Vampires Are Eternal, Reborn, and Living in Our Nightmares

~Vampires Never Get Old~
Tales With Fresh Bite
An Anthology by Zoraida Córdova, Natalie C. Parker,
Samira Ahmed, Dhonielle Clayton, Tessa Gratton, Heidi Heilig, Julie Murphy, Mark Oshiro, Rebecca Roanhorse, Laura Ruby,
Victoria "V.E." Schwab, & Kayla Whaley
Amazon ~ Powell's

Eleven fresh vampire stories from young adult fiction’s leading voices!

In this delicious new collection, you’ll find stories about lurking vampires of social media, rebellious vampires hungry for more than just blood, eager vampires coming out―and going out for their first kill―and other bold, breathtaking, dangerous, dreamy, eerie, iconic, powerful creatures of the night.

Welcome to the evolution of the vampire—and a revolution on the page.


My library has been a bit hit-or-miss with the Vampire Book Club's selections, but I was able to find this one for December. Admittedly, I wasn't in the best mental space to read books surrounding death and immortality, having lost my grandmother last year and having that wound reopened with our cat's death (cancer) just after reading the first story. But after a bit of time (and some Christmas movies & music) I was excited to dive back in and experience some new takes on one of my favorite paranormal creatures.

Alive in Her Thoughts and Dreams

~Once Upon A Dream~
Twisted Tales
Book 2
By Liz Braswell
Amazon ~ Powell's

It should be simple—a dragon defeated, a slumbering maiden, a prince poised to wake her. But when said prince falls asleep as soon as his lips meet the princess's, it is clear that this fairy tale is far from over.

With a desperate fairy's last curse infiltrating her mind, Princess Aurora will have to navigate a dangerous and magical landscape deep in the depths of her dreams. Soon she stumbles upon Phillip, a charming prince eager to join her quest. But with Maleficent's agents following her every move, Aurora struggles to discover who her true allies are, and moreover, who she truly is. Time is running out. Will the sleeping beauty be able to wake herself up?

Though these books are part of a series, they don't actually share any continuity from one to the next, so there's no risk of spoiling one with another. Likewise, there's really no need to read them in any particular order—I'm simply choosing to do so for simplicity's sake. So coming to the tale of Sleeping Beauty, which features one of my least favorite heroines but one of my most favorite villains, I had mixed feelings. Would the heroine be elevated by having more time and depth added? Would the villain be re-imagined with a(nother) sympathetic backstory? Would this story reside in my dreams, or haunt my nightmares?

We’ll Be the Villains of This Story

~City of Villains~
Book 1
By Estelle Laure
Amazon ~ Powell's

Mary Elizabeth Heart is a high school senior by day, but by night she’s an intern at the Monarch City police department. She watches with envy from behind a desk as detectives come and go, trying to contain the city’s growing crime rate. For years, tension has simmered between the city’s wealthy elite, and their plans to gentrify the decaying neighborhood called the Scar—once upon a time the epicenter of all things magic.

When the daughter of one of the city’s most powerful businessmen goes missing, Mary Elizabeth is thrilled when the Chief actually puts her on the case. But what begins as one missing person’s report soon multiplies, leading her down the rabbit hole of a city in turmoil. There she finds a girl with horns, a boyfriend with secrets, and what seems to be a sea monster lurking in a poison lake. As the mystery circles closer to home, Mary finds herself caught in the fight between those who once had magic, and those who will do anything to bring it back.

This was the one that reignited my interested to return to Disney books, essentially spawning this whole "Disember" idea. I remember seeing adds for City of Villains on Facebook early last year and being intrigued by the dark vibe. I mean, after reading a summary like that, and seeing some of the best villains on the cover, how could I pass this up? So I recommended it to my library, and lo and behold, it finally became available this December! Of course, the best laid plans went awry when I got a nasty cold (thankfully tested negative for the -19) smack dab in the middle of the month, forcing me to push back my reading and reviews a bit. Still, I hoped the magic and mystery of this city would end my year on a high note.

A Year in Review ~ 2021

Another year in the books—literally and figuratively—and I have some things I want to review about 2021. As is common among most bloggers, and many readers in general, I had a goal of how many books I wanted to read this year. which I catalogued on both GoodReads and StoryGraph. Now, both those sites count each book read in any format you enter, so the math on both sites is a little off due to my preference of reading (and reviewing) audiobooks alongside their texts... Regardless, I set my goal at a nice, even 50 books for the year. This would not only be a bit of a record for me in my post-college life, but something I hoped would fill the downtime and serve as a bit of distraction during the tumultuous year many of us have had.