The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 10-20-24

This was an excellent week here at Chez Reading Reality. Not only were there TWO giveaways, but also TWO Grade A or BETTER books! (The final book of the week was also good, it just wasn’t quite so much my exact cuppa as the earlier titles.) Next week also looks surprisingly good for a week that starts and ends with MURDER!

Speaking of having a good week, I also have a great picture of Tuna from earlier this week. He’s in a classic kitty pose, the “If I fits, I sits” position. He doesn’t fit, exactly, but that’s because the biggest cat in the house has decided to nest in the smallest cat bed. You can just see how well that’s working out for him!

Current Giveaways:

$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Silly Pumpkins Giveaway Hop
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book PLUS EVENT-WIDE AMAZON/PAYPAL PRIZE in the Late Fall Giveaway Event!
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Fall 2024 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop

Winner Announcements:

The winner of Reading Reality’s Early Fall Giveaway Hop is Rochelle
The winner of the Scaredy Cat Giveaway Hop is Elizabeth

Blog Recap:

A+ #BookReview: The Crescent Moon Tearoom by Stacy Sivinski
Grade A #BookReview: Fangs So Bright and Deadly by Piper J. Drake
Silly Pumpkins Giveaway Hop
Late Fall Amazon/PayPal Giveaway Event!
B #BookReview: The Booklover’s Library by Madeline Martin
Stacking the Shelves (623)

Coming This Week:

Murder of a Suffragette by Marty Wingate (#BookReview)
Murder in Highbury by Vanessa Kelly (#BookReview #BlogTour)
The Mountain Crown by Karin Lowachee (#BookReview)
Fury Brothers: Claim by Anna Hackett (#BookReview)
The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny (#BookReview)

Stacking the Shelves (623)

Saying that I didn’t get much this week is like saying water is wet. And it’s really weirding me out. To be honest, originally there was only one book on this list. Well, there was only one book after I moved the four books that don’t have covers yet to next week’s stack. Again. I know I shouldn’t just add stuff because the pile looks empty, but I did it anyway. Also again.

The book I’m most looking forward to is the one I started with, A Fashionably French Murder by Colleen Cambridge. It’s the third book in her An American in Paris series, meaning it’s the third book in the historical mystery series that features Julia Child as the protagonist’s sidekick. The first two, Mastering the Art of French Murder and A Murder Most French, were both awesome and I can’t wait for this next one.

The book I’m most curious about – and I’m terribly curious – is The Girl from Greenwich Street by Lauren Willig. It’s based on the true story of America’s first famous murder trial, with Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr attempting to work together to defend the accused murderer. The book is based on the actual trial transcript – and it sounds fascinating.

Both the Memory Bank series and The Naturalist Society are books that I’ve looked out multiple times over the past couple of weeks but just didn’t pick up. With this week’s utter dearth of titles, I decided to pick them up after all.

For Review:
Aurora Fragment (Memory Bank #3) by Brian Shea and Raquel Byrnes
A Fashionably French Murder (An American in Paris #3) by Colleen Cambridge
The Girl from Greenwich Street by Lauren Willig

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
The Memory Bank (Memory Bank #1) by Brian Shea and Raquel Byrnes
The Naturalist Society by Carrie Vaughn (Amazon First Reads)
Retrograde Flaw (Memory Bank #2) by Brian Shea and Raquel Byrnes


If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

Please link your STS post in the linky below:


The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 10-13-24

There are plenty of bookish/bloggy things to make a note of this Sunday, starting with Rough Pages by Lev A.C. Rosen, which was utterly awesome, as has been the whole Evander Mills series, and I can’t say enough wonderful things about the narrator, Vikas Adam. I’m going to be SO disappointed if the series doesn’t continue and if Adam doesn’t continue narrating it.

I don’t have a lot of A+ reviews. I do have a lot of B and higher, because if a book isn’t at least that good I’ll probably DNF and just move on. Life is too short to read books that aren’t working. But A+ are rare – as they should be – because a book has to be just about perfect – or at least perfect for me. This was a VERY good reading week!

