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In a centuries-long war where beauty and brutality meet, their three paths entwine in a shadowy world of spilled blood and mysterious saints, where a forbidden romance threatens to tip the scales between dark and light. I really enjoyed the gothic tone of this story and the magic systems introduced: clerics who can hone the powers of various gods and goddesses, and blood mages who use blood from their own wounds to cast spells from spell books. I also loved how each “main” character had a complex story, though we only read through the POVs of Nadya (a cleric who can speak to all the gods and goddesses) and Serefin (prince of the land of blood mages). There’s romance in this book, as well, and it definitely didn’t go how I thought it would, which is an even bigger bonus, because normally the predictability of romance just annoys me.

I’m so excited to be able to participate during the correct month this year; I didn’t find out about it until summer in 2018, so I sat my OWLs in July all by myself. Since I participated in the Charms Extra Credit during October 2018 and read three books, I get to sit my Charms OWLs three days early. This year, there’s also a fun twist to the readathon: instead of just following prompts for the classes we’re interested in, we can choose a wizarding career we’d like to pursue, then sit the OWLs (and eventually the NEWTs) required for that career. I’ve decided to be a Potioneer, and the OWLs I have to sit for are below, along with the books I’ve chosen.

I always go into each of these challenge installments skeptically, thinking I won’t be able to find any books that start with the corresponding letter. This is especially true when it comes to vowels, and I panicked because I legit couldn’t think of any books that start with “ You’d think I’d have learned my lesson by now, though; as soon as I check my shelves or Goodreads, I stumble across more than I would’ve thought! I feel particularly dumb for forgetting about Illuminae when I was trying to come up with books from memory, as I talk about that book A LOT.

On the Come Up” tour stop near Chicago, and it was so great hearing her speak about her books, life and motivations for publishing these stories. I’ve met her at a couple of other events, much smaller than this, and I’m beyond happy for her success. I was # 151 in the signing line, but they played The Hate U Give movie while we waited, so I was definitely not mad about 💁🏻‍♀️ Also, Angie rapped some of the passages from On the Come Up during the Q&A, and if you’d like to hear some of it, check out my stories 😆 thanks to @andersonsbookshop for hosting the event! #thehateugive #onthecomeup #angiethomas #yabooks #diversebooks #weneeddiversebooks #bookstagram #bookblogger #booksandcoffee #authorlove #booksigning #readmore #amreading #ilovebooks #bookish