Hey Bookish People!
It seemed like the perfect day to get my monthly list out. It has been raining all day and surprisingly a bit on the chilly side considering we have made our way into August. I have been non-stop traveling the last part of July and am really looking forward to getting back into a normal routine of work and reading at home again.
The 3rd installment to Hannah Maehrer’s Assistant to the Villain is due out Tuesday. I am super excited for it! If you haven’t read that series yet, you absolutely should! It is the perfect mix of fantasy elements with office romance vibes that is just gold all the way through. And we are working for the villain of the realm, who has a soft interior. You just have to look past the decapitated heads decoration the place and many various torture rooms throughout the office building.
Another release happening this month is book 12 in Dakota Krout’s The Completionist Chronicles. This is a RPG fantasy world that follows Joe as he figures out how to level up, become super powerful, and figures out how to push the game’s rules to the limit. This is a really fun series to read and I have really enjoyed Krout’s writing style. The characters are unique and he just has fun with his stories every single time. If you want to give a RPG style reading a chance for the first time, or just want a series with some perfectly timed laughs, this would be a great series to try out. Plus, for those audio readers – the narrator for this series is freaking awesome! It is a great one to listen to!
I hope you all have a fantastic August! No matter if you are starting up school, hanging by the water, cozied up on the couch, or wherever comfort is for you, everywhere is the perfect place to read something!
Chat with you guy next month!
Reading Theme: Back to School
School is back in session here and I felt the need to bring some schooling into my reading. Now I will admit that a chunk of my reading this month falls into the Dark Academia reading. But there are some others that are a bit more on the lighthearted, wholesome side of lessons. Have fun!
Happy Reading Everyone!
My Reading List for August 2025:
Nocticadia By Keri Lake
Mortui vivos docent.
The dead teach the living.
After watching my mother succumb to a mysterious illness, I promised myself two things. I’d find the cure for what ravaged her. And leave the godforsaken city where she abandoned me.
Four years later, I receive an acceptance letter from Dracadia University, one of the oldest, most prestigious schools in the country. Nestled on a secluded island off the coast of Maine, it’s rumored to be haunted by the souls of the mental patients exiled there centuries before. Those whose bones are said to make up the island’s white sandy shores. And restless ghosts aren’t even its most daunting peculiarity.
Devryck Bramwell, known on campus as Doctor Death, is a brilliant pathologist in charge of the midnight lab. He’s also my devastatingly handsome professor, who seems to loathe tenacious first-years, like me. Except, his dark and enigmatic gaze tells me all the ways he’d devour me if given the chance, and his stolen kisses burn my lips with forbidden jealousy.
I crave his authority. He aches for redemption. Together, we’re toxic. Delicious fodder for the prying eyes hellbent on exhuming the rotted skeletons of our pasts. For the dead have much to teach, and it’s only a matter of time before Dracadia’s most depraved secret is resurrected.
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries By Heather Fawcett
A curmudgeonly professor journeys to a small town in the far north to study faerie folklore and discovers dark fae magic, friendship, and love in the start of a heartwarming and enchanting new fantasy series.
Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world’s first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party–or even get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog, and the Fair Folk.
So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, get in the middle of Emily’s research, and utterly confound and frustrate her.
But as Emily gets closer and closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones–the most elusive of all faeries–lurking in the shadowy forest outside the town, she also finds herself on the trail of another mystery: Who is Wendell Bambleby, and what does he really want? To find the answer, she’ll have to unlock the greatest mystery of all–her own heart.
Academy of Villains By Ever King
In a kingdom where magic is slowly disappearing, an evil king expands his territory to gain more power, destroying towns and villages along the way. He collects the orphaned children with no magic and trains them as assassins in his army to be used as weapons against his enemies. Meanwhile, those who possess magic are sent to a ruthless academy to train as mages, ruling with cruelty under the evil king’s expanding reign.
Kiara, once an assassin for the king, infiltrates the magic academy to slay the prince and end the royal bloodline. But within the academy’s walls, she discovers a startling truth—she has magic.
The Cursed Prince will tempt her. Secret societies will hunt her. And the mysterious headmaster hides sinister truths of his own.
As students begin to vanish and Heartstrings are forged, Kiara’s quest for vengeance turns into a battle for survival—and a choice between love and destiny as she finds herself torn between killing the prince or saving the world with him.
Remedial Rocket Science By Susannah Nix
Opposites attract when a computer geek meets billionaire bad boy.
The last thing Melody expects when she accepts a dream job offer is to run into her college one-night stand again. Not only does the hunky blast from her past work at the same aerospace company where she’s just started in the IT department, he’s the CEO’s son.
Jeremy’s got a girlfriend and a reputation as a bad boy, so Melody resolves to keep her distance and focus on building a new life for herself in Los Angeles. But despite her good intentions, she can’t seem to stay away from the heavenly-smelling paragon of hotness.
As the two begin to forge an unlikely friendship, Melody’s attraction to Jeremy grows deeper than she’s ready to admit. Can the woman who always plays it safe take a risk on the man who’s all wrong for her in all the right ways?
Evergreen Academy By Heather Schneider
Welcome to Evergreen Academy, the secret college for Magical Botanists.
I’d always sensed something peculiar about the reclusive Evergreen Academy, tucked deep in the woods of my hometown. But I never could have imagined it was a college for magical botanists–and that I am one of them.
An invitation to the academy opens up a whole new world of wonder, yet my plant affinity powers remain elusive, and my scientific training is far behind that of my peers. When I’m assigned a tutor, Callan Rhodes, a powerful descendant of the academy’s founders, I’m baffled by his willingness to help me.
Despite my challenges, I’m enchanted by the academy’s glass schoolhouse, its grounds which are overflowing with plants that defy the climate, and the quirky festivals held each equinox and solstice.
But disaster looms as the verdant shield that protects the academy from the prying eyes of nonmagical people begins to falter. Can Callan and the other founder’s descendants sustain the magic on their own, or will the clock finally start to tick on figuring out my powers?
