TTT: Prettiest Book Covers on My Shelf

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. If you are interested in joining in on the fun go to That Artsy Reader Girl to see upcoming prompts for Top Ten Tuesday!


This weeks prompt for TTT is Book Cover Freebie, so I had to pick something to do with book covers. I love love love pretty book covers, but there are just so many good ones that I had to limit it somehow. To that end, I made it only book covers that are on my shelf, in paperback, otherwise there would just be too many to pick from. Some of these are older books I've had for years and still just love. So here you go, my prettiest book covers, in no particular order, enjoy.

Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier
I actually got this book signed by the author 😄I read it years ago and I loved it so much, I read it multiple times, and I could stare at the cover for ages, there is so much beautiful detail in it. I love the magic of this world.

Dreamer's Pool by Juliet Marillier
Clearly I'm a fan of Juliet Marillier. She writes absolutely stunning Historical Fantasies with fae and fairy tale elements. This series is on my TBR for 2020, I just love the style of all her covers, but I think this is one of the best.

Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin

Serpent and Dove by Shelby Mahurin
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

For two years Lou has been living in hiding, stealing to survive and avoiding the use of her magic at all costs. Should the Huntsmen, the Chasseurs, catch her, she would be burned at the stake without trial, but they are not the only ones she needs to hide from.

Reid Diggory, Captain of the Chasseurs, has lived his whole life believing witches are evil, and it is his sworn duty to protect the Kingdom from their foul magic. When a witch escapes him, with the help of a thief, he is determined to catch the one who thwarted him. But when Lou tricks him into a public scandal, they are forced into an impossible situation - marriage. 

Hiding in plain sight among the Huntsmen could be just the protection Lou needs, as long as she can keep her identity a secret. As her feelings for her husband grow, and enemies close in around them, Lou must make a terrible choice. Can she trust Reid to protect her, or will he tie her to the stake himself? 

Amazon US | Amazon AU | Book Depository

I really loved reading this! It’s just such a beautiful debut novel with rich characters, a wonderfully constructed historical world and a perfectly written enemies to lovers romance. This story explores the nature of evil and belief, and shows us the world is never just black and white.

The descriptions in this book are so beautifully crafted that I felt like I was there in this world of obsessive religion and dangerous magic. The characters are really brought to life and the split POV between Lou and Reid was brilliantly done.

When Reid meets Lou, she is dressed as a man, because any single woman may be accused of the crime of witchcraft in this misogynistic world. He finds her offensive, rude and shockingly inappropriate. She thinks he is stiff and boring, “the most pompous ass in an entire tower of pompous asses”. Not to mention he would kill her if he found out who she really was. Over time they come to care for each other, and through each one’s perspective we see the little misunderstandings and mistakes they make as their affections grow. I absolutely love these two as a couple.

“Every aspect of Reid was precise, certain, every color in its proper place. Undiluted by indecision, he saw the world in black and white, suffering none of the messy, charcoal colors in between. The colors of ash and smoke. Of fear and doubt. The colors of me.”

Fortune Favors the Cruel by Kel Carpenter and Lucinda Dark

Fortune Favors the Cruel by Kel Carpenter and Lucinda Dark
Dark Maji #1
My Rating: 2.5 stars

Goodreads blurb: Quinn Darkova, freed from the chains of slavery, wants nothing more than vengeance against those who sold her. But with her dark powers on the rise and her ascension nearing, Quinn's blood retribution will have to wait in favor of her immediate survival.
Lazarus Fierté is a nobleman without equal. He’s as controlling as he is stubborn, and for the last six years he’s been waiting for a woman to appear—but not just any woman. A Maji of great power, capable of terrible things. She could be the key to everything he holds dear.

His savior … or his destroyer.

The only thing he didn’t predict was that she would become both.

I actually considered DNF-ing this one a few times, but I kind of kept expecting it to get better, and it just didn’t. It felt like this book was trying to be something it wasn’t, i.e. a dark fantasy, with two anti-heroes as the main characters. A story of dark powers and dangerous intrigue. I’m not sure exactly what it was about the book, maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood for it, but it just fell flat for me. The magic was kinda cool, but that was about it.

The main character Quinn has a dark sort of power, but on the whole, she’s really not that dark. Nor is Lazarus, who is, of course, very broody and mysterious and arrogant on account of being some sort of wealthy noble. His ‘mystery’ just felt really forced to me, like maybe they were just waiting as long as possible to reveal his motives and his power so that they could explain that in the next book. It doesn’t even have a big reveal. We don’t really even get hints about his magic until quite late, except that it’s very ‘dark’.

