What We’re Reading Wednesday- Last Week of Classes

Hey everyone! We want to welcome you back to another WWW where we talk about the three Ws: What we’re read recently, what we’re currently reading, and what we’re planning on reading next. It is currently hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

I cannot believe that this is the last full wee of classes for my Masters Degree. I am so ready to be done with school. I cannot remember a time in my life when I wasn’t in school and it feels so strange to realize that this time next wee my classes will be done and I’ll just have final projects to do. Its definitely bittersweet.

What We’ve Finished Recently

A Heart So Fierce and Broken (Cursebreakers, #2) by Brigid Kemmerer
Published by Bloomsbury YA on January 7, 2020
Pages: 450
Goodreads

Find the heir, win the crown.

The curse is finally broken, but Prince Rhen of Emberfall faces darker troubles still. Rumors circulate that he is not the true heir and that forbidden magic has been unleashed in Emberfall. Although Rhen has Harper by his side, his guardsman Grey is missing, leaving more questions than answers.

Win the crown, save the kingdom.

Rumored to be the heir, Grey has been on the run since he destroyed Lilith. He has no desire to challenge Rhen--until Karis Luran once again threatens to take Emberfall by force. Her own daughter Lia Mara sees the flaws in her mother’s violent plan, but can she convince Grey to stand against Rhen, even for the good of Emberfall?
The heart-pounding, compulsively readable saga continues as loyalties are tested and new love blooms in a kingdom on the brink of war.
In the sequel to New York Times bestselling A Curse So Dark and Lonely, Brigid Kemmerer returns to the world of Emberfall in a lush fantasy where friends become foes and love blooms in the darkest of places.

I finally read the sequel to A Curse So Dark and Lonely and I really enjoyed it. Plus the ending had me floored and needing book three in the trilogy like yesterday. It was so fun reading Grey’s story and the book actually made me dislike Rhen for a lot of reasons that I can’t go too much into because spoilers. I was pleasantly surprised because sequels are hit and miss for me but

Elysium Girls by Kate Pentecost
on April 14, 2020
Goodreads

Pitched as Mad Max: Fury Road meets Caraval in an alternate history American Dust Bowl, the book features a girl gang of witches and a wildcard demon who are the most valuable players in a deadly game between the Goddesses of Life and Death, one with possibly apocalyptic consequences. Publication is slated for winter 2020.

If you are looking for a unique standalone fantasy, look no further. Elysium Girls follows a cast of strong female characters set during the Dust Bowl where the town of Elysium is a pawn in a game between the godesses Life and Death. While this Pentecost’s debut the book was immersive from start to finish and I was so intrigued by the magic system and the complex, dynamic characters. This one came out this past wee and you do not want to miss it.

What We’re Currently Reading

Last Girls by Demetra Brodsky
on May 5, 2020
Goodreads

Three sisters raised as doomsday preppers face a different kind of threat when one sister's actions draw unwanted attention to the secret compound where they live. As the group's leader's erratic actions increase, they will have to decide if it's better to run or take their chances against the people sworn to protect them. Publication is set for May 2020.

We have invited Demetra Brodsky to Stuck in the Stacks for a Q&A next month and I am about halfway through this book which follows three sisters who live in an end of the world prepper community. It is so fascinating to see the social dynamics both within and outside the community and there is also a bit of mystery running through the story and while I think I’ve unraveled it I am still intrigued.

Deathless Divide (Dread Nation, #2) by Justina Ireland
Published by Balzer + Bray on February 4, 2020
Pages: 560
Goodreads

The sequel to Dread Nation is a journey of revenge and salvation across a divided America.
After the fall of Summerland, Jane McKeene hoped her life would get simpler: Get out of town, stay alive, and head west to California to find her mother.
But nothing is easy when you're a girl trained in putting down the restless dead, and a devastating loss on the road to a protected village called Nicodermus has Jane questioning everything she thought she knew about surviving in 1880's America.
What's more, this safe haven is not what it appears - as Jane discovers when she sees familiar faces from Summerland amid this new society. Caught between mysteries and lies, the undead, and her own inner demons, Jane soon finds herself on a dark path of blood and violence that threatens to consume her.
But she won't be in it alone.
Katherine Deveraux never expected to be allied with Jane McKeene. But after the hell she has endured, she knows friends are hard to come by - and that Jane needs her, too, whether Jane wants to admit it or not.
Watching Jane's back, however, is more than she bargained for, and when they both reach a breaking point, it's up to Katherine to keep hope alive - even as she begins to fear that there is no happily-ever-after for girls like her.