One note about bloggy stuff, because I got an email about just this kind of thing earlier this month – and it’ll probably happen again. Most giveaway hops start on a specific day and if that’s not a good day for the site the site can’t participate. Which is completely understandable from all sorts of perspectives. Howsomever, because the Versatileer-sponsored giveaway hops, like the Fall 2024 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop and the Late Fall Amazon/PayPal Giveaway Event! are open for six weeks or more, the organizer has a five-day window for sites to post. That specifically means that I’m grateful to be able to participate in the Late Fall Event because I can post on October 17 instead of the official start date October 16, which is the day I’m participating in the Silly Pumpkins Giveaway Hop. And that’s not silly at all. But George – see picture below – certainly is!

Here’s George, looking like he’s having a literal meltdown. Or that he’s melting down into the couch. Or both. Last weekend Galen was out of town as part of a several day trip to see his sister and attend a work conference. The cats ALL made me very aware that I am the inferior cat servant and that they missed him every bit as much as I did! George and Tuna often act like bookends on this couch, one cat on each end, and this end is George’s usual spot. But he’s usually up at the top there, checking out his domain. In this shot it looks like he’s melting down into the thing – possibly as prep for pulling it all over his head!

Current Giveaways:

$10 Gift Card or $10 Book PLUS EVENT-WIDE AMAZON/PAYPAL PRIZE in the Early Fall Giveaway Event (ENDS TUESDAY!!!!!)
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Scaredy Cat Giveaway Hop (ENDS TUESDAY!!!!!)
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Fall 2024 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop

Blog Recap:

A- #BookReview: The Village Library Demon Hunting Society by C.M. Waggoner
A+ #AudioBookReview: Rough Pages by Lev A.C. Rosen
B #BookReview: Shoestring Theory by Mariana Costa
A- #BookReview: In the Shadow of the Ship by Aliette de Bodard
B #BookReview: What We Sacrifice for Magic by Andrea Jo DeWerd
Stacking the Shelves (622)

Coming This Week:

The Crescent Moon Tearoom by Stacy Sivinski (#BookReview)
Fangs So Bright and Deadly by Piper J. Drake (#BookReview)
Silly Pumpkins Giveaway Hop
Late Fall Amazon/PayPal Giveaway Event!
The Booklover’s Library by Madeline Martin (#BookReview #BlogTour)

Stacking the Shelves (622)

This stack has pretty covers and pretty cool covers as well!

I think the prettiest covers are The Geographer’s Map to Romance and Pets in Space 9, although they are clearly not pretty in the same way at all. Ill-Fated Fortune is also pretty, but mostly it makes me pretty hungry when I look at at. One Level Down is just a cool cover. I could see that background being used in some fascinating designs and Insta posts.

And then there’s Aunt Tigress, which I honestly got FOR the cover. It’s not exactly “pretty”, and if pretty is as pretty does, based on the blurb ‘pretty’ is going to end up being a really wrong word all the way around. Fascinating, yes. Compelling, I hope so. Possibly even a bit bloody – or at least bloody-minded. But pretty, well, not so much. And that’s a good thing for the kind of urban fantasy I really, really hope it is!

One more thing…the book in this stack I’m most looking forward to is, hands down, Who Will Remember by C.S. Harris, the OMG 20th book in the marvelous Sebastian St. Cyr series.

For Review:
Aunt Tigress by Emily Yu-Xuan Qin
Claim (Fury Brothers #5) by Anna Hackett
The Curious Kitten at the Chibineko Kitchen (Meals to Remember at the Chibineko Kitchen #1) by Yuta Takahashi, translated by Cat Anderson
The Geographer’s Map to Romance (Love’s Academic #2) by India Holton
One Level Down by Mary G. Thompson
Our Nazi by Michael Soffer
Rebellious Grace (King’s Fool #3) by Jeri Westerson
Star-Crossed Egg Tarts (Magical Fortune Cookie #2) by Jennifer J. Chow
Stone Certainty (Holy Terrors #2) by Simon R. Green
Who Will Remember (Sebastian St. Cyr #20) by C.S. Harris

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
Ill-Fated Fortune (Magical Fortune Cookie #1) by Jennifer J. Chow
Pets in Space 9 edited by Carol Van Natta


If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

Please link your STS post in the linky below:


The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 10-6-24

First things first – as you can see from the sidebar, I’m not just participating, I’m hosting one of the challenges for this year’s Ho-Ho-Ho Readation (#2024HOHOHORAT), hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. This will be my first time at both, and I’m collecting Holiday/Winter reads to review for the two weeks of the Readathon. There will be prizes available to participants from all of the challenge hosts, so sign up if you love holiday reads.

