Tag: books and reading

What’s On My (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand? AKA The Sunday Post 7-1-12

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand

Except for the “Rockets’ red glare”, it’s going to be a fairly quiet week here at Reading Reality.

And that’s a good thing.

About that “Rockets’ red glare” thing, it’s a quote from Francis Scott Key’s memorable but nearly un-singable Star Spangled Banner, and from one of the peculiarly high-pitched bits at that.

The U.S. Independence Day Holiday, July 4, is this Wednesday. Strange, but there don’t seem to be any tours scheduled this week. I wonder why that is?

There’s no Ebook Review Central this week. The whole U.S. is slacking this week. Including yours truly. ERC will be back on Monday, July 9 with Dreamspinner’s May titles.

I’m going to take this opportunity to catch up from the great “sick out” I had last week.

There is plenty scheduled for the week of July 9. It’s really a go-go-go week!

Looking forward, as I always do on these Sunday posts, I have tours scheduled for Hope’s Betrayal by Grace Elliot on Tuesday, July 10. This regency takes place in the “mother country” of England. So fitting the week after Independence Day.

 

 

And speaking of historicals, Thursday, July 12 the tour books are Forgotten Memories and The Dressmaker’s Dilemma by Theresa Stillwagon. These are U.S. western romances, but not your typical westerns. The setting is a ghost town, and the ghosts are part of the story.

 

There are a few, what am I saying, there are always more than a few, books on my lists that really caught my attention from NetGalley and Edelweiss (and Samhain) that are coming out in the next two weeks.

One is very special. Everyone tried to get an ARC of Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness early, because her debut last year, The Discovery of Witches, was, well, such a fantastic discovery. But her publisher didn’t release the ARC until after BEA. (She also did signings at ALA). The publication date is July 10, and I have to read this. The early reviews are awesome.

Steampunk is coming on strong early in July. Archer’s Lady, the next book in Moira Rogers’ Bloodhounds series is out on July 3. God Save the Queen by Kate Locke is the first book in her new series The Immortal Empire, and it also comes out on July 3. This is one they ran out of at her signing at ALA. Nico Rosso’s Night of Fire (Ether Chronicles #2) is out at the end of the month. Like I said, July is a big month for steampunk!

Steampunk, is so appropriate for July. It is steamy hot here in Atlanta. Record setting hot (108ºF yesterday). Maybe I can just sit here with a cool glass of iced tea and a good book (or 10)!

What’s your favorite way of keeping cool on these hot summer days?

Stacking the Shelves (9)

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | American Library Association> Book Lovers Inc.> Stacking the Shelves

And we’re back! What better way could there be to get back into the swing of things than Stacking the Shelves? Not just any Stacking the Shelves (hosted by the estimable Tynga at Tynga’s Reviews) but with an extra-special shelf-stack.

I just got back from the American Library Association Conference in Anaheim, and I came back with the flu. So not only am I still coughing, I brought books back with me from the conference floor.

Earlier this week, I described ALA as BEA for librarians. And it is. BEA is the industry conference for publishing and book-selling. ALA is the industry conference for librarians. It just so happens that both conferences have a lot to do with promoting new and upcoming books, so the best way to do that is for the publishers to give away Advance Reading Copies of the books they want to push.

And we all want to get those books because we want to read them. We love books, or we would have found something else to do with our lives. Scoring the tallest pile of books, books we might not even want to read, just for the sake of the score, isn’t supposed to be the point of the exercise. I’ll be posting more on this topic later this week.

So I limited myself to the books I could carry and pack. I did hunt for the titles that my fellow book lovers specifically asked for last week, and found two: Throne of Glass and Outpost. I’ll be sending those on, and they’ll be reviewed on their blogs. But the rest you see here. Series I’ve followed, authors I love, and finally, a copy of John Scalzi’s Redshirts.

From NetGalley:
The Black Isle by Sandi Tan (ebook)
Advent by James Treadwell (ebook)
Cast in Peril by Michelle Sagara (ebook)
God Save the Queen by Kate Locke (ebook)

For Book Lovers Inc.:
West of Want (Hearts of the Anemoi #2) by Laura Kaye (ebook)

For Library Journal Review:
Hidden Things by Doyce Testerman (print ARC)

Picked up at ALA:
The Cutting Season by Attica Locke (print ARC)
Still Life with Shape-Shifter by Sharon Shinn (print ARC)
An Apple for the Creature edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner (print ARC)
Lord of Mountains (A Novel of the Change) by S.M. Stirling (print ARC)
City of Secrets by Kelli Stanley (print)
Troubled Bones by Jeri Westerson (print)
Redshirts by John Scalzi (print)
L.A. Theatre Works Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (full-cast audio adaptation)
L.A. Theatre Works Copenhagen by Michael Frayn (full-cast audio adaptation)
L.A. Theatre Works Photograph 51 by Anna Ziegler (full-cast audio adaptation)

As always, I’m curious. What’s stacking your shelves? Or, since those of us in the U.S. have that lovely July 4th Holiday in the middle of the week, what are you planning to take off your shelf and read this holiday week?

