Pen and Parchment

An Interview with the Queen of the Afterlife | Gravemaidens Blog Tour

Hi friends! Hope the fall season is treating you well, it looks like things in Florida might fiiiinally be starting to cool down. And by cool down, I mean it’s 89 degrees outside instead of 100.

Today I have a post that I’m super excited about! You guys may or may not know but for that past six?? seven?? (honestly not sure) months I’ve been on the Skeleton Crew (street team) for the release of Kelly Coon’s YA fantasy debut, Gravemaidens! I’m currently two-thirds of the way through this book as we speak, and I’ve been getting all the spooky vibes between mentions of the Boatman, sacrifice, and evil murder plots! So basically, it’s exciting stuff.

Series: Book 1 in a duology

Genre: YA fantasy

Synopsis: In the walled city-state of Alu, Kammani wants nothing more than to become the accomplished healer her father used to be…before her family was cast out of their privileged life in shame.
When Alu’s ruler falls deathly ill, Kammani’s beautiful little sister, Nanaea, is chosen as one of three sacred maidens to join him in the afterlife. It’s an honor. A tradition. And Nanaea believes it is her chance to live an even grander life than the one that was stolen from her. But Kammani sees the selection for what it really is—a death sentence. Desperate to save her sister, Kammani schemes her way into the palace to heal the ruler. There, she discovers more danger lurking in the sandstone corridors than she could have ever imagined and that her own life—and heart—are at stake. But Kammani will stop at nothing to dig up the palace’s buried secrets even if it means sacrificing everything…including herself.

Find a Copy: Signed copies | IndieBound | B&N | Amazon

The Queen is Back, This Time With Ghosts | Review: Ninth House

Title: Ninth House

Author: Leigh Bardugo

Series: Alex Stern #1

Genre: Adult fantasy, thriller

Pub. Date: Oct. 8th, 2019

Synopsis: Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?
Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.

Find a Copy: IndieBound | Barnes & Noble | Amazon

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Let Me Persuade You to Spend All Your Money on Books | Fall 2019 Books to Preorder

Hi friends, I hope the end of the summer has been treating you well! I’m bringing you a post today inspired by the recent announcement of the Gravemaidens preorder campaign (which I’ll talk a bunch more about down below).

Here’s a short but highly enthusiastic, just-imagine-I’m-yelling-all-of-this-in-caps, list of books I think you should spend that extra money on to preorder (or request at your local library, if your pockets are looking a bit bleak like mine) before the end of 2019. Now, there’s approximately 18000000 books I could include on this list, but I decided to only mention the ones that I’ve already read and loved, and/or the ones that have some pretty unbeatable preorder campaigns! So basically, these are all the fall 2019 books I’m over the top excited about, minus Ninth House because you all don’t need me to yell about that book even more than I already have, lol.

And a general note: if you’re able to, I highly suggest preordering/purchasing these books from your local indie bookstore! You can use IndieBound to find a store near you. Alright, prepare yourselves for some very long, rambling excitement about these books friends!

(A Dreadfully Late) Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag

At risk of looking like a totally awful blogger, I decided to do a mid-year update post on my reading (even though we’re well past the mid-way point of this year *hides in shame*) because, well, I wanted to lol. Also, Twitter told me it was okay so there, blame them.

Sorry to those four people who said no, you’re all very reasonable, but alas, I am not.

Anyways, I’m sure you all have seen this tag before, it’s just a list of questions about what books I’ve read so far this year and what I hope to accomplish in the next six (now more like 5) months! People do this all around the book community, but I’ll link my bestie Jordyn’s book freakout post since I definitely used it to ~~cheat~~ reference for my own post.

May Wrap-Up and June TBR

Hello fellow bookworms, today I’m bringing you a terribly late wrap-up post! I’ve been busy with life and stuff (what else is new), but I finished some good reads in May and have a good amount of books lined up for the rest of June, so I figured it was still worth it to post one!