 I don't know how we got here. I don't have time for this but it should be fun because we're weird. There's no excuse. Are you excited for me to talk about something other than Abercrombie? I mean we've said it's not gonna end ever. Despite declaring many times that I intended to have smaller TBRs this year, every month it gets worse. Um I don't I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how we got here. I mean it's just a lot of a lot of poor decisions. Basically I just said yes to a lot of things and I kept thinking that April was the kind of low-key month. Um and the entire reason for that was because the the first law read-along that we're doing on the podcast, we're taking a break in April. We're not reading anything in April and we're gonna come back to the stand alins in May and because one book was off my TBR I was like oh okay April's like a chill month. I can say yes to everything in April. And actually my TBR is worse than this because in addition to what you see before you, some of these books are for this but um I agreed to be a co-host um for the tour.comathon that is being hosted by beautifully bookish Bethany. I will leave her announcement video linked down below because she can explain it a lot better than me. What I can tell you is that it is taking place in April. It is a week long. The mission statement of it is to read tour.com in print books. There is a bingo board. There will be a giveaway. There will be reading sprints. There will be a live show. And we have a group book. A book that is like required reading for, well the hosts anyway. So tour.com a lot of what they publish are novelas and sort of the again the mission statement or like part two of the mission statement is like it's one to read tour.com books and two because we probably all have a bunch of tour.com books that are like languishing on our kindles or at least I do. So that point being I have a couple here at the top that I'll go over tour.com books that I have physical copies of um but then I also do have a bunch of tour.com books on my Kindle. So I'll go over those first before I forget just to get through that first. So anyway here's the TBR sack. I'm going to move it now. Okay let's start with the group book the one that is like required or at least the one that we will be talking about in the live show. I don't know if we're talking about anything else in the live show. I'm a terrible co-host. Bethany knew this when she asked me though. So the group book the like official book is remote control by Nettie Okorafor. I do have that on my Kindle so no physical copy that I have um but just kidding scrap what I was going to say. That is the group book so I will be reading that. May as well go through the other ones that I don't have physical copies of since I've got my phone on me. There I will I also have my Kindle Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nevo. Drowned Country by Emily Tash which is the sequel to Silver in the Wood. I might need to reread Silver in the Wood. It's been a while. They're both short so if need be. Sorcerer of the Wild Deeps by Kai Ashanti Wilson and Inside Man by KJ Parker. So those are all on my Kindle. Those are all my on my uh tour.comathon TBR. And then in addition I have and will be attending or attempting to read Fly Away by Kathleen Jennings which I don't I bought it when it came out. I don't remember why I did. I just remember it sounding amazing to me and also being shocked at how short it was when I got it. A book that I've been meaning to read for since it came out uh Ring Shout by Peter J. Lee Clark. The ones that I'm regarding as like firmly this is happening are the group book remote control and then Ring Shout because I have been wanting to read this for forever so having this opportunity to like force myself to is yay. And then this book um so the giveaway I mentioned there are two books for that are uh possible things for the giveaway um I don't remember where the other one is. Well one of the books is a book that I actually haven't intend to read and that is um Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Adrian Tchaikovsky is the author of Guns of the Dawn and Tiger and the Wolf and that Alien Spider one. Never read it but I know all the people have. Anyway so yeah one of the giveaways is for Elder Race and I will also be reading Elder Race or intending to anyway. Tor.comathon again the announcement video is linked down below um Bethany's video where she'll tell you all the co-hosts and on the giveaway details how to enter and relevant dates. I think it's the 16th through the 22nd um don't quote me on that. And yeah uh it should be it should be fun uh this is I don't have time for this but it should be fun. Okay moving on to everything that is physically on my TBR which yeah you already saw. It's a lot. So even though I was like I have a freer month in April because we are not doing a first law book in April. We do have book club in April because we're quarterly now so those just like got swapped so April was a no freer than any other month but whatever. So we're reading A Lady's Guide to Mischief and Mayhem by Amanda Collins. This is Amanda's Pick so the live show for it will be on Amanda's channel the last Saturday of the month however we have been doing them on Saturday morning uh Saturday morning our time uh or at least my time. Saturday it has been 11 a.m pacific time every time always unless it's Halloween but we do have some scheduling conflicts so we will be doing it in the evening instead um I think 6 p.m pacific time but anyway otherwise uh last Saturday of the month as usual. We'll see how I do with this romance book. The next two I'll do together Mara and I are continuing our Realm of the Elderlings journey with uh now diving into the Tawny Man trilogy. However we were told during the live show for Mara and I talked about Farseer and Liveship that it is wise to read the Wolfle Princes and the Five Old Prince before reading Tawny Man so Mara and I, it's really short so Mara and I are going to read both this month. I'm delighted by how short this is and I'm delighted that like comparatively speaking Fools uh Aaron was that correct did I take the right one yeah book one okay the titles are all very similar mess them up all the time um so yeah uh Fools Aaron compared to the Liveship books or compared to Assassin's Quest is practically a novella so looking forward to this everyone keeps hyping Tawny Man like I felt like everyone hyped Liveship a lot but then as soon as I was reading Liveship no one cared about Liveship or was like no Tawny Man is where it's at I was like I swear all y'all told me that Liveship was where it's at so I'm just guessing that as soon as I start Tawny Man everyone's like Tawny Man's cool and all but where it's really at it fits in the hole so anyway I am stoked to continue my Realm of the Elderlings journey. The next three I will do together because I said you go start everything this month I don't know why I scheduled my life like this. We're back with Shakespeare but not only are we back with Shakespeare we were doing just a play and the Hogarth retelling of it which all things considered aside from like committing to a live show for that it's pretty short Shakespeare plays are very short and the retelling so far have been quite short and that remains true we are reading King Lear and the Hogarth Shakespeare retelling of it Dunbar by Edward Saint Ovid it is quite short but we're not just doing that oh no oh no we have been calling this for months now the Triple Lear because we are also reading the Queens of Innocent Lear by Tessa Grad which is not short not short at all so we're reading all three of these we being me my friend Heather and we're gonna have a live show chatting about the play the retellings comparing contrasting gushing whatever so if you are in any way inclined towards Shakespeare retellings of the Bard consider joining us. Next up is the is a mini readalong that we're doing in my discord that I mentioned last month we read Angela's Ashes last month in March kind of for St. Patrick's Day but then we're with the intent to go on and read Tiz and then Teacher Man next month so Tiz is up next in April I have read this before I have not read Teacher Man so that'll be new for me Angela's Ashes was a reread and Tiz is a reread and I remember not liking Tiz as much as Angela's Ashes but I did really enjoy it I mean Frank McCourt's authorial voice it's so charming but it's hard I mean well at least I think so so anyway uh I am looking forward to this reread it's been a long time since I read Tiz and yeah and I'm very much looking forward to for the first time reading Teacher Man next month then the sort of truth readalong continues with the one that every single live show so far Bethany and I have brought up this book to be like and then that one Temple of the Winds which is the fourth book in the sort of truth and is the one that both Bethany and I have vivid memories of being wildly scarred by because this is the weirdest one of the ones I've read I read like nine of them back when I was reading these books for the first time I don't know why I kept reading after Temple of the Winds because Temple of the Winds is um it's something it's something I'm hoping that because I've like I remember it's being so bonkers that I might have like hyped that up in my mind so much that when I reread it now I'll be like actually you know it's not that bad like I remember to being way worse it's actually fine I'm hoping because like my memory of it is being just non-stop what uh so the live show for this will be on my channel yay um and yeah Bethany and I will be discussing it probably at length because this book is weird this book is super weird next up is a read-along that it was you know on temporary hiatus and is now returning to you and that is The Sun Eater series by Christopher Rockio because Kingdoms of Death is out and also we've got the lesser devil story collection so Alex and I read The Lesser Devil which is a story in here um but there's a whole bunch of other stories that are published in this bind up so Alex and I are doing both and we're gonna chat about them on his channel yes yes well we weren't wasn't his channel before it is now uh yeah so Kingdoms of Death is the fourth book in The Sun Eater series and The Lesser Devil is you know short stories within the world of The Sun Eater uh including The Lesser Devil which we did read before and we talked about it uh when we talked about the third book so you've had time now to catch up I expect every one of you to be there for this because you've had months now to read that part of silence the howling dark and the devil uh demon in white so there's there's no excuse you should all be there on Alex's channel when we talk about Kingdoms of Death next up is my Book of the Month Club book because as I've said I have I'm requiring myself to read those as I get them so that I don't fall behind on them and it's months like these where I'm like but what if I did it though but if I think that once then I will never get back to reading all of them I am on the wagon on this right now and I cannot fall off the wagon so new the book that I picked in March yes uh because it was April was The Cartographers by Peng Shepard at this point I don't really remember I just remember this was like one of the speculative options it says it's perfect for fans of Joe Hill and Beeshwab I wish I'm more or less a fan of theirs not like obsessed it seemed quite like magical realism-ish a highly imaginative thriller about a young woman who discovers that a strange map in her deceased father's belongings holds an incredible deadly secret one that will lead her on an extraordinary adventure and to the truth about her family's dark history it sounded intriguing at the very least and I quite like this cover so I mean other than the fact that I'm gonna be buried alive under my tbr I'm quite looking forward to this next up is the book that my patrons and I uh are buddy reading we buddy read Strange the Dreamer in March and with the understanding that in April we would continue on and read Music Nightmares the second book in this duology and I once again picked the shiniest copy of this that I have because I don't know why I also hate purple so I picked the shiny purple copy to show you because because I don't know why this is I think this is signed I know a lot of my copies are signed yep it surely is signed to me my lady Taylor uh even though it's purple I'm pretty yeah I think at the time uh the date of her signing now that you care I had ordered the UK one which is orange chef's kiss but because it was coming from the UK and the signing was like a day after the book's release or something so it had not arrived yet so I couldn't bring my UK copy for her to sign so I had her sign and personalize the purple one to me because you know to do what you gotta do Music Nightmares as I said is a sequel to Strange the Dreamer I remember adoring this like I love Strange the Dreamer but Music Nightmares was five out of five stars where Strange the Dreamer because of very spoilery reasons it did disappoint me at the end which was I mean I love Strange the Dreamer still but it did something that I was quite angry about and it took me a whole year luckily I had a year between the release of Strange the Dreamer and Music Nightmares to forgive Laney Taylor for doing that so I could go into Music Nightmares prepared to accept what more she had to tell me and Music Nightmares is beautiful it is five out of five stars it's amazing and I'm very much looking forward to rereading this so next up is the book that my patrons chose for me to read and review for them or read and vlog for them and that is the Justice of Kings by Richard Swamp which I feel like everybody was reading arcs of this like a whole other go I generally heard positive things so I'm looking forward to this and it's also not as long as I was afraid it would be because adult fantasy can be you know can be hob like but yeah this sounded when people were reviewing it like something I would like so my patrons picked it for me and I was not upset so I obviously don't know anything about this other than it's a new fantasy book and it is a fantastic debut according to Peter McLean and I really like Peter McLean's War for the Rose Throne books and KSB also also blurbed it and I liked I quite liked the Wolf of Orenyaro KSB also said a marvelously detailed world with an engrossing adventure from a unique perspective no man is above the law so yeah I'm excited to read this this shouldn't be on my tv or this next book because I don't have time for it um but also I'm gonna buddy read it with uh Vish from books with V I think she's rereading it and yes but anyway Jade War by Fonda Lee because I cannot be kept away from the green bow and so on I mean I told Mar if she was gonna read it in May I could wait that long and she was like no go ahead I don't know what I'm gonna read it and I was like okay I'll probably read this first I will probably read this and soon as I'm done filming videos I'm super super stoked Jade City so good I mean the year is young but and I have no idea how I'll feel about the next two books in the series but Jade City could easily be a favorite of the year for me and everyone says the second and third books are even better so are you excited for me to talk about something other than Abercrombie for me to fangirl about a different series because like I can just replace all of the times when I bring up first law with green bone from now on that we can make that happen and last but most certainly not least is the final ish book in our song wise and fire read along which I mean we've said it's not gonna end ever so this is is this the end I don't know but we're reading fire and blood by George R. R. Martin Alex Jimmy and I and the live show for this is back to my channel I think yes we were originally thinking and hoping that House of the Dragon the HBO show would be coming out around now so it would be like cool to read this like right before the show comes out so it's like fresh in our brains um alas the show was pushed back so we're just gonna forget everything that we read before the show comes out anyway um I've never read this there this is this gorgeous illustrations on it just looking at the number of like dark pages like from you can when you can see how many I have illustrations on them because it's a dark page there's a lot of illustrations in this book I am really excited to read this because like I mean I don't know where we're going to get winds of winter so it is just it's a nice feeling to have a new George R. R. Martin a song of ice and fire related book to read so yeah I don't really know anything about this except like the like the fact of it being about Targaryens in a different era but that's all I know 300 years before A Game of Thrones dragons ruled Westeros like that's literally all I know about this is basically that blurb um and like look at this baller ass dragon art on the back like damn so I'm excited um I enjoyed Night of the Seven Kingdom but that was just sort of like a little little story this is like this meteor so I'm excited to talk about this for like five hours Jimmy and Alex so yeah that's everything that I'm reading in April is it enough below the comments down below your thoughts and feelings about what I will be reading intending to read hoping to read you know which things like I should definitely prioritize even though like it doesn't matter because basically everything that I just listed to you is something that I have to read uh for one reason or another so whenever you want to let me know I have this video on saturdays other random tells will open saturdays so like and subscribe join my patreon if you feel so inclined and I'll see you when I see you