 Hello friends! How are we all doing? I am so excited because today we are doing my Christmas book haul slash unboxing. I am completely overwhelmed with how many of you guys have sent me a Christmas gift and I'm so excited to open these. It's the second Christmas! I'm so excited! Merry Christmas! Let me show you the stack. These have been coming through throughout the month and I have just been completely overwhelmed. I'm so thankful you guys are so kind. We'll talk about the voice just hold up. When all of a sudden I hear this agitating, grating voice. This is all stuff from you guys. I am completely I just so thankful. It's so kind of you guys to do this at Christmas. Send me a gift and we're gonna open it together in this video. Also my family did send me some books as well for Christmas that I saved. Usually I film this video on Christmas Eve and get it out to just after Christmas but I don't know if you can tell with the voice but I've been L. I'm trying to talk more normally for you guys. This is how I've been talking with my family. This is like my natural talking voice. This is me trying to talk slightly normally. So apologies if that's annoying. I'm gonna try and not be annoying but yeah I've had to suck off sadly quite a few of my end of year videos on this last week of the year because I just haven't been well enough to make them. It's very sad. This is our last video of the year this one. Shall we just get into it? I'm so excited. It's like a second Christmas and I can't wait. Well say the ones of my family got me for last. We will first begin with the ones that some of you guys have got me and I just have no idea what we're gonna all gonna unwrap together so oh my god I'm so excited. I love Christmas. This is so you guys don't understand how kind this is of you. This is so kind and I appreciate so much from the bottom of my heart. Okay first one. Oh this is quite a large book. Oh okay interesting. Merry Christmas from the Italian Scott on Twitter. Thank you so much. Okay this is a 2023 release I've been very interested in. This is The Things We Do To Our Friends by Heather Darwin. It's set at the University of Edinburgh. Claire meets Tabitha. Tabitha is charismatic, beautiful, intimidating and wealthy. Claire is sucked into her circle and Tabitha reveals a little project they're working on. A project that Claire's helped with. It's reckless, possibly perilous. I might fire up Claire to become who she always needs to be. How exciting. This is Dark Academia, Twisted Female Friendships. These are all parts of words for me as we can see. I haven't heard a ton of people review this though since it came out. This is one that I added to my list from the synopsis when I was kind of looking up 2023 releases but I haven't heard a ton of people review it and that actually always makes me excited because I kind of like being the first, not the first reader book. Obviously thousands of people have read this already from me but the first in like my head to read a book and go into it with completely no expectations. So thank you so much. I'm so excited to get to this one. Next package. I'm just opening these up completely randomly. There is no order to these. Oh fun. We have got a Sprinkle of Saucy by Michelle Harrison. This is from Emma the quiet patron. Thank you so much Emma. That is so kind. So at Sprinkle of Saucy, this is the next in the Pinch of Magic middle grade series and this is one of the middle grade series. I speak about a lot that I started in 2020. I started three middle grade series in 2020 and I have not made progress in any of them and that's really a goal of mine in 2024 is to kind of make progress in those older series. Good luck. Have fun. Hope it works this time around. And I loved Pinch of Magic. I thought it was such a whimsical, beautiful, fast book of the series following these sisters. I love sister relationships. I absolutely loved it. Three sisters with a magical secret. A race against time to find a place that exists only in fairy tales. A journey that will take them into unimaginable danger. Oh it looks like we're gonna be on a boat. How exciting. I also really love the kind of like aesthetic design of this series. I love it. So thank you so much Emma. Oh my god you guys are so kind. Next what have we got? Oh what is this? No way. No way. I'm very excited for this one. So this is from Clara. Clara says, Happy Christmas Megan. I've loved your content and Patreon this year. Thank you for all the effort you put in. Thank you Clara. We have got Emily Walsh as like the media fairies that I have. This is one of the trigger releases that I have wanted to get into most. This is obviously one of the fantasy that people have been speaking about all year and I would categorise this on what I know as cosy fantasy and I'm just like, give me more cosy fantasy please. Just give me all the cosy fantasy. But sometimes I do get a little bit disappointed with books that kind of seem like they're gonna be cosy fantasy and they don't turn out to be. So I'm a little bit hysterical for that but yeah so many people have been loving it this year. We're following Emily Wilde, a meticulous researcher who's writing the world's first encyclopedia of fairy lore. Oh I'm so excited. Enchanting, sharp tongue and footnoted academia. There's footnotes. There's footnotes guys. There's footnotes. There's footnotes. Try not to say mother challenge. Failed. I don't know those footnotes. Oh my god. You guys know I love footnotes. Oh my god. That makes this maybe a five star prediction for me. That makes this a five star prediction for me. Thank you so much Clara. You guys are picking such a good one so far. My goodness. Okay next parser. Oh my god this is a big one. What is this? Oh my goodness. Exciting. So this is from Karris, no Christmas Meg. I wanted to get you a little something for Christmas and also say thank you for bringing me so much joy. I absolutely love your channel. I'm joking. I'm a big fan of your lovely Patreon Meets the World. Thank you so much Karris. Okay you guys can't see. I'm like dying. Jokey. So this is the list which can we just talk about the cover? I love it. I love the cover. I know it might be controversial. I know some people probably don't like this but I love this cover and it's about this woman who is falling in love with her new fiancée. It's like the job of her dreams, the man of her dreams and then something called the list is circulated and it is a list of anonymous allegations about abusive men and her fiancée is on the list. I've heard mixings about this one but it's one that I'm very intrigued to read. It seems very intriguing so I'm very excited to pick this one up. Thank you so much. Okie dokie. Next to what have we got? Oh this is from Rebecca, another of my patrons. Merry Christmas again. I love this one and can't wait to hear your thoughts. Oh interesting. So Midnight is the Darkest Hour by Ashley Winstead which I've heard really good things about and then not so good things about small town Louisiana. There's this new church or new preacher stuff that starts going wrong in the town and town secrets. Now here's the thing with Miss Ashley Winstead I gave in my views one of my five stars and I did not love The Last Housewife. It was I think I gave it a three but it was maybe more of like a 2.5. I found The Last Housewife very disappointing. I'm a little bit nervous. It's fun because I think it could go either way. I just feel like in my dreams of a knife had so much promise that I believe that we could have something like that again. Ashley Winstead when I read In My Dreams of a Knife I thought was going to become a new favorite thriller author and then the Last Housewife per spanner in the works of that. So thank you so much Rebecca. I'm very very very excited to pick this one up. Okay oh my god we've got two. Oh my goodness okay. What? Wait no there's three in here. What is going on? Okay I was very confused for a second there because I was going to put the wrong one of the wrong notes in here. I've got like a French person gifting me the art of frozen like frozen Disney but that's not for me. This is for a child somewhere. Oh yeah okay but that's just an extra note. I've just got an extra French person's note in here. So these are from Lauren. Lauren has been Lauren. You're one of like the OGs around here in terms of subscribers and patrons I feel like. Lauren says Merry Christmas even if I sometimes get too busy to join sprints and gain likes for a channel makes me happy. Thank you for everything you do. Well thank you Lauren that's so kind. So we've got three becks from Lauren and then we just start with the two that Lauren has been very kind with and gotten me sequels. The sequels series I've started. So fast we have got Death Comes to Marlowe by Robert Thurgood. I read the Marlowe Murder Club earlier this year and really enjoyed it and this is the sequel to that. This is similar to Frozen Murder Club in that it was humorous. We're following elderly characters solving murders in this quaint English town. There's an upcoming wedding of like the man in the town and they're having this like garden party and they find him crushed to death in his study. They're gonna go investigate it together. Then we have also got Ten Thousand Stitches by Olivia Atwater which is quite short. That makes me excited. This is the sequel to Half Assault by Olivia Atwater and these are Regency Fairy romances. So I love Regency Era and so these are like cute little romances. I didn't love Half Assault as much as I think other people did but some people told me that the tropes in the second and third in this series would be more my thing so I want to continue on. Oh this one we've got a housemaid falling in love with the gentle men. I'm really excited. These should be my kind of thing. These should be kind of five stars to me. So they're excited to pick that up and then we have got Beat Treat by Emily Henry. So I am gonna start reading Emily Henry next year. I've decided I'm gonna give Emily Henry a go. Emily Henry is one of the authors I think is most likely to become one of my new favourite romance authors. I don't think this is gonna be my first Emily Henry. I think I'm gonna be reading my first Emily Henry in January for a video I've got planned but I'm excited to have another one on the docket on the list to read if I enjoy it. Loads of you told me I'd like Emily Henry. So thank you so much Lauren that is so kind to give me three books that is like beyond kind. Thank you so much. Next package. Oh my gosh we've got another sequel as if. This is from Maria. Hi Megan. Really enjoyed videos and wanted you to be able to continue the Bear Town series. Happy holidays to you and your family. Thank you so much Maria. Okay so we have got Us Against You which is the next in the Bear Town series. You guys you are doing me such a good service by sending me sequels. It's so thankful. So I really really loved Bear Town by Frederick Beckman and this is the next in the series. This one seems to be about two rival towns and oh my god. Basically there's two rival towns of like hockey players. They're battling it out. They want to defeat each other. Rivalries turn to vendettas by the games and someone from Bear Town will be dead. It's a murder mystery. Excuse me. I wasn't expecting that at all. Yeah I'm really enjoying Frederick Beckman's writing. I am so excited to continue on the series. Oh my gosh guys you're being so kind sending me sequels. Thank you so much Maria. This one was a very bizarre Amazon box. I've got like a red picture to it. So this one's very exciting but it seems to have come without a gift note. So if you send this to me please let me know. It is Rotten to the Core by T.E. Kinsey the next in the Lady Hardcastle Mystery series. This is number what? This is number eight in the Lady Hardcastle Mystery series. You guys know how much I love this series. It's my favorite cozy mystery series. This one the side of related murders. But this one seems that it takes place more in the town. I prefer the ones that take place in the town of Litter and Cotterall versus like all the ones that take place like in these different locations. I really like the ones that stay in the town because I think it's such a great imagery. Exciting. I'm so thank you so much. I'm always excited to make a progress in the Lady Hardcastle Mystery series. I would like to get up to date with this series next year. That is a little goal of mine. Next book. What have we got here? What do we have here? Oh this one's intriguing. Who is this from? This is from Meg. Another Meg. Hey Meg, Merry Christmas. I just wanted to send a little sign of appreciation for the joy watching your channel brings me. I love this Fodrider book. I hope you do too. This is The Book of the Most Precious Substance by Sarah Grant. I'm gonna be honest. This is one I've heard like I added to my wishes because I've heard people talk about it highly but I can't remember a lot about the plot. What does this say? Rare book dealer. Oh I love anything that like is book about a book. Book about books. Lily has just been given a tip off about the book of the most precious substance, a 17th century manual rumoured to be the most powerful occult book ever written if it really exists. With some of the wealthiest people in the world willing to pay Lily a fortune to track it down, she embarks on a journey from New York to New Orleans to Munich to Paris. If she finds it, Lily stands to gain more than just money. This could have raised the greatest tragedy of her life but will Lily's quest help her find some answers? Or will she do everything in search of a ghost? Fun! Okay I'm very excited to read this. Let me know if you've heard anything about it but that sounds right up my street. Right on my street. So thank you so much Meg. You are so kind. Okay okay next book. Forgetting through these. Oh my goodness this is like wrapped in like... Oh how exciting is there a note? Please tell me there's a note. I hate when there's not a note. No! Oh no guys we've got another one without a note. So again please let me know if this one's from you because there's no note in the box but this is Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo. I love Elizabeth Acevedo. I've given her I think two five stars and one four star and I have been waiting for another book from her for a while and this is I think her adult debut and we're following to my memory these sisters who will have magic and I think one of them can kind of like predict the deaths of yeah she can predict the day when someone will die and she decides she wants to host her own living wake and her family get a bit worried they're like do you know you're gonna die? And she's like no no no no. I'm a little bit concerned but yeah I think this is all going to be about the stories of these sisters and the family and their secrets and things they keep from each other and their love for each other and I'm just very excited you know Elizabeth Acevedo has a really amazing way with words like such a special way with words that I just think is kind of unparalleled um and I love I love the way she writes so very excited to get to Family Law thank you so much okay next one oh my goodness can I get in there we go I got in we have got oh oh my gosh very excited for this one oh this is from my Patron Secret Santa I ran a Secret Santa on my Patreon this year and my Patron Secret Santa has if I do say so myself impeccable taste because they have got me the woman in me by Britney Spears I'm very excited to read this listen we love Britney we love Britney well they're speechless I was telling Tom how growing up I would often like be with my grandparents and in their car I had like three CDs I had I think I had a busted CD I had a McFly CD and I had Britney Spears Greatest Hits the one with like the silver cover so that is like my favorite Britney songs because I just grew up listening to them over and over and over again I have had wonderful things from people who read this I'm also probably going to get the orgy a book for this but yeah I'm going to be reading this in January I'm going to tell you that now I'm going to be reading this in January so this is a great pick because it's one that I'm going to read very quickly so thank you so much to my Secret Santa what a wonderful pick and yeah I'm just very very excited to read this please let me know what you thought of this if you've read it oh my gosh we've got two books oh these are both very exciting books okay let's see who they're from these are both from Jenny one of my Patrons which one should we start with okay first we have got check and mate by Ali Hazel word Jenny says I know that you love Ali Hazel word so I hope you enjoy this little Christmas treat thank you for all the videos to see it and can't wait to see what you read next year thank you so much Jenny yes I do love Ali Ali Hazel is my girl I will not hear any criticism of Ali Hazel word I love her romances and this is her YA debut and I'm very intrigued to see how her writing style translates to YA because I like the adult elements so I'm very intrigued and I'm assuming it's about chess we've got one of them who loves chess maybe everyone loves chess who knows we've got the bad boy of chess we've got the bad boy of chess are all like a bad boy though don't we yeah not a fucking chess player low chris but I really love like nerdy elements in books like I always say I always think of this I don't know why I associate chess on scrabble but whenever there's a book about chess I always think about um in Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay there's a whole essay about how much she loves scrabble and like how she's like a best scrabble player ever and I love I love that essay and then Jenny it's another book saying I remember you saying that your horror tbl is looking a bit better and it's an absolute mastery plus is Shawna McGuire so you absolutely have to read it and it is Into the Drowning Deep by Mirror Grant which is Shawna McGuire it's a pen named Shawna McGuire oh yeah this is one where there was like a film crew who went underwater to film a mockumentary brings like ancient sea creatures of legend it was lost at sea with all hands some have called it a tragedy now a new crew is assembled oh there's something about the deep sea that is absolutely terrifying let's feel be honest there's something about it that's just absolutely terrifying and I've never read any mirror grants by Shawna McGuire like I've never read this pen name this is her horror pen name so having read only fantasy from her I'm very intrigued to see how her horror matches up with what I know Shawna McGuire's writing to be like how is it different under this different pen name so thank you so much then before we get into the ones that my family has gifted me let's quickly look at when I gifted myself this is a pre-order that I had that came in during December and I was like I don't trust myself to open this and not read it in December when I'm not allowed to read it so I'm just gonna not unbox it and I'm gonna unbox it in this video as a gift to myself and that oh my god I'm gonna cry oh stop of all you five I'm so excited you are the most beautiful thing that happened in my entire life oh I can't even look at it I just want to read it right now you guys know I love Heart Stopper one of my favorite graphic novel series by far Nick and Charlie are in love for what happens next I think this is our penultimate Heart Stopper we're only gonna get one more after this which is sad I think this is about Nick starting to look at like what university he wants to go to and like them figuring out how they're gonna be apart from each other um which is a very real when you're in a young relationship that's a very difficult thing to navigate my approach was just to make Tom come to university with me but um you know it's difficult to navigate so I'm looking forward I'm sure it's gonna be very emotional but I love I love Heart Stopper so I'm so excited to get into that little gift to myself okay and then we've got six perks of my family have given me let's start with the ones that my aunt got me we've got two it needs to be two which is a nice little round numbers okay what have we got here oh what a good choice we have got um everyone in my family has killed someone by Veggie and Susan this is one there's so many of you have told me that I'm gonna love we have got a family where everyone in this family have killed someone but in the first chapter I think it tells you like on what pages what pages the murders are gonna happen oh I love medmissaries that like mix up the genre and take risks and like oh I'm so excited I guys I'm so excited for this one this is one of the ones like oh my god I can't I can't even speak to you I'm so excited I feel like today the future starts so it's a good day I'm excited and then there's a murder happens and it's one of the family members I think this could be if I start this is my kind of thing we know what a what a pick what a pick ah it's so excited for that one okay what is this one this is a larger one it's pink what's on my list that's pink oh another great pick okay we have got the death I gave him by MX Lou which is I believe a hamlet retelling locked room murder mystery let's all take that in for a second and yeah this is a debut that came out this year that I have been very very intrigued to get to oh why is there why is some of it written in like a script transcript of recording oh I love it I love it I love it I love it oh I'm so excited to get to this one as well how exciting I'm so excited thank you so much Kerry my aunt okay me both are nice then we've got two that my grandparents got me let's have a look what they are oh get out absolutely we have got the goodbye cat by hero our car this is by the author of the traveling cat chronicles which is one of my favourite books I absolutely loved it it made me sob and this one's about a cat goodbye cat I just know I'm gonna cry I just know I'm gonna cry I don't want to talk about it I know I'm gonna cry it's the first one the traffic cat chronicles made me cry a summer hatch oh what a great gift I love anything with a cat I love anything with a cat on it then what is that other one from them let's see we have got any angle saves herself by lia johnson this is lia johnson's middle grade debut and I'm just really intrigued by it I have read what have I read by lia johnson I'm forgetting the name of it rice is the one I haven't read what's the one I've read it's got the purple cover why has that left my brain it's got the crown I can't remember I've read by lia johnson so an earthquake I think strikes Ellie small town she discovers that she's got this like ability that she never knew she had a video of her goes viral and her life takes an expected turn and listen I'm always looking for more middle grade that I'll enjoy and this one sounded really good and then we've got two final books that my parents got me what have we got first oh what a great pick we have got mammoths at the gate by new bow which is the fourth in a singing heel cycle I have read the first two in this series and I absolutely love them they are a love letter to the act of storytelling and the art of storytelling and how that's passed through by generations and different cultures the art of storytelling I absolutely love this series and I cannot wait to make more progress in the series this one's quite like embarrassing that I haven't made more progress in this series I absolutely love Nevo's writing I've got two stand-alones by Nevo that I need to read I Nevo is one of my favorite I just love Nevo's cadence and art of storytelling which is convenient because that's what this book is about and then the final book from my parents is a very exciting one and it is A Thorn Hedge by T. King Fisher another short novella my mom got me novellas which is listen I'm always here for novellas we always need we always need some short books on the TBR so this is another fantasy from T. King Fisher meet toadling on the day of her birth she was stolen from her family by the fairies but grew up safe and loved in the warm waters of fairyland once an adult though the fate asked a favor of toadling return to the human realm offer a blessing of protection to a newborn child simple right if only centuries later a knight approaches a towering hall of brambles with a thorns as thick thick as your arm and a sharp as swords he's heard there's a curse here that he's breaking but it's a curse toadling will do anything to uphold how exciting T. King Fisher has quickly become one of my favorite authors this year I have read how many T. King fishes have I read I've read nettle and bone what means are dead and um a house of good bones I think this year I've read that all of those so I am just oh it's blood by Catherine Arden and Travis Bowdry oh so yeah I'm very excited to read another T. King Fisher um because I've loved everything I've read from her so far okay everyone that was my Christmas book haul thank you again so so so much to anyone who gifted me anything this Christmas I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it how much it means to me how thankful I am how kind you are just so so wonderful and so kind of you thank you so much I hope you all if you celebrate had a wonderful Christmas if you find it a difficult period I hope you at least had a peaceful time I was sending you guys all the love and I will see you the next time we're gonna see you it's gonna be 2024 what the hell um yeah I'll see you next year I am so excited for all the videos I've got coming in January and just as much as I love end of year content I love start of year content I love making the TBRs I love setting the goals so yeah I will see you next year how funny I'll see you next year um and I hope you have a good rest of your year until then bye guys