Here are the best of the bests for June.
Best TV show of the Month:
Blodeuedd - Love, Death, & Robots
Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
Publisher:Tantor Audio
Categories: Fantasy
From audible
I seem to have been bad at writing reviews lately, ooops.
Halla is a widow who worked for her husband´s uncle as a housekeeper. Then he died and left it to her. But his family are total assholes and wants to force her to remarry this idiot so they can keep it in the family. She is not ok with this so they keep her locked up.
In comes a magic sword that she takes down to kill herself with. But oh my out comes a big warrior named Sarkis instead.
And the journey begins, and this is really a journey book. They flee to find help from priest lawyers and the journey there and back are filled with danger and adventures.
I liked Halla, she was just so real. She talked to much in the face of danger, but that was just endearing to me. As for Sarkis he speaks a lot about soft southerners, and his story is a sad one. Being stuck and used for 500 years.
It was a good one and the ending left room for more, but now when I look this came out in 2018 and a maybe is scheduled for next year...but it still ended happily so I can be content with that.
Good narration too
Halla is a housekeeper who has suddenly inherited her great-uncle's estate... and, unfortunately, his relatives. Sarkis is an immortal swordsman trapped in a prison of enchanted steel. When Halla draws the sword that imprisons him, Sarkis finds himself attempting to defend his new wielder against everything from bandits and roving inquisitors to her own in-laws... and the sword itself may prove to be the greatest threat of all.
Published: June 25, 2024 by Forever
Contemporary romance/own
I had some issues with this one because I had just finished Yellowface, and sure this is nothing like that. But Daphne decides to publish under a male penname and then she keeps up the lie and even finds a guy to play the part. There is just so much lying. It would have worked so much better if I had not recently read a book about the anger that any lying causes. Big or small.
But yes they get to know each other as Chris needs to know how to play the part of Zane. And the more they lie the closer they come to a big shown down. Because her book becomes a big hit and he is sent to bookfairs and talks in panels. And I kept thinking, people will be maaad.
There is also the romance bit as they get closer. Though to be fair, the romance lacked a bit. It would have made it even more about the romance. Now there was a lot of other things going on.
It was a good book, though do not read it after reading books where people lie about stuff and a trainwreck begins. LOL. Here there is not a trainwreck in that sense because this is in the end a romance.
A fun romantic comedy about a woman writing under a male pseudonym and the man she hires to play the role in public.
Daphne McFadden is tired of rejection. After submitting her manuscript to dozens of agents, she's gotten rejection after rejection, and now it's time for something drastic. And so, Daphne submits her manuscript again… under a man's name.
Imagine her surprise when it sells for big money at an auction and soon becomes a publicity darling. Only she needs a man to play her super macho alter ego Zane Remington. Enter Chris Stanton, who absolutely looks the part of a survivalist and has a talent for pressing her piss‑me‑off‑I‑dare‑you buttons while somehow being endearing at the same time. But Chris has a few secrets of his own, including the fact that he’s really an accountant who has no idea how to chop wood or paddle a canoe. When Daphne's book becomes a bestselling sensation and they're forced to go on tour together, Daphne finds herself wondering if this city‑boy geek is exactly what she needs to push her to claim her dreams.
Tell Me Something Tuesday is a weekly discussion post where bloggers discuss a wide range of topics from books and blogging to life in general. Weigh in and join the conversation by adding your thoughts in the comments. If you want to do your own post, grab the question and answer it on your blog. Feel free to leave your links in the comments if you are participating.
6/24/2025 Do you have any travel or staycation plans for the summer?
Not really, but what we do is that we usually do a roadtrip of some sort. Last year we went to a Zoo and I saw pandas! :D But yes that was more of a goal, usually our roadtrips are spontaneous, and more like we go south and then we experience things. No idea to where this year, but somewhere.....
Tell Me Something Tuesday is a weekly discussion post where bloggers discuss a wide range of topics from books and blogging to life in general. Weigh in and join the conversation by adding your thoughts in the comments. If you want to do your own post, grab the question and answer it on your blog. Feel free to leave your links in the comments if you are participating.
