diana gabaldon

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine (though it seems as though it’s been a while since she updated that particular blog, so if you know of the current host, if there is one, please let me know) that highlights upcoming releases that we’re impatiently waiting for. This week I’m featuring October-December 2020 review copies or purchased books that I have either in physical form or digital form that I can’t wait to dive into! But now that it’s the middle of November, I really need to get in gear and get these read! The release dates are listed but are always subject to change.

A Golden Fury – Samathan Cohoe :: It’s about a fantasy Oxford with alchemists and curses and the looming French Revolution. I’ve been in the MOOD for historical fantasies of all flavors, and I’m really thinking I’ll enjoy this one. Releases October 13, 2020.
Ruinsong – Julia Ember :: Sapphic YA fantasy with kingdoms and queens and underground rebellions?? YES. And that cover?? I love it already. Releases November 24, 2020.
The Hollow Places – T. Kingfisher :: Up until this year, I have not been one for much horror, but after reading a few stories and Mexican Gothic, I think I can handle a little bit more. 2020 was originally going to be about broadening my own horizons, especially with different genres, so when I saw this available for download, I thought I’d give it a go. Releases October 6, 2020.
The Thirty Names of Night – Zeyn Joukhadar :: I loved their debut title The Map of Salt and Stars and Atria was kind enough to send me a finished copy of the novel! I’m excited to see where this goes, and I have a feeling I’ll be so moved by it. Releases November 24, 2020.
White Ivy – Susie Yang :: I’m kind of loving that dark academia is becoming a thing in recent releases, and this one caught my attention when I saw it on the ARC shelf at work. Releases November 3, 2020.

Any Rogue Will Do – Bethany Bennett :: To be honest, this is a total cover buy, but LOOK AT IT. It’s so gaussian blurry and beautiful. I don’t think it’s Christmasy, but it looks very Christmasy, so I had to have it. This also looks like it’s the first title by this author? I’m definitely into this era of regency romance, and I like that the names of these characters are pretty traditional sounding for the era in which this book is set. And it’s definitely not a list like this without some romance added to it anymore. Releases October 13, 2020.
How to Catch a Queen – Alyssa Cole :: I’m at risk of becoming an Alyssa Cole fanblog but THAT’S OKAY. And you should read her stuff, it’s great. I’m looking forward to this new contemporary series! Releases December 1, 2020.
One Writer’s Beginnings – Eudora Welty :: I don’t remember requesting this from Scribner so it came as a complete surprise in my mailbox! But I do enjoy reading about writing because I feel like it helps with so much of my own writing and enjoyment of reading. Releases November 3, 2020.
Plain Bad Heroines – Emily M. Danforth :: Gilded Age gothic fiction set in a SCHOOL and it’s got LESBIANS? It sounds like everything I love in a book, and it’s a chonker so I’ve been waiting for a good few days off to start reading this because I have a feeling I won’t want to put it down. Releases October 20, 2020.
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 – ed. John Joseph Adams and Diana Gabaldon :: I love love love anthologies because I get a flavor of a lot of different writers’ abilities and stories and I get to add more books to my TBR after making discoveries of writers I might not have heard of before! I don’t remember if I bought 2019’s (and I need to check because I have the others), but this series (and any anthologies put out by John Joseph Adams) has consistently been great. I also love 2020’s covers across all the Best American series; they’re incredibly striking! Releases November 3, 2020.

Are any of these on your to-read list? What one would you read first?

I stumbled across Aentee’s Pokémon Go Book Tag and decided immediately I wanted to do it, because I’ve been totally obsessed with the app (I even caught some in the Bahamas!)! I don’t know who to tag specifically, but if you want to do it, tag, you’re it!

I’ve been reading for as long as I can remember, but the books that really got me wanting to read more beyond what was given to me were the Dear America books! Does anyone remember those? I was in the fourth grade when I read the first one, and I used to get them through the Scholastic book orders. They were fictional diaries of girls in different periods of history, and I was obsessed. I read the first three in that series over and over and over.

Jane Eyre, to nobody’s surprise. I’m going to read the rest of the Brontë works in this year and the next because I need to know more of their inner lives after reading Claire Harman’s biography of Jane (and her siblings).

Maybe A Song of Ice and Fire? I’ll read them all eventually, maybe once Winds of Winter is released or something. Otherwise, there are several series/books that I avoid not just because I see it everywhere but because I have no interest in ever reading them for personal reasons.

I don’t have a specific answer for this because it’s in a lot of stuff I’ve enjoyed, but I’ll read nearly anything that has a Beauty and the Beast/forced cohabitation and oh look we’ve fallen in love trope. I don’t know why but it gets me every time. It’s seen in stuff like Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses series, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and Robin McKinley’s Beauty/Rose Daughter.

Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archive series. Those books are literal bricks, okay. I haven’t finished the rest of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series for this reason, too.

Lavie Tidhar’s Central Station was the last book to keep me up past my bedtime. I had to know more about those data vampires and where he took the characters in the world he created. Dracula, when I first read it years and years ago, kept me up out of sheer horror.

Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy. Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester. Yvaine and Tristran Thorne. I have more but these are my top three!

I blazed through Pierce Brown’s Red Rising! I really enjoyed the world building. It wasn’t a new concept, but I thought it was well-executed, and I can’t wait to read the rest of the trilogy!

I WANTED TO SAY HARRY POTTER UNTIL I STARTED READING THE CURSED CHILD. (I’m still excited for Fantastic Beasts, though, not gonna lie.) So… let’s just say I’ll read all the Star Wars and Star Trek spin-offs until the end of time. Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath is so much fun!

Some of these aren’t “new” debuts, but I haven’t read them yet: Brittany Cavallaro’s A Study in Charlotte, Paula Lichtarowicz’s The First Book of Calamity Leek, Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing, and Paige Orwin’s The Interminables!

NEIL GAIMAN. I also have (decidedly) not read everything of his yet because I always want there to be something of his that’s always new to me.

Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass series. It seems like everyone and their mother’s read it, and it’s going in different directions than some of us probably hoped for, but I still like it, and I’m super excited for Empire of Storms!

Uh… Patrick Rothfuss’s Door of Stone or whatever it’s called. The third book in the Kingkiller Chronicles. WHERE IS IT.

I read I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith as part of an Instagram read a long a while ago, and I loved it so much more than I expected to! I don’t know why I thought of it as a stuffy book and avoided it because of that, but I was surprised at its breadth and depth and magic.

The Sandman Omnibus Silver Edition. Because OMG.

(And if anyone’s wondering/curious, I caught my first Tentacool and Magikarp in Nassau.)

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WAITING ON WEDNESDAY: October-December 2020 Reads

Pokémon Go Book Tag