Libro.fm’s buy-one-get-one sale is happening from Sept 16-19, and you can get two audiobooks for one credit. And if you’ve been thinking of joining Libro.fm, you can get three audiobooks for the price of one if you’re a new member buying a one credit per month plan. This means if you use code SWITCH, you could end up with six audiobooks for three credits you receive on sign up.
The biggest thing you need to know about Witch King is that it is very different from Murderbot. If you are hoping for a fantasy version of Murderbot you will be disappointed. The tone is different, the humor, when it exists, is dryer, the scope is different, and the violence is dialed waaayyy up. However, on its own merits, Witch King is a complex, interesting fantasy novel that keeps two timelines moving and introduces a group of allies who gel into a found family.
“I didn’t know you were a… demon.”
“You idiot. I’m the demon.” Kai’s having a long day in Martha Wells’ WITCH KING….
After being murdered, his consciousness dormant and unaware of the passing of time while confined in an elaborate water trap, Kai wakes to find a lesser mage attempting to harness Kai’s magic to his own advantage. That was never going to go well.
But why was Kai imprisoned in the first place? What has changed in the world since his assassination? And why does the Rising World Coalition appear to be growing in influence?
Kai will need to pull his allies close and draw on all his pain magic if he is to answer even the least of these questions.
RECOMMENDED: Burn for Me by Ilona Andrews is $1.99! Burn for Me is the first book in the Hidden Legacy series, and is an urban fantasy/billionaire romance with magic and suspense. We had a great guest squee on the entire series and I can definitely confirm the books are amazing!
#1 New York Times bestselling author Ilona Andrews launches a brand-new Hidden Legacy series, in which one woman must place her trust in a seductive, dangerous man who sets off an even more dangerous desire . . .
Nevada Baylor is faced with the most challenging case of her detective career—a suicide mission to bring in a suspect in a volatile situation. Nevada isn’t sure she has the chops. Her quarry is a Prime, the highest rank of magic user, who can set anyone and anything on fire.
Then she’s kidnapped by Connor “Mad” Rogan—a darkly tempting billionaire with equally devastating powers. Torn between wanting to run and wanting to surrender to their overwhelming attraction, Nevada must join forces with Rogan to stay alive.
Rogan’s after the same target, so he needs Nevada. But she’s getting under his skin, making him care about someone other than himself for a change. And, as Rogan has learned, love can be as perilous as death, especially in the magic world.
Grin and Beard It by Penny Reid is $3.49 at Amazon! It’s available elsewhere, but not at the sale price. This is book two in the Winston Brothers series.
Sienna Diaz is everyone’s favorite “fat” funny lady. The movie studio executives can’t explain it, but her films are out-grossing all the fit and trim headliners and Hollywood’s most beautiful elite. The simple truth is, everyone loves plus-sized Sienna.
But she has a problem, she can’t read maps and her sense of direction is almost as bad as her comedic timing is stellar. Therefore, when Sienna’s latest starring role takes her to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park she finds herself continually lost while trying to navigate the back roads of Green Valley, Tennessee. Much to her consternation, Sienna’s most frequent savior is a ridiculously handsome, charming, and cheeky Park Ranger by the name of Jethro Winston.
Sienna is accustomed to high levels of man-handsome, so it’s not Jethro’s chiseled features or his perfect physique that make Sienna stutter. It’s his southern charm. And gentlemanly manners. And habit of looking at her too long and too often.
Sienna has successfully navigated the labyrinth of Hollywood heart-throbs. But can she traverse the tenuous trails of Tennessee without losing her head? Or worse, her heart?
The View from the Top by Rachel Lacey is $2.99! I believe this is an Amazon only release, but it’s in KU if you’re a subscriber. This is a f/f romance with characters in their 30s.
When a driven businesswoman from Boston collides with a free-spirited artist on a Vermont mountainside, they share a memorable—and steamy—night, but life soon pits them against each other over the fate of a family business.
Emily Janssen prefers to play it safe. At thirty-five, she’s still working at the inn her grandmothers own while dreaming of a day when she’s able to support herself fully with her art. And while her friends have all hiked to the summit of the mountain in their hometown of Crescent Falls, Vermont, something has always held Emily back.