 

On My Wishlist-Waiting On Wednesday-Desperately Wanting Wednesday-On the Weekend (3)

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Desperately Wanting Wednesday> On My Wishlist> Waiting on Wednesday

As usual, I’m writing this post on the weekend. And mostly, tonight, I’m wishing we’d figured out how to get the grill to work.

We’ve never grilled out before. Not us. Not very domestic. But it’s summer. And it always tastes good. We decided to buy a grill and cook some steaks. Three hours later…

We finished them off on the stovetop. We were STARVING.

But they still tasted awesome. We’ll do better next time.

Oh, you were wondering about my wishlist books…

I am wishing that Julie Kagawa’s The Lost Prince will be as good as The Iron Fey series was. Here’s the blurb that’s teasing us all:

Don’t look at Them. Never let Them know you can see Them.

That is Ethan Chase’s unbreakable rule. Until the fey he avoids at all costs—including his reputation—begin to disappear, and Ethan is attacked. Now he must change the rules to protect his family. To save a girl he never thought he’s dare to fall for.

Ethan thought he had protected himself from his older sister’s world—the land of Faery. His previous time in the Iron Realm left him with nothing but fear and disgust for the world Meghan Chase has made her home, a land of myths and talking cats, of magic and seductive enemies. But when destiny comes for Ethan, there is no escape from a danger long, long forgotten.

My name is Ethan Chase. And I may not live to see my eighteenth birthday.

Until The Lost Prince appears in October, we’ll have a teaser e-novella to tide us over.  Iron’s Prophecy comes out September 1.

I’d love to know what books you’re wishing for. What books would you just be lost without?

What’s On My (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand? AKA The Sunday Post 6-10-12

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand

Last Sunday I wrote from the heart and not the head. That’s all I had, so that’s what you got.

But it meant that I didn’t cover some of what was happening on Reading Reality this week that needed to be covered.

In that spirit, I’d like to give a big shout out to Ruthie Knox, and her scrumptious new contemporary romance About Last Night. I was lucky enough to review this one twice, once for Library Journal and once here at Reading Reality. (LJ only lets me write about 225 words, but I don’t restrict myself here, ha-ha!). Loveswept/Random House is giving away a preview copy of About Last Night here at Reading Reality. All you have to do is answer the question in Mr. Rafflecopter at the bottom of Ruthie’s guest post. Or just buy the book. It comes out on Tuesday, June 12.

Three other events this week at Reading Reality. On Tuesday, June 12, author Elise Whyles will be here with a guest post about her new series, The Forsaken.

Thursday, June 14, I’ll be interviewing Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy about her latest historic romance, Guy’s Angel. It’s not just about the romance, it’s about the romance of the early days of flight. Barnstorming and ace pilots and the years between the wars–the first and second world wars, that is.

Last, but definitely not least, Friday, June 15 is the first day of the Lovestruck Giveaway Hop. And Reading Reality will definitely be among the Lovestruck blogs this year. I hope you’ll participate with me, and with all the other Lovestruck hoppers.

And now we march on to the other part of this Sunday post. What books caught my eye that are due out this week and next week? (In other words, Marlene’s stab at planning)

Terry Pratchett’s new book, The Long Earth (co-written with Stephen Baxter) is coming out on June 19. I have it from Edelweiss. I confess, I didn’t care what it was about when I requested it. It’s Pratchett and that’s all that matters.

Supercritical by Shawn Kupfer isn’t just a military-techno-thriller it also looks like cyberpunk. With a touch of something like The Dirty Dozen into the bargain.  Unfortunately, it’s also a sequel, which means I need to read 47 Echo first.

The first book selected for the Penguin First Flights program, The Orphanmaster by Jean Zimmerman, will be released on June 19. The program is as interesting as the book. The program is about building buzz in libraries and bookstores, but especially libraries, for debut authors like Zimmerman. The book is historical fiction about the colony of New Amsterdam (now New York) in 1663.