The sequel to Dread Nation has been an interesting one. I only have about 40% left in the audiobook and it definitely went a direction I was not expecting at all. The jury is still out but so far I am not liking the second half of the book as much as the first. I came to this duology wanting zombies and the second half does not have nearly enough of them. We shall see how it all turns out though.

What We’re Reading Next

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix
on April 7, 2020
Pages: 404
Goodreads

Fried Green Tomatoes and "Steel Magnolias" meet Dracula in this Southern-flavored supernatural thriller set in the '90s about a women's book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious and handsome stranger who turns out to be a blood-sucking fiend.
Patricia Campbell had always planned for a big life, but after giving up her career as a nurse to marry an ambitious doctor and become a mother, Patricia's life has never felt smaller. The days are long, her kids are ungrateful, her husband is distant, and her to-do list is never really done. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a group of Charleston mothers united only by their love for true-crime and suspenseful fiction. In these meetings, they're more likely to discuss the FBI's recent siege of Waco as much as the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood.
But when an artistic and sensitive stranger moves into the neighborhood, the book club's meetings turn into speculation about the newcomer. Patricia is initially attracted to him, but when some local children go missing, she starts to suspect the newcomer is involved. She begins her own investigation, assuming that he's a Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. What she uncovers is far more terrifying, and soon she--and her book club--are the only people standing between the monster they've invited into their homes and their unsuspecting community.

I had seen somewhere that this audioboo was only available through audio so imagine my surprise when it came through my holds from my library. I squeled with delight and plan on making this one my next audiobook after Deathless Divide. I actually don’t know too much regarding what it’s about and I think it will be fun to go in blind. I loved We Sold Our Souls so I imagine this one will be just as fun and quirky and Hendrix’s previous horror novels.

Home Before Dark by Riley Sager
on June 30, 2020
Goodreads

In the latest thriller from New York Times bestseller Riley Sager, a woman returns to the house made famous by her father’s bestselling horror memoir. Is the place really haunted by evil forces, as her father claimed? Or are there more earthbound—and dangerous—secrets hidden within its walls?
What was it like? Living in that house.
Maggie Holt is used to such questions. Twenty-five years ago, she and her parents, Ewan and Jess, moved into Baneberry Hall, a rambling Victorian estate in the Vermont woods. They spent three weeks there before fleeing in the dead of night, an ordeal Ewan later recounted in a nonfiction book called House of Horrors. His tale of ghostly happenings and encounters with malevolent spirits became a worldwide phenomenon, rivaling The Amityville Horror in popularity—and skepticism.
Today, Maggie is a restorer of old homes and too young to remember any of the events mentioned in her father’s book. But she also doesn’t believe a word of it. Ghosts, after all, don’t exist. When Maggie inherits Baneberry Hall after her father’s death, she returns to renovate the place to prepare it for sale. But her homecoming is anything but warm. People from the past, chronicled in House of Horrors, lurk in the shadows. And locals aren’t thrilled that their small town has been made infamous thanks to Maggie’s father. Even more unnerving is Baneberry Hall itself—a place filled with relics from another era that hint at a history of dark deeds. As Maggie experiences strange occurrences straight out of her father’s book, she starts to believe that what he wrote was more fact than fiction.

Its the end of the semester, which means I’m hitting a bit of a slump with my reading so I think its time to pull out a book that I have wanted to read since we got approved for it over on Netgalley a month ago. I have read all of Sager’s previous books and all the early reviews are saying this book includes a haunted house element and I am here for it. So yeah, this will definitely be my next read after Last Girls, which I hope to finish today or tomorrow at the latest.

What About You?

What have you read recently? Which books are sitting at the top of your TBR pile! Let us know in the comments!