I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I wish I could say I got a lot done this weekend but it just seemed to fly by right? We did go to a local nursery to get some plants for our backyard but really need to do a bit more planning to see what we want to do.

Of course we spent a bit of time at Barnes & Noble and I went back on forth on if I wanted to the latest Flow Magazine. I put it back on the stand but I’m still tempted to go back.

Anyway, this post is all about new books in the mail. I’ve been fortunate to receive a lot of ARCs lately. Here are the books:

The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales
Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller
The Alphabet House by Jussi Adler-Olsen
Missing by Sam Hawken
Rebel Queen by Michelle Moran
The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma
The Whites by Richard Price
Gwendolen by Diana Souhami

The second stack of books:

The Year My Mother Came Back by Alice Eve Cohen
Reluctantly Charmed by Ellie O’Neill
A Sister to Honor by Lucy Ferris
A Tender Struggle by Krista Bremer
One Plus One by Jojo Moyes
A Small Indiscretion by Jan Ellison

All of these sound very interesting and I want to read them all now!

Which one should I start with first? I don’t know but what I do know is that my March reading has been extremely slow-going and I’m hopeful that April will be a better reading month but more on that later. Anyway, here’s to a great start of the week!

Has it felt like Spring in your area? We had lots of rain on Saturday and then a beautiful Sunday. I have finally put away my winter jacket and have started wearing my ballet flats. Actually this Sunday, I had to bring out the shorts. Yep, we tend to go from cold to hot quickly here in Central Texas.

Anyway, Spring also means that Carl V. is once again hosting the Once Upon A Time challenge now in its ninth year! The event encompasses four broad categories: Fairy tale, folklore, fantasy and mythology, including countless sub-genres. The challenge continues through June 21 and the main rule is to have fun!

Who doesn’t want to join right? I’m in. I love this challenge because it has really helped me discover different genres from my typical go-to reads. There are various levels of participation and I’m going to try to complete Quest the First which requires that I read five books that fit somewhere within the categories.

I’m a big fan of making book lists for challenges but I didn’t quite have time to go through my shelves and see what books would be good choices but I do know that I have some fairy tales, some steampunk and fantasy books to choose from. Not many but I do have some.

Finally, isn’t the artwork for the banner beautiful? That is from a piece of art by Kimberly Kincaid.

Anyway what about you, are you in? What are you looking forward to reading?