Welcome to another TTT! This week’s topic is on animals from books (these could be mythical, real, main characters, sidekicks, companions/pets, shifters, etc.) and came through my topic request form from two people, so I knew I had to do it. Thanks for submitting this topic, @paigesquared and Jennifer Y. from Never Too Many to Read!

I love animals, but tend to panic when animals appear in books because I always worry that the author will bring harm to said animal. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve emailed an author to check on the beloved pets from the pages of their books. I haven’t had one author not respond to me yet! I just really love animals!

1. Bo the dog from Uncharted by Adriana Anders
Bo is Elias’s dog, and they meet Leo when she crashes her helicopter in their domain. People are out to kill both Leo and Elias, and they have to trek harsh Alaskan terrain to get to safety. Bo is there with them, and is so sweet and made me very nervous. I loved her.

2. Iisak the scraver from A Heart So Fierce and Broken and A Vow So Bold and Deadly by Brigid Kemmerer
Iisak is a ferocious, deadly winged creature (with a 12-foot wingspan) with claws that can slice through anything. He forms and alliance with some of the characters (who would normally be his enemies) in the last two books of the Cursebreakers trilogy. His job is to help protect and train them, and their job is to help him find what he’s looking for. He’s scary, but has a heart of gold. He’s full of wisdom and humor, and I just loved him.

3. The marmot from Enjoy the View by Sarah Morgenthaler
This marmot falls in love with Easton and follows him up the mountain, cuddling with him in his tent at night and screaming at River when she gets too close to Easton. I got a huge kick out of this cute little rodent.

4. Ulysses the moose from The Tourist Attraction by Sarah Morgenthaler
Seriously, this moose licks windows, harasses trucks, and loves the smell of fresh baked bread. He just sounds so, so sweet.

5. Toivo the husky puppy from Christmas at Frozen Falls by Kiley Dunbar
He’s the tiny little runt of the litter of new sled dogs, but he tries so hard and loves to be loved! Whenever Sylvie is sad, she goes and pets him while he snores. And he gives nose kisses! I want him.

6. Penelope’s rescued animals from The Wallflower Wager by Tessa Dare
Penelope is a spinster collects wounded or rejected/abandoned animals and even though they weren’t present in much of the story, they motivated many of her actions. She loves them more than she loves people. As the book’s back cover synopsis says, she has some kittens, “a two-legged dog… a foul-mouthed parrot… and a goat, an otter, a hedgehog…” I loved her animal family!

7. Petunia the Cat from The Trouble With Mistletoe by Jill Shalvis
This cat is a diva. Maaaajor attitude. Keane actually calls her Pita for short (which stands for Pain In the Ass). She gets into the duct work of a home and causes major issues, but I love her anyway. And I love that this little kitty has the power to bring a man to his knees and beg for mercy. So much fun.

8. The water horses from The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
“Based on the legends of the eich uisce — the Celtic water horse — The Scorpio Races take place on the tiny, fictional island of Thisby. Each November, water horses emerge from the black ocean and gallop the beach beneath the cliffs of Thisby. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line.

Some riders live. Others die.”

I just loved the myth and how these horses were portrayed. Beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

9. The baby llama in Operation White Christmas by Nikki Edwards
Baby llama!! I repeat: Baby. Llama.

10. Hennessey the dog from Starry Night by Debbie Macomber
This dog is huge, and at their first meeting he was out to defend his territory and scared Carrie half to death. But then she melts him too, and he keeps her warm at night on the couch. She talks to him a lot when Finn refuses to humor her, and I loved how she was with him!

What animals from books do you love?
I had so many more I could mention, and it was hard to keep it to just 10. 

Welcome to another TTT! This week’s topic is colorful book covers! I love a pretty, bright, colorful book cover. Seeing them on my shelf makes me so unbelievably happy, so today I’m going to share some of my favorites (and I’m going to work really hard to not feature books I’ve been talking about a lot lately)!

PLEASE NOTE: Over the last few days I’ve been switching web hosts. My site is being funny and some people are seeing the copy of my site on my old host instead of the real, live one with my new host as the nameservers try to figure out where they are going. Please bare with me! This post (colorful book covers) went up on time and I’m trying to figure out why so few people are seeing it!

To Have and to Hoax by Martha Waters
Island Affair by Priscilla Oliveras
It Had to Be You by Georgia Clark
Meet Me in Paradise by Libby Hubscher
The Dating Dare by Jayci Lee
Weekend Wife by Erin McCarthy
The Layover by Lacie Waldon
The Man Ban by Nicola Marsh
Heidi’s Guide to Four Letter Words by Tara Sivec & Andi Arndt
Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating by Christina Lauren

Welcome to another TTT! This week’s topic is all about color. For those unfamiliar with Crayola Crayons, they’re the best crayons ever and they come in a huge box that was, and still is, every child’s dream to own. Crayola has come out with special ones that were fun to collect, like fluorescents, magic scents, metallic, pearlescent, colors of the world, and even ones with glitter in them. Some of the colors were boringly named like Red, Forest Green, Light Blue, etc. But there have also been some pretty unique and creative-sounding ones like Mountain Meadow, Wild Strawberry, Fuzzy Wuzzy, Tropical Rainforest, Sunset Luau, Winter Gala, Cerulean Frost, Twilight Lavender, Confetti Sunset, Fire In the Sky, and so many more (here’s a list of them). Do any book titles sound like a color to you? Get creative with this one. Your picks don’t even need to have an actual color name in them. Just imagine your titles as colors and see what you come up with. I’m going to include what the color would look like in my list just for some extra fun.

Oh, and a note on last week’s topic: I did not mean I’d literally throw a book in to the ocean! I saw multiple posts and comments where people were mortified at the idea, so rest assured I would never throw a book into the ocean. It was all figurative!

1. Fluffy by Julia Kent
I’m picturing a roly poly little kitten with long fur that gives them a halo when the sun backlights them. So this color would be some kind of grey.

2. A Kiss at Midnight by Eloisa James
This sounds a purplish-blue sky full of stars that very faintly light up the faces of a couple in love. So maybe indigo with a silver sparkle in it!

3. In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren
This sounds like the very perfect Christmas red with a bit of shimmer to it that really pops.

4. Home Before Dark by Riley Sager
I’m picturing the sky right before the street lamps come on and a normal, quiet street that is totally fine by day, but gets eerie and has you looking over your shoulder once night begins to fall. So the color would be a slightly greyish/periwinkle/royal blue color.

5. Wanderlust by Lauren Blakely
Immediately, my mind falls to my hot pink suitcase that has traveled the world with me and the hot pink toenail polish I apply before going on a summer vacation.

6. Paradise Cove by Jenny Holiday
This is definitely a pristine turquoise. I can see it!

7. Holiday Spice by Samantha Chase
I’m picturing the chewy, warm brown molasses cookies I make at Christmas time that make the house smell of ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. A feast for the nose and the tummy!

8. Heart’s Blood by Juliet Marillier
Doesn’t this sound like a very deep, dark wine red to you?

9. Of Poseidon by Anna Banks
I’m picturing deep ocean water blue with rays of sun that hit it and shimmer. So… dark blue with a teal shimmer.

10. Firelight by Sophie Jordan
Can you put a fire into crayon form? I’m picturing a reddish orange with gold glitter that sparkles in the light.

I don’t know if it’s the artist in me or what, but I found this topic to be very therapeutic.
It was so fun to let my imagination go.
And I’d love to color with all these crayons.
Which book titles sound like colors to you?

Welcome to another TTT! This week’s topic was submitted by Beauty & Her Books, and is going to be a fun one! You can want to throw a book into the ocean for a number of different reasons, both good and bad: you didn’t like it and DNFed it, you kept reading it hoping it would get better and it never did, you wish the ending had been different, it made you feel too many feels, there was a love triangle (or maybe said love triangle ended with the main character ending up with the person you didn’t them to end up with), it ended on a cliffhanger and you’re dying, there was a plot twist that messed with your mind, you thought you had figured out how things would end and the author outsmarted you, something made you mad, a character made a bad choice, etc.

If your reasons are all negative ones, that’s ok! We’re allowed to not like books! Part of a reader’s journey is not liking some of the books they read. Just please be careful with spoilers! Funny thing is, almost all of my picks for this prompt were read years ago when I predominately read YA. I don’t have these kinds of reactions to the adult books I read now, and I wonder why.

1. Caribbean Cruising by Rachel Hawthorne
This excerpt from my review had me laughing because I literally mentioned throwing the book into the ocean.
“When I wasn’t downright annoyed at this book, I was bored. I’ve been on cruises. MANY. There is SO much more to write about than this. I can list countless numbers of interesting cruise ship plots. This one just made me want to throw it overboard.”

2. Kissed by An Angel Trilogy by Elizabeth Chandler
I read this as a paperback bundle of all three books and was liking it until the last 100 or so pages (so this was probably in book 3). Then, all of a sudden animal abuse was thrown in. It was totally unnecessary to the storyline, and made me so unbelievably sad and mad that I threw the book away and blacklisted the author. If an author does this once, they could easily do it again.

3. Holiday Spice by Samantha Chase
Don’t advertise this as Christmas and then not give me any Christmas!! I need Christmas carols, lights, trees, a Hallmark movie on paper.

4. Lost Girls by Merrie DeStefano
The book has so much depressing content. If you want the big spoiler that I wish I’d known before I’d read it, read my review!

5. Love Her Madly by M. Elizabeth Lee
I’m a very character-driven reader, and I HATED the two main characters. They are awful awful people and have the most toxic, creepy friendship.

6. The Trouble with Destiny by Lauren Morrill
This book is riddled with inaccuracies about cruising. AND the animal smilies made me want to die. Here are a few:
“…shiver like a drowned chihuahua.”
“…parrot caught in a hairdryer.”
“…cat caught in a washing machine.”
“Like cats tap dancing on a chalkboard.”
Someone was compared to a “coked-up gorilla”.

7. Hello, I love You by Katie M. Stout
I was excited to learn about and experience a new culture, new scenery, new music scene, and new people. The author had an amazing opportunity to shine a positive light on the Korean culture, but instead made a mockery of them, not to mention Americans and our knowledge of cultures other than our own.

8. Just One Year by Gayle Forman
This was not the sequel ANY of us wanted to Just One Day! A novella fixed it some, but that novella should have been free after what this book put us through. lol. (But I LOVED that novella… so…)

9. Salt & Storm by Kendall Kulper
I wanted more magic and no whaling descriptions.

10. Halo by Alexandra Adornetto
Purple prose. The plot takes a back seat to the overwritten details and descriptions. This is also a total knock-off of Twilight. Swap out vampires for the angels and change the paranormal being from guy to girl and you’ve got this book. Instead of sparkling, the angels glow. Bethany even takes the train in to the city (Port Circe) to search for prom dresses, but found nothing she liked. Can we just call it Port Angeles, call Bethany Bella, and move on? This book made me write my very first super negative review ever (almost 10 years ago originally, when I wrote it for The Broke & the Bookish), and will live on in infamy in my mind as being the first book I got really mad at. LOL

Do you feel differently about any of these?
Which books have made you want to fling them into the ocean?

Welcome to another TTT! This week’s topic is Places In Books I’d Love to Live! I’m feeling very stir crazy right now, so this topic is perfect for me. There are so many places in books that I’d love to escape to, even if only for a little while. Living in these places would be an absolute dream! I’d give anything to get away right now!

Moose Springs, AK (from the Moose Springs, Alaska series by Sarah Morgenthaler)
I love this sleepy, quirky town in Alaska! They have moose (duh) and other wildlife, beautiful scenery, and such wonderful locals!

Frozen Falls Resort in Lapland, Norway (from Christmas at Frozen Falls by Kiley Dunbar)
This resort sounds amazing. It’s a series of luxurious cabins with lots of windows and skylights to view the Northern Lights. There’s a spa and husky puppies and a reindeer farm… some sexy men… It’s a magical place, with fresh clean air and beautiful scenery. I’d love to pack up and move right now.

Cruise ship (from The Gem Thief by Sian Ann Bessey)
This fancy cruise ship travels the Mediterranean! I’d love to live in the lap of luxury while my floating home took me to Italy and Greece and anywhere else I chose. Cruising is the best way to see the world.

Tuscany (from Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch)
I’ve been to a couple cities in Tuscan Italy, and it’s a beautiful area. And there’s so many places I want to see and revisit. A little villa in the country would be a great place to call home.

The Night Court (from A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas)
Rhysand. Need I say more? Also, it sounds beautiful.

Snow Crystal Resort (from the O’Neil Brothers trilogy by Sarah Morgan)
Another resort with cozy cabins that’s beautiful in the snow! Does it come with an O’Neil brother I can fall in love with?

Florence, Italy (from Love, Lucy by April Lindner)
I know I already said Tuscany up above, but I’d also love to live in the heart of Florence: one of my favorite Italian cities!

Cinque Terre, Italy (from Wish You Were Italian by Kristin Rae)
I just love Italy, ok? And I’ve never visited Cinque Terre, but the pictures are gorgeous and I would LOVE to live there and explore for a few years.

The undersea world of Marin (from Captivate by Vanessa Garden)
It is gorgeous and colorful and sparkling and so unique! The city has rivers and gondolas and a modern colosseum where people go to watch criminals get thrown to the sharks in a big aquarium-like tank. When the look up to the sky they see the ocean instead. Their world is lit and warmed by light crystals that sparkle, and oxygen is brought down to them through air shafts. There’s a garden and a park with real grass. I could go on and on. I’m in love with this place.

Spindle Cove (from the Spindle Cove series by Tessa Dare)
I believe I’m a lady with a delicate constitution who needs some sea air and a romance with a visiting male suitor…