Stacking the Shelves (583)

I finally found cover images for two books that I’ve had forever – but without the art. It feels like a bit of a milestone. Also, the covers are gorgeous. I’m speaking of Blood Jade and Fiasco both of which have fascinating covers and whose first series books were both terrific. So I have very high hopes indeed for both of them.

Two books in this stack look to be series wrap-ups, notably the final Maisie Dobbs book, The Comfort of Ghosts, Ghostdrift, which is purportedly the last book in Suzanne Palmer’s Finder Chronicles.

And I can never resist either a Sherlock Holmes pastiche OR another entry in the Penric and Desdemona series by Lois McMaster Bujold. All in all, this is kind of a ‘Goldilocks’ stack – not too big, not too small and all of the books look like they’re going to be JUST right!

For Review:
Blood Jade (Phoenix Hoard #2) by Julia Vee and Ken Bebelle
The Comfort of Ghosts (Maisie Dobbs #18) by Jacqueline Winspear
The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson
Fiasco (Uncharted Hearts #2) by Constance Fay
Ghostdrift (Finder Chronicles #4) by Suzanne Palmer
The Hero She Wants (Unbroken Heroes #2) by Anna Hackett
Port in a Storm (Sinners #8) by Rhys Ford
Sherlock Holmes and the Telegram from Hell by Nicholas Meyer

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
Demon Daughter (Penric and Desdemona #12) by Lois McMaster Bujold
From Sawdust to Stardust by Terry Lee Rioux


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

Please link your STS post in the linky below:

Stacking the Shelves (582)

I have been trying to figure out Instagram and #bookstagram this week, meaning that this is my both my first Stacking the Shelves post of 2024 and my first stab at doing it on insta. (Check it out!) I believe I’ve reached the point in my learning curve where I’ve flipped from 1 step forward and 2 steps back to the other way around. I sure hope so. It helped that this week’s stack was VERY short.

The book I’m most looking forward to in this short stack is definitely Gryphon, because I adore the Miranda Chase series. The ones I’m most intrigued by are the Miss Percy Guides. Because dragons. We’ll certain see in the weeks ahead – if not sooner, because Miss Percy and her dragons are absolutely calling my name!

For Review:
City of Laughter by Temin Fruchter (book and audio)
Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis
Triple Sec by TJ Alexander

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
Gryphon (Miranda Chase NTSB #14) by M.L. Buchman
Miss Percy’s Pocket Guide (to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons (Miss Percy Guide #1) by Quenby Olson
Miss Percy’s Travel Guide (to Welsh Moors and Feral Dragons (Miss Percy Guide #2) by Quenby Olson


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

Please link your STS post in the linky below:

Stacking the Shelves (581)

This stack is a bit taller than I expected, but then I didn’t expect Amazon to dangle triple kindle points in the Kindle Rewards Beta in front of me this week – and I probably should have. But that’s what brings the remainder of the Barker & Llewelyn series into my Kindle app – not that I needed much coaxing after reading The Limehouse Text this week and being every bit as enthralled as I was with the first two books in the series.

That being said, the book I’m actually most looking forward to in this stack is Requiem for a Mouse because I adore Diesel and am sneakily fond of his human as well. Although, as adorable as that cover picture is, Diesel really shouldn’t eat even a bit of that cheesecake because it would not be at all good for him. No matter how good I expect his book to be for me!

For Review:
The Book That Broke the World (Library Trilogy #2) by Mark Lawrence
The Last Word (Harbinder Kaur #4) by Elly Griffiths
Requiem for a Mouse (Cat in the Stacks #16) by Miranda James
A Ruse of Shadows (Lady Sherlock #8) by Sherry Thomas

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
An Awkward Way to Die ((Barker & Llewelyn #8.5) by Will Thomas
Dance with Death (Barker & Llewelyn #12) by Will Thomas
Fierce Poison (Barker & Llewelyn #13) by Will Thomas
Heart of the Nile (Barker & Llewelyn #14) by Will Thomas

Borrowed from the Library:
The Postscript Murders (Harbinder Kaur #2) by Elly Griffiths


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

Please link your STS post in the linky below:

Stacking the Shelves (580)

I’m not sure pretty is even the correct word for this bunch of covers. The West Passage takes that prize, although there honestly isn’t a lot of competition. Very much on the other hand, there are three books in this stack that I am eagerly anticipating, one of which I didn’t even know was going to exist until I saw it on Edelweiss.

That would be The Daughters’ War by Christopher Buehlman, the unexpected PREQUEL to The Blacktongue Thief. Not that I wouldn’t still love to see the SEQUEL that story is begging for sometime soon – although not as soon as I’d hoped since this came first. I’ve also been eagerly awaiting Navigational Entanglements by Aliette de Bodard, as I said in my review of her Seven of Infinities a couple of weeks ago.

I don’t know about you, but I’m absolutely looking forward to not just one but TWO three-day weekends in a row. There should be plenty of time over the holidays for lots of wonderful reading.