Today’s picture is of a self-boxing Tuna – although it’s been a day where I feel like I’m the one in the box. Not in a bad way at all, just that my keyboard drawer has been kitty central for most of the day, which is lovely. But it’s difficult to type on the keyboard when I have it shoved out of the cats’ way, which I have to do because they ALL type. Hecate is particularly adept at reducing the screen dimensions to something so tiny it’s invisible to the naked eye. Most of the others merely park their butts on the space bar, but she has a ‘special’ knack.

Which generally causes her humans to say to each other, “We love them. Why was that again?” Sometimes Tuna’s wide-eyed, slightly blank-faced cuteness pays the rent for everyone!

Current Giveaways:

$10 Gift Card or $10 Book PLUS EVENT-WIDE AMAZON/PAYPAL PRIZE in the Early Fall Giveaway Event
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Scaredy Cat Giveaway Hop
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Fall 2024 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop

Winner Announcements:

The winner of the Falling into Leaves Giveaway Hop is Darlene

Blog Recap:

B #BookReview: Murder at King’s Crossing by Andrea Penrose
Scaredy Cat Giveaway Hop
A- #BookReview: The Restaurant of Lost Recipes by Hisashi Kashiwai, translated by Jesse Kirkwood
B+ #BookReview: One Big Happy Family by Susan Mallery
Grade A #BookReview: Darkside by Michael Mammay
Stacking the Shelves (621)

Coming This Week:

The Village Library Demon Hunting Society by C.M. Waggoner (#BookReview)
Rough Pages by Lev A.C. Rosen (#AudioBookReview)
Shoestring Theory by Mariana Costa (#BookReview)
In the Shadow of the Ship by Aliette de Bodard (#BookReview)
What We Sacrifice for Magic by Andrea Jo DeWerd (#BookReview)

Stacking the Shelves (621)

A slightly shorter stack this week. I do have a few more, but no covers to go with them – so they’ll be waiting a bit.

But the books with covers I do have are an interesting bunch. The pretty covers are The December Market and Greenteeth. The book I’m most looking forward to is The Sea Eternal by Emery Robin – because I loved the first book in the series, The Stars Undying.

The book I’m really, really curious about is The Vengeance by Emma Newman, because, well, vampires in the world of Alexandre Dumas and possibly his Three Musketeers. If that wasn’t a tease enough, I’m also wondering how it will compare to Genevieve Cogman’s Scarlet Revolution series (which begins with Scarlet), which mixes vampires with the French Revolution. Clearly there’s something in the literary air about vampires mixing with French history and I’m really curious what THAT’s all about.

What about you? What have you added to your stack this week?

For Review:
The December Market (Shelter Springs #2) by RaeAnne Thayne
Don’t Sleep with the Dead by Nghi Vo
Greenteeth by Molly O’Neill
Israel Alone by Bernard-Henri Lévy
Lifeform by Jenny Slate
One Final Turn (Electra McDonnell #5) by Ashley Weaver
The Sea Eternal (Empire Without End #2) by Emery Robin
Two Times Murder (Quiet Teacher #2) by Adam Oyebanji
The Vengeance (Vampires of Dumas #1) by Emma Newman


If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

Please link your STS post in the linky below:


The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 9-29-24

“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!” No one expects a power failure, either. But with the weather here at the end of the week, let’s just say that it seemed prudent to expect that latter possibility. (I’m still not expecting the Spanish Inquisition!)

Luna, however, DID seem to be expecting the Spanish Inquisition – or at least something equally as bad. She hid – a LOT. When she wasn’t hiding, she expected Galen and I to be her ‘security humans’ – clinging to whichever of us was handy at the time. So today’s picture is Luna, participating in one of Galen’s work meetings. She’s clearly observing the proceedings VERY closely.

