Tag: The Witch of Willow Hall

Top Fifteen: Rainy-Day Reads

On By Rachel @ thewasofshallIn top ten tuesday2 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted at That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s theme was rainy-day reads.

The term “rainy-day read” always makes me think of a gloomy, dull Sunday where I don’t have any plans and can spend all day on the couch engrossed in a good book. Whatever the genre, a good rainy-day read sucks me into the plot and makes me loathe to leave its world—sometimes not even for food or bathroom breaks.

What makes a good rainy-day read for you? Did any of these make your list?

♥ Angels & Demons by Dan Brown
♥ Blackout by Connie Willis
♥ A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
♥ A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
♥ A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

♥ A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
♥ Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
♥ The Luxe by Anna Godbersen
♥ Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl
♥ The Passage by Justin Cronin

♥ Renegades by Marissa Meyer
♥ Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
♥ The Thousandth Floor by Katharine McGee
♥ What Should Be Wild by Julia Fine
♥ The Witch of Willow Hall by Hester Fox

Top Ten: Books That Need a Sequel

On By Rachel @ thewasofshallIn top ten tuesday5 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted at That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s theme was standalone books that need a sequel.

I had a really hard time with this week’s topic, y’all. The books I thought of first were either already part of a series or were so terrible that, even if I didn’t like the ending, I didn’t particularly care to read more. 😂 So, do the following books need a sequel? No, not really—but I also wouldn’t complain if they got one!

♥ I Went to Vassar for This? by Naomi Neale
♥ If I’m Being Honest by Emily Wibberley & Austin Siegemund-Broka
♥ Miss You by Kate Eberlen
♥ My Favorite Half-Night Stand by Christina Lauren
♥ Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl

♥ On the Come Up by Angie Thomas
♥ The Regional Office is Under Attack! by Manuel Gonzales
♥ Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
♥ What Should Be Wild by Julia Fine
♥ The Witch of Willow Hall by Hester Fox

BONUS! The following books were standalone, but now they all have sequels!!

♥ Geekerella by Ashley Poston
♥ The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
♥ The Royal We by Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan

Top Ten: Romantic Couples

On By Rachel @ thewasofshallIn top ten tuesday4 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted at That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s theme was my favorite (romantic) couples in books.😍

Diana & Matthew from A Discovery of Witches // Elle & Darien from Geekerella // Emerson & Michael from Hourglass // Cathy & Hank from I Went to Vassar for This? // Rey & Ben from The Last Jedi

Molly & Kyle from Lip Lock // Tess & Gus from Miss You // Nik & Carlos from The Proposal // Bex & Nick from The Royal We // Lydia & John from The Witch of Willow Hall

Five Favorite: Books I Read in 2018

On By Rachel @ thewasofshallIn five favoriteLeave a comment

Instead of focusing on the less-than-stellar reads that made up my 2018, I wanted to highlight the five that made it great––which just so happen to all be written by women. (So freaking dope!!) I also thought that I wouldn’t have ten books to fill out a Top Ten Tuesday post but that was a huge miscalculation. Lol. Winnowing down this list was so hard.

Are any of my favorite 2018 reads your favorite, too? Let me know! To see previous topics, click here.

Five Favorite: Atmospheric Thrillers

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It’s taken me a full month to digest the seemingly innocuous Top Ten Tuesday prompt villains. (Please don’t ask why because I just don’t know.) Very few books I read have capital-V Villains, and I became bored scrolling through Goodreads trying to think of more than a handful or any one type. Since it’s so chilly/borderline cold in New England now AND it gets pitch black by four-thirty, I thought I’d explore creepy, chills-down-your-spine atmospheric thrillers instead — because sometimes a place itself can be the scariest thing.

Do you have your own favorite atmospheric thrillers? Let me know! To see previous topics, click here.

Monthly Wrap-Up: September/October 2018

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Did’ya know that I post videos on YouTube?? If not, check out my latest video below! The books discussed are:

What did you read??

Month in Review: September 2018

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month in review - sept

Favorite Media

To say that The Witch of Willow Hall by Hester Fox surprised me would be an understatement. This book swaddled me in a hand-knitted quilt, plopped me in front of a cozy fire, and then lulled me to sleep. UGH. So beautiful. Much spooky. Such romance. (Read my review here.)

Even though September introduced me to a tasty snack named Noah Centineo, Love, Simon gave me a good punch to the stomach. Although it wasn’t perfect (Simon has kind of shitty, friends, y’all), Nick Robinson is just so damn quiet and perfect and longing as Simon, and I literally screamed when Blue and Simon got their Ferris wheel ride at the end of the film. Then I tweeted about it. Then I watched it again.

I’ve been on a huge Panic! at the Disco binge right now, but especially their most recent album, Pray for the Wicked, and most especially “(Fuck a) Silver Lining.” It’s just so damn catchy.

Stuff I Added to My Queue

The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton is giving me a lot of the same vibes I felt after reading A Discovery of Witches, but it’s not really hard to pique my curiosity with a found-item mystery spanning centuries set in England, so…

Then there’s Michiko Kakutani’s The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump which has kind of flown under the radar since it was published in July, but from the introduction, it reads like a smart apolitical look at truth and democracy as it stands today. (Aka sign me tf up.)

Sometimes you just need a funny, well-written friends-to-lovers romance in your life, and I’ve heard no bad reviews about Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating by Christina Lauren. (Or, really, anything by Christina Lauren.)

I’m pretty sure I’m going to be that ~cool auntie who lives alone with her non-human companions, though, so No One Tells You This by Glynnis MacNicol speaks to me on a spiritual level.

But then there’s Ibi Zoboi’s newest, Pride, to remind me to believe in love again. (AND OH YEAH IT’S A PRIDE AND PREJUDICE REBOOT.)

On My Radar

  • I’m volunteering at the Boston Book Festival next weekend! I’ll be listening to short fiction all day, and I’m hoping for lots of books and/or book-adjacent swag.
  • Then, I’ll be attending a librarian conference the weekend after. Perhaps more books and/or book-adjacent swag?
  • Archenemies drops on November 6th, but I’m crossing my fingers that my library will not only purchase a copy but that we’ll also get our copy early so I can read it asap. 🤞

What were YOU up to in September? Let me know!