
Freight by Ryan Lowell
House of Margins by Tlotlo Tsamaase
Hunger by Choi Jin-young, translated by Soje
Life Out of Order (Time Traveler’s Wife #2) by Audrey Niffenegger
The Lost Soldiers (Kyiv Mysteries #3) by Andrey Kurkov, translated by Boris Dralyuk
Morfran, Dark Lord Reformed by S.B. West
My Sister Is Going to Kill Me by Nina Simon
On a Barbarian World (Phoenix Adventures#7) by Anna Hackett
Preaching to the Choir (Terrible Worlds: Transformations) by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Rules for Aging and Larceny by Julia London
Running Home to You by Samantha Saldivar
Score (Hollywood Renaissance #2) by Kennedy Ryan
Ship Happens by Mason Deaver
Stay Buried by Jennifer McMahon
A Study in Sparkling (Literary Lovers #2) by Jodi McAlister
Tattered Tides (Celestia Cove #1) by Sarah A. Bailey
Trust No One by James Rollins

If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

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There’s a lot of creep in this stack. So much so that it’s a pity I couldn’t save it for Halloween. I mean seriously, the ‘pretty creepy’ way outnumbers the ‘pretty’ by a considerable margin. Even the rather pretty cover for The Moonlight Runner has a touch of the gothic about it.

There’s The Glowing Hours, Hex House, A Spell for Drowning, This House Will Feed, To Kill a Queen, Witch of the Shadow Wood,  and Women of a Promiscuous Nature (love the title, tho’). The Better Mother and Trad Wife both have the same very eerie color palette. The Summer Fun Massacre and We Dance Upon Demons are both campy creepy. There’s just a LOT of creep here. Admittedly, I’m really damn curious about Teddy Bears Never Die – and not just for the title.

And I’m creeped right out. This is not a batch that I’ll be reading through in one go – that’s for sure. Unless it IS on Halloween. Maybe that whole “Summerween” thing is catching on a bit too well!

For Review:
Arrivals and Departures by Amanda Eyre Ward
The Better Mother by Jennifer Van Der Kleut
Between Good and Evil by Rochelle Alers
The Glowing Hours by Leila Siddiqui
Hex House by Amy Jane Stewart
Hope Rises (Walter Nash #2) by David Baldacci
Humboldt Cut by Allison Mick
The Moonlight Runner by Karen Robards
A Murder Most Camp by Nicolas DiDomizio
My Name Was Gerry Sass by Tiffany Hanssen
A Neighbor’s Guide to Murder by Louise Candlish
Out of the Loop by Katie Siegel
Rebel English Academy by Mohammed Hanif
A Spell for Drowning by Rebecca Ferrier
The Summer Fun Massacre (Slasher Season #1) by Craig DiLouie
Teddy Bears Never Die by Cho Yeeun, translated by Sung Ryu
This House Will Feed by Maria Tureaud
To Kill a Queen by Amie McNee
Trad Wife by Saratoga Schaefer
We Dance Upon Demons by Vaishnavi Patel
Witch of the Shadow Wood by Tori Anne Martin
Women of a Promiscuous Nature by Donna Everhart

If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

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This is a stack with some of absolutely everything. I mean it. EVERYTHING!

First, even though it’s only July, there are TWO holiday books in this stack, Eight Ways to Say I Love You and Mingle All the Way. Somewhere, someone should be receiving a ten-yard penalty for rushing the whole, entire season!

The pretty book, and there is one this time around, is The Jeweled Book. Even the title is pretty! The cutest book is, OF COURSE, A Fellowship of Curses & Cats, with an honorable mention for Welcome to the Kokoro Cat Clinic. How could it any other cover be half as cute as those cats?

On the creepy side, we have The Book of the Dead, while on the creepy but funny side there’s Monsters of Ohio. The title of that one is just as funny as the cover!

The book I’m really, seriously curious about is Raven, because I loved the author’s Dust and Shadow but she’s been hit or miss for me ever since. And I’ve already read Monsters of Ohio and The Thrice-Bound Fool, otherwise they’d both be in the next category.

