The Saucy Wenches Book Club

“Gods, man, don't you start now,' I said softly. 'We're going to get a terrible reputation if we just keep travelling across the countryside crying all the time.”

The ocean swelled around us in wild, terrifying chaos. I needed him. I needed his fierce brutality to conquer the waves and take us to {spoiler}. I needed his frost and his bite and his unrelenting fury to power us through the storm.  The Paper Swan ~~Leylah Attar

The Visitor  is the best book in Graveyard Queen series to date. It was full of suspense, mystery and surprises. Amelia Grey continues to be a heroine who will seek out answers. No matter what the cost.  This series is one of those gems that you wish more people were reading. It provides that kind of tension that ensnares the reader so they don't know what is going to happen next. Often I was waiting with baited breath to see what would happen next. It's also probably the fastest I've read a book all year. I just couldn't stop myself from turning the pages. The Visitor is a very welcomed addition to the series. The series can't be read as a standalone. You need to know what events have occurred in the previous books to understand the present. I appreciate it when an author knows that the majority of their readers have already read the previous books and therefore don't need to much recapping. Spoilers for previous books after the jump.

Source. A sister, a parent, a lover, an animal. It didn’t matter where you put your unconditional love, once given, the stealing away of it was an assault to every sense. Smells were the worst—they could ambush you, put you smack back in the middle of the hottest part of the grief. The scent of a peaches-and-cream candle. The brand of deodorant she’d used. Her pillow back home. The smell of the bookstore in the evening, when I’d believed Barrons was dead. When you love too hard, you can lose the will to live without them. Everywhere you look is a great big sucking absence of what you once had and will never have again. And life gets weirdly flat and too sharp and painful at the same time, and nothing feels right and everything cuts.  

I can honestly say that I don't know what to fangirl about this Friday. However, I would like to take the opportunity to write a few words. When I say 'a few words' it's exactly what I mean. I am not a big fan of writing. As a person I am more verbal and writing is very difficult for me. It's as if everything I've wanted to say left my brain and I'm left with a simple 'Hello, my name is...'. Every fangirl post has been prepared and written for weeks. I wouldn't be able to decide what to write about and I'd keep changing the topic. Or, I'd simply have no idea what to write about at all (like right now!!). But, my fellow wenches have been amazing with me. Patient and understanding in my reluctance to write long posts when I had nothing to say or write about. So this fangirl Friday is dedicated to them. I wish to thank them for covering my dates when I couldn't make deadline and for being understanding and forgiving. You ar...

She drew a circle on his chin with her fingertip. "Your skin color reminds me of a dead eel I once saw on the beach." Brishen arched an eyebrow. "Flattering, I'm sure. I thought yours looked like a mollusk we boil to make amaranthine dye." Radiance , Grace Draven

"As long as we remember a person, they're not really gone. Their thoughts, their feelings, their memories, they become a part of us."  - Justin Cronin The Twelve

Click through to see what we're reading this week! 

“Did I miss something?” I finally asked. “When were we married?” Matthew’s eyes lifted. “The moment I came home and said I loved you. It wouldn’t stand up in court perhaps, but as far as vampires are concerned, we’re wed.” “Not when I said I loved you, and not when you said you loved me on the phone—it only happened when you came home and told me to my face?” This was something that demanded precision. I was planning on starting a new file on my computer with the title “Phrases That Sound One Way to Witches but Mean Something Else to Vampires.” ~ Deborah Harkness, A Discovery of Witches

“There are few things in the world that he loves more than this House, Merit. Possibly only one.” At the knowing gaze in his eyes, my cheeks flushed. “And in all the world, he entrusted one girl, one scholar, with the right to defend it.”  ―  Chloe Neill ,  Biting Cold

I was going to call the below post a Top Ten List. However when I pondered calling it a Top Ten List, it didn't really make sense to me. The list of books have just been sitting there on my To Be Read (TBR) list waiting for me to read them. Languishing there waiting for me to give them a crack. Unfortunately you might find the reasons they are neglected very mundane. I'll get to them one day! Let's dive in a see what I'm not reading that I intended to one day.

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past year or so (Which is totally cool with us. We don't care about your habitation choices, as long as you read.) you know that the musical Hamilton is the hottest thing on Broadway, in music, and pretty much in America. So far the thing has won the Pulitzer Prize, a Grammy, been nominated for an obscene amount of Tonys, and is sold out well into next year. Anne told you about her love of the show , which she hasn't seen yet like most of America. But we're all obsessed anyway. I'm not going to rehash Anne's post, since she already covered it well. I'm going to focus on the general inappropriateness of it all, and objectify the actors in the major roles. Because in addition to being insanely talented, they are hot. Seriously, that is one good looking cast. Come with me through the jump for some Saucy Wenches trademarked man candy. And some woman candy, because the chicas are gorgeous, too. Enjoy!

Hope is a hollow backbone. It can't always carry the weight of reality. And I was tired of propping it up. I was tired of mending it each time it snapped. You can only cheat death so many times; you can only fight so long, so hard.  The Paper Swan ~~Leylah Attar

You know how sometimes you tell yourself that you have a choice, but really you don't have a choice? Just because there are alternatives doesn't mean they apply to you. The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey Source

Click through to see where we're going this week! 

“Attack dolphins. What the hell was that? Dolphins were supposed to be nice.”

We lie to ourselves about the truth.  We tell ourselves we've got this... when we don't have it at all . Ugly Love ~~Colleen Hoover

Imagine a mannered Brontë-era classic — let’s say Jane Eyre — in which our gently-bred heroine serially endures the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune with poise and aplomb ... plus clear personal boundaries, the protective instincts of a momma grizzly, and a very sharp knife. Jane Steele , dear reader, is just such a book. It is a clever and darkly humorous homage to the beloved Charlotte Brontë novel that allows its heroine to stretch beyond the usual gender-based confines of aristocratic 19th-century England ... into something more swashbuckling and a bit Dexter -ish. Jane Steele often ponders the similarities between her own life and that of her favorite book heroine, Jane Eyre. Their lives follow parallel paths, and Jane Eyre’s words mirror Jane Steele’s own bleak outlook on life: Why was I always suffering, always brow-beaten, always accused, forever condemned? Why could I never please? Why was it useless to try to win anyone’s favor? But Jane Steele has a b...

“He shot her an incredulous glance. “When do you sleep?” She glanced deliberately at her watch. “Sometime between fucking and ruling the world.”  Source. Alisha Rai's A Gentleman in the Street

“Are you naked?” “The bed made me do it.” “My bed made you get naked?” “He’s a real pervy bastard, but who was I to argue?” Tapping the Billionaire by Max Monroe

I love when The Wenches are all reading the same book or series, but it's also so fun when our choices are all over the board. As they are this week. A couple of favorites, a new fantasy series, some delicious romance, an intriguing new take on a Classic, and a little mystery are all to be found on our list this week. Click through to see who's reading what. 

A word of advice: do not ever kill for love, or you will find yourself tethered, staked to the ground when your cleanest instincts require you to run for your life without a backwards glance. Killing for love is one of the most tangled acts you can commit, reader, in an already twisted world. ―  Jane Steele , Lyndsay Faye

We jumped a creek and heard some twigs snapping nearby. We crouched behind a boulder, but it was only the Stoll brothers tripping through the woods and cursing. Their dad was the god of thieves, but they were about as stealthy as water buffalo. The Battle of the Labyrinth ( Percy Jackson and the Olympians , book 4), by Rick Riordan. 

It doesn't really need to be said that we are in the last year before the final Chicagoland Vampires book releases, but that looming event, combined with the spectacular penultimate book, Midnight Marked , have some of the Wenches taking our time revisiting the journey of our favorite vampires. I recently told you about my reread of my favorite CLV book, Twice Bitten , here , and Anne and Zee are going to be reviewing Some Girls Bite and Friday Night Bites soon, and Anne has had questions in posts here , here , and here . But I just finished Hard Bitten and Drink Deep , and I have lots of thought about these two books. First of all, it is imperative that one reads both books together. You simply cannot stop, or even pause between the two because Hard Bitten is devastating. So if you haven't gotten this far in the series (and really, what are you waiting for?) then read HB and DD and then join us back here for some super spoilery discussion. If you are well past these t...

First of all, head over to amazon and buy Alisha Rai's Be My Fantasy IMMEDIATELY here . Best 99c you'll ever spend! (You can check out other links to purchase it on her page here .) Secondly, you should know by now that those of us who have read Alisha Rai's work are in love with her. She was on our best reads of 2015 list  and our favorite new authors list . And if you haven't read her books, I am so disappointed! You HAVE  to! Literally pick up any of them and you will also fall in love. And if you don't, well : Well, you could. But we'd just go on about how much you suck for not loving these. If you need some gentle persuasion, check out our reviews here , and here . You're welcome. Click through to read more.

"You can run. You can keep running to the ends of the earth. But I won't be far behind you." "Ethan--" "No. I will never be far behind you." He tipped up my chin so that I could do nothing else but look back into his eyes. "Do the things you need to do. Learn to be a vampire, be a warrior, to be the soldier you are capable of being. But consider the possibility that I made a mistake I regret--and that I'll continue to regret that mistake and try to convince you to give me another chance until the earth stops turning." He leaned forward and pressed his lips to my forehead, my heart melting even as my more rational side harbored suspicions. "No one said love was easy, Sentinel." Hard Bitten ~~Chloe Neill 

But if I'm it, the last of my kind, the last page of human history, like hell I'm going to let the story end this way. I may be the last one, but I am the one still standing. I am the one turning to face the faceless hunter in the woods on an abandoned highway. I am the one not running but facing. Because if I am the last one, then I am humanity. And if this is humanity's last war, then I am the battlefield. The 5th Wave  by Rick Yancey Source

“The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to seekers after it.”

Click through to see what we're reading this week! 

Luc walked to the edge of the mat and looked down at the tatami. "There are nights when he seems more absent than others." The grief in his voice brought immediate tears to my eyes. I looked away to keep them from falling, but didn't disagree with the heart-clenching sentiment. "There are nights when the world is completely askew because he's gone," I agreed. Drink Deep ~~Chloe Neill 

I'm back with the second half of my questions from my reread of Friday Night Bites . Check out the questions I had from Some Girls Bite and Part One of Friday Night Bites . I'm just going to jump right into these, so keep reading after the break!​