Music Monday hosted by Lauren @ Always Me
Sunday Post is hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Reviewer
It’s Monday What Are You Reading is hosted by Kathryn @ The Book Date
Music Monday
I’ve been listening to Blackmore’s Night a decent amount lately. I feel like my ‘medieval and pagan’ playlist is such a fun vibe for the summertime (I mean it’s always great but especially so right now). There’s obviously a lot of Blackmore’s Night on there so I decided to share the two most recent plays. I hope you enjoy them 😄!
Locked Within the Crystal Ball by Blackmore’s Night
Album: Secret Voyage
Release Year: 2008
Genre: Folk Rock / Medieval Rock
Loreley by Blackmore’s Night
Album: Ghost of a Rose
Release Year: 2003
Genre: Folk Rock / Medieval Rock
It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?
Just DNF’d
I’m really bummed about this one but I had to DNF Hell’s Heart. It had some cool world-building but it tells the reader what’s going to happen in advance and thus sucks the tension away. Additionally a lot of the characters felt quite one-dimensional which didn’t help. I just couldn’t get invested.
I’ve read another book that I loved by this author so I’m disappointed about The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones. I liked the writing style but it’s the main character and the tropes that didn’t work for me. I feel like I’m honestly too old to be reading about teenagers consistently making stupid choices, it was pissing me off. Plus I read a few reviews which hint at a toxic “romance” and I lost all interest.
Currently Reading
I’m continuing my SOS Hotel journey with the 5th book, No Rest For The Wicked. This is a really fun series and I’m especially enjoying the narration by Michael Lesley. I love the characters exactly as he voices them!
I’m also still slowly reading Chain of Gold by Cassandra Clare. I had renewed it the max number of times and had to re-borrow it but I’m having a lot of fun with it! I’m just glad no-one else wants it right now 😂.
Up Next
Finally, it’s my turn for my book pick in my IRL friend book club! I’ll be starting To Be Taught, If Fortunate ASAP. I can’t wait since I’ve mentioned it a bunch, and next time I talk about it I’ll actually have thoughts, haha!
On The Blog Recently
Bookish Lists:
– New This Month: 21 Awesome August Releases
Blog Memes:
– Top 10 Books With Peridot Covers To Celebrate August
– Top 10 Book Series I Want to Catch Up On
Wrap-Ups:
– Monthly Wrap-Up│ July 2026
Let’s chat in the comments!
What are you currently reading? If you participated in any of these memes this week feel free to share your links below 🖤.
Congrats on your anniversary! The zoo sounds fun. 🙂
Thank you, Celeste 🙂 & The zoo was delightful we walked around all day and it was nice being outside I haven’t done that a lot this summer.
I love Blackmore’s Night! Also, To Be Taught If Fortunate was amazing. Enjoy and thanks for linking up with me!
Ah yay, me too, they’re so much fun! And I’m glad you loved TBTIF. My pleasure. I’ve been experiencing some weird issues with InLinkz, for blogs that have been using it I haven’t been able to see the widget in the post when I’m on my computer. Weirdly if I go on my phone it’s fine so that’s how I managed to join up this week but I figure I’d let you know anyways just fyi. Also, I wasn’t able to comment on your post due to weird formatting today, so sorry I’m getting tech issues up the wazoo.
I like the idea of having a date in a zoo, but I imagine your weather must be much cooler than mine. These days I minimize my time outside. We’re like that level of Super Mario 2 (the one that was really Doki Doki Panic) where the sun is trying to kill you.
Oh yes, that day was actually super pleasant, we were worried it was gonna rain but instead it was warm and sunny, nowhere near scorching thankfully! Yeah I don’t blame you for wanting to avoid the intense weather. I just looked up Doki Doki Panic since I didn’t know what that was but the sun trying to kill you is not good in any world lol 😅.
It’s a weird story…there was a REAL Super Mario 2, but it was basically like Super Mario 1 but much harder. I knew as a kid SM2 was weirdly different from all the other games, but it wasn’t until I was listening to LGR talk about Doki Doki Panic that i knew anything about SM2’s unique origin!
