Adult, anticipated releases, books, Young Adult

Most Anticipated Fantasy Books of Early 2022

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger Books6 Comments on Most Anticipated Fantasy Books of Early 2022
Most Anticipated Fantasy Books of Early 2022

We’re getting to the end of the year, and finally, I can start talking about the books I want to read next year. This post is a mix of books I have ARCs of and ones I’ve preordered. I’d usually prefer to focus on books that I haven’t yet ordered, but I’ve apparently gone on a bit of a requesting/preordering spree for the beginning of the year. Ooops? I will be doing a second anticipated releases post for contemporary and romance books, and a few of those I haven’t ordered yet. But for this post, at least, I can say for certain that I’ll own all these books before the end of May.

Continue reading “Most Anticipated Fantasy Books of Early 2022” →
ARC, books, Review, Young Adult

Book Review: If This Gets Out by Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger BooksLeave a Comment on Book Review: If This Gets Out by Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich
Book Review: If This Gets Out by Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich

Both Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich are authors who each have a book that I adore and another that didn’t work for me. But this first project they’ve worked on together? I loved it! If you’re looking for a fun contemporary about two boyband members falling in love, then this will be the book for you.

Ruben and Zach are two members of the band Saturday. Ruben is gay but hasn’t been allowed to come out, and when things start to happen between him and Zach, it seems unlikely that things will change. As well as their blossoming romance, they have their bandmates to contend with, and the path to success has never been rougher. This was a super fun book but one that deals with darker elements. So if you’re looking for a new queer contemporary that you won’t be able to put down? This is the book for you.

Continue reading “Book Review: If This Gets Out by Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich” →
Manga

BL Manga Recommendations

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger Books2 Comments on BL Manga Recommendations
BL Manga Recommendations

It’s time for a manga recommendation post. And not just any genre of manga but BL. For those of you who didn’t read the I Read A Yaoi Audiobook post, BL stands for Boys Love. It’s a genre that, in the past, was split into shonen-ai and yaoi. Shonen-ai translates as Boys Love, but this is more commonly used now.

If you’re already immersed in the manga scene and like picking up BL manga, this post won’t be for you. I’ve only recently started reading the genre again, and my recommendations here are well-known series. Some of them are difficult to get your hands on at the moment, but volumes are still being published. There is one exception which I’ll list at the bottom, but I can’t talk about BL and not mention this one-volume manga and light novel series.

Continue reading “BL Manga Recommendations” →
Adult, book tag, books, Challenge, Young Adult

Spotify Wrapped Book Challenge 2021

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger Books12 Comments on Spotify Wrapped Book Challenge 2021
Spotify Wrapped Book Challenge 2021

It is Spotify Wrapped time again! We all love seeing our favourite songs, what genres we seem to like the most etc. It’s so much fun, and last year I came up with the Spotify Wrapped book challenge.

The idea of this challenge is to put your 2021 playlist on shuffle, and for the first five songs, you need to pick a book you read in 2021 that fits that song. It doesn’t have to be a perfect fit. You just have to explain why you chose that book for that song. Obviously, you will not have a book match for every song, so you can skip if you need to. But the idea is that you at least need to try, even if it is embarrassing. This was a lot of fun last year, and I’m excited to be doing it again. I hope you all will too!

Continue reading “Spotify Wrapped Book Challenge 2021” →
ARC, blog tour, books, Review, Young Adult

Blog Tour: You’ll Be The Death Of Me by Karen M. McManus

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger Books2 Comments on Blog Tour: You’ll Be The Death Of Me by Karen M. McManus
Blog Tour: You’ll Be The Death Of Me by Karen M. McManus

I’m here today with another book review as part of a blog tour! This time we have You’ll Be The Death Of Me, the latest YA mystery by bestseller Karen M. McManus. I’ve read and enjoyed the vast majority of her books, so I’m happy to be on The Write Reads Ultimate Blog Tour for this one. Thank you so much to the team at The Write Reads for letting me take part in this tour, fun fact, I had already been granted the e-arc for this one when I signed up, but I couldn’t resist participating.

