During 2024 I worked on trying to write at least a sentence or two on Goodreads for each book that I finished. I definitely want to continue that into this year, and hopefully try to expand to slightly longer reviews again! In the meantime, what I have now is perfect for sharing for these Monday Minis! So for today’s Monday Mini I wanted share some thoughts on a few of my underrated reads from 2024.

Thank you so much to TorDotCom Publishing for sending me an ARC to review! This does not affect my review in any way.

It’s no secret that I love Seanan McGuire. I mean, she and Tamora Pierce are my top two favorite authors, easily. I saw Heron (a friend from Bookstagram) mention in their review that for them it’s now more of a question of how much they’ll like these books, rather than a question of if they’ll like them. That is definitely how it is for me. I have loved the previous six books of this series, to varying degrees, so I went into this one pretty confident I would like it. Little did I know it would actually become on of my favs of the series!!

Trigger and content warnings:

• self-harm (gouging, eye horror; non-graphic)
• child abuse (physical, verbal, emotional manipulation/gaslighting)
• parent death (implied, off-page)
• character deaths
• mentions and descriptions of fantasy/magical violence (blood, war, political violence)
• mentions and descriptions of physical symptoms that might be triggering to those with emetophobia
• alcohol consumption

Welcome to my stop on the Caffeine Books Tours blog tour for Jade Fire Gold! Thank you so much for having me! I received an advance copy of the book from the publisher and CBT for my participation in this tour. You can find the tour launch post here! You can find all of the other tour stops there!

It began with a girl and a sword, and it will end with a girl and her sword.

Jade Fire Gold was such a pleasure to read! I was already sucked in before I knew anything about the synopsis because I had seen it marketed as similar to Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA). Which is one of the best tv shows ever!! I think that comparison is accurate in a handful of ways – obviously no comparison will encompass a new thing completely! But in Jade Fire Gold we have elemental magic, martial artists, wise mentors, corrupt royals, and so much more. If you’re someone who loved ATLA, I really do think this book will be up your alley. And on the other hand if you haven’t watched the show, I think you’ll still love it!

Welp. I’ve absolute found both a new favorite book, and a new favorite author. This book was incredible, and I cannot wait for the sequel. It had everything I could ever want. Found family, queer characters, GIANT ROBOTS?? Ancient China inspired setting, vengeance, unapologetic rage, and so much more. Wow. I’m blown away. I couldn’t stop reading it, but I also never wanted it it end!! Maybe I’ll just have to reread it many many times until the sequel comes out…haha.

We are halfway done with the year! Wow that’s a weird sentence to both write and read. I don’t think I like it, haha. Wouldn’t it be nice if time could slow the heck down?? June in particular seemed to go really quickly for me. I spent a lot of it visiting my family finally, after over a year! So I didn’t really end up reading much. But I did have some fun blog posts that I’m proud. So I’ll tell you a little about the one book I did read, and then do a little blog post round up in case you missed any of them!