Books I Am Reading This Week plus Weekly Book Haul – July 12, 2023 #wwwwednesday #ReadersCommunity #BookTwitter #BookLover

Welcome to WWW Wednesday! This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived on Taking on a World of Words. Just answer the three questions below and leave a link to your post in the comments for others to look at. No blog? No problem! Just leave a comment with your responses. Please, take some time to visit the other participants and see what others are reading. So, let’s get to it!

What am I currently reading?
What did I just finish?
What am I reading next?

Academy Arcanist is my third book by Shami Stovall and my second first in a series by her. I reviewed Knightmare Arcanist for a The Write Reads blog tour back in 2020 and loved it! So, I quickly jumped on board when the blog tour for the first book in her new series (set in the same world) came up. It’s such a fun world full of every mythical beast you can think of and more. I’m about halfway done and enjoying it as much as I did books 1 and 2 of the Knightmare Arcanist series.

Genre: YA Fantasy
Pages: 446 pages
Publisher: Capital Station Books
Publication Date: August 23, 2022

Hopes. Dreams. And literal nightmares out to kill a young boy. Gray Lexly, son of a candlemaker, wants to escape his life of old-world technologies and study at the prestigious Astra Academy, a school for arcanists—those who can wield magic. But Gray has a major problem. Every night, as he sleeps, he’s visited by monsters. When they injure Gray in his dreams, he wakes with the same wounds in real life… On the night Gray might finally die in his nightmares, he is saved by the kind and mysterious Professor Helmith, a powerful arcanist. She offers to protect Gray and invites him to attend Astra Academy. Before that can happen, Gray must bond with a mystical creature to become an arcanist himself. Will he bond with a unicorn? A pegasus? A kitsune? Whatever he bonds with will determine his magical abilities, so he must choose wisely. And when trouble finds Professor Helmith, Gray must become powerful enough to help her and fend off the terrible nightmares, before it’s too late…

One of the Boys by Jayne Cowie totally looked like my kind of read when I first saw it, and it was! It actually came out yesterday because, at the last minute, the publisher moved up the publication date. Berkley was nice enough to email with the schedule change, though, and let me know just to leave it scheduled where I had it, which is next week. This is a good one – very thought-provoking, focused, and fast-paced.

Genre: SciFy Thriller
Pages: 348 pages
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: July 11, 2023

If you could test your son for a gene that predicts violence, would you do it? From the author of Curfew comes a suspenseful, heart-wrenching novel about the consequences of your answer. Antonia and Bea are sisters, and doting mothers to their sons. But that is where their similarities end. Antonia had her son tested to make sure he didn’t possess the “violent” M gene. Bea refuses to let her son take the test. She believes his life should not be determined by a positive or negative result. These women will go to any length to protect their sons. But one of them is hiding a monster. And there will be fatal consequences for everybody….

I bumped up Academy Aracanist in my reading schedule so I could have a break between thrillers, but I am very much looking forward to A Twisted Love Story by Samantha Downing. It sounds like a very good…I mean it even has “twisted” in the title 🤣. Can’t wait to read it!

Genre: Psychological Thriller
Pages: 400 pages
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: July 18, 2023

From the bestselling author of My Lovely Wife comes a reckless, delicious thriller that gives a whole new meaning to the dangers of modern dating. Wes and Ivy are madly in love. They’ve never felt anything like it. It’s the type of romance people write stories about. But what kind of story? When it’s good, it’s great. Flowers. Grand gestures. Deep meaningful conversations where the whole world disappears. When it’s bad, it’s really bad. Vengeful fights. Damaged property. Arrest warrants. But their vicious cycle of catastrophic breakups and head-over-heels reconciliations needs to end fast. Because suddenly, Wes and Ivy have a common enemy–and she’s a detective. There’s something Wes and Ivy never talk about–in good times or bad. The night of their worst breakup, when one of them took things too far, and someone ended up dead. If they can stick together, they can survive anything–even the tightening net of a police investigation. Because one more breakup might just be their last…

I received 3 physical ARCs and three digital ARCs this week. Most are from Berkley, but the cute MG book about dragons was a surprise from a Harper Collins imprint.