Bookshelf Roundup: 03/20/21: Stacking the Shelves & Recent Reads
Bookshelf Roundup is a feature I do every 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 summarize what I’ve finished reading in the last week 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!
With the mail services picking up in my area again, Engines of Oblivion by Karen Osborne was an early February release that I was happy to see turn up! This is the sequel to Architects of Memory which I read last year, and it’d be cool to continue the story. With thanks to Tor Books for the review copy, as well as the following ARCs: The Library of The Dead by T.L. Huchu and The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman. Both are on my most-antipated releases for this year and I can’t wait to read them!
Thank you also to kind folks at Minotaur Books for a review copy of The Lost Village by Camilla Sten. This one certainly looks spooky and I look forward to seeing if this “disturbing thriller” will deliver. Also thanks to Redhook for a surprise ARC of The World Gives Way by Marissa Levien, a dystopian novel that has recently landed on my radar, so its arrival was rather serendipitous. And rounding out this week’s arrivals, I also want to thank Titan Books for a review copy of Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda edited by Jesse J. Holland, a collection of stories featuring the Marvel superhero by a lineup of award-winning authors. You know me, I’m all about the comic book tie-ins!
Just a couple of new titles in the digital haul this week, as I already have quite an audio review pile. Still, I jumped at the chance to check out Every Last Fear by Alex Finlay, and also Near the Bone by Christina Henry. Thank you to Macmillan Audio and Penguin Audio for the listening copies.
Reviews
Dead Space by Kali Wallace (4.5 of 5 stars)
The Ladies of the Secret Circus by Constance Sayers (4 of 5 stars)
Later by Stephen King (4 of 5 stars)
The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse (2.5 of 5 stars)
Roundup Highlights:
What I’ve Been Watching
So now that the kids are back in school for hybrid (yay!) and having some semblance of a routine again, I have been packing them off to bed early, leaving my husband and I more time in the evenings to explore a couple new series I’ve been curious about.
Earlier this month we finished Behind Her Eyes, a Netflix limited series based off of one of my favorite books by Sarah Pinborough. It’s been a several years since I read it though, and can you believe I had actually forgotten the twist ending?! Of course, it all came back to me about halfway through the series, which coincidentally was when things in the show started picking up. It seemed like they really dragged things out in the first three episodes, but then the rest was more in keeping with the energy of a fast-paced thriller. When all was said and done and I remembered everything again, I actually thought it was quite a well done, faithful adaptation.
This week, we also watched The One, based on the novel of the same name by John Marrs. Though I haven’t read the book, I did read The Passengers and more recently The Minders which are stories set in the same world, so a lot of the premise to The One did leak through, giving me just enough of a clue to be curious about the new 8-episode series. It’s based around an idea that I found completely ridiculous on the page, but something about it made me think it would work a lot better on the screen. It ended up being pretty entertaining, in a guilty-pleasure sort of way, as expected.
Have you watched any of these, or do you plan to? If so, what did you think?
What I’ve Been Reading
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 
I’m very curious about the new Buehlman book: it’s been a while since I read anything by this author!
As for Behind Her Eyes, I found it a bit slow in the beginning, yes, and if I had not read the book I might not have kept watching. Still, it was very well done and the actress playing Adele was convincingly ambiguous – and she’s Bono’s daughter! 🙂
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Yes, the first three episodes felt quite different from the last three – my husband actually fell asleep during the first ep, but then the last three he was glued to the screen!
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OOh nice ones! Lots of new to me ones. I loved Near the Bone! It was a seriously creepy book that gave you all kinds of chills! Hope you enjoy all the 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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SWEET! I’m glad to hear it…I hope to start Near the Bone soon, when the mood strikes for something creepy!
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I think I have a copy of The Library of the Dead on the way too. I’m so curious about The One, even though Marrs’ stories are sort of ridiculous, it might be fun!
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Yes, I thought the premise behind The One was so ridiculous! But as a TV adaptation, it actually worked a lot better!
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Cool Cool!! I have The Unbroken coming up next… and I think I may check out The One this weekend.
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I hope you’ll enjoy The Unbroken more than I did! It wasn’t bad, but…I definitely expected more. And The One was fun, hope you got to check it out!
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I’m excited about the unbroken. I just managed to snag a special edition of it today, but will have to wait a while for it to arrive. How are you enjoying it?
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Ah, by now you probably saw my review! I loved the first hundred pages or so, but after a while, the pacing slowed and the story kind of fizzled…but from Goodreads reviews, I seem to be in the minority in this thinking, as so many people loved it! I hope you will too! And ooh, a special edition! 😀
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I’m curious about The Library of the Dead. Anything about books piques my interest, now just hoping it’s a good one. 🙂
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Same here! Anything about books and libraries and it’s like, I’M SO THERE! 😀
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Oh, I have seen The One, but not taken a look, I have to now
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It was a fun watch. Some parts were ridiculous, but I was prepared for that 😛
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I can’t wait to read Library of the Dead. And I definitely need that Black Panther book. I’ve heard the Finlay book is problematic but I’m still curious. I’ve also heard it’s by AJ Flynn. Have you heard that as well?
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I had to look up the Alex Finlay/AJ Finn thing – haha, I had no idea there was that going on! But I guess the publisher said it wasn’t the same (and that Alex Finlay will be doing in person online events) and there were also readers who said the Finlay book had better writing than AJ Finn’s books. Who knows though! I did get a kick out of reading about the speculation 😀
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Yeah, Behind Her Eyes. I can’t deny that it was very well done and well cast. The first three episodes were too slow though – my husband had kind of given up and didn’t want to watch the rest but I told him he needed to bear with it and after thaT obviously it really picked up. I think it probably could have been condenses to 4 rather than 6 episodes. I still enjoyed it though.
Lynn 😀
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Hope you’ve enjoyed The Unbroken, I really liked that one. I’m excited for Library of the Dead–I need to figure out how to make time for that one soon-ish.
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