Weekly Check-in #42

 What I've been Writing:

Defectors and Queens - This week, I gutted half of Chapter 3, reworked the end, then completely removed all of Chapter 9 and gave it a new one. I'm liking the changes I've made. So now we have 16 completed chapters and 63,000 words written. YAY! Progress.

What I've Been Reading:

Wow! I love snow days. It gives a girl like me loads of reading time. I was in my element, let me tell you. There was hot chocolate. There was a cozy blanket. There were books. Here's what I read since last Friday.

Stolen Songbird: So remember how I went off last week about how those stories where the captive falls for their captor mess up my head? Well, I opened this book about trolls that I was all curious about, and the girl gets freaking kidnapped immediately and forced under this mountain thing so she can marry the troll prince!  UGH. I swear, these books are after me now that I called them out. But this one ended up being fine. It was great, actually. I loved it. The guy didn't want to marry her either and was being forced into it as well, so it turned out to be more of a captive/captive kind of situation...kind of. Anyway, good book. I had to order the next two in the series so I can find out what happens next. 

To Cage a Wild Bird: The troll book was going to be my new favorite book of the year, but then I read this one, and yep. Now, this one's my favorite of 2026. If you read Silver Elite and enjoyed it, I think this one is your cup of tea, too. Similar vibes, similar greatness! I loved it as well.

Rings of Fate: Lots of cute, fun times. Not a cozy romantasy but I probably wouldn't classify it as dark either. It was like: if cozy and dark had a baby together, this is the cute, fun story that would emerge! And score one for skillet weapons! That part made my Tangled-movie-loving heart happy.

Enigma: Now we're talking darker fantasy. Enigma was very gothic. Very academic. Very unique. Lots of mention of doing frisky things in blood, though I don't think they ever actually do. It gave me dangerous, haunting vibes, though, and ended my week with good reads all around.  

What I've Been Buying:

I had a bunch of credit on my Amazon account, so I got four new paperbacks: Hidden Huntress and Warrior Witch (so I can finish up my Stolen Songbird series collection), and then The Ballad of Never After and A Curse for True Love (because I got book one for this series when I went on my Book Crawl in November and needed to get the rest of the series), and finally the new special edition release for Her Soul for Revenge came in! 

And that's been my shelfish week. I bid you a happy National Croissant Day!