Author: Rosina @ Lace and Dagger Books

My name is Rosina and I love talking about and reviewing books!
books, idols, Young Adult

Let’s Talk About Idols – Book Edition

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger BooksLeave a Comment on Let’s Talk About Idols – Book Edition
Let’s Talk About Idols – Book Edition

So if you follow me on any social media, especially Twitter, you may have noticed that I enjoy fictional idols. I’m not really into K-pop or real Japanese idols or anything. But idols from books, games and anime? Count me in. I kind of want to get some more idol content on my blog, so I thought a great way to do that would be to share a bunch of rec posts.

I’m starting with a blog post about some of the idol books out there. Novels you can pick up in the YA section of the book store. I’ve only read two of these, but it seemed like a good place to start. I’ll be writing more posts on idol manga, anime and games too. So keep an eye out!

These books all follow Korean idols, though my personal preference is reading things set in Japan. Because the majority of popular real idols are Korean, it’s no surprise that books for a western audience will follow them.

Continue reading “Let’s Talk About Idols – Book Edition” →
Adult, ARC, books, Review

Book Review: The Undertaking Of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger Books6 Comments on Book Review: The Undertaking Of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen
Book Review: The Undertaking Of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen

I’m sure a lot of people have seen this book around with it being a Fairyloot Adult pick. However, the book hasn’t actually been officially released yet. I was lucky enough to be sent an early copy of the standard paperback from Orbit, who is publishing it. With this being a highly anticipated release of mine, I was so excited to dive into this one. And it was definitely worth it.

Hart is a marshal who’s been alone for years, and Mercy is an undertaker who has single-handedly been keeping her family’s business afloat. The two hate each other, but after a particularly harsh argument, Hart finds himself penning a letter to an unknown person. When Mercy receives it, she’s confused by her anonymous pen pal, but she writes back, and they strike up a friendship. They don’t know their new friend is each other, but soon they wind up falling for each other.

Continue reading “Book Review: The Undertaking Of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen” →
Adult, ARC, books, Review

Book Review: A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland

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Book Review: A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland

Boy, oh boy, was this one of my most anticipated books for the year. Seriously. I’ve been wanting to read Alexandra Rowland since I heard them speak on a world-building podcast, but I never quite got around to it. I kept an eye on their work, and when I saw A Taste of Gold and Iron, I knew it would be right up my street. This is a heavily political romantic fantasy novel akin to Winter’s Orbit, and it’s definitely worth reading. I received a proof thanks to Black Crow PR, something I’m still giddy over now, so thanks so much to the team there.

Prince Kadou is in trouble with his sister, the Queen. After causing an incident related to threats her lover made against him, Kadou has been pushed into the background. The only way he can earn his seat back in court is to solve the theft and counterfeiting scheme he was recently put in charge of. Joining him will be his new bodyguard, Evemer. But Evemer doesn’t like him, and things are difficult as Kadou tries to tackle both this operation and his mental health. The more time Kadou and Evemer spend together, the more they fall in love, and soon they would do anything to protect each other.

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Manga

BL Manga Recommendations – Part 2

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BL Manga Recommendations – Part 2

It’s been over half a year since my last one of these. Since then, I’ve seen Gavin from How to Train Your Gavin on Youtube discover that BL is a thing and start diving into it. Seeing that reminded me of my rec post and made me want to start reading more of it again. It’s been a while since I really bought a lot of manga, so this has been fun, and now I have new recommendations for you!

Once again, these all veer more towards shonen-ai than yaoi. None of these series is mature – though I’m reading some of those too, ahem – and the highest rating is OT which is 16+. These are all manga I’ve read myself and enjoyed, so I’d be happy to talk about them if any of you have read them!

Continue reading “BL Manga Recommendations – Part 2” →
book tag, books

Top Ten Tuesday: Hilarious Book Titles

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger Books4 Comments on Top Ten Tuesday: Hilarious Book Titles
Top Ten Tuesday: Hilarious Book Titles

You might have noticed that posts from me recently have been a little sporadic again. A book slump combined with working has slowed me down a little, but I’m working on it. Fortunately, this week’s Top Ten Tuesday tickled my fancy haha!

The Top Ten Tuesday tag was originally created by The Broke and the Bookish and is now held over on The Artsy Reader Girl. It’s a weekly tag where everyone is given a bookish prompt for bloggers to curate a top ten list. You can then share your blog post over on The Artsy Reader Girl’s post for that week. Just make sure you check out and comment on other people’s blog posts too!