One tour book for next week, City of the Gods: The Descendant by S. J. McMillan–this is serious good vs. evil stuff.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I have one piece of totally delicious looking wicked fluff from Samhain, An Introduction to Pleasure by Jess Michaels.

What are your highlights for this week? Tell me what you’re up to! I’d love to know.

 

 

 

On My Wishlist-Waiting on Wednesday-Desperately Wanting Wednesday-On the Weekend (2)

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | On My Wishlist

It’s still not Wednesday. But it might be when you read this. Or it might be Sunday, which is when I happened to get around to it this weekend.

Or a “round tuit”. I actually used to keep one of those in my desk.

This Sunday I have one each. One book not yet out that I want, and one already out that I just heard about. A little story before, first.

I haven’t read the latest Stephanie Plum book, Explosive Eighteen. I probably will. Or I might listen to it on audio. I’ve discovered that audiobooks make working on Ebook Review Central go faster. And I discovered Stephanie on audio, so that might work better all the way around.

But the Lizzy and Diesel books, the slightly paranormal spin-off series, is only on book 2. It hasn’t yet descended into the endess “Ranger or Morelli” triangle thing Stephanie has been doing for ages. I’m still interested in Lizzy and Diesel’s story. If you’re trying to figure out where Diesel fits in, Diesel appears in the seasonal “Between the Plums” novellas of the regular series, so he’s been around. Wicked Appetite was the first of the Lizzy and Diesel series, if you want to start at the beginning. Here’s the blurb for the second:

Whether it’s monkey business, funny business, or getting down to business, Janet Evanovich’s Lizzy and Diesel series proves that there’s no business like Wicked Business.
 
Lizzy Tucker’s once normal life as a pastry chef in Salem, Massachusetts, turns upside down as she battles both sinister forces and an inconvenient attraction to her unnaturally talented but off-limits partner, Diesel.

When Harvard University English professor and dyed-in-the-wool romantic Gilbert Reedy is mysteriously murdered and thrown off his fourth-floor balcony, Lizzy and Diesel take up his twenty-year quest for the Luxuria Stone, an ancient relic believed by some to be infused with the power of lust. Following clues contained in a cryptic nineteenth-century book of sonnets, Lizzy and Diesel tear through Boston catacombs, government buildings, and multimillion-dollar residences. On their way they’ll leave behind a trail of robbed graves, public disturbances, and general mayhem.

Diesel’s black sheep cousin, Gerwulf Grimoire, also wants the Stone. His motives are far from pure, and what he plans on doing with the treasure, no one knows . . . but Lizzy Tucker fears she’s in his crosshairs. Never far and always watching, Grimoire has a growing, vested interest in the cupcake-baker-turned-finder-of-lost-things. As does another dangerous and dark opponent in the hunt—a devotee of lawlessness and chaos, known only as Anarchy.

Treasures will be sought, and the power of lust will be unmistakable as Lizzy and Diesel attempt to stay ahead of Anarchy, Grimoire, and his medieval minion, Hatchet, in this ancient game of twisted riddles and high-stakes hide-and-seek.

There’s a book already out that I also want. I’m a fan of Sherlock Holmes. (This comes under the heading of “well, duh” for any long-time reader of this blog). Recently, Sir Arthur  Conan Doyle’s home, Undershaw, was under threat of being torn down. Among other efforts, a book of short stories in honor of Sherlock Holmes was written to help fund the campaign to underwrite the Undershaw Preservation Trust.

The book is Sherlock’s Home: The Empty House.

This is one I would want just for the cover, but of course I’m interested in the stories and the cause it supports. Housing developments don’t last. Holmes is forever.

Stacking the Shelves (6)

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Stacking the Shelves

The size of this week’s Stacking the Shelves (see Tynga’s Reviews for the details about Stacking the Shelves) post isn’t all my fault. Honest. Okay, it’s mostly my fault.

But Sourcebooks sent out a “care package” of three print ARCs to all the librarians on their review list. That’s where the first three books came from.

And I want to say a huge heartfelt “THANK YOU” to the person who assigns review books at Library Journal. All they have is a list of which genres I’ll review for the print magazine. And then it’s hit or miss. The last book I got was The Mongoliad (see review) so sometimes, it’s a serious miss.

But this time, oh this time, I got a book from the top of my wishlist. I opened the mailer, and there it was. The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny. And so far, it is a beautiful mystery. One detective’s life is also a beautiful mess.

As always, anything not noted as print is an ebook.

