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:

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:

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:

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.”

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:

This stack is EXACTLY what happens when the pickings get slim over at Edelweiss and NetGalley. The few books I pick up from them on a week like this look so LONELY in the stack that I start combing through friends’ recommendations and get more books.

With ‘falling back’ to go back to Standard Time this week, I’ll get an hour more to read tonight. C’est la reading vie!

For Review:
The Fireborne Blade by Charlotte Bond
The Last Note of Warning (Nightingale Mysteries #3) by Katharine Schellman

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
A Coup of Tea (Tea Princess Chronicles #1) by Casey Blair
Deep Roots (Siobhan O’Brien #2) by Sung J. Woo
Mirabile by Janet Kagan
Royal Tea Service (Tea Princess Chronicles #3) by Casey Blair
Skin Deep (Siobhan O’Brien #1) by Sung J. Woo
Tea Set and Match (Tea Princess Chronicles #2) by Casey Blair

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: