Shannon Kay's Blog

I’m in the mood for classics. These editions of the Anne books are some of my favorite volumes. I feel like the designs genuinely reflect the books!

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I loved If The Fates Allow by Rainbow Rowell. This wonderful little story really spoke to me. It was such a relatable tale of our times. It took place during Christmas 2020. If the Fates Allow captured so accurately the struggle of having holidays and managing family during the pandemic. Another unexpected point of this story that I really connected to was the Nebraska grandfather. I was born and raised in California, but my grandfather was from Nebraska. He died about ten years ago, and while he was pretty different from Reagan’s grandfather, there were some things that reminded me... [Read More]

While reading the History Smashers book about The Mayflower, I remembered this Baby-Sitters Club book that I read as a kid. In Claudia and the First Thanksgiving, they put on a Thanksgiving play at the elementary school. They do lots of research to make it more historically accurate, but then parents get mad and make them change it to a “traditional” Thanksgiving story. They stealthily write “Censored” on all the posters. 

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I’m a confirmed descendant of Mayflower Pilgrims William Bradford and William Brewster. I’ve been to Plymouth and seen the museums and the Mayflower 2. There wasn’t really that much in this book that I didn’t already know about the Mayflower Pilgrims, but it still kind of messed with my head. 

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This was before coffee, dear readers. Although our research did reveal that in the ninth century, an Ethiopian goatherd named Kaldi noticed how excited his goats became after eating the beans from a coffee plant. So, really, it was before coffee was available in France, which we think is inhumane.

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I finished reading My Contrary Mary today, and it did not disappoint. More of a review of the book will be coming soon. Life and kids got in the way of my finishing it sooner, but I was excited to finish reading My Contrary Mary on my new Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition.

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The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling was a fun, fast book that felt like an adult Sabrina the Teenage Witch plus Halloweentown(yes, the Disney Channel movie). I enjoyed this modern witch romantic comedy with a tiny bit of light mystery. I liked that it had chapters in the perspective of both main characters, so I really felt that I got to know them.

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This reread probably made the most difference so far. Reading it after a complete reread of The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices made it so much better. The tie-ins with Infernal Devices just seemed much sweeter and more recognizable. I also don’t remember locking on to Julian and Emma very much when I first read this book, and their origin story is more interesting to me now that I’ve read The Dark Artifices series, which is their series. I was also able to read The Red Scrolls of Magic in it’s “chronological” position, and there are some tie-ins with... [Read More]

This vintage Nancy Drew cover has such a fall vibe. Did you read Nancy Drew?

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Earlier this year (March 2021), I read the most recent Shadowhunter book, Chain of Iron from The Last Hours series by Cassandra Clare. I loved it! I thought it might be my favorite Shadowhunter series so far. But there were some details from other books that I just wasn’t remembering. I’ve been reading Shadowhunter books since 2010, and in that time a lot has happened, including having three children. I’ve pretty much just been reading each book as it comes out. Some of them were read when I had tiny babies and my brain was fuzzy.

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