ThatBookish_deviant > Recent Status Updates

“History was a great churn….in which kings, queens, countries, and castles were in continuous chaotic motion, swelling their borders, swallowing their neighbors, dying of indigestion.”

“All of them were broken in some way or other. If they hadn’t been when they arrived, after three years they were more fracture than flesh. That seemed to be the Academy’s recipe: grind them down and build something new from the pieces.”

“Choose me as your weapon at your own peril. I cut both ways. I cut always.”

I never got around to reading Mia Ballard’s ‘Shy Girl’ but kinda wish I had. It’s crazy that a top 5 publisher like Hachette “unknowingly” published an AI-written novel. Like, there weren’t any red flags for these experienced agents and editors? To any Goodreads friends who read it, would love to see your input.

“Her hair looks like it’s about to self-immolate, a bundle of twigs that huddles together the second before the fire is lit.”

Reread in advance of my most anticipated book so far in 2026, ‘Steel Gods.’ Just noticed that Ch 1 begins w/ a quote from ‘Chun Parsifal’s The Infinite State’. Swan’s publishing a sci-fi novel, ‘The Infinite State’ this August. Does anyone know if his new Decurian Saga takes place in the same world of The Great Silence & Empire of The Wolf trilogies?

“Love tears open like a wound that rots and bubbles.”

“It lays eggs of sheer horror deep inside you, and you can feel them hatching, growing, their burgeoning new life trapping your nerves against the bone.”

“The trick to meditation was to let the mind sit in a quiet, soft place full of ease and warmth. Marghe imagined that she was curled up, not under a piece of skin covered in blood-smeared snow in the middle of a blizzard, but on the mauve and green rug that lay in front of her fireplace in Whales.”

“The gate was open at this entrance, and the boatmen steered them out of the current and into the canal that fed into the guts of the city like an architectural cunt.” Jesse Bullington’s prose, so very demure. 🤭

Rereading for context prior to first read of Wide Sargasso Sea.

“She was pleased the monastery would continue. Una wasn’t interested in God, or the worlds beyond this one, but she did like singing and she liked men not killing people.”

“The sand of his mind beach was rich in words, the mead of Odin flowed in his breast. Grimur could forge tongue swords to cut open the skin of the world.”
I’ll take ‘mind-beach’ over ‘thought-cage’ for a change! IYKYK 😂

“ Beyond, the night was lingering. How curious it was, she thought, that some nights - for no reason you could put your finger on- something about the darkness made your hackles rise. Broomstick nights, her granny used to call them.”

“He wondered how much kinder all humanity would be if any day the rich and powerful might find themselves the lowest of the low, and those they used to trample suddenly in charge.”

“Hammershy squats on the far chair like a rookery gargoyle, thighs wide and hands clasped, the reek of the forges rolling off him, burnt hair and salver’s grease.” With prose so evocative, one can practically smell the characters; whether you want to or not!

“Catherine had briefly wondered, as all women do their first time alone with a man, if he was going to murder her. The thought passed.”

“She recognized in herself a natural distaste for people which was both intellectual and physical.”

“Above the looped entrails of her port, the Free City of Hesper squats like a vulture on a fresh kill. The talons of her grey towers spear into the twitching body of the city, their massive flanks writhing with rope and men.” 💜

“The sort of woman who wears ladylike pantyliners every day of the month, as if there’s nothing her body secrets that she doesn’t think vile enough to be captured in cotton wool, wrapped in paper bags and thrust far, far down at the bottom of the waste paper basket. I’ve been in the staff toilet after her and I know.”
This made me laugh so hard! We all know that person.

Some audiobook narrators have such off putting voices, I’ll pass on the audio if I see them listed as readers. I’m looking at you, Xe Sands! I find her cadence and delivery just really bizarre.

Chapter 3-Interlude 5. THIS is why I enjoy reading books I know nothing about! I assumed this was a cozy little book about nature. Certainly wasn’t expecting what unfolds in Alice and Mary’s story. I’m absolutely smitten, this is so good!!!💗

This is the second trilogy I’ve read by RJ Barker in which the lead male character is bisexual, something that’s not often done in high fantasy that’s written by men who are married to women. More of this, please!

Rereading because it’s fucking fabulous and once is simply not enough.

“I descend to the dining room for breakfast with the masters, observing from my end of the table as they exchange small cruelties. At eight thirty sharp breakfast is removed, as is my will to live.” 😂

Rereading because the audiobook hindered my enjoyment and appreciation the first time around. Barker’s Tide Child/Bone Ship trilogy was one of my favorite reads of 2025, this deserves another shot.

“This is insane,” Volga protests with wide eyes. “He hid in a leviathan, Darrow—“

“Is apparently a werewolf who eats warlords and shits nightmares. But he likes me. He trusts me. I should be nothing to him. A rat. But he saw my worth. Ephraim, Ragnar, Fa. Don’t pin it on all the daddies. You face the stains you put on your hands. This is it. Who are you, Volga?” -Lyria

Wish so badly that I could see the Marie Antoinette Style exhibiton in person. Since that’s not happening, this book’s the next best thing! The Victoria & Albert Museum have done a phenomenal job and this book is absolutely stunning.😍

“You have the cameras for his wife? Prime. Castrate him. Fuck him bloody in the ravine. Before you slit his throat, feed him his cock.” The Fear Knight sits in the sand to watch them rape me as Heliopolis falls. The slaveknights toss me to the ground and shove my face in the sand as the rest watch.
-This is what happens when Darrow brings an Iron Rain without Sevro?! He needs to be rescued by The Goblin, stat!

“Pandora was a fiction, written by men, to blame the miseries of the world on women.”

I am the walking dead. Woe to those who cross my shadow. -Darrow