On the bookish side of things, that potential power outage had me rearranging the end of the week rather a bit. I already had the review of Fear the Flames written, while I’m still in the middle of reading Murder at King’s Crossing, so Wednesday afternoon I finished up the week with what I had ready and started on Stacking the Shelves and this Sunday Post, just in case either the power or the internet went out. Which they didn’t. The only thing out is the refrigerator, which is ‘out’ of pretty much everything!

One final note on this week’s Sunday Post. I changed my mind about one of the ratings of this week’s books. Or rather, audiobooks. Rating Graveyard Shift as an A- wasn’t sitting right with me over the week. It should have been an ‘A’ Grade, and so now it is!

Current Giveaways:

Falling Into Leaves Giveaway Hop (ENDS TOMORROW!!!)
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book PLUS EVENT-WIDE AMAZON/PAYPAL PRIZE in the Early Fall Giveaway Event
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Fall 2024 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop

Blog Recap:

Fall 2024 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop
Grade A #AudioBookReview: Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio
A- #BookReview: Queen Macbeth by Val McDermid
B #BookReview: The Lantern of Lost Memories by Sanaka Hiiragi, translated by Jesse Kirkwood
A- #BookReview: Fear the Flames by Olivia Rose Darling
Stacking the Shelves (620)

Coming This Week:

Murder at King’s Crossing by Andrea Penrose (#BookReview)
Scaredy Cat Giveaway Hop
The Restaurant of Lost Recipes by Hisashi Kashiwai, translated by Jesse Kirkwood (#BookReview)
One Big Happy Family by Susan Mallery (#BookReview #BlogTour)
Shoestring Theory by Mariana Costa (#BookReview)

Stacking the Shelves (620)

I’m doing this a couple of days early this week because Hurricane Helene – not that she’ll still be an actual hurricane by the time she reaches Atlanta. But we will get LOTS of wind and rain, which has the potential for falling trees and downed power lines, so I’m running ahead a bit just in case. I’m hoping it works as a countermeasure, that by planning for it we won’t actually lose power.

Luna is clearly wigged out by the storm – even just the heavy rain Wednesday night. She spent the evening huddled under the sink in the downstairs bathroom, as it’s the one room in the house that has no windows.

I do have a few – just a few (LOL) – books to read if we get stuck indoors for the weekend. The pretty covers this time around are Austen at Sea, The River has Roots and Still Life with Remorse. Although I think an ‘honorable mention’ could be awarded for Eat the Ones You Love. That cover is beautifully done – but seriously creepy!

The books I’m most curious about are the Yard Birds series that begins with Crazy as a Loon. I read a review of the final book in the series, Free as a Bird, at Caffeinated Reviewer, and I was intrigued. Also hoping the series will be a bit reminiscent of Never Too Old to Save the World and A Key, an Egg, an Unfortunate Remark as they all feature female protagonists that are not so much ‘of a certain age’ but looking at that ‘certain age’ through the rearview mirror but still kicking ass and taking names even if they have to use a cane to do it.

The one I’m most looking forward to, for the next time I really need a comfort read, to absolutely no one’s surprise, is The Blanket Cats.

For Review:
10/7: 100 Human Stories by Lee Yaron
Austen at Sea by Natalie Jenner
The Blanket Cats by Kiyoshi Shigematsu, translated by Jesse Kirkwood
Eat the Ones You Love by Sarah Maria Griffin
Murder by Memory (Dorothy Gentleman #1) by Olivia Waite
The Prince Without Sorrow (Obsidian Throne #1) by Maithree Wijesekara
The River has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
Still Life with Remorse by Maira Kalman

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
Crazy as a Loon (Yard Birds #1) by Hailey Edwards (ebook + audio)
Dead as a Dodo (Yard Birds #2) by Hailey Edwards (ebook + audio)
Free as a Bird (Yard Birds #3) by Hailey Edwards (ebook + audio)


If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

Please link your STS post in the linky below:


The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 9-22-24

Today is the first day of 2024’s Banned Books Week! So celebrate your freedom to read by reading a banned book to see what the challenge really is all about. Learn what is actually IN the book in question to see for yourself why is made so many people so very uncomfortable – which is what banning is REALLY all about. I could say more, but anything I might come up with has been said better elsewhere, to take just one example, Stephen King’s essay from 1992 titled “The Book-Banners: Adventure in Censorship is Stranger Than Fiction”.

