Tag: reading

August Haul!

baltimorebibliophile

Hello, friends! Another month has come and past and I find myself wondering where I found the time and money to buy this many books? I was creating this stack and had to start over multiple times because I kept finding more books I acquired this month! So much for a book buying ban, right??? Seriously, I told myself I was banned this month… So, let’s talk about from where I picked these suckers up!

BARNES & NOBLE

SO B&N had their 50% off Blowout Sale so your girl had to go get some… it’s like a law, right?

  1. Skyward (Skyward #1)- Brandon Sanderson
  2. Sky without Stars (System Divine #1) – Jessica Brody, Joanne Rendell
  3. The Storm Crow (The Storm Crow #1) – Kalyn Josephson
  4. Nocturna (A Forgery of Magic #1) – Maya Motayne
  5. Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2) – Neal Shusterman

BOOK BOXES

I did not purchase this month’s FairyLoot, as I was kind of disappointed with the included items. So this month I received my Shelflove Crate and OwlCrate boxes.

  1. House of Salt and Sorrows – Erin A. Craig (OwlCrate)
  2. The Merciful Crow (The Merciful Crow #1) – Margaret Owen (ShelfLove Crate)

LOCAL/USED BOOKSTORES

So we travelled to Lewes, DE this month for our anniversary. I have been seeing others in the bookish world make it a point to go to local or used bookstores to support smaller businesses. I decided I wanted to try that as much as I could, but I may have gone overboard!

  1. A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Housseini
  2. The Unhoneymooners – Christina Lauren
  3. Fix Her Up (Hot & Hammered #1) – Tessa Bailey
  4. Red Rising (Red Rising Saga #1) – Pierce Brown
  5. The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
  6. Moreta, DragonLady of Pern (Pern #12) – Anne McCaffrey
  7. The Dolphins of Pern (Pern #13) – Anne McCaffrey

AMAZON

  1. Sky in the Deep – Adrienne Young

The paperback was on sale for $4.50… how could I pass that up??

PUBLISHER MAIL

I was lucky enough this month to be sent 3 books from different publishers to read and review. Thank you to all for providing these copies, it is much appreciated!

  1. Merged – Jim and Stephanie Kroepfl
  2. The Crowns of Croswald (The Crowns of Croswald #1) – D. E. Night
  3. The World is Ours – Abby Elise (ARC)

Gosh that was a lot to type! I swear September’s haul will NOT be this large, I apparently just lost track of how much I was accumulating this month! Did you pick up any of these? I’ve already read Fix Her Up, but haven’t gotten to any of the other’s yet.

Happy reading, bookish friends! 🙂

Book Review – We Hunt The Flame

baltimorebibliophile

Title: We Hunt The Flame (Sands of Arawiya #1)

Author: Hafsah Faizal

Publisher: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux

Publication Date: May 14, 2019

472 pages

4/5

Goodreads Synopsis

People lived because she killed.
People died because he lived.

Zafira is the Hunter, disguising herself as a man when she braves the cursed forest of the Arz to feed her people. Nasir is the Prince of Death, assassinating those foolish enough to defy his autocratic father, the king. If Zafira was exposed as a girl, all of her achievements would be rejected; if Nasir displayed his compassion, his father would punish him in the most brutal of ways. 

Both are legends in the kingdom of Arawiya—but neither wants to be.

War is brewing, and the Arz sweeps closer with each passing day, engulfing the land in shadow. When Zafira embarks on a quest to uncover a lost artifact that can restore magic to her suffering world and stop the Arz, Nasir is sent by the king on a similar mission: retrieve the artifact and kill the Hunter. But an ancient evil stirs as their journey unfolds—and the prize they seek may pose a threat greater than either can imagine.

Set in a richly detailed world inspired by ancient Arabia, We Hunt the Flame is a gripping debut of discovery, conquering fear, and taking identity into your own hands.

Review

“If I told you my name, would you bow?” His voice was soft. A melancholy caress. He lifted his chin when understanding dawned on her face. “Or would you flee?” 

Hafsah Faizal, we hunt the flame

Hello book friends! I read We Hunt The Flame while I was laying out on a cruise deck in the Atlantic Ocean – which I have to say really enhances the reading experience! Highly recommend to all you lovelies to take a cruise if your financials allow it! Special shout out to my parents for hooking me and the boyf up.

For this book, I saw it was HIGHLY rated on Bookstagram by reviewers that I admire and generally tend to agree with. They LOVED it and would not stop raving about it. Me? I was less thrilled.

Not to say I did not enjoy this book, I did give it four stars after all. But it draaaagged. Like, the first 150 pages were so slow and full of build up that I found it hard to focus. The book is written from a two person point of view, where the chapters bounce back and forth. I had no issue with this part, but I felt very disconnected from the characters, it was hard to pin down the timeline, and frankly they weren’t with each other so it was pretty confusing.

HOWEVER, the story definitely picked up after the two main characters actually came in contact with each other, Zafira and Nasir. Zafira is a woman who has been portraying a man as “The Hunter” because women are not respected in her territory. She is the one who is able to brave the Arz (magical, evil forest) to bring food and water to her territory. Nasir is the Crown Prince and is also an assassin for his insanely evil and unstable father, the Sultan of the country. These two characters are on a mission that will bring them together, but also tear them apart.

Once these two lovebugs met I started to really enjoy the book more. They have such snarky banter with each other and it’s such a slow burn romance. The side characters are generally interesting, and them working together and feeling each other out made the reading process easier.

We Hunt The Flame had great world building and a few major twists at the end, which rounded it out to a 4/5 stars for me. Would definitely recommend, and I will continue this series when the sequel, We Free The Stars, is released.

Happy reading, friends!