Dreamy Books Abound

As I've mentioned a handful of times up here, tomorrow is our TAC Reverie event with the author, Ryan La Sala! It's going to be a lot of fun so if you're reading this and you're in the area, stop on in, January 9th, 6pm!

But, as there is currently only one Reverie, I thought I'd give you a couple of other dreamy books to pick up when you're done with it and want similar things!

Enchantée by Gita Trelease

Enchantée was a surprise hit for me in 2019, being that I had only seen it once before release day, in arc form, and because of the cover at the time it didn't really interest me. But release day came, I was already buying two others that day, and I read the summary of Enchantée and was thoroughly caught.

It's set right before the revolution, and we start with this girl named Camille, who's family was once lauded at Versailles for her father's magic. However he was also printing revolutionary pamplets on the side and was cast out for it. He fell to illness along with their mother and they were left alone, Camille, her little sister, and an angry, alcoholic older brother who keeps stealing the money she makes. That she literally makes. Because that's part of her magic, being able to change the appearance of things temporarily.

So she takes an old, beautiful dress of her mother's, changes it to be more fitting, and goes to Versailles to gamble and save her family. She gets entrenched in the lifestyle, floundering to keep up while knowing she can't just leave. She meets a boy when she's just being herself outside of Versailles who takes her up in a hot air balloon and it's so lovely, until she runs into him at Versailles.

Her brother threatens money from her, a count will expose her if she doesn't obey, and if that happens, she'd die, and her sister will be left alone, too frail to care for herself.

It's enchanting(hah), romantic, and terrifying all at once, which I think is quite similar to Reverie. The dreaminess factor of Versailles at it's peak matches up with the literal dreams of Reverie, and the characters, ah, the characters.

Needless to say, if you enjoyed Reverie, you will enjoy Enchantée. I will also note that this is the first book in a series, and book two has been pushed back to 2021 so you have plenty of time to dig into this one.

Tarnished Are the Stars by Rosiee Thor

Tarnished was a delightful read for me in December, a bit of a step away from the books I was powering through to try and clear up by TBR a bit before the end of the year. It's a swanky little sci-fi pick that's quite dreamy on it's own. There's a planet far from Earth, that they've known could replace our fallen one for a time, and above it, there is a space station where the Queen reigns, waiting for her governor to finish the job of making it inhabitable.

But Anna is one of the inhabitants of said planet, and she lives outside of the walls where the legal citizens are kept, healthy and untouched by the disease known as tarnish. She herself suffers from it, her heart supplemented by something called a ticker that she has to upkeep and upgrade as she ages.

But she has a secret she keeps from the man who saved her life with that ticker, her grandfather, and the man who keeps their little village safe too, she goes into the town where the governor lives and does illegal surgeries on those that need it, to save their lives and limbs with technology that is outlawed by the Governor and the crown.

However when the governor's own son finds her, things are thrown all out of balance. He has a ticker too, a secret kept to protect him, and he wants nothing more than to take her down to prove himself to his father.

Enter Eliza, the queen's assassin, and a woman determined to do whatever it takes to become Queen, even marrying a man she can't love.

These three collide in such a fun way that it made the story all the better when they fully began to work together, and of course in the end, which I won't spoil, it wraps it up quite nicely. This one is decidedly queer in many ways, and a stand alone, so if you just want a one time pick me up like Reverie was, this one is absolutely for you.

The Fever King by Victoria Lee

Now, this was a last minute contender for best of 2019 for me, and it's.... not dreamy in the same way as the rest. It's got a dreamy, fever like sort of feeling too it, and I've gotta stop with the accidental word play, but, I digress. The Fever King blew my mind in so many ways, and I hadn't even intended to pick it up. I wandered through the library a couple of weeks ago, and it was there, when two others I had been looking for weren't, so I said well hell, and grabbed it.

I got home and for some reason this was the one I picked up first and started reading, and I wish I could say I felt a bit more connected to the Raleigh in it, because I am North Carolinian, and I went to Raleigh a lot growing up, but I didn't start going to the downtown parts until much later in life, towards the end of my high school years, and it wasn't often.

But I blasted through this in no time, and I can tell you without a doubt, if you loved the morally grey parts of Reverie, and wanted more of that, plus a bit of modern day, this one is for you.

Noam is our protagonist, and he starts off this book as a powerless immigrant caring for his hollow father, left empty after their mother's death by the fever that ripped through the world. Killing, or if you survive it, giving you magic that changes your entire world.

You'd be hunted for sport in the rest of America, shunned, hated, but in Carolinia, you're lauded, and you go to train under the watchful eye of Lehrer, the seemingly immortal man who was once King of Carolinia, who saved everyone from a fate much worse. (apparently.)

Noam falls ill with the fever, everyone he knew besides a handful fall to it, including his father, and he wakes up with magic, Lehrer being particularly interested in him. He tries to befriend the other magic users, including Dara, one who is also firmly under Lehrer's hand, for reasons I will not spoil.

It's chaotic, it's beautifully written, and just- everything that slowly unravels over the course of this book will have you throwing yourself from your chair with a scream. It's one of those books that once you've finished reading it it's not done with you. You won't stop thinking about it, stuck to you like a lingering fever.

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I leave you now with these three lovely books, two of which are ongoing series' and will entertain you for years to come, and hope that these will at least tide you over until Ryan's next book!

If you want to know where you can get these books to best support the authors, check out Bookmarks because they ship anywhere!