Where Quinn became the apathetic cold to the world, Lazarus burned with a savageness that could not be contained. At the core of it, he was right that they were no different, but in the way the darkness showed—they were far from the same.

The romance, if you could call it that, is very slow. They are obviously building up to it for the rest of the series. The characters don’t even seem to like each other, it’s more a case of their magics call to each other because they’re both so ‘dark’.

Quinn’s behaviour doesn’t make sense to me, and I think it’s because they were trying to make her seem more ‘dark’. She has been a slave most of her life, so yes she has a troubled past, which we are only told tidbits of, and she wants revenge on someone. She also has a dark power, which works on absorbing and controlling people’s fear, though it seems she can basically do what she wants with it. My issue is that in the beginning she was trying very hard to keep her power contained or hidden with an amulet, otherwise she would be caught and killed for being what she is. 

For most of her life, she’d worn some sort of barrier—chains or stones meant to mute it, to cage that darkness inside her. The trouble with cages is that eventually the beast breaks free.

However, when the amulet gets broken (not a spoiler, this happens early on) she doesn’t try to control her power at all. She just uses it, gets caught immediately, gets saved by Lazarus and then continues to not try and control her power. She goes looking for trouble and doesn’t care if she draws attention to herself. For someone who is described as being a survivor, it just really didn’t make sense to me that she would act that way, like she didn’t care at all. It does describe the fear as being like a drug for her, but I felt like I was told that, but it didn't actually show in her behaviour.

I will not be a slave to anything. She meant it, and that included fear itself. It was her drug. Her addiction. Fear gave her power, but giving in to it also stripped her power away, and she could not allow that.

This definitely needed proper editing. Sometimes the sentence structure and tenses get a bit confused, and the descriptions are deliberately vague. I feel like maybe it would have been better if it had been written in first person, so that we could understand the characters a bit more, especially given that it’s split POV between Quinn and Lazarus. Oh, and there’s a few random dream sequences that I still don’t understand, not sure what that was about at all. I suppose it was some sort of allegory to Quinn's ‘dark’ power, but maybe they’ll explain it in the next book.

From the beginning the book just didn’t quite capture my full attention. Even though there is action (at times) and mystery and an intriguing brand of magic, I feel like there is just something missing in the writing. Again, maybe that was just me, there were a lot of 5 star reviews on Goodreads.

“When the only thing left to fear is fear itself, you should still run, because she will find you.”

The little chapter headings are very cute and entertaining. I love when chapters actually get named. Except I'm not sure if this sentence even makes sense:

Blood Contract

"The price of freedom is greater than all but one - survival."

- Quinn Darkova, former slave, prisoner, possibly deranged

Overall I think this book had potential, but suffered from a case of trying too hard. I picked it up because I thought the blurb was intriguing, and the cover/title were cool. Unfortunately it just didn’t live up to my expectations. I haven’t read much dark fantasy, so I guess I was hoping for more with this one. If you’re looking for something with a new and cool magic system and morally ambiguous characters, then give this one a try. Just know that there’s 4 books in the series, and this one takes quite a while to actually tell you anything. 

Happy reading!

If you enjoyed this review you can follow me on Instagram @iwishiownedabookstore and feel free to add me on Goodreads 💗

WWW Wednesday - 15 Jan 2020

 WWW is currently hosted by Taking on a World of Words! This tag is quite simple, and just asks three questions:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

I thought this might be a good way to keep myself on track with my reading goals, as well we to keep you all updated with what I'm reading, so here goes:

What I'm currently reading

I had to read this one after I kept seeing so many Bookstagram posts about it. I'm loving Sorcery of Thorns so far, and hopefully I'll get time to finish it in the next few days.

I picked up Fortune Favors the Cruel with a KU deal after I'd had my eye on it for a while. It's supposed to be a dark fantasy, but it's not really doing it for me 😒.

What I recently finished reading

I posted my review for The Vine Witch yesterday, you can read it here, and I already snagged an ARC for book 2, really excited to read the sequel. 

I loved Serpent & Dove and will be posting a review soon, so keep an eye out for it.

I've been reading Sweep With Me as a free serial which the authors post on their website. It's a novella that's part of The Innkeeper Chronicles (which I'm a bit obsessed with) and I'm planning to re-read the rest of the series sometime so that I can write proper reviews for all of them and convince everybody else to love the series as much as I do 💗

What I think I'll read next

My plan is to read Dark Arts and a Daiquiri and Two Witches and a Whiskey, which I already borrowed from the library. Finishing the Guild Codex series is part of my 2020 reading goals. (Three Mages and a Margarita was my favourite book last year). I also have Sin & Spirit loaded on my kindle ready to go. That's the plan anyway, I often get distracted by other shiny books 😊

What have you been reading lately? Let me know in the comments, and happy reading 💗

If you want to get updates on what I'm reading or when I post reviews, follow me on insta @iwishiownedabookstore or goodreads.

The Vine Witch by Luanne G. Smith

The Vine Witch by Luanne G. Smith
(Vine Witch #1)
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Elena Boureanu, the vine witch of the famed Chateaux Renard vineyard, has just broken free of a seven year curse. With thoughts of revenge filling her head, she makes her way home, only to find that things are not as they should be. The vineyard has been sold to a man from the city who doesn't even believe in magic, and the vines are covered in hexes. Not knowing who to trust, and forced to hide her spells from Jean-Paul, it will take every ounce of magic Elena has to save the vineyard, and to take revenge on the person who cursed her.

Amazon US | Amazon AU | Book Depository | Available in KU

I really enjoyed this book, the main character Elena is done really well. A talented vine witch whose focus in life was to make great wine. When she manages to break free of a curse after seven years, she not only has to restore her vineyard with weakened powers, but she also turns her mind to seeking revenge on the person that cursed her. Things don’t go well for her, but she never gives up, proving her strength and determination under very trying circumstances, and testing her resolve to take the revenge she seeks.

While I liked the character of Jean Paul, a lawyer from the city who tries using science to make good wine, and doesn’t believe in magic, his initial introduction and description was a bit underdone. Maybe I missed something because I was listening to the audiobook, but I ended up picturing him as kind of an older guy with the kind of hat my grandpa wears. I suppose it’s a bit different to the urban fantasy books I usually read where every man has a perfect body and is super hot. Anyway, I still very much liked his character, and seeing how he comes to terms with the existence of magic in his logical world.

I quite liked the narrator for the audiobook. I think her style suited this book, and she also did well with the side characters voices and accents. She made the transition to random French words very smooth, even if I didn’t understand them.

The romance was sweet, though it’s certainly not the focus of the book. Elena and Jean-Paul seem to develop affection for one another without having too much dialogue or interaction on the page. It’s a case of opposites attract, with a small magical nudge. She initially sees him as something of an adversary, the man who bought the vineyard she was meant to inherit, and he forbids the use of any magic. He sees her as a strange woman who showed up out of nowhere and claims to live at his vineyard. He ends up having to come to terms with the existence and reality of magic quite abruptly. Towards the end of the book there’s a damsel in distress situation where he gets to use his lawyering to help her, only to have the situation flipped and she uses magic to save him, and herself, which was fun.

It felt a little slow for the first half, although I had to remind myself this was a historical fantasy set in a quiet, rural vineyard in France, not an action-packed urban fantasy, so it actually works quite well. I thought this made it feel a little abrupt when the action does get going later on in the novel, but I still enjoyed that.

The general magic system is fairly classic witchcraft with spells, herbs, hexes, curses and grimoires. Elena herself was turned into a toad, which is explained as being very old-fashioned magic. The unique part of it was the focus on using magic for wine-making, and the casual use of hexes to sabotage other vineyards, as well as Elena’s skill at Shadow Vision.
I really enjoyed the side characters Yvette and Sitra. I found Yvette a little annoying at first (though that might have been the audiobook narrators portrayal of her) but she grew on me with her street smarts and bold character. I’m excited to read the sequel, The Glamourist, which promises to explore more of her background and magic.

The bad guy/girl was done well, and you even feel a little bit bad for him/her once or twice, but only a tiny bit. It seems fairly obvious from the start who the culprit is, but the book makes you question that, and then there’s a twist or two at the end that you won’t see coming. I’m not sure I liked the very ending twist, but it makes a certain kind of sense in retrospect.

I really enjoyed reading/listening to The Vine Witch, and I thought it was very well written for a debut novel. I enjoyed the book, even though I don’t drink red wine. The descriptions of the colours and flavours and the vines and cellars made it seem very appealing. The romance was a nice touch, and the magic was interesting. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys historical fantasy and books with witchcraft. If you've read it, what did you think?

Check out my review for Book 2 The Glamourist

Sorry for the extra long review, and thanks for reading to the end. If you enjoyed this review you can follow me on Instagram for updates @iwishiownedabookstore 💗 and feel free to add me on Goodreads.

TTT: Most Anticipated Book Releases of 2020

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018.If you are interested in joining in on the fun go to That Artsy Reader Girl to see upcoming prompts for Top Ten Tuesday!


This is just a list of books releasing sometime this year that I'm excited to read and are on my TBR. Here they are in no particular order, enjoy 💗

Sweep With Me (Innkeeper Chronicles #5) and Emerald Blaze (Hidden Legacy #5) by Ilona Andrews.  I can't get enough of these two series and Sweep With Me is done as a free online serial which you can follow along on the author's website. I'm hoping to do re-reads of both series this year and will write reviews for them as I go.

Twilight Seeker (Daybreaker #1) by Pippa Dacosta, no cover yet. I've not read any books by this author yet, but I'm very keen for this one in particular.

"Stay in the light, avoid locked doors, and resist silver whispers."

Hunting Fiends for the Ill-Equipped (The Guild Codex: Demonized #3) by Annette Marie. I am loving this series, and even though I'm not caught up yet, I can't wait for this one.

Smoke Bitten (Mercy Thompson #12) by Patricia Briggs. Another one that I'm not up to yet, but I'll be doing a re-read of this series stating soon hopefully. I love this cover!

Blood & Honey (Serpent & Dove #2) by Shelby Mahurin. Also no cover yet, but I loved the first book, review coming soon, and I can't wait for the sequel.

Sin & Spirit (Demigod of San Francisco #4) which just released and is ready and waiting on my kindle, and Sin & Lightning (Demigod of San Francisco #5) by K.F. Breene.

Famine (The Four Horsemen #3) by Laura Thalassa, no cover yet, but I'm excited to continue this series.

The Glamourist (Vine Witch #2) by Luanne G. Smith. I recently finished reading The Vine Witch, review cooing soon, and I'm excited to read this sequel focusing on the story of Yvette.

I hope I get the chance to read all of these beauties this year, and if not they'll be on my TBR again first thing next year. What new books are you looking forward to reading in 2020?

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this post you can follow me on Instagram for updates @iwishiownedabookstore 💗

2020 Reading Goals

Hello readers! I’m setting my Goodreads goal for this year at 52 books. That’s one book a week, which I’ve never done before. In 2019 I managed to read 45 books, which is still way more than I’ve read previously, so I’m really happy with that. Another goal for me this year is to try and post on the blog at least once a week, as my posts have been fairly sporadic so far, as this is still new to me. I may not make it, I may fail miserably, but I will try. Wish me luck.

My other goal is to stop buying so many books. I always get sucked in by cheap or free kindle books, which I almost never read. I have no idea how many books are on my kindle, but I’m sure I’ve only read a fraction of them. There are also a heap of unread paperbacks on my shelf that I keep meaning to read but never get to. My goal for this is to not buy any new books until my birthday in June, only read books I already own, or can borrow from the library (or maybe get some ARCs). Watch me fail miserably at this, I have no willpower haha. [Edit: I just got Kindle Unlimited on a 3 month deal, that doesn’t count as buying books, does it?] To make things a little more interesting for myself and for you I’m going to join in on the A to Z Reading Challenge hosted by Ginger Mom and Company. Basically I will try to read at least one book beginning with each letter of the alphabet. I'll keep track and will post quarterly updates here on the blog.

Onto the books I plan to read. I don’t want to prescribe too many specific books, because I will inevitably diverge from that list, but here’s a few I DEFINITELY am going to read this year.

The Shadow and Bone Trilogy. I’ve been meaning to read these, everybody else seems to be reading them and it gets bumped up the list because it’s getting made into a TV show. Obviously I have to read the books first.

Re-reading the Mercy Thompson Series. This is one of my favourite series, and it’s what got me into Urban Fantasy. However, when I read the last one, there were characters and events mentioned that I had totally forgotten about. This series (plus the spin-off) has 18 books, with a new one coming this year, so we’ll see how I go with this one.

Finish A Court of Thorns and Roses. I read the first one, didn’t love it (for various reasons, mainly the hype) but everyone tells me the second one is better, so I WILL be finishing the series this year.

Blackthorn & Grim Series. Juliet Marillier is one of my favourite authors, yet this series has been sitting on my shelf, unloved, for a few years now. It’s well past time I read it.

Guild Codex by Annette Marie. I discovered the series last year and LOVED IT.  I will be continuing to read this series, and the spin-off, and everything else this author has written, just as soon as I get around to it. 

There are so many other books I’ve been meaning to get to, but work and life and sleep just gets in the way, dammit. I’ll leave the rest up to what I feel like reading at the time, and I’ll try to stick to what I already own, or what’s available at the library. We’ll see how long I last before I start buying more books lol, I have zero self-control, I need help. What are your reading goals this year? How many books are you aiming for? What’s on your TBR? Happy reading 💗

If you want updates on what I'm reading, follow my bookstagram @iwishiownedabookstore