Top 5 Tuesday is weekly meme created by the Shanah @ Bionic Book Worm.
![The Queen of Nothing]](https://synopsesbysarge.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/the-queen-of-nothing.jpg?w=230&h=345 "The Queen of Nothing]")
1. Coral, Sara Ella
2. The Beautiful, Renee Ahdieh
3. Blood Heir, Amelie Wen Zhao
4. The Queen of Nothing, Holly Black
5. The Wickerlight, Mary Watson
MAGICAL FOLK
This theme is inspired by folk that have some sort of magical powers − fae, sorcerers, wizards! We had the best time working on all of the items for this box and cannot wait for you to see them − there are going to be SEVEN in total, so it’s jam-packed! You can expect the items in this box to be inspired by Spin The Dawn, Harry Potter, Strange The Dreamer, Angefall, fae in general and more!
We are thrilled to reveal that this box will have VOLUME II of the collectible Secret Book designed by @noverantale (we think it might be even more stunning than the last one, which we didn’t know was possible!). It will also include our next reading journal, which has now been changed to a year-long one! It features artwork by the incredibly talented @monolimeart.
Our featured book of the month is a story about sisters that need to fight to the death in a North African-inspired fantasy world. We loved this book and it is filled with magical folk! The edition we are featuring will have SPRAYED EDGES, an EXCLUSIVE COVER and will be SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR.
An enthralling debut perfect for fans of Children of Blood and Bone set in a North African-inspired fantasy world where two sisters must fight to the death to win the crown.
Sixteen-year-old Eva is a princess, born with the magick of marrow and blood–a dark and terrible magick that hasn’t been seen for generations in the vibrant but fractured country of Myre. Its last known practitioner was Queen Raina, who toppled the native khimaer royalty and massacred thousands, including her own sister, eight generations ago, thus beginning the Rival Heir tradition. Living in Raina’s long and dark shadow, Eva must now face her older sister, Isa, in a battle to the death if she hopes to ascend to the Ivory Throne–because in the Queendom of Myre only the strongest, most ruthless rulers survive.
When Eva is attacked by an assassin just weeks before the battle with her sister, she discovers there is more to the attempt on her life than meets the eye–and it isn’t just her sister who wants to see her dead. As tensions escalate, Eva is forced to turn to a fey instructor of mythic proportions and a mysterious and handsome khimaer prince for help in growing her magick into something to fear. Because despite the love she still has for her sister, Eva will have to choose: Isa’s death or her own.
A River of Royal Blood is an enthralling debut set in a lush North African inspired fantasy world that subtly but powerfully challenges our notions of power, history, and identity.
We invite you to follow the trail of spiders into the place most magical and forbidden! Travel where unicorns reside. Seek challenges, scents, friends, and secrets through the forest paths. This November, a forbidden forest is growing out of your LitJoy Crate and onto your bookshelf. Discover the mysteries that lie within!
About the Book
We entice you to enter the bewitched snow-covered woods! Forest snowfall is not the only storm brewing in our November read. Secrets from the past, memories forgotten, and an enchanted forest all threated to close in on our heroic protagonist. But facing those fears and deciphering the boy who holds the biggest secret of all might be the key to understanding her fate and . . . her heart!
Perfect for fans of: Narnia, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and The Wicked Deep
LitJoy Crate Book Customizations
- Signed by the author
- A Second Dust Jacket with LitJoy Exclusive Artwork
- Author Letter & art print separate from the book
About the Items
In this crate, you’ll find items representing these fandoms:
- Harry Potter
- Chronicles of Narnia
- Guardians of the Galaxy
- Fantastic Beasts
- Caraval
November’s Crate is available three ways:
- The Full Crate (with book + items)
- The Book-Only (with book, no items)
- The Item-Only (with items, no book)
The November Forbidden Forest Crate ships between November 20th and 25th
We ship internationally.
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Wicked Deep comes a haunting romance set deep in the magical snow-covered forest, where the appearance of a mysterious boy unearths secrets that awakens the enchanted, but angry, woods.
Be careful of the dark, dark wood . . .
Especially the woods surrounding the town of Fir Haven. Some say these woods are magical. Haunted, even.
Rumored to be a witch, only Nora Walker knows the truth. She and the Walker women before her have always shared a special connection with the woods. And it’s this special connection that leads Nora to Oliver Huntsman—the same boy who disappeared from the Camp for Wayward Boys weeks ago—and in the middle of the worst snowstorm in years. He should be dead, but here he is alive, and left in the woods with no memory of the time he’d been missing.
But Nora can feel an uneasy shift in the woods at Oliver’s presence. And it’s not too long after that Nora realizes she has no choice but to unearth the truth behind how the boy she has come to care so deeply about survived his time in the forest, and what led him there in the first place. What Nora doesn’t know, though, is that Oliver has secrets of his own—secrets he’ll do anything to keep buried, because as it turns out, he wasn’t the only one to have gone missing on that fateful night all those weeks ago.
Would you survive a walk through the enchanted forest? Our November box is filled with magic and wonder inspired by some of our favorite fictional forests. Our book pick this month is an atmospheric and mysterious story about a snowed in small town, and the dangerous magical woods that surround it.
We are including an absolutely stunning exclusive edition, which will have an EXCLUSIVE COVER and SPRAYED EDGES! The book will also be SIGNED by the author!
You can expect to find wonderful items inspired by The Cruel Prince, The Raven Boys, and Uprooted as well as some special goodies not tied to fandoms. Scroll down for TWO exciting sneak peeks!
Every November box will include an OwlCrate exclusive reading planner! We designed this planner in collaboration with our friends at Blue Star Press! We have been including reading planners annually and every year we make them better than the last! We listened to your feedback and this year’s planner is bigger and better than all the previous styles! The planner has monthly calendars, a weekly planner, to do lists and reading lists, lots of pages to write book reviews and more! We also added in some new pages but those are a surprise! One of the best things about our planners is that they are undated. This means you can use it whenever you like and write in the dates yourself. Please note that the planner in the photo is from last year. This year’s planner will look totally different!
We are also really excited to announce that we will be working with Four Seasons Fox on the November enamel pin! We absolutely love their whimsical design style, and we can’t wait for you to see the stunning pin they’ve created. It’s super different from all of the previous pins we’ve done so far this year and will be the perfect addition to your winter coat!
top photo by @babs.books. bottom photo by @fourseasonsfox.
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Wicked Deep comes a haunting romance set deep in the magical snow-covered forest, where the appearance of a mysterious boy unearths secrets that awakens the enchanted, but angry, woods.
Be careful of the dark, dark wood . . .
Especially the woods surrounding the town of Fir Haven. Some say these woods are magical. Haunted, even.
Rumored to be a witch, only Nora Walker knows the truth. She and the Walker women before her have always shared a special connection with the woods. And it’s this special connection that leads Nora to Oliver Huntsman—the same boy who disappeared from the Camp for Wayward Boys weeks ago—and in the middle of the worst snowstorm in years. He should be dead, but here he is alive, and left in the woods with no memory of the time he’d been missing.
But Nora can feel an uneasy shift in the woods at Oliver’s presence. And it’s not too long after that Nora realizes she has no choice but to unearth the truth behind how the boy she has come to care so deeply about survived his time in the forest, and what led him there in the first place. What Nora doesn’t know, though, is that Oliver has secrets of his own—secrets he’ll do anything to keep buried, because as it turns out, he wasn’t the only one to have gone missing on that fateful night all those weeks ago.
First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature hosted by Wandering Words. The meme is based on the idea that instead of judging a book by its cover, author, prestige, we judge it instead by its opening line(s). You can check out my review of the book here!
Fragment from the unfinished History of a Tyrant by Ambrose Daluna
The oldest records and recollections agree that it all began with the discovery of vurgsten. The records aren’t cohesive across the many kingdoms, or even particularly coherent even within the same document, as the immediate results of that discovery quickly shattered lives and governments so few people spent their time writing things down.
So how exactly how the devastating power of vurgsten was discovered and who first applied it has been obscured, perhaps deliberately so. Most likely whoever identified the power locked inside the rock mined from the depths of the volcanic island of Vurgmum died for the privilege. They could’ve perished in any number of ways — from the ash-laden air of Vurgmun, to toxic fumes emitted by the rock vurgsten itself, to an accidental explosion of the volatile stuff, or at the hands of those who took that knowledge for themselves and used it to defeat magic, forever changing the balance of power.
Title: The Orchid Throne (The Orchid Throne, #1)
Author: Jeffe Kennedy
Rating: ★★★★
Welcome to the world of Forgotten Empires from award winning author Jeffe Kennedy that begins with The Orchid Throne.
A PRISONER OF FATE
As Queen of the island kingdom of Calanthe, Euthalia will do anything to keep her people free—and her secrets safe—from the mad tyrant who rules the mainland. Guided by a magic ring of her father’s, Lia plays the political game with the cronies the emperor sends to her island. In her heart, she knows that it’s up to her to save herself from her fate as the emperor’s bride. But in her dreams, she sees a man, one with the power to build a better world—a man whose spirit is as strong, and whose passion is as fierce as her own…
A PRINCE AMONG MEN
Conrí, former Crown Prince of Oriel, has built an army to overthrow the emperor. But he needs the fabled Abiding Ring to succeed. The ring that Euthalia holds so dear to her heart. When the two banished rulers meet face to face, neither can deny the flames of rebellion that flicker in their eyes—nor the fires of desire that draw them together. But in this broken world of shattered kingdoms, can they ever really trust each other? Can their fiery alliance defeat the shadows of evil that threaten to engulf their hearts and souls?
![The Queen of Nothing]](https://synopsesbysarge.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/the-queen-of-nothing.jpg?w=588&h=881 "The Queen of Nothing]")
*FairyLoot Exclusive Signed Edition
*FairyLoot Exclusive Hardcover, Exclusive Hardcover, Stencil Sprayed Edges, and Signed
Title: The Haunting of Hill House
Author: Shirley Jackson
Rating: ★★★★
The classic supernatural thriller by an author who helped define the genre. First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a “haunting;’ Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.
Stopping myself from finishing Season 1 of The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix, I decided I ought to read the book first, especially since it came in the September 2019 OwlCrate box.
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
Dr. Montague, a scholar, invites Eleanor, Theodora, and Luke to Hill House to “test” how gifted people react to the supernatural events the house has to offer. While many more were invited, only three show up.
This house, which seemed somehow to have formed itself, flying together into its own powerful pattern under the hands of its builders, fitting itself into its own construction of lines and angles, reared its great head back against the sky without concession to humanity. It was a house without kindness, never meant to be lived in, not a fit place for people or for love or for hope.
Honestly, I was looking for more of a spooky atmosphere coming from the novel that helped define the genre. At one point, I was too afraid to continue on with the novel, but most of the time I felt it was a little boring and I wanted more ghostly action.
Possibly what I enjoyed most about the novel was the ambiguity of the “supernatural” events happening. Did a visitor perform them or were they actually supernatural? Personally, Mrs. Dudley was by far the creepiest thing about the novel.
From watching part of the Netflix series, I definitely found that more interesting and detailed. However, it was nice to get inside Eleanor’s head in the novel.
Journeys end in lovers meeting.
The Haunting of Hill House is a story of one’s own interpretation, mystery, and offers the chance to be reread and interpreted differently every time.
