May TBR

Hey all, Sam here. Well, as we reach the end of another month, it makes sense to start looking forward to what I’m hoping to read in the upcoming month. Now, this year has been a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to actually following through with the TBR, because I often get distracted by other books, or there’s other stuff going on and I don’t have as much free time to dedicate to reading as I…

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Book Review: A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal

Hey all, Sam here. I’m going to start off this post by calling myself out, because this is not the first book by Hafsah Faizal that I’ve read. It’s just the first one I’ve reviewed, even though I meant to review her debut novel a couple years ago…so my current plan is to do a re-read of that one so I can finally get an actual review posted. I have no plan for a time frame on this, but it will…

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WIP Wednesday - April 17, 2024

Hey all, Sam here. Well, it has certainly been awhile since the last WIP Wednesday post popped up on this blog. I’m trying to work on getting back into a more consistent schedule, in terms of reading, writing, blogging, and just life in general. Obviously I can’t promise anything, but I’m trying to get things together. For the most part though, I think the WIP Wednesdays will be pretty easy to…

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Manga Review: One Piece Vol 4 by Eiichiro Oda

Hey all, Sam here. Well, here’s a review that was supposed to be up last year and just ended up sitting in the drafts folder for WAY too long. I had planned to review one volume a week until I had reviewed the 12 volumes covering the first season of the live-action adaptation coming to Netflix…and obviously I went into a blogging hiatus and that did not happen. Since I do want to get back to…

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Book Review: Just Stab Me Now by Jill Bearup

Hey all, Sam here. I’d love to have the energy and enthusiasm to write up a great intro for today’s post, but even just sticking to my blogging plan and getting these posts finished and scheduled is proving problematic thanks to my mental health being in a rough patch right now. But I’m going to get through these posts, at least for the next couple days, and then when I get to my “weekend,”…

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NetGalley Review: Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo

Hey all, Sam here. Yeah, I definitely planned to have this review up on Tuesday, but things got a little topsy-turvy for a few days, so I had to push back everything on my blog schedule so I could accommodate the fact that I had mostly prepared four posts but then didn’t finish/schedule them. I’ll figure out a work/blog/life schedule that works for me eventually. Anyway, I definitely wanted to…

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Weekend Writer: Gentle Writing Advice: How to Be a Writer Without Destroying Yourself by Chuck Wendig

Hey all, Sam here. At the moment I’m not sure if the writing advice I need is the gentle kind or the harsh kind. I mean, obviously I’m trying to be more gentle with myself when I have multiple days (or weeks) in a row where I’m not getting a whole lot of actual writing down, those days when I’ve maybe only thought about my characters or my world or my plot and tried to untangle some of the knots…

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Book Review: Lady of Darkness by Melissa K. Roehrich

Hey all, Sam here. Oops…I had yesterday’s post mostly prepped but forgot to finish it and schedule it, and I got a little busy at work, so I wasn’t able to get it posted…which broke my 10 day blog streak. But, since I had the post mostly completed anyway, I’ll just do a double post tomorrow. It’ll be fine. Anyway, I’ve been getting some decent reading time in, so hopefully I’ll be able to keep…

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Weekend Writer: April 2024 Prompts

Hey all, Sam here. It’s the start of a new month, and that means it’s time for more Weekend Writer prompts! As I mentioned in a previous post, I am making some changes to how this blog series works, mostly because I was spending so much time prepping and writing these weekly posts and it left me so drained. I absolutely loved writing all the writing posts and doing the writing craft book deep…

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Book Review: Forged in Magic by Jenna Wolfhart

Hey all, Sam here. Yes, the reviews just keep coming. I guess that’s what happens when it’s only April and I’ve already read 44 books this year…plus there were all the books I read in the last few months of the year last year that I didn’t talk about here. So, I’m working on catching up a bit. It’s going to take time, especially if I keep reading at a decent pace. For today’s book review, I’m…

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NetGalley Review: A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle L Jensen

Hey all, Sam here. It’s been a fun few days trying to get everything planned out for the month of April. Considering that I have a good number of books I want to read, plus my April Writing goal of adding 30k to my current WIP, I wanted to have as much of this month’s blogging planned out as possible, so I wouldn’t need to stress out about what post to prep up for each day. Honestly, I’m hoping…

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March Wrap-Up

Hey all, Sam here. Well…March was not nearly as good of a reading month as January or February. While I read 20 books in January and 16 in February, I only managed 8 books in the month of March. And okay, that’s still a pretty good amount of books, especially for the average person. I’m just so used to reading a dozen or more books every month. But I keep telling myself that I did also spend a…

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NetGalley Manga Review: Manga Classics - Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, M. Chandler, and Linus Liu

Hey all, Sam here. That’s it! I’m finally getting this review written up and posted on here. I have been in such a procrastinator mood when it comes to this blog for far too long. I just can’t seem to find my rhythm, not after the past couple of years. But I miss having regular content going, which means I really need to figure out a blog prep schedule that’ll work for my life so I can at least…

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NetGalley Review: Empire of Shadows by Jacquelyn Benson

Hey all, Sam here. Working at a job that doesn’t ever close, not even for holidays, it always throws me off when other places actually are closed for the holiday. Take today for instance. It’s Easter Sunday, and I had planned to spend a few hours at Panera working on my novel…but because I’m scheduled to work today, even though I knew it was Easter, my mind wasn’t thinking about the fact that…

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Book Review: A Fellowship of Bakers & Magic by J. Penner

Hey all, Sam here. In the past year or so, cozy fantasy has really been making a splash in the book world, and I’ve even seen some manga and anime getting in on the cozy fantasy subgenre….and honestly, I’m loving it. I’ve seen cozy fantasy ranging from low-spice, low-stakes, just cozy cuteness…to cozy vibes with some spice, or even cozy vibes with higher stakes. A lot of them seem to have a…

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Weekend Writer: March 2024 Prompt Share

Hey all, Sam here. On occasion, time really feels like it flies. Somehow we are already at the end of another month…which per my new schedule with these Weekend Writer posts means that we are at another prompt sharing post. Basically, in each month, on the first Friday I will use various creativity generators to come up with a number of options to hopefully spark our interest and get us…

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NetGalley Review: Under the Smokestrewn Sky by A. Deborah Baker

Hey all, Sam here. Okay, so to go along with today’s book review, I am so, so excited to say that I was approved on NetGalley for the third book in Seanan McGuire’s Alchemical Journeys series, titled Tidal Creatures, which is coming out this June. The reason this ties into today’s review is that this four-book series by A. Deborah Baker is an important book series within the Alchemical Journeys…

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