A Literary Escape

SFINCS Review: To Catch A Witch by E.L. Montague

Published on January 10, 2025January 4, 2025 by Celeste2 Comments

Today’s review is about TO CATCH A WITCH by E.L. Montague. It’s a standalone fantasy novella about a hedgewitch fleeing from the King’s Inquisition on magic.

This review is brought to you by my participation in the Speculative Fiction Indie Novella Championship (SFINCS). SFINCS, pronounced “sphinx”, is a yearly competition to recognize, honor, and celebrate the talent and creativity present in the indie community. It’s a sister competition to both SPFBO and SPSFC, and it highlights greatness in the novella format in all areas of speculative fiction (fantasy, science fiction, horror, etc.). I am part of Team Behind the Musings. You can find out more about us here.

Author: E.L. Montague
Series: None
Age Category: Adult
Publisher: Self-Published
Publish Date: July 12, 2024
Print Length: 77
Purchase: Amazon

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Book Blog In Review 2024

Published on January 8, 2025January 4, 2025 by Celeste19 Comments

Buckle up, folks, this is a long book blog in review 2024 post (just like last year). Rather than break everything up into separate posts, I prefer to get everything out at once. To help you digest it, feel free to either read the whole thing or use the Table of Contents to navigate to sections of interest. In this book blog in review 2024 post, I recap whether I accomplished my bookish goals. I also discuss my blog statistics as well as my reading statistics.

Overall, I’m super pleased with my reading and blog statistics in 2024. It was not an easy year for me. In fact, it was probably the hardest year of my life. Reading and blogging were two things I continued to turn to as a way to remain somewhat grounded and not despair all of the time. Several times I considered going on a blogging hiatus, but I just felt I needed this distraction, so I kept at it. So, thank you all for your continued interaction with my little space on the internet!

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Immortal by Sue Lynn Tan

Published on January 6, 2025December 31, 2024 by Celeste2 Comments

Today’s review is about IMMORTAL by Sue Lynn Tan. It’s a standalone fantasy romance by the author of the Celestial Kingdom duology. Set amidst Chinese folklore, the main character, Liyen, seeks to renegotiate the alliance between her kingdom and the Immortal Realm. But when mysterious creatures attack, she seeks a trust-based alliance with the God of War in return for his help.

Author: Sue Lynn Tan
Series: None
Age Category: Adult
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Publish Date: January 07, 2025
Print Length: 464

Want to support local bookstores? Buy a copy of Immortal 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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Favorite Books Published in 2024

Published on January 5, 2025January 4, 2025 by Celeste27 Comments

I’m back with another and final list of 2024 favorites. Earlier I curated a list of my favorite backlist reads of 2024. Now I have a list of my favorite books published in 2024. I separated the list into fiction and nonfiction favorites for easy navigation. Not all of these received five stars from me, but I either loved them or they impacted me a lot (or both).

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Favorite Backlist Reads of 2024

Published on January 3, 2025January 3, 2025 by Celeste23 Comments

Usually I list all of my favorite reads from a particular year in one post (like in 2023, for example). However, I saw a few people make a separate post for their favorite backlist reads of 2024. So, I thought I would also make a post for my favorite backlist reads of 2024. Not all of these are five-star reads, but they’re all ones that I enjoyed or stuck with me a while after I read them. I separated them into “fiction” and “nonfiction,” but other than that they’re in no particular order.

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