Mogsy’s Bookshelf Roundup: Stacking the Shelves & Recent Reads
Bookshelf Roundup is a feature I do every other weekend which fills the role of several blog memes, like Stacking the Shelves where I talk about the new books I’ve added to my library or received for review, as well as It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? where I round up what I’ve read since the last update and what I’m planning to read soon. Mostly it also serves as a recap post, so sometimes I’ll throw in stuff like reading challenge progress reports, book lists, and other random bookish thoughts or announcements.
Received for Review
My thanks to the publishers and authors for the following review copies received, and be sure to click the links to their Goodreads pages for more details and full descriptions!
After a brief dry spell, things are picking up again in my mailbox, with the arrival of some early 2020 ARCs. With thanks to Harper Voyager, I received a couple of these, first the very anticipated Race the Sands by Sarah Beth Durst. It was such a surprise when this showed up, but I’m very excited to read it. Another surprise arrival was Carved from Stone and Dream by T. Frohock, book five in her Los Nifilim sequence. I’ve very much enjoyed the author’s work in the past, but I sadly fell behind on this series so I’m going to have to do a little research to see if I can read this as a standalone. From the publisher also came a couple of finished copies, including The Blue Eye by Ausma Zehanat Khan, the third book in The Khorasan Archives. I’ve only read the first one, and I can’t believe this series is so far along already! Finally, I also received Escaping Exodus by Nicky Drayden, and this sounds like another strange one. I’d like to give it a try if I some time this fall.
Thank you to Titan Books, I also received Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon by James Lovegrove. You know how I can’t resist anything to do with Sherlock Holmes, and this sounds like it would be a great one to read over the holidays.
And with thanks to Pyr and Kaye Publicity, I also got my finished copy of Forever and a Doomsday by Laurence MacNaughton, yay! And in case you missed it, Laurence kindly wrote us a guest post earlier in the week, so be sure to check it out if you haven’t already, it’s a fun read. I can’t wait to check out his new book, the latest in the Dru Jasper series.
This was also a week of new discoveries. From Simon & Schuster, I received a new-to-me book earlier this month called White Elephant by Trish Harnetiaux, which is a Christmas mystery according to the publisher description. Another good one to check out over the holidays! From Subterranean Press I also received an ARC of Jane Goes North by Joe R. Lansdale, a road trip adventure. And from 47North and the kind folks at Wunderkind PR I also received a finished copy of The Vine Witch by Luanne G. Smith, which I’m looking forward to diving into real soon, if I haven’t already started by the time this post goes live.
Also thanks to Tachyon Press for sending me the following ARCs: Sea Change by Nancy Kress, which looks really interesting and I’ve always wanted to read more by the author; as well as The Immortal Conquistador by Carrie Vaughn, a story that sounds linked to her Kitty Norville books. Last but not least, I received this gorgeous graphic novel from HarperCollins called Estranged: The Changeling King by Ethan M. Aldridge. It appears to be the second book in a series, and while it is geared towards Middle Grade readers, the illustrations are simply stunning and I find myself curious to take a look.
A huge digital haul this week, as I find myself gravitating more towards audio, especially. With thanks to Tantor Audio, I received listening copies of Walking to Aldebaran by Adrian Tchaikovsky. From Hachette Audio, I received the highly anticipated audiobook to The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black. From Penguin Random House Audio, I received The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern and from their YA imprint Listening Library I received A River of Royal Blood by Amanda Joy.
I was also sent a few exciting eARCs from authors and publishers. Dispel Illusion by Mark Lawrence is the third book in the Impossible Times series published by 47North and I can hardly wait to read it! And speaking of not being able to wait, the time has also finally come for The Last Sun sequel, The Hanged Man by J.D Edwards, cheers to Pyr Books and the team at Kaye Publicity. In my email earlier this week I was also ecstatic to find an invite from Entangled: Teen for Find Me Their Bones by Sara Wolf, the follow-up to the brilliant Bring Me Their Hearts.
Oops, I also might have gone a little nuts on NetGalley and Edelweiss, but with all these eARCs to download right away, it was hard to resist. From Tor, I grabbed The Glass Magician by Caroline Stevermer, a book I recently featured for Waiting on Wednesday. I also loved the sound of The Return by Rachel Harrison, a horror thriller from Berkley about a group of friends who reunite after the return of them from a mysterious two-year disappearance. St. Martin’s Press also got me good with a trio of highly anticipated books on my wishlist: The God Game by Danny Tobey, Alone in the Wild by Kelley Armstrong, and Twilight of the Gods by Scott Oden!
Reviews
Below is a quick summary of my reviews posted since the last update. I was really trying to stack some horror reads for early October, but I didn’t have luck with many of my choices, as you can see. Thank goodness there were a couple good ones though.
The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher (4.5 of 5 stars)
Dark Pattern by Andrew Mayne (4 of 5 stars)
The True Bastards by Jonathan French (4 of 5 stars)
The Beautiful by Renée Ahdieh (4 of 5 stars)
Violet by Scott Thomas (3.5 of 5 stars)
Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky (2.5 of 5 stars)
The Tenth Girl by Sara Faring (2 of 5 stars)
The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht (2 of 5 stars)
Roundup Highlights:
Interviews and Guest Posts
A shout out to the authors who stopped by The BiblioSanctum!
Guest Post: “7 Secrets to Making Fascinating Monsters” by Laurence MacNaughton
What I’ve Read Since the Last Update
Here’s what I’ve managed to “unstack” from the TBR since the last update. More reviews coming soon!
Have you heard of or read any of the books featured this week? What caught your eye? Any new discoveries? I hope you found something interesting for a future read! Let me know what you plan on checking out. Until next time, see you next Roundup!
The BiblioSanctum 
Race of the sands sounds so good! And I’m so jealous of your copy of the queen of nothing!
(www.evelynreads.com)
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I was surprised the listening copy was available so early, tbh! Needless to say, I snagged it as soon as I saw it 😀
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As I was casually looking at the pictures and saw “Scot Ode….” I at first thought it was a Scott O’dell book and was excited to see what you thought of his middle grade stuff. Then I paid attention and realized it was “Oden” and I went “phhhhhhh”…
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Haha, I love O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins!
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Ooh, so jealous of Dispel Illusion! Mark Lawrence posted on Goodreads that the arcs were on NG, crushed me that they aren’t!
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Yeah, I don’t think they were made widely available on NG, unfortunately! I was checking every day too!
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I very much like James Lovegrove’s Sherlock, hope this one is great too 😁
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Oooh, I’m glad to hear that! His books are new to me, so I’m pretty excited to dive in.
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OOoh nice new reads!! I didn’t know Carrie Vaughn had a new one out! I still need to finish up the Kitty series! Whelp! Lol.
Hope you enjoy all the lovely new reads!
My StS will be up tomorrow, so stop by then if you can!
Have a GREAT day!
Old Follower 🙂
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Well, I haven’t even started the Kitty series, so I’ll probably be a little lost with this one 😀
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I’m excited about Race the Sands! I’m also kicking myself that I never started Laurence MacNaughton’s series.
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Dru Jasper a great series, hopefully you’ll get a chance to get to it, maybe when it’s all finished!
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Wow, awesome haul!
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Lots to keep me busy in the coming weeks 🙂
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I’m interested in The God Game and I also kinda want to continue with Lawrence’s series.
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The God Game has me really curious, especially with the gaming angle!
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Oh, the Queen of Nothing! I was so dumbfounded at the end of The Wicked King that I can’t wait to see how the story will move forward from there. And then the core concept for Escaping Exodus reminds me of a Farscape episode in which people literally excavated a dead creature for its useful materials while living inside the carcass: apart from the “ewwww factor” this one sounds interesting… 🙂
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Oh I know, Holly Black is so cruel with her endings! It’s taking me everything not to jump into Queen of Nothing right away. And that sounds like an awesome episode of Farscape! I don’t know if I’m going to read Escaping Exodus yet, but that kind of makes me want to check it out more, lol!
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Great haul. I’m excited to start a few of these books to. Will be starting the Doomsday book very soon and would love a copy of The Hanged Man.
Happy reading.
Lynn 😀
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Hoping to start the new Doomsday book soon too. I’m hoping to read it when I’m in need of a more upbeat book!
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Yay new books 😀
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Haha yep, and the TBR mountain grows some more!
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Race the Sands looks interesting! I need to get back to Mark Lawrence’s series too. And the new rockton book? YES.
How Rory thorne looks interesting, looking forward to your review of that one.
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Yeah when I saw the new Rockton book for immediate download on Edelweiss, I didn’t hesitate for a second. YOINK!
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You’re a voracious reader. I love browsing the titles and seeing what’s coming up. 🙂
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Believe it or not, I used to read even more! Life has been busy the last year though, so most of my reads now are audiobooks. Without audiobooks, I don’t think I’d get any books finished.
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🙂 I’ve read a lot more books this year because I started listening to books while driving, cooking, cleaning, exercising. I shocked myself. Lol. I love your recommendations. 🙂
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I do love that Race the Sands cover! Looking forward to checking my copy out. I need to get to my copy of The Last Sun, I’ve seen good things about the series so far! I just scored The Unspoken Name off of Edelweiss, definitely curious about that one.
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I agree, Race the Sands does have a great cover, Sarah Beth Durst seems to always luck out on that front! And I’m also curious about The Unspoken Name, though my tbr for Jan/Feb 2020 is already a bit too packed for another hefty epic fantasy! If there’s gonna be an audiobook available I’ll probably wait for that format.
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Unspoken Name was the one exception I gave myself for requests, as my TBR is ALSO getting full (have that hefty Master of Sorrows to get through too). Hopefully I can stand strong against more requests…..
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I don’t know how you keep up! Yowza.
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Haha, I don’t really do a great job keeping up, I wish I did 😀
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Wow, nice list of books! Looking forward to reading your reviews! 😀
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I’ll try to get as many read as I can, but any unsolicited books will probably be lower priority 😛
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I’m a little late visiting this week but man, you got some good books! I’m planning on reading White Elephant around the Thanksgiving holiday as that’s when I’ll look to kick off my holiday reads. I am curious about the Carrie Vaughn book and read a few of the Kitty books but have always hoped to go back and revisit them.
Hope you have a great week!
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This was the first time I heard of White Elephant, glad to hear it’s on your radar!
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Oooh you got The Queen of Nothing?!?! I hope you like it ❤
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Hope to start the audio real soon!
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OOOOOH, Carved From Stone and Dream!!! OOOOOOH The Hanged Man!!!!!!! OOOOOOOHHHH THE QUEEN OF NOTHING!!!!!! (I’m very excited about your tbr pile lol)
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Really looking forward to The Queen of Nothing! I wish I had started the Los Nifilim series when I had the chance though!
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You can start with the novel and skip the novellas, that’s what I did. You don’t *need* to read them. (I am going to go back at some point and do so though!). That first novel was really good and I loved all the elements in it–it’s a great dark fantasy.
I am also super excited for Queen of Nothing (like you couldn’t tell hahahah).
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Oh that’s good to know! I think I read somewhere that the author said this can be read as a standalone too, and if that’s true, I’ll definitely check it out!
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Not sure about the new one, but definitely the first full novel can be for sure. I do think the stories might be more episodic? You can always ask Teresa on twitter, she’s super friendly. 🙂
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Am loving the cover of the Blue Eye. I’mma look up that series.
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I didn’t love the first book so I didn’t continue, but I hope you’ll have good luck with it! The covers are indeed very beautiful.
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It sounds like youve gotten some fantastic books. I can’t believe you already have Queen Of Nothing!! And Race The Sands, Starless Sea and A River Of Royal Blood. I’m kind of curious about the Sherlock book too – the titles rather intriguing.
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I was surprised the audio review copy for Queen of Nothing became available to reviewers so soon, usually I have to wait until the week of release or a week or two earlier the soonest. I’m probably going to wait until closer to release date to listen anyway, but when I saw it I just had to snag it right away, lol 😀
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Yes its definitely surprising, especially as it’s such a popular series. I hope you enjoy it when you do listen to it (:
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Awesome! Glad they sent you a copy of Twilight of the Gods! Hope you like it!
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Well, the digital arc was actually available for download at Edelweiss, so I grabbed it 😀 Very excited to read!
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There should be an audio edition of both books coming about the same time (Jan/Feb 2020) from Blackstone.
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Sweet! Good to know! 😀
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