This weekly meme was started by @Lauren’s Page Turners. It is now being hosted by Budget Tales Book Blog. To participate, choose a random book from your GoodReads TBR and show it off. Which sounds easy enough until you have to decide how to choose that book! I think I will use a different way each week, like picking a color or number of pages. I will let you know each week how I chose the book and then something interesting about it, like how it ended up on the list or why I want to read it. Got it? Okay let’s get started.
I am super excited about this week’s pick. I loved this author’s other books, An Enchantment of Ravens and Sorcery of Thorns, so I can’t wait to pick this one! I have luckily been given an ARC by the publishers via NetGalley and even though it doesn’t come out until October, I am pretty sure it will be the next ARC I read.
Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson
Publication Date: October 5, 2021
Summary from NetGalley:
The dead of Loraille do not rest.
Artemisia is training to be a Gray Sister, a nun who cleanses the bodies of the deceased so that their souls can pass on; otherwise, they will rise as spirits with a ravenous hunger for the living. She would rather deal with the dead than the living, who trade whispers about her scarred hands and troubled past.
When her convent is attacked by possessed soldiers, Artemisia defends it by awakening an ancient spirit bound to a saint’s relic. It is a revenant, a malevolent being that threatens to possess her the moment she drops her guard. Wielding its extraordinary power almost consumes her—but death has come to Loraille, and only a vespertine, a priestess trained to wield a high relic, has any chance of stopping it. With all knowledge of vespertines lost to time, Artemisia turns to the last remaining expert for help: the revenant itself.
As she unravels a sinister mystery of saints, secrets, and dark magic, her bond with the revenant grows. And when a hidden evil begins to surface, she discovers that facing this enemy might require her to betray everything she has been taught to believe—if the revenant doesn’t betray her first.
I just love that cover, and the summary sounds just wonderful! So dark and lovely and I am always up for stories with revenants, although these sound a bit different from others I have read about. Hopefully you already have this one on your TBR, but if not you really should!
Confessions of a Serial Reader 