Series and Sequels - Episode 1

Last time we spoke it was about the excessive TBR phenomenon and my plans to reduce that down to zero. That's right, zero! I want to go right back to having no unread books in my home and only going to the bookshop to purchase with the intent of immediately reading. Achieving this is going to take some determination, and what better way to increase motivation than by doing challenges. The first challenge for me (and you should you wish to join in) is to finish or get up to date with five series you are in the middle of.

Five is not an intimidating number right? We can totally do this. The freedom of this challenge is that you can pick the series, so feel free to bash out some short series or fully commit to the epics as you see fit. I'm planning on doing a good mixture here of longer and shorter series. Here is what I'm planning on reading. 

The Realm of the Elderlings by Robin Hobb

Yes, alright! I can hear you all screaming at me. The Realm of the Elderlings is an 18 book (if you include novellas) epic fantasy series, but I am on the final stretch and have only 2.5 books to go. This series is great for a challenge as it is comprised of multiple smaller series following different characters at different points in time. This epic fantasy series is lauded as one of the greatest, and so far I have to agree. It starts off following a young boy called Fitz. Bastard to the throne, he is thrust into the "quiet" service of king's assassin. Fitz is a fascinating character and you watch him grow to adulthood across this tale, getting to know him better than most people know their own family. Hobb's character driven writing is unparalleled and this is a series that gets its hooks in you and never lets you go. Finishing this series will be devastating for me as I have been so immersed for so long. 

The Bloodsworn Saga by John Gwynne 

John Gwynne is one of my favourite modern fantasy writers. The Bloodsworn Saga is a viking-esque trilogy based around nordic mythology. It follows a wide cast of characters with varying bloodthirsty histories as they navigate the awakening of old and deadly magic. I have read book one and loved it, especially the way John writes women and motherhood. I had been putting off reading this series until I knew more of his books were on the horizon. He has a new series debuting later this year so it's time to get down to business. 

The Shepherd King by Rachel Gillig 

Rachel Gillig's unique gothic writing style intrigued me last year when I read The Knight and the Moth so picking up her other published series is a must! The Shepherd King is a duology starting with One Dark Window. As a child Elspeth survived a magic plague. She is the only person ever recorded to live through the fever of darkness spreading through the blood, but all magic comes with a price. For Elspeth this price is the demonic creature living beneath her skin, growing stronger and more vocal with every passing year. All Elspeth wants to do is live a quiet life of obscurity, but fate has a different plan when she is drawn to the capital and immersed in political intrigue. I cannot wait to get my teeth into this series, I sense a binge coming on! 

Moonfall by Sarah A Parker 

Everyone and their mother is talking about this series right now! The second book came out exactly one week ago and it has been lighting up online. This series is marketed as romantasy, but I disagree. Having read the first book and embarking shortly on the second book I would call this an epic with a romantic sub-plot. This series follows Raeve, a bloody assassin honed into a weapon by all the people trying to break her. Raeve's memories are shoved deep inside the icy lake of her mind, but something Other stirs beneath the surface, dredging up secrets she would rather keep hidden. When Raeve meets Kaan her world implodes and she is thrust into the midst of these devastating truths. The world is shifting, kingdoms are clashing and dragons are falling from the sky. This series is phenomenal and I am definitely prioritising it in the coming weeks. 

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

This series started out self published and I honestly cannot believe it wasn't picked up by traditional publishing sooner. I have read book one, Legends & Lattes, but I have Bookshops & Bonedust and Brigands & Breadknives still to read. These books are so much fun. They take the mickey so well out of the "change of pace to small town bakery owner" trope, but at the same time are an ode to the cosiness of these tales. The first novel follows Viv, a war orc who now wishes to retire to her favourite city and start a coffee shop. Armed with her strong motivation and a helpful amount of treasure, she forges new friendships and carves out a home she can call her own. This series is such a good reading slump buster and works so well to make you feel relaxed and cosy if you are in need of some lower stakes. 

Right guys, those are the five series I am planning on finishing next. I'll be posting reviews and deep dives of these so please stay tuned, and don't forget to let me know what book series you'll be reading for this challenge in the comments. Until next time! 

Hattie x 

Is it time for tbr takedown challenge?

 Unless you are an avid reader you are probably unfamiliar with the term "tbr", but to us bookworms this word can fill us with equal measures of joy and dread. The "tbr" or "to be read" list for me has become a source of anxiety. Don't get me wrong, I love having a running list of books I would like to get to, but when it comes to the physical tbr...yikes! I currently have 85 unread books sitting on my shelves. 85! That is an obscene number, especially in these more trying economic times. Although to be fair to my past self these books have been collected over a long period of time, some of them having languished on the tbr for 5 years or more. 