I’m going to change back to our usual run of cat and bookish news, inspired by this picture of George saying, “Make it stop, make it stop right MEOW!”

The schedule for this week is more or less solid, although the order may change as I’ve already finished Graveyard Shift – which was terrific in audio. The recap of last week includes a book (The Daughters’ War) that is certainly going to be on my “Best of the Year” list for this year as well as my Hugo nominations next year. Which I can’t believe I’m already thinking about, but now that it’s really, truly fall, even if the temperature is supposed to hit 90° today, the end of the year feels like it’s coming on fast.

Speaking of fall starting and summer ending, the Summer 2024 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop ended at midnight. I may, or may not, be awake and functional at that point. If I’m not awake – which I was not – the winner announcement read TBD but it has now been filled in with the name of the actual winner!

Current Giveaways:

Falling Into Leaves Giveaway Hop
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book PLUS EVENT-WIDE AMAZON/PAYPAL PRIZE in the Early Fall Giveaway Event

Winner Announcements:

The winner of the Summer 2024 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop is Michael

Blog Recap:

Falling into Leaves Giveaway Hop
A++ #AudioBookReview The Daughters’ War by Christopher Buehlman
#BookReview: The Sullivan’s Island Supper Club by Susan M. Boyer
A- #BookReview: Haunt Sweet Home by Sarah Pinsker
A- #BookReview: The Banned Books Club by Brenda Novak
Stacking the Shelves (619)

Coming This Week:

Fall 2024 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop
Murder at King’s Crossing by Andrea Penrose (#BookReview)
Queen Macbeth by Val McDermid (#BookReview)
The Lantern of Lost Memories by Sanaka Hiiragi (#BookReview)
Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio (#AudioBookReview)

Stacking the Shelves (619)

This is a not too ridiculously tall stack where everything turned out to be in pairs – not that it started out that way!

The two prettiest book covers, IMHO, are Hammajang Luck and The Serpent Called Mercy. Tea You at the Altar should have been a contender, but that slightly turned view that seems to be all that’s available at the moment makes the image too small to get the full effect. OTOH, it’s one of the two books I’m most looking forward to out of this week’s batch, with The Railway Conspiracy as the second in that category.

The two titles that I’m most curious about – although in entirely different ways, are the audiobook of The Atrocity Archives and the Mark Twain biography.

I’ve always meant to read Charles Stross’s Laundry Files series, of which The Atrocity Archives is the first book. But I was looking for a not-too-long audiobook to start this morning and saw that the narrator for this first book, along with most of the rest of the series, is one of my favorite videogame voice actors – and that made my decision for me.

The other book I’m really curious about is Ron Chernow’s Mark Twain biography. I don’t read a lot of biographies, and this book is an absolute doorstop at 1,200 pages, but I listened to Chernow’s Ulysses S. Grant biography at the same length and was utterly riveted – so I have high hopes for this book. (If Chernow’s name sounds familiar, that’s because he was the author of the Alexander Hamilton biography that Lin-Manuel Miranda used as the basis for the play Hamilton.

For Review:
Cold Eternity by S.A. Barnes
Cold Iron Task (Unorthodox Chronicles #3) by James J. Butcher
A Grim Reaper’s Guide to Catching a Killer (SCYTHE #1) by Maxie Dara
Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto
Mark Twain by Ron Chernow
Notes from a Regicide by Isaac Fellman
Overcaptain (Saga of Recluce #24) by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
The Railway Conspiracy (Dee & Lao #2) by SJ Rozan and John Shen Yen Nee
The Serpent Called Mercy by Roanne Lau
Tea You at the Altar (Tomes & Tea #3) by Rebecca Thorne

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
The Atrocity Archives (Laundry Files #1) by Charles Stross (audio)
Beginnings – The Sullivan’s Island Supper Club (Carolina Tales #1.5) by Susan M. Boyer


If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

Please link your STS post in the linky below: