A Slow and Cozy September Reading Recap

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September was a bit of a slow month compared to all of the summer reading I managed to get in. However, now that I have completed my reading goal for the year, I am taking my time a little bit more with each book and really enjoying what I am reading.

*10/31/23 Update* I’m on YouTube! If you’d prefer to watch or listen or just have some background noise, feel free to join me on my new channel! I’ll be posting the same bookish content I do on my blog, as well as lifestyle vlogs. If you’re here, thank you for stopping by, it means the world to me! 💕

So here’s what I read in September:

• A Multitude of Dreams by Mara Rutherford
• Foxglove by Adalyn Grace
• Morrighan by Mary E. Pearson
• Kingdom of The Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco
• Kingdom of The Cursed by Kerri Maniscalco
  

Okay, so five books may not be slow. But compared to reading almost 8 books in both July and August, this month just felt a little slower. Even though I personally felt like September just flew by in the blink of an eye.

A Multitude of Dreams by Mara Rutherford

This book is a retelling of Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘The Masque of Red Death’ and while it stayed pretty true to its retelling aspects, it fell apart in others.

I struggled to connect with the characters. Many of the relationships felt forced and while some of them were meant to be that way, our two love interests don’t meet until nearly halfway into the book.

And then it starts to get interesting but loses its intrigue.

The ending also felt incredibly rushed and my god, were there vampires or not???? I need answers.

I wanted to love this book. The cover is absolutely gorgeous and I am a fan of Edgar Allen Poe, but this book just felt absolutely short in my opinion.

This book gets 3 out of 5 stars.

Foxglove by Adalyn Grace

If you have read my blog for a while or perhaps read anything I have written about Belladonna, you will know I absolutely loved Belladonna. And I absolutely loved Foxglove.

This book picks up from that intriguing semi-cliffhanger from Belladonna and introduces Fate.

I imagined there might be a love triangle at play and was pleasantly surprised to find there was no love triangle.

There was a ton of scheming and planning and undermining and secrets revealed! I just had the absolute best time reading this book.

This is becoming one of my favorite series and Signa and Death are up there on the list of my favorite book couples.

This book gets 5 out of 5 stars.

Morrighan by Mary E. Pearson

Okay, so this book was kind of a mistake. I was looking for a short story and came across this book. However, after I finished it, I discovered it was best read after book two in The Remnant Chronicles.

The story came across as Mad Max meets the North in Game of Thrones.

The love story is one that feels borderline toxic and I just didn’t like how the plot unfolded.

I had a hard time connecting with the characters, especially our main characters.

This book gets 2.5 out of 5 stars from me, but do take this rating with a tiny grain of salt.

Kingdom of The Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco

This series has taken me completely by surprise, in the best way. This book was my least favorite so far.

(I also just want to throw it out there that I am listening to the audiobooks for this series that are read by Marisa Calin and I think Marisa’s performance is why I love these books a little more than I might have, had I read the ebook/physical copies and narrated it in my head.)

Our main character Emilia is so stupid. I just needed to get that out of the way.

Anyways, the world-building is super clunky. This story is set in Italy but when, I have no idea.

There is so much talk of food, as it is clearly important to the story, but didn’t add much except making me hungry.

However, Wrath is the perfect MMC, and the fact that he loves cannolis, fills a curated closet for Emilia, and plays her game while unwittingly falling in love with her, puts him up there with Roman Kitt of Divine Rivals and Ravyn from One Dark Window.

The murder mystery element surrounding Emilia’s twin sister Vittoria is what really pulled me into this book, but I decided to stay for the romance as this book might be YA but the rest of the series is NA and I’m here for it.

This book gets 4 out of 5 stars from me.

Kingdom of The Cursed by Kerri Maniscalco

This book really made me enjoy the series if I am being honest.

We begin to see some character development with Emilia though she is still incredibly dense.

Wrath is still charming as always and I think I love him more than Rhysand.

We are down in hell though and the sin is real.

We still haven’t solved Vittoria’s murder but it’s okay, we get to meet other Princes of hell, and Wrath and Emilia’s relationship further develops.

There is so much freaking tension in this book and I ATE IT UP.

Listening to the audiobooks is still such a treat and we learn so much more in this book than in the first.

This book gets 4.5 out of 5 stars from me. I really need Emilia to smarten up in the next book.

Overall, I am trying to really take my time with what I read for the rest of the year. I debated raising my reading goal to continue challenging myself but decided against it.

I would rather finish the year reading whatever I want without devouring books in a day to continue chipping away at a reading goal.

As the weather cools down and fall sweeps the last of summer away, I am so excited for some upcoming book releases as well as what else is to end up on my reading lists.

Have you read any of these books?

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