Author: Celeste

WWW Wednesday: March 9, 2022

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WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme revived and hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words.

The idea is to answer the three questions below and leave a link to your post in the comments for others to look at. No blog? No problem! Just leave a comment with your responses.

What are you currently reading?

What have you just finished reading?

What are you going to read next?

Currently Reading: I’m currently reading The League of Gentlewomen Witches by India Holton. It’s technically an ARC from NetGalley. I’m only about 15% in, but I’m really enjoying it so far. It’s witty and well-written. It’s sort of haughty in a period English sort of way, but the story doesn’t take itself too seriously. I have no idea what to expect out of this story, but I’m excited for the ride.




Recently Finished: Late last week I finally finished The Cicada Tree by Robert Gwaltney. I’m not quite sure how to describe it. It’s sort of like a psychological thriller, but less thriller and more manipulation? It’s not a genre I usually read, but I decided to incorporate it into my Tropeical Readathon list. I started it several months ago, but got caught up with other goals. Long story short, I’m glad I finished it. Now I just need to write my review and post it on NetGalley.




Reading Next: I meant to start The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna next, but decided I didn’t want to travel with a thick hardback copy. So I’ll star this next after I get home from vacation.






Book Blogger Hop: March 4-10

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The Book Blogger Hop was originally created by Jennifer @ Crazy-For-Books in March 2010 and ended on December 31, 2012. With Jennifer’s permission, Coffee Addicted Writer relaunched the hop on February 15, 2013. Each week the hop will start on a Friday and end the following Thursday. There will be a weekly prompt featuring a book related question. The hop’s purpose is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, befriend other bloggers, and receive new followers to your own blog. 

The Book Blogger Hop post images were created by Coffee Addicted Writer.

This Week’s Question

What inspired you to start book blogging? (Julie @ Stepping Stone Book Reviews)

Simply, I wanted to have access to a community of readers with whom to connect over recent reads.

Early in 2021 I opened my Kindle for the first time in several years and found the A Court of Thorns and Roses series on sale that day. I hadn’t read much in about a decade and felt the cold fingers of winter seeping into my mood. So, I thought, let’s read. Little did I know this would reawaken my desire to read. The second book in the series, A Court of Mist and Fury, left me with such a book hangover. I really wanted to talk about it with someone, but at the time no one I knew had read it. As a result, I decided to start this book blog!

Thanks to loads of advice from Carolin at Solo Travel Story to help me decide on a blog name, I launched A Literary Escape in March 2021. The book blogger community on Twitter has been so welcoming. There is such a vast number of amazing people out there who excitedly exclaim about books. It always puts a smile on my face. After nearly a year of blogging, I think I’m finally starting to get the hang of it.

Another reason I started book blogging was to improve my ability to summarize. While I feel I can synthesize well in my head, I find that I have a harder time expressing it verbally or in written format. So I use my book reviews as a practice ground for summarizing and communicating the main themes and my main opinions/thoughts of a book. In a similar vein, it helps me explore the English language better in that I try to 1) utilize synonyms to avoid repetitiveness and 2) be succinct. We are our own worst critics, but I think it’s helping.

Book Review: A Deal With the Elf King by Elise Kova

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Author: Elise Kova
Series: Married to Magic, #1
Age Category: New Adult
Publisher: Silver Wing Press
Publish Date: November 6, 2020
Print Length: 338

Want to support local bookstores? Buy a copy of A Deal With the Elf King on Bookshop.org!*

*These are not affiliate links and I do not make a commission from any purchase made using these links.

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Monthly Book Blog Wrap-Up: February 2022

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Hi and bye, February! I don’t know how I found the time, but I feel like I was as productive as ever in February. February was the month of the blog tour for me. I also managed to squeeze in a few pleasure reads for myself. (That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the blog tour books, which I did.) Here’s what I accomplished in February.

Book Reviews

For a short month, I surprised myself by posting six book reviews. I’ll happily take a pat on the back for that. From earliest to latest, here are my recent book reviews.

Book Memes and Other Posts

I posted four book memes.

Though not a book meme in the traditional sense, I also participated in the Support Book Bloggers Challenge. I chose the 10 new-to-me book bloggers prompt. Check it out for some potentially new-to-you book bloggers to follow.

I also posted a list of recommended and TBR books for Black history month.

And I can’t forget about my January monthly wrap-up.

Statistics

I’m now a smidge over half way to my goal of 100 blog followers by the end of 2022. A big thank you to my new blog followers!

Since posting more frequently over the past several months, I’ve noticed an increase in monthly views and unique visitors. The numbers will be small to some, but it’s a steady trend upward nonetheless. Amazingly, more unique visitors checked out my blog in February than in January, which surprised me because February is a shorter month. February also had the highest number of views and unique visitors compared to previous months. This increasing trend makes me happy because it means (I hope) my reviews and my love of books are reaching more people. I think this is mainly a result of signing up from so many blog tours in February. That’s not sustainable for me, though, so I don’t anticipate hitting these numbers every month.

In February, my top five posts were:

  1. 2022 Support Book Bloggers Challenge: 10 Book Bloggers
  2. Half Sick of Shadows by Laura Sebastian
  3. Blood of the Lost Kingdom by Kristin Ward
  4. The Broken Heart of Arelium by Alex Robins
  5. Castles in Their Bones by Laura Sebastian

#BeatTheBacklog

Lisa at Owl Be Sat Reading started the hashtag #BeatTheBacklog to rally those who want to make a dent in their TBR list. I only read one book in my backlog in February, The North Wind by Alexandria Warwick, which was in my NetGalley queue. I definitely want to make more progress, but one book is certainly better than none! You can find my progress list here of all of my #BeatTheBacklog reads.

Other Book-ish Progress

I made a little progress on my NetGalley queue (The North Wind), though not as much as in January. As I mentioned earlier, most of my attention was on blog tours this month. I also read A Dance with the Fae Prince by Elise Kova, which was not a NG read.

In March, though, I plan on making more progress on my NG approvals. I was pleasantly surprised that publishers approved me for A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland; The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah; The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh; and Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel. I’m quite behind, but I’ll read everything eventually!

I also won a couple of book giveaways. Thanks to Jill at Myth and Magic Book Club for a copy of House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas. And thanks to Nick at Out of This World SFF for a copy of Rise of the Mages by Scott Drakeford.

Last, but certainly not least, I created a bookstagram. Please feel free to follow me on Instagram at alitescape!

Trope-ical Readathon March 2022

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Well, I originally intended to spend March reading my NetGalley approvals. Then I stumbled across Trope-ical Readathon, which you can read about here. This readathon includes 13 “Common Challenges” whose prompts contain common tropes (or their alternatives); 2 team-specific challenges; and 1 team book challenge (out of 2 choices). There are 6 teams and completion of a challenge earns your team points.

I decided to sign up because the prompts still provide me the option to read some of my backlog on NetGalley. If you want to join, you can still sign up through March 6. I signed up for Team Fantasy.

Here are the “Common Challenges” for all Trope-ical Readathon participants and the books I chose to fulfill them. No, I definitely don’t think I’ll read every single book listed here. Usually I’m lucky if I can read 6 books in a month. But I’ll do my best to support my team!

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