The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 4-20-25

Today is Easter Sunday, so Happy Easter to all who celebrate. If you’re still chasing Easter Eggs, then a Hoppy Easter to you as well.

Reading-wise, this was certainly a good week, with A++ rated A Drop of Corruption edging out the merely A+ rated Who Will Remember for book of the week. The one and only negative thing about either book is that there is not any currently available word on the next book in either series. Inquiring minds desperately need to know!

I think I’m sure about what’s coming this week, even though that statement feels a bit like, “I think I can, I think I can.” I’ve faffed around with two of the slots, and re-faffed, and fluffed a bit, and I think this is it. The order is absolutely subject to change, however.

Turning to other orders, or at least to someone looking like they are giving orders, today’s cat picture had to be split in two to fit, but I promise that this began its life as one single picture. We call this one, “Three cats working, one cat supervising.” Somebody found a bug. Everyone had to watch the bug and stare at the bug and poke at the poor, frightened, tiny little bug. Except Hecate. Her job is not to catch the bug. Her job is clearly to supervise the other cats because they might be doing it wrong.

Current Giveaways:

$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Rain Drops on Roses Giveaway Hop
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book PLUS EVENT-WIDE AMAZON/PAYPAL PRIZE in the Spring, March Madness, Earth Month and Mother’s Day Giveaway Event!
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Spring 2025 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop

Winner Announcements:

The winner of the Honey Bunny Giveaway Hop is Elizabeth

Blog Recap:

A++ #BookReview: A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett
B #BookReview: Notes from a Regicide by Isaac Fellman
Rain Drops on Roses Giveaway Hop
B #BookReview: A Fellowship of Bakers and Magic by J. Penner
A+ #BookReview: Who Will Remember by C.S. Harris
Stacking the Shelves (649)

Coming This Week:

Shadow of the Solstice by Anne Hillerman (#BookReview)
Murder at Gulls Nest by Jess Kidd (#BookReview)
A Gentleman’s Murder by Christopher Huang (#BookReview)
Single Player by Tara Tai (#BookReview)
Down in the Sea of Angels by Khan Wong (#AudioBookReview)

Stacking the Shelves (649)

I’ve been chunking my down through the mass of books I’ve received for various things. I thought I was making a dent, but then the Hugo Award Nominations list came out this week and well, never mind that idea. I’m attending Worldcon this year (it’s in Seattle) so I’m eligible to vote on the Hugos. And I will. I’ll get a packet of electronic versions of most of the nominees, and I already have some, and I’ve already read some. I’m really looking forward to the podcasts of the nominated short works because those were excellent last year. But it does mean more books. It’s a good thing I mostly get ebooks, otherwise my house would fall in!

This week’s prettiest covers look like A Fellowship of Librarians and Dragons – because how could a combo of those two things go wrong? – The Passengers on the Hankyu Line and The Wind Weaver. The books I’m most curious about are Felix Grey and the Descendant and A Gentleman’s Murder. The books I absolutely picked up for the titles are Cosmic Love at the Multiverse Hair Salon and How to Have a Killer Time in D.C.. the  two I’m most looking forward to reading are Single Player and, no surprise here,  A Fellowship of Librarians and Dragons.

What’s new on your stack this week?

For Review:
Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall
Cosmic Love at the Multiverse Hair Salon by Annie Mare
Counting Backwards by Binnie Kirshenbaum
Deep End by Ali Hazelwood (ebook + audio)
Early Thirties by Josh Duboff
The Eights by Joanna Miller
Felix Grey and the Descendant by Mario Theodorou
A Fellowship of Librarians and Dragons (Adenashire #2) by J. Penner
Francine’s Spectacular Crash and Burn by Renee Swindle
A Gentleman’s Murder (Eric Peterkin #1) by Christopher Huang
The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark
Gold Coast Dilemma by Nana Malone
How to Have a Killer Time in D.C. (Oliver Popp’s Travel Guides to Murder #1) by Sam Lumley
The Influencers by Anna-Marie McLemore
The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater
Parents Weekend by Alex Finlay
The Passengers on the Hankyu Line by Hiro Arikawa, translated by Allison Markin Powell
Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Single Player by Tara Tai
The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica, translated by Sarah Moses
The Wind Weaver (Reign of Remnants #1) by Julie Johnson


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:


The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 4-13-25

Spring has certainly sprung on the holiday front, as Passover began yesterday at sunset and ends at sunset next sunday, April 20, which is also Easter Sunday. Mother’s Day can’t be far behind!

One thing that is behind is this year’s Blogo-Birthday Celebration Week. All the winners of all the giveaways have been notified. Thanks again to each and every one of you for participating in the Celebration! I hope to see you all again next year. Bring your friends to the party!

As a side note, I’ve discovered something interesting about the way that Rafflecopter works. If I merely ask for participants in the giveaway to comment on the post, somehow I get literally TENS OF THOUSANDS of entries – most of which are not legit. If I ask for participants to answer a question, I don’t get as many actual comments. But I also get a considerably more reasonable number of participants and they’re all REAL. C’est la vie.

Today’s cat picture is Hecate, being just a bit contemplative. This is a particularly good picture of her little face and does an excellent job of showing off her pretty golden eyes. She’s also just a bit on the defensive, as she’s stolen my chair!

 

Current Giveaways:

$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Honey Bunny Giveaway Hop (ENDS TUESDAY!!!)
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book PLUS EVENT-WIDE AMAZON/PAYPAL PRIZE in the Spring, March Madness, Earth Month and Mother’s Day Giveaway Event!
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Spring 2025 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop

Winner Announcements:

The winner of the Sunday Post Blogo-Birthday Giveaway is Cali
The winners of the Big Blogo-Birthday Giveaway are Jan and Debbie
The winner of a book by Tanya Huff is Heather
The winner of a book in the Sherlock Holmes Adventure Series by Bonnie MacBird is Chris
The winner of any book from my Best Books List or Your Wishlist is Diane
The winner of the STS Blogo-Birthday Giveaway is Barbara

Blog Recap:

C #AudioBookReview: The Sirens by Emilia Hart
B #BookReview: Hunter Squad: North by Anna Hackett
A- #BookReview: One Level Down by Mary G. Thompson
A- #AudioBookReview: Trap Line by Timothy Zahn
B+ #BookReview: Last Chance to Save the World by Beth Revis
Stacking the Shelves (648)

Coming This Week:

A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett (#BookReview)
Notes from a Regicide by Isaac Fellman (#BookReview)
Rain Drops on Roses Giveaway Hop
A Fellowship of Bakers and Magic by J. Penner (#BookReview)
Who Will Remember by C.S. Harris (#BookReview)

Stacking the Shelves (648)

I certainly have an interesting assortment of books this week. At least, an assortment of book covers. The proof of the interesting-ness of the books, of course, is in the reading.

The prettiest covers this week look like A Fate Forged in Fire, My Demon Hunter, and Original Sinner. The books I’m most looking forward to are All Superheroes Need PR and The Stand-in Dad. I would have included Trap Line, but I finished that earlier in the week and reviewed it. I needed a bit of a reading pick-me-up to get me out of a bit of a slump, and that story was JUST RIGHT.

The book I’m most curious about this time around is Head Cases, and the two I absolutely picked up for their titles are The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association and My Father Always Finds Corpses because WOW those set up some interesting possibilities.

What fascinating covers – and titles – are in your stack this week?

For Review:
Abigail and Alexa Save the Wedding by Lian Dolan
All Superheroes Need PR (Supers in the City #1) by Elizabeth Stephens
Along Came Amor (Primas of Power #3) by Alexis Daria
Consider Yourself Kissed by Jessica Stanley
Detective Aunty (Kausar Khan Investigates #1) by Uzma Jalaluddin
A Fate Forged in Fire (Bonded to Beasts #1) by Hazel McBride
The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association by Caitlin Rozakis
Head Cases (PAR Unit #1) by John McMahon
Isola by Allegra Goodman
The Matchmaker by Aisha Saeed
My Demon Hunter (Hell Bent #2) by Aurora Ascher
My Father Always Finds Corpses by Lee Hollis
Not So Fast by Karen Booth
One Death at a Time by Abbi Waxman
Original Sinner (Original Sinners #1) by Kait Ballenger
Something Cheeky by Thien-Kim Lam
The Stand-in Dad by Alex Summers
The Summer Guests (Martini Club #2) by Tess Gerritsen
Tell Them You Lied by Laura Leffler

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:

Trap Line by Timothy Zahn (ebook + 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:


The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 4-6-25

Today marks the ending of this year’s Blogo-Birthday Celebration Week here at Reading Reality. The giveaways are all still in progress until the end of the week, so there’s plenty of time to get in on any that you’ve missed. Please do! I’d love for all of you to celebrate with me.

Today is also the opening day for National Library Week. At a time when the freedom to read and libraries and library funding are under threat from all sides, it’s more important than ever to show your support and demonstrate why so many people are still drawn to their libraries, this year and every year. And that’s the theme of this year’s National Library Week, “Drawn to the Library” I was so drawn to my local libraries  that I made a career out of it. If you have similar fond memories, and especially if you are drawn to your local libraries now because your kids need them or simply because local libraries are economic engines for their neighborhoods wherever they exist, libraries need your support so they can continue to do what they do best – support their communities with books and programs and help for those who need it!

And no Sunday Post at Reading Reality would be complete without a cat picture. This week’s picture is of Luna, clearly doing the yoga ‘child pose’  as she’s such a good example of stretching before and after exercise. Or naps – something she’s also very good at!

 

Current Giveaways:

$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Sunday Post Blogo-Birthday Giveaway
$25 Amazon Gift Card AND $25 B&N GC in the Big Blogo-Birthday Giveaway
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Honey Bunny Giveaway Hop
Any Book by Tanya Huff
Any Book in the Sherlock Holmes Adventure Series by Bonnie MacBird
Any book from my Best Books or Your Wishlist in the Blogo-Birthday Early Birthday Celebration and Giveaway!
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the STS Blogo-Birthday Giveaway
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book PLUS EVENT-WIDE AMAZON/PAYPAL PRIZE in the Spring, March Madness, Earth Month and Mother’s Day Giveaway Event!
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Spring 2025 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop

Blog Recap:

Fourteenth Annual Blogo-Birthday Celebration Week and Giveaway!
Honey Bunny Giveaway Hop
A+ #BookReview: Direct Descendant by Tanya Huff + Giveaway!
A- #BookReview: The Three Locks by Bonnie MacBird + Giveaway!
Blogo-Birthday Early Birthday Celebration and Giveaway!
Stacking the Shelves (647) + Giveaway

Coming This Week:

The Sirens by Emilia Hart (#AudioBookReview)
The Museum Detective by Maha Khan Phillips (#BookReview)
Hunter Squad: North by Anna Hackett (#BookReview)
One Level Down by Mary G. Thompson (#BookReview)
Last Chance to Save the World by Beth Revis (#BookReview)

Stacking the Shelves (647) + Giveaway

This particular Stacking the Shelves post has a lot of stuff stacked on its shelves today. Because today is not only my birthday, it’s also the final day in this year’s Blogo-Birthday Celebration Week, making this a hobbit birthday in that I give presents instead receiving them. As part of my birthday, I’ve also set up a Birthday Fundraiser on Facebook to Planned Pethood because I support their cause and especially because they are the place that checked out my dear, departed Lucifer T. Cat before he came to join our clowder.

It’s also First Contact Day in the Star Trek Universe, a bit of trivia that I adore because I’ve been a Star Trek fan for 60 YEARS now. I watched the original series with my dad as it was being broadcast and damn that was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away and yes I’m mixing my metaphors something terrible.

The prettiest covers in this week’s stack look like The Backwater, The Knight and the Moth and Maya & Natasha. The two that I’m most looking forward to are The In-Between Bookstore and A Study in Black Brew. What looks good in your stack this week?

 

For Review:
The Backwater by Vikki Wakefield
Blob by Maggie Su
Buried Road by Katie Tallo
The Capital of Dreams by Heather O’Neill
The Enigma Girl by Henry Porter
An Ethical Guide to Murder by Jenny Morris
Feeders by Matt Serafini
Gabriel’s Moon by William Boyd
The Girls of Good Fortune by Kristina McMorris
Havoc by Christopher Bollen
Hush Little Fire by Judith Newcomb Stiles
The In-Between Bookstore by Edward Underhill
The Knight and the Moth (Stonewater Kingdom #1) by Rachel Gillig
The Lamb by Lucy Rose
Let Us March On by Shara Moon
Maya & Natasha by Elyse Durham
The Oligarch’s Daughter by Joseph Finder
Our Last Wild Days by Anna Bailey
People of Means by Nancy Johnson
Rebel in the Deep (Crimson Sails #3) by Katee Robert
The Safari by Jaclyn Goldis
The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling
A Study in Black Brew by Marie Howalt
Those Opulent Days by Jacquie Pham


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:


~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

Welcome to the final giveaway of this year’s Blogo-Birthday Celebration! Today is my birthday, and it won’t be complete unless I get to give away just one more prize. So tell us what your favorite book has been so far this year for one more chance at one of Reading Reality’s usual prizes, the winner’s choice of a $10 Amazon Gift Card or $10 in Books.

Before you go, please take a moment to check out the rest of this week’s giveaways and enter any that you missed! And THANKS for coming by to celebrate!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 3-30-25 + Giveaway!

Today marks the start of Reading Reality’s FOURTEENTH! Annual Blogo-Birthday Celebration Week. Which means that today starts an entire week of giveaways. YAY! I’ll get more into the whole Hobbit Birthday thing of this week’s celebration in tomorrow’s post, which will include one of the big giveaways, but today is just a bit of a kickoff to start the festivities. Please come back every day this week to get in on ALL the prizes!

In the meantime, this week just finished was still a regular week of blogging and reading and reviewing – and it was a good one. First, I get to give one more shoutout to the marvelous historical mystery, The Railway Conspiracy by John Shen Yen Nee and SJ Rozan. It just so happens that this was the title I highlighted for this week in last Sunday’s Post, and now it’s the Book of the Week because it got this week’s highest rating. It was an absolutely excellent read/listen and I can’t recommend this one highly enough – although I do certainly keep trying!

It’s not a Sunday Post without a cat picture so here’s today’s poster cat. Hecate is dozing in the sun on one of her favorite perches, making the world go away as only a napping kitty can.

Current Giveaways:

$10 Gift Card or $10 Book PLUS EVENT-WIDE AMAZON/PAYPAL PRIZE in the Spring, March Madness, Earth Month and Mother’s Day Giveaway Event!
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Spring 2025 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop

Blog Recap:

B #BookReview: The Cat Who Saved the Library by Sosuke Natsukawa, translated by Louise Heal Kawai
B #BookReview: Luminous by Silvia Park
Grade A #AudioBookReview: The Railway Conspiracy by John Shen Yen Nee and SJ Rozan
B #BookReview: The Undermining of Twyla and Frank by Megan Bannen
A- #BookReview: Where the Axe is Buried by Ray Nayler
Stacking the Shelves (646)

Coming This Week:

Blogo-Birthday Celebration Week Begins! + Giveaway!
Honey Bunny Giveaway Hop
Direct Descendant by Tanya Huff (#BookReview + Giveaway)
The Three Locks by Bonnie MacBird (#BookReview + Giveaway)
Blogo-Birthday Celebration + Giveaway!

 

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

Welcome to the very first giveaway of this year’s Blogo-Birthday Celebration! As I write this on Friday, the weather this weekend in the ATL is expected to be a glorious spring day on Saturday and a nasty thunderstorm on Sunday. Which sounds like a perfect spring weekend to me – a day to go out in the sun AND a day to stay in and read. Spring might not even have sprung yet where you are, but it will eventually, so what’s your favorite thing to do on a beautiful spring day? Answer in the rafflecopter for your chance at one of Reading Reality’s usual prizes, the winner’s choice of a $10 Amazon Gift Card or $10 in Books.

And don’t forgot to come back tomorrow for another giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Stacking the Shelves (646)

First, biggest and most important thing – even bigger than this stack – is that tomorrow begins Reading Reality’s OMG 14th Annual Blogo-Birthday Celebration Week! The first post on Reading Reality occurred on April 4, 2011, and my own birthday is the following day, April 5, hence Blogo-Birthday. There will be giveaways every single day starting tomorrow, so please be sure to visit every day to see what’s happening.

And now back to our regularly scheduled stack o’ books!

This week does have some pretty covers, doesn’t it? My personal faves this time around are The Glass Garden, Last Twilight in Paris and Where the Rivers Merge. The creepy cover awards definitely go to Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng, Kiss of the Basilisk and Motheater. What I have a LOT of this time around are cute covers, particularly but not limited to Just Our Luck, Maine Characters and Temple of Swoon. The books I’m most curious about are The Case of the Missing Maid and A Trinket for the Taking. I feel a mystery mood coming on!

For Review:
Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker
Can’t Get Enough (Skyland #3) by Kennedy Ryan
The Case of the Missing Maid (Harriet Morrow Investigates #1) by Rob Osler
Close Your Eyes and Count to 10 by Lisa Unger
The Country Under Heaven by Frederic S. Durbin
The Dark Maestro by Brendan Slocumb
Death on the Island by Eliza Reid
The Filling Station by Vanessa Miller
Freakslaw by Jane Flett
The Glass Garden by Jessica Levai
The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits by Jennifer Weiner
Home and Away by Rochelle Alers
Immaculate Conception by Ling Ling Huang
Just Our Luck by Denise Williams
The Kennedy Girl by Julia Bryan Thomas
Kiss of the Basilisk (Split or Swallow #1) by Lindsay Straube
Last Twilight in Paris by Pam Jenoff
Loose Lips (Ghostwriter #2) by Kemper Donovan
Maine Characters by Hannah Orenstein
Motheater by Linda H. Codega
North (Hunter Squad #2) by Anna Hackett
Rooms for Vanishing by Stuart Nadler
Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson
Sleep by Honor Jones
Temple of Swoon by Jo Segura
A Trinket for the Taking (Magical Trinket #1) by Victoria Laurie
Where the Rivers Merge by Mary Alice Monroe


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:


The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 3-23-25

I started out this week thinking that the reading would go according to plan. (It happens. It doesn’t happen as often as I would like, but it does happen.) Howsomever, I neglected to take into account that Galen would be away on a work trip for a couple of nights, which shouldn’t be that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, because that is also a thing that happens.  But it’s been a while.

The house feels empty with one of its humans away. The cats are all a bit disgruntled, to the point where they all stare at me as if to ask what I did wrong to mess up THEIR routine. Things just aren’t quite right in their world – or mine. I do read – well, I always read, but when I’m by myself I tend to look for comfort reads and have a really difficult time getting myself stuck into something new, which set the end of this week’s readings into a bit of a tailspin.

And also led to this picture of Tuna, snuggling against my legs, trying to sleep away the upset amongst the tallest, cushiest pile of binkies he can find!

Current Giveaways:

$10 Gift Card or $10 Book PLUS EVENT-WIDE AMAZON/PAYPAL PRIZE in the Spring, March Madness, Earth Month and Mother’s Day Giveaway Event!
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Spring 2025 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop

Winner Announcements:

The winner of the Winter 2024-2025 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop is Steph

Blog Recap:

Grade A #AudioBookReview: The Knight and the Butcherbird by Alix E. Harrow
A- #BookReview: The Library Game by Gigi Pandian
B #BookReview: When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi
Spring 2025 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop
A+ #BookReview: Twice as Dead by Harry Turtledove
Stacking the Shelves (645)

Coming This Week:

The Cat Who Saved the Library by Sōsuke Natsukawa, translated by Louise Heal Kawai (#BookReview)
Luminous by Silvia Park (#BlogTour #BookReview)
Space Brooms! by A.G. Rodriguez
The Undermining of Twyla and Frank by Megan Bannen
The Railway Conspiracy by John Shen Yen Nee and SJ Rozan (#AudioBookReview)

Stacking the Shelves (645)

This bunch sure is interesting, isn’t it? The one that jumps out at me is The Malice of Moons and Mages. There’s something about the way the greens are so very gemlike and/or shiny even in the typography that just snares my attention. I don’t think it’s spectacular in any way, but it’s simplicity is just done really, really well.

I think the two prettiest covers are The Bane Witch and For Whom the Belle Tolls. I also confess that I adore the pun of Belle. The book I’m the most curious is A Bloomy Head because I’m, well, curious about a romance featuring Regency era cheesemakers. And that hand-drawn cover did draw my attention.

The one I picked for the title is Disco Witches of Fire Island. The description looks interesting, but it’s that title that got my attention first!

What’s new on your shelf this week? What are you most looking for to?

For Review:
Advent (Exlian Syndrome #1) by Seth Ring
The Bane Witch by Ava Morgyn
Blood on Her Tongue by Johanna van Veen
A Bloomy Head (Regency Cheesemakers #1) by J. Winifred Butterworth
Charming Devil (Gilded Monsters #2) by Rebecca Kenney
Disco Witches of Fire Island by Blair Fell
The Divine Flesh by Drew Huff
Drop Dead by Lily Chu
For Whom the Belle Tolls (Hell’s Belles #1) by Jaysea Lynn
Gothictown by Emily Carpenter
Home of the American Circus by Allison Larkin
The Keeper of Lonely Spirits by E.M. Anderson
Kiss Me, Maybe by Gabriella Gamez
L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 41 edited by Jody Lynn Nye
The Malice of Moons and Mages (Broken Bonds of Magic #1) by N.V. Haskell
The Manual for Good Wives by Lola Jaye
The Missing Half by Ashley Flowers with Alex Kiester
Modern Divination (Spells for Life and Death #1) by Isa Agajanian
My Inconvenient Duke (Difficult Dukes #3) by Loretta Chase
Passing Through a Prairie Country by Dennis E. Staples
The Perfect Stranger by Brian Pinkerton
Pomona Afton Can So Solve a Murder by Bellamy Rose
Senseless by Ronald Malfi
Shopgirls by Jessica Anya Blau
The Shots You Take by Rachel Reid
This Book Will Bury Me by Ashley Winstead
What is Wrong with You? by Paul Rudnick
Woodworking by Emily St. James


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: