Bookworm Reads 2021 Part 6

Spells Trouble by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast - ​Firstly, the narrator (Cassandra Campbell) is incredible and has a great voice for audiobooks! This story is wonderful, sad, complex, and full of familial love. Twin witches that need to save their world from monsters from different realms of power?! Sign me up! Norse, Egyptian, Hindu, Greek, Japanese gates that needed to be fixed and closed again to keep the "Oogly-Boogly's" away from the world. Hunter and Mercy must work together starting on their shared 16th birthday, and the night of their mother's murder by a monster that was loosed, to seal the gates or risk being separated. I loved this so much! It was full of magic and just had the greatest weaved story! ​⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️📚

A Chorus Rises by Bethany C. Morrow - ​Following the events of A Song Below Water we find Naema wanting to tell her half of the story. After all she is an eloko and deserves to be heard in her beloved Portland after Effie and Tavia so cruelly stoned her - in her own words.

I didn't enjoy this book nearly as much as I was hoping after the awesome prequel. I was 80% in and Naema was still a spoiled, whiny thing and it was driving me crazy. Once she meets up with her family in the Southwest things got better but it was still a slow book for me.

The narrators were amazing! The way they captured the emotions of the different characters was great and made it easier to follow along. ⭐️⭐️⭐️📚

The Keening by Anne Emery - Two timelines interweave in this historical fiction tale of a hotel owned by the Tierney's in lush Ireland. In present day the Tierney's are trying to keep an American investor from developing the land behind them into a casino and horrid tourist attractions by having an archaeological dig to find something to stop them. But old Cait is worried that they will find something that will turn the public against them because of the tumultuous past of the family and their land. In the late 1500s there is a string of murders in the town and the Tierney's are in the middle of helping find the murderer while also being careful not to bring the notice of the English to them. How will the past and present handle what's unearthed beneath? ⭐️⭐️⭐️📚

Big Boned by Jo Watson - Lori has just been uprooted from all of her friends in Johannesburg to live in Cape Town so her autistic brother can be at the best school in the country for him, and so her mother can escape her father's impending wedding to his mistress after a messy divorce. She adores her brother and is happy to have found a potential place to help him, but once she sets foot in the local high school she knows this will not be good. No one else looks like her, she is the only fat person on campus and even though her anxiety meds should be helping, and therapy does sometimes, she feels instantly out of place. When the hottest guy in school starts paying attention to her she freaks out even more thinking it's all a joke. Can she get over her inner bully and discover that she also deserves happiness in her life regardless of other people's choices for her life? Beautifully raw and moving, Lori's story is one of finding your voice when you feel powerless and believing you deserve all the happiness in the world regardless of what anyone else has to say. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️📚