The book I’m absolutely gasping to read is Premier, even though I’m sad it’s the final book in the author’s Grand Illusion series.

What’s got your attention in YOUR stack this week?

For Review:
The Book of the Dead edited by Jonathan Strahan
Eight Ways to Say I Love You by Amanda Elliot
A Fellowship of Curses & Cats (Adenashire #4) by J. Penner
Heir of Prophecy (Clash of Prophecies #1) by Analeigh Sbrana
How to Find a Guy in Five Weddings by Cynthia Timoti
The Jeweled Book by Alan Hlad
Long Island Girls by Gabrielle Korn
Mingle All the Way by Susan Mallery
Monsters of Ohio by John Scalzi
The Pirate Queen by Ariel Lawhon
Premier (Grand Illusion #5) by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
Raven by Lyndsay Faye
Reliquary by Hannah Whitten
The Romance Revival by Christina Lauren
Tell Your Friends by Lauren Wilson
The Thrice-Bound Fool (Blacktongue #2) by Christopher Buehlman
Valley of the Moms by Hannah Selinger
A Waltz to Remember (Ravenswood #6) by Mary Balogh
Welcome to the Kokoro Cat Clinic (We’ll Prescribe You a Cat #3) by Syou Ishida, translated by E. Madison Shimoda
With Friends Like You by Amy Chozick

Borrowed from the Library:
Such a Perfect Family by Nalini Singh

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The “natural” covers turned out to be the pretty ones in this stack. By that I mean The Library of Flowers, The Slantwise Histories, and Strangebrew Apothecary. They all feature something from the natural world, either flowers or birds, and are just composed in an appealing way. (At least to me.) Although Family Drama gets points for looking like something Norman Rockwell would have done. Just Friends and Only Friends are both pretty cute and get extra credit for having a little theme of their own going.

The pretty arresting covers are Forged in FIYAH and This is Where the Future Bleeds, which also gets points for that title which does kind of stop a person in their tracks.

The book I’m really curious about in this batch is The Henchperson’s Guide to Unionizing – mostly because I’m wondering just how much it’s a readalike for Hench and/or Assistant to the Villain. We’ll certainly see, sooner or later, as the book turns. So to speak.

What are you curious about in YOUR stack this week?

For Review:
Bumblebee Season by Eileen Garvin
Cold Zero by Brad Thor and Ward Larsen
Elizabeth and Marilyn by Julie Owen Moylan
Family Drama by Rebecca Fallon
Forged in FIYAH edited by DeVaun Sanders
Forty Love by Jane Costello
Have a Great Summer by Francesca Cocchi
The Henchperson’s Guide to Unionizing by Marshall J. Moore
The Hiding Season by Ava Glass
Just Friends by Haley Pham
The Killer and Frank Lloyd Wright by Casey Sherman
The Library After Dark by Ande Pliego
The Library of Flowers by L.C. Chu
Only Friends by Lydia San Andres
Return to Dark Earth (Phoenix Adventures #6) by Anna Hackett
See You at the Summit by Jordyn Taylor
Skylark by Paula McLain
The Slantwise Histories by Alix E. Harrow
A Sociopath’s Guide to a Successful Marriage by M.K. Oliver
Strangebrew Apothecary by Rustin Lovewell
This is Where the Future Bleeds by Mike Brooks
A Zoom with a View by Jess Cannon

If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

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Now entering this week’s cover sweepstakes…

In the pretty column we have How to Grieve Like a Victorian and A Steep and Savage Path. In the pretty cute column, there’s Dragons, Heists, and Other Retirement Plans (with an equally cute title!) and The Forgotten Book Club. And in the blah cover but really intriguing title category, there’s I Will Kill Your Imaginary Friend for $200. Whatever’s going on there, I’m really curious to find out!

What about YOUR stack this hot and steamy summer weekend?