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Format: 341 pages, Hardcover
Published: February 15, 2022 by Minotaur Books
Thriller /own
The last Rockton book! Nooo. I kind of feel like reading book 1 in the follow up now, but since I have book 2 I will just jump there.
Someone is spilling secrets, there will be death. But that is what happens when you make a shitty town where you can buy your way in even if you are a serial killer or smth.
And now it is nearing the end of this city, hidden in the wilderness. But before that there is murder, destruction and just a big race against the clock.
Ohh this last one packed a punch. I was on the edge of my seat. I need more.
It’s not always easy to live in the hidden town of Rockton, something Detective Casey Duncan knows firsthand. Tucked away in the Yukon wilderness, the community survives—and thrives—because the residents' many secrets stay just that—secret.
But what happens when these secrets start to come out? Overnight, no one is safe. It’s not a question of if your secret will come out—but when.
Casey and her boyfriend, Sheriff Eric Dalton, need to find the culprit while protecting those who have been thrust into the spotlight. For a place built on privacy and new beginnings, Rockton isn’t handling these revelations very well. People are turning on one another, and when one of the loudest complainers turns up barely alive, it's clear that their trickster is actually a murderer.
The threat of exposure is reaching its breaking point, and no one knows what’s going to happen next.
Published: May 25, 2023 by William Morrow
Fiction
Library
I enjoyed it, but, oh you know the story, for me it was too hyped up. So for me I did feel somewhat disappointing when it was not amazing. And that is why I should not listen to hype cos then I would not have felt disappointed, I would just have enjoyed a good book.
This one is so hard to review, it is one of those twitter trainwrecks that we all used to watch back in the day. Oh you know you watched it. One could not look away.
Juniper´s friend dies. And she then steals the manuscript for a book that friend was working on...and finishes it. Damn, ok, wtf girl. She becomes a huge success. But there is the voices about how she is white, she writes about Chinese workers. The name she uses that can be mistaken for Chinese, and last how her friend was a well known American-Chinese author.
The trainwreck begins.
Then she makes it worse.
And she is loosing her mind too, seeing her dead friend. About that, I would have loved that aspect to be honest, a horror story. Alas no.
The ending was a bit too open for me. I would just have crawled under a rock, but Juniper is not going down. And we do not know what will happen.
Honestly so much to say about this one, so many aspects of the publishing world. The good, and the bad.
Authors Juniper Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena is a literary darling while June is a nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls?, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse, stealing Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I.
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.
But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.
Tell Me Something Tuesday is a weekly discussion post where bloggers discuss a wide range of topics from books and blogging to life in general. Weigh in and join the conversation by adding your thoughts in the comments. If you want to do your own post, grab the question and answer it on your blog. Feel free to leave your links in the comments if you are participating.
6/17/2025 How do you choose what to read next?
I used to have a system when I had lots of review books, now I go by whatever. A review book that should be read, a library book that is due, or just a book that seems the most interesting, or a genre I could enjoy.
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6/24/2025 Do you have any travel or staycation plans for the summer?
Tell Me Something Tuesday is a weekly discussion post where bloggers discuss a wide range of topics from books and blogging to life in general. Weigh in and join the conversation by adding your thoughts in the comments. If you want to do your own post, grab the question and answer it on your blog. Feel free to leave your links in the comments if you are participating.
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Format: 343 pages, Paperback
Published: January 1, 2025 by Quercus
Mystery Fiction /library
Somehow I managed to miss that this one actually contains timetravel. Maybe I though oh that is a very cold case, but nope, time travel.
Ali works with cold cases, but her department is also really secret because someone invented a way to travel in time. But it is not like hey lets all travel in time. No it is not that advanced. It is dangerous, and not that safe. And when Ali goes back into 1850 she misses her window and she is stuck.
Ali is a 3 time divorcee with a kid. She was down to earth and just got the job done. The case she is on is a politician wanting to clear an ancestors name. Which leads to her getting stuck in the past, and things heating up in bad ways back home.
