Reviewing Fiction One Happy Ever After at a Time
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These are all books from my TBR list I’m curious to read.
1.Mate (Bride, #2) by Ali Hazelwood
2. Girl Dinner by Olivie Blake
3. The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Magic & Murder (The Hemlock Saga, #1) by Kiri Callaghan
4. Overdue by Stephanie Perkins
5. Dracula by Bram Stoker
6. Twice by Mitch Albom
7. Wanting Daisy Dead by Sue Watson
8. The Keeper of Magical Things by Julie Leong
9. The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tasha Suri
10. Crafting for Sinners by Jenny Kiefer
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Halloween is nearly here, so today I’ll share some fun quotes about this holiday.
1. “People give you a hard time about being a kid at twelve. They didn’t want to give you Halloween candy anymore. They said things like, “If this were the Middle Ages, you’d be married and you’d own a farm with about a million chickens on it.” They were trying to kick you out of childhood. Once you were gone, there was no going back, so you had to hold on as long as you could.”
― Lullabies for Little Criminals
2. “For some of us, Halloween is everyday.”
― Tim Burton
3. “The farther we’ve gotten from the magic and mystery of our past, the more we’ve come to need Halloween.”―
4. “It was so close to October that Halloween was knocking at his heart.”
― Candles For November
5. “Dear Great Pumpkin, Halloween is now only a few days away. Children all over the world await you coming. When you rise out of the pumpkin patch that night, please remember I am your most loyal follower. Have a nice trip. Don’t forget to take out flight insurance.”
― The Complete Peanuts, 1961-1962
6. “Most people will tell you growing up means you stop believing in Halloween things – I’m telling you the reverse. You start to grow up when you understand that the stuff that scares you is part of the air you breathe.”
―
7. “People think that ghosts only come out at night, or on Halloween, when the world is dark and the walls are thin. But the truth is, ghosts are everywhere. In the bread aisle at your grocery store, in the middle of you grandmother’s garden, in the front seat on your bus. Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”
― City of Ghosts
8. “Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. Christmas and the others can end up making you sad, because you know you should be happy. But on Halloween you get to become anything that you want to be”
― Love Letters to the Dead
9. “I turned down Halloween parties every year, where people wanted zombies raised at the stroke of midnight or some such nonsense. The scarier my reputation got, the more people wanted me to come be scary for them. I’d told Bert I could always go and threaten to shoot all the partygoers, that’d be scary. Bert had not been amused. But he had stopped asking me to do parties.”
― Cerulean Sins
10. “The Harvest Moon glows round and bold,
In pumpkin shades outlined in gold,
Illuminating eerie forms,
Unnatural as a candied corn.
Beware what dare crawls up your sleeve,
For ’tis the night called Hallows Eve.”
― Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
Happy Halloween to everyone who celebrates it!
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Hello from Astilbe, one of Long and Short Review’s bloggers.
For today’s freebie post, I’d like to share ten reasons why autumn is my favorite season of the year.
1. The beginning of my relief from seasonal allergies.
2. Halloween.
3. The food: pumpkin spice lattes, candy corn, pumpkin or sweet potato pie, fresh apples, and more!
4. Shorter days help me to appreciate the sun more.
5. Paranormal films which are the most entertaining subgenre of horror if you ask me.
6. The leaves change colour and make my corner of the world a beautiful place for a few weeks.
7. New holiday-themed books are everywhere. I prefer the Halloween stories, of course, but there are plenty of great options for many other holidays as well.
8. It’s generally cool enough to wear cozy sweaters.
9. There are so many different holidays to celebrate in the coming months. I love seeing the joy these days give to people.
10. Many insects have died off or gone into hibernation now which makes spending time outside more pleasant.
What’s your favorite season?
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This autumn sounds like it’s going to be an excellent season for books.
Here are ten titles I’m looking forward to, a few of which I learned about from the Top Ten Tuesday topic earlier this year about books we’re anticipating that are being released in the second half of the year.
I will be thanking those bloggers individually later on in this post as they really helped me find some great titles for today’s post.
1. The Maiden and Her Monster by Maddie Martinez
Why I Want to Read It: The golem myth is something I’d like to learn more about.
2. Hot Wax by M.L. Rio
Why I Want to Read It: The protagonist’s backstory sounds quite mysterious.
3. Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Thank you to AJ Sterkel for blogging about this.
Publication Date: September 25
Why I Want to Read It: As soon as I read the phrase generational curse in the blurb, I knew this was going to catch my attention. What an interesting topic.
4. The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes by Chanel Cleeton
Publication Date: September 30
Why I Want to Read It: Imagine being paid to procure the last copy of a book known to exist! What an unusual thing to do.
5. What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher
Publication Date: September 30
Why I Want to Read It: Kingfisher is on my must-read list, and this is one of two books from them on today’s list.
6. The Unveiling: A Novel by Quan Barry
Thank you to Top 100 Books Reviews for blogging about this.
Publication Date: October 14
Why I Want to Read It: Literary horror isn’t a mashup of genres I see too often.
7. The land of sweet forever by Harper Lee
Thank you to Anne @ Headfull Of Books for blogging about this.
Publication Date: October 21
Why I Want to Read It: A new Harper Lee book sounds great to me.
8. Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
Publication Date: November 4
Why I Want to Read It: More Hunger Games universe stuff? Sign me up!
9. Deadly Ever After by Brittany Johnson
Publication Date: November 4
Why I Want to Read It: I’m excited to see how Ms. Johnson makes the concept of true love’s kiss fresh and new again.
10. Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher
Publication Date: November 11
Why I Want to Read It: As stated earlier, Kingfisher is one of those authors I always find time to check out.
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Thank you, Lisa of Hopewell, for submitting this theme! Here are my answers to it. Some of these professions aren’t really a thing anymore, but I think they still count.
1. The Queen’s Dollmaker by Christine Trent
2. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
3. The Taster by V.S. Alexander
4. Midwife of the Blue Ridge by Christine Blevins
5. The Archivist by Martha Cooley
6. The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas
7. The Wet Nurse’s Tale by Erica Eisdorfer
8. Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East by Amanda H. Podany
9. The Exorcist (The Exorcist, #1) by William Peter Blatty
10. The Bookbinder by Pip Williams
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I have not read any of these books yet, so let me know if you’ve read them and think they were good reads.
1. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
2. A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1) by George R.R. Martin
3. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
4. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
5. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
6. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
7. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
8. I, Claudius (Claudius, #1) by Robert Graves
9. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
10. The Court of the Lion: A Novel of the T’Ang Dynasty by Eleanor Cooney
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I love it when authors submit middle grade stories to Long and Short Reviews. This genre can be such a playful one, and it’s just as interesting to see what sorts of mischief characters in that age range get up to as it is read about more serious topics.
Here are ten books for readers between the ages of eight and twelve that I’ve reviewed for this site recently. Click on their titles to read my reviews.
1. Rudy & Me by Brittany Gilbert
2. Memoirs of Lady Greta by Heather Piper
3. The First Avocado by Greg Schindler
4. I Know What UFO Did Last Summer by Kevin Garon
5. Free by EB Roshan
6. Sour Apples: A Novel For Those Who Hate to Read by Paul Jantzen
7. Devin Drake and the Roller Ghoster by R. M. Clark
8. An Empty House Doesn’t Sneeze by David Scott Richardson
9. The Island by Brian Conte
10. Secret of the Whispering Woods by Jordan Gray
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It’s amusement park season for those of us living in the Northern hemisphere. Here are ten books set at these parks.
1. Caraval (Caraval, #1) by Stephanie Garber
2. The Carnivorous Carnival (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #9) by Lemony Snicket
3. Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
4. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
5. One Day at Horrorland (Goosebumps, #16) by R.L. Stine
6. Hot Dog Girl by Jennifer Dugan
7. The Summer of Cotton Candy (Sweet Seasons, #1) by Debbie Viguié
8. Full Tilt by Neal Shusterman
9. My Sister, the Traitor by Candice F. Ransom
10. Zyla & Kai by Kristina Forest
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Here are ten books with the word lady or ladies in their title.
1. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, #1) by Alexander McCall Smith
2. There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly by Simms Taback
3. Lady Windermere’s Fan by Oscar Wilde
4. Lady of Ch’iao Kuo: Red Bird of the South, Southern China, A.D. 531 by Laurence Yep
5. The Tree Lady: The True Story of How One Tree-Loving Woman Changed a City Forever by H. Joseph Hopkins
6. Lady of Palenque : Flower of Bacal, Mesoamerica, A.D. 749 by Anna Kirwan
7. The Lady in the Van by Alan Bennett
8. Lady Oracle by Margaret Atwood
9. Lady and the Tramp by Ward Greene
10. Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See
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The second half of 2025 feels so far away, but it will begin sooner than I think.
It’s interesting how slowly winter seems to pass by versus how quickly summer happens, at least in my experience. Do you feel the same way about the warm seasons where you live?
I once again have another Top Ten Tuesday blogger to thank this week, so stay tuned.
Let’s see what I can come up with for this list.
1. Sisters in the Wind by Angeline Boulley
Release Date: September 2
Why I Want to Read It: Books about foster care often pique my interest.
2. People Watching by Hannah Bonam-Young
Release Date: September 9
Why I Want to Read It: This looks like an adorable summer romance.
3. The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy
Release Date: September 16
Why I Want to Read It: There is nothing like reading a novel about friendships and how they evolve over many years.
4. Alchemised by SenLinYu
Release Date: September 30
Why I Want to Read It: Memory problems are one of the scariest issues the human body can have in my opinion. What a great premise for a story.
5. Cinder House by Freya Marske
Release Date: October 7
Why I Want to Read It: Cinderella was one of my favorite fairy tales as a kid, and I love reading retellings of it.
6. The Last Spirits of Manhattan: A Novel by John A McDermott
Thank you to Susan @ BlogginBoutBooks for blogging about this last winter.
Release Date: October 14
Why I Want to Read It: Two of the quickest ways to make me want to read something is to describe it as a ghost story and as something based on a true story, so this is floating up to the top of my TBR list.
7. Isn’t It Obvious? by Rachel Runya Katz
Release Date: October 21
Why I Want to Read It: Romance readers of Top Ten Tuesday, can you believe I picked two books from that genre this week? If any of you read them, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
8. I’ll Quit When I’m Dead by Luke Smitherd
Release Date: October 14
Why I Want to Read It: Fitness-themed horror is not something I think I’ve read before, but I can totally see how it could be a thing.
9. Hazelthorn by C.G. Drews
Release Date: October 28
Why I Want to Read It: Ooh, this cover looks scary. Plants can be a threat for sure, and not just for those of us with seasonal allergies.
10. Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher
Release Date: November 11
Why I Want to Read It: Ms. Kingfisher has so many books coming out this year. I tried to refrain from including all of them in the TBR lists last week and this one, but I had to indulge one more time.