No more, I say! It is time for me to carry out the "action is the killer of anxiety" mentality and tackle this physical tbr. Reading is supposed to be a relaxing hobby, a way to escape reality and visit other places. Having an enormous pile of unread books threatens to overwhelm me with guilt, not because of money spent, but because of the knowledge that I will enjoy them and have been depriving myself of that enjoyment. It is easy nowadays with the myriad "book haul" videos to become desensitised to how strange it is to hoard stories without actually consuming them. It is not the norm to go to the bookshop intending to purchase half a dozen or more books at once on a regular basis. I miss the days of going to the bookshop to buy one or two books and proceeding to just read them and would like to re-introduce this phenomenon to my life. The only thing stopping me is the 85 unread books I am about to devour and revel in. 

So what has been stopping me? I find that as soon as I label something as a task it becomes onerous, even if it is theoretically highly enjoyable. The human brain is a strange beast! I find it best to trick myself with challenges and gamification. So, may I present to you the 2026 TBR Takedown! Throughout this year I am going to be tackling this book back log one by one, giving myself smaller challenges along the way to keep my motivation high. The main crux of the challenge will be a year long book buying ban, but I will allow myself a few loopholes. The first being that pre-orders do not count and neither do books that continue a series I have already started. 

I have no doubt this will be an up and down journey, but when I think of all the wonderful stories I have yet to explore...I can't wait to get started. Join me next time in episode 1 of the TBR Takedown: Series & Sequels. 

Hattie x 

Do People Still Read Book Blogs In 2026?

 

A question has been plaguing me for a while now: do people still read book blogs in 2026? Or, have they moved over exclusively to video format? As a tiktock-o-phobe, I still feel the need for long form content, be it blogging or Youtube videos. Surely there must be others out there who, like me, are seeking blogs. Maybe that makes me a dinosaur, but I'm sure I'm not the only one. 

All that to say: hello! Here I am again, back on my blogging nonsense. I used to run this site in my late teens and early twenties (too long ago for me to own to) as a general lifestyle blog with articles on food, books, cosmetics and even a men's column from my husband's point of view. My taste in hobbies has shifted over the last decade, as is only natural, and I now find myself more inclined to discuss books and bookish topics than anything else. This means a shift of gears for the blog. I am far too attached to this domain to consider creating a new one, I spent hours crafting it, but it does need a name change. A name to match my other fledgling book platforms - Invisible Worlds Bookclub. 

Gosh, this feels momentous. Madly so considering nobody will be reading this post unless in the distant future I miraculously become social media famous as an internet librarian. However, on the off chance that I am not shouting into the void and somebody is reading here is what to expect from this page. There will be book reviews, series deep dives, author discussions and general bookish content. My main areas of interest are fantasy and classics (mostly Victorian or earlier) with a smattering of sci-fi which I have just begun to explore. 

I am sure there will be teething issues, so I will gratefully accept any suggestions from the comments. And, in case you are reading this and bemoaning yet another dinosaur typing out a blog post, please check out my Instagram page and Youtube channel for other formats. There will be regular posts across all three so please pick and choose your chosen mode of consumption and return for more! 

Hattie x 

Review - Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor

Hello everyone!

The last week has been a little mad on the home front, lots of work and lots of animals! Finding time for reading was proving a little difficult, but I eventually cleared my schedule and finished my first book of 2019. I have been doing a buddy read of Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor with my friend Jonny over @jonnyslibrary. We have both now finished the book and come to terms with our feelings so it’s time for a review.

It’s been a long while since I did a proper book review so sit back and relax, this could be a long one! I sense a rant coming on :-)

Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor

This book follows our main character Madeleine Maxwell as she embarks on a new line of work in the elusive St Mary’s history department. The historians of St Mary’s are no ordinary scholars, they travel back in time to document events as they really happened. The main rule is not to change anything, but of course that is easier said than done. One misadventure leads to another which leads to another which leads to events that could alter the very fabric of the future world!

2.5 stars

Positives - engaging plot lines, easy to get into, interesting world building

Negatives - very triggering, unbelievable character relationships, very rushed

*Spoilers*

Aaaah this book! I seriously struggled to rate this book, it started as a 4 star then dropped to a 2 and just about redeemed itself to a 2.5 by the end. Where to start?