From the Author/Publisher/Publicist:
All Roads Lead to Austen by Amy Elizabeth Smith (print ARC)
That Book About Harvard by Eric Kester (print ARC)
Dear Zari: the Secret Lives of the Women of Afghanistan by Zarghuna Kargar (print ARC)
The Delphi Bloodline by Donna Del Oro
Nightshifted by Carrie Alexander
Goodbye for Now by Laurie Frankel (print ARC)

From Library Journal for Review:
The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny (print ARC)

From Goddess Fish Promotions:
Timeless Sojourn by Jamie Salisbury

From NetGalley:
Dearly, Beloved by Lia Habel
The Theory of Attraction by Delphine Dryden
Rogue’s Pawn by Jeffe Kennedy
Dangerously Close by Dee J. Adams
A Scandalous Affair by Karen Erickson
The Ravenous Dead by Natasha Hoar
Blades of Winter by G. T. Almasi
Artemis Fowl: the Atlantis Complex by Eoin Colfer

From Penguin First Flights Program:
City of Women by David R. Gillham

Bought from Amazon:
Just One Night by Chloe Cole

Are your shelves overflowing this week? Did anyone bring back a ton of books from BEA? Do tell!

Armchair BEA: Interview and Introduction

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | About> Armchair BEA> BEA> BookExpo America

This is BEA week. Who or what is BEA you might ask?

BEA is Book Expo America, the show where book people do business. And it’s usually in New York in early June. It certainly is this year, although there are rumors about 2016 in Chicago.

Not all of us get to make it to NYC for BEA. Although many of us wish we could.

(Most years, for me, it’s a logistical problem. The American Library Association Annual Conference is in late June, and I am committed to attend that. Two conferences in one month is very expensive. There is overlap, but it’s not the same. I really want to go to BEA!)

Because so many bloggers want to get to BEA, and can’t quite manage, some of the enterprising among us invented the fantastic Armchair BEA! (There’s armchair football, why not Armchair BEA? I ask you?)

The kickoff event for Armchair BEA (see, see!) is an interview. Each participating blogger is supposed to interview themselves. (There’s a list of questions here, if you’re curious)

1.Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging?

I started blogging in April 2011. We were about to move (again) and were packing up our huge book collection, trying to figure out what to keep and what to weed. I’m a librarian and weeding books is hard. I thought I’d be writing a lot about libraries, and it has turned out that I’m doing a lot of book reviews. Which I love.

The other things. I blog here at Reading Reality, sometimes known as Escape Reality, Read Fiction! I am also The Rocket Lover at Book Lovers Inc. My husband is the techie here at Reading Reality, although we are both die-hard geeks. Our cats otherwise run the house. Which moves frequently. Chicago to Anchorage to Tallahssee (FL) to Chicago to Gainesville (FL) to Atlanta. (I’m originally from Cincinnati, but that’s a whole bunch of moves ago!)

2. What are you currently reading, or what is your favorite book you have read so far in 2012?

I’m listening to The Scottish Prisoner by Diana Gabaldon and reading Deadly Secrets, Loving Lies by Cynthia Cooke. My favorite book this year is probably Blood and Bullets by James R. Tuck, and I need to get the review written.

3. What is your favorite feature on your blog (i.e. author interviews, memes, something specific to your blog)?

The feature that I’m proudest of is Ebook Review Central. Every Monday (except Memorial Day, so far), I cover the output of one or more of the ebook-only or ebook-mostly publishers for a month. Later today it will be Samhain who are ebook-mostly. I pull together all the reviews for their titles each month and highlight three with the most and best reviews. And I maintain a database with links to all the reviews. I also cover Carina, Dreamspinner, Astraea, Liquid Silver, Amber Quill, Riptide, Red Sage and Curiosity Quills.

4. Which is your favorite post that you have written that you want everyone to read?

There are two posts I would want everyone to read (yes, I know, the question said one). Back in February, the Oklahoma Chapter of the Romance Writers of America suddenly changed the rules of their writing contest to exclude same-sex entries. Not because they couldn’t find any judges, but because their chapter members felt “uncomfortable” with stories that had, in fact, won the contest in years past. My post titled Hot Buttons Popping was syndicated by BlogHer.

BEA is a book expo. And it is also an exposition of traditional publishing. My background is in libraries. One of the big issues facing public libraries is how to handle the ebook revolution when most of the “Big 6” publishers will not license ebooks to libraries under any conditions. But exactly who are the “Big 6” anyway, and what does that mean? I couldn’t resist an attempt at describing them in 9 Rings, 8 Planets, 7 Dwarfs, 6 Publishers.

