Book Nerd – dinipandareads.

Top 5 Saturday: Books set in the Forest!

Published on October 16, 2021October 16, 2021 by dinipandareads20 Comments

Welcome back to another Top 5 Saturday! Just in case you don’t know Top 5 Saturday is a weekly meme created by Mandy @ Devouring Books and it’s where we list the top five books (they can be books on your TBR, favourite books, books you loved/hated) based on the week’s topic. You can see the upcoming schedule at the end of my post 🙂 This week’s topic is actually: books set in the forest.

I focus most of my Top 5 Saturdays on books that are still on my TBR but this week I thought I’d take a look at five favourite books that are set in the forest. There’s a good mix of fantasy, romance, horror, and mystery in this lot and they were all wonderfully atmospheric reads—the forest often felt alive in these settings! Without further ado… Here are my recs for you!

The Bear and the Nightingale

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. Read more…

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First Lines Friday – 15 October 2021

Published on October 15, 2021October 15, 2021 by dinipandareads10 Comments

Happy Friday book lovers! We’re back with another First Lines Friday, a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines? Here are the rules:

Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Finally… reveal the book!

First lines:

“There were great advantages to being unimportant.
True, by many people’s standards, Siri wasn’t “unimportant.” She was, after all, the daughter of a king. Fortunately, her father had four living children, and Siri—at seventeen years of age—was the youngest.”

Do you recognise the book these first lines come from?

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Top 5 Saturday: Books with Bones on the Cover!

Published on October 9, 2021October 9, 2021 by dinipandareads13 Comments

It’s been a hot minute since I did a Top 5 Saturday post but of course I had to come back on the day when the topic is a toughie (for me!) LOL. 😂 It took a little bit of digging on Goodreads but I managed to find 5 books that are on my TBR that have bones on the cover and that I can’t wait to read! ☠️

If We Were Villains

Oliver Marks has just served ten years in jail – for a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he’s released, he’s greeted by the man who put him in prison. Detective Colborne is retiring, but before he does, he wants to know what really happened a decade ago.

As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over into life, and one of them is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless.

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First Lines Friday – 08 October 2021

Published on October 8, 2021October 8, 2021 by dinipandareads10 Comments

Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Finally… reveal the book!

First lines:

“It was the exploding unicorn that finally broke him.
Until she accidentally brained the most eminent pastry chef in London with a projectile hoof, Sylvie Fairchild had been casually speculating whether—like her ill-fated unicorn cake—Dominic De Vere also contained a hidden robotic mechanism.”

Do you recognise the book these first lines come from?

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First Lines Friday – 17 September 2021

Published on September 17, 2021October 8, 2021 by dinipandareads5 Comments

Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Finally… reveal the book!

First lines:

“The devil had a name—Cristiano de la Rosa—but from this day forward, I would call him husband.”

Do you recognise the book these first lines come from?

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Top 5 Saturday: Hyped Books

Published on September 11, 2021September 11, 2021 by dinipandareads17 Comments

There are so many hyped books so this list really could be endless. While I’m always eager to know what the hyped books are, I’m also quite wary of them because I’m intimidated by the hype and I’m always worried that I won’t end up liking the book half as much as everyone else! Though I do get caught up in the hype and I quite often cave in and pre-order or buy the book not long after its been released, they usually end up sitting on my physical/kindle shelves for… A long time before they actually get read. I know you know what I’m talking about, right?! Here are some more “recent” hyped books that I’ve been telling myself to read but have still not picked up!

These Violent Delights

The year is 1926, and Shanghai hums to the tune of debauchery.

A blood feud between two gangs runs the streets red, leaving the city helpless in the grip of chaos. At the heart of it all is eighteen-year-old Juliette Cai, a former flapper who has returned to assume her role as the proud heir of the Scarlet Gang—a network of criminals far above the law. Their only rivals in power are the White Flowers, who have fought the Scarlets for generations. And behind every move is their heir, Roma Montagov, Juliette’s first love…and first betrayal.

But when gangsters on both sides show signs of instability culminating in clawing their own throats out, the people start to whisper. Of a contagion, a madness. Of a monster in the shadows. As the deaths stack up, Juliette and Roma must set their guns—and grudges—aside and work together, for if they can’t stop this mayhem, then there will be no city left for either to rule.

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First Lines Friday – 10 September 2021

Published on September 11, 2021September 10, 2021 by dinipandareads12 Comments

Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Finally… reveal the book!

First lines:

“For a time Vidya had not had a mother or a brother, she only had the idea of a mother and a brother: they were imaginary but real in the same way god was. For a time she had not a mother but an aunt and not a brother but two cousins who lived with her in the one room flat she shared with her father.”

Do you recognise the book these first lines come from?

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Top 5 Saturday: Intimidating Books

Published on September 4, 2021September 4, 2021 by dinipandareads7 Comments

I’m pretty sure I’ve done a similar topic to this quite a few times on the blog already but I always focused on chunky books that intimidated me. So for today’s post I’m going to look at books that I’m intimidated by because of the hype surrounding them. Some of these are classics that I have heard so many good things about and that are often referenced in modern texts, and the others are more recent releases in the fantasy genre that have been so hyped up that I’m a little afraid to pick them up! 😂 Now without further ado, let’s get into it!

Rebecca

A classic that has had several remakes now and that has influenced many art forms, whether it’s movies, books and/or songs. This book intimidates me on various levels but one of the main reasons is because it’s so well-lauded and I’m worried I won’t like it as much?

On a trip to the South of France, the shy heroine of Rebecca falls in love with Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower. Although his proposal comes as a surprise, she happily agrees to marry him. But as they arrive at her husband’s home, Manderley, a change comes over Maxim, and the young bride is filled with dread. Friendless in the isolated mansion, she realises that she barely knows him. In every corner of every room is the phantom of his beautiful first wife, Rebecca, and the new Mrs de Winter walks in her shadow.

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First Lines Friday – 03 September 2021

Published on September 3, 2021September 3, 2021 by dinipandareads8 Comments

Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Finally… reveal the book!

First lines:

“It’s all fun and games until someone shits their pants. And for once, Vlad Konnikov wasn’t the culprit.”

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

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Top 5 Saturday: People on the Cover

Published on August 28, 2021August 28, 2021 by dinipandareads10 Comments

I just had a look for when I did my last Top 5 Saturday and it was back in April! It’s been a long time but earlier this week Mandy announced that they’re bringing back the weekly meme and I’m happy to be taking part in it again! As usual, I’ll be listing the new topics at the end of the post.

This week I’ll be listing five books from my Goodreads TBR! I’m not always a fan of people on covers, especially when they’re “real” people but I am a huge fan of illustrated characters on covers. I don’t know if I can say that this trend is illustrated people on covers trend is quite new but I have noticed it more and more in contemporary romances over the years, and now in a lot of other genres, too. I hope that these covers will continue being made (especially in romances!) because they’re absolutely some of my favourites 😍 On that note, here are some of my most recent adds to the TBR with people on the cover!

Love and Other Disasters

The first openly nonbinary contestant on America’s favorite cooking show falls for their clumsy competitor in this delicious romantic comedy debut “that is both fantastically fun and crack your heart wide open vulnerable.” (Rosie Danan, author of The Roommate)

Recently divorced and on the verge of bankruptcy, Dahlia Woodson is ready to reinvent herself on the popular reality competition show Chef’s Special. Too bad the first memorable move she makes is falling flat on her face, sending fish tacos flying—not quite the fresh start she was hoping for. Still, she’s focused on winning, until she meets someone she might want a future with more than she needs the prize money.

After announcing their pronouns on national television, London Parker has enough on their mind without worrying about the klutzy competitor stationed in front of them. They’re there to prove the trolls—including a fellow contestant and their dad—wrong, and falling in love was never part of the plan.

As London and Dahlia get closer, reality starts to fall away. Goodbye, guilt about divorce, anxiety about uncertain futures, and stress from transphobia. Hello, hilarious shenanigans on set, wedding crashing, and spontaneous dips into the Pacific. But as the finale draws near, Dahlia and London’s steamy relationship starts to feel the heat both in and outside the kitchen—and they must figure out if they have the right ingredients for a happily ever after.

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