"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week I'm waiting for...

Even the Darkest Stars by Heather Fawcett

Publisher: Balzer + Bray

Publication Date: September 5th, 2017

Pages: 304

Add it on Goodreads!

Summary (from Goodreads):

Set in a fictional Himalayan kingdom, this is the story of a girl enlisted by a legendary explorer to help him climb the kingdom’s deadliest mountain – only to discover that his true mission may threaten her whole world.

Kamzin has always dreamed of becoming one of the emperor’s royal explorers, the elite climbers tasked with mapping the wintry, mountainous Empire and spying on its enemies. She knows she could be the best in the world, if only someone would give her a chance.

But everything changes when the mysterious and eccentric River Shara, the greatest explorer every known, arrives in her village and demands to hire Kamzin—not her older sister, Lusha, as everyone had expected—for his next expedition. This is Kamzin’s chance to prove herself—even though River’s mission to retrieve a rare talisman for the emperor means climbing Raksha, the tallest and deadliest mountain in the Aryas. Then, Lusha sets off on her own mission to Raksha with a rival explorer, and Kamzin must decide what’s most important to her: protecting her sister from the countless perils of the climb or beating her to the summit.

The challenges of climbing Raksha are unlike anything Kamzin expected—or prepared for—with avalanches, ice chasms, ghosts, and other dangers at every turn. And as dark secrets are revealed, Kamzin must unravel the truth about their mission and her companions—while surviving the deadliest climb she has ever faced.

This book sounds like an epic adventure! Exploration and mountain climbing? I'm glad I can live vicariously through this book from the comfort of my couch.

What book are you waiting for this week? Are you looking forward to Even the Darkest Stars?

Staying In Tips & Essentials

Today, I have am coming to you with a post on my personal staying in tips and essentials. I was contacted by someone from Leesa, a mattress company with a program that donates one mattress for every ten they sell, and asked to share how I spend the perfect night (or day) in!

I may have mentioned this before, but once I read something on Facebook that said there is only one place in the entire 48 continental United States that is over 100 miles from a McDonald's. That place is a flat plain in the middle of South Dakota.

That place is also where I live.

I'm not sad about being so far from a McDonald's. I'm mostly sad about being that far from the nearest Starbucks, Target, or non-questionable Chinese restaurant. Or bookstore, let's be real.

This coupled with the fact that I live 17 miles out of town can definitely lead to a lot of days and nights spent in. Especially during months like this past January when we got so much snow. I spent at least half of the month snowed in or being dug out of snowbanks because I was suffering from cabin fever and tried a little too hard to get to work some days.

Basically, I'm kind of an expert on this.

My days in are usually spent on the couch, rather than in bed. This is simply because of how near it is to a TV. Our antennae picks up ELEVEN channels now! If I can scrounge up the money for an additional TV, I would totally move this party to my bed because it is considerably warmer in there than it is in the living room.

Here are my ESSENTIALS for staying in:

1. First, obviously you will need the ideal comfortable place to laze about. Perhaps your bed? Or other place you can comfortably spend a long period of time. Preferably with lots of space around it to hold everything you could possibly need within your reach.

Like I said, I spend my days in on the couch. It's near the TV (and all the video game systems <3). It's near the fireplace when it's too cold out, which it seems to always be too cold in South Dakota. I've got a side table and the wall by the couch has a deep ledge on it, perfect for holding my books, remotes, mugs, and whatever else I could possibly want.

2. Next, you definitely need fluffy pillows and blankets. I usually have my Yoshi Pillow Pet and a fleece Legend of Zelda throw blanket to snuggle with. If that's not enough, I have an additional big fluffy blanket and a Snuggie within arm's reach as well!

3. A warm cup of coffee is definitely a necessity as well. Or tea, if that's how you roll. Or something else if you're into cold beverages.

Usually I have a water bottle. Sometimes a cup of coffee, but usually I make one and forget about it while I'm waiting for it to cool off. Or sometimes my cat comes along and ruins it like the jerk he is. I like things that are spill proof. Especially in the vicinity of my precious books.

4. SNACKS! I love snacks. I should avoid having them near to the couch though because I am such a mindless eater, which is something that I wish to stop doing so much.

That being said, I usually seem to have some kind of potato chips or something similar nearby when I'm lounging about for the day. :)

5. A book, OBVIOUSLY!! Gotta bring in the bookish aspect to this post!

Within arm's reach right now, I have:

A stack of magazines, which is not technically a book, but still reading material.

Now I Rise by Kiersten White

The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis

A Madness So Discreet by Mindy McGinnis

Ever the Hunted by Erin Summerill

How to Hang a Witch by Adriana Mather

Then you should also have a laptop/writing material because if you finish a book, you gotta get your review written or started or at least write down some notes!

And now, here are my TIPS for staying in:

My biggest piece of advice is that you should definitely get everything done that you need to get done before you sit down. Nothing ruins a good time like knowing that you have to get up and do something.

For example, right now I know that I need to get up and finish cleaning my laundry room, but I made the huge mistake of sitting down and getting comfy and now I don't want to get up.

The only other real piece of advice I can offer is to bring everything you might want with you when you sit down so you don't have to keep getting up and going to fetch things. That is a huge drag.

When I sit down, I like to not have to get up, like, ever. 

So yeah, basically that is how I spend my days/nights in! How do you spend yours? What are some of your essentials for spending a day in?

Waiting on Wednesday: The Hundredth Queen by Emily R. King

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week I'm waiting for...

The Hundredth Queen by Emily R. King

Publisher: Skyscape

Publication Date: June 1st, 2017

Add it on Goodreads!

Summary (from Goodreads):

As an orphan ward of the Sisterhood, eighteen-year-old Kalinda is destined for nothing more than a life of seclusion and prayer. Plagued by fevers, she’s an unlikely candidate for even a servant’s position, let alone a courtesan or wife. Her sole dream is to continue living in peace in the Sisterhood’s mountain temple.

But a visit from the tyrant Rajah Tarek disrupts Kalinda’s life. Within hours, she is ripped from the comfort of her home, set on a desert trek, and ordered to fight for her place among the rajah’s ninety-nine wives and numerous courtesans. Her only solace comes in the company of her guard, the stoic but kind Captain Deven Naik.

Faced with the danger of a tournament to the death—and her growing affection for Deven—Kalinda’s only hope for escape lies in an arcane, forbidden power that’s buried within her.

In Emily R. King’s thrilling fantasy debut, an orphan girl blossoms into a warrior, summoning courage and confidence in her fearless quest to upend tradition, overthrow an empire, and reclaim her life as her own.

Basically, if a book has the word 'queen' in the title and has a cover like this beauty, you can guarantee I'm gonna want to read it.

What book are you looking forward to this week? Is The Hundredth Queen on your TBR?

Review: Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones

Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones

Publisher: Thomas Dunne

Publication Date: February 7th, 2017

Rating: 2 Stars

Source: Giveaway

Format: Physical ARC

Pages: 436

Add it on Goodreads!

Summary (from Goodreads):

Beware the goblin men and the wares they sell.

All her life, nineteen-year-old Liesl has heard tales of the beautiful, mysterious Goblin King. He is the Lord of Mischief, the Ruler Underground, and the muse around which her music is composed. Yet, as Liesl helps shoulder the burden of running her family’s inn, her dreams of composition and childish fancies about the Goblin King must be set aside in favor of more practical concerns.

But when her sister Käthe is taken by the goblins, Liesl journeys to their realm to rescue her sister and return her to the world above. The Goblin King agrees to let Käthe go—for a price. The life of a maiden must be given to the land, in accordance with the old laws. A life for a life, he says. Without sacrifice, nothing good can grow. Without death, there can be no rebirth. In exchange for her sister’s freedom, Liesl offers her hand in marriage to the Goblin King. He accepts.

Down in the Underground, Liesl discovers that the Goblin King still inspires her—musically, physically, emotionally. Yet even as her talent blossoms, Liesl’s life is slowly fading away, the price she paid for becoming the Goblin King’s bride. As the two of them grow closer, they must learn just what it is they are each willing to sacrifice: her life, her music, or the end of the world.

**I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.**

Wintersong was definitely one of my most anticipated books of 2017. A retelling of the movie Labyrinth with a romance between the girl and the Goblin King? Sign me right up!

Unfortunately, this book was a raging disappointment for me. I nearly DNFed this book like 3/4 of the way through, but I just wanted to see if it got any better. Originally, I thought I felt the same way about this book as I did about Truthwitch, let down by the hype. But that's not it because in the end, I did like Truthwitch, but I can't even say that I like this book.

I've been thinking about what to write about this book. What did I like? I literally can't think of anything that I actually really liked about this book. I didn't like the characters. I didn't like the romance. I didn't like the goblins. I didn't like the story.

Be aware, that there will be spoilers in this review.

So, the first thing I want to say about this book is that it did not resemble Labyrinth to me at all. Like, there's goblins and the Goblin King and a kidnapped sibling that needs rescuing, but to be honest, that's about where the resemblances ended for me.

Liesel is the dutiful, plain, boring daughter of innkeepers. Her sister is beautiful, vain, spoiled, etc. Her brother is a very talented violinist. Liesel apparently loves both of them, but at the same time spends the entire novel being whiny, pathetic, and jealous. She wants to be beautiful and talented like them, but woe is her, she's just a 'queer and unlovely little girl.'

When her sister Kathe is taken by the Goblin King, Liesel must find her way to the underground to save her. But the world above doesn't seem to remember that Kathe ever existed and Liesel spends entirely too much time enjoying her life without Kathe in it, composing her music, being doted on by her loved ones, basically living the way that she has always wanted to live. 

Finally she decides that she shouldn't let Kathe be stuck down there with the Goblin King forever. She makes her way down there, bests the Goblin King and saves her sister. Which all seemed to happen so much faster than anything else in the first half of the book and it was probably the most interesting part. Instead of grabbing her sister and making like a hockey player and getting the puck out of there, she decides to give herself to the Goblin King to save the world above from eternal winter.

That is really about where the plot ended, but there is a whole lot of book left. Which is basically 90% music/sex and 10% actual stuff.

So this is the part where the romance really comes into play. I am someone who basically lives for the romance in books. I can find myself shipping even those characters that I don't actually think belong together. But I could not find it in me to ship Liesel and the Goblin King.

Their relationship is so hot/cold. And almost creepy. I feel like the Goblin King has been grooming Liesel to be his bride since she was a child and he's like centuries old. Then he snatches her sister and makes her play a game to get her back. Then she succeeds and should be on her merry way with her sister NEVER looking back, but she's like, "You know what? I will never find the kind of love and affection and attention I want with my family who loves me and that is not a life I want to live. I will give up my life above and go underground where I can be the bride of the Goblin King and he can touch me the way I want to be touched."

So she goes underground, marries the Goblin King, gets drunk and throws herself at him in a 'sexy' scene that was hideously awkward and that I think would make this book NA, rather than YA. And when the Goblin King denies her because he wants "her, entire" before he ravages her, she throws the mother of all temper tantrums and destroys everything in her room in a fit of over-the-top rage. Just because she wasn't getting any???

Then they seem to be not on speaking terms for awhile before she tries to play music for him so that she can get a piece of that Goblin King, but she just can't do it. She's spent a lifetime not being good enough, being talked down to, being made to feel worthless and untalented. But guess what is gonna fix that right up for her?! A PENIS. All she needed all along was a penis to make her feel anything positive about herself at all basically. And then of course the music comes flowing the f*** out of her like a stream.

There are so many things that I have questions about too. The magic. Josef. The changelings. What the h-e-double hockey sticks is the big deal about Liesel knowing the Goblin King's real name? Is he Rumplestiltskin? Doesn't he mouth it to her at the end? What are the old laws? Who was the first bride of the Goblin King that didn't end up dead? How do people become the new Goblin King? What's going to happen now that Liesel is free again? What about that eternal winter? What are the consequences? What is even going on?

I don't even know what to say about that ending except that I'm glad there's gonna be a sequel because it almost seemed like that was just the end. I don't know that I want to read it, but still.

Things in particular that I just did not like about this book:

How sex was used. That's not a healthy way to portray sex to young readers. Sex isn't gonna fix your problems. Losing your virginity isn't gonna make you bleed like a stuck pig. You don't need a man to make you have worth.

THE REPETITIVENESS!!! If I EVER in my life read the phrase "austere young man" again, I will immediately DNF whatever it is I'm reading. I think that phrase was on one page alone like THREE TIMES!! The phrases Goblin King, Der Erlkonig, mien Herr, Lord of Mischief, Ruler Underground, etc. They just needed to stop.

And I mean, I appreciate that Liesel was a talented composer and that music was a big part of her life and of her story. But I don't think that it should have been like the entire plot of the second half of the book. It wasn't interesting. It got really old, really fast. I didn't understand anything she was saying when she was talking about music. Liesel sitting at her klavier, obsessively making music wasn't fun to read about. It was boring.

Overall, this book was not for me. At all. I probably wouldn't personally recommend it, but it seems that like 90% of people who have read this book have liked it. I just hope that you like it more than I did if you read it.

Have you read Wintersong? What did you think about it?

February 2017 Wrap Up

Read:

          

1. Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham

2. Letters to the Lost by Brigid Kemmerer

3. The Valiant by Lesley Livingston

Favorite of the Month:

I really liked all of them, but if I had to choose, I would say Dreamland Burning.

Least Favorite of the Month:

Again, if I HAD to choose, I would say The Valiant probably.

7/75

---

Book Haul:

Ever the Hunted by Erin Summerill

ARC

Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham

Hardcover

Now I Rise by Kiersten White

ARC

Geekerella by Ashley Poston

Hardcover

The White Russian by Vanora Bennett

Hardcover

Total: 5???

I did not spend February keeping good track of anything so I don't even know if this is everything??

---

Reviewed:

Empress of a Thousand Skies by Rhoda Belleza

The Valiant by Lesley Livingston

Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham

Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller

---

In My Corner of the Blogosphere:

Ha. I didn't do anything real exciting on the blog this month. The lack of motivation was REAL. I participated in a blog tour, which you can see if you click on the link to my Dreamland Burning review above. Here's to hoping March is better! :)

---

What's New With Me?

Absolutely nothing. My life was fairly dull in February.

At the beginning of February, the BF and I took a little vacation to the Black Hills to go to a stockshow. How the BF describes it is basically as Comic Con for people with cows. We hit up a rodeo. We went to the bookstore so I could be hideously disappointed by the lack of any new books I wanted.

We stayed at his aunt's house so we didn't have to try to find a hotel room/pay an arm and a leg for a hotel room. I have a love/hate relationship with this set up. I love not having to pay for someplace to stay. I really like his aunt, she's HILARIOUS. But she makes us sleep in separate rooms, basically all of his relatives that we could have stayed with do.

Like, we live together? We sleep in the same bed every night? They're worried about it because we're not married??? Like, I guess your house, your rules, but it's dumb. Definitely not gonna do the deed in one of your children's beds because ew.

Anyway, yeah. Besides that the BF and I went to visit my dad and my sister one weekend as well. He almost couldn't come with me because... ugh. I just wanna slap someone when I think about it. The day before we were set to leave, apparently his mom was kicking at a pile of snow and ended up kicking a panel and the next day she made him take her to the hospital because she swore she broke her foot.

I mean, I've never broken my foot before, but I did break both of my arms so I think I have a little bit of authority to say that you would KNOW that you did something that serious to your body????? Like she was walking around after that. No problem. But woke up in the middle of the night and it hurt. And she walked to the vehicle and then into the hospital???????? BUT SHE THOUGHT SHE BROKE IT????? I couldn't even move my fingers when I broke my arms!

So basically I was able to leave work at noon to avoid having to drive 4 hours in the dark. The BF was still able to come with me, but he still had to do all of his chores and feed a crap ton of hay to the cows and it was SEVEN O CLOCK IN THE EVENING WHEN WE LEFT. It took SEVEN HOURS. I could have worked the rest of the day. Like, I understood why things were the way they were and that it wasn't his doing, but I really struggled to not be an asshole about it to him.

I also finally convinced the BF to start playing Pokemon Go. He was so on the fence about it for some stupid reason, but he has gone into full on Pokemon nerd mode. Like I have been playing since July and I'm level 20, almost 21. He has been playing for A WEEK AND A HALF and he's at like level 15! Way to make me look like an amateur.

So yeah, that's basically about how my February has been. Uneventful. But on the bright side, the weather was BEAUTIFUL and melted like ALL the snow. I wasn't snowed in at all in February!!! Woo!!

---

Looking Ahead:

My goal for March is going to be to grind out reviews for all of my Netgalley books I have been approved for. I have been doing so pitifully at this, it's just bad. WHERE IS MY MOTIVATION?! It's gone.

I have been working on reading Wintersong for what feels like ages now. I feel like it took me forever to get into it and even now that I feel more invested in the story, it's not what I was hoping for. I am only about halfway through so far, though.

All the music talk in this book has been losing me so utterly and completely. I don't want to say I'm bored, but I almost am.

Besides Wintersong, these are the books I am going to be aiming to read:

The Dragon's Price by Bethany Wiggins

The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco

A Crown of Wishes by Roshani Chokshi

Blood Rose Rebellion by  Rosalyn Eves

Royal Bastards by Andrew Shvarts

The Takedown by Corrie Wang

Also I'm gonna try to read:

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

Now I Rise by Kiersten White

Lol, good luck to me.

How did February treat you? Was it a productive month for you or did you have a rather pitiful month like me? Got anything super exciting planned for March?