Books that I might want to read this fall. This is not a reading plan or a goal, but just some of the books I’m considering for this season’s reading.

Books on My Physical Shelf

• Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
• Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs
• The First Ladies by Marie Benedict, Victoria Christopher Murray
• Weyward by Emilia Hart
• Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid
• This Spells Love by Kate Robb
• The Wren in the Holly Library by K.A. Linde
• The Love Elixer of Augusta Stern by Lynda Cohen Loigman
• Children of Ragnarok by Cinda Williams Chima (sequel, Bane of Asgard, is out October 22)
• The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young
• The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic by Breanne Randall

Releases I Have Preordered this Fall

• Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune (9/10)
• Rewitched by Lucy Jane Wood (9/17)
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Wrath of the Triple Goddess by Rick Riordan (9/24) 📚
• The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter (9/24) 🎄
• The Wedding Witch by Erin Sterling (10/8) 🎄
• What Does It Feel Like? by Sophie Kinsella (10/8)
• The Dividing Sky by Jill Tew (10/8)
• This Will Be Fun by E.B. Asher (10/29)
• Where the Library Hides by Isabel Ibañez (11/5) 📚
• The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong (11/5)

📚 This book is a sequel that I will drop everything to read as soon as it arrives. 🎄 These are Christmas/Winter Holiday books, so I plan to read them later.

Library Holds

• Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis
• An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
• The City of Stardust by Georgia Summers
• A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
• The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen
• A Daughter of Fair Verona by Christina Dodd
• Dreams Lie Beneath by Rebecca Ross
• A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab
• The Hedgewitch of Foxhall by Anna Bright
• Long Live Evil by Sara
• Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller
• A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal
• Wormwood Abbey by Christina Baehr

Kindle Books

• Babel by R.F. Kuan
• The Hurricane Wars
• Lore of the Wilds
• The Grace of Wild Things
• Long Live Evil
• The Honey Witch

Halloween Vibes

I’d like to read at least one “witchy” romance in October

• Rewitched by Lucy Jane Wood
• Witchful Thinking by Celestine Martin
• Hot Hex Boyfriend by Carly Bloom
• The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen
• A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating a Demon by Sarah Hawley
• A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
• Not the Witch You Wed

Re-Reads

• Jane Eyre

Books I’d like to read that have sequels coming out

• The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon (sequel is out December 10)
• Children of Ragnarok by Cinda Williams Chima (sequel, Bane of Asgard, is out October 22)
• Sword Catcher
• An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir - I’ve had this book marked “to read” on GoodReads since 2015, and never gotten to it. There’s a new book in the same world coming out October

Reading this book was like hanging out with friends and exploring New York with them for the summer.

• Seasonal Vibe: Summer
  • Starts with a high school graduation and takes place during the summer after graduation.
• Travel Location: New York City

There is a romance, but mostly this is a story about a group of friends figuring out what they love and what they want to do next. There’s also a really nice theme about books and writing, with the main two characters having bonded over a beloved(fictional) children’s fantasy series as kids. This is realistic YA fiction that touches on how people can use fantasy stories to navigate the real world and their relationships. There was also a theme about coding and app development that I was surprised to discover.

I started reading The Getaway List on the perfect day for me. I had just been to my youngest daughter’s preschool graduation and it was the last day of school for my older two kids, with my oldest daughter singing in the choir at the promotion for her middle school’s 8th graders. It had a perfect vibe for the end of the school year and looking forward to summer, and was a nice easy read for my tired mom brain.

Just some books that I think I might want to read this summer. This is not an exhaustive list, or even a “To Be Read” list, but just a selection of books that I think I might read during the next season for a variety of reasons.

Books on My Physical Shelf

• Funny Story by Emily Henry
• This Night Is Ours by Ronni Davis
• Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier
• Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs
• Song of the Six Realms by Judy I. Lin (OwlCrate)
• Children of Ragnarok by Cinda Williams Chima (sequel, Bane of Asgard, is out October 22)
• Of Jade and Dragons by Amber Chen (OwlCrate)

Summer Releases I Have Preordered

• The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst (7/9/24)
• The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer (7/16/24) - I’ve actually read the ARC, but didn’t want to leave it out.
• The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love by India Holton (7/23/24)
• Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell (7/30/24)
• My Salty Mary by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows (8/20/24)

Summer Romances with Summer Literally in the title

I’d like to read at least one of these

• Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez - I actually just finished this book, but I hadn’t read it yet when I started this list.
• This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune - this takes place on Prince Edward Island
• Summer Romance by Annabel Monaghan

More Books That Look Good for Summer

• Expiration Dates by Rebecca Serle
• Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson
• A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall
• For the Love of the Bard by Jessica Martin - A Shakespeare company in the summer
• The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson - Historical Fiction

I Need More Fantasy Books

• We Free the Stars by Hafsah Faizal- I read the first book recently
• The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty - I’ve been meaning to read this series

Books I’d like to read that have sequels coming out in the fall

• The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon (sequel is out October 22)
• Children of Ragnarok by Cinda Williams Chima (sequel, Bane of Asgard, is out October 22)

Books listed total: 24 -1 ARC read -1 Summer Romance read = 22. Book Math.

