Books I Devoured in June and What's on My July Reading List

I had such a great month in June☀️☀️ for reading! So many great reads that I want to share with you.

Some books discussed are: 

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Folk of the Air series by Holly Black

ARC book The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon

Discussing some of my reads in July

Some books discussed:

Court by Tracy Wolff

Blood Mercy by Vela Roth

ARC I am currently reading, All That Glitters is Not Gold by Linda Ling

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Transcript

June Update 7.19.23

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 Hello readers. This is Charity, your host. Ferbert reader. I am going to come with something a little bit new that I'm trying out. It's kind of late anyways, but I'm going to give kind of my best reads. I've read in June and what I'm currently reading in July. Next month I'll probably just be a little more on top of it and just do the first week of July or of August kind of given my faves or in the star ratings and some things about that. So in the month of June, I did have kind of a good reading month. I kind of averaged about 4.29 average rating, had some pretty good reads. One in particular is of course, Fourth Wing. I gave that four stars. There is a episode on a book review on that does have a little bit of spoilers in it, so definitely be prepared for that. I definitely enjoyed a lot of aspects of Fourth Wing. If you don't know about it, it's about a main character named Violet who had a mother who is a general, kind of expecting her to go into what they call the dragons writer quadrant. So she goes in there and it's an enemies to lover story has writing dragons. And I find that a lot of people who don't normally read fantasy likes Fourth Wing. So I gave that one four stars only because I just didn't particularly at the time like the romance aspect of it, just because of the fact that it seems a little wishwashy to me a little bit. It wasn't like a very epic thing that happened. It was just kind of happened for me. So I've actually been entertaining the idea of rereading it now that I got into a better headspace because I got a little burned out on the romance aspect of it. So I've been kind of going back and forth on it. I did finish the Folk of the Air series by Holly Black. I read The Wicked King and The Queen of Nothing, both of those books, and I gave both books five stars because I just like the political intrigue. There is a lot of story development between Jude and Carden. If you read the books or have read the series before now, Jude has come into power as the central, the king's advisor, and there's just a lot going on in regards to her navigating those things and trying to hold on to that power that she accumulated and she did it for people that she cares about. And now it's like even that's being tested. So I really like those books, the development of the story, the Jude character, and I guess the romance between Carden and Jude. I do feel like there wasn't enough of it. But I think in a retrospect, I kind of liked how the romance was kind of a side character more than a forefront of the story. It was really about her trying to just protect people outwit people and people outwitting her, which I felt like was a really good combination between the two. So yeah. Oh, and just a side note, any books that I mention, I will put it in. In a link of my blog that discusses about it. And you can go and go to Amazon and look at those yourself and then if you want to get the books or anything like that. So I did read a new arc. It's called the Hurricane Wars by thea Gunnizon. I hope I said her name right. I'm telling you, I felt like that got me out of the book slump I was kind of falling into. That's why I didn't really give The Fourth Wing a good rating because I was kind of in that slump that I was just kind of fed up with some things. And when I read the Hurricane Wars, it just revitalized me. I could not put that book down. I'm very excited about it. It's an arc. It's not going to be published till October. And I would say it's the first time that I'm painfully aware that not only do I have to wait for that copy to become available to purchase in October, but I have to wait a longer period amount of time to wait for the second book. So I feel like I'm going to wait almost two years for the second book. And it was completely amazing. I would almost want to reread that book. It is a fantasy book. It is a very slow burn. Enemies to lovers. I love the magic system. The magic system is comprised of shadow magic and light magic. The Shadow Magic took out Light Magic a long time ago, and now they're at this constant war with each other, with the rebels and the Shadow Magic people. I guess within the midst of the rebels, there was a girl who could do Shadow Magic. It's been passed down to her and she's been keeping it a secret. And I guess they found each other out and started battling each other out and trying to take each other in that. There's a lot of twists and turns in this. I will say in the first 30% of the book is so heavy on the world building that I really almost quit. In that scenario, I was almost done. I was like, I can't do this. There's so many different names, so much things going on, and I have no idea what's going on. It was super fast paced and almost quit. But then once you get past that 30% mark, it just some reason the story just opened up for me and it was just fresh for me. It just turned into political intrigue. It turned into still the main characters fighting it out and all this stuff. And I think it's one of those best reads for me. I know a lot of people will argue with me, but I personally felt like I enjoyed Hurricane Wars more than The Fourth Wing. Personally, I really enjoyed it better. So that was my June reads. I read a lot more book that month, but obviously I read two different genres a lot of times I usually read fantasy and romance. Th this is a fantasy podcast, so I'm only talking about my favorite fantasy books. So I only. Had