Happy Holidays INDEED!

For Review:
A Body on the Doorstep (London Ladies’ Murder Club #1) by Marty Wingate (audio)
The Daughters’ War (Blacktongue #0) by Christopher Buehlman
Gravity Lost (Ambit’s Run #2) by L.M. Sagas
In the Shadow of the Fall (Guardians of the Gods #1) by Tobi Ogundiran
Lightning Strikes the Silence (Lane Winslow #11) by Iona Whishaw
Mislaid in Parts Half-Known (Wayward Children #9) by Seanan McGuire (audio)
Navigational Entanglements by Aliette de Bodard
Navola by Paolo Bacigalupi
The West Passage by Jared Pechaček

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
Come Tumbling Down (Wayward Children #5) by Seanan McGuire (audio)


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

Please link your STS post in the linky below:

Stacking the Shelves (579)

I keep playing with these stacks because I keep expecting that one of these holiday week stacks is going to be empty – and then what? But so far, there’s always been something. Actually, there are a couple more somethings than are showing here because there are some books coming up next spring that may have ARCs available but whose cover art just isn’t ready yet.

The book on this list I am absolutely more looking forward to is People in Glass Houses by Jayne Castle. I love her, well her and her alter egos Amanda Quick and Jayne Ann Krentz, and their combined Arcane Society/Harmony ‘verse. The Harmony books in particular are always a treat because I love good SFR and it’s among the best.

I’m also looking forward to, albeit with some trepidation, Funny Story by Emily Henry. The first book of hers that I read was Book Lovers, and I loved it, so I picked up Happy Place, which was good but I didn’t fall into my own happy place nearly as much. I’m wondering where Funny Story is going to fall on that spectrum. We’ll see.

For Review:
The Fall of Waterstone (Black Land’s Bane #2) by Lilith Saintcrow
Follow the Stars Home by Diane C. McPhail
Funny Story by Emily Henry
A Matter of Class by Mary Balogh
Mirrored Heavens (Between Earth and Sky #3) by Rebecca Roanhorse
People in Glass Houses (Harmony #17) by Jayne Castle
Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland


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

Please link your STS post in the linky below:

Stacking the Shelves (578)

This stack of covers isn’t so much pretty as it is evocative. The Barker & Llewelyn covers do an excellent job of invoking the time and place and projecting the sense of dark mystery, the London Ladies’ Murder Club covers pretty much scream the 1920s while the cover of Paladin’s Faith fits right in with the rest of the Saint of Steel series.

Speaking of Paladin’s Faith, that’s the book in this stack that I’m MOST looking forward to. I’m planning to treat myself with it over the holidays.

For Review:
A Body on the Doorstep (London Ladies’ Murder Club #1) by Marty Wingate
A Body at the Séance (London Ladies’ Murder Club #2) by Marty Wingate
Ghosts of Honolulu by Mark Harmon and Leon Carroll, Jr. (audio)
Lore of the Wilds by Analeigh Sbrana

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
Blood is Blood (Barker & Llewelyn #10) by Will Thomas
Hell Bay (Barker & Llewelyn #8) by Will Thomas
Old Scores (Barker & Llewelyn #9) by Will Thomas
Paladin’s Faith (Saint of Steel #4) by T. Kingfisher
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor (audio)


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

Please link your STS post in the linky below:

Stacking the Shelves (577)

Not a lot of review copies in this stack, but I’ve clearly given in, or leaned in, or both, to my love of the Barker & Llewelyn series and am in the process of collecting the ones I don’t have eARCs of, which is unfortunately most of them. So there’s that. The prettiest cover ‘award’ certainly goes to A Botanist’s Guide to Society and Secrets, but all the covers in that series have been pretty – even if the plants and flowers pictured thereon are of the deadly and poisonous variety.

Normal Women is a book that made my curiosity bump itch, because we all have ideas and beliefs about exactly what roles average, “normal” women played in history, and I’m hoping to learn something of how much of that popular opinion is remotely correct. We’ll see.

For Review:
A Botanist’s Guide to Society and Secrets (Saffron Everleigh #3) by Kate Khavari
The Hero She Needs (Unbroken Heroes #1) by Anna Hackett
Normal Women by Philippa Gregory

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
The Black Hand (Barker & Llewellyn #5) by Will Thomas
Fatal Enquiry (Barker & Llewellyn #6) by Will Thomas
The Hellfire Conspiracy (Barker & Llewellyn #4) by Will Thomas
The Limehouse Text (Barker & Llewellyn #3) by Will Thomas
Murder Your Employer by Rupert Holmes


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

Please link your STS post in the linky below:

Stacking the Shelves (576)

First and most definitely foremost, I hope that everyone had a GREAT turkey day, whether there was turkey on the menu or not!

For a work week that was only THREE days long, a surprising amount of stuff showed up on Edelweiss and NetGalley. Which I am, of course, VERY thankful for!

