Category Archives: Lists

Top Ten Tuesday: When You’re In the Mood for Folk and Fairytales

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TTTTop Ten Tuesday is a Weekly Meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s theme is about finding books to fit our moods. Recently I read a post about some fairytales with a new twist, and it made me think of a few that I’m excited about. I’ve posted a list of books based on Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, and stories about Merlin before, because I LOVE folk tales and fairytales retold. But this will be a fresh new list. Most of these books I’ve already read and reviewed, but there are a few I haven’t gotten to yet but am super excited to read.

Top Ten Folk or Fairytales Re-imagined

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Top Ten Diverse Reads

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TTTTop Ten Tuesday is a Weekly Meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s theme is top ten books which are outside the normal scope of what we read. I am pretty territorial about my reading time, so I pretty much stick to young adult and middle grade fiction with a few nonfiction books thrown in for sanity sake. This made the topic was a little tough for me. One of the things I’ve realized over the last year or so is that sometimes I need to be purposeful about choosing books with narrators who are different than me. Whether that means different in terms of race, gender, identity, or experience. Here are ten books that I really enjoyed … Continue reading →

Top Ten Books Featuring Music

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Top Ten TuesdayTop Ten Tuesday is a weekly Meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s theme is music in books. I think the actual prompt is geared more toward either listing songs that would make great books or identifying a theme song for a particular book. I’m horrible at that sort of thing, and also deep in the revision process of my own project, so all I could think of were songs for my own scenes.

Instead, I’ve put together a list of books in which characters are either in a band or in which the stories feature music as an important theme. For me, music has always been a huge part of my life, so I was … Continue reading →

Top Ten Books that Leave Your Heart Aching (In a Good Way)

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Top Ten Tuesday is a Meme hosted by The Broke & the Bookish. Here’s my post for this Top Ten Tuesday:

Five Stories With Swoon-Worthy Romance (Gimme Heartache!)

Romantic HeartacheIt’s almost Valentine’s Day, and next to a romantic date, my favorite way to celebrate is with a book featuring a romance that leaves me breathless on those last pages. Here are my top five O2 snatching reads:

  • Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell- That last pages leaves us with just three words. If you’ve read the book, you know exactly what I mean. *sigh* My review.
  • Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo- I’m pretty sure I tweeted about this. Gah. … Continue reading →

February News, Upcoming Reviews, and Other Updates

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Blogging Goals for The Story Sanctuary

How is it February already?! I started the year with lots of glorious plans, many of which are still sitting on a to-do list somewhere, waiting to be realized. For instance, I have some blog-related goals:

  • Create a 2016 To Read List. In the past, my reading lists have been really simple, just a bulleted list which I add a link to once I’ve read and posted my review of the book. I’d really like to do something a bit fancier that has thumbnails of the book covers, links to sites where you can buy the book, etc.
  • Add a fourth weekly post. Not a fourth review, mind you. Two-to-three reviews per week is about all I can keep up with, honestly. I’d love to read all the time, but alas… the whole day-job thing keeps getting in the way. Not to mention … Continue reading →

Mini Reviews: Never Never Part 1 and Reprieve

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Never Never (Part 1) by Colleen Hoover and Tarryn FisherNever, Never (Part 1) by Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher / Hoover Ink

I stumbled across this series of novellas on Amazon. Of the three parts, I’ve only read Part 1. It basically seems like a novel broken into three pieces. The whole series is available as a bundle for $2.99, which is a pretty great deal.

In terms of the story, it was definitely a wild ride. There’s a lot of romantic tension and some sexual content (main characters watch a video that includes a sex scene, thought it’s dark and only sounds are described) and brief violence. I was really hooked by the idea that both characters have lost their memories and are scrambling both … Continue reading →