Diana Devlin has already made it to the top. Well, almost. She’s this close to securing the promotion that will put her in line to take over as CEO of her family’s hotel chain when her father retires. Everything is going to plan until an unexpected run-in with an alluring artist on a mountainside throws Diana off course, resulting in one of the hottest nights either she or Emily have ever experienced.
Emily walks away from their rendezvous feeling inspired to channel some of Diana’s confidence and finally chase her dreams. For Diana, it’s a reminder that with the right woman, she is capable of wanting more than one night.
But their growing passion threatens to burn them both when they learn that the hotel Diana’s in town to buy is none other than Emily’s grandmothers’ beloved inn. It’s Emily’s home, and no big city outsider—not even Diana—is going to take it away from her.
Will the view from the top be worth the climb, or will they both have farther to fall?
“Girls want a Superman, but they walk past a Clark Kent every day”
You fuckin CLOWNS think you’re a CLARK KENT? Not on my fuckin watch. You dumb, headass motherfuckers are barely a Guy Gardner and you think you’re a CLARK KENT? The amount of disrespect is unreal.
Listen here, wannabes: My boi Clark is 240 lbs of PURE KANSAS BEEF trained from a young age by Ma Kent to Love and Respect women as the Intelligent, Independent beings they are. He is shy rambling about tractors and casually moving the copy machine when my pen falls behind it and he would NEVER demand I be sexually or romantically interested just because he’s nice.
Y’all ain’t Clark Kent.
I have never hit the reblog button so damn fast.
“barely a Guy Gardner” is the sickest comics related burn I’ve heard to date.
Am I really so bad? Am I really so frightening? You’ve talked to me. You’ve confided in me. Have I tried to hurt you? It isn’t me you’re afraid of. What you’re afraid of is the unknown.
ROBERT REDFORD as MR. DEATH The Twilight Zone — 3.16 “Nothing in the Dark”
This HaBO is from Tarli, who wants to find this book:
Ok honestly I feel like I remember so much I could just rewrite the book myself, but I’ve honestly been looking for it for over 10 years. It was a Mills and Boon type book that I read in the early 2000s (but it was probably published earlier—maybe 1980s or 1990s).
The heroine had red hair and was on an anthropological expedition (maybe archaeology-related).
Her uncle or mentor figure had investigated a mysterious hidden people before her and may have been killed by a cult of humans who worshipped these people and saw themselves as their protectors.
When she was on her expedition, all her coworkers/guides were murdered by the cult. She dragged their bodies into a jeep to protect them.
She somehow made it to the secret lands through a cave or underwater portal, but was quickly taken as captive.
The main guy has silver hair and can shapeshift into a wolf. He’s a leader of some sort of the secret people.
She’s held captive (but treated okay, like a guest except she can’t leave), and her room she’s given is attached to the main male character’s room. At one point, she feared assault and hid a knife above the wardrobe—but he never harmed her, and they built trust over time.
There was a cultural festival at some point in this secret land involving fabrics, ribbons or satin or something, and she ends up taking part in.
Eventually, she escaped or was let go and hid out in a beach house back in the modern world, but the cult followed her there.
The wolf-shifter hero had been watching over her in wolf form, and I think fought off the cult.
At the end, she finds out the secret land is vanishing and won’t be accessible for long and she makes the decision to go and live there with the main guy permanently.
It wasn’t a lengthy novel, probably not part of a series, and I think had one of those bodice-ripper covers (maybe red-haired woman + bare-chested man).
I think the title might’ve been something like “Call of the Moon” or “Howl of the Wolf”, but I could be totally off.
I made that post last night as I was tearing up during the last few minutes of Listers, a youtube documentary about competitive birdwatching, brothers, and sleeping in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel. I only watch about one documentary every five years, but man, when they’re good, they’re good.
First I have to say that the weather was fantastic! High 80s both days and I loved it. (Of course, I didn’t do as much walking as Pip did. o_O)
Saturday: I got up at 5:45am and we were out of the house by 6:45am. Our first stop was Cracker Barrel for breakfast as we headed out of the state. There was about 20 minutes of traffic back-up that was annoying. We reached Martinsburg, WV around 1:30pm and had lunch at Logan’s Roadhouse. (We like this place and get lunch there whenever we’re in the area.)
PRINCIPAL WOOD: Buffy tells me you have been, um, oh, how shall I put it... experimenting.