For Review:
Catch Her If You Can (Big Shots #5) by Tessa Bailey
Dark is When the Devil Comes by Daisy Pearce
Dragons, Heists, and Other Retirement Plans (Hornsboggle & Dodge #1) by Meg Pennerson
Fire Sword and Sea by Vanessa Riley
The Forgotten Book Club by Kate Storey
God’s Country (Cork O’Connor #22) by William Kent Krueger
How to Grieve Like a Victorian by Amy Carol Reeves
If Books Could Kill by Kate Eberle
The Last Page by Katie Holt
The Merge by Grace Walker
The Night Hunter by Natalie Moss
On Thin Ice by Olivia Belle
A Steep and Savage Path by JJA Harwood
Tata by Valérie Perrin, translated by Hildegarde Serle
Treat Them as Buffalo by Blair Palmer Yoxall
Ungodly Rich by Katharine McGee
With Love from Harlem by ReShonda Tate

Borrowed from the Library:
Every Summer After by Carley Fortune
I Will Kill Your Imaginary Friend for $200 by Robert Brockway
One & Only by Maurene Goo
Rings of Fate (Curses and Crowns #1) by Melissa de la Cruz

If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

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Today is the Fourth of July. Well, duh, sorta/kinda. I mean, it’s certainly hot enough to be July – meaning it’s too damn hot. But it’s the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which should be a really huge deal. The Bicentennial in 1976 certainly was. I was in college and it seemed like stuff about the Bicentennial was EVERYWHERE and everyone was just thrilled to celebrate it.

This Semiquincentennial – meaning 250th – celebration has been kinda meh, when it hasn’t been outright terrible as well as terribly hot. And not just because “Semiquincentennial” doesn’t trip off the tongue nearly as easily as “Bicentennial” did 50 years ago.

Whatever or however or if-ever you’re celebrating Independence Day, this household at least still has plenty of books to celebrate with. Meaning stay in and read because it’s too hot to be out. And it’s too loud for the cats so they need us to stay in and keep them calm.

The prettiest books in this stack, and we do have a bit of pretty this time around (YAY!) are The Art of Charming a Changeling and A Wall Is Also a Road. (I’ve already finished Wall and it DOES live up to that gorgeous cover!) A Lady’s Guide to Love and Pirates and Lady X are a bit in dialog with each other, as that Lady’s Guide is part of the Proper Romance Historical series from Shadow Mountain Publishing while Lady X is anything but proper.

Unfortunately, the cover of Our Infinite and Inevitable Ends looks rather like someone spilled Pepto-Bismol ALL over it. Which does not bode well for the story. OTOH, the book I’m most looking forward to in this stack – although not necessarily for its rather understated cover – is Murder on Threadneedle Street because it’s next in a series that I’ve been enjoying and I’m looking forward to discovering what happens next for the characters.

What’s happening next at Chez Reading Reality, at least for this weekend, is going to be the incapussitation of the humans so that the cats can feel better about the fireworks! Stay cool this weekend if you can!

For Review:
The Art of Charming a Changeling (Pigments & Paramours #1) by Sylvie Cathrall
Blood Bound (Cursed Covenant #1) by Ellis Hunter
The Devil Knows Her Name by C.N. Vair
Echoes of the Lost by Cindy Brown
The Fervent Whites by De’Shawn Charles Winslow
The Fine Art of Lying by Alexandra Andrews
Gray Area (Off the Books #3) by Kay Cove
Honey by Imani Thompson
I’ll Watch Your Baby by Neena Viel
Lady X by Molly Fader
A Lady’s Guide to Love and Pirates by Jennifer Moore
The Mother-Daughter Book Club by Susan Patterson and James Patterson
Murder on Threadneedle Street (Wrexford & Sloane #10) by Andrea Penrose
Night Objects by Eli Raphael
On Thin Ice (Ice Kings #1) by S. Rena
Our Infinite and Inevitable Ends by A.D. Sui
Scandal of the Summer by Alexandra Vasti
The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout
A Wall Is Also a Road by Annalee Newitz
Worth the Fight (Unsanctioned #3) by Anna Hackett
You’ll Love It Here by Natalie Sue

If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

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The orange-to-red covers really stand out in this stack! Not my favorite color, but The 10:12, A Thousand Painted Hours and A Violent Masterpiece certainly do grab the attention. Hard.

My favorite cover in this stack is As You Wake, Break the Shell, both for the very science fictional art of it all, and because the book sounds like it’s really, really good. The Witches of Cambridge isn’t exactly beautiful, but it is striking in its very exact way.

We’ll see how all of these books turn out in the weeks and months ahead. But in the meantime, what’s got your attention in YOUR stack this week?

For Review:
The 10:12 by Anna Maloney
As You Wake, Break the Shell (As You Wake, Break the Shell #1) by Becky Chambers
Dearly Departed by Chip Pons
The Death Row Club by V.A. Vazquez
First and Forever by Lynn Painter
Game of Rogues (Palace of Rogues #9) by Julie Anne Long
Hawai’i Rage (Ranger Makalani Pahukula #2) by Tori Eldridge
I Know a Place by Nat Cassidy
Ignore All Previous Instructions by Ada Hoffman
The Last Lady B (Accidental Brides #3) by Eloisa James
The Mystery of the Bitten Peach by Cecilia Tan
Nobody’s Quest (Nobody Chronicles #1) by Alyssa Day
Soon by You by Dahlia Adler
A Thousand Painted Hours by Barbara O’Neal
Time to Burn by Ellery Lloyd
A Violent Masterpiece by Jordan Harper
While You Were Seething by Charlotte Stein
Witch Season (Broken Coven #1) by Julia Bianco
The Witches of Cambridge by Alice Hoffman

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
Kaua’i Storm (Ranger Makalani Pahukula #1) by Tori Eldridge

Borrowed from the Library:
This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page

If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

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I don’t know about you, but that face on the cover of The Halls of the Dead creeps me right the hell out. It makes the cover of Sarafina seem normal in comparison, but if you look at that one closely, it’s kind of creepy too. Just not nearly AS creepy.

This isn’t really a pretty bunch of covers at all. Pretty arresting in a few cases – see above – but not pretty. Several are boring or almost boring. (I’m looking forward to reading Dive Bar at the End of the Road but the cover is kind of ‘meh’). The closest to pretty are The Forgotten Midwife and The Hope Keeper. I’ve been enjoying the new editions of Anna Hackett’s Phoenix Adventures series, howsomever, I haven’t liked the new covers, like the cover of Beyond Galaxy’s Edge, as much as I did the originals. But the books have been excellent and that IS what we’re here for!

Anything look good – or at least interesting – in your stack this week?

For Review:
Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino
Beyond Galaxy’s Edge (Phoenix Adventures #5) by Anna Hackett
Dive Bar at the End of the Road by Kelley Armstrong
The Forgotten Midwife by Laura Anthony
The Halls of the Dead by S.M. Hallow
The Hope Keeper by Heather Webb
I Am the Monster Under the Bed by Emily Zinnikas
The Intrigue by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Invasive Species by Ellery Adams
The Last Letters of Sally and Walter by Cammie McGovern
Love Song (Briar Universe) by Elle Kennedy
The Missing by E.A. Jackson
The Original by Priya Parmar
Rabbit Test and Other Stories by Samantha Mills
Sarafina by Philip Fracassi
The Take by Kelly Yang
They Made Us Blood and Fury (Chronicles of the Countless Clans #1) by Cheryl S. Ntumy
Turncloak (Silvercloak Saga #2) by L.K. Steven
The Twelve Loves of Christmas by Alexandria Bellefleur, Elise Bryant, Olivia Dade, Alexis Daria, Sarah Hogle, Zakiya N. Jamal, Rebecca Jenshak, Jessica Joyce, Susan Lee, Joss Richard, M.A. Wardell, Rebekah Weatherspoon
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
The Young Will Remember by Eve J. Chung

If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

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Maybe we’ve found “pretty” again, at least when it comes to book covers, in Burn the Sea and The Shock of the Light. Somehow, Afterbirth manages to be both “pretty” AND “pretty creepy” at the same time. The Book Tour, Fast and Fastidious, The Girl Next Door, In My Tudor Era and Spies, Lies, and Alibis are all pretty cute. While The Place Where They Buried Your Heart is both creepy and nostalgic. It looks EXACTLY like paperback horror covers used to look.

The book I’m most looking forward to reading is A Deadly Entanglement, because I loved the first book in the series, A Murderous Business. (I think I sense a deadly trend coming on, but these are historical murder mysteries!)

What about you? What are you looking forward to in your stack this week?

For Review:
Accumulation by Aimee Pokwatka
Afterbirth by Emma Cleary
The Book Tour by Emily Ohanjanians
Burn the Sea by Mona Tewari
A Deadly Entanglement (Harriman & Mancini #2) by Cathy Pegau
Fast and Fastidious by R.M. Caldwell
From the Dust by David Swinson
The Girl Next Door by Georgia Beers
Gunner (Joseph Gunner #1) by Alan Parks
The Hive by Ronald Malfi
I, Medusa by Ayana Gray
In My Tudor Era by Kate Bromley
Kill for a Million (Rivalries #3) by Janet Dailey
The Last Woman of Warsaw by Judy Batalion
The Place Where They Buried Your Heart by Christina Henry
The Shock of the Light by Lori Inglis Hall
Spies, Lies, and Alibis by Natalie Walters
Throw Away the Key by Jason M. Hough
The Weight of Angels by John Boyne
The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die Quietly by Katarina Bivald
Would I Lie to You? by Nicole Blades

If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

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The two prettiest covers – and I think they are both pretty instead of merely cute, are The Daughter of the Rebellion, A Kiss of Hammer and Flame and What Happens at Nightfall. (I love the dark blues in Nightfall‘s cover).

The creepy cover award in this stack is divided between Bone of My Bone and Come Sing for the Harrowing. They both give me the shivers – and it’s not cold here AT ALL.

The books I’m most curious about. or really, whose titles I’m most weirded out by, Cross My Heart, I Hope You Die, and Cross Your Heart and Hope He Dies. It reads like those two titles are speaking to each other, and I wouldn’t want to be caught in the middle of that conversation because somebody’s clearly going to die. Possibly more than one somebody and maybe even a whole lot of somebodies. But that’s a lot of death being wished for, and someone is bound to catch some karma about it.

The book I’m most curious about is Guilt, and the one I’m most looking forward to in this stack is Massif. I’ve never read anything by the author, but I’ve always meant to and this looks like a golden opportunity!

What about you? What’s got your attention in your stack?

Version 1.0.0

For Review:
Bone of My Bone by Johanna van Veen
By the Bootstraps (Starlight Ridge #1) by Alexa Martin
Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead by Mai Nguyen
Come Sing for the Harrowing by Dan Coxon
Cross My Heart, I Hope You Die by Mallory Arnold
Cross Your Heart and Hope He Dies by Jenny Elder Moke
The Daughter of the Rebellion by Jamie Ogle
Dear Monica Lewinsky by Julia Langbein
Enemies to Lovers by Alisha Rai
Guilt by Keigo Higashino, translated by Giles Murray
Honey in the Wound by Jiyoung Han
I Hope You Find What You’re Looking For by Bsrat Mezghebe
A Kiss of Hammer and Flame (Fated for Hael #1) by Amy de la Force
Like This, But Funnier by Hallie Cantor
Love by the Book by Jessica George
Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth
Massif by Garth Nix
Mothers and Other Strangers by Corey Ann Haydu
Phoebe Berman’s Gonna Lose It by Brooke Averick
The One Day You Were My Husband by Rosie Walsh
What Happens at Nightfall by Lauren Willig

If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

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