January 2020 Book Haul

After an end of year deluge of ARCs, January has been a more more forgiving to my TBR.  My new ARC arrivals is minimal, and most are actually hard copies of books I already had eARCS for (not that I’m complaining – I ALWAYS prefer hard copy books!).  But this months purchases were mostly motivated by the Great Series Read Project – more on that ahead!  So what new books grace my shelves?

As always, covers link to Goodreads if you fancy adding them to your TBR.

Purchases/Gifts

 

SHADOWBLACK by Sebastien de Castell
I tore through SPELLSLINGER on New Year’s Day, and knew I definitely wanted to make it a high priority for my Great Series Read Project, so I went ahead on ordered book 2, SHADOWBLACK.  Part of what’s always caused me problems in progressing in series is I get into a vicious cycle of not buying the second book because I “should” read other things first, but then because I’ve never bought the sequel, it never gets to the top of my list. In an effort to break this cycle, I’m encouraging myself to buy immediate sequels of books I enjoy so I ACTUALLY READ THE SERIES.  The plan is to read this one in February, fingers crossed!

THORNBOUND by Stephanie Burgis
SNOWSPELLED was a fun fantasy romance novella I read last year, and I’ve been reading to mean the sequel (take a drink) so when the author announced a flash giveaway of THORNBOUND ahead of the release of another book in the series, I jumped on it!  These books are regency fantasies and revolve around the first woman to earn the title of sorcerer, who also unintentionally gets wrapped up in fae politics.  The books seem to each follow a different character, though set in the same social circles so you see a recurring cast each time.

 

GODSGRAVE & DARKDAWN by Jay Kristoff
I broke from my planned TBR for the first time in months for a rare mood read and finally read NEVERNIGHT.  Good news, I absolutely fell in love with it!  As with SHADOWBLACK, I went ahead and bought the sequel, GODSGRAVE.  Then I had the good fortune to have a friend who had an extra (signed!) copy of DARKDAWN that he was more than happy to gift to me, so now I have the full trilogy!  I expect to continue on with this series in March.

ARCs

  

THE WOLF OF OREN-YARO by K.S. Villoso
I’ve been dying to get my hands on this one since Orbit announced last year that they were picking it up!  Originally self-published, it’s been through a round of edits and tightening, and is now in my hands as of this moment.  And the way things are looking, this will probably be my first read for February!

A PALE LIGHT IN THE BLACK by K.B. Wagers
I had been fortunate to grab this in ecopy form a few months back, but at the end of January I was graced with a surprise hard copy of the book from Harper Voyager!  K.B. Wagers has written some of my favorite books in the last few years, so I’m very excited to read the first book in her new series. This releases early March 2020, so expect a review in the next few weeks!

HARROW THE NINTH by Tamsyn Muir
Another ecopy to hard copy upgrade!  eARCS are fine if they’re all I can get, but I will always prefer hard copy, especially since the formatting on eARCs can be VERY hit or miss.  In this instance, fellow book blogger Tammy ended up with an extra copy and was gracious enough to send it my way!

And that’s a wrap on my haul for the month.  Surprisingly few new ARCs, but I’m actually quite okay with my restraint, as that hopefully leaves more room for backlist reads!  Did you haul anything exciting this month?