Here we go for a quick weekly reading update and recap on what we've put away this week during my Indie September Sprint! I've been trying to read through more of my indies and I fear I have too many things on my plate that may prevent me from realizing success, but it's not going to stop me!

Anyway, let's begin.

What Blood Remembers by C. William Phillips

Full disclosure, Will is a close personal friend of mine and I love the guy a lot. He originally asked me to read this MONTHS ago before we were very close and in September I knew he had to be near the top of my list with this book.

When I tell you I was floored by this book. I never see indie thrillers and this was my first one, but now I don't think I can read any more ever. This was so good. I would put his prose in the same group as S.A. Cosby's. The story was fraught and panic-inducing, brilliantly paced, and breathless. He wrote villains you can understand, even if you don't agree with them. He also wrote heroes who were nothing heroic and a complex relationship between a young man and his father that ironed out on a road trip for revenge. This was a thriller about loss and connection and what we will do for the people we love.

I think this is a book I'm going to encourage folks to read much more often. It was nothing like what I expected in the most fun, wonderful way.

Child of the Night Guild by Andy Peloquin

Another very close, personal friend of mine! Andy is one of the most wonderful human beings I've ever met in the books space. So imagine my confusion when he decided to personally attack me with this book. Wow. What a freaking BOOK. I didn't expect this at all. The writing style, the structure, the pacing, the voice, the characters? This was so strong and so good I couldn't stop. I finished it in two days. I literally forewent my daily Malazan chapter to keep pulling apart this one.

I was engrossed completely in this grim, dark world he created where the Night Guild runs the streets and Ilana must figure out how to be of use to them or die trying. It was brutal and ruthless, but clear eyed and thoughtful. It showed the way tragedy shapes a young person and the full weight of a bitter world as it crushes someone under its foot. I cried, DM'd him about how mad I was, and then immediately began book two.

Thief of the Night Guild by Andy Peloquin

Which brings me to Book 2 of Queen of Thieves. This follow up was spectacular, it lost none of its momentum and gave me so much more of the intricacies of Ilana. It gut punched me from the outset and never let up. I held my breath, I gasped, I feared for everyone who appeared on the page, and I never once had a moment I felt lulled or could skip. Everything mattered. This is a heist book and a breathtaking adventure book and a corrupt guild politics book and a book about a woman who will survive no matter the costs. And yes, I finished it in two days.

He Who Ate The Wild by G.J. Terral

If ever there was a love letter to Princess Mononoke, this is that book. But it's also much, much more than that. While Terral has so much imagery from that movie, he also has his own story and his own beauty that he infuses so strikingly into this book. It's about Ku and his coming of age under the mantel of grief and loss, his otherness and how he is set apart from the people he desperately wants to be close to. Terral takes the landscape he created and brings it to life with effervescent language and a raw, brutal perspective on grief that I rarely get to see anywhere. As someone who recently lost a parent, this bit into pieces of me in the best possible way. I felt seen by the way he weaves a tapestry of loss and what happens to the people who are left behind in its wake.

Permutations by Jessica Coronado

I can't say I've ever sat down to read a hard sci-fi book in the indie space, but this one really got to me. Coronado built a deft, twisting story that relied on plausible science while working in philosophy, religion, and history in a way I really loved. This book made me settle under my blanket and use my brain more than I have in a while. Her explanations of theories and schools of philosophical thought were done smartly and accessibly while still continuing to trust the intellect of her readers. I watched Aiden grow while he was thrust into universe after universe in this philosophy heavy version of Dark Matter that took the journey of multiverse theory and quantum physics inward to the main character instead of outward into a story about action.

I had moments where I needed to think about it and found myself internally arguing with the philosophy or perspective, but that is the hallmark of a well communicated argument. As someone who deeply enjoys science fiction that makes me work for it, I appreciated this book a lot more than I expected to.

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I had a much slower reading week with a few projects coming to a head that I've hunkered down with and, honestly, I have been buried in my phone more than usual lately. I have a lot on my mind and a ton of things waking me up in the middle of the night, which makes it hard to concentrate on reading like I want to. But that's okay! I talk all the time about how fine it is to have a slight slump and, while not ideal, all of our TBRs are made up and we can take as long as we want to go through them.

Transparently, I'm working through the beta read suggestions on my completed manuscript, I'm finishing the last four chapters of my second book, I'm apartment shopping, I'm in the gym 4 days a week, I have friends I make plans with and love, I'm working through a paid writing project I hit the halfway mark on, I have a full time job, and I'm currently talking to some folks in the publishing world about some major opportunities.

I have a lot of things on my plate and I can feel myself rebelling as I sit down to read in favor of a moment of TV or catching up on an anime I want to rewatch or something—and that's alright. Life is a tide that ebbs and flows in a hundred directions. Right now, it's ebbing around my ability to sit and read. Tomorrow, that could change.