June is the busiest reading month that I have ever had. This month is completely booked (pun intended) as I am participating in around six readathons but I am really looking forward to, hopefully, get to all the books on my list.
The Lost Sisters (The Folk of the Air #1.5) by Holly Black
G O O D R E A D S | S Y N O P S I S
Sometimes the difference between a love story and a horror story is where the ending comes . . .
While Jude fought for power in the Court of Elfhame against the cruel Prince Cardan, her sister Taryn began to fall in love with the trickster, Locke.
Half-apology and half-explanation, it turns out that Taryn has some secrets of her own to reveal.
The Lost Sisters is a companion e-novella to the New York Times bestselling novel The Cruel Prince by master writer Holly Black.
I read the first book, The Cruel Prince, in April and have been thinking about the characters non-stop. Super excited to continue the rest of the story!
The next few books are all from my Olympic Games Readathon blog post. If you want to read more on why I chose each book to read this month, you can check out my full blog post here.
Frankenstein by Marry Shelley
G O O D R E A D S | S Y N O P S I S
The scientist Victor Frankenstein, obsessed with possessing the secrets of life, creates a new being from the bodies of the dead. But his creature is a twisted, gruesome parody of a man who, rejected for his monstrous appearance, sets out to destroy his maker.
Mary Shelley’s chilling Gothic tale, conceived after a nightmare in 1816 when she was only eighteen, became a modern myth. It is a disturbing and dramatic exploration of birth and death, creation and destruction, and one of the most iconic horror stories of all time.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter #2) by J.K. Rowling
G O O D R E A D S | S Y N O P S I S
“There is a plot, Harry Potter. A plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year.”
Harry Potter’s summer has included the worst birthday ever, doomy warnings from a house-elf called Dobby, and rescue from the Dursleys by his friend Ron Weasley in a magical flying car! Back at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for his second year, Harry hears strange whispers echo through empty corridors – and then the attacks start. Students are found as though turned to stone… Dobby’s sinister predictions seem to be coming true.
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
G O O D R E A D S | S Y N O P S I S
A world divided.
A queendom without an heir.
An ancient enemy awakens.
The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction—but assassins are getting closer to her door.
Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.
Across the dark sea, Tané has trained all her life to be a dragonrider, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.
Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.
Ninth House by (Alex Stern #1) Leigh Bardugo
G O O D R E A D S | S Y N O P S I S
Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?
Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.
The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle #2) by Maggie Stiefvater
G O O D R E A D S | S Y N O P S I S
Blue didn’t mean to fall for the Raven Boys, but she has – and the more her life entwines with theirs, the more dangerous it becomes.
Ronan is the most dangerous of all.
He’s the haunted one, the darkest, the most raven.
His dreams invade reality and confuse what is true.
With magic growing stronger around them, now is a time to be wary. Before everything unravels …
Friendships will be tested. Someone will get hurt.
And a kiss will be shared.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter #3) by J.K. Rowling
G O O D R E A D S | S Y N O P S I S
“Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transportation for the stranded witch or wizard. Just stick out your wand hand, step on board and we can take you anywhere you want to go.”
When the Knight Bus crashes through the darkness and screeches to a halt in front of him, it’s the start of another far from ordinary year at Hogwarts for Harry Potter. Sirius Black, escaped mass-murderer and follower of Lord Voldemort, is on the run – and they say he is coming after Harry. In his first ever Divination class, Professor Trelawney sees an omen of death in Harry’s tea leaves… But perhaps most terrifying of all are the Dementors patrolling the school grounds, with their soul-sucking kiss…
The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air #3) by Holly Black
G O O D R E A D S | S Y N O P S I S
He will be destruction of the crown and the ruination of the throne.
Power is much easier to acquire than it is to hold onto. Jude learned this lesson when she released her control over the wicked king, Cardan, in exchange for immeasurable power.
Now as the exiled mortal Queen of Faerie, Jude is powerless and left reeling from Cardan’s betrayal. She bides her time determined to reclaim everything he took from her. Opportunity arrives in the form of her deceptive twin sister, Taryn, whose mortal life is in peril.
Jude must risk venturing back into the treacherous Faerie Court, and confront her lingering feelings for Cardan, if she wishes to save her sister. But Elfhame is not as she left it. War is brewing. As Jude slips deep within enemy lines she becomes ensnared in the conflict’s bloody politics.
And, when a dormant yet powerful curse is unleashed, panic spreads throughout the land, forcing her to choose between her ambition and her humanity…
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Holly Black, comes the highly anticipated and jaw-dropping finale to The Folk of the Air trilogy.
The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy #1) by Katherine Arden
G O O D R E A D S | S Y N O P S I S
At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. But Vasilisa doesn’t mind—she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse’s fairy tales. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.
After Vasilisa’s mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa’s new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.
And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa’s stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent.
As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed—this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse’s most frightening tales.
The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air #2) by Holly Black
G O O D R E A D S | S Y N O P S I S
The enchanting and bloodthirsty sequel to the New York Times bestselling novel The Cruel Prince.
You must be strong enough to strike and strike and strike again without tiring.
The first lesson is to make yourself strong.
After the jaw-dropping revelation that Oak is the heir to Faerie, Jude must keep her brother safe. To do so, she has bound the wicked king, Cardan, to her, and made herself the power behind the throne. Navigating the constantly shifting political alliances of Faerie would be difficult enough if Cardan were easy to control. But he does everything in his power to humiliate and undermine her even as his fascination with her remains undiminished.
When it becomes all too clear that someone close to Jude means to betray her, threatening her own life and the lives of everyone she loves, Jude must uncover the traitor and fight her own complicated feelings for Cardan to maintain control as a mortal in a Faerie world.
Lovely War by Julie Berry
G O O D R E A D S | S Y N O P S I S
A sweeping, multi-layered romance with a divine twist, by the Printz Honor-winning author of The Passion of Dolssa, set in the perilous days of World Wars I and II.
It’s 1917, and World War I is at its zenith when Hazel and James first catch sight of each other at a London party. She’s a shy and talented pianist; he’s a newly minted soldier with dreams of becoming an architect. When they fall in love, it’s immediate and deep–and cut short when James is shipped off to the killing fields.
Aubrey Edwards is also headed toward the trenches. A gifted musician who’s played Carnegie Hall, he’s a member of the 15th New York Infantry, an all-African-American regiment being sent to Europe to help end the Great War. Love is the last thing on his mind. But that’s before he meets Colette Fournier, a Belgian chanteuse who’s already survived unspeakable tragedy at the hands of the Germans.
Thirty years after these four lovers’ fates collide, the Greek goddess Aphrodite tells their stories to her husband, Hephaestus, and her lover, Ares, in a luxe Manhattan hotel room at the height of World War II. She seeks to answer the age-old question: Why are Love and War eternally drawn to one another? But her quest for a conclusion that will satisfy her jealous husband uncovers a multi-threaded tale of prejudice, trauma, and music and reveals that War is no match for the power of Love.
The next few books are all from my #MakeYourMythTaker blog post. If you want to read more on why I chose each book to read this month, you can check out my full blog post here.
An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson
G O O D R E A D S | S Y N O P S I S
Every enchantment has a price.
With a flick of her paintbrush, Isobel creates stunning portraits for a dangerous set of clients: the fair folk. These immortal creatures cannot bake bread or put a pen to paper without crumbling to dust. They crave human Craft with a terrible thirst, and they trade valuable enchantments for Isobel’s paintings. But when she receives her first royal patron—Rook, the autumn prince—Isobel makes a deadly mistake. She paints mortal sorrow in his eyes, a weakness that could cost him his throne, and even his life.
Furious, Rook spirits Isobel away to his kingdom to stand trial for her crime. But something is seriously amiss in his world, and they are attacked from every side. With Isobel and Rook depending upon each other for survival, their alliance blossoms into trust, perhaps even love . . . a forbidden emotion that would violate the fair folks’ ruthless laws, rendering both their lives forfeit. What force could Isobel’s paintings conjure that is powerful enough to defy the ancient malice of the fairy courts?
Isobel and Rook journey along a knife-edge in a lush world where beauty masks corruption and the cost of survival might be more frightening than death itself.
Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson
G O O D R E A D S | S Y N O P S I S
All sorcerers are evil. Elisabeth has known that as long as she has known anything. Raised as a foundling in one of Austermeer’s Great Libraries, Elisabeth has grown up among the tools of sorcery—magical grimoires that whisper on shelves and rattle beneath iron chains. If provoked, they transform into grotesque monsters of ink and leather. She hopes to become a warden, charged with protecting the kingdom from their power.
Then an act of sabotage releases the library’s most dangerous grimoire. Elisabeth’s desperate intervention implicates her in the crime, and she is torn from her home to face justice in the capital. With no one to turn to but her sworn enemy, the sorcerer Nathaniel Thorn, and his mysterious demonic servant, she finds herself entangled in a centuries-old conspiracy. Not only could the Great Libraries go up in flames, but the world along with them.
As her alliance with Nathaniel grows stronger, Elisabeth starts to question everything she’s been taught—about sorcerers, about the libraries she loves, even about herself. For Elisabeth has a power she has never guessed, and a future she could never have imagined.
The next few books are all from my The Readathon Diaries blog post. If you want to read more on why I chose each book to read this month, you can check out my full blog post here.
Everless (Everless #1) by Sara Holland
G O O D R E A D S | S Y N O P S I S
In the kingdom of Sempera, time is currency—extracted from blood, bound to iron, and consumed to add time to one’s own lifespan. The rich aristocracy, like the Gerlings, tax the poor to the hilt, extending their own lives by centuries.
No one resents the Gerlings more than Jules Ember. A decade ago, she and her father were servants at Everless, the Gerlings’ palatial estate, until a fateful accident forced them to flee in the dead of night. When Jules discovers that her father is dying, she knows that she must return to Everless to earn more time for him before she loses him forever.
But going back to Everless brings more danger—and temptation—than Jules could have ever imagined. Soon she’s caught in a tangle of violent secrets and finds her heart torn between two people she thought she’d never see again. Her decisions have the power to change her fate—and the fate of time itself.
The Awakening (The Vampire Diaries #1) by L.J. Smith
G O O D R E A D S | S Y N O P S I S
A DEADLY LOVE TRIANGLE
Elena: the golden girl, the leader, the one who can have any boy she wants.
Stefan: brooding and mysterious, he seems to be the only one who can resist Elena, even as he struggles to protect her from the horrors that haunt his past.
Damon: sexy, dangerous, and driven by an urge for revenge against Stefan, the brother who betrayed him. Determined to have Elena, he’d kill to possess her.
Collected here in one volume for the first time, volumes one and two of The Vampire Diaries, the tale of two vampire brothers and the beautiful girl torn between them.
The next few books are books I want to get to for the Galleyathon but I will be writing a full blog post on my TBR for it later on.
Beyond the Moon by Catherine Taylor
G O O D R E A D S | S Y N O P S I S
*Longlisted for the 2019 Exeter Novel Prize
A strange twist of fate connects a British soldier fighting in the First World War in 1916 with a young woman living in modern-day England a century later, in this haunting literary time travel novel.
Two people, two battles: one against the invading Germans on the battlefields of 1916 France, the other against a substandard, uncaring mental health facility in modern-day England. Part war story, part timeslip, part love story – and at the same time a meditation on the themes of war, mental illness, identity and art, Beyond The Moon is an intelligent, captivating debut novel, perfect for book clubs.
A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow
G O O D R E A D S | S Y N O P S I S
Tavia is already at odds with the world, forced to keep her siren identity under wraps in a society that wants to keep her kind under lock and key. Never mind she’s also stuck in Portland, Oregon, a city with only a handful of black folk and even fewer of those with magical powers. At least she has her bestie Effie by her side as they tackle high school drama, family secrets, and unrequited crushes.
But everything changes in the aftermath of a siren murder trial that rocks the nation; the girls’ favorite Internet fashion icon reveals she’s also a siren, and the news rips through their community. Tensions escalate when Effie starts being haunted by demons from her past, and Tavia accidentally lets out her magical voice during a police stop. No secret seems safe anymore—soon Portland won’t be either.
Out of Body by Jeffrey Ford
G O O D R E A D S | S Y N O P S I S
Out of Body is a dark fantasy thriller from multi-award-winning author Jeffrey Ford.
A small-town librarian witnesses a murder at his local deli, and what had been routine sleep paralysis begins to transform into something far more disturbing. The trauma of holding a dying girl in his arms drives him out of his own body. The town he knows so well is suddenly revealed to him from a whole new perspective. Secrets are everywhere and demons fester behind closed doors.
Worst of all, he discovers a serial killer who has been preying on the area for over a century, one capable of traveling with him through his dreams.
The Extraordinaries by TJ Klune
G O O D R E A D S | S Y N O P S I S
Some people are extraordinary. Some are just extra. TJ Klune’s YA debut, The Extraordinaries, is a queer coming-of-age story about a fanboy with ADHD and the heroes he loves.
Nick Bell? Not extraordinary. But being the most popular fanfiction writer in the Extraordinaries fandom is a superpower, right?
After a chance encounter with Shadow Star, Nova City’s mightiest hero (and Nick’s biggest crush), Nick sets out to make himself extraordinary. And he’ll do it with or without the reluctant help of Seth Gray, Nick’s best friend (and maybe the love of his life).
Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl meets Marissa Meyer’s Renegades in TJ Klune’s YA debut.
I have quite a lot of books on my TBR this month and I will probably need to add a few more later on after I am done planning for the other readathons that will be coming up. Probably will not get to them all but it is the fun that counts in the end.
It is also the first day of winter in South Africa and I cannot wait to snuggle with my puppy under a warm blanket, spend the entire day reading and to play a few hours of Animal Crossings: New Horizons! What are you doing to keep busy and to take your mind off things for a while?
Keep reading, stay safe and never stop telling stories.
White Rose Stories 
Wow that’s a huge list! But you’ve got some awesome books there so time might just fly by 😀 Good luck with your readathons!
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Haha, I know right? 👀 Thank you so, so much! 🤍
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This is a great TBR, Rose! You definitely have a lot. Between ARCs, Blog Tours and Book Clubs my month is also very busy😅 I hope you like The Wicked King and The Queen of Nothing, I really enjoyed those books. I also wish to read A Song Below Water soon!
Good luck, I hope you can read them all💛
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Aw thank you, Cielo! Haha yes, I do 🙈 *sighs* the life of a book blogger, am I right? Good luck with everything! Thank you so much, I’m really excited to get to them! ✨🤍
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There are so many great books on your tbr, I hope you enjoy all of them! I’m also planning on reading The Priory of the Orange Tree this month, it sounds amazing and I have great things about it. Hopefully we will both enjoy it, I can’t wait to know your thoughts on it.
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Thank you so much! That’s so amazing! Same here! ✨
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I finished the final book of the Winternight trilogy last month and it is one of the most stunning trilogies I have ever read and each book just got better. Lovely War has also been on my tbr for the longest time, I’m so intrigued by the premise! Look forward to hearing your thoughts x
Evie x | http://www.eviejayne.co.uk
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I am so glad to hear that! It is a trilogy I have been wanting to binge read for the longest time and I’m excited to get to it as the weather turns colder each day. Me too! Hope we both end up really enjoying it. Thank you, that means so much! xx
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This TBR has some very good choices. The Lovely War is also on my TBR. I hope you end up enjoying the rest of the Folk of the Air series! I see you have other fae books on here and I’m sensing a theme :)
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Thank you so much! Hope you enjoy Lovely War! I’m really excited to get to it, thank you! Haha, I did not even realise that ✨
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Frankenstein is one of my favs!!! Also, I’m reading Ninth House this month as well. Very excited.
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So glad you loved it! I cannot wait to get to it!
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Oof LOVE Queen of Nothing. One of my unexpected faves of last year. And ahh loved my Raven Cycle reread, book two is SO great.
I have The Extraordinaries on my tbr, and ahh I’m so excited!! And The Song Below Water sounds AMAZING.
Hope you read them all xx
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So glad you loved it! I cannot wait to continue the series!
They both sound so intriguing and I cannot wait to get to them!
Thank you, Ruby! x
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