Kimberly Hirsh

📚 Right before I started my Grishaverse catch up, I went on a dark academia spree. These were three of the books I read as part of that. They’re each very different from the other and each excellent. I highly recommend any of them. IF WE WERE VILLAINS has classic dark academia vibes with undergrads in a Shakespeare conservatory covering up a shared secret. BUNNY is a surreal and beautiful story set in a graduate writing program. THE HISTORIAN is an epic novel of following Dracula’s story and a family of scholars as they unravel mysteries from New York to Romania, with stops in Istanbul and Hungary along the way.

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I have Mona Awad’s next book, ALL’S WELL, in my @netgalley queue and am excited to read it. What’s a book you’re looking forward to reading soon?

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[Three books are stacked on a coffee table in front of a brick fireplace.]

📚 Remember how I said my hammock was my favorite reading spot? Here’s a flashback to me reading SIX OF CROWS in my hammock a few weeks ago. The purple thing is @the_book_seat, which has changed my reading life. I have chronic pain and sometimes my wrists hurt too much to hold up a heavy book like this one. The Book Seat does it for me. (This isn’t a paid endorsement or ad. My husband got me the Book Seat for my birthday last year. I just really love it.)

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[A copy of SIX OF CROWS is open to Chapter 30, a Jesper chapter. Green trees are in the background. The edge of a purple cushion is in the foreground.]

Want to read: Song of Blood and Stone by L. Penelope 📚

Want to read: Anya of Ark by Kristian Joseph 📚

Post-graduation reception.

Tassel turned! (The gown and hood were too itchy to keep on with only a sundress underneath.)

Let’s get this virtual graduation show on the road. [My son and I smiling. I am wearing doctoral regalia, including a dark blue PhD hood and velvet tam. A lightsaber blur is in the bottom right corner.]

Want to read: Blade of Secrets by Tricia Levenseller 📚

My kid and I are building NYC for the Ninja Turtles & Marvel Superheroes to adventure in, so of course I had to build the @nypl Schwarzman bldg on 5th Ave complete with Patience and Fortitude.

📚 I first read SHADOW AND BONE 5 years ago, on a hammock at the beach, when I was 7 months pregnant. I was too impatient to do a re-read before the show, but I hadn’t read the other Grishaverse books so I refreshed my memory with the Wikipedia plot summary and powered through SIEGE AND STORM, RUIN AND RISING, and SIX OF CROWS just in time for the show. I’m reading CROOKED KINGDOM in a more leisurely fashion.

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Alina’s connection with Morozova’s stag really resonates with me because my last name is Yiddish for stag. What’s a bookish connection to your name?

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[A silver stag silhouette pendant sitting on top of a paperback copy of Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone which rests on top of a crocheted wrap in green, blue, and purple.]