Hello, hello! I hope you’re all keeping well. August was one busy month for me, both reading wise and not. I had a hectic TBR of 14 books, which for me is a lot, and it’s safe to say I adored pretty much all of them, which is going to make narrowing down my favourite reads incredibly hard! I’ve thought about it long and hard, maybe cried a little and have managed to narrow it down to THREE books… yes, you should be impressed. These are all fantasy (I’m sure you’re shocked.) One epic fantasy set in an Indian inspired world, the other two are set in the one we know and love ( most of the time) except one is contemporary and the other historical. None reading wise, I managed to get to see Six the musical last month which I adored and I just wanted to get up and sing with them all, it definitely hit a little more emotionally than I expected though, and I managed a meet up with my friends from University and got a cheeky trip to the Zoo out of it too! What were all your August’s like? What was your top read from the past month? Let me know in the comments.

The Oleander Sword

The prophecy of the nameless god—the words that declared Malini the rightful empress of Parijatdvipa—has proven a blessing and curse. She is determined to claim the throne that fate offered her. But even with the strength of the rage in her heart and the army of loyal men by her side, deposing her brother is going to be a brutal and bloody fight.

The power of the deathless waters flows through Priya’s blood. Thrice born priestess, Elder of Ahiranya, Priya’s dream is to see her country rid of the rot that plagues it: both Parijatdvipa’s poisonous rule, and the blooming sickness that is slowly spreading through all living things. But she doesn’t yet understand the truth of the magic she carries.

Their chosen paths once pulled them apart. But Malini and Priya’s souls remain as entwined as their destinies. And they soon realize that coming together is the only way to save their kingdom from those who would rather see it burn—even if it will cost them.

Favourite Quotes:

” Let them stare. She was a temple elder. She had more power in her bones than any of them had in their titles.”

” Experience had taught her that the more successful battles were the ones won by words. Phrases, carefully chosen, could be a knife: threatening, promising, wounding.”

“She would do what she had always done: play at obedience, while ever sharpening her knives.”

“An Emperor’s power lay in the wisdom, loyalty, and clout of his closest confidants – in maintaining ties with highborn men from across the empire. A Princess’s power was demonstrated through her adornment: the weight and shine of her jewels, the flowers in her hair, the beauty of her attendants. And an empress’s power? Well. There had been no empresses before Malini. So she had carved out the rules and requirements of empresshood herself, and hoped that throwing together the authority of one role and the visage of another would be enough.”

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

As one of the few witches in Britain, Mika Moon knows she has to hide her magic, keep her head down, and stay away from other witches so their powers don’t mingle and draw attention. And as an orphan who lost her parents at a young age and was raised by strangers, she’s used to being alone and she follows the rules…with one exception: an online account, where she posts videos “pretending” to be a witch. She thinks no one will take it seriously.

But someone does. An unexpected message arrives, begging her to travel to the remote and mysterious Nowhere House to teach three young witches how to control their magic. It breaks all of the rules, but Mika goes anyway, and is immediately tangled up in the lives and secrets of not only her three charges, but also an absent archaeologist, a retired actor, two long-suffering caretakers, and…Jamie. The handsome and prickly librarian of Nowhere House would do anything to protect the children, and as far as he’s concerned, a stranger like Mika is a threat. An irritatingly appealing threat.

As Mika begins to find her place at Nowhere House, the thought of belonging somewhere begins to feel like a real possibility. But magic isn’t the only danger in the world, and when a threat comes knocking at their door, Mika will need to decide whether to risk everything to protect a found family she didn’t know she was looking for….

Favourite Quotes:

” A gentle rhythm, indeed. But it was more than that. It was peace, the kind Mika was beginning to see she had never known. She hadn’t understood how exhausting and heartbreaking it had been to hide such a big part of herself all these years, to reshape and contort herself into something more acceptable. She hasn’t realised just how heavy her mask had been until she’d discovered what it was to live without it.”

“I don’t think there has been a single moment since the day you told me we we’re all made up of stardust that I haven’t wanted you.”

“Jamie had said it was a leap of faith to love people and let yourself be loved. It was closing your eyes and stepping off a ledge into nothing and trusting that you’d fly instead of plummet to your tragic and poetic demise. So Mika stepped off the ledge at last, into nothing, and wouldn’t you know it? She flew.”

The Monsters We Defy

Washington D. C., 1925

Clara Johnson talks to spirits, a gift that saved her during her darkest moments in a Washington D. C. jail. Now a curse that’s left her indebted to the cunning spirit world. So, when the Empress, the powerful spirit who holds her debt, offers her an opportunity to gain her freedom, a desperate Clara seizes the chance. The task: steal a magical ring from the wealthiest woman in the District.

Clara can’t pull off this daring heist alone. She’ll need help from an unlikely team, from a jazz musician capable of hypnotizing with a melody to an aging vaudeville actor who can change his face, to pull off the impossible. But as they encounter increasingly difficult obstacles, a dangerous spirit interferes at every turn. Conflict in the spirit world is leaking into the human one and along D.C’.s legendary Black Broadway, a mystery unfolds—one that not only has repercussions for Clara but all of the city’s residents.

Favourite Quotes:

“Her grandmother’s voice chided in her head, You know you aint about to fight no grown man. Which might have been true, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t fantasise about kicking him in his family jewels and bruising up the face that the other girls in the office seemed to think was so handsome.”

” The missus of the house once asked why she’d chosen such a big name for her son. ‘A coloured man ought to have a name her can live up to,’ she told her. And didn’t that boy take it to heart.”

“When Mama Octavia used to complain that Clara was woking her last nerve, Clara always thought the woman must not have had too many to start with. Especially since Clara always managed to skip all the rest to land on that last one. But now, standing out on the sidewalk in front of the Republic Garden’s, the doorman continuing to eye her suspiciously, she understood how a person could burn right through every single nerve in her body to end up irritating the final one with only a little bit of effort.”