The setting was lovely old academic England with all the quirks of mad professors. I loved the first 100 pages when Max is doing her training. It had just the right amount of humour and brutality to really invest me in the story. However, when Max goes back to the Cretaceous period (think dinosaurs) it all went south. Firstly Sussman’s character went from being your typical arrogant man to downright awful in 2 seconds flat. He tries to rape her and then tries to murder her and you later find out he planned to kill her all along! This is a man who worked and laughed with her for 5 years! It all felt a bit jarring, but it’s not the worst. 

Disaster strikes when a mission goes wrong and several members, including her lover Chief Farrell are lost in dinoland. All of a sudden she’s out of a job and thinks her lover is dead. A few months later she finds herself in pain so off she heads to the clinic and oh wait she’s having a miscarriage. Very rushed right? 

The miscarriage part of the novel did nothing to advance the story or the characters and the way it was handled was so casual and off-hand that it really disturbed me. This is a subject that should be handled with care and not just thrown in as a random plot twist. If that wasn’t bad enough, when Chief Farrell finds out she was pregnant and lost the baby he instantly accuses her of cheating and trying to pass the baby off as his. Later on he apologises and she shockingly takes him back! No self-respecting woman would tolerate that kind of behaviour. She had just risked life and limb heading back in time to save him, why would she do that if she never loved him and was cheating on him?

The plot felt jarring and a lot of it felt cobbled together with no real structure. Suddenly characters carry out an action or say things that are completely out of keeping with their behaviour until that point! Personally, I found this book a bit triggering and nearly put it down. I loved the idea of it and I’m hoping subsequent books are better, but for now I’m not sure I’ll continue the series. It's always an alarm bell when the most believable part of a time travel novel is the time travel itself. 

Have you read this book? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below if you’ve read any disappointing books lately :-)

xoxo

P.S. Follow my Facebook here!

Flower design credit here! 

Series I Absolutely Need To Finish This Year

Hello everyone! 

Who am I? I've been posting so much recently that I bet you're wondering if I've secretly been replaced by an alien. I have been on such a blogging kick so here's hoping it'll carry on all through the year. *Shrugs*. We'll see...

One of my resolutions for this year is to finish at least 5 series I have already started. I am awful at getting stuck into series and then getting bogged down by other series. It's a vicious spiral. I end up not knowing what to read next and getting overwhelmed by choices. Aaaannnnddd voila, the reading slump! You feeling stressed yet? I sure am! 

Fingers crossed if I make a list of 5 series then I'll manage to stick to it and finish that resolution fairly easily :-) 

The first series I want to finish is the Shades of Magic series by V. E. Schwab. I read the first two books last year and really enjoyed the world building. I liked the characters so much that I even named on our kittens Kell! This series follows Kell and Lila as they fight for survival across the four worlds and the four Londons. Each London is deadly in its own way with Black London being the worst. The second book ended on a huge cliffhanger and I swore I would pick up the third book straight away, but instead it has been sat on my shelf gathering dust for the last 6 months! 

This next one should be fairly easy, *she prays*. Katherine Arden's Bear and the Nightingale blew me away last year and the sequel just took it to a whole new level of brilliant. The third, and final book Winter of the Witch came out yesterday so I raced off to pick up my pre-ordered copy. It is the next book I'm picking up as I am really feeling the wintry Russian vibes!

Finale by Stephanie Garber is a final book on a lot of people's lists this year. Sadly we do have to wait a few months before this final follow-up in the whimsical Caraval series is released. This series features circus like magic, plot-twists, gorgeous love interests and some serious darkness. If that doesn't sell it to you then I don't know what will. 

I have been reading Rachel Caine's Great Library series since it first came out, which has made the wait for the final book agonising. This series follows a group of young students as they become ever more entangled in the dark web of the library of Alexandria. For centuries the library has been the highest power in the world, but now it is falling to corruption and fanaticism. Jess and his friends are trying to change that. Sword and Pen comes out later this year and I can guarantee I will be reading it as soon as it comes out! 

If anyone knows the artist for this please give them credit, because it is amazing :-) 

So this one may be a cheat because technically the series isn't really finished as more books are coming, but I have 5 books to catch up on so I'm including it to the challenge. That's right, I'm talking about the Shadowhunters series by Cassandra Clare. I still have The Dark Artifices to read, The Bane Chronicles and Tales From the Shadowhunter academy to catch up! 

What series are you planning on wrapping up this year? Let me know in the comments below :-) 

xoxo

P.S. Follow my Facebook here! 

January 2019 TBR

Hello everyone,

Happy New Year! I hope you have all recovered from the celebrations and are basking in all the hope of a new year before the dullness of January really starts. I always find January the hardest month of the year, it seems to drag by and just be dreary and cold without all the jolly festive cheer of December. To cheer myself up i’m planning on reading some amazing books this month!

The first one I need to prioritise is Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor. I’m doing this as a buddy read with my friend Jonny over at Jonnyslibrary. We have both had this book sitting on our tbr shelves for a while and as this is the year of the tbr takedown we decided to join forces for this one! This book follows a group of time travelling historians as they try to document history, but instead cataclysmiacally alter events that could threaten the very fabric of time itself. So dramatic! I’m all for time travel and sci-fi so I can’t wait to get lost in this one.

I’m hoping to carry on my Sebastien de Castell binge by reading Charmcaster, the third book in the Spellslinger series. I adore this series and it sweeps me off my feet every time. The last book had me startling Mr. Gingersnap out of his chair as I laughed raucously for whole pages at a time. The third book features Ferius and Kellen as they follow the Shadowblack epidemic further into hostile territory. When you pick up these books think of them as a cocktail of the Wild Wild West, magic and sarcasm!

Next on my list is The Bane Chronicles by Cassandra Clare. Magnus is one of my favourite characters of all time. I love his flamboyancy and care-free attitude combined with his deadly seriousness if his loved ones are threatened. I am very excited to read this set of short stories about his life as it will help me understand him so much better ready for the imminent release of The Red Scrolls Of Magic later this year.

Photo from Penguin

My final book of the month is the much anticipated Winter Of The Witch by Katherine Arden. Now if you read my most anticipated released of 2019 post you will know this was right at the top of the list. This is the third, and final book, in this amazing series set in ancient Russia. It has strong feminist elements and features a truly fantastic range of characters. The Russian folk-lore is fascinating and really adds depth to the story. I am super excited to see where this story goes! 

I may add a couple of books to the list as I finish these ones, but for now that's it! What do you plan to read this month? Let me know in the comments below :-) 

xoxo

P.S. Follow my Facebook here! 

2018 Reading Wrap-Up

Hello everyone!

It's the last day of 2018 and wow is it a grey day! I was hoping for a sunny, wintry day where I could reflect on all my resolutions for next year, but no we have a cloudy, dull and dark day where it's not even that cold. *Sigh* The UK winter is a bit disappointing so far. I do love a crisp winter! 

It's the time of year for wrap-ups so today I wanted to do a review of my resolutions and goals for 2018. I always start the year with grand plans, then I inevitably fall short. Let's see how I did :-) 

2018 Reading Goals: 

1. Only achievable challenges ✓ I only did Mr. GingerSnap's challenge so this was easy! 

1. Read 5 big books ✓ Yes! I did so well at this challenge, I read waaaay more than 5 books.

1. Over 10 Penguin English Library titles ✗ Failed utterly at this, I think I read 6...

1. Finish Sherlock Holmes ✗ Again, totally failed this one. I read no Sherlock this year.

1. 5 books by new authors ✓ Yes! Smashed this one.

Mr. GingerSnap Challenge: 

My partner, Mr. GingerSnap loves to set me a good reading challenge and this year he set me 120 books to read! I actually managed to top this at 121 books so I feel very proud of myself. Especially as my Goodreads goal was only 60 books. 

Top 5 Books: 

Okay guys, these won't be in order because it was tough enough picking just 5, so bask in that moment and if you want a top 1 - Forget It!! 

• Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare 
• The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden 
• Spellslinger by Sebastien de Castell 
• Caraval by Stephanie Garber 
• The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar 

2019 Reading Goals:

1. Finish 5 book series I've already started 
2. Read more Brandon Sanderson 
3. Read 5 books over 700 pages 
4. Complete a 60 books Goodreads challenge 
5. Finally read Emma by Jane Austen 

Mr. GingerSnap Challenge:

Mr. GingerSnap is setting me a devilishly difficult challenge for next year. He has challenged me to clear my 35 book TBR with the only new books purchased being important new releases I want to blog about! Wish me luck guys, I'm going to need it :-) 

How did you get on with your reading goals this year? Got any good resolutions? Let me know your highlights in the comments below :-)

xoxo

P.S. Follow my Facebook here!

Credit to flower divider here!