Hi All!
I just thought I’d switch things up by starting up my own site and share a bit more with you guys than I do on my bookstagram and Tumblr!
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Seher and I’m a reader based in Pakistan! I read just about everything I can get my hands on! That being said I adore fantasy and poetry! I used to post exclusively on Instagram, but now I’ve decided to try and maintain my own blog!
If you prefer Instagram, that’s all good! I’ve linked that below! And if you prefer getting your reviews and giveaways on Tumblr and Twitter, those will be here too!
I’m also using this as a more creative space, so you’ll also get plenty of tarot card posts, restaurant reviews (from Islamabad), and pictures of the sky after it rains! I’ll also be posting my writing update, which is something I’m trying to get back into!
This is The Girl Who Reads in chaos mode!
I maintain two tumblr accounts! Which does sound like a bit much, but both serve for different moods!
My book tumblr lets me post more content than I can on my bookstagram, so you’ll find more posts here (in the future) and more excerpts, etc!
https://bookstagramofmine.tumblr.com/
My poetry tumblr is a mood. Things that I love are posted there!
https://www.tumblr.com/blog/alliwanttodoiscollectpoetry
You can also find me on twitter (where I generally just cry and complain about life)
I have a lot of badges from all the sites I usually review on and now you have to see them because this is the first time I’ve had a place to put them! 🙂
And last but not least, my google reviews!
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Book Tour: 30 Reasons to Swipe Left by Jane Fulton
Thank you Love Book Tours for the chance to read and review 30 Reasons to Swipe Left by Jane Fulton!
Do you have a friend who seems to have an endless supply of horrible dating stories? If you don’t, you now have Jane Fulton! The best part is that 30 Reasons to Swipe Left is on Kindle Unlimited, which means this super funny book is available for free to most of us!
I don’t want to spoil the book for you guys but to sum the book is hilarious and reminds me of the age old saying, truth is stranger than fiction. Each story made me LOL in my head and I loved the little glossary included at the end of each chapter. While I’d like to say I knew most of the words included some like noonie really did surprise me! She really does write in a way that makes you feel like she’s right there with you telling you each story!
I am glad though that I met my partner before I had to join a dating app and I’m spared that horror! But yeah, men are weird and strange and dating is strange and sex can be weirder still!
I’m including a really tiny story from the book to get you guys started!
Excerpt/Mini Story:
On the subject of wanking, a guy I used to date announced on social media that his father passed away, so out of courtesy, I messaged him to send my condolences. I received an instant response asking if I would come round to his place and stick my finger up his arse.
Can you guess what these words mean?
Belter
Bawbag
Dobber
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Blog Tour: Bloodlaced by Courtney Maguire
Thank you The Write Reads for hosting this awesome tour for Bloodlaced! This particular tour in is honour of Bloodlaced placing 9th in the BBNYA 2022!
Bloodlaced is the first book in the Youkai Bloodlines series by the author. City Owl Press originally published this 314-page book in September 2020. The book is a dark fantasy, but I recommend reading the content warnings before getting into it!
Content Warnings: physical abuse, sexual abuse (off-page), self-harm, blood, graphic violence
What is BBNYA?
BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner. If you are an author and wish to learn more about the BBNYA competition, you can visit the official website http://www.bbnya.com or Twitter @bbnya_official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.
Summary:
Bloodlaced is set in a world where servants are barely viewed as human. And if you’re different, you’re also entertainment. As both a man and a woman Asagi is very different.
Asagi is sold to a new master Mahiro, after an incident that basically breaks them into pieces. But Mahiro is everything Asagi cannot have ever known; kind. But when Asagi’s life is put on the line, Mahiro reveals himself to be a demon, a youkai, who feeds on blood, and Asagi is turned to to save their life.
Unfortunately for them, life rarely, if ever, let’s one problem end before triggering another. As Asagi’s and Mahiro’s relationship splinters, the past begins to catch up; in the best and worst way possible. With a monster at the door, Asagi must decide what it means to be human and protect what they love most.
Book Review:
Bloodlaced is a book that a reader will either love or hate; there isn’t any in between. The main thing that I really loved about Bloodlaced was the plot. I was a big fan of seeing how things played out between these characters, how things came back to haunt them, and how eternity can be a drag when you can’t do more with it. It was also interesting to see a character prioritizing their child, or someone they viewed as their child, over the love interest because maybe I’m on the AITA subreddit too much but many people really forget about their kids. This novel also explored how age gaps can play out, even if not overtly.
There were some things in the book that could have been improved! A lot happened in the book, and things should have been done at a slower pace and given more time. This first book could have been broken down into two if necessary. Matsumoto was a weird character, and I didn’t understand how they became friends!
About the Author:
Courtney Maguire is a University of Texas graduate from Corpus Christi, Texas. Drawn to Austin by a voracious appetite for music, she spent most of her young adult life in dark, divey venues nursing a love for the sublimely weird. A self-proclaimed fangirl with a press pass, she combined her love of music and writing as the primary contributor for Japanese music and culture blog, Project: Lixx, interviewing Japanese rock and roll icons and providing live event coverage for appearances across the country.
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Book Tour: Midnight Strikes by Zeba Shahnaz
Thank you TBR and Beyond Tours for the chance to read and review Midnight Strikes by Zeba Shahnaz! I’m so happy to be on this book tour for a fantastic female Pakistani-American writer!
Midnight Strikes is Zeba Shahnaz’s debut novel! This 443 page long book was released on the 14th of March and was published by Delacorte Press.
Most of us have encountered the time loop trope because of the movie Groundhog day, where a man relives the same day over and over again. Zeba Shahnaz’s story, told from the point of view of Anaïs, a young woman from a marginalized community from the edge of the kingdom, makes brilliant use of this device to illustrate the trauma of living and surviving catastrophic events. Keep in mind, the rest of my post will have spoilers, so skip ahead to the blurb if you don’t want to read those.
There are many things to like about Midnight Strikes, we have interesting magic systems and even better characters. As Anais travels back to that night and meets them over and over again, sometimes having conversations she would never have had otherwise, she gets to know them and even love them differently. It was heartbreaking to see her at the end with Leo, she has fallen in love with all the sides of him she’s seen; this prince who believes when no one in their sane mind would.
I also want to talk about the arranged marriages in the book because it’s so intimately a brown girl problem. Anais makes it clear she isn’t looking for love and romance and all the things we should, ideally speaking, hope for. She’s just looking for someone bearable. Someone who can maybe turn out to be a friend in the long run. This theme also continues with Clara and her marriage; her father loves her, and his begging at the end made me feel like she would have been forgiven, regardless of all the havoc she wreaked. But despite all that she is, her worth to him and the kingdom, he tells her only after her marriage is arranged, as though she is a bystander and not a main component.
There are also more familiar tropes; money isn’t all, breeding and nobility matters just a bit more. People want more than a police state, but that’s all this kingdom knows how to give them.
Blurb:
Seventeen-year-old Anaïs just wants tonight to end. As an outsider at the kingdom’s glittering anniversary ball, she has no desire to rub shoulders with the nation’s most eligible (and pompous) bachelors—especially not the notoriously roguish Prince Leo. But at the stroke of midnight, an explosion rips through the palace, killing everyone in its path. Including her.
The last thing Anaïs sees is fire, smoke, chaos . . . and then she wakes up in her bedroom, hours before the ball. No one else remembers the deadly attack or believes her warnings of disaster.
Not even when it happens again. And again. And again.
If she’s going to escape this nightmarish time loop, Anaïs must take control of her own fate and stop the attack before it happens. But the court’s gilded surface belies a rotten core, full of restless nobles grabbing at power, discontented commoners itching for revolution, and even royals who secretly dream of taking the throne. It’s up to Anaïs to untangle these knots of deadly deceptions . . . if she can survive past midnight.Zeba Shahnaz writes fantasy full of political intrigue, twisted romance, and a healthy dose of existential angst. A proud Pakistani-American, she translated her love of storytelling into a graduate degree analyzing national identity, culture, and cinema in South Asia. She grew up in New Jersey, which she has yet to fully escape (though not because of a time loop). MIDNIGHT STRIKES is her debut novel.
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Book Tour: The Dead Will Rise by Chris Nickson
Thank you Random Things Tours for the chance to read and review The Dead Will Rise by Chris Nickson!
Onto my review:
The title should sound familiar to most people. “The dead will rise again” is to quote the bible literally and invokes the Abrahamic concept of how the dead will be brought back to be judged on the day of judgment. You’d be forgiven for thinking that this implies the book may have a supernatural bent to it; it most certainly doesn’t. To invoke G. K. Chesterson, the crime novelist, in order to stay a crime novelist, must not hit above the body, and so our dead men stay dead men in this book.
The Dead Will Rise is a historical mystery set in Leeds in the 1820’s. It’s the 5th book in the Simon Westow Mysteries series by the author and came out on the 7th of March and was published by Severn House. It focuses on two characters, Jane, a teenage girl with a dark past and Simon, the local thief taker or PI. Simon and Jane are called to investigate the disappearance of little girls body from her grave, at a hand of some resurrectionists.
This was, unfortunately, a more common occurrence than one would imagine. Medical schools in the UK were only allowed to use the bodies of convicts (which weren’t very many) and so body snatchers (or resurrectionists) would steal dead bodies from the grave in the night to sell onto a medical school to make a bit of money. Opening up a grave was not considered a serious felony under the law and so thieves also knew that they themselves, at worst, would be imprisoned for some time. Medical schools rarely asked where the bodies came from, and it was hard to track down body snatchers, meaning most people just got away with it.
That being said, Simon and Jane take on this case knowing that the girl was wearing a £2 dress that made this a theft with more serious punishment. As they go on they realize more powerful people are involved and there are more bodies that have been stolen and are attacked.
I liked the book and the slightly spooky vibe. You don’t know who is responsible and how things will turn out in the end. Jane is a phenomenal character and I loved how she wanted revenge so badly. I lowkey want to read the other books in the series just to get a bit more about her. However, I’m not sure I appreciate the deaths at the end of the book and how they were done. They didn’t make sense to me. I would read this author again!
Blurb:
Leeds. April, 1824. Wealthy engineer Joseph Clark employs thief-taker Simon Westow to find the men who stole the buried corpse of Catherine Jordan, his employee’s daughter.
Simon is stunned and horrified to realize there’s a gang of body snatchers in Leeds. He needs to discover who bought Catherine’s body and where it is now. As he hunts for answers, he learns that a number of corpses have vanished from graveyards in the town. Can Simon and his assistant Jane bring the brutal, violent Resurrection men who are selling the dead to medical schools to justice and give some peace to the bereft families?About the Author:
I’ve been killing people in Leeds (and a couple of other places) since 1730. In books, at least. It’s my home, and I eventually moved back here in 2013. I feel the place in my bones. I know it. I love it.
The Richard Nottingham books take place in the 1730s. He’s the Constable of Leeds – as the real Richard Nottingham was – just as the town was becoming weathy on the wool trade.
By the 1820s, the setting for the Simon Westow series, Leeds was an industrial town, with plenty of those dark Satanics Mills. Simon is a thief-taker, retrieving stolen items for money and often discovering danger along the way. He works with a teenage girl, Jane, who has a dark past of her own and a deadly, unforgiving way with a knife.
By the 1890s, Leeds was a city, one of the great industrial centres of empire. It’s where Tom Harper is a policeman, a detective inspector at first, then superintendent. His wife owns a pub in the working-class area of Sheepscar, and is very involved with the Suffragists. The books are crime, but relationships are paramount, as well as politics – strikes, racism against Jewish immigrants, the slow build of socialism and the Suffragettes. The series moves into the 20th century. A chornicle of a place and a family.
I’ve also written about Leeds in the 1920s and ’40s (Lottie Armstrong) and the ’50s (Dan Markham). Different ideas, the same evolving place at the heart.
I spent a little while living near Chesterfield, which gave rise to a medieval series set there, featuring John the Carpenter, who has a taent for solving killings.
I lived in Seattle for 20 years, working as a music journalist. That inspired a pair of novels set in the music scene there: Emerald City and the follow-up, West Seattle Blues.
Candace Robb, author of the excellent Owen Archer mysteries, said my books are “total immersion experiences in the underbelly of 18th century Leeds. Clever use of period slang and vivid detail bring to life the people, the culture, the gritty reality of early industrial culture, brutal and dehumanizing.”
Best-selling author Joanne Harris said my work has “a vibrant sense of living history, well-drawn characters…”
Writing the novels has led to curious things – writing a couple of plays, one featuring a live jazz quintent, and being inolved in arranging a couple of exhibitions celebrating the march to women’s suffrage in Leeds. I’m also the writer-in-residence for Abbey House Museum here. All from putting a few words on paper…
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NetGalley Book Review: What Happens in the Ballroom by Sabrina Jeffries
NetGalley Stat:
With this book I’ll be at 57% and will need to review 141 books to hit 80%
Book Review:
Thank you, NetGalley and Kensington books, for the chance to read and review What Happens in the Ballroom by Sabrina Jeffries!
What Happens in the Ballroom is the second book in the author’s series, Designing Debutantes. It comes out on the 28th of March and is 281 pages long.
This book has a lot going for it, including plenty of steamy scenes and fascinating characters still recovering from toxic situations. Some of the book’s villains are still around, causing the main characters to be on edge, which leads to miscommunication. The book emphasizes the importance of honesty, even when it seems like it won’t help.
However, the book expected too much from its readers at times. It was hard to believe that women doing this would be accepted so readily, even after marriage into the aristocracy or with just one close relative vouching for them (and who really didn’t), and the stigma of divorce in those times. I was also confused about how the author would handle the situation with the man who sneaked into the events. I’m curious to see how this will be addressed in the next book.
Book Blurb:
A young military widow, Eliza Pierce is enjoying both freedom and financial success as part of Elegant Occasions. When her late husband’s best friend, Nathaniel Stanton, the Earl of Foxstead, hires Elegant Occasions to help another young widow of an officer become part of high society, Eliza wonders why. Is the woman a relative? Or is she the earl’s mistress and her adorable toddler his child? If so, why does he take Eliza in his arms every chance he gets . . .
Foxstead’s family situation makes it difficult for him to marry, so his visceral attraction to his best friend’s widow is an unwelcome complication. Burdened by family secrets and those of his commanding officer, he’s determined to do his duty even when it means being around Eliza every day. But how can he resist when the fetching Eliza keeps tempting him to break his own rules? For if he dares to expose the truth, will she ever forgive him? Or will she banish him from her life forever… -
Book Review: Taming the Rake by Erica Ridley
Title: Taming the Rake
Series: Lords in Love
Author: Erica Ridley
Pages: 198
Publisher: Webmotion
Release Date: 24th March, 2023
Genre: Regency Romance
Long story short: I’m a fan
I don’t remember when I joined the authors mailing list, but I’m glad I did because one day I got the link to Taming the Rake in my inbox!
This isn’t my first Erica Ridley book, that was The Rake Mistake and I’m linking my review down below!
Like The Rake Mistake, this book is super fun and goes down easily. It’s also incredibly steamy and we can feel the tension between our mains from the get go.
For someone who came out four seasons ago, Gladys Bell is more innocent than she should be. Of course with no access to the papers and advise like this one can imagine why;
“The gentlemen attending this annual festival know that even something as simple as prolonged visual contact can imply marital intent.”
MotherSo when she’s mistaken for a courtesan and kissed throughly by the most handsome man at the ball, she assumes that a wedding is to follow. What follows are spiteful people airing Glady’s dirty laundry (that she didn’t even know was soiled) out to dry. With her family abandoning her, she turn from Lady Dawn to a lady of the night! This is the story of how she gets justice, even if that justice isn’t the revenge she wanted it to be.
This book features some of our favourite regency romance tropes! We have:
- A Rake (or a bad boy)
- A Compromising Situation
- Mistaken Identity
- Enemies to Lovers
The book does have flaws. Her parents disown her in a public park, which should be considered quite scandalous in it’s own right. She suddenly has all the money she needs with another patron. She forgives him in the blink of an eye. We hardly ever hear anything about her life as a courtesan and how she became one, even though the author could have written on more. There is no mention of ever reconciling with her sister now that she is in a more respectable position.
All of those things are true, and yet I still give this book 4 stars out of 5, because it was fun and light and I was invested in watching Gladys try to break his heart. I loved that she grew into a strong woman who managed her own affairs. I loved watching our main guy falling for her, and anyone who can hunt a book down like that is a keeper; as far as romantic gestures go, the author knew that this was the one that would send her audience swooning.
- A Rake (or a bad boy)
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Book Review: The Orange Tree by Dong Li
Thank you NetGalley and University of Chicago Press for the chance to read and review the ARC for The Orange Tree by Dong Li
Mini Review
I’m not a good poetry reviewer. People know how to write poetry reviews but I don’t! I think it would be more meaningful for me to link you guys to The Orange Tree, which aside from being the title is also the name of a poem by the writer.
The Orange Tree by Dong Li As a whole, the book is a collection of poems that focus on the history of China. For me, what often out the most, especially the titular poem was the devastation that history itself brings.
His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them.
Walter BenjaminThe Angel of History can most clearly be seen in these lines by the poet;
More orange trees were planted after the Cultural Revolution.
They were no longer a rare delicacy, and more varieties appeared in the marketplace.
After China’s Opening Up, we never had time to meet again at Uncle’s house.
Uncle moved into a modern apartment building.
And no one ever picked oranges again.
Still the orange tree bore fruit.
The Orange Tree by Dong LiAnd then of course is the horrific violence that we see in the Japanese invasion of China. ‘Tell our Daughters’ honestly became quite hard to read.
On the other hand, while a lot of this was really well executed, if the introduction hadn’t told me that this story was being told from the point of view of a child, I genuinely would not have realised that.
The formatting was really different and I would love to get my hands on a paperback to see how it plays out there.
Blurb:
Release Date: 31st March 2023
Dong Li’s The Orange Tree is a collection of narrative poems that braids forgotten legends, personal sorrows, and political upheavals into a cinematic account of Chinese history as experienced by one family. Amid chaos and catastrophe, the child narrator examines a yellowed family photo to find resemblances and learns a new language, inventing compound words to conjure and connect family stories. These invented words and the calligraphy of untranslated Chinese characters appear in lists separating the book’s narrative sections.
Li’s lyrical and experimental collection transcends the individual, placing generations of family members and anonymous others together in a single moment that surpasses chronological time. Weaving through stories of people with little means, between wars and celebrations, over bridges and walls, and between trees and gardens, Li’s poems offer intimate perspectives on times that resonate with our own. The result is an unflinching meditation on family history, collective trauma, and imaginative recovery.
The Orange Tree is the recipient of the inaugural Phoenix Emerging Poet Book Prize for 2023. -
Book Review: The Worst Woman in London by Julia Bennet
Title: The Worst Woman in London
Author: Julie Bennet
Pages: 299
Publisher: Self Published
Date Published: 2nd Feb, 2023
Genre: Historical Fiction, Historical Romance
Available on Kindle Unlimited
Book Review:
Thank you NetGalley and Xpresso Book Tours for the chance to read and review The Worst Woman in London by Julia Bennet!
You could never be unwomanly. Impractical perhaps, but then ideals are rarely practical.
When Francesca decides to file for divorce she knows that she’ll be removed from polite society! After all, her husband, is no worse than most men of the ton and she should know better than to have her own indiscretions, or at least be more discreet. With her family abandoning her, no money, and her divorce at risk (at a time where a woman had to be faultless and prove desertion and abuse to given the right to divorce and remarry) she’s still willing to go through it all, if only to have her freedom. When James is sent by her husband to try and negotiate a more informal separation instead of a divorce, sparks fly. But that would put it all at risk.
The Worst Woman in London is the first regency romance I’ve read with this premise. And it’s also got a woman facing the very real things that happened in society at the time. Her husband hasn’t bothered to see her in 8 years. but if she has an affair she won’t have a full divorce. He can flaunt his mistress openly and give her expensive diamonds, but can withdraw financial support, and keep all of the money she may have inherited. If a woman has a more “stimulating” interest, her parents can refuse to indulge her (like how Sylvia Randle could only read for an hour on certain days” and marry her off to the highest bidder. Even with a happy ending, which is a necessary part of a regency romance (more specifically Victorian romance), we aren’t sure what the happiness will be and will it be only a certain measure of happiness. We don’t see a reconciliation with the family and we don’t see material wealth, even if we do see love. We also know that the happy ending was entirely due to another mans power.
Blurb:
A defiant Victorian wife fights to escape a bad marriage but her love for a forbidden man jeopardizes her chance at freedom.
James Standish knows how to play society’s game. He’ll follow the rules, marry a virginal debutante, and inherit a massive fortune. At least, that’s the plan until he meets Francesca Thorne. She’s not the sort of woman a respectable gentleman like James could ever marry—not least because, strictly speaking, she’s married already.
Francesca is determined to flout convention and divorce her philandering husband. When James sweet talks his way into her life tasked with convincing her to abandon her dream of freedom, she’s unprepared for the passion that flares between them.
Torn apart by conflicting desires, James and Francesca must choose whether to keep chasing the lives they’ve always wanted or take a chance on a new and forbidden love. -
Giveaway: The Daughters of Madurai by Rajasree Variyar
Title: THE DAUGHTERS OF MADURAI
Author: Rajasree Variyar
Pub. Date: February 28, 2023
Publisher: Union Square & Co.
Formats: Hardcover, eBook, Audiobook
Pages: 336
Find it: Goodreads, https://books2read.com/THE-DAUGHTERS-OF-MADURAI
Giveaway:
1 winner will receive a finished copy of THE DAUGHTERS OF MADURAI, US Only.
Ends March 7th, midnight EST.
a Rafflecopter giveaway https://widget-prime.rafflecopter.com/launch.jsBlurb:
The Daughters of Madurai is both a page-turning mystery and a heartrending story of the fraught family dynamics and desperate choices that face a young mother in India. Spanning 1990s South India and present-day Australia, the novel follows Janani, a mother who will do anything to save her unborn daughter, and Nila, a young woman who embarks on a life-changing journey of self-discovery.
Madurai, 1992. A young mother in a poor family, Janani is told she is useless if she can’t produce a son—or worse, if she bears daughters. They let her keep her first baby girl, but the rest are taken away as soon as they are born, and murdered. But Janani can’t forget the daughters she was never allowed to love . . .
Sydney, 2019. Nila has a secret; one she’s been keeping from her parents for too long. Before she can say anything, her grandfather in India falls ill, so she agrees to join her parents on a trip to Madurai. Nila knows little about where her family came from or who they left behind. What she’s about to learn will change her forever.
While The Daughters of Madurai explores the harrowing issue of female infanticide, it’s also a universal story about the bond between mothers and daughters, the strength of women, the power of love in overcoming all obstacles—and the secrets we must keep to protect the ones we hold dear.
Fans of historical and contemporary fiction novels about India such asAlka Joshi’s The Henna Artist from the Jaipur Trilogy and Thrity Umrigar’s The Space Between Us, as well as Kristin Hannah’s books exploring sisterhood and mother-daughter relationships will enjoy Variyar’s poignant debut. This extraordinary work of fiction tells a story that deserves to be read and discussed for years to come.About the Author:
Rajasree Variyar is an author and short story writer born in Bangalore and raised in Sydney. Her short stories won second prize in the Shooter Literary Magazine short story competition and were longlisted for the Brick Lane Bookshop short story competition. The Daughters of Madurai is Variyar’s debut novel, inspired by a childhood memory of a news segment about a case of female infanticide in her birthplace of Bangalore—and her experience spending time with a grassroots charity in Madurai empowering women and educating girls and boys to help eradicate the practice. A marathoner and self-described history nerd, she lives in London.