Blanca & Roja

The biggest lie of all is the story you think you already know.

The del Cisne girls have never just been sisters; they’re also rivals, Blanca as obedient and graceful as Roja is vicious and manipulative. They know that, because of a generations-old spell, their family is bound to a bevy of swans deep in the woods. They know that, one day, the swans will pull them into a dangerous game that will leave one of them a girl, and trap the other in the body of a swan.

But when two local boys become drawn into the game, the swans’ spell intertwines with the strange and unpredictable magic lacing the woods, and all four of their fates depend on facing truths that could either save or destroy them. Blanca & Roja is the captivating story of sisters, friendship, love, hatred, and the price we pay to protect our hearts.

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Blanca & Roja by Anna-Marie McLemore was published by Feiwel Friends on October 9th 2018.

No trigger warnings.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I Loved with Fewer than 4000 Ratings on Goodreads

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature that was created by The Broke and the Bookish and hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Born from a love of lists and a love of books each week there’s a new topic for bloggers to list their ‘top ten’.

Top Ten Books I Loved with Fewer than 2000 4000 Ratings on Goodreads

Now I know the original prompt for this week was books with ‘fewer than 2000 ratings on Goodreads’, but I had to tweak it slightly. Looking through my Goodreads read list I was surprised by a couple of books which were incredible reads, and which people had been hyping up in the blogosphere (how do you think I discovered some of them), that only had circa 3000 ratings. These are all books I really enjoyed, and books I think deserve a lot more attention than they already have.

So add them to your TBR list if you haven’t already.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Favourite Couples in Books

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature that was created by The Broke and the Bookish and hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Born from a love of lists and a love of books each week there’s a new topic for bloggers to list their ‘top ten’.

Top Ten Favourite Couples in Books

When it comes to bookish OTPs I have a lot (honestly, who doesn’t?) and because I’ve taken part in Valentine’s themed Top Ten Tuesday posts for three years running now instead of focusing on my all-time favourite couples in books I’ve chosen my top ten from the books I read sometime in the past year. I tried to draw my focus away from re-reads, but there was one that ended up making the cut just because I couldn’t resist featuring this bookish couple.

The Mystery Blogger Award

“Mystery Blogger Award” is an award for amazing bloggers with ingenious posts. Their blog not only captivates; it inspires and motivates. They are one of the best out there, and they deserve every recognition they get. This award is also for bloggers who find fun and inspiration in blogging; and they do it with so much love and passion.

I’ve taken part in The Mystery Blogger Award before, but a new nomination and new questions mean I’m back taking part in it again. I was tagged by Naty at Naty’s Bookshelf and The Book Reader. Thanks both so much for the tag, I had a lot of fun answering your questions for this one so I hope you enjoy reading my answers just as much.

Rules:

• Put the award logo/image on your blog.
• List the rules.
• Thank whoever nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
• Mention the creator of the award and provide a link to their blog as well.
• Tell your readers three things about yourself.
• Answer questions of nominator.
• Nominate 10-20 people.
• Ask your nominees any 5 questions of your choice; with one weird or funny question.
• Share your link to your best post(s).

The Twenty Questions Book Tag

You may have noticed I disappeared for the last two weeks. Where was I? Good question. I’m not sure what happened but I just suffered from a major slump and everything – blogging, reading, life in general – felt like a struggle. Still I’m back now, and slowly catching up on the posts I’ve missed over the past couple of weeks.

And what better way is there to get back into blogging than posting a book tag? Because let’s face it who doesn’t have an opinion on whether hardcovers or paperbacks are better, or on love triangles in general? I do, and I’m certain some people already know the answers to these questions I’m that outspoken about them. I was tagged by May at Forever and Everly. Thanks for the tag May, I had a lot of fun answering the questions for this one so I hope you enjoy reading my answers just as much.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I’m Thankful I was able to Discover through Blogging

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week there is a new topic for bloggers to choose and list their top ten. This week’s theme is a thanksgiving freebie, so I picked Top Ten Books I’m Thankful I was able to Discover through Blogging.

(I will admit a lot of my time thinking about this post was working out how to write the title so it was concise while still getting across my choice of topic for this week).

I’ve always loved reading, but ever since I started blogging there have been so many incredible books added to my TBR list because of all the glowing, five-star reviews I see. Maybe if I hadn’t started blogging some of these are books I still would have picked up eventually, but there are a few I know I never would have read if it hadn’t been for this blog, and the community.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Favourite Ghost Stories

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week there is a new topic for bloggers to choose and list their top ten. This week’s theme is a Halloween freebie, so I picked Top Ten Favourite Ghost Stories.

I’m not a massive fan of the horror genre – I had a very scarring experience when I watched Silence of the Lambs, Deep Blue Sea and Final Destination when I was only ten years old – so a lot of these aren’t strictly ghosts stories as much as they’re books that feature ghosts. Honestly though that’s the kind of Halloween I like, settling in with a book that captures the mood of the season without scaring me to death.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Authors I’d Love to Meet

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week there is a new topic for bloggers to choose and list their top ten. This week’s theme is Top Ten Authors I’d Love to Meet.

Ages ago (back in March 2017) I took part in another Top Ten Tuesday topic and spoke about some of the authors I’d been lucky enough to meet and some of the authors I still wanted to meet. Granted as I’ve discovered so many amazing books since then I have way more authors I want to meet, but if you don’t see someone on this list who you think would be an obvious choice for me it’s because I’ve already featured them.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books on my Fall 2018 TBR List

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week there is a new topic for bloggers to choose and list their top ten. This week’s theme is Top Ten Books on my Fall 2018 TBR List.

I already have a TBR list that grows longer with every passing second thanks to WordPress, but with all the amazing books being released (some of which are my most anticipated release for this year overall) I wonder if I’ll ever get to the end of it. Still as much as being a mood reader means I pick up what books I want to when I want to there are some reads I know I’ll be starting as soon as I can get a copy of the book in my hands.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I Plan to Re-Read this Year

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week there is a new topic for bloggers to choose and list their top ten. This week’s theme is Top Ten Books I Decided to DNF too Quickly.

I mentioned this in a previous Top Ten Tuesday post I took part in; I rarely DNF books, and I certainly haven’t DNF-ed enough of them to come up with ten for this week’s theme. Instead for this week I decided to go in the opposite direction, and instead of talking about the books I hated enough to DNF I’m talking about the books I loved enough to re-read.

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