Top 5 (standalone books) Tuesday

Some of the books I used for retellings I could’ve used here too 😂 No worries! I’ll choose others 😄 GR – Goodreads, SG – The Storygraph. If I say narrated by, it means I listened to it!

Meeghan @ Meeghan Reads hands us all the super great prompts and you definitely need to look right over here to see which standalone she’ll recommend! I can tell you right now I’ll be seeing The Scorpio Races 😉😉

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Michigan vs the Boys by Carrie S. Allen (GR/SG) – When a determined girl is confronted with the culture of toxic masculinity, it’s time to even the score.
Michigan Manning lives for hockey, and this is her year to shine. That is, until she gets some crushing news: budget cuts will keep the girls’ hockey team off the ice this year.
If she wants colleges to notice her, Michigan has to find a way to play. Luckily, there’s still one team left in town …
The boys’ team isn’t exactly welcoming, but Michigan’s prepared to prove herself. She plays some of the best hockey of her life, in fact, all while putting up with changing in the broom closet, constant trash talk and “harmless” pranks that always seem to target her.
But once hazing crosses the line into assault, Michigan must weigh the consequences of speaking up – even if it means putting her future on the line. 

I don’t like sports all that much. Hockey I’ll watch gladly (field hockey mostly). Track and field, absolutely. Definitely gymnastics. Prefer soccer over cricket. Rugby… Yeah I’ll get back to you 😂

Absolutely breezed through this! Really loved it and would definitely want to sit through one of Michigan’s matches!

You Asked for Perfect by Laura Silverman (GR/SG) – Senior Ariel Stone is the perfect college applicant: first chair violin, dedicated community volunteer, and expected valedictorian. He works hard – really hard – to make his life look effortless. A failed Calculus quiz is not part of that plan. Not when he’s number one. Not when his peers can smell weakness like a freshman’s body spray.
Figuring a few all-nighters will preserve his class rank, Ariel throws himself into studying. His friends will understand if he skips a few plans, and he can sleep when he graduates. Except Ariel’s grade continues to slide. Reluctantly, he gets a tutor. Amir and Ariel have never gotten along, but Amir excels in Calculus, and Ariel is out of options.
Ariel may not like Calc, but he might like Amir. Except adding a new relationship to his long list of commitments may just push him past his limit. 

Yes, HELLO, my heart for characters who don’t think they’re good enough 😭😭😭 I kept wanting to wrap these characters up in warm, fluffy blankets and feed them tons of food 😭😭

House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland, Narrated by Eleanor Bennett (GR/SG) – ‘Dark, dangerous things happened around the Hollow sisters. Everybody knew it.’
The Hollow sisters – Vivi, Grey and Iris – are as seductively glamorous as they are mysterious. They have black eyes and hair as white as milk. The Hollow sisters don’t have friends – they don’t need them. They move through the corridors like sharks, the other little fish parting around them, whispering behind their backs.
And everyone knows who the Hollow sisters are. Because one day the three Hollow sisters simply disappeared. And when they came back, one month later, with no memory of where they had been, it was as if nothing had changed. Almost nothing, Apart from, for example, the little scar that had appeared in the hollow of their throats … and a whispering sense that something is not quite right about them, despite (or maybe because of) the terrible passion to be with them that they can exert on anybody at will…

This has cemented itself as a favourite standalone book for sure. The words and the characters dug themselves into me and the moment I finished it I wanted to go back in and basically live in the pages. 

In Deeper Waters by F.T. Lukens, Narrated by Kevin R. Free (GR/SG) –  A young prince must rely on a mysterious stranger to save him when he is kidnapped during his coming-of-age tour in this swoony adventure that is The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue meets Pirates of the Caribbean.

Prince Tal has long awaited his coming-of-age tour. After spending most of his life cloistered behind palace walls as he learns to keep his forbidden magic secret, he can finally see his family’s kingdom for the first time. His first taste of adventure comes just two days into the journey, when their crew discovers a mysterious prisoner on a burning derelict vessel.

Tasked with watching over the prisoner, Tal is surprised to feel an intense connection with the roguish Athlen. So when Athlen leaps overboard and disappears, Tal feels responsible and heartbroken, knowing Athlen could not have survived in the open ocean.

That is, until Tal runs into Athlen days later on dry land, very much alive, and as charming—and secretive—as ever. But before they can pursue anything further, Tal is kidnapped by pirates and held ransom in a plot to reveal his rumored powers and instigate a war. Tal must escape if he hopes to save his family and the kingdom. And Athlen might just be his only hope…

So I know that technically there’s no talk about this book being a The Little Mermaid retelling but to me it feels like that? Or at least a loose take on the story? 

But anyway, I absolutely LOVED this book and would definitely go for a re-read any time I’m looking for a comfort read – as this one totally is -I can tell 😄

Wild Sky by Zaya Feli (GR/SG) My Review – Tauran Darrica has been retired from the Valreus Sky Guard for four years following the Battle of the Broken Wings that resulted in the death of his dragon. Now, all Tauran wants to do is spend his days forgetting the past and gambling his way to an unsteady income.
So when his old general from the Sky Guard hunts Tauran down to request his help with staving off the increasingly aggressive wild dragon population, Tauran refuses. But a fire ruins his rented room and leaves him without a place to stay, a cund Tauran finds himself on the road to Valreus, after all.
Tauran is determined to stay as far away from dragons as he can get, but a starry-eyed young man from Sharoani, land of the wild dragons, might just ruin his plans.

Kalai Ro-Ani has spent his life watching the stars, knowing he could never reach them.
With his wild dragon Arrow, he sets out for the city of Valreus in the hope of building himself a better future than he could have stuck at the foot of the Kel Visal dragon temples.
But nobody told Kalai that only the Sky Guard is allowed to own dragons, so when Arrow kills a guard in Kalai’s defense, it looks like his adventure might be over before it can begin. But a chance encounter at the old Valreus archive offers Kalai the future he’d been hoping for. In the span of a single day, he has a home, a job, and a purpose.
In Valreus, something much bigger falls into his lap – along with a tall and striking Valrean man with a rather strange disposition.
A new, LGBT+ fantasy story from Zaya Feli, featuring dragons, aerial battles and epic journeys through dangerous wilderness.

I had honestly thought I would never be able to read a thick book again 😢 just because I was in quite a heavy reading slump… and then I read this and everything came together again 😭😭

AND ALSO DRAGONS. That’s absolutely reason enough for me 😂

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Yes, I’m an easy reader, just wave a dragon at me and I’m there! Are you a more standalone or series reader? I’m a series reader, but do appreciate a really good standalone. What are some of your favourite standalones?