Hello friends! Well clearly I have dropped off the map the last month or so – which I fully blame on the game Animal Crossing New Horizons. Actually, Shari is the one who got me in to playing this game. We’ve been playing quite a bit together and it’s so much fun. I love that books brought us together, but our friendship has really evolved from that. ANYway, I found this book tag based on the game, which was created by Two Book Thieves. I figured it would be a perfect way to get back to blogging!

And GUESS WHAT?????? Shari is gonna join me on this tag too!!! She’s been very busy kicking ass at art school, but has a little bit more time now to hop in on this post. SO YAY!

A few days ago a shared the first part of an excerpt from Christopher Paolini’s upcoming novel, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars. You can see that first piece here. Today, I’m here with the full excerpt for you!! I hope you enjoy it – it definitely made me super excited for the novel!! I mean, more than I already was haha.

I’m sure many of you have heard about the new upcoming book by Christopher Paolini (of Eragon fame). If you haven’t, it’s called To Sleep in a Sea of Stars and it sounds amazing!!! Here is the synopsis so you can get a little idea about the book:

Kira Navárez dreamed of finding life on new worlds.
Now she has awakened a nightmare.
While exploring a distant planet, she discovers an alien relic that thrusts her into an epic journey of transformation and discovery.
Her odyssey will carry her to the far reaches of the galaxy.
Earth and her colonies are on the brink of annihilation.
One woman.
The will to survive.
The hope of humanity.
This epic novel follows Kira Navárez, who, during a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, finds an alien relic that thrusts her into the wonders and the nightmares of first contact. Epic space battles for the fate of humanity take her to the farthest reaches of the galaxy and, in the process, transform not only her ― but the entire course of history.

The city of Neo Songdo is a Russian doll of realities — augmented and virtual spaces anchored in the weight of the real. The smart city is designed to be read by machine vision while people see only the augmented facade of the corporate ideal. At night the stars are obscured by an intergalactic virtual war being waged by millions of players, while on the streets below people are forced to beg, steal, and hustle to survive.
Enter Julius Dax, online repoman and real-life thief. He’s been hired for a special job: stealing an unknown object from a reclusive tech billionaire. But when he finds out he’s stolen the first sentient AI, his payday gets a lot more complicated.

First things first (I’m the realest). Sorry, whenever I say that phrase, that lyric from Fancy always pops into my head. Anyway!! My point was I first wanted to focus on the premise – a heist? An AI? Yes. Two of my favorite things. I went into this book being pretty sure I would love it. Sadly I didn’t quite LOVE it, but I still did enjoy it a lot.

In a universe of capricious gods, dark moons, and kingdoms built on the backs of spaceships, a cursed queen sends her infant daughter away, a jealous uncle steals the throne of Kali from his nephew, and an exiled prince vows to take his crown back.
Raised alone and far away from her home on Kali, Esmae longs to return to her family. When the King of Wychstar offers to gift the unbeatable, sentient warship Titania to a warrior that can win his competition, she sees her way home: she’ll enter the competition, reveal her true identity to the world, and help her famous brother win back the crown of Kali.
It’s a great plan. Until it falls apart.
Inspired by the Mahabharata and other ancient Indian stories, A Spark of White Fire is a lush, sweeping space opera about family, curses, and the endless battle between jealousy and love.

Retellings are hugely popular in young adult books these days. I love them, but I’m getting tired of the same fairytale being redone over and over. So thank goodness I finally picked up this one! This is a retelling of the longest epic poem ever, the Indian poem called The Mahabharata. I don’t know much about the original, except what I read on Wikipedia. Knowing that it’s a non-Western retelling kinda makes me love it already without reading it haha.

Another thing that intrigued me right away was that the gods and goddesses were a part of the story. I loooove that so much. It also means that since this is set in space, it is a space fantasy! Aka my favorite genre! And in my opinion, a genre we need a lot more of.