Girls of Paper and Fire meets The Tiger at Midnight in June CL Tan’s stunning debut, inspired by Chinese mythology, with rich magic and an epic slow-burn romance.
In an empire on the brink of war . . .
Ahn is no one, with no past and no family.
Altan is a lost heir, his future stolen away as a child.
When they meet, Altan sees in Ahn a path to reclaiming the throne. Ahn sees a way to finally unlock her past and understand her arcane magical abilities.
But they may have to pay a far deadlier price than either could have imagined.
Ferocious action, shadowy intrigue, and a captivating romance collide in June CL Tan’s debut, a stunning homage to the Xianxia novel with a tender, beating heart, perfect for fans of The Bone Witch and We Hunt the Flame.

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!

Thank you to Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl for hosting/organizing Top Ten Tuesday!

I think I’ve done a similar topic before, but it was actually like two years ago?? Which is weird. But anyway, world-building/settings is one of my favorite aspects of books. I mean, I read to escape the real world! So I love going to wild and wonderful places in my reads. There are so many great settings, but here are just ten books with ones that I love. I won’t summarize the books, I’ll just talk a little bit about the different settings. But of course I’ll link the Goodreads pages so you can check them out yourself!

Before I start, I want to say I got this idea from Michelle at Magical Reads! It’s such a wonderful idea Michelle!

Hopefully you saw my part one post yesterday with fantasy recs for emojis! If not, you’re welcome to check that one out here. There is no order at all to these posts haha. But anyway, the gist of the posts is: I had people give me an emoji, and for each one I chose a book to rec based on it! Some are straightforward, some I got creative with. I’ll write a little bit about why I chose each book! So here we go with part two of the fantasy recs!

Before I start, I want to say I got this idea from Michelle at Magical Reads! It’s such a wonderful idea Michelle!

Earlier this week I asked people on Bookstagram for some help with this post! I had people give me emojis, and in return I’d give a book rec for each emoji. Here are the resulting book recs! Well okay, this is part one because people sent A LOT of emojis oh my god. So part two will come tomorrow to make it easier to read and not get overwhelmed.

Some emojis are easier to pick books for, so for the harder ones I had to do a little interpretation. I’ll explain my reasoning a little bit so you understand why I chose each book for each emoji! And there will be a sci-fi edition (also in two parts) coming next week. So without further ado, here we go!

September was a bit of a hectic month for me. I didn’t realize it was over until I saw people on bookstagram posting their monthly wrap ups haha. During the last week of the month, I traveled across the country with my partner to move to our new home in the desert (Las Vegas). Since he did the driving, he got to choose the soundtrack. We listened to lots of podcasts, so I’ll talk about that in addition to the books that I read. I can’t read in the car, so most of these were read before we set out on our trip.