Welcome to Episode 10 of Turn the Page: The Indie Book Podcast!
Join us for a festive indie book wrap-up for 2024. I'll chat about my top indie book picks of the year, the books I'm looking forward to in 2025, and my usual monthly reading wrap-up. We'll also dive into reading goals for next year and some exciting reading challenges you might enjoy. Plus, I'll review my first Butterfly Book Box, share some awesome bookish Christmas gifts, and tease next week's special indie author guest. Subscribe and stay tuned! Listen Here:Show Notes:
Here are all the links included in this episode.
Read the transcript:
Kay M. Weston: Welcome to episode 10 of Turn The Page: The Indie Book Podcast. Happy holidays to all of you, whatever you celebrate. The podcast is a bit later in the month than usual as I admittedly forgot to record amidst all the festivities, but I'm here now with a hopefully fun and festive 2024 indie book wrap-up for you. I'm going to be chatting about my top indie books of 2024 and the books I'm looking forward to reading in 2025, as well as my usual monthly reading wrap-up.
I'm also going to be talking reading goals and sharing some fun reading challenges you might enjoy next year, as well as sharing a review of my first Butterfly Book Box, and waxing lyrical about some of the lovely bookish gifts I had for Christmas. Plus, I'll be teasing our next indie author guest who'll be coming along to chat about their books next week. So, stay tuned for all of that and more, and if you are enjoying the podcast, please do consider subscribing and sharing it with your friends. As it is the holiday season. I first wanted to drop a very quick mention about one of my short stories, Grim and Bear It. It's a super short, festive and queer story about the Grim Reaper and her Christmas-obsessed girlfriend, and what happens when she decides to bring Christmas to the underworld. It's one of 10 short stories in my short story collection, Spellbound, available for just 99p from Amazon or Kobo. It's also in Kobo Plus if you'd like to give it a try. It's a fun, a bit of a fun romp through the underworld. It's got Hades in it, it's quite a fun festive read if you like that kind of thing. So, I wanted to kick off the podcast with the books that I've been reading lately. There's not loads as it's been a super busy month with work and also family time and just getting ready for the holidays, since we have two birthdays, including my own in the two weeks around Christmas and new year, so it's a really hectic time of year for us. I am still reading October Darlings by Wendolyn Baird, I mentioned that last month, but I haven't read it much over the last few weeks as it didn't really feel like a festive read. It's a bit spookier than I'd anticipated, so I'm, sort of, saving that right now for days when it's not so dark since I do get creeped out really easily. I've been really enjoying reading the Indie Bites Anthologies, which I've mentioned a few times now on the podcast. I've enjoyed some really great stories from their Wishes & Wizards collection lately. A new favourite is, To Grant a Wish by Katherine A. Darling. It's such a fun, cozy fantasy style romp about an apprentice wizard who must grant a grand, important wish in order to complete his training. The problem is though that none of the wishes seem grand enough until the king and the prince come knocking at the door with a special request, one that forces the apprentice wizard and the prince to spend more time together. It's such a fun and adorable short story. I didn't want it to end, but I've since found a few books by this author that I'm hoping to read soon because I just really enjoyed the writing style and the characters and everything. I'm also currently reading Oak King Holly King by Sebastian Nothwell. This is a historical fantasy fae story. If you missed my chat with Sebastian on the podcast last month, you can go and check that out at any time, and Sebastian does explain a little bit about what Oak King Holly King is about as well as their other books. It was great fun, and just hearing Sebastian talk about his worlds and characters had me wanting to read this one. So far, I'm thoroughly enjoying it. It's made all the more fun since it's a winter solstice story and that's around the time I started reading it. I do like the historical setting and that the characters flipped between the mortal and the fae realms, and I'm just about getting to the part where everything feels like it's going to, sort of, kick off or go a bit wrong for the characters. So, I'm excited to see where it goes and also how the secondary characters, who are all interesting in their own right, fall into place within the main story and also in their own character arcs as well. But that's it for me this month, so what about you? What indie authored books have you been reading lately? You can write to me at [email protected] or reach me on social at @myendlessshelf to let me know. So, those of you who tuned in last month when I was on the hunt for book boxes and bookshops, featuring books by indie authors, might remember that I joined the waiting list for the Butterfly Book Club, which is a UK indie book box offering both fantasy and romance boxes each month. I joined the fantasy box waitlist and was really excited to get my invite pretty quickly, and was able to join in time for the December box. The December theme was "A Crown Stolen" and they teased that it would feature Wyverns, which I've been saying wrong for a very long time. Other than that, I stayed away from spoilers for this box as I wanted it to be a surprise, and I'm really glad I did because the book and the box are stunning. The book is The Dagger and the Forbidden Heir by Emilia Jae. I've not heard of this one before, but it sounds interesting. The only downside for me personally is just that it's the first book in a series, which I don't really like in book boxes because of either the lack of, or cost of matching versions of the rest of the books in the series. So, I do tend to prefer standalones in book boxes, but that really is my one and only, very, very small gripe. The book itself is gorgeous. It has a gold foil dust jacket, sprayed top and bottom edges. A digital printed fore edge, which matches the special item that came with the book, which was a really nice touch actually. It has a really pretty hard cover under the dust jacket, featuring a very large Wyvern, as well as one of the characters from the book, and it has customer papers too. And that's just the book itself. Inside the box, there's a signed book plate, a bookmark that matches the book, an invitation to the read along and then read along prompt cards as well, which is quite fun. It's a cute idea. There's a small letter from the author on the back of a card print of the endpapers, and then the mystery item, which in this box was a small letter opener style dagger that matched the digital edge of the book, which was the dagger as well. I've actually got about four or five small bookish daggers that I've had from book boxes in the past, but this one's easily my favourite. It's so Gothic and beautifully detailed, there's a wolf head on top of the dagger. It's really gorgeous, and I was, I was really sad to find out that the items are being discontinued, especially as this was my first one. But I think they polled subscribers and everyone, or at least the majority, opted to ditch the items in favour of a more exclusively designed book. I don't actually know how they're going to make a more exclusively designed book, it's already pretty cool. Maybe they'll add ribbons and some, I don't know, overlays and things? I mean, that'd be awesome. So yeah, we'll see. They've also lowered the cost a little bit to even out the new shipping cost. So, when I subscribed, there was no shipping to the UK, and it's, I think in January going up to like £2 or something, so a very, very small shipping cost increase, but the box itself, I think goes down to even that out. But yeah, overall, I'm really happy with this box. I'm really looking forward to reading the book, which promises a forbidden romance with a strong female lead and wyverns. So, I'm getting Throne of Glass vibes, but we'll see where it goes. I haven't taken part in a read along for years, so I'm hoping I can join in with that too, but we'll see how work commitments fall in. For now though Butterfly Book Club is waitlist only, but in my experience, at least, it really wasn't a long wait until I got my invite, and I think on the website, it says that they are aiming for no one to be on the wait list for more than a month. So, if you subscribe now, that's probably a pretty good time. You might get the February box, if not the January one. The themes look great too and you can always see what the book is going to be in advance because they announce it on Instagram. So, if you don't want to know, avoid Instagram. If you do want to know, go and check it out. If you have any other book subscription box recommendations for me, that feature books by indie authors, please do let me know. Alrighty, now onto my favourite indie books of 2024. I've read a lot of great books by indie authors this year, and it's been difficult to narrow them down, especially as I've discovered some amazing new authors that I've never read before. I've tried to narrow it down to my top three and apologies if you're a regular listener, because you've most likely heard me waxing on about them all year. First up is Kit & Basie by Tess Carletta. I read this book back in March and just fell head over heels for the characters, the setting, the writing style, and the low key magic. Despite starting on a really sad note, it's such a sweet, uplifting read, and I'm really excited actually to check out patchwork, which is the novella sequel, to see what happens to the characters next. I've read an alternate universe version of this story that the author released. I think it was called Drop A Line. That was good too, but I just want to sort of continue the canonical kind of timeline and just see how that goes. But yeah, I'm excited to see what this author does next. She is working on something new that she's been teasing on Instagram. I can't remember for the life of me what it is, but I'm sure I will read that too. So, yeah, that was a great one and that one's kind of stuck with me all year, so it definitely was the first one to go on the list. The Tenfold Tenants by EV Belknap is next up. This book is a found family, paranormal fantasy about a sort of halfway house full of supernatural beings, all trying to coexist together, and forced to hide their true identities when a human suddenly moves in. Much to the annoyance of the house caretaker, Corvinian Hark, who's got his own issues to deal with. This book was a lot of fun. I love the cast of characters and the author's take on having a villain main character was really cool, especially because that villain, sort of, defies expectations. A few months ago, EV then released Stake Around and Find Out, which is a vampire fantasy story. That sounds like a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to checking that out. If you do want to find out more about EV's books, tune in next week for a special episode, as EV joins me to chat about writing, found family, and what she's working on next. My third top choice then is A Rival Most Vial by R.K. Ashwick. As a DND lover, this book was heaps of fun. After reading Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree and just falling in love with the cosy fantasy genre, this book was just perfection. It features a really sweet enemies to friends to lovers romance, great magic, fun friendships, and plenty of TTRPG style adventure. So, it really sort of fed the DND geek in me. I did also want to mention two other things really quickly. They're not books, but they are amazing ways of discovering new indie authors. And they are the Indie Bites Fantasy Magazine and the Indieverse Book Awards. Discovering these this year has been like a breath of fresh air, giving me way more opportunities to find books by indie authors than I could have just by searching myself, and it's sort of broken up that monotony of just traditionally published books filling up my feed all the time. So, those are great, and I'd highly recommend that you check them out. So, now as we approach the end of 2024, and looking ahead to the new year, there are a lot of books I'm looking forward to reading. So, here's just a few of the indie books that have grown my TBR this year. The Day Death Stopped by Rebecca Thorn. I know that Rebecca Thorn has some books out with a traditional publisher, but this is one of her indie published books. You might know her from, You Can't Spell Treason Without T, I believe. That's one of the traditionally published ones. It used to be indie, now trad. Again, I think it's mostly like cosy fantasy. The Day Death Stopped sounds great and promises to be a magic filled, urban fantasy with LGBTQ rep, which sounds cool. I haven't read an urban fantasy for a while, so I'm looking forward to that one. Practical Potions and Premeditated Murder by Wren Jones is the first book in a cosy mystery series about witches. This is a completely new to me author who was recommended to me on Amazon, just because I'd read something else. I think possibly A Rival Most Vial by R.K. Ashwick, and I think this was recommended to me because of that. So, I haven't read anything by this author before. I haven't heard of the book before, I haven't looked at the reviews, but the description sounds cool as does the title. So, I'm looking forward to checking that one out. The Blood-Born Dragon by J.C. Rycroft is very high up on my TBR because my sister Sophie can't stop recommending it to me. She read it, I think last month or the month before and hasn't shut up about it since, so I take that as a good sign to read it. It's a lesbian romantasy with dragons that my sister promises me is filled with humour also. So yeah, that one is very, very high up on the TBR, it's going to be probably one of the first ones that I read next year. Memory of Tea and Magic by Katherine A. Darling. I did mention this author earlier as it was one of the authors I discovered through the Indie Bites Magazine. It's a queer cozy fantasy, featuring an enemies to lovers romance, with a twist when the main character suffers amnesia and doesn't remember that they're enemies anymore. I already love the sound of this. I loved Darling's short story and can't wait to read a longer story of theirs. It just sounds really fun, and I really want to read that one. I'm also looking forward to reading A Captured Cauldron by R.K. Ashwick, which is the sequel to A Rival Most Vile, Patchwork by Tess Carletta, which I already mentioned, and Stake Around and Find Out by EV Belknap. But what about you? I'd love to hear what indie books are on your TBR for 2025. Let me know on Instagram or threads, you'll find me at @myendlessshelf, or you can write to me at [email protected]. As well as adding more books to my TBR, it's also that time of year when I, like many of you, tend to review reading goals or hide from them. I typically use Goodreads to track my reading goals, and while I am short on my goal this year, I'm optimistic