Author: Rosina @ Lace and Dagger Books

My name is Rosina and I love talking about and reviewing books!
Adult, books, Will I Like This Book?

Will I Like This Book? – Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Torzs

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Will I Like This Book? – Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Torzs

The majority of the books I’ve spoken about in this post have been ones that I’ve been really excited about. But this one? This I’m not so sure about… It doesn’t sound bad, but it wasn’t great either. I’m not sure what I think about it, so let’s go into a little more detail.

This is an adult fantasy thriller that follows two sisters; Joanna and Esther. For generations, the Kalotay family has guarded a collection of rare and dangerous books. Books that contain magic. But now Joanna lives alone, guarding the books and trying to create her own whilst her older half-sister Esther hasn’t lived in one place for more than a year since she left home. Until now. But when someone on the antarctic base Esther lives and works on starts using magic, she realises she’ll never escape her family’s legacy. Now the sisters will have to work together to unravel the secrets of these books until it’s too late.

If this book sounds like your sort of thing, then it’ll be published by Del Rey in July 2023.

Continue reading “Will I Like This Book? – Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Torzs” →
Adult, book tag, books, tbr, Young Adult

Top Ten Tuesday: Books On My Fall 2022 To-Read List

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger Books11 Comments on Top Ten Tuesday: Books On My Fall 2022 To-Read List
Top Ten Tuesday: Books On My Fall 2022 To-Read List

I thought I’d take advantage of this Top Ten Tuesday as I wanted to post a spooky or autumn TBR post sometime soon anyway! I’m not much of a seasonal reader but over the last year I’ve picked up a few good horror, thriller and mystery novels and I want to get to them. I thought this season would be a great opportunity to finally do so.

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!

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Reading

Reading A Book Using A Translation App

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger BooksLeave a Comment on Reading A Book Using A Translation App
Reading A Book Using A Translation App

In a world filled with books, there will always be books that sound good to you that just aren’t translated. Sometimes you can find translations online, but sometimes we just want the original. We want to read our own copy, but even if we’re learning the language…a lack of vocab can make it hard.

So sometimes…we might try reading something through a translation app.

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Adult, ARC, books, Review

Book Review: Notorious Sorcerer by Davinia Evans

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Book Review: Notorious Sorcerer by Davinia Evans

I’m loving the books that Orbit is publishing this year. So many of the books coming out from them are amazing, and Notorious Sorcerer is another one of these. I hadn’t heard much about this book before I saw that it was available to review, but it was clearly a perfect book for me. Thanks to Nazia for this one.

Notorious Sorcerer is set in the world of Bezim, where the Bravi sling swords and race through the night, alchemists practice rituals behind closed doors, and the rich are willing to pay for both. Siyon Velo is an alchemist who hops between the planes collecting materials for the city’s alchemists. His hope is that he’ll earn enough to join the Summer House and the rest of the trained alchemists. But when he accidentally uses magic that should be impossible, he’s thrown into the limelight, just as hell breaks loose in the city. Now he has to try to save things, but he’s not sure he even knows how to.

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ARC, books, Review, Young Adult

Blog Review: Big Bad Me by Aislinn O’Loughlin

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger Books2 Comments on Blog Review: Big Bad Me by Aislinn O’Loughlin
Blog Review: Big Bad Me by Aislinn O’Loughlin

I love getting emails asking if I’m interested in reviewing a book. It allows me to find books that I might not have stumbled across. Big Bad Me is one of those. I was a big fan of the paranormal fantasy craze in the 2000s and I was so glad to find a new book harking back to this craze.

In Big Bad Me, we follow sisters Evie and Katie Wilder, whose mum has recently disappeared. After a strange man tries to attack Evie, she realises she’s actually a werewolf. The two sisters run away looking for their mum and wind up in a guesthouse in the town their mum was last seen. He’s dorky hot, but there’s something strange about him, and when animal attacks are reported in town, he and the sisters look into what’s going on.

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idols, video games

Let’s Talk About Idols – Mobile Game Edition

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Let’s Talk About Idols – Mobile Game Edition

If it’s not been undeniable that I’ve been very interested in idol games. I’m obsessed with one in particular, but I’ve obviously been trying out a few different games. Most of the ones I’ve tried aren’t officially available outside of Japan, but I’ve wanted to do this post for a while.

I thought it would be a good idea for me to try out a few of the idol games available in the west and to talk about them.

So, I downloaded three games on top of Ensemble Stars Music and thought I’d let you all know what I thought about them. Especially as games for users new to rhythm games.

These sorts of games are so much fun. None of them is the traditional kind of idol-raising game, as they all have musical components. But if you’re at all curious about anime idols and want to have some fun playing with them? This post could be for you.

I’m going to list these games from worst to best. I’ll add that this is just my personal opinion, so if you disagree, that’s fine. But I had a lot of fun preparing for this post, so you can definitely take some recommendations.

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

Will I Like This Book? – She Is A Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran

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Will I Like This Book? – She Is A Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran

It’s time for another Will I Like This Book post! I’ve not gotten through all the YALC samplers yet! But since this one comes out early next year, I think now seems like a good time to get a post up, so we all have plenty of time to preorder what sounds like an amazing book! This one is being published by Bloomsbury, so keep an eye out.

She is A Haunting follows teenager Jade Nguyen who desperately needs money for college. She’s always lied, so summer with her estranged father in Vietnam should be something she can survive. She agrees to help him with the dilapidated French colonial house that he’s been renovating. One morning she wakes up feeling like something clawed down her throat from the inside, and a ghost bride visits her and tells her not to eat. When Jade’s dad and sister don’t believe her, she recruits Florence, who has been helping her with the house, to stage hauntings and scare them out of there. But the house has other plans. It’s hungry, and it won’t be abandoned again.

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bookstagram, booktube, tips, Writing

Content Creation – The Pros and Cons of Different Social Media

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger Books7 Comments on Content Creation – The Pros and Cons of Different Social Media
Content Creation – The Pros and Cons of Different Social Media

Content creation is something that most of you reading this blog will enjoy doing. But it’s also something that can take up a lot of time. With so many different social media platforms out there, it can be hard to decide which will work best for you. There’s no point in wasting all your time and energy doing them all. Especially not if you’re not enjoying doing so.

With that in mind, I decided to write up a little post on the pros and cons of each of the main social media platforms you can use for creating bookish content. You can use these to decide which you might want to try out and which won’t work for you!

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Update

I’m Going To Learn Japanese

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger Books5 Comments on I’m Going To Learn Japanese
I’m Going To Learn Japanese

I know this sounds like a somewhat random post, and I doubt many of you will be interested. But this post is a declaration for me to hold myself accountable.

You can see from my blog and my social media that I’m very interested in Japanese stories. Whether it’s in books, manga or games, I want to be able to read them. Translations are great, but not everything gets translated. And on top of that, it would be fun to be able to understand the source material.

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