Cosmic Horror, Epic Fantasy, and Stories Within Stories // August Wrap-Up & September TBR

Hello everyone! I hope you had a good August! I can’t believe it’s September already, I feel like this month has completely snuck up on me. I’m still not sure I’ve wrapped my head around the idea that we’re approaching 2022 now. This year has been such a strange one!

I haven’t done a huge amount this month, but it’s been quite nice to take some time to myself. I finally bought more furniture (including a new book shelf) so my house looks a lot more cosy than it used to! I also went on a bookshop trip for the first time in a few months, and bought some amazing reads!

There’s lots of exciting things coming up in September, but I’m a little worried I won’t have as much time to read. It’s important to remind myself that reading a bit less isn’t necessarily a bad thing! I’m getting a new tattoo later this month, I’m finally attending my graduation ceremony for the degree I finished in 2020, and I’ve got plans to catch up with a lot of friends I haven’t seen in a long time. Do you have anything you’re looking forward to this month?

I somehow managed to read 19 books this month! For a lot of it I felt like I wasn’t reading that much, but obviously that wasn’t exactly accurate! I read around 6367 pages! August was a little bit of a mixed bag. I read some books I really loved (that I’ll be talking about below), but also my worst read of the year so far! The Lazarus War: Artefact was almost like a bad movie, in that it was somewhat entertaining to see just how bad it would get. Definitely wouldn’t recommend that one! Anyway, here’s a list of all the books I read:

All’s Well by Mona Awad ✰ In The Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu ✰ After The Dragons by Cynthia Zhang ✰ Neon Gods by Katee Roberts ✰ The Botanist’s Apprentice by Arden Powell ✰ The Second Rebel by Linden A. Lewis ✰ No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull ✰ The Border Keeper by Kerstin Hall ✰ The Outside by Ada Hoffmann ✰ Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel by Julian K. Jarboe ✰ The Deep by Rivers Solomon ✰ Artefact by Jamie Sawyer ✰ House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland ✰ The Lost Village by Camilla Sten ✰ Among Thieves by M.J. Kuhn ✰ The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon ✰ Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé ✰ The Devil’s Submission by Nicola Davidson ✰ Starsight by Brandon Sanderson ✰

Now it’s time to chat a little bit about my favourite reads of the month!

• In The Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu – Adult Sci-Fi Fantasy – I don’t usually fall so deeply in love with novellas, but this one completely blew me away. It features gorgeously written, decolonial, queer, subversive folkloric storytelling with stories inside stories. Anima watches over the city of Ora’s citizens with a network known as the Gleaming. Ae have always lived in the city, and are content, but when a traveller with a cabinet of curiosites visits ae learns the world outside the city borders is worth knowing. I can’t recommend this enough if you want to pick up a beautiful and unconventional novella.
• The Second Rebel by Linden A. Lewis – Adult Sci-Fi – This book is the second in The First Sister series, and Linden A. Lewis didn’t disappoint. I’m not going to discuss the plot too much so I can avoid spoilers for the first book, so just know it’s even bigger, more action packed, and as heartbreaking as the first. I loved how this book delved into the idea of sacrifice and rebellion, what people would give to win a war, what actions are too far. It was brilliant.
• The Outside by Ada Hoffmann – Adult Sci-Fi – I have wanted to read an adult sci-fi with a sapphic, autistic main character, written by an autistic author, for so long, and The Outside made it possible! I adored this book so much, the worldbuilding was incredibly unique, and I loved the way Ada Hoffmann incorporated elements of cosmic horror. Yasira, a scientist, has created a radical new energy drive that could change humanity, unfortunately, everything goes wrong. The AI Gods of the universe delcare her work heretical, and kidnap her. She’s offered the opportunity to redeem herself if she takes down her former mentor, another heretical scientist, but who can she trust as everything she thought she knew about the universe is turned inside out. If you love adult sci-fi you need to read this book and let me scream about it with you.
• House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland – Young Adult Horror – I knew I’d enjoy this book from the first page. The writing style is gorgeously gothic and rich. I’d heard so many good things about this book, but it still managed to blow away my expectations. It was equal parts absolutely fantastic and horrifically distrubing. The Hollow sisters were kidnapped as children and mysteriously reappeared, changed, a month later. They have no memory of the event, but strangeness has followed them ever since. When the oldest sister goes missing once again and horned men begin appearing it’s time to discover what really happened in their pasts. Amazing, beautiful, distrubing, the spooky season is arriving and this book would be perfect for it.
• The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon – Adult Fantasy – I finally got around to reading Priory! This book is over 800 pages long so I was a bit intimidated by it, but it was a suprisingly quick read for me! I feel like people who love Lord of The Rings would enjoy this book. The world has the same sense of history to it, where you feel as if there are many other stories to be told. I also loved the sapphic romance so much! Queen Sabran’s bloodline is known to keep The Nameless One at bay, but she is yet to provide an heir. As ancient evils rise from their slumber, the whole world is at stake. This book is a relatively slow-paced, political fantasy which isn’t for everyone, but I had so much fun with it.
• No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull – Adult Fantasy – This book reads like a collection of interconnected short stories. I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy this sort of fragmented storytelling at first, but I didn’t need to be worried, I loved this. When Laina gets knews that her brother has been fataly shot by police, it seems like a simple case of police brutality. However, it’s something deeper. Monsters are real, and they’re coming out of the shadows. No Gods, No Monsters is sometimes a little difficult to keep a track of, but the snapshots were so poignant and personal while also maintaing an intriguing overarching plot, this book is well worth the effot.

Here’s some of the books that I’m hoping to read in Sepember! Some of these have been reads I’ve been highly anticipating all year, so I can’t wait to get stuck in.

• Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia – Adult Urban Fantasy Noir – I’ve loved everything I’ve read from Silvia Moreno-Garcia so of course I was going to pick up her book about vampires in Mexico City! I’m so glad this book got republished because it looks absolutely fantastic! Domingo is a lonely, garbage-collecting street kid who stumbles across Atl, a gorgeous Aztec vampire on the run. Atl needs to escape the city, and Domingo is happy to help, but as police and crime bosses close in, they’re running out of time.
• Bloody Spade by Brittany M. Willows – Young Adult Urban Fantasy – I follow this author on Twitter and I fell in love with the idea of an anime-esque type fantasy novel! I can’t wait to get stuck in! Magic used to be considered a myth, but as of seven years ago it’s a reality. Someone is trying to tear down the barrier that seperates the magical world from the mundane, but is it too late to stop them?
• Under The Whispering Door by TJ Klune – Adult Fantasy – I really enjoy TJ Klune’s writing and this book has an especially interesting premise to me. I definitely get the vibe that this book will make me cry. When a reaper comes to collect Wallace Price from his own funeral, Wallace suspects he really might be dead. But Wallace isn’t ready to abandon the life he barely lived, and so he is given one week before he has to cross over.
• Traitors Of The Black Crown by Cate Pearce – Adult Fantasy – I’m always a sucker for adult, sapphic fantasy and this one seems like it has such a unique premise! Raena has spent the last fifteen years hidden as a male Knight, plotting her revenge on the Queen for killing her family. The time is almost right, when she’s unexpectedly exiled to serve the Duchess of a foreign land. When a sinister threat looms to the surface, the three women must recognize who are the oppressors and who will unite against the Black Crown.
• Lakesedge by Lyndall Clipstone – Young Adult Gothic Fantasy – I am a huge fan of gothic books, and I’m loving how much the young adult fantasy genre is providing me at the moment! Of course, I had to get a copy of Lakesedge as soon as I could! When Violeta Graceling arrives at haunted Lakesedge estate, she expects to find a monster. She knows the terrifying rumors about Rowan Sylvanan, who drowned his entire family when he was a boy. But neither the estate nor the monster are what they seem. As Leta falls for Rowan, she discovers he is bound to the Lord Under, the sinister death god lurking in the black waters of the lake. A creature to whom Leta is inexplicably drawn…
• Activation Degradation by Marina J. Lostetter – Adult Sci-Fi – Marina J. Lostetter is quickly becoming one of my favourite authors, so I jumped at the chance to read this book! Activation Degradation is described as Murderbot meets first contact, and if that’s not amazing enough it features found family, a robot main character, and thriller pacing! I am so hyped! When Unit Four is activated, it’s in crisis. Aliensa re acttacking the Helium-3 mine it was created to oversee, and now its sole purpose is to defend it. But something’s wrong. There are files in its databanks it can’t account for, unusual chemical combinations, and the information about the aliens is supsiciously sparse. The robot is under orders to seek and destroy. That’s all it knows. According to its handler, that’s all it needs to know. Most robots are simple tools. Unit Four is well on its way to becoming something more…

These are some of my favourite posts that I wrote this month!

• A Mesmerizing, Surreal Account of Chronic Pain and Believability // All’s Well Review
• Ableist Tropes 101: Inspiration Porn
• 10 Sci-Fi Books For Beginners
• This Series Continues To Break My Heart // The Second Rebel
• Are Blogs Still Relevant? // Discussion
• Bold Storytelling, Monsters, and Social Commentary // No Gods, No Monsters
• A Sparkling Marvel of Writing // In The Watchful City Review
• September’s New Book Releases I’m Excited For

Books by other bloggers that I loved this month!

• Sapphic Latinx Books Recommendations by Naty at Naty’s Bookshelf!
• ARC Review: Aetherbound by E.K. Johnston by Cande at Cande Reads
• Reading Slumps: How do you get out of them? // A Discussion by Maddie at Inking and Thinking
• books with summer vibes by Saima at Stories With Saima
• Discussion: Everything I Hate (and Love) About Goodreads by J at The Midnight Book Blog
• Why Historical Fiction is My Favorite Genre by Siena at Booksophobia
• Let’s Talk Bookish, August 13, 2021: Can Books be Effective Horror? by Nastassja at One Thousand and One Book
• Let’s Judge A Book By Its Cover by Marta at Monogamist Reader
• Undercover LGBTQ + Books For Closeted Readers by Madeline at The Bookish Mutant
• Why I Don’t Read Outside of My Comfort Zone by Kat at The Lily Cafe

‘@luminositylibrary