Thank you to NetGalley and Tordotcom for letting me read an e-ARC of The Brides of High Hill by Nghi Vo! This book releases on May 7, 2024 and for fans of the Singing Hills Cycle - you won’t want to miss this installment! Preorder it now from your favorite bookstore or request a hold from your local library in advance.

This is the fifth novella in Vo’s Singing Hills Cycle and it is her darkest yet. Readers dive back into the world with our beloved Cleric Chih as they accompany Pham Nhung and her parents to Lord Guo’s castle where she is to be married. Nhung is a curious person, though, and Lord Guo’s son is said to be completely mad. Chih and Nhung quickly confide in and trust each other, so Nhung ropes them in on a mission to find out what awaits her as Lord Guo’s future wife (she isn’t his first wife, but how many wives has he had before?). It isn’t long before Chih begins to notice missing memories and they start to uncover secrets about Lord Guo’s castle, his son, and even the lovely Nhung. Will they figure out what plots lie underneath the surface before too much is lost?

The Brides of High Hill is grisly and horrifying in some of the best ways possible. Touted as a gothic mystery, it lives up to the hype and is, perhaps, my favorite installment in the series so far! While I thoroughly enjoy anything Vo writes (especially this series of novellas), the tone of this book stands out in stark contrast to the previous books in this series. There is less contemplating of deeper theories and concepts, though that is certainly not fully absent. Fans of gothic horror and mystery: now’s your chance to get in on this series!

Just the palate cleanser I needed at the end of the month. This book was wonderful! Middle school drama, struggling to fit in, friendship, D&D - I couldn’t ask for more. if you want a quick, wholesome, nerdy graphic novel look no further!

Thank you to NetGalley and Roaring Brook Press for letting me read an e-ARC of Sound the Gong by Joan He! This book releases today, April 30th, 2024, so head to your local bookstore or library to get a copy now.

This book hits the ground running right where we left off in Strike the Zither. Zephyr’s godly powers have gotten her this far, but will they be able to take her all the way to the end and see Xin Ren seated at the throne of the three kingdoms? With her guts, daring, and tenacity - she just might succeed. Readers will be delighted to get more one-on-one time with our favorite swornsisters (Cloud, Tourmaline, Ren), more face time with enemies Miasma and Cicada, as well as some very personal time with the competitive strategist, Crow. Zephyr faces complete destruction of the realm, her leader, and her own immortality.

He does an excellent job at packing a punch in the span of two books, and this installment is particularly brutal. While readers can imagine there is not a perfectly happy ending where everyone rides off into the sunset, the conclusion is open-ended and extremely satisfying. I love these morally grey characters with all their quirks and flaws, and I’m sad to part from them. Once again, this book travels at a breakneck pace with plenty of twists and turns for the readers who love to try and predict where the plot is going. I recommend that new readers pick up both Strike the Zither and Sound the Gong at the same time, if at all possible. You certainly won’t want a lot of downtime between them! Happy reading!!

Going into this I knew two things: 1) Netflix was releasing an adaptation, and 2) the general premise was aliens invading Earth. I was in it for the aliens and I enjoy comparing screen adaptations with their original text (something I’m only just now realizing about myself). I started listening to the audiobook and quickly realized I would need to read a physical copy to fully take in the technical jargon and character names, so I ended up watching the Netflix series first. I found the screen adaptation to be very thorough and loyal to its text counterpart. Are there changes made? Absolutely. Some characters are shifted around (as well as some events that don’t happen until books 2 or 3 in the trilogy), but the changes were not completely unreasonable and I still enjoyed my viewer experience. In fact, I’d say it enhanced my reading experience once I was able to get my hands on the physical book!

Readers are thrown back into the past and right into the Chinese Cultural Revolution where we follow Ye Wenjie through the death of her father, her time in labor camps, and her eventual work with the Red Coast Base for several years. During this time, she makes a shocking discovery that will impact the future generations of Earth and all of humanity. Jumping forward in time, we encounter a string of inexplicable suicides (including Ye Wenjie’s daughter, another talented scientist). Wang Miao (working with advanced nanotechnology) and Shi Qiang (a detective) must work together to figure out why these suicides are happening. In the process, Wang discovers a perplexing online game that features a universe where three, unpredictable suns orbit the game’s planet.

Together, Wang and Shi uncover a secret society of scientists who display religious zealotry for an alien race known as the Trisolarans who have decided to make Earth their end destination for colonization to save their own world.

So freaking spooky! It’s amazing what can be done in 70 pages of a graphic novel and how mere images can evoke frightening thoughts and concepts. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed a handful of Carroll’s other works, so I wanted to try this one while browsing the stacks one day! (Realistically, I can’t even give a brief summary without giving away most of the brief plot, so sorry about that.)

I don’t have much to say about this one, y’all. We read it for our book club this month and even though it’s been sitting on my shelf for literal YEARS, I was extremely underwhelmed. I know that this book was published in the late 70s, so there were bound to be some aspects of the novel that just didn’t age well, but I found King’s writing cringey, uncomfortable, and parts of the dialogue unnecessary. Also, maybe I’m just out of touch because I’m not generally into horror, but the entire point and large portions of the plot just simply didn’t land or connect with me.

I also knew going into reading it that the book differed greatly from the movie (which I’ve seen a few times), but I guess I didn’t realize how MUCH different it would be. I honestly had to refer to some internet articles that explicitly spelled out all the differences between the two so that I had them all straight and understood the premises a little more clearly. Perhaps it’s a hot take, but I definitely prefer the more horror-drenched angle that the film takes over the book that feels like it ultimately romanticizes the details of these abusive relationships.

As of writing this post, my book club hasn’t met, but I thoroughly look forward to our discussion where someone more invested in the novel can explain to me what I SHOULD’VE gotten from reading it (lol). As for me and reading more Stephen King novels, I think I’ll check out Doctor Sleep (since it’s been sitting on my shelf just as long as this one), and then I’ll have had my fill of King’s writing.