Tiara’s Bookish Bingo Update

Midway through the challenge. Pretty sure I’m not going to make all of them, but I’ll give it a valiant effort.

Completed

Dark Contemporary
Unravel by Calia Read
Tiara’s Rating: 2.5 of 5 stars – “Beautifully written for sure. Handled some very sensitive triggers in a way that didn’t make me completely rage. Still left me feeling a bit meh about it, though. HUGE TRIGGER WARNING ON THIS!”

Anthology or Collection
The A.I. Chronicles by Ellen Campbell
Tiara’s Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars – “An interesting exploration of the A.I. from various authors. Particularly enjoyed the stories that focused more on the philosophical/psychological question of the A.I. Check out my full review here.”

Thieves, Assassins, Pirates
Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson
Tiara’s Rating: 4 of 5 stars – “This was a very interesting science-fiction/historical fiction/alternate history read that featured characters like Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, and Robert Hooke as their dabbling and often feuding in Natural Philosophy made way for the sciences we know today. A conflicted Puritan and Natural Philosopher is called back to England to help smooth things over with Newton and Gottfried Leibniz.”

Freebie
Absolutely True Lies by Rachel Stuhler
Tiara’s Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars – “I found the main character very likable and the romance well enough until they introduced one element. The ending left me a little WTF about the story because it made it very convoluted and had me asking why would you go through ALL this?”

Yellow Cover & Australian Author
The Shadow Master by Craig Cormick
Tiara’s Rating: ????? of 5 stars – “I have no idea. I don’t even know how  to rate this book. And yeah, I know I cheated. Check out my full review here.”

Parental Relationships
A Blue So Dark by Holly Schindler
Tiara’s Rating: 3.5-4 of 5 stars – “A very heartfelt, painful look into the life of a teen struggling with her mother’s mental illness after her father leaves. I wanted to rate this book so much higher, and I seriously love it, but I had some issues with parts of it outside of the Aura and Grace’s relationship and how they dealt with Grace’s mental illness.”

I made a few changes on my bingo book card. Some of these changed because I suddenly had an ungodly influx of arcs to read, and I manipulated things a bit. The can be viewed behind the cut.

Thieves, Assassins, Pirates
Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson

In which Daniel Waterhouse, fearless thinker and courageous Puritan, pursues knowledge in the company of the greatest minds of Baroque-era Europe — in a chaotic world where reason wars with the bloody ambitions of the mighty, and where catastrophe, natural or otherwise, can alter the political landscape overnight.

Historical
King of the Vagabonds by Neal Stephenson

A chronicle of the breathtaking exploits of “Half-Cocked Jack” Shaftoe — London street urchin-turned-legendary swashbuckling adventurer — risking life and limb for fortune and love while slowly maddening from the pox. . . and Eliza, rescued by Jack from a Turkish harem to become spy, confidante, and pawn of royals in order to reinvent a contentious continent through the newborn power of finance.

Plants on the Cover
Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum

Uh, I don’t know what I was thinking with my original pick, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I wasn’t thinking.

Anna Benz, an American in her late thirties, lives with her Swiss husband Bruno and their three young children in a postcard-perfect suburb of Zürich. Though she leads a comfortable, well-appointed life, Anna is falling apart inside. Adrift and increasingly unable to connect with the emotionally unavailable Bruno or even with her own thoughts and feelings, Anna tries to rouse herself with new experiences: German language classes, Jungian analysis, and a series of sexual affairs she enters into with an ease that surprises even her. Tensions escalate, and her lies start to spin out of control. Having crossed a moral threshold, Anna will discover where a woman goes when there’s no going back.

High Fantasy
The Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks

I decided I wasn’t ready to deal with GRRM’s book just yet, so to prepare for the upcoming Sword of Shannara series, I decided to get started on the follow up , which the series is supposed to be mostly based on rather than the first book. It also gives me an excuse to find more pictures of Manu Bennet (who will be playing Allanon in the series) for reasons.

Ancient Evil threatens the Elves: The ancient tree created by long-lost Elven magic, is dying. When Wil Ohmsford is summoned to guard the Amberle on a perilous quest to gather a new seed for a new tree, he is faced with the Reaper, the most fearsome of all Demons. And Wil is without power to control them….

Freebie
Absolutely True Lies by Rachel Stuhler

Nixed the Kenyon book in favor of this because I wanted a light, summer read. This very much fit the bill.

A fledgling entertainment writer stumbles into the gig of a lifetime writing a teenage pop star’s memoir and soon realizes that the young celebrity’s squeaky-clean image is purely a work of fiction.

Struggling writer Holly Gracin is on the verge of moving back home to upstate New York when she gets hired to write the memoirs of eighteen-year-old Daisy Mae Dixson, a former Nickelodeon child star who has moved seamlessly into both blockbuster movies and pop music.

Holly quickly realizes that Daisy’s wholesome public image is purely a work of fiction, as Holly finds herself trailing the star as she travels around the world on yachts, gets stalked by paparazzi, and sneaks out of five-star hotels in the dead of night.

As Holly struggles to write a flattering portrait of a teenage millionaire who only eats “nightshades” and treats her employees like slaves, Daisy has a public meltdown – and suddenly, her book is the cornerstone of resurrecting her image. But working at all hours trailing a pop star has taken its toll, and Holly must decide if becoming the ultimate insider is worth losing a starring role in her own life.

Contemporary Dark
Unravel by Calia Read

I forgot to even pick a book for “dark contemporary,” so here’s a impromptu pick that I completed at the end of April after searching for a book to fill this theme that I finished the same day I chose it for this challenge.

Six months ago, I was happy. I was simply Naomi Carradine.

One month ago, I was admitted into a psych ward.

Yesterday, Lachlan visited me. Kissed me. And told me that I’m starting to lose my mind.

Hours later, Max haunted my thoughts, reminding me I’m not crazy and that he needs my help.

A few minutes ago, I drifted further from reality, trying to unravel the past.

And now…everyone thinks I’m insane. But, I know he’s real, and I know he needs me.

Do you believe me?

Forgotten Fridays
Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev

Okay, I wasn’t sure about this one at first. I know it’s a feature on Great Imaginations , but I didn’t know if I was supposed to choose my own or one that was featured on the site. I chose one that was featured on their site and was on my TBR pile.

All her world’s a stage.

Bertie Shakespeare Smith is not an actress, yet she lives in a theater.
She’s not an orphan, but she has no parents.
She knows every part, but she has no lines of her own.
That is, until now.

Enter Stage Right
NATE. Dashing pirate. Will do anything to protect Bertie.
COBWEB, MOTH, MUSTARD SEED, and PEASEBLOSSOM. Four tiny and incredibly annoying fairies. BERTIE’S sidekicks.
ARIEL. Seductive air spirit and Bertie’s weakness. The symbol of impending doom.
BERTIE. Our heroine.

Welcome to the Théâtre Illuminata, where the actors of every play ever written can be found behind the curtain. They were born to play their parts, and are bound to the Théâtre by The Book—an ancient and magical tome of scripts. Bertie is not one of them, but they are her family—and she is about to lose them all and the only home she has ever known.

Yellow Cover & Australian Author
The Shadow Master by Craig Cormick

It’s yellowish and I’m reading it because I have the second book as an ARC waiting to be read, so deal with it.  I cheated and added this for 2 reads:

In a land riven with plague, inside the infamous Walled City, two families vie for control: the Medicis with their genius inventor Leonardo; the Lorraines with Galileo, the most brilliant alchemist of his generation.

And when two star-crossed lovers, one from either house, threaten the status quo, a third, shadowy power – one that forever seems a step ahead of all of the familial warring – plots and schemes, and bides its time, ready for the moment to attack…

Assassination; ancient, impossible machines; torture and infamy – just another typical day in paradise.

Rain or Storm in Title
Storm Siren by Mary Weber

“I raise my chin as the buyers stare. Yes. Look. You don’t want me. Because, eventually, accidentally, I will destroy you.”

In a world at war, a slave girl’s lethal curse could become one kingdom’s weapon of salvation. If the curse—and the girl—can be controlled.

As a slave in the war-weary kingdom of Faelen, seventeen-year-old Nym isn’t merely devoid of rights, her Elemental kind are only born male and always killed at birth — meaning, she shouldn’t even exist.

Standing on the auction block beneath smoke-drenched mountains, Nym faces her fifteenth sell. But when her hood is removed and her storm-summoning killing curse revealed, Nym is snatched up by a court advisor and given a choice: be trained as the weapon Faelen needs to win the war, or be killed.

Choosing the former, Nym is unleashed into a world of politics, bizarre parties, and rumors of an evil more sinister than she’s being prepared to fight . . . not to mention the handsome trainer whose dark secrets lie behind a mysterious ability to calm every lightning strike she summons.

But what if she doesn’t want to be the weapon they’ve all been waiting for?

Set in a beautifully eclectic world of suspicion, super abilities, and monsters, Storm Siren is a story of power. And whoever controls that power will win.