We get the now and the then when she is trying to make it back then and trying to figure out if that ancestor did those bad things or not...
And back home, well just say it gets intense and I wanted to know what was going to happen. There is murder, secrets and I mean is Ali gonna get home or not?!
It was a good one.
Cold cases are a lot easier to solve when you can travel back in time to find new evidence—unless, that is, you get stuck in the nineteenth century.
Ali Dawson and her cold case team investigate crimes so old they’re frozen—or so their inside joke goes. Ali’s work seems like a safe desk job, but what her friends—and even her beloved son—don’t know is that her team has a secret: They can travel back in time to look for evidence.
So far Ali has made trips only to the recent past, so she’s surprised when she’s asked to investigate a murder that took place in 1850. The killing has been pinned on an aristocratic patron of the arts and antiquities, a member of a sinister group called "The Collectors." She arrives in the Victorian era during a mini ice age to find another dead woman at her feet and far too many unanswered questions. But when her son is arrested, Ali attempts to return home only to find herself trapped in 1850.
By: Grace Elena
Narrated by: John William Maddux, Stacy Gonzalez
Series: Alpine Ridge 2
Length: 3 hrs and 17 mins
Release date: 05-27-25 by Tantor Audio
Contemporary romance/ from Tantor
The holidays, a novella, sure thing why not read this when summer starts. I am not familiar with this series, I just dove straight in for a short story.
Katherine is divorced, and thinking of doing some changes in her life. Then one night she steps under the mistletoe and meets a cowboy.
It was short, it was intense at times....in that way. And there was a happy ending. This could have been a full book too. But I take what I can.
It was two narrators and they both did well with their parts. Sometimes I find that one narrator has one speed and the other has another speed, but here it worked when they changed from one to the other.
Wishing for a Christmas miracle is harder than it seems. Katherine Pearson has lived her whole life in Alpine Ridge, TN. From marrying her high school sweetheart to being divorced in her mid-thirties, Katherine is feeling stuck. Stuck in life, stuck in her hometown, and stuck in love.
When she finds herself at a dive bar at the edge of town, there’s a sense of solace that she can’t quite place. A sense of belonging that she hasn’t felt in a long time. Stumbling into a cowboy under a mistletoe is the last thing she expects to happen to her. It doesn’t help that he’s a cowboy who just seems to understand everything she’s feeling this holiday season.
Maybe Santa does have Katherine at the top of his list this year.
Tell Me Something Tuesday is a weekly discussion post where bloggers discuss a wide range of topics from books and blogging to life in general. Weigh in and join the conversation by adding your thoughts in the comments. If you want to do your own post, grab the question and answer it on your blog. Feel free to leave your links in the comments if you are participating.
6/10/2025 New to me authors: who have you discovered in the past 12 months?
I would say T.Kingfisher, I tried my first a year ago and after that I have tried a few more. I like that her style differs. First up was horror, then more fairytale, and now I am reading a fantasy. I like her books.
As for other new authors, well Kingfisher is the only one I have tried more than once. So as for others, I just do not know if I would like their other books. But ;
Liz Nugent, the book I read was just amazing
Caitlin Rozakis, I do want to try more by this author
Jen Beagin, a good storyteller
6/17/2025 How do you choose what to read next?
6/24/2025 Do you have any travel or staycation plans for the summer?
Tell Me Something Tuesday is a weekly discussion post where bloggers discuss a wide range of topics from books and blogging to life in general. Weigh in and join the conversation by adding your thoughts in the comments. If you want to do your own post, grab the question and answer it on your blog. Feel free to leave your links in the comments if you are participating.
If you are interested in participating in TMST or receiving periodic emails that list the upcoming TMST topics and questions, please fill out this GOOGLE FORM. Participation is optional and never required.
Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky, Andrew Eiden
Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
Release date: 11-14-24
Publisher: Audible Originals
Categories: Contemporary romance
I am really hunting down these audible shorter books. I like it. And this one I recognized because Carole and Jen had read it.
Abi is sent to help a mystery author to finish her book...surprise, the author died and her grandson is struggling to finish it.
Is it doomed? Or can they work together to finish this last book?! Oh I know that feeling. Biggest fear if any book lover. Not getting that last book.
And of course they also have time to fall in love.
Good narration, good story. I enjoyed it. Best of all, short!
When mystery author D. B. Ziegler is late delivering her book, Abi Schore steps in to help. Surely she can give her favorite author moral support over the holiday break and get the manuscript to her boss at Tea & Sympathy Publishing in time for the new year.
When Abi shows up on Ms. Ziegler’s doorstep bearing holiday treats, she’s met by the author’s handsome grandson Dov, who reveals a startling plot twist. His grandmother isn’t able to finish the book and Dov promised he’d complete it so fans won’t be disappointed—a task that’s harder than he ever imagined.
As Hanukkah unfolds, Abi and Dov cozy up in his grandmother’s brownstone apartment working their way through his writer’s block and untangling plot threads. Before long, the novel starts taking shape ... and so does their simmering attraction. Will their own story end once the book is written, or is this just the first chapter?
Narrated by: Lidia Dornet, Chris Brinkley
Series: Love Lines #2
Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
Release date: 04-22-21
Publisher: Audible Originals
Categories: Romance, Contemporary
I found another cute audible one and this one takes place mostly on the phone. I do like this concept because you are really in their heads.
Elliott voice messages the wrong person, but she responds and they start talking. And then they talk the next day too. But he does not know who she is, but she knows him. So all he calls her JD.
Oh it was fun. Him trying to figure out who she is, and she doing her best to dodge his questions.
But she does have reasons, and they are good reasons.
But they fall in love over the phone. But will they still feel something when they meet? Obviously ;)
Two narrators and they were both good and it worked really well.
It’s officially booty o’clock, I’m alone again in my kitchen choking down a slice of terrible chocolate cake…and I’m pretty sure I just got drunk texted by the man I have a ginormous crush on.
I’ve been daydreaming about Eliot Hoffman’s dimples for two months, and even though I’m sure this was a mistake on his end, it doesn’t mean it’s not an opportunity on mine. It’s the middle of the night, and I just wanna talk to him. So I text him back.
And then somehow we keep talking…ALL NIGHT. We’re both insomniacs, so talking all night soon turns into talking EVERY night.
And talking about nothing soon turns into talking about something.
And here we go from in-depth analysis of reality TV to my relationship with my family to his amazing artwork. There’s no topic we don’t cover…
Except for who I really am. It’s the only question of his I won’t answer.
As my crush turns into an avalanche of Eliot, I think of him all the time now. But if he knew who I was, the entire house of cards we’ve built this relationship on would come toppling down. I want him to be mine, but we might never be more than just a sweet dream….
Tell Me Something Tuesday is a weekly discussion post where bloggers discuss a wide range of topics from books and blogging to life in general. Weigh in and join the conversation by adding your thoughts in the comments. If you want to do your own post, grab the question and answer it on your blog. Feel free to leave your links in the comments if you are participating.
6/3/2025 Paper, electronic, audio... How do you read? Has it changed in recent years?
In recent years I have discovered audio, well 8 years and going. I found out that with a newborn then audio is awesome.
I still read print, but less, since so much audio.
I still kind of hate ebooks. I know I know, I just hate reading on a screen!
6/10/2025 New to me authors: who have you discovered in the past 12 months?
6/17/2025 How do you choose what to read next?
6/24/2025 Do you have any travel or staycation plans for the summer?
Tell Me Something Tuesday is a weekly discussion post where bloggers discuss a wide range of topics from books and blogging to life in general. Weigh in and join the conversation by adding your thoughts in the comments. If you want to do your own post, grab the question and answer it on your blog. Feel free to leave your links in the comments if you are participating.
If you are interested in participating in TMST or receiving periodic emails that list the upcoming TMST topics and questions, please fill out this GOOGLE FORM. Participation is optional and never required.
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Blodeuedd's pick: Cute! |
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