Starfield library in Suwon.
Stunning 🤩

This was a cute book with a little bit more action than the first. Really enjoyed reading these :)

I am currently in Seoul, so here is a picture from the older #StarfieldLibrary in Gangnam.
Hoping to get to the new one next week ☺️

My November #BookSpinBingo board

#BookSpin is The Boy on the Bridge
#DoubleSpin is Three Day Road

Took my first trip to a Tim Hortons for #Canada #FoodAndLit

We took a coffee and a doughnut home after 😉
They aren‘t super common in the UK so it was nice to find one near by!

This was exactly what I expected from a book described as high fantasy, low stakes.
The book is cosy and the friendships sweet.
And I would very much like to visit this coffee shop and eat all the pastries!

Final tally for my #HauntedShelf #SkeletonCrew points.

I had a great time :)

This was my #FoodAndLit pick for #Botswana

It was interesting to read about Mark and Delia‘s experiences living in the Kalahari desert and the relationships they made with the animals living there.
Even as a reader you become invested in the livelihood of the animals.

Today we made seswaa and sautéed spinach for #Botswana #FoodAndLit and then had it with mash as I didn‘t fancy trying the cornmeal porridge ?

This was an okay read.
The murder mystery was good, but I hate it when the amateur sleuth solves the murder because an entire police force is incompetent (they missed not 1 but 3 key pieces of evidence). And gosh the Halloween hayride, coffee, and Halloween doughnuts were mentioned every couple of pages!
The side plot of which of my 2 boyfriends should I do a couples costume with was also annoying 😂

#HauntedShelf #SkeletonCrew #PSReadathon

Like Gideon the Ninth, this is probably one of those love it or hate it books. But I am still firmly in the love it camp! 🏕️

This one follows Harrow, now on a haunted space station with the necrolord prime, with the revenant spirit of a murdered planet on its way to kill them. This book is a hot mess and I loved every second. Moira Quirk‘s narration was amazing as always.

#HauntedShelf #SkeletonCrew

My points for #HauntedShelf #SkeletonCrew so far are 2001 points ☠️

This was a short fluffy read I picked for the #CozyReads #Readathon

Shelly runs a dating agency, and someone who thinks he is a vampire has applied. Only he really is a vampire, and there are even more supernaturals in this town.

While I liked the premise, I don‘t think I liked a single character 😂 so this is only a so-so from me! It did cross off another couple of wordsearch words and some bingo squares though 🎃

#HauntedShelf #SkeletonCrew

And since it is the weekend, here is a pic of my handsome dog who kept me company while I read, and binge watched Ludwig with my husband.

The show is excellent by the way ☺️

#CatsAndDogs #SkeletonCrew #HauntedShelf

A good cosy mystery ?‍⬛

Mads has moved home after leaving her job. Her friend Adele offers to sell her the paranormal museum, which is part of the building she is renovating into a tearoom. But a woman (who Adele‘s ex-fiancé cheated with) is found dead in the building, and someone keeps trying to get back in…

I got the pic online, which is of an exhibit from The Warrens occult museum (now closed)

#CatsAndDogs #SkeletonCrew #HauntedShelf

Belated cooking for #Malaysia #FoodAndLit

We made Nasi Lemak with sambal, and beef rendang.
I wasn‘t a huge fan of the beef, just because the beef was a bit chewy for me, but the rest was delicious :)

I am planning to read this during the #CatsAndDogs mini readathon this weekend, since it includes a cat on the cover and in the book. It is a ghost detecting cat that lives in the museum 👻🐈‍⬛

For the first 1/4 of the book, I did wonder what I had got myself into. Where is the promised sweet/cosy romance? Is this just going to be chapters and chapters of “milking” Minotaurs? I knew it was meant to be spicy, but is this it?

But once the romance bit kicked in, and the MC started exploring the town, I got more invested 😂

Overall it was a good (and spicy) read.
FYI the c word features a decent amount in the latter half of this book!

My October #BookSpinBingo board

#BookSpin is Rot and Ruin
#DoubleSpin is Making the Monster

I still haven‘t read Hannibal… but I loved the TV show.
Perfectly creepy, often #gruesome and with some absolutely insane choices by some of the characters during the series 😂

#WickedWhispers

Since I have just finished listening to The Office BFFs, it would be rude not to have a picture of Dwight with a #Pumpkin on his head 🤷🏼‍♀️🎃

Happy October!

#WickedWhispers

So I haven‘t been great at reading my #BookSpin and/or #DoubleSpin the last couple of months. Life has been busy, and audiobooks have been my main source of reading.

However, I read 5 books this month (and not in a line so still no bingo 😂):

• Archangel‘s Lineage (a previous bookspin)
• The Ghost Bride
• Under the Whispering Door
• The Blanket Cats
• The Office BFFs

Maybe next months spooky reading will get me at least a line 🤣
#BookSpinBingo

I listened to this on audio and it was just so fun! These two ladies really do have a great time together.

While it does go over some office stuff, it‘s more around the relationships with the cast and crew, their friendship, and behind the scenes. And on audio there are some recordings and scene reenactment and original music.

Definitely improved my commute!

I harp on about this book a lot. But this is my October recommendation nonetheless! 😂

First in a series, but can be read as a standalone. This is a political thriller with Zombies. And it made me cry on a train 🤣 (I also enjoy the names of the groups like the Irwin‘s who go out to poke Zombies!)

#SkeletonCrew #HauntedShelf

Here is my #BookSpinBingo and #HauntedShelf #TBR

Mostly a mix of spooky, cosy mysteries, and paranormal romance, with a non-fiction book set in #Botswana for #FoodAndLit thrown in for good measure 😂

I am looking forward to October reading ☠️

#SkeletonCrew

A cute read about blanket cats, who are rented out for 3 days at a time to people. Similar to a lot of the popular Japanese fiction books. Different “owners” in each chapter, learning something about themselves thanks to having a cat around.

I particularly liked the chapter from one of the cat‘s perspectives.

I saw this book on an Instagram post that I showed my husband, saying it looked like a perfect cosy read, and it appeared the next day 🥰

I enjoyed this but dare I say I liked the show more? 😱

The book was kept me interested but there is a lot less mystery and peril than the show. However, it was a great read and I did enjoy learning more about some of the superstitions and the afterlife.

After Li Lan receives a proposal to marry the deceased son of the prominent Lim family, his ghost haunts her in an attempt to convince her to go ahead with the wedding.

#FoodAndLit #Malaysia

I loved this one. A cosy fantasy exploring life after death, set in a tea shop.

Wallace died having lived a life focusing on his career and ambition, and having not being a nice person. But after death he is brought to a tea shop by a reaper (Mei) and meets Hugo, a ferryman whose job is to help him come to terms with death before crossing over.
Here Wallace has a chance to become a better person and find the family he never knew he was missing.

It is almost spooky season! My favourite time of year 🎃

There is still time to sign up to #HauntedShelf until the end of September!

For all of October, you can get points for books read, hours read, bingo boards, join in cute little spooky games, and share some team spirit 👻

Link to original post for more info and to sign up using the form —> http://www.litsy.com/web/post/2771648

#SkeletonCrew

Finally got around to making some food for #Jamaica #FoodAndLit

Chicken brown stew, with rice and peas. It was delicious. And not too spicy despite the copious amounts of scotch bonnet! 😆

I feel like somewhere along the line, we skipped some time without me realising 😂
But this was another amazing story in the Guild Hunter series, back with Elena and Raphael. It‘s nice to see some of the earlier characters again and how they have developed over the series.
Also, I LOVE the covers for this series 😍

This was my August #BookSpin book

My #BookSpinBingo board for Sept (I have decided it is now autumn ☺️)

#BookSpin is The Monstrous Child
#DoubleSpin is American Demon

This is a low pick for me. The story was good enough that I kept picking it up, but I disliked every character in it!
It was an interesting insight into Jamaica across a couple of decades and into its independence, but that was background stuff. The main focus was on a family - Ida, a young girl seduced by a Hollywood star, and her daughter May - and the relationships, hardships, and successes in their lives.

#FoodAndLit #Jamaica

I listened to this on audio, and the narration was excellent.
The story was good, but for me there was just something missing which makes it a so-so rather than a pick.

Evey‘s mother is killed by witch hunters and so she sets out to restore balance by killing all the men involved. It‘s a story of revenge, and sisterhood.

This is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast.

While a lot of the story is familiar (being a retelling of course) there are some interesting additions like dreaming of long corridors, green witches, sorcerers, starlight creatures, and visions, which I am fairly sure aren‘t in the original versions!