(Willow's eyes grow wide - she casts a "you said what?" glance at Buffy.)
(Buffy moves her eyes but not her head, as if to say "nothing.")
(Principal Wood notices their exchange and continues.)
PRINCIPAL WOOD: ... with the magicks.
(He makes a gesture as he says the word "magicks" and then gives a very faint smile.)
Two feuding co-stars in a Jane Austen film adaptation accidentally travel back in time to the Regency Era in this delightfully clever and riotously funny debut
Tess Bright just scored her dream role starring in an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. It’s not just the role of a lifetime, but it’s also her last chance to prove herself as a serious actress (no easy feat after being fired from her last TV gig) and more importantly, it’s her opportunity to honor her mom, who was the biggest fan of Jane Austen ever. But one thing is standing in Tess’s way—well, one very tall, annoyingly handsome person, actually: Hugh Balfour.
A serious British method actor, Hugh wants nothing to do with Tess (whose Teen Choice Awards somehow don’t quite compare to his BAFTA nominations). Hugh is a type-A, no-nonsense, Royal Academy prodigy, whereas Tess is big-hearted, a little reckless, and admittedly, kind of a mess. But the film needs chemistry—and Tess’s career depends on it.
Sparks fly, but not in the way Tess hoped, when an electrical accident sends the two feuding co-stars back in time to Jane Austen’s era. 200 years in the past with only each other to rely on, Tess and Hugh need to ad-lib their way through the Regency period in order to make it back home, and hopefully not screw up history along the way. But if a certain someone looks particularly dashing in those 19th century breeches…well, Tess won’t be complaining.
A wickedly funny, delightfully charming story, The Austen Affair is a tribute to Jane Austen, second chances, and love across the space-time continuum.
Elyse: This book has time travel, celebrities, and Austen.
She’s known as the Ice Princess. He’s got a reputation for melting hearts…except hers. Let the rivalry begin.
Cynthia Kumar always wins. She’s successful, competitive, and knows exactly what she to be the heir to her father’s multimillion dollar business.
Except, her father just chose his successor and it’s not her…it’s her one-night stand.
Rohit Patel can’t believe his luck. He’s just landed the opportunity of a lifetime, his future is once again on track, and the woman he spent one steamy night with could be the love of his life.
Except, she’s his new boss’s daughter and now she hates him.
When Kumar Constructions falls under scrutiny, both Cynthia and Rohit are determined to see its tarnished reputation restored to its original glory. As they each try to swoop in and save the day, their game of one-upmanship fails spectacularly, leaving them no choice but to set their differences aside and work together. But as their partnership to save the company—and their feelings for one another—blossoms, they’ll have to decide what’s more important…their careers or love?
Amanda: It’s been a while since I picked up a workplace, enemies to lovers and this is calling my name.
In this poignant, heartfelt novella from the New York Times bestselling author of Spinning Silver and the Scholomance Trilogy, a young witch who has inadvertently cursed her brother to live a life without love must find a way to undo her spell.
Celia discovered her talent for magic on the day her beloved oldest brother Argent left home. Furious at him for abandoning her in a war-torn land, she lashed out, not realizing her childish, angry words would suddenly become imbued with the power of prophecy, dooming him to a life without love.
While Argent wanders the world, forced to seek only fame and glory instead of the love and belonging he truly desires, Celia attempts to undo the curse she placed on him. Yet even as she grows from a girl to a woman, she cannot find the solution—until she learns the truth about the centuries-old war between her own people and the summerlings, the immortal beings who hold a relentless grudge against their mortal neighbors.
Now, with the aid of her unwanted middle brother, Celia may be able to both undo her eldest brother’s curse and heal the lands so long torn apart by the Summer War.
In the city of Oylen, a vampire contingent called The Covenant has ruled for centuries. Their strictest law? No vampire can drink from a living source. This ban on blood drinking created the Souzterain and the black market blood dens that have now run for centuries to give vampires a taste of what they crave most.
Lilith Searah runs one such business. Her life is constant competition with the other dens, the rules of the Covenant, and the danger her inherited profession poses. But when she catches the eye of a powerful immortal and anonymous gifts arrive, she’ll find there’s something more perilous than running an illegal blood den.
Thrust into the ancient world of vampires, Lilith realizes that the nighttime immortals have been keeping dangerous secrets. The only hope she can keep is that the Covenant can be destroyed and that Lilith and her immortal can finally be together.
That is, if she can make it out alive.
Amanda: This sounds really good. I’ll be buying on release day.
A sapphic bookstore romanceabout fresh starts and finding that one person who feels like home.
“Snappy, smart, and endlessly swoon-worthy, With Stars In Her Eyes is a front-row ticket to a love story that’s impossible to put down.” – Karelia Stetz-Waters, author of Behind the Scenes
Seconds from a meteoric career launch, cellist Courtney Starling suffers a frightening migraine attack during a key performance. While harmful rumors fly, she escapes to her happy place—her best friend’s Kansas bookshop. Courtney’s working incognito when a scream sends her leaping off a shelving ladder to find the woman who screamed cowering near the register.
When Thea Quinn dropped in for a misdelivered package, she did not expect a mortifying encounter with a bearded dragon in front of an inconveniently attractive bookseller. Clutching an upcoming book club flyer and the tattered shreds of her dignity, she heads back to her new piercing job at the tattoo shop next door. She moved to this quirky place for a fresh start. But maybe the meet-disaster was a sign? Maybe Thea needs to branch out beyond her photography hobby and connect with new people…like at a historical romance book club run by a particularly mysterious and sexy bookseller with a pixie cut?
Friendly lunches become stolen moments between the bookshelves. Courtney and Thea’s old problems feel ages away. But just as their chemistry heats to a combustion point, consequences from Courtney’s past arrive literally on her doorstep at exactly the wrong moment. New revelations and surprising connections take the pair from feeling joyfully lovestruck to confusingly star-crossed. Both women must decide what they’re willing to give up for happily ever after.
Please Note: Because we only have 3 entries this week, there is only a First Place and Runner Up to vote for!
In order to vote, please reply to this post using the form provided. All comments are screened, and entries are listed in the order they were submitted. For your vote to qualify, you must fill out your entire voting card (both spots) in order to be counted. Winner votes are worth 2 points, Runner Up votes are worth 1 point. Meeting the bonus goal on an entry gets an extra point for that submission.
When voting, please copy/paste the ENTRY NUMBER and the FIC TITLE from the list above into the spot you're voting for (this prevents accidentally mis-numbering a vote and casting it for the wrong entry). It should look like this:
First Place: 61. Fic Title Here Runner Up: 88. Another Fic Title
Please note that you cannot vote for your own entry, and that votes cannot be made anonymously. You do not have to be a member of the community in order to vote, nor have submitted an entry for this week; everyone is welcome to participate in the voting. IP addresses are logged to prevent duplicate voting.
Voting closes Wednesday, September 17 at 9:00PM EST.
Name: Ruse or Giwiidabimin Age: Mid 30s Country: US Subscription/Access Policy: Anyone can subscribe if you're 18+, access only granted to friends though I don't imagine I'll be posting anything locked
General Info: I'm a 2-Spirit, queer, disabled fanfic author.People have described my fanfics as comforting body horror which is the highest compliment.I've finished migrating all my fanfiction from AO3 to Dreamwidth for a variety of reasons, one of which is I want to have a more personal fandom experience as opposed to the wild wild west that is AO3/Twitter/Tumblr. I will only be posting fic on my journal but I'm happy to chat here or elsewhere too! Hoping to find people who like reading fics and writing fics in fandoms I'm in who are down to chat about nerdy fanfiction things and fandom stuff. I'm hoping to meet other fanfiction writers but totally down to become friends with other people in fandom too even if they prefer to just lurk.
