I’m not one for TBR’s because I’m such a big mood reader but I noticed that this year, I’m actually sticking to the list I write out for myself at the beginning of every month. As always, I’ve got a good variety of genre’s I’m planning to get to.
The three books that I really want to get to this month are:
- The Simple Wild by K.A Tucker
- Emma by Jane Austen
- Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi
- How High We Go in The Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
The Simple Wild
“Calla Fletcher wasn’t even two when her mother took her and fled the Alaskan wild, unable to handle the isolation of the extreme, rural lifestyle, leaving behind Calla’s father, Wren Fletcher, in the process. Calla never looked back, and at twenty-six, a busy life in Toronto is all she knows. But when Calla learns that Wren’s days may be numbered, she knows that it’s time to make the long trip back to the remote frontier town where she was born.”
This book has been on my shelf for so long. I have this thing where if I think that I’m going to love a book, I just don’t pick it up. It’s kind of sad because there’s just so many books sitting on my shelf that I’m saving for a later time. So I’m making it my mission that I finish this book in the month of March and there’s no excuse now.
I think that this is a good pick for me this month because I haven’t really been reading much romance this year and I really want to find one that I can call my new favorite. From what I’ve heard, this book has all the character and plot based elements that I love to see in a book: grumpy male character, estranged/tense familial relationships, great landscape or environment, and a slow burn plot and romance.
Emma
“Beautiful, smart, rich-and single-Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr. Knightley and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protegée, Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel and have consequences that she never expected.”
I’m fifty pages into this book and I really want to make sure that I dedicate this month to wrapping it up. From the fifty pages I have read so far, I’m really enjoying it and it’s such a cozy, comforting book to return to. I’m afraid to set this book on the back burner because I don’t want to lose my momentum with it. I also have the tendency for starting books and then just leaving them to wither away in my “I’ll pick it back up later” corner of my bookshelf. I’ve also been reading a ton of heavy hitting books and I think that this will be a great retreat from those books. While “The Simple Wild” is a romance book, I still associate it as a heavy hitting books because I know it deals with heavier topics, one of which I believe is loss or grief. So reading “Emma”, a book about surface level drama and a nosy main character seems to be far more appealing and perfectly light hearted.
The Gilded Wolves
“It’s 1889. The city is on the cusp of industry and power, and the Exposition Universelle has breathed new life into the streets and dredged up ancient secrets. Here, no one keeps tabs on dark truths better than treasure-hunter and wealthy hotelier Séverin Montagnet-Alarie. When the elite, ever-powerful Order of Babel coerces him to help them on a mission, Séverin is offered a treasure that he never imagined: his true inheritance.”
This is going to be a reread for me and I’m quite interested to see how it goes. The last time I read it, I remembered enjoying it but having a hard time with one of the main romance between the two characters in this found family we’re following. It felt very cringe. I still enjoyed the actual plot and most of the other characters. Now that I don’t read much about YA and am very particular about what kinds of romance I like and don’t like, I’m curious to see how this book holds up. Is the found family trope and the riddles and adventures going to be enough for me to continue the series?
How High We Go in the Dark
For most of my life, I read for escapism. I still do now but I noticed that I’ve been picking up books that are smack dab in the middle of major world events that people are most likely trying to distract themselves from. Reading about these topics and about these horrifying moments of our world, in the past, present, and what’s to come in the future, has given me such an appreciation of the perseverance and strength of humanity and our ability to fight on and continue for the good.
All that said, I don’t know much about this book other than it’s apocalyptic in tone and is a look into our future. I believe it’s a futuristic science fiction novel but once again, I don’t read too much into the plot before hand.
What really drew me to this book is the first paragraph in the flap of the book:
“Beginning in 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus.”
The fact this book starts off in the Arctic Circle has me hooked. I recently read and loved “Migrations” by Charlotte McConaghy and that book also featured a woman making her way to the Arctic. I’m hoping that this book delivers that same kind of gripping and chilling plot as “Migrations” did.