After absolutely LOVING the first book in the Barker & Llewelyn series, Some Danger Involved, earlier this week, of course I bought the next book in the series! But the book I’m also really looking forward to in this stack is Murder at the White Palace, the 6th book in the Sparks & Bainbridge historical mystery series. That series has been terrific from the very first book, The Right Sort of Man, so I’m eager to see what happens to our intrepid duo next.

The book I’m most curious about is Pets and the City. It’s nonfiction, the autobiographical account of a vet who makes house calls in Manhattan – as the full title clearly states. I’m curious because this is not the first book that I’ve seen telling that story. Dr. Louis J. Camuti wrote his tales of calling on tails and fins and fangs in Manhattan back in 1980 under the hilariously true title of All My Patients Are Under the Bed. I remember those tales and those patients very fondly, and still have a copy of the book – assuming the cats haven’t either chewed it to scrap or peed on it somewhere along the way. But all of that means I’m really curious to see how much as changed and how much remains the same. For example, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that all of Dr. Attas’ patients are ALSO under the bed!

For Review:
The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang
Fathomfolk (Drowned World #1) by Eliza Chan
Foul Days (Witch’s Compendium of Monsters #1) by Genoveva Dimova
In Our Stars (Doomed Earth #1) by Jack Campbell
Murder at the White Palace (Sparks & Bainbridge #6) by Allison Montclair
Pets and the City: True Tales of a Manhattan House Call Veterinarian by Amy Attas
Same Bed Different Dreams by Ed Park (audio)
A True Account by Katherine Howe (audio)

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
To Kingdom Come (Barker & Llewelyn #2) by Will Thomas


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

Please link your STS post in the linky below:

Stacking the Shelves (575)

For a not very tall stack it has a lot of fascinating books in it!

The prettiest cover is a dead heat between The Fallen Fruit and The Spellshop. The hands-down best, I’m picking this book for its title award goes to How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying. That title is hard to beat on a whole bunch of fronts – unless, of course, one actually succeeds in becoming the Dark Lord and doesn’t die trying. We’ll see.

I’ve been stalking NetGalley in the hopes that my request for the audio of We Are the Crisis would get approved – and it finally did. I started it immediately and am just as immersed as I was in the first book, No Gods, No Monsters. I can see a lot of solitaire in my future so that I can listen to it faster.

This coming Thursday is Thanksgiving, which means that the holiday season will officially commence. I don’t know about you, but the holidays have certainly snuck up on me this year. I’m definitely looking forward to a lot of extra reading opportunities in the weeks ahead.

For Review:
The Fallen Fruit by Shawntelle Madison
How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler
The Queen of Poisons (Marlow Murder Club #3) by Robert Thorogood
Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar
Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst
Sunbringer (Fallen Gods #2) by Hannah Kaner
We Are the Crisis (Convergence Saga #2) by Cadwell Turnbull (audio)


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

Please link your STS post in the linky below:

Stacking the Shelves (574)

Today is Veterans Day in the U.S., and Remembrance Day in the U.K. and much of the British Commonwealth. This holiday, which recognizes the service of all military veterans, was first celebrated as Armistice Day to commemorate the end of World War I at the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918. A conflict which unfortunately did not turn out to be “war to end all wars.”

World War I Books for Soldiers poster from the Library of Congress Collection.

Speaking of books, because that’s most of what we do here at Reading Reality. this is another short stack that got embiggened a bit because the original few looked so lonely. I’m also “auditioning” a couple of series as possible comfort reads as I’m just about caught up with Wrexford & Sloane.

I’ve heard good things about the Barker & Llewelyn series, I have a few in eARCs and they’re Victorian, so more Holmes’ era than either Wrexford & Sloane or Sebastian St. Cyr. So we’ll see. I’m also looking back at Barbara Hambly’s Benjamin January series, set in the 1830s in New Orleans and thereabouts. I read the first, it looks like ten, books in the series, beginning with A Free Man of Color (which describes Benjamin January’s situation rather succinctly if not completely) back when they first came out, but it fell by the reading wayside in that torrent of ‘so many books, so little time’. But my memory says the series is absolutely worth picking up again, so I’ll have to see if that memory is playing me true or false in the months ahead.

For Review:
The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman
Death and Glory (Barker & Llewelyn #15) by Will Thomas
Maude Horton’s Glorious Revenge by Lizzie Pook
The Nubian’s Curse (Benjamin January #20) by Barbara Hambly

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
The Pride of Garnet Run (Garnet Run #2.5) by Roan Parrish
Some Danger Involved (Barker & Llewelyn #1) by Will Thomas
A Witch in Time by Constance Sayers

Borrowed from the Library:
The Lights on Knockbridge Lane (Garnet Run #3) by Roan Parrish
The Rivals of Casper Road (Garnet Run #4) by Roan Parrish


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

Please link your STS post in the linky below: