Summer Reading

I love summer reading.

As a kid I would always sign up for the summer reading program at our local library. They would give you a paper booklet to right down the books you read. They had posters hung up for each of the local schools and you received stars next to your name.

Every Friday my mother would bring me to the library and I would walk out with a stack of books. Home on my own all summer while Mom worked I would read constantly-well into the night. I usually finished a book a day, give or take, and it was probably my favorite thing about summer.

Last year my local library held an adults version of the summer reading program with reading challenges and raffle prizes-I won an owl mug 🙂

This year, as a new Book Tuber I decided to share my summer reading pile of possibilities. This week is my book shelf edition. I had fun wandering my book shelf to find books I hadn’t read yet to add. I picked enough books that should I finish them all I will catch up on my yearly reading goal but then I glanced over to the library book shelf.

It’s full.

So I thought it would be fun to share a bookshelf edition-books I personally own. A library edition-books I have currently checked out and a Kindle edition since I have quite a few books on there waiting to be read.

I wish I could spend hours every day doing nothing but reading like I did as a child but the adult world is nothing if not relentless. While I may not be able to read a book a day, I think I can do 2 a week which will catch me up and give me a lovely sense of accomplishment.

I am also thinking I giving myself a little summer reading reward. Maybe if I read my goal of 25 books this summer I will have a fun prize at the end. What do you think?

If I counted correctly we have 13 weeks of summer so I am starting my summer reading on June 20th the official first day of summer and reading up to September 21st the last day of summer. As I said I am planning to read 2 books a week but my overall goal is 25 books just because it’s a nice round number.

I will let you know what I decide as my prize before the summer reading challenge starts but I would love for you to join me! Comment below and let me know your summer reading plans and if you are reading or have read any of the books on my list. For now here are my summer reading goals.

I have provided links to all the books if you click on the image. These are affiliate links and you make a purchase using these links you do not pay anymore but I may earn a small commission.

“In a land without magic, where the king rules with an iron hand, an assassin is summoned to the castle. She comes not to kill the king, but to win her freedom. If she defeats twenty-three killers, thieves, and warriors in a competition, she is released from prison to serve as the king’s champion. Her name is Celaena Sardothien.

The Crown Prince will provoke her. The Captain of the Guard will protect her. But something evil dwells in the castle of glass—and it’s there to kill. When her competitors start dying one by one, Celaena’s fight for freedom becomes a fight for survival, and a desperate quest to root out the evil before it destroys her world.”

 

Paris, 1885: Aubry Tourvel, a spoiled and stubborn nine-year-old girl, comes across a wooden puzzle ball on her walk home from school. She tosses it over the fence, only to find it in her backpack that evening. Days later, at the family dinner table, she starts to bleed to death.

When medical treatment only makes her worse, she flees to the outskirts of the city, where she realizes that it is this very act of movement that keeps her alive. So begins her lifelong journey on the run from her condition, which won’t allow her to stay anywhere for longer than a few days nor return to a place where she’s already been.

 

(Book #2 in the Victorian Book Club Mystery Series)

“Bath, England, 1891. Mr. James Harding was a lot of things–businessman, well-to-do, probable scoundrel–but a drinker he most assuredly was not. So when Harding is believed to have drunkenly fallen to his death into the icy River Avon, Lord William Wethington is immediately suspicious. Finding Lord William’s name on a letter in the victim’s pocket, the local constabulary summons William to identify the victim. Police detectives learn that William had been one of Harding’s business clients–and undoubtedly not the only client the dead man had cheated.

William entreats Lady Amy Lovell, a fellow member of the Mystery Book Club of Bath, to help him deduce what really happened to the late Mr. Harding. Lady Amy, a celebrated mystery author herself, once called on William to help her solve a real-life mystery, and now she fully intends to return the favor. But it won’t be easy.

Practically every one of Harding’s many clients had ample reason to want to do him in. And there’s precious little time to narrow down the list: William and Amy soon become prime suspects themselves when the police discover them ruffling through files in Harding’s house. Lady Amy will have to be as clever as her characters if she’s to save William from the gallows…and herself from Harding’s real killer.”

https://bookshop.org/a/80889/9781643858029(Book #3 in the Victorian Book Club Mystery Series)

“Bath, England, 1892. Celebrated mystery author Lady Amy Lovell is set to tie the knot with Lord William Wethington, a fellow member of the Mystery Book Club of Bath. Amy’s great-aunt, Lady Priscilla Granville, has offered to host their wedding at her stately Derby Manor House. But on the eve of the ceremony, the festive air in the drawing room is marred by Mrs. Alice Finch’s argument with her husband, Albert, in another room. The next morning at the wedding breakfast, Alice falls face-first into her breakfast—dead.

