My Shelf-ish Week - #61

 My Inner Author:

I've done some (still not much) writing on Night Giver these past few weeks since I last checked in with you. It's at 118,000 words long, and I've changed up a couple of plans I had for the rest of the book, so we'll see how that goes.

My Inner Bookworm:

I've finished both Robin on the Oak Throne and Raven at the Ash Door. I was so sure the plot was headed in this one certain direction (That Lorcan has somehow gotten Graves' soul...maybe from the first time he killed him), but it didn't go that way at all. So that kind of bummed me out until the twist ending of Raven, which got me all kinds of intrigued about how that's going to pan out. 

Then, I was going to start reading The Games Gods Play.  But my co-worker turned in a book at the library where I have my day job, and I just casually flipped open to page one because...I have no idea why. And I was instantly in it.  So I guess I'm reading Project Hail Mary instead, which is so far off from my usual reading preference that it's crazy (I mean...there's no romance at all. And it's full of science and math that goes way over my head). But I love how it's written, so I'm hooked! I'm just hoping I can hold out until I finish reading the book before I let myself watch the movie.  We shall see!

My Inner Book Dragon:

Ooh, I have collected quite the pretties into my lair; yes, I have! I've decided that since I only needed five more to go until I had every book published by Entangled Red Tower Books that I was going to make it a mission to collect all of them: hence Nobody's Quest (And I have four more on the way, which will then complete my quest...until the next book publishes in August, and I'm forced to buy that too!).

And then I had quite a few Allurial Book Box books arrive in my mail. So say hello to: 

• The Wolf and the Crown of Blood,
• In the Wake of the Ruined,
• The Mortal Trials,
• Forsaken Prophesy,
• Dominion,
• Eclipse of the Crown, and 
• The Winged Game.

I also have The Night Prince set to come my way from Allurial in August, but I'd already gotten the publisher's version. On the flip side, I already had only the Allurial edition of The Wolf King, so then I had to get the publisher's version of that in order to have matching sets of both editions (I know; that logic only makes sense to another fellow book dragon, but trust me, it's very logical).

And that is what's been up in my shelf-ish world in the last two weeks. Have a great National Piña Colada Day out there, you hear. Hugs!

My Shelf-ish Week #60

What I've Been Writing: 

I think (hope) I'm over the pity party I was throwing myself last week. I had a couple of dozen more sales on Day Robber after it released. But I'm not yet having much luck getting back into writing again. My muse is on vacation, I believe. Every time I opened Night Giver, determined to dig in and just write something, even if it was all crap that would later be scrapped, I'd get interrupted. And when I finally had time to get back in again, the procrastination had set in once more. And it'd take a while of mindless doom scrolling on my phone before I returned to the "okay, let's do this" frame of mind, only to get interrupted when I actually tried to do it, repeating the pattern in a wheel-spinning loop. So I've only gotten a few thousand words written in the last few weeks. But I guess that's better than nothing. The word count is at 114,000 right now.

What I've Been Reading: 

I started a story that I couldn't, for the life of me, get into. So I set that aside when North Country arrived on Tuesday. I'll finish that before the end of the day, so I'm calling it read this week. 

What I've Been Stacking on my Shelves:

North Country is also on this week's Stacking my Shelves list. I had it pre-ordered to arrive from the Zon last week. But they were running way behind, so when I received a newsletter email from the author on Saturday, saying there were still signed copies available at a list of certain stores, I canceled my Amazon order and got the signed copy instead. It arrived on Tuesday, and I started it immediately.  Then I got a different edition of Stormside that was for sale on TikTok because I liked its look better than the Target edition I had. My special edition of The Inadequate Heir arrived this week. Signed!  This is probably my favorite book by Danielle Jensen (yes, all because of Keris), and she's, like, my favorite author at the moment, so I'm happy to have that copy. And then I got the new edition of Torn, and ooh! I forgot to mention last week that I received Slaying the Shadow Prince, so I'll give it a little shout-out this week. Welcome to my collection, Shadow Prince. I ordered it back in September of 2025 from Aurora Crate. It was a happy surprise to finally see it hit my shelves.

And that was the ups and downs of my shelf-ish week. Hugs. Hope you have a great National Chocolate Pudding Day. 

My Shelf-ish Week #59

 What I've Been Publishing: 

Day Robber releases today! It's available on my website (LindaKage.com), plus places like Amazon, Apple, BN, Kobo, and Google. After putting a year of work into this one and being super excited to share it, I had a record low of seven pre-orders (well, there were eight, but someone returned theirs before release day). So now, I'm just kind of hanging on and trying not to spiral into a bad place.  I really hope those seven people like it, though. (Thank you, seven people! I love you.)

What I've Been Reading: 

Had lots better luck with books I've been reading than books I've been writing, at least. That's something. I finished Mistakes Were Made and The Wind Weaver.  I really enjoyed them both. Need the next book from both authors asap. 

What I've Been Stacking on my Shelves:

Got two new books for my shelves this week. There's the third book in the Oak & Holly cycle: Raven at the Ash Door.  And the last book I needed to finish my Danielle L. Jensen collection: Tarnished Empire. Hoping to get started on reading both of these in the next month or so.