#AsianLitBingo 2019

Happy May Day, all! I’m super excited to reveal that I will be a host for LitCelebrAsian’s #AsianLitBingo this month. This is a month-long reading challenge that encourages readers to support Asian authors, especially #ownvoices books.

For those who may not be aware, May is Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month in the United States. Here is some background on the challenge from LitCelebrAsian:

In publishing, there are power dynamics in play that marginalize Asian authors, especially those who write Asian characters and draw from their heritage for their writing. In the context of publishing in countries where white people are the majority/dominant group, diaspora Asians in those countries have a hard time breaking into publishing.

In a more global context, Asian writers in Asia have a hard to reaching a wider market beyond regional publishing due to their perceived foreignness, plus a general lack of infrastructure for translations for those that don’t write in English (and many do write in English). There are also double standards in the industry that facilitate publication for white authors writing Asian[-inspired] characters/settings/stories while Asian writers who write from the place of a cultural insider are often told their stories are “too Asian” or “not Asian enough.” For this reason, we feel it is especially important to highlight #ownvoices Asian stories, where the authors share the heritage of the characters they write about.

Here is the bingo board, I will be completing the middle row 🙂

Now for the good stuff: the books I will be reading. You can see my sad attempt at a bookstagram at the top of this post and here are some more deets:

Science Fiction/Fantasy with Asian Main Character: Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim

Maia Tamarin dreams of becoming the greatest tailor in the land, but as a girl, the best she can hope for is to marry well. When a royal messenger summons her ailing father, once a tailor of renown, to court, Maia poses as a boy and takes his place. She knows her life is forfeit if her secret is discovered, but she’ll take that risk to achieve her dream and save her family from ruin. There’s just one catch: Maia is one of twelve tailors vying for the job.

Historical Fiction with Asian Main Character: The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey

Bombay, 1921: Perveen Mistry, the daughter of a respected Zoroastrian family, has just joined her father’s law firm, becoming one of the first female lawyers in India. Armed with a legal education from Oxford, Perveen also has a tragic personal history that makes her especially devoted to championing and protecting women’s rights. 

Free Space: Wicked Fox by Kat Cho

Eighteen-year-old Gu Miyoung has a secret–she’s a gumiho, a nine-tailed fox who must devour the energy of men in order to survive. Because so few believe in the old tales anymore, and with so many evil men no one will miss, the modern city of Seoul is the perfect place to hide and hunt. But after feeding one full moon, Miyoung crosses paths with Jihoon, a human boy, being attacked by a goblin deep in the forest. Against her better judgment, she violates the rules of survival to rescue the boy, losing her fox bead–her gumiho soul–in the process.

Retelling with Asian Main Character: A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, edited by Ellen Oh and Elsie Chapman

Star-crossed lovers, meddling immortals, feigned identities, battles of wits, and dire warnings. These are the stuff of fairy tale, myth, and folklore that have drawn us in for centuries. Fifteen bestselling and acclaimed authors reimagine the folklore and mythology of East and South Asia in short stories that are by turns enchanting, heartbreaking, romantic, and passionate. 

Contemporary with Asian Main Character: A Match Made in Mehendi by Nandini Bajpai

Fifteen-year-old Simran “Simi” Sangha comes from a long line of Indian vichole-matchmakers-with a rich history for helping parents find good matches for their grown children. When Simi accidentally sets up her cousin and a soon-to-be lawyer, her family is thrilled that she has the “gift.” But Simi is an artist, and she doesn’t want to have anything to do with relationships, helicopter parents, and family drama. That is, until she realizes this might be just the thing to improve her and her best friend Noah’s social status. Armed with her family’s ancient guide to finding love, Simi starts a matchmaking service-via an app, of course.

August 2018 TBR

Presenting my August TBR stacks! Please ignore that horrible glare (Mother Nature did not want to cooperate with me as I was rushing to shoot this picture). In regards to physical books, these are the ones I’m attempting to get thru this month. I’ve been horrible at planning for release dates so I have a bunch of August and September releases here I need to read. And it’s also #ARCAugust so this is perfect timing. PS look at all that historical fiction AND a nonfiction?! I’m growing up.

This starting list has got…

1 graphic novel
2 advanced finished copies
3 backlist books
8 physical ARCs

Full titles and official Goodreads synopses are below—happy August reading, book lovers!

Bloom by Kevin Panetta (illus. Savanna Ganucheau)

Now that high school is over, Ari is dying to move to the big city with his ultra-hip band―if he can just persuade his dad to let him quit his job at their struggling family bakery. Though he loved working there as a kid, Ari cannot fathom a life wasting away over rising dough and hot ovens. But while interviewing candidates for his replacement, Ari meets Hector, an easygoing guy who loves baking as much as Ari wants to escape it. As they become closer over batches of bread, love is ready to bloom . . . that is, if Ari doesn’t ruin everything. (Graphic novel, ARC)


The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason

Vienna, 1914. Lucius is a twenty-two-year-old medical student when World War I explodes across Europe. Enraptured by romantic tales of battlefield surgery, he enlists, expecting a position at a well-organized field hospital. But when he arrives–at a commandeered church tucked away high in a remote valley of the Carpathian Mountains–he discovers a freezing outpost ravaged by typhus. The other doctors have fled, and only a single mysterious nurse named Sister Margarete remains.  But Lucius has never lifted a surgeon’s scalpel. And as the war rages across the winter landscape, he finds himself falling in love with the woman from whom he must learn a brutal makeshift medicine. Then one day, an unconscious soldier is brought in from the snow, his uniform stuffed with strange drawings. He seems beyond rescue, until Lucius makes a fateful decision that will change the lives of doctor, patient, and nurse forever. (Adult historical fiction, ARC)


Tiffany Blues by M.J. Rose

I was lucky enough to win a copy thru Bookish First! If you haven’t heard of this awesome program, you are given an excerpt of a future release and you write a first impression. You are then put into a pool with everyone else who submitted a first impression and a few lucky readers get copies to read and review.

New York, 1924. Jenny Bell is one of a dozen burgeoning artists invited to Louis Comfort Tiffany’s prestigious artists’ colony. Gifted and determined, Jenny vows to avoid distractions and take full advantage of the many wonders to be found at Laurelton Hall. But Jenny’s past has followed her to Long Island. Images of her beloved mother, her hard-hearted stepfather, waterfalls, and murder, and the dank hallways of Canada’s notorious Andrew Mercer Reformatory for Women overwhelm Jenny’s thoughts, even as she is inextricably drawn to Oliver, Tiffany’s charismatic grandson. (Adult historical fiction, finished copy)


Immortal Reign by Morgan Rhodes

Yes, I know that I’m horribly late at starting this series. But I’ve found it highly entertaining and I’m completely invested in Magnus and Cleo being happy.

As two lethal elemental gods set out to destroy Mytica, sworn enemies must become allies in the final fight to save the kingdoms. (YA fantasy, backlist)


Morning Star by Pierce Brown

Darrow would have lived in peace, but his enemies brought him war. The Gold overlords demanded his obedience, hanged his wife, and enslaved his people. But Darrow is determined to fight back. Risking everything to transform himself and breach Gold society, Darrow has battled to survive the cutthroat rivalries that breed Society’s mightiest warriors, climbed the ranks, and waited patiently to unleash the revolution that will tear the hierarchy apart from within. Finally, the time has come. (Adult science fiction, backlist)


The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World by Sarah Weinman

This book is so far out of my usual orbit, but I got the opportunity to hear the editor talk about it at BEA and completely sold it.

Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is one of the most beloved and notorious novels of all time. And yet, very few of its readers know that the subject of the novel was inspired by a real-life case: the 1948 abduction of eleven-year-old Sally Horner. Weaving together suspenseful crime narrative, cultural and social history, and literary investigation, The Real Lolita tells Sally Horner’s full story for the very first time. Drawing upon extensive investigations, legal documents, public records, and interviews with remaining relatives, Sarah Weinman uncovers how much Nabokov knew of the Sally Horner case and the efforts he took to disguise that knowledge during the process of writing and publishing Lolita. (Adult true crime/nonfiction, ARC)


A Touch of Gold by Annie Sullivan

King Midas once had the ability to turn all he touched into gold. But after his gift—or curse—almost killed his daughter, Midas relinquished The Touch forever. Ten years later, Princess Kora still bears the consequences of her father’s wish: her skin shines golden, rumors follow her everywhere she goes, and she harbors secret powers that are getting harder to hide. (YA fantasy, ARC)


Rule by Ellen Goodlett

The king is dying, his heir has just been murdered, and rebellion brews in the east. But the kingdom of Kolonya and the outer Reaches has one last option before it descends into leaderless chaos. Three girls with three deadly secrets. Only one can wear the crown. (YA fantasy, ARC)


Unclaimed Baggage by Jen Doll

Doris—a lone liberal in a conservative small town—has mostly kept to herself since the terrible waterslide incident a few years ago. Nell had to leave behind her best friends, perfect life, and too-good-to-be-true boyfriend in Chicago to move to Alabama. Grant was the star quarterback and epitome of “Mr. Popular” whose drinking problem has all but destroyed his life. What do these three have in common? A summer job working in a store called Unclaimed Baggage cataloging and selling other people’s lost luggage. Together they find that through friendship, they can unpack some of their own emotional baggage and move on into the future. (YA contemporary, ARC)


The Splintered Light by Ginger Johnson

In a world without color, eleven-year-old Ishmael lives a monotonous existence, herding sheep and helping his widowed mother with their meager farm after the premature death of his father. Early one morning, a ray of light pierces a pane of glass in the barn, fragmenting Ishmael’s black and white world into something extraordinary: a spectrum of color he never knew existed. Ishmael embarks on a search to understand just what it is that he sees, a search that leads him to the Hall of Hue, one of seven creative workshops at the Commons. (MG fantasy, ARC)


Dear Evan Hansen by Val Emmich

If you’ve followed this blog for a bit, you already know that I love everything about this musical and seeing it on broadway was the highlight of my summer last year. I got to meet the creators of the show at BEA and get my ARC signed and it will be treasured forever.

When a letter that was never meant to be seen by anyone draws high school senior Evan Hansen into a family’s grief over the loss of their son, he is given the chance of a lifetime: to belong. He just has to stick to a lie he never meant to tell, that the notoriously troubled Connor Murphy was his secret best friend. Suddenly, Evan isn’t invisible anymore—even to the girl of his dreams. And Connor Murphy’s parents, with their beautiful home on the other side of town, have taken him in like he was their own, desperate to know more about their enigmatic son from his closest friend. As Evan gets pulled deeper into their swirl of anger, regret, and confusion, he knows that what he’s doing can’t be right, but if he’s helping people, how wrong can it be? (YA contemporary, ARC)


From Here to You by Jamie McGuire

The moment Trex walks into the inn, Darby knows he’s dangerous. There’s no way she wants to get involved with another man who seems to be keeping way too many secrets. As charming and devastatingly gorgeous as Trex is, he clearly isn’t telling her everything. But as wildfires rage on the mountain and Darby’s ex-fiancé shows he isn’t so willing to let her go, both she and Trex are soon to find out that what you don’t know absolutely can hurt you. (Adult romance, ARC)


Smothered by Autumn Chiklis

Eloise “Lou” Hansen is graduating from Columbia University summa cum laude, and she’s ready to conquer the world. Just a few minor problems: she has no job, no prospects, and she’s moving back into her childhood bedroom. Lou is grimly determined to stick to a rigorous schedule to get a job and get out of her parents’ house. Shelly “Mama Shell” Hansen, on the other hand, is ecstatic, and just as determined to keep her at home. Who else will help her hide her latest binge-shopping purchases from her husband, go to SoulCycle with her, and hold her hand during Botox shots? (Adult contemporary, finished copy)


The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan

I am shamefully behind on my Rick Riordan books aka I’ve only read The Lightning Thief. *runs and hides*

The heroic son of Poseidon makes an action-packed comeback in the second must-read installment of Rick Riordan’s amazing young readers series. Starring Percy Jackson, a “half blood” whose mother is human and whose father is the God of the Sea, Riordan’s series combines cliffhanger adventure and Greek mythology lessons that results in true page-turners that get better with each installment. (MG fantasy, backlist)

Waiting On Wednesday: Second Book Edition!

There are sooooooo many books that I am just dying to read this year. If you need proof, check my Most Anticipated 2018 Releases master page. I am in awe of authors in general, but I know that writing your second book can almost be harder than writing the first.  These are the books that I’m praying to God don’t fall to the sophomore slump. I have the utmost faith in all of these authors–their debuts were AMAZING and these second novels look incredible…

PS These are also all standalones, a series edition will be coming soon 🙂


99 PERCENT MINE by Sally Thorne

Official Description: No synopsis yet. How mysterious. I’m still pumped.

Release Date: October 2, 2018 by HarperCollins


Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dawn Bowman

Official Description: Seventeen-year-old Rumi Seto spends a lot of time worrying she doesn’t have the answers to everything. Whether it’s as minor as her favorite food, or as important as her sexuality, she often feels lost in a world that’s just too big for her. But there is one thing she is absolutely sure of—she wants to spend the rest of her life writing music with her younger sister, Lea.

But then Lea dies in a tragic accident, and her mother sends her to live with her aunt in Hawaii while she deals with her own grief. Rumi struggles to navigate the loss of her sister, being abandoned by her mother, and the absence of music in her life. With the help of the “boys next door”—a teenage surfer named Kai, who smiles too much and doesn’t take anything seriously, and an eighty-year-old named George Watanabe, who succumbed to his own grief years ago—Rumi tries to find her way back to her music, to write the song she and Lea never had the chance to finish.

Release Date: Fall 2018 by Simon Pulse


 

The Brightsiders by Jen Wilde

Official Description: As a rock star drummer in the hit band The Brightsiders, Emmy King’s life should be perfect. But there’s nothing the paparazzi love more than watching a celebrity crash and burn. When a night of partying lands Emmy in hospital and her girlfriend in jail, she’s branded the latest tabloid train wreck.

Luckily, Emmy has her friends and bandmates, including the super-swoonworthy Alfie, to help her pick up the pieces of her life. She knows hooking up with a band member is exactly the kind of trouble she should be avoiding, and yet Emmy and Alfie Just. Keep. Kissing.

Will the inevitable fallout turn her into a clickbait scandal (again)? Or will she find the strength to stand on her own?

Release Date: May 22, 2018 by Swoon Reads


What second novels are you looking forward to?

Books On My List to Finish Before EOY

Guysss….I’ve read 394 books in 2017. My goal is 400. Six to go. I’m so close. I have multiple in the pipeline right now, but here are the ones I’m aiming to start and finish before 11:59 P.M. on December 31:

THE LAST NAMSARA by Kristen Ciccarelli

Throughout history there has been a Namsara, the warrior and bringer of flight; and the Iskari, the destroyer and death-bringer. Our heroine, Asha, is a dragon-slayer and has been named the Iskari of her generation. She is so feared by the general public that people refuse to touch her. Asha is betrothed to a commandant–but is offered her freedom in exchange for the head of Kozu, a powerful dragon responsible for the facial disfigurement she suffered as a child.

I got this in the November Fairyloot and was so excited. I’ve only got 60ish pages to go and I’m really interested in seeing where the series will go from here. Although, I’m getting antsy with the sexual tension between Asha and Torwin, KISS ALREADY.


YOU’LL MISS ME WHEN I’M GONE by Rachel Lynn Solomon (ARC)

“Eighteen-year-old twins Adina and Tovah have little in common besides their ambitious nature. Viola prodigy Adina yearns to become a soloist—and to convince her music teacher he wants her the way she wants him. Overachiever Tovah awaits her acceptance to Johns Hopkins, the first step on her path toward med school and a career as a surgeon.

But one thing could wreck their carefully planned futures: a genetic test for Huntington’s, a rare degenerative disease that slowly steals control of the body and mind. It’s turned their Israeli mother into a near stranger and fractured the sisters’ own bond in ways they’ll never admit. While Tovah finds comfort in their Jewish religion, Adina rebels against its rules.

When the results come in, one twin tests negative for Huntington’s. The other tests positive.” ~ via Goodreads

WOW I’m already crying and the response from my other blogger friends has been overwhelmingly positive. I need a good book cry and I have a feeling this will be the ticket.


TARNISHED CITY by Vic James (ARC)

“Luke is a prisoner, condemned for a murder he didn’t commit. Abi is a fugitive, desperate to free him before magic breaks his mind. But as the Jardines tighten their grip on a turbulent Britain, brother and sister face a fight greater than their own.

New alliances and old feuds will remake the nation, leaving Abi and Luke questioning everything – and everyone – they know. And as Silyen Jardine hungers for the forgotten Skill of the legendary Wonder King, the country’s darkest hour approaches. Freedom and knowledge both come at a cost. So who will pay the price?” ~ via Goodreads

I really liked GILDED CAGE, the first book in the series and I’m enjoying this sequel so far…however, there isn’t enough Abi and Jenner for my liking, yet.


THE FORGOTTEN BOOK by Mecthild Glaser (ARC)

“Emma is used to things going her way. Her father is headmaster of her prestigious boarding school, her friends take her advice as gospel, and she’s convinced that a relationship with her long-time crush is on the horizon.

As it turns out, Emma hasn’t seen anything yet. When she finds an old book in an abandoned library, things really start going Emma’s way: anything she writes in the book comes true.

But the power of the book is not without consequences, and Emma soon realizes that she isn’t the only one who knows about it. Someone is determined to take it from her—and they’ll stop at nothing to succeed.” ~ via Google Books


GUNSLINGER GIRL by lyndsay Ely (ARC)

“Seventeen-year-old Serendipity “Pity” Jones inherited two things from her mother: a pair of six shooters and perfect aim. She’s been offered a life of fame and fortune in Cessation, a glittering city where lawlessness is a way of life. But the price she pays for her freedom may be too great. In this extraordinary debut from Lyndsay Ely, the West is once again wild after a Second Civil War fractures the U.S. into a broken, dangerous land. Pity’s struggle against the dark and twisted underbelly of a corrupt city will haunt you long after the final bullet is shot.” ~ via Goodreads

I traded my extra FURYBORN for this and I’m so happy. The colors on this cover are so pretty and I’m very proud of this photo.


ELEANOR OLIPHANT IS COMPLETELY FINE by Gail Honeyman

“Meet Eleanor Oliphant. She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully time-tabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.

Then everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living–and it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.” ~ via Goodreads

One of my BOTM picks for December and I’ve heard a lot of positive feedback from others who picked it!


Wish me luck, folks!

PS, next year’s goal will be much more reasonable. I bit off waaaaay more than I can chew with 2017. How many books did you read in 2017?