You’ll Be The Death of Me is inspired by Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and it follows three old friends who randomly decide to skip school together only to stumble across the corpse of a murdered classmate.

I’d usually write a little more of a summary, but I don’t want to give anything away. Though this isn’t the most original mystery, it’s thoroughly enjoyable, and you’ll want to go in as blind as possible.

Continue reading “Blog Tour: You’ll Be The Death Of Me by Karen M. McManus” →
Adult, ARC, blog tour, books, Review

Blog Tour: King of Battle And Blood by Scarlett St. Clair

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger BooksLeave a Comment on Blog Tour: King of Battle And Blood by Scarlett St. Clair
Blog Tour: King of Battle And Blood by Scarlett St. Clair

I’m not exactly someone known for reading a lot of smutty romance, but when a book sounds this good. I can’t resist. I knew what I was in for when I picked this book up, and I was excited for it anyway. I was lucky enough to be sent a copy of this book thanks to the very lovely team at Black Crow PR and this tour has been put together by Random Things Tours. A big thank you to the both of them.

King of Battle and Blood is an adult fantasy romance. It follows a princess called Isolde, who when her country is entered by the vampire King, Adrian, agrees to be his wife for the sake of ending the upcoming war. She assumes she’ll fear him, but soon she’s more scared of how attracted she is to him and her growing understanding of the vampires than she is anything else.

Continue reading “Blog Tour: King of Battle And Blood by Scarlett St. Clair” →
ARC, books, Review, Young Adult

Book Review: The Keeper of Night by Kylie Lee Baker

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger BooksLeave a Comment on Book Review: The Keeper of Night by Kylie Lee Baker
Book Review: The Keeper of Night by Kylie Lee Baker

I think you all know how obsessed I am with Japan and Japanese culture by now. Though a lot of that interest is pop-culture focused, I’m both a history geek and a myth & legend fanatic at heart, so there are other areas I’m interested in too. This interest and my love of YA books meant that The Keeper of Night by Kylie Lee Baker was a must-read for me, and I was lucky enough to get an ARC through Harper360’s newsletter. I’m super grateful for this one, even if I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I hoped.

This book follows Ren, a half-Shinigami half-Reaper girl who has been living in 1890’s London her whole life. She was bullied for being different, and the only person who really cares for her is her younger half-brother, Neven. One day she injures another Reaper with her shinigami powers and has to go on the run. She heads to Japan with only her brother for company, desperate to become a Shinigami.

Continue reading “Book Review: The Keeper of Night by Kylie Lee Baker” →
Adult, books, Reading, tbr, Young Adult

Books I Want To Read Before the End of 2021

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger Books8 Comments on Books I Want To Read Before the End of 2021
Books I Want To Read Before the End of 2021

We’re in the final month of the year. I can’t believe we’re so close to the end of 2021! I’ve not yet completed my GoodReads challenge, and I’m not sure I’m going to, but that’s okay. I’ll just read what I can and see if I can manage it.

Today I want to list a few of the books that I plan on reading before the end of the year. I have another ARC to read, and I plan on reading a few Christmas books too, but I won’t be listing those today. These are just a few books from my physical TBR that I want to get to.

I’m not going to be listing them in any particular order. All of these books are in series. In fact, two of them are sequels, so I won’t be going into too much detail. But if anyone would be interested in a buddy read, let me know.

Continue reading “Books I Want To Read Before the End of 2021” →
Manga

The Wonders of Doujinshi

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger BooksLeave a Comment on The Wonders of Doujinshi

Zines are something that is slowly getting more popular. Whether you’re looking for fandom zines advertising on Twitter or Tumblr or the more traditional zines with unusual poetry and pictures, you can always find something for you. Zines themselves aren’t new, they’ve been around for many years, but in Japan, there’s been a particular form of manga that are essentially zines.

Doujinshi.

So today, I want to talk a little about doujinshi. I’m going to explain what it is for those who don’t know and just say why you should all think about getting some. Or, y’know, try drawing some if you’re into that.

Continue reading “The Wonders of Doujinshi” →