This week we’re to share ten hilarious book titles. I haven’t read all these books, but they are all scattered across my house. Some belong to my sister, some to me. Honestly, I probably could’ve just gone through a list of light novels for this one. They have some ridiculous titles. Some of these might not be laugh-out-loud funny, but they do make me grin whenever I see them. I’m just going to list the titles this time as for some of them, that’s literally all I know. But the titles are random enough that if you’re curious, you should easily be able to give them a search. So let’s do this!

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Adult, ARC, blog tour, books, Review

Blog Tour: Time After Time by Louise Pentland

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Blog Tour: Time After Time by Louise Pentland

I’ve read a few chick-lit novels in the past with time travel as a premise. It’s usually a lot of fun, and Time After Time sounded like no exception. I hadn’t read Louise Pentland before, so I was excited to try. I was lucky enough to get a proof of this from Tracy Fenton at Compulsive Tours. Thank you so much for allowing me to be part of this tour. I’m so glad I had a chance to read this early.

Tabby is stuck. Every day is the same, and though she happy’s about where she is in life most of the time…sometimes she wishes she could go back and start over. When she meets a free spirit called Bea, she gets a chance to see her life in a different light and wants to be more like her. Only it’s clear that when she’s with Bea…she’s been transported back to the 1980s. Torn between the past and her present, Tabby needs to figure out who she is and what she wants from life.

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ARC, books, Review, Young Adult

Book Review: The Drowned Woods by Emily Lloyd-Jones

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger Books4 Comments on Book Review: The Drowned Woods by Emily Lloyd-Jones
Book Review: The Drowned Woods by Emily Lloyd-Jones

I was so lucky to be sent an early copy of this book. The team at Hodder and Stoughton were offering limited proofs to Welsh bookish content creators. I’m not Welsh, but I am very interested in the fae, and Celtic folktales and lore. Whilst we see a lot of Scottish-inspired fae stories, we don’t tend to see Welsh or Irish. I mentioned all this in my request email, and I was sent an early finished copy! So thank you so much to the publisher. I adored this book as much as I expected I would, and I have a lot that I’m going to go into.

I’m labelling this post a review, but I’m also going to take this chance to talk about the use of folklore and fae in this book. I want to dive into some of the legends that were mentioned and just talk about whether I’d heard of them or not and tell you a bit about them.

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Adult, ARC, books, Review

Book Review: The Do-Over by Sharon M. Peterson

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Book Review: The Do-Over by Sharon M. Peterson

I’ve been in a chick-lit and romance mood recently, so when I saw The Do-Over on Netgalley I thought…why not give this one a go? It sounded cute and like a fast read. I got exactly what I wanted from this book.

Perci was just dumped by her boyfriend on the radio. On New Year’s Eve. Spending the night with her best friend, it’s decided that she needs to try something different. This year she won’t date, she won’t try to please her mother, and she won’t attempt to lose weight, among other things. She’s not sure she can do it. Yet in an attempt to complete one of them, she lies to her family pretending that she’s dating her next-door neighbour. When he finds out, he agrees to play along. What could possibly go wrong?

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anticipated releases, books, Will I Like This Book?, Young Adult

Will I Like This Book? – The Agency For Scandal by Laura Wood

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger BooksLeave a Comment on Will I Like This Book? – The Agency For Scandal by Laura Wood
Will I Like This Book? – The Agency For Scandal by Laura Wood

I’ve definitely been picking up more historical books recently. I’m slowly finding more that I enjoy set in the past, and this is another one that I’m excited about. There were ARCs of this available at YALC that I didn’t win, but I did pick up a sampler that included this book in it. The moment that I finished this sample, I emailed the publisher asking for an ARC in the hope they had more. It doesn’t sound like they did, so I’ll just have to wait. Sigh. I’m definitely going to read this book as soon as I can.

The Agency for Scandal follows eighteen-year-old Isobel, a young woman who is trying hard to hide from the society that her family is penniless. She works with a women’s detective agency to right wrongs and digs up scandals about the powerful men who deserve to be bought down. What she doesn’t expect is that one day a case will tangle her up with the Duke she’s been nursing a crush on, who doesn’t seem to know she exists. It’s coming out from Scholastic in January 2023.

Continue reading “Will I Like This Book? – The Agency For Scandal by Laura Wood” →