Happy Wednesday!
However, to start, its that time of the Week again! WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme that was revived by Taking on a World of Words. I like it cause it is fairly simple but allows me to check in with my reading but also with you!
WWW Wednesday asks just three questions:
WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING?
WHAT BOOK HAVE YOU RECENTLY FINISHED?
WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU WILL READ NEXT?
Perilous Times
Thomas D. Lee
Release Date: 24/5/2023
About the book:
An immortal Knight of the Round Table faces his greatest challenge yet—saving the politically polarized, rapidly warming world from itself—in this slyly funny contemporary take on Arthurian legend.
Legends don’t always live up to reality.
Being reborn as an immortal defender of the realm gets awfully tiring over the years—or at least that’s what Sir Kay’s thinking as he claws his way up from beneath the earth yet again.
Kay once rode alongside his brother, King Arthur, as a Knight of the Round Table. Since then, he has fought at Hastings and at Waterloo and in both World Wars. But now he finds himself in a strange new world where oceans have risen, the army’s been privatized, and half of Britain’s been sold to foreign powers. The dragon that’s running amok—that he can handle. The rest? He’s not so sure.
Mariam’s spent her life fighting what’s wrong with her country. But she’s just one ordinary person, up against a hopelessly broken system. So when she meets Kay, she dares to hope that the world has finally found the savior it needs.
Yet as the two travel through this bizarre and dangerous land, they discover that a magical plot of apocalyptic proportions is underway. And Kay’s too busy hunting dragons—and exchanging blows with his old enemy Lancelot—
to figure out what to do about it. In perilous times like these, the realm doesn’t just need a knight. It needs a true leader. Luckily, Excalibur lies within reach.
But who will be fit to wield it?
With a cast that includes Merlin, Morgan le Fay, the Lady of the Lake, and King Arthur himself—all reimagined in joyous, wickedly subversive fashion— Perilous Times is an Arthurian retelling that looks forward as much as it looks back . . . and a rollicking, deadpan-funny, surprisingly touching fantasy adventure.
I love the Authurian Legends but I have always struggled to find a retelling I love. I am only a few chapters in and I think this might be the retelling I have been looking for.
Yellowface
R. F. Kuang
Release Date: 25/5/23
About the book:
Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in publishing. But Athena’s a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn’t even get a paperback release. Nobody wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.
So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during World War I.
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song–complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.
But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.
With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface takes on questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation not only in the publishing industry but the persistent erasure of Asian-American voices and history by Western white society. R. F. Kuang’s novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable.
You can read my Review HERE
Death at the Chateau
Iam Moore
Follet Valley Mystery #3
Release Date: 1/6/23
About the book:
Richard Ainsworth’s French B&B has been taken over by a production company shooting a historical film at the Château de Valençay. But everything grinds to a halt with the sudden passing of an actor under suspicious circumstances.
To get to the bottom of things, Valérie Dorçay and Richard offer catering services to the hastily resumed production. There they discover that the vanity, duplicity and murder of an 18th century French court is nothing compared to that of a 21st century film set, with more heads yet to roll.
I read this rest of this series earlier this year and really enjoyed them so I am excited to get to this one.
So that is my WWW post for this week. I will see you next Wednesday to update you. What are you reading this week? Have you finished anything lately you loved?
I would love to chat all things bookish with you! You can comment down below or find me on Twitter or Goodreads!
Happy Reading!
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