As far as where my views fall - pro-queer, pro-kink, anti-censorship, pro-critical consumption, anti-bigotry, anti-harassment. That said, generally speaking I stay far, far away from people who self-label as proshippers or antishippers as I have been harassed repeatedly by both groups so for your happiness and mine, if the proship/antiship labels are something you cling to as an identity, we probably won't get along and we can part ways now. if you REALLY want to know the details of my opinions you can message me. I won't bite your head off if we disagree, I'd much rather just go our separate ways lol
Main Fandoms: Naruto, Honkai Star Rail, My Hero Academia, Fire Emblem (Binding Blade through Three Houses), Final Fantasy VII but I rotate through many more here and there. If you want a more comprehensive list of fandoms and ships, you can check my tags page on my journal which I've used to sort my fics lol
Other fandoms: Starfighter, Stardew Valley, Final Fantasy XIII, Hades, FMAB, Trigun (Old and New), Wolf's Rain, Watch Dogs, InFamous
Fannish Interests: I write a lot of fanfiction, usually looking at dark or difficult topics alongside a lot of hardcore kink. I've been writing/reading fanfiction for over 15 years in all sorts of fandoms though the ones I mentioned above are ones I keep coming back to (Naruto/Fire Emblem/Final Fantasy) or are the ones I'm currently super interested in (HSR/MHA).
OTPS/Ships: I'm am a connoisseur of rare pairs lol back when I was on AO3 and fanfic dot net both, I regularly created the first ever fanfics of many ships, some which went on to be popular and others that my like 5-6 fics remain the only ones there haha while I do ship bigger more popular ships as well, you'll often find me dinking around in tiny rare pairs and writing 250k word fanfics/manifestos on them
Favorite Movies: Pacific Rim, Inception, and Goon. I've written fanfiction for all three though I believe I have taken down all of my Inception fics out of embarrassment by now lol
Anime: Naruto is the one I write the most fanfic for, but I dabble in MHA, Wolf's Rain, NANA, and I'm going to finally start writing some for Fullmetal Alchemist because somehow despite it being one of my favorites I haven't written for it yet. I rewatch the same things a lot and only branch out into new shows once or twice a year.
Games: I am currently replaying my favorite Fire Emblem games again. Like with anime I don't play new things often and I already met my quota of new games this year by finally starting the Ace Attorney trilogy much to my friends' frustration that it took me this long
TL;DR: I'm generally a very chill person. I don't like call outs, I don't like weird parasocial clout stuff on social media, and I don't like harassment. There seems to be a lack of that in fandom these days so I'm looking for other fandom olds who are also looking for a more laid back, chill, not numbers driven/clout driven fandom experience :)
I present this with the caveat that while Slate is not exactly a high-minded bastion of sober, thoughtful journalism, it is one of my favorite sites—specifically because it combines hot takes, political updates (though rarely breaking news), commentary on Supreme Court cases, advice columns, personal essays, and film/television/book reviews, stirs them all together and presents them wrapped with clickbait ads and sponsored product shills. I love many news sites, but this is seemingly the last bastion of news as I remember it. Never quite as noble and virtuous as All the President’s Men wanted it to be, but also more robust, deeply human, and as of yet, largely untouched by the cost-cutting machete of owners/controllers.
"But zesty_pinto," you may ask "isn't everything politics?"
Yeah, it is, so I guess this is also me being hypocritical.
So like I said prior, I spent a week in Boston. Island camping! How was it? Glorious. Actually, hot as well but I generally prefer cooler weather so yeah: good for some, not as good for me.
BUT
-Yurts are awesome -Yurts with power magnify this awesomeness exponentially -Running toilets and water let you focus more on activities -I burnt 1k calories a day on top of my normal runtime -I saw so much beach life -Astrophotography? I now have a bunch of shots to experiment with once I get to them (details to follow) -Got a bunch of macro that, with the extension tubes, got me some great shots of the tiny things living in tidal pools -I got a bunker shot. Got a few of them, low exposure and everything --At one point while I was prepping a shot, some guy started to approach and I think he was dramatizing it, but he was looking around, pulled out a light from his cellphone and, right as I was moving (just finished the exposure), he immediately bolted away like a cat that saw a cucumber. He said he was okay but I got a good laugh at it. Sorry guy! -Saw a community of off-gridders that live on the remnants of a Portuguese community that live on the island-turned-park. They are grandfathered to live there, but they are literally THE LAST. The community has been shrinking and I remember there being many more houses here so I think they've been shrinking more and more. I literally was around living monuments that will be gone in the next ten years or so. -I got to test the 400-800 that I was having quality concerns with and it actually turns out to be much more competent than I expected, I just need to use the proper settings to maximize it. -Endlessly high humidity means I woke up never feeling dry -There are some wild apple trees here and I ate a few. Yes they were good. -Low tide is not only a great time to beachcomb, but there's part of the island that are not accessible because of it, giving even more awesome things to see. -I only got one mosquito bite -Didn't even need to take the ferry to go back for supplies, but we could have if we wanted to and that's pretty awesome!
Cons? -The toilets were a half mile walk -The shore is mostly stones which means walks along the beach take a lot of effort -THE SUN GOOD GOD THE RELENTLESS HEAT OF THE SUN -Burning 1k additional calories a day on top of my normal burn rate meant I was literally calorie counting but for the exact opposite reason I normally do. At one point we made pancakes and I was eating them every few hours to supplement nutrition since the snacks were not enough. -Dehydration was very common and we did dehydration checks a lot -Lemon eucalyptus works because it makes your skin disgusting for mosquitoes and it also applies to yourself: beware of finger food -Birds, not unlike people, can get very antsy when you point a camera at them making it harder to camp a spot to bird watch -It rained A LOT around the end of our stay which made it difficult to do things (but the night after when we saw lightning in the sky was awesome so a bit of a wash) -We still were unable to see all of the island despite having 3.5 days (partially because of the rain but also because-) -We walked so much that our feet were really hurting -Also my shoes reek now I have bathed them (and the poor The Rat) in Fabreze
So the camping was awesome. And Boston? Still pretty damn cool!
It's such a difference from NYC, in that I feel like NYC is always changing every few years, while in Boston a lot of places we remember have held out pretty well!
We did the Freedom Trail and I finally saw Bunker Hill for the first time. I never mentioned in on LJ, but I had an impossible time finding Bunker Hill back when I lived there so this felt like an achievement for me.
The following day was a trip to the Boston Aquarium which, I'm sorry but I have to say it: it's a superior aquarium to NY Aquarium and Adventure.
"But zesty_pinto," you may say (again) "Adventure Aquarium is one of the biggest on the East Coast while the NY Aquarium has sharks"
To which I say, "eh."
Adventure Aquarium *is* nice, but it's kind of organized like a theme park and that always threw me off. I don't feel like they present what they do there as much for the scientific endeavor and more like you're there to pretend to be a pirate or something.
NY Aquarium is fine, but it feels so small in comparison despite having some really big saltwater tanks. It also always irks me the wrong way that their freshwater tanks are overloaded with beard algae. C'mon guys, you can't get someone in there to scrub the rock? Also, the freshwater tanks are much fewer in comparison and I'm always big on the freshwater aquahobby (this might be why I'm in love with the Bronx Zoo's Jungleworld full of giant couramis and tinfoil barbs).
Boston's architectural design is more my style: I like a main tank that is centered around the area and that you are allowed to see it from any angle. I like that they did a similar design idea with penguins and even though you're smelling fish everywhere you get to see penguins from everywhere. I even got to see them hump. It's awesome.
I also found out the Prudential Center has an observation deck and got some skyline shots, which I did not expect. It ended up leading to me dropping a lens and of course it's one of my favorite lenses but it only physically damaged the filter. I think the lens is still in trouble though because the focus motor is off. SIGH.
Anyway, after that was a trip back. Found some awesome muffins that were just breakfast cupcakes, followed by awesome bagels run by two ladies who are very obvious ex-New Yorkers.
The rest of the week isn't worth talking about unless you want to hear me complain about work lol
I DID HOWEVER GET THE COVID VACCINE BECAUSE NEW JERSEY FUCK YEAH
I also however feel like shit because I got to covid vaccine so yeah fuck
I'm on the better end of it but the weekend plans were mostly reduced as a result, save a trip to the Bronx Zoo which is always a treat.
So yeah, I've got A LOT of photos and ironically, I've got a month of shots I'm processing first.
I'm still halfway through the trip to Ellis Island and I got to tell you the images from it are amazing, some real art piece stuff I was able to get while I was there.
These aren't even my favorite pieces! There's so much good stuff, guys!
I think I am getting close to the end though, and in which case I probably will share some later on because there's definitely a couple that are going to the photo site and then after that is a bunch of stuff I'm less enthused over. Also, been taking advice from other photographers on rules about photography (and what traditional ones I honestly should stop following if I want to identify my own style) and I think that's also influencing my decisions these days so hopefully the images will get better along the way.
That's it from me.
Okay, just one more from Ellis Island. Now I'm done.