5. Have your reading tastes changed since you started blogging? How?

It’s not that my tastes have changed, it’s more that they’ve expanded. Which is bad, in a way, because I have access to even more books than I did when I was working in a library. I get a lot of first novels and ebook-only books, because I promote them on Ebook Review Central, and because I get them through book tours for review. So many neat new authors and series. But I still love all the things I always have, like science fiction and fantasy, and urban fantasy. There are so many wonderful books, and I want to read them all.

(Banner design: Nina of Nina Reads; Feature image design: Sarah of Puss Reboots; Rainbow pencils photo credit Horia Varlan on Flickr)

 

What’s On My (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand? AKA The Sunday Post 5-27-12

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand

It’s Memorial Day Weekend in the U.S. And Monday it is Whit Monday for some of my European friends at Book Lovers Inc., so it’s a three-day weekend for a lot of people.

So there will be lots of reading going on this weekend. At least at my house.

There will also be a lot of playing of Diablo III. Like last night until 2 in the morning. Galen and I both love a good dungeon crawl now and again, with serious hacking and slashing for flavor. And that pretty much describes every Diablo game. I play the barbarian, and he, as he so eloquently described it, plays the “squishy wizard”.

But this is the Sunday Post, so that I can describe what will happen at Reading Reality once the weekend is over. (Tuesday is Monday this week!) Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer is the host of the Sunday Post.

I use the Virtual Nightstand as a way of peeking into next week to see what I should be reading, so my next week’s schedule doesn’t pop up and shout, “Surprise!” this time next week. It also gives me a chance to talk about upcoming books that I thought were neat or cool enough to grab from NetGalley or Edelweiss.

Coming up this week…

Monday, May 28 is Memorial Day. Normally, there would be an Ebook Review Central on Monday, but ERC is taking Memorial Day off. It will return on June 4, with the Samhain April 2012 wrap-up.

On Tuesday, I’ll be hosting a guest post from author K. Reed about her post-apocalyptic Regency romance, Dark Inheritance, Fallen Empire, as well as a review of the book. I’m fascinated, because I never thought that those two tropes could manage to co-exist, the manners of the Regency and the chaos of a post-apocalypse. This should be awesome.

Thursday is another big day, with the cover reveal of Stacey Kennedy’s new Frostbite book,  Mystically Bound (after Supernaturally Kissed and Demonically Tempted) and an interview with Tiffany Allee about her latest book, Succubus Lost.

Then there’s the books I’ll be reading for next week. Also one that got itself moved to this week. A book blogger’s work is never done. But it’s so much fun!

My editor at Library Journal asked me to review the Carina Press Presents: Editor’s Choice Volume 1 with a May 30 deadline. She usually only gives me about a week to review a book. Lucky for me, the books she sends are generally very good, and are often books I’ve already picked up from NetGalley, like this one.

This Editor’s Choice volume is really three novellas in one, and the novellas are also available separately. So it’s Kilts & Kraken by Cindy Spencer Pape (finally something in her  Gaslight Chronicles), Slow Summer Kisses by Shannon Stacey (not Kowalski, but still contemporary) and Negotiating Point by Adrienne Giordano, the latest in her Private Protectors series. I forced myself to read some of the Giordano series to figure out what was going on there, and it was so hard (I’m joking, I’m really joking. They’re good.)

And the darn thing has a June 4 publication date, so I was going to be reading it anyway! Along with the Editor’s Choice Volume 2, which contains No Money Down by Julie Moffett, Dead Calm by Shirley Wells, Dance of Flames by Janni Nell and Pyro Canyon by Robert Appleton. I’m most interested in Robert Appleton’s Pyro Canyon, it’s space opera.

I have a tour book for Book Lovers Inc., Deadly Secrets, Loving Lies, by Cynthia Cooke. Reading Reality participated in the Cover Reveal on Mothers’ Day, so when the book came up for a tour at BLI, I was curious. It looks like an interesting and short romantic suspense story.

There will be a Goddess Fish tour at Reading Reality for Drowning Mermaids by Nadia Scrieva. This is paranormal romance, with, of course, mermaids. There aren’t a lot of stories using mermaids as the heroines, so my curiosity bump itched.

I’ll confess, I do have a problem picking more books than I have time for. I like having choices. And so I have too many choices.

Next week, the following books are being released, and I have review copies that I really want to get a chance to read.