My daughter’s sixth grade class was reading Holes by Louis Sachar. I decided to read it too since I had never read the book, but liked the movie. 

This is a really wonderful book. It touches on so many important themes in really accessible ways. It’s easy to read, but still compelling. I love the way everything works together in each character’s backstory for a really satisfying connection. 

My daughter, who is usually an all-fantasy reader, really liked it too. 

It occured to me that this book might be considered magical realism. It’s mostly realistic fiction, with interspersed historical fiction, but the element of the “curse” could be a bit of magical realism.  It also has a stealthy historical romance in it.

The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery is one of those backlist classic books I’ve meant to read for years. I’ve loved the Anne of Green Gables book series since I was a young girl, but I haven’t read many of her other books. I read this mostly from an actual paperback book.

I think The Blue Castle is as good a classic romance as a Jane Austen book, though it takes place about a hundred years later.  It’s one of the few adult novels that L.M. Montgomery wrote.

This book has social commentary, humor, tears, romance, and a wonderfully written cast of characters. Plus cats! This is a cat-friendly book. The chapters are short. There are 45 chapters in this book that’s about 250 pages long. If you’re looking for short chapters, this book has them.

“Fear is the original sin,” wrote John Foster. “Almost all the evil in the world has its origin in the fact that some one is afraid of something. It is a cold, slimy serpent coiling about you. It is horrible to live with fear; and it is of all things degrading.”

The beginning of the book is slower with lots of social commentary and introductions to Valancy’s family and her expected societal limitations. The social and religious commentary alone was riveting. 

In many ways, I’m glad I read this book for the first time as an adult married woman and mother. I think I appreciated the nuance more than I would have ten years ago. I thought and talked about The Blue Castle intensely for days after I finished reading it. 

The last 25% of the book is packed with reveals and emotional excitement.

Links

• L.M. Montgomery Online
• The Blue Castle at The World of Anne Shirley
• The Blue Castle at LMM Online
• The Blue Castle at Project Gutenberg
• L.M. Montgomery Institute
• L.M. Montgomery Biography at The World of Anne Shirley

This year, I went to yallwest for the first time. That’s a Young Adult book festival in Santa Monica. I went by myself and had a great time meeting people and attending panels.

I brought two books to get signed, and both authors had lines that required wristbands. I was excited to get wristbands for both lines.

The first was Tracy Deonn. I brought my copy of Bloodmarked for her to sign. I was excited to receive art prints while I waited in line!

And here I am telling Tracy Deonn about my list of books with the word cariad in them while she signs my book.

Books with “cariad”

• Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
• The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare
• Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

My second signing line was Tahereh Mafi, whose current series, This Woven Kingdom, I read for the first time in March. I brought my copy of These Infinite Threads for her to sign.

I then rushed to catch the end of an audiobook narrator workshop, which was a fun time for me.

I also got to meet Kamilah Cole, whose debut novel, So Let Them Burn, I was currently reading and near the end of. I was actually listening to the audiobook in the car on the way to the festival!

Kamilah was a delight to talk to. I told her that I was 80-90% through her book and really enjoying it, and she said “Oh, I’m so sorry!” and I think that was the first time I’ve had an author personally apologize for their book’s ending before I’ve read it.

I didn’t have a physical book, but she signed one of the blank bookmarks that I brought, and we took a selfie.

Here are the panels I attended.

OPENING KEYNOTE: JASON REYNOLDS & STEPHANIE GARBER

BIG FANTASY ON THE BIG STAGE  Moderated by Ransom Riggs with Tracy Deonn, Adalyn Grace, Marie Lu, Namina Forna, Angie Thomas, and Adam Silvera

AFTERNOON SPOTLIGHT with Tahereh Mafi, Aiden Thomas, Ava Reid, Adam Silvera, and Hafsah Faizal

THE STORY OF THE NEVERENDING STORY Reinventing the Series Moderated by Amélie Wen Zhao with Lauren Roberts, Zoe Hana Mikuta, Kamilah Cole, Alex Aster, and Hamish Steele

YALLWEST SMACKDOWN Hosted by Ryan La Sala and Angela Montoya This all-star jam brings our cast of featured authors on stage as they play games and undertake shenanigans, all for your entertainment.

Happy New Year! I truly love Rainbow Rowell’s New Year’s Eve themed short story, Midnights, and I already have it in two other volumes of her short stories. This year, I was delighted to enjoy the story in this adorably small paperback, which also has unique illustrations that are not in the other volumes. 

I also enjoyed Kindred Spirits, a story about camping out to see Star Wars Episode VII in 2015. I’m now somehow nostalgic for 2015.

Reading this tiny volume of two short stories by Rainbow Rowell today has made me think that reading a short story or novella is a great way to start my year with some low-stakes, low-choice book reading. A graphic novel could also work.