That is odd, I’m not even sure I’ve played SM2 so I had no clue it had been practically been superimposed onto Doki Doki Panic. I also talked about this with my husband yesterday coz I thought it was interesting and he told me that’s where Shy Guy comes from, my mind is blown! lol
Hah! Yeah. They changed some of the elements of the game to make them “mario’ like, but retained a lot of the original game’s enemies, shy guy included.
Full disclosure: had to google that name to recognize the character!
That’s so interesting, I guess it makes sense because Nintendo owns both games so they can do that. And that’s his name, which I only know because I’ve been watching people play Mario games online and they bring him up sometimes but it looks like we both learned something haha 🙂
To Be Taught, If Fortunate is a book that’s really stuck with me — I like Chambers’ Wayfarers series more, but To Be Taught, If Fortunate does a looot and I have ended up thinking about it ever since I first read it.
I’m so happy to hear that it’s stuck with you, that’s a great sign! I just started it yesterday but so far really enjoying it and I love the way Chambers writes, the turns of phrases are so beautiful and poignant.
Ooh, enjoy To Be Taught, If Fortunate – it’s fantastic!
I read 20 pages of it yesterday and really having a great time with it so far 🙂
Happy Anniversay! Sorry to hear about your DNF of Hell’s Heart. That’s on my TBR but I won’t rush to read it now😁
Thanks 🥰. Yeah it was a bummer because at first I thought I was really going to like it but then it took a sharp turn and I got so un-invested quickly. It also made me think that I wouldn’t like Moby Dick at all. lol
Happy Anniversary! I’m so glad you had fun at the zoo! I’m also happy to find out about Music Monday, I didn’t know about it but it looks fun and I might participate next time.
Thanks so much 😄!! Oh yay I’m so glad you’re happy to learn about Music Monday, the blog Always Me hosts it every Monday and I’m sure she’d love more people joining in. I try to participate once every 2 weeks but often it ends up being like once a month…depends if I have updates to share or not lol.🙈
Congrats on your anniversary. Sounds like you had a great day
Thank you, Nic :)! It was such a delightful day, yes!
This is not the first DNF review I’ve seen of the new Alexis Hall, which is disappointing because I have really enjoyed some of his books (and really hated others)
Ouu boy that’s too bad 🙁 Among my friends I read with it wasn’t very well received for various reasons but I will say that at least for me the writing itself was great and not the issue. I have other Alexis Hall books on my tbr that I still want to try, mainly A Lady for a Duke 🙂 Sounds like this author can be a mixed bag and they have different styles. What’s one you loved?
Happy third anniversary. Im glad you both had a lovely time. I always love a visit to a zoo 🥰
Im so sorry to hear about both of those DNFs. Its definitely hard to keep going with a book if you cant connect with the characters. And its always especially frustrating when it happens with a book by an author who’s written other titles that you’ve enjoyed. The teenage behaviour may irritate me too with the latter title but I’m the opposite to you and tend to get intrigued when I see the phrase toxic romance 😂 I hope you all love your bookclub choice of read and have a wonderful time reading it. I can’t believe I’m yet to try anything by Becky Chambers. And I’m kind of with you library wise. I’ve renewed some of mine more often than I’d like, but I haven’t managed to get to them yet 🙈
Thanks, Charlotte! Yes it was so nice. I know there is a baby pygmy hippo but it’s too young to be shown to the public yet so I would love to go back next year to see it as a youngling!!
I’m only bummed I had to DNF two of them back to back with the same friend group, it’s a bit of a bummer. But luckily they’re very understanding haha! Yeah, I agree that makes it even more frustrating but at least with Lex Croucher the other book that I read was en entirely different genre and I’m not even sure if Dark Academia is even for me but I keep trying lol.
Ohh so you might have better luck with this one than me, one of my friends did enjoy it! 🙂
Thank you!! So far I am loving my book club pick, finally a physical read I’m not gonna DNF hahah!
Sometimes it is hard to get to library books when you have a lot going at the same time. 😅