The two highest on the hit parade are both science fiction. Worldsoul (see On My Wishlist #1 for description) by Liz Williams and The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett. These are two authors that I simply read everything.

This is also a week for books in pairs. Lady Amelia’s Mess and a Half by Samantha Grace and The Most Improper Miss Sophie Valentine by Jayne Fresina have the same feel to them, at least by title. But Regency romps can be heaps of fun. Maybe not back-to-back.

I’m so glad it’s a long weekend! What about you? What’s you Sunday up to this week?

On My Wishlist #11

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | On My Wishlist

What’s on my wishlist this week?

Okay, I’ll confess, the number one thing on my wishlist is to figure out what’s going on with the “On My Wishlist” meme.

It used to be hosted by Book Chick City and they did a fantastic job with it. At the end of March, they passed the torch to Cosy Books. And everything seemed to be going, well, quite cosily all through April.

But May 3 was the last On My Wishlist post that the new host posted. This is such a terrific meme, I hope that it continues. Or that the torch gets passed.

There are still books On My Wishlist. There are ALWAYS books on my wishlist!

I found out this week that the third book in Kendra Leigh Castle’s Dark Dynasties series, Shadow Rising, will be coming out on July 31. I loved the first two books, Dark Awakening  (review) and Midnight Reckoning (review). They’re paranormal romances, but with some interesting twists. And I always adore the interesting twists. For one thing, it’s about the resurrection of a dynasty, the Cait Sith. She had me right there, it’s the cat shifters. But the politics are convoluted and cool, too. I hope Shadow Rising pops up on NetGalley soon.

Nalini Singh’s new Psy-Changeling book, Tangle of Need (UK cover at right), releases on Tuesday. I’ll probably be waiting for it at midnight-oh0one to download. Almost certainly. And yes, I know I’ve said that before. This is my wishlist. (So there!)

And did anyone else notice how huge the list of Tuesday new releases is? And how wonderfully full of paranormal romance? Take a look at the Sunday Cravings post tomorrow at Book Lovers Inc. for the very full list.

I’d love to know what’s on your wishlist this week. Maybe we can make each other’s TBR stacks get taller? What do you think?

Stacking the Shelves #4

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Stacking the Shelves

Compared to last week’s Stacking the Shelves, this one is one whole column less stacked. Really, truly.

And some of there are a couple of these that just kind of, well, showed up. I’ve gotten on some publishers’ lists to get print ARCs. At least, I think that’s how the print ARCs make their way to my doorstep.

The whole concept of the Stacking the Shelves meme is that we get to give a little bit of love to those books that make their way to us whether or not they will ever get full review treatment. Or, for that matter, whether or not we have a clue why they arrived in the mail.

Tynga’s Reviews hosts Stacking the Shelves. I am one of the many eager participants.

One egalley on my shelf this week that I’m beyond thrilled about is Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness. This is the sequel to The Discovery of Witches, which was awesome. Shadow of Night has been on my wishlist since I first heard about it. And officially since it first showed up on NetGalley, way back. But I didn’t get it from NetGalley. It turned up on Edelweiss, and I got it from there. So if you also want Shadow of Night, check Edelweiss.

From the Author or Publisher:
Decoy by Michaela Debelius
A Dark Anatomy by Robin Blake (print ARC)
The Pleasures of Men by Kate Williams (print ARC)

From Sizzling PR:
The Dressmaker’s Dilemma by Theresa Stillwagon
Afterburn by Sonia Hightower
Guy’s Angel by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy
City of the Gods: The Descendant by S.J. McMillan

From Bewitching Book Tours:
Succubus Lost by Tiffany Allee
Kidnapped by Maria Hammarblad

Purchased from Amazon:
Lover Unexpected by Brindle Chase
Eternal Kiss of Darkness by Jeaniene Frost (it’s on sale! for $1.99!)

Purchased from Audible
The Scottish Prisoner by Diana Gabaldon. Narrated by Jeff Woodman and Rick Holmes (unabridged audiobook)

For Book Lovers Inc.:
The Blacksmith’s Lover by Heather Massey

From NetGalley:
A Lady Can Never Be Too Curious by Mary Wine
I Only Have Eyes for You by Bella Andre

From Edelweiss:
Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness

Everything is an ebook unless specifically stated otherwise. That’s why I’m always surprised when a print ARC comes in the mail.

I’m planning to treat myself to some of these for the Memorial Day weekend. What about you? Any special reading planned for the weekend? Or are you stocking up for the summer at the beach?

What stacking up on your shelves this week?