When Amy and William’s favorite detectives are summoned to the house, they see two champagne glasses in front of Mrs. Finch and none in front of her husband. Did Albert give his wife a poisoned drink? Always looking for the easiest solution, the detectives charge Albert with the murder.

But Lady Amy is not convinced that Albert is guilty. There are too many things that don’t add up. In the hopes of being able to leave Bath and begin their honeymoon, Amy and William once again take things into their own hands. Suspects begin to pop up, but nothing takes them more by surprise than the discovery of a second body.”

“All her life, Jani has dreamed of Elsewhere. Just barely scraping by with her job at a tannery, she’s resigned to a dreary life in the port town of Durc, caring for her younger sister Zosa. That is, until the Hotel Magnifique comes to town.

The hotel is legendary not only for its whimsical enchantments, but also for its ability to travel—appearing in a different destination every morning. While Jani and Zosa can’t afford the exorbitant costs of a guest’s stay, they can interview to join the staff, and are soon whisked away on the greatest adventure of their lives. But once inside, Jani quickly discovers their contracts are unbreakable and that beneath the marvelous glamour, the hotel is hiding dangerous secrets.”

“Atticus O’Sullivan, last of the Druids, lives peacefully in Arizona, running an occult bookshop and shape-shifting in his spare time to hunt with his Irish wolfhound. His neighbors and customers think that this handsome, tattooed Irish dude is about twenty-one years old—when in actuality, he’s twenty-one centuries old. Not to mention: He draws his power from the earth, possesses a sharp wit, and wields an even sharper magical sword known as Fragarach, the Answerer.

Unfortunately, a very angry Celtic god wants that sword, and he’s hounded Atticus for centuries. Now the determined deity has tracked him down, and Atticus will need all his power—plus the help of a seductive goddess of death, his vampire and werewolf team of attorneys, a bartender possessed by a Hindu witch, and some good old-fashioned luck of the Irish—to kick some Celtic arse and deliver himself from evil.”

https://bookshop.org/a/80889/9780593483589“Thirteen-year-old Annabella Ballinkay has never been normal, even by her psychic family’s standards. Every generation uses their abilities to help run the Ravenfall Inn, a sprawling, magical B&B at the crossroads of the human world and the Otherworld. But it’s hard to contribute when your only power is foreseeing death.

So when fourteen-year-old Colin Pierce arrives at Ravenfall searching for his missing older brother and the supernatural creature who killed their parents, Anna jumps at the chance to help. But the mysteries tied to Colin go much deeper than either of them expects. . . .

As the two team up to find answers, they unearth Colin’s family’s secret past and discover that Colin has powers beyond his imagination. And now the supernatural creature, one with eerie origins in Celtic mythology, is coming after him. If Anna and Colin can’t stop the creature by Halloween night, the veil to the Otherworld could be ripped open–which would spell destruction for their world as they know it.”

“When Enola Holmes, much younger sister of detective Sherlock Holmes, discovers her mother has disappeared—and on her 14th birthday, to make matters worse—she knows she alone can find her. Disguising herself as a grieving widow, Enola sets out to the heart of London to uncover her mother’s whereabouts—but not even the last name Holmes can prepare her for what awaits.

Suddenly involved in the kidnapping of the young Marquess of Basilwether, Enola must escape murderous villains, free the spoiled Marquess, and perhaps hardest of all, elude her shrewd older brother—all while collecting clues to her mother’s disappearance!

https://bookshop.org/a/80889/9781250838810“When a mysterious little free library (guarded by a large orange cat) appears overnight in the small town of Martinville, eleven-year-old Evan plucks two weathered books from its shelves, never suspecting that his life is about to change.

Evan and his best friend Rafe quickly discover a link between one of the old books and a long-ago event that none of the grown-ups want to talk about. The two boys start asking questions whose answers will transform not only their own futures, but the town itself.

Told in turn by a ghost librarian named Al, an aging (but beautiful) cat named Mortimer, and Evan himself, The Lost Library is a timeless story from award-winning authors Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass. It’s about owning your truth, choosing the life you want, and the power of a good book (and, of course, the librarian who gave it to you).”

“Precious Ramotswe has only just set up shop as Botswana’s No.1 (and only) lady detective when she is hired to track down a missing husband, uncover a con man, and follow a wayward daughter. However, the case that tugs at her heart, and lands her in danger, is a missing eleven-year-old boy, who may have been snatched by witch doctors.”

 

 

 

 

So that is my Summer Reading Pile of Possibilities: Bookshelf Edition. You can watch the video below but I do hope you have found a book or two to add to your own TBR this summer.

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante