It’s the end of summer blues… It feels like I’ve been reading up a storm this month but the numbers don’t really reflect that!

Thief of Happy Endings is a book I ordered for the library mostly because it’s a YA book about horses.  This cover gives me “romance” vibes but the romance is very downplayed compared to the main character’s personal journey during a summer at a horse ranch, where she has to learn to tame mustangs and her own fears.  It would have been a great beach read if it hadn’t been raining the whole week.

I kept seeing Never Wake everywhere on Goodreads and Instagram, and so I ordered the first book.  And now I know why everyone is dying to read it, because Dreamfall leaves you on a pretty huge cliffhanger.  Literally it’s like this was originally one long book cut in two.  I read this one really fast – it reminded me so much of what I read as an actual teen.  L.J. Smith/R.L. Stine vibes.  Can’t wait to see how the story ends!

This month I read a few books that I had seen on Instagram, namely The Marrow Thieves and Comemadre.  Comemadre was very weird, and I wish I’d taken a picture of The Marrow Thieves instead.  The Marrow Thieves is a dystopian future from the POV of Canadian indigenous people, with a really powerful connection to their history.  Even if you’re tired of dystopian novels, this one was so different.

I managed to read another ARC, this time of The Sisters of the Winter Wood which will be coming out in September.  Apparently this is being marketed as an adult novel, but I read it as YA.  It reminded me of an extended version of Leigh Bardugo’s The Language of Thorns.  And not just because the cover is gorgeous.

Sky in the Deep has been high on my TBR list since I received it back in May’s OwlCrate.  I love a good badass female lead, and Eelyn is a Viking-esque warrior.  Lots of action and a little romance and a setting that was sorta historical and sorta fantasy.  It all worked.  One of my favorite reads this month!

I picked up The Catacombs at a bookstore/wine bar called Turn the Page (it’s in Millinocket, Maine).  What better way to get me to buy books than to get a few drinks in me first?  I also found a classic Christopher Pike as well.  And because they serve breakfast, too, I ended up back there in the morning and bought two more books.  The Catacombs was everything I expected from a book with a skeleton and a carnival on the cover.

• Best Beach Read: Thief of Happy Endings
• Best Cover: The Sisters of the Winter Wood
• Most Interesting Connection to History: The Marrow Thieves
• Most Awesome Heroine: Sky in the Deep
• Fastest Read: Fence v. 1 (1/2 hour)
• Slowest Read: Rushed (44 days)

The full list (links take you to my Goodreads reviews):

1. 1. Sal by Mick Kitson
   2. Rushed by Brian Harmon (ebook)
   3. Thief of Happy Endings by Kristen Chandler
   4. How to Hang a Witch by Adriana Mather (audiobook)
   5. The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
   6. Fence v. 1 by C.S. Pacat (graphic novel)
   7. Dreamfall by Amy Plum
   8. Runaways v. 4: True Believers by Brian K. Vaughan (graphic novel)
   9. Relentless by Karen Lynch (ebook)
   10. The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner (ARC)
   11. Comemadre by Roque Larraquy
   12. Runaways v. 5: Escape to New York by Brian K. Vaughan (graphic novel)
   13. Sky in the Deep by Adrienne Young
   14. The Catacombs (The Power #6) by Jesse Harris