Welcome to my weekly Check-In series where I share highlights from the past week and talk about what’s up next. Nearing the email length limit - please view in Substack for better visibility of the full post!
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✨ The September holiday list has been posted - filled with fun reasons to celebrate this month
✨ One of my favorite bookstagrammers @ladies.getting.lit just created a substack Cassidy Krogulski and I’m already obsessed. I highly recommend giving it a look. I have three words to intrigue you: The Book Cartel
✨ Work in Progress: I’m working away on a massive Autumn recommended reading list. Hoping to finish it up soon to share!
✨ 📱 A Match Made in Fall by Melissa Baldwin | ⭐️⭐️💫 it wasn’t for me | Cozy fall rom-com - hockey romance with Hallmark (sweet no spice) vibes | Available in KU
✨ 📖 The Pumpkin Vice Cafe by Ellie Alexander - Out 9/29/26 | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ loved it! | Cozy mystery in Ashland, Oregon in Fall - give me all the pumpkin everything! | Paperback arc gifted from Minotaur Books
✨ 📱 An Unlikely Coven by A.M. Kvita | purchased an ebook copy for $0.99
✨ 🎧 All The Time in The World by Cara Bastone | Available in Audible
✨ 📖 Half City (#1) by Kate Golden | Paperback gifted from Ace via Berkley Romance
✨ It’s a big pub day and I’ll post about everything on my radar soon but I want to call special attention to A Guide to the Kitchen Quadrant: The Unofficial Fourth Wing Cookbook by Chelsea Cole
✨I received notification that I was accepted into the Page Street reviewer program and got to request September and October Nonficiton releases. There’s so many amazing new craft and food books coming in the next two months and I can’t wait to share about them all!
✨ I got an email from Wednesday Books that I was selected to receive a full set of the new deluxe editions of the House of Night series by P.C. Cast 💀😍
✨ The September selections in my book subscriptions were somewhat underwhelming. I thought about skipping this month for all of them (Allurial, BoTM, and Aardvark), which would be a first for me. However, I changed my mind and ordered one from Allurial, skipped Aardvark, and am contemplating skipping BoTM too if they don’t have a mid-month release that interests me.
New Books Releasing Tuesday Sept. 8th
Burn of the Everflame
Disenchanted
A Guide to the Kitchen Quadrant
Fall Into Place
Hexy Beast
Level Up for Love
Love Felt Like This
The Mystic and the Missing Girl
Receipts From the Bookshop
With All My Haunted Heart
✨ Much About Love - silly and over the top (even for hallmark) but it was fun.
✨ Continuing to love Ted Lasso.
✨ Continuing to watch Lanterns. Still undecided if I’m enjoying it.
✨ Continuing to watch House of Stassi. She can be dramatic but I truly think she’s a good person. Team Stassi here.
✨ Finished the latest season of Love is Blind UK.
✨ I was inspired by all of the yummy fall treats that have been popping up in my feed, plus all the baked goods in The Pumpkin Vice Cafe (Out 9/29) had my mouth-watering.
✨ Tried a recipe for baked apple croