Well, last week was a whirlwind. We canceled our trip to Dallas (thank goodness our past selves purchased refundable tickets) and flew to Boston instead for our total eclipse trip. We rented a car and saw the total eclipse in Newport, VT, which is five miles from the Canadian border. The drive up was totally fine, but it was a hell of a drive back. The poor New England road system couldn’t handle the traffic from all of us nerds. Neither could Google maps, which kept severely underestimating travel time and traffic levels.

Then we promptly got sick after getting home. I don’t often get sick (thankfully), but this time I felt bad enough to need to work at home rather than go into the office. We’re feeling mostly better now. It wasn’t the ‘vid, but some other unknown nasty bug.

Anyway, enough real-life talk. Let’s get to the point of this post, which is about which books I’m currently reading.

The Sundays in Bed With… meme, hosted by Midnight Book Girl, dares to ask what book has been in your bed this morning. Come share what book you’ve spent time curled up reading in bed, or which book you wish you had time to read today!

While I have more than two books started, I’m focusing on these two at the moment: IMMORTAL PLEASURES by V. Castro and THE FAMILIAR by Leigh Bardugo. Below are some quick thoughts I have so far about them.

Immortal Pleasures by V. Castro

At the time of writing this post, I’m about 50% through this ARC. As usual, I’m behind, so this will be available for retail purchase on Tuesday in the U.S. The tagline is, “An ancient Aztec vampire roams the modern world in search of vengeance and love in this seductive dark fantasy from the author of The Haunting of Alejandra.” To be perfectly frank, I’m about 50/50 on whether to DNF it. It’s easy to read, but I decided I’m not a fan of the storytelling style, which is a little too on the nose for me. Although it’s not a long book, it feels long because not much has happened. I’ll probably keep going with it, but to keep myself from getting bored I also picked up THE FAMILIAR.

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

I had zero plans to purchase this for myself even though I was lowkey curious about it. However, I passed by it in Target yesterday, where it was 30% off. Then I did a terrible thing and actually opened the book to get a sense of the vibe. And here I am now, several chapters in. (Also, yay me for starting a book as soon as I buy it!) I haven’t read anything by Bardugo since reading the Shadow and Bone trilogy during the pandemic. I enjoyed it, but never felt the urge to read more within that universe. This is completely different and I’m here for the more lush writing style. I plan to keep this as my back burner read and savor rather than speed through it.

What are you currently reading?