Colours – Anxious Nachos

#5OnMyTBR is a bookish meme hosted by E. @ Local Bee Hunter’s Nook and you can learn more about it here or in the post announcing it. It occurs every Monday when we post about 5 books on our TBR. Thank you E. for the awesome graphic for these posts as well!

Hi everyone,

After a very busy Pride month, I am back joining in with the bookish meme #5 on my TBR! And what a week to return: this week’s theme is another cover colour theme and these are my absolute favourite to do because I love looking at pretty covers for hours. This week the theme is pastels! So here’s 5 books with pastel covers I’m hoping to read in the near future.

By Any Means Necessary by Candice Montgomery

First up is the gorgeous By Any Means Necessary, a book recommended to me by LGBTQReads for my June subscription! On Torrey’s first day as a college freshman, he gets a call that his uncle’s bee farm is foreclosing and he must decide whether to save the farm or escape his neighbourhood. As well as being a reflection of class, culture and gentrification, this book also has a BEE FARM and as I love bees, I am so keen to get to this asap.

The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling by Wai Chim

I have been meaning to read this book for so long, it’s been on my TBR for a year and I still haven’t got to it: I am the worst. The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling is all about exploring family, culture and mental illness as Anna’s mother’s depression worsens.

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

This cover is half pastel, that counts right? Yaa Gyasi is the author of Homegoing which has seen a ton of praise and I’m so ashamed to say I still haven’t read. Her second novel is about a Ghanian family in Alabama. It follows Gifty, who is studying neuroscience and researching depression and addiction. She’s trying to find an answer to the suffering in her family: her brother overdosed on heroin, and her mother is suicidal. But as she delves into the hard sciences for an answer, she also looks to her childhood faith.

Watch Over Me by Nina Lacour

We have a new Nina Lacour book coming later this year and I’m rather excited, especially when the cover looks that good. Watch Over Me is another Lacour book diving deep into lonliness, as Mila ages out of the foster care system and is offered a job on a farm where she and the other residents learn to overcome their past trauma.

The Republic of Birds by Jessica Miller

My only middle grade on the list, this is a genre I really haven’t explored at all. But The Republic of Birds looks really fun and the cover is so stunningly detailed I need to read it. This is a fantasy inspired by Russian folklore about a girl who can use magic to see into maps and has to travel to the Republic of Birds after her sister is kidnapped by the bird army.

That’s it for this week. Have you read any of these books? Let me know what you thought of them in the comments!

Hi everyone,

Welcome to Day 2 of my Spooktober week! Autumn is such a beautiful season – pretty much every time I see a leaf, I am tempted to pick it up and try preserve it so that when I one day buy a house I can paint myself, I can pick up said leaf and say ‘I want THIS colour!’ I adore all the reds and purples and oranges associated with this season, and I can’t wait to show you some gorgeous Autumny book covers! Some are from books already published, quite a few are 2020 releases, because red and gold really seems to be the theme of 2020 publishing!

Published titles

Ziggy, Stardust & Me – James Brandon

I can’t believe I still haven’t bought a copy of this, but it is TOP of my list in my next order! Set in the 70s when homosexuality is still a crime, this is a coming of age story about Jonathon as he undergoes conversion therapy to “cure” him. But then he meets Web, who turns his life around and shows him how to accept himself.

Like a Love Story – Abdi Nazemian

This is one of my favourite books of the year. It is absolutely astoundingly beautiful and emotional. Set in the 1980s AIDS crisis in the US, it follows three teens as they fall in love and learn how to be true to themselves. There is far too much to say about this book, so all I’m going to do is direct you to my full review of this title (here!) and beg you to pick up a copy of this book, because it is magnificent!

We Set the Dark on Fire – Tehlor Kay Mejia

Dahlia at LGBTQReads helped pick this book out recently, as part of her patreon subscription offer, after my request for “either a political fantasy like Descendent of the Crane or a fantasy with enemies to lovers’ to which she replied ‘How about something with both?’ Whilst I haven’t had a chance to read this book yet, I can’t wait to start!

The Deathless Girls – Kiran Millwood Hargrave

This is one of my favourite covers ever. It’s even more stunning in real life!! I was lucky enough to catch one of the special edition Waterstones editions (even if I did have to spend more on shipping it to Australia than on the book itself…), where it comes with stunning blood red sprayed edges. Brides of Dracula retelling – need I say more?!

The Poet X – Elizabeth Acevedo

I haven’t actually read this one yet, but I did read Acevedo’s second book With the Fire on High and really enjoyed it, so I’m keen to get to The Poet X soon! The way these colours all blend together is just gorgeous. I imagine this book is so so different to anything I’ve read before, as I haven’t read much poetry, but from all the reviews I’ve seen, this book sounds so powerful.

Before Mars – Emma Newman

So this one is here because of that glorious red. I love the image of the planet sort of slowly disintegrating on the cover. This was one of the books which really helped me get into science fiction this year. Emma Newman has a phenomenal way of blending discussions around mental illness into her work. Before Mars follows Anna, who has been sent to Mars to create artwork for her very rich boss. However, when she lands, she finds a note in her room warning her about the psychologist at the base. But the note is in her own handwriting… This book is part science fiction, part thriller/mystery, and I absolutely love it!

The Stars and the Blackness Between them – Junauda Petrus

A story about two girls in love. That’s it, that’s my pitch to make you go read this. Audre has been sent to America, from Trinidad, after her mother caught her with her girlfriend, the daughter of the local pastor. There she meets Mabel, a girl suffering from an illness she doesn’t know about. Together “they conjure a love that is stronger than hatred, prison, and death and as vast as the blackness between the stars.”

Empire of Light – Alex Harrow

How stunning is that cover?! The colour, the detail, it looks so dystopian and sci-fi. This book is about revolutions and magic and assassins and falling for the person you’re meant to kill.

Caster – Elsie Chapman

I’ve heard a lot of great things from a lot of book people on Twitter about Caster – and I think the cover is just amazing. There is dangerous (and illegal!) magic, gangs, tournaments, and murder mystery!

2020 titles

2020 looks like it’s going to be killing it with dark and moody Autumn covers. So here’s a selection of some of the goregous Autumnal covers for some of the books I’m looking foward to reading next year!

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I hope you enjoyed checking out all these gorgeous covers in what I really feel is like my most beautiful blog post yet, thank you all cover designers. Let me know what your favourite Autumn cover is in the comments below!

Paws out,
Rach + Draco