I personally think it would take more than a few nights of stilted conversation to fall in love with someone, but it was still an enjoyable listen ☺️

My August #BookSpinBingo board

My #BookSpin is Archangel‘s Lineage
My #DoubleSpin is Cry Wolf

This was my July #FoodAndLit book for #Turkey and my July #DoubleSpin

Although it was slow in parts, and the beginning section isn‘t repeated even though it occurs in the middle of the book timeline, I did enjoy this.

Jahan and his elephant Chota are part of the Sultan‘s menagerie. In time Jahan also becomes apprentice to the chief royal architect. It is full of political intrigue, and spans a large chunk of time in the Ottoman Empire.

A bit late on this one, but today we had some pancakes for #FoodAndLit #Iceland

They had a little bit of cinnamon and nutmeg in the batter which made them extra tasty!

While it might not have been my favourite audio, I loved this book.
Some people might find it slow but I think the pacing and dreamlike quality of (most of) Robin McKinley‘s books are wonderful!

After the previous master and chalice are killed, a beekeeper/woodswoman becomes the chalice. She finds her way alongside a new master who has returned from the fire priests, with a little help from her bees and honey 🍯

Cooked some food today for #FoodAndLit #Turkey

Some Turkish bread (Bazlama), chicken kebab, courgette fritter (Mucver), and cacik. It was very tasty!

The first in a series of fictionalised memoirs about world renowned dragon naturalist, Lady Trent.

Covering her childhood interest in anatomy and sparklings, through to the culmination of her first expedition to study the dragons native to Vystrana, this is a story of a woman pushing societal expectations to follow her passion for dragons.

I really enjoyed the audio for this 🐉

This was my #Roll100 pick for June.

It was okay and had some interesting parts, but overall I didn‘t feel like I learnt much about rabies, and a lot of the book was anecdotal.

#Roll100 for July is Where the Light gets in.

Lucy Dillon is one of my favourite authors for a heartfelt read, especially since there is always a minimum of 1 dog 🐕

My July #BookSpinBingo board.
Fingers crossed for a line this month!

My #BookSpin is The Red Scrolls of Magic
And my #DoubleSpin is my #FoodAndLit pick The Architect‘s Apprentice

Well, half the year is gone 😂
I read 3 books in June, 1 of which was carried over from May, and started another 2.

I finished:

• Cathedral of the Sea (May FoodAndLit read)
• I Remember You (Jun FoodAndLit read)
• Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower (DoubleSpin)

I also started reading my Roll100 book Rabid, and A Natural History of Dragons on audio.

#BookSpinBingo

3 friends are renovating a house in an isolated town. The last owner mysteriously vanished. Meanwhile a psychiatrist who lost his son is working on a suicide case with links to a school break-in.

I enjoyed the writing style and it was interesting to see the two stories weave together BUT switching between the storylines took me away a bit between the more chilling ghost story scenes, and I wasn‘t satisfied with the end!

#FoodAndLit #Iceland

Floralinda is a beautiful princess trapped in a forty-flight tower by a witch. Princes came at the beginning, but after they are all crunched up by the dragon on floor one, Floralinda has to find her own way out of the tower, battling the monsters on each floor on her way down!

This was a fun fast read, and the audio with Moira Quirk is fantastic ☺️

This was my #DoubleSpin

This was my #FoodAndLit pick for #Spain and took me a little while as it was 750 pages 😱

I had a brief pause just before the 50% mark as I did get a bit annoyed with some of the choices the MC was making and couldn‘t be bothered watching it blow up! But I am glad I persevered as I did enjoy the story overall!

It follows Arnau from childhood through to adulthood in 14th century Barcelona, a period including the plague and the inquisition.

My June #BookSpinBingo board

My #BookSpin is Last Guard
My #DoubleSpin is Princess Floralinda and the Forty Flight Tower

My #Roll100 for June is Rabid.

Been on the TBR forever. Very likely it has come up before and I just didn‘t get to it 😂

Goodbye May 👋🏻
Where is the year going?

I finished 4 books in May
• The Easy Life in Kamusari (started in April for #Roll100 and #DoubleSpin)
• Gideon the Ninth (started in April)
• The Girl in Red (#DoubleSpin)
• The Kamogawa Food Detectives (#BookSpin)

I picked a Chunkster for #FoodAndLit which I am hoping to finish in June, and didn‘t make it to this months #Roll100. Let‘s see if I catch up in June ☺️

#BookSpinBingo