that next year will be even better. I am also thinking of reopening my Storygraph account next year. For those not familiar, it's a more aesthetically pleasing reading app, as opposed to Goodreads, and it's very much designed for mood readers, which is very good for me. I moved away from it a while back, just through sheer lack of time, and just because I think Goodreads has become the default. But I'm thinking of restarting over there soon and trying to tailor the recommendations that it gives to me to indie books or seeing how well I can do that anyway. I'm also hoping to tie this in with a reading challenge that I spotted on Instagram a couple of days ago, posted by @RidleyReadsThings, who's one of my absolute favourite bookstagrammers. I just love their feed, especially as they post a lot of DND, Critical Role, and Arcane bookish content as well. So, recently Ridley has set up quite a few challenges over on Storygraph, including a Critical Role reading challenge. A Camp Half-Blood Cabin challenge for Percy Jackson fans. A Read More Fantasy in 2025 challenge and a Dungeons and Dragons reading challenge, which is the one I'm hoping to take part in. These challenges seem like a lot of fun, and Ridley has done a great job of making them exciting but not restrictive so that you have the freedom to still read whatever you like. I think the first one for the Dungeons and Dragons challenge is something like, the rogue, which is a DND class, for those who aren't familiar. So, basically I think it's just like reading something with a sneaky character or an assassin, which obviously there's so many options. So, I think that's going to be a lot of fun. Since there are 28 books in that Dungeons and Dragons reading challenge, that's also going to be my 2025 reading goal. I might surpass it, I might not. We'll see. At the moment this year, my Goodreads goal is at 14 books. It was set to 20, it says I've read 14. I know there are books that I've binged on Kindle Unlimited that I haven't added yet. So, I think it's closer to 20, but I'm really not one of these people that gets hung up on my reading goal. For me, it's just a personal marker to try and discover as many great books as I realistically can. This year, I'm really happy that I've discovered more books by indie authors than I ever have before. So, that's more important to me, especially as I can chat about those authors and their books and recommend them to you lovely lot. To help me tackle my reading goals, I have also had some really lovely bookish gifts for Christmas. My sister gifted me an entire box of bookish goodies, including a gorgeous book sleeve, book tote bag, bookmark. One of these, one more chapter coins where you flip it to decide whether or not you should go to bed, which I really love. And a Kindle page turner, so that I can relax in bed and just turn the pages of my Kindle with a remote instead of constantly dropping it on my face, which I have done more times than I can count as I'm dozing off. I've had it set up now since Christmas day and I'm loving it. It's brought relaxing while reading to a whole new level and I don't often want to get out of bed. My other sister got me a really pretty gem bookmark, and a huge, and I mean huge, Alice in Wonderland teapot to keep me awake and fuelled while reading. Then not reading related, but as those of you who are regular listeners will know, I'm a huge Dungeons and Dragons fan, I've talked about it several times already, just in this episode. And since it's the biggest storytelling game, it's sort of relevant to the podcast. So for Christmas, I had a beautiful new set of resin dice. They're honestly so pretty, with little flowers inside and a ceramic potion bottle made by a local artist; that was from two of my friends. I also had a new game master screen and a game master mug from my partner. So, while these gifts might keep me away from reading just a little, I do get to use them during our monthly game nights, which are always a lot of fun. That's all from me for episode 10 of Turn the Page: The Indie Book Podcast. Next week, I'll be joined by EV Belknap who will be chatting about her books, where she gets her inspiration, and what she's working on right now. I'll then be back at the end of January with my first monthly wrap-up of 2025. I'll be giving you an update on how my reading challenge is going and laying out some plans for the podcast for the rest of the year. Until then, I hope you have a wonderful new year however you like to celebrate. It's my birthday as this podcast airs, and then new year, and then my partner's birthday, so I'll be busy enjoying my last week off work. The next episode with EV Belknap will go live on January 6th. So, feel free to subscribe now, wherever you get your podcasts, so that you never miss an episode. Thank you all so much for tuning in and for supporting this little indie book podcast. I'm looking forward to discovering lots more indie books and authors with you next year. As always, happy reading and keep turning the page.
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