Oh, this is fun! Already, second week of doing this tag on the blog, and I was so excited to write it! Normally, I have posts written about a month in advance, so it’s often a surprise to me what’s going up each day, and this is like a fun little treat at the beginning of the week, being able to draft this live. And, ICYMI, I’ve hopped on the what are you reading WWW Wednesday posts, which are hosted by Taking on a World of Words, and my normal Wednesday posts, usually discussions, are moving to Thursdays.

what did you recently finish reading?

I’m already going off the rails and changing the order of the questions, but I’m going to end up answering this one regardless of whether or not it’s first, so it just makes sense to have it first. I did at least one thing that I was hoping to this weekend, and that was to finish A Lesson in Vengeance in a reasonable amount of time. I ended up reading most of it Thursday & Saturday, and it was truly excellent. It’s also definitely most of the reason why I laughed at most of my other plans for the weekend.

what are you currently reading?

Did I start reading The Haunting Season before everything else? Yes, of course, Victoria Lee had me in the mood for spooky and historical, and it’s literally a collection of historical fiction horror stories, hellooooooo. I also didn’t plan on reading quite as much of it as I did, but the third story was by Natasha Pulley, and Y’ALL! I was going to save it, but then I saw “Keita Mori” as the literal opening words, and well. That was that.

It was so much fun to be able to see Thaniel & Mori again. Her short story, Singing Eels, was like a little interlude after Watchmaker and before Pepperharrow, and it just about broke my heart with how wonderful and soft it was. Thaniel still wasn’t sure Mori actually loved him, but they were alone on vacation together, so he could be a little more affectionate without worrying overmuch, and it was just UGHHHHH SO GOOD. The other two stories were pretty excellent, too, though I definitely preferred The Black & White House and immediately went looking for what else Bridget Collins has written.

And this is where I tell you that I’ve decided to just say never mind to my TBR for Halloween. Honestly? I don’t have any interest in most of those books right now. I’m really enjoying the historical fiction vibe right now, particularly with rewatching A Discovery of Witches, and I have about eighty thousand preorders to get through and upcoming, so I’m just going to read what I want to right now. Moving my TBR over to its own specific three-shelf bookcase has done a lot of good in really honing in on what I’ve got up next to read, and I’d like to take the rest of the year to just relax and read without stressing over specific books. Which means, obviously, that as soon as I decided this, I finally started Into the Dying Light by Katy Rose Pool. I don’t know why I’ve been avoiding it, given that it’s my most anticipated release this year, but the second I removed any restrictions on my reading, boom! Off we go!

what do you think you’ll read next?

I plan on finishing The Haunting Season in a few days. It’s only 300 pages long, 100 of which I’ve already read, and I’ll probably read at least two short stories each time I open it up (there are only eight in total & five left). I also know that, now that I’ve started Into the Dying Light, I’m going to power through it because I am so damn excited to be finally reading it. So, we’ve got 200 pages of short stories + 500 pages of me absolutely losing my mind over Anton & Jude, so that’ll probably get us to Wednesday? Especially now that I don’t teach on Wednesdays anymore?

For the rest of the week, I’m hoping to start Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson, and, like all Rogerson’s before it, finish it in about five seconds. I’d also like to get to A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow as soon as I’m done with The Haunting Season, maybe even sneak in Dark Tales by Shirley Jackson after that so I just snag all three of my short collections together. And, if we’re reaching for the stars, I’d like to read The Marvelous by Claire Kann over the weekend, but that’s a lot, so we’ll see.

What are you reading right now?