Well, this is it for 2019! I went up to Maine this weekend to see Erin, who I do most of my book shopping with, and who I haven’t book shopped with since April, so I was really excited for this haul. We stopped at two different stores–BAM & Bull Moose, both in Bangor. BAM drives me crazy, and I really don’t like it there, but it’s their version B&N and is the only large bookstore around, so beggars can’t be choosers. I absolutely adore Bull Moose, though, and got some super steals there. Let’s dive in!

First up is the BAM haul. I got 10 books (one is not pictured because it’s a Hanukkah present) for about $150, I think?

I’m about to embark on my NaNoWriMo project for this year, and it’s about vampires, so I was super excited to hear that Renée Ahdieh was writing about vampires in 1800s New Orleans. The Beautiful will be the first vampire book I’ve read since Twilight, so I’m a little nervous, but also very hopeful that it’ll be amazing.

Okay, Grimoire Noir by Vera Greentea & Yana Bogatch looks like the literal cutest thing ever. The artwork is gorgeous, and it’s about this sad, lonely boy who dresses up like a detective to emulate his dad as he investigates the spooky things happening around his witch little sister. Like? Yes and thank you.

I’ve been eyeing We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal for quite some time, so when Erin decided she wasn’t going to get the only copy of this at the store, I was definitely putting it in my basket. I’m always a sucker for Arabian mythology, and this one sounds badass.

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson is one of those books that Erin whipped off the shelf and hurled at me. She doesn’t get to read a lot of books due to her insane schedule, but when she does and ends up loving it, it’s definitely going to be an auto-buy. I trust her more than most people when it comes to books, so if she’s handing me something, I know I’m almost guaranteed to like it.

I really, really ended up enjoying Carrie, and I’m starting to think I might be old enough to handle Stephen King now (lollllll old enough, I’m just not as easily frightened now). I saw a trailer for Doctor Sleep before Zombieland 2 (it was AMAZING) the other day, and it looked so good that I ended up picking up The Shining while in Maine, which also happened to be directly after Erin took me to see the Stephen King house. I wasn’t going to read this 700-page tome next for King, but I’m pretty excited!

Witches! I had a definite subconscious witch vibe going into this weekend. I’ve been thinking a lot about sister witches, one of my novels, and I spent a solid portion of Halloween & the weekend rereading the second half of the first book, so it’s been on my brain. Because of that, I grabbed Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin, as well as some other witch books, because I’ve been eyeing it, and it’s been getting stellar reviews lately.

Sometimes, we read books with witches, and sometimes, we read books with witch hunters, it’s totally fine. Henry Cavill is in the adaptation for The Witcher series, which is based on a video game, and it looks right up my alley, so The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski made it into my cart. I’ve also been jonesing for some mass market high fantasy lately, so this is probably going to end well.

We all know by now that I love short story collections. I’m trying to read more, and to convince myself that they’re worth buying (I always put them back in favor of something else, and I DON’T KNOW WHY), so when I saw Meet Cute: Some People are Destined to Meet, it was meant to be.

More witches! The Babysitter’s Coven by Kate Williams is one of those books where I’m not really concerned with the reviews. I’m probably going to like it no matter what because it’s got that kind of ridiculous vibe that sister witches has, and I’m here for it.

And the Bull Moose haul! 7 books for about $77, and one of them was a $5 hardcover! Seriously, the prices here are insane.

WinterHouse by Ben Guterson is definitely a cover buy. It also sounds really interesting, though I keep forgetting what it’s about when someone asks. I think a girl gets dropped off at a spooky hotel and there’s a mystery to solve? I’m not really sure, but the artwork is adorable, and I’m always going to be drawn in by that.

I DID NOT KNOW THAT NEIL PATRICK HARRIS WROTE NOT ONLY ONE BOOK, BUT AN ENTIRE SERIES. The Magic Misfits was in my hands before I even realized I’d picked it up, and I was buying it no matter what it was about, but magicians and thieves? YESSSSSS.

This book has been wicked hyped lately, and I definitely fell for it, but also The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow was $27 (27!!!) at BAM, and I left it there because nawww, and also why do adult books have to be so expensive, this is ridiculous, but Bull Moose had it for $18 (much more reasonable, I think, considering I’ve spent $27 on box set trilogies), so I snatched it up. It sounds really intriguing, and that cover is gorgeous, soooo.

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe was my $5 hardcover steal! I originally picked up the sequel, and it had one of those blurbs on the bottom “also wrote,” thankfully, so I snatched this up. It sounds like it was written specifically with me in mind–witch history outside of Salem because duh that’s where it all actually happened–and I am hella excited.

The Whiz Mob and the Grenadine Kid by Colin Meloy & Carson Ellis was another auto-buy. I think I knew that Colin Meloy wrote another book, but didn’t actually know, so when I saw it, I gave a little exclamation of delighted surprise and grabbed it. I loved Ellis’ artwork in the Wildwood trilogy, and Meloy’s storytelling was superb, so I’m really excited to dive into this eventually.

Strange Birds: A Field Guide to Ruffling Feathers by Celia C. Pérez immediately reminded me of The Someday Birds by Sally J. Pla, both because of the cover and the title, so I was already drawn toward it. When I found out it was about female friendships, I stopped reading the summary and put it in my stack.

The last of my witch buys was These Witches Don’t Burn by Isabel Sterling, which is a book I had on my list to grab while I was out. I know I could have just bought it online (and saved money), but I like buying books in-store, so this was a case of “oh yes that’s right I’m getting that today.”

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And that’s it! I likely won’t be book shopping for the rest of the year, and while I’ll hopefully get some for Christmas, I don’t envision being back in a bookstore until well into 2020, which is both shocking and exciting. I’m happy to be just focusing on the books on my TBR for the foreseeable future, and by the time I actually go shopping again, there will be so many new releases that it’ll be fun to explore them all!