like really a few handful. So going into July, july reads I Finished Court by Tracy Wolf. I'm still kind of debating on whether I like that book or mean, I do like the book, it's just the only thing I kind of got really super annoyed about was the excessive word use of my mate. Oh my gosh, I wish I counted how many times that word was used, that sentence that sprayed whatever you want to call it, just because of the fact that it is just, oh my gosh. It felt like it was used once every page. It's like a 700 page book. And I know I'm exaggerating 2s and it was kind of a long, drawn out book, but the plot development really started happening and started developing throughout the story. And I honestly feel like if Tracy Wolf wanted to end the series at court, she could have and I would have been happy with it. It ended well. Now there's two more other books and I'm like, with everything that happened and wrapped up in court, the fourth book of the series, what else can you say about this? I mean, personally, I mean, I'm not a writer, but couldn't she have just started developing a whole new set of series? It seems like she couldn't end it and she kept going. And I'm taking a break from Tracy Wolf for a little bit because of the fact that I'm just like, okay, I was satisfied with this ending. I could have just been, okay, but now I'm going to have to read because there's other things are happening. I have no idea what else can happen because there's no like the story just ended just completely. Like the whole four books took to this one ending. Now we're going to move, keep going. So I'm going to see what happens, but I'm not going to be in a rush to do it. One book that I'm excited to do is, I would say, 20% in a book called Blood Mercy by Bella Roth. I'm doing this book like Budy read almost with Megan. So we have our main character, Cassia. She is basically the bastard's child. She's the daughter of the king, but she was birthed from a concubine. She's recognized as a lady in the court, but not royalty. So it's kind of like she's being taken care of respectively, but it's still seen as a lower standard of a person human being. And she's trying to escape from this because all it just seems like this king is trying to control her, manipulate her, get her to do whatever he wants her to do and marry her off, whatever the case may be. And she doesn't want that. So in comes what they call hesperdines. I don't even think I said that right. But Clay, they're the vampires of this culture. They come every once every 400 years. We have Leo, who is one of the representatives of this culture, and I find it very interesting that even though if you're familiar with vampires, they drink blood and they. They terrorize humans and blah, blah, blah. But in their culture they don't believe in suffering, human suffering, animal suffering or anything like that. They drink blood to obviously provide nourishment from animals, but they don't actually kill them neither. They actually respectfully keep their distance from humans as well, but they do the same. They don't kill them when they drink their blood and things like that. And I thought that was pretty interesting. And I'm at this point where Cassia and Leo is starting to get to know one each other. And Leo is very drawn to Cassia and she's weary of him because obviously she lived her life in distrust. So I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops. I will say that this is a lot. I mean, the first 30 pages was hard to get through. World building, names thrown out left and right. I always find it very hard to follow these random words that you have no idea what in the world they're talking about. It's just like if they're saying Romania, Spain, blah, you know, these countries, maybe I'll follow a little easier. But of course this is a fantasy world, not an urban fantasy. I'm just like 2s having a hard time following. But it's like once you get past that certain mark, that first initiation of trying to understand the world, it gets better. So I'm really looking forward to another book that I picked up called All That Glitters is Not Gold by Linda Ling. I just started this one. I've been fortunate enough to be given an arc by the author to review. It's kind of giving me the cruel Prince vibes, except the main character is a princess who's being crowned the queen. When I say the cruel Prince vibes, it's more of like how the Fay kind of terrorizes the humans. Kind of in a sense they're cruel and they're kind of like I get a lot of joy from terrorizing people. I just started this so I can't give my full opinion about it. Maybe I'll do that with my next update episode just to see how it goes. I'm really looking forward to it. Another one. I'm halfway through is just one drop by. Quinn loftis. It is a series that's really based off of werewolves. It's a paranormal romance fantasy. This is the fourth book in the series. It's way that she has developed these series was the first three books is about one friend and now we kind of transition to the next book. Right now. She found out that she is a dormant werewolf and now they're going to this thing where they're going to try to see about faded males or faded mates. There's Decibel who is strongly attracted to her, but there's no faded mate signs or mating signs. And so they're kind of like clashing with each other quite a bit and they're not resisting. I'm liking it quite a bit. I love the tension that's happening at this point, though. I'm just like, just freaking get together just in your misery right now, for crying out loud. But I like the dynamic of Jen's and Decibel's relationship. It's a nice take because normally you read 1s know, normally you read Faye Fairies. Reading something about werewolves is so nice, so refreshing, and I'm enjoying it. I can't wait to continue the series. All right, well, that's basically a little bit of recap what I read in June and kind of what I'm currently reading in July. I will definitely give my updates on what I'm reading and what I'm enjoying so far. Well, thank you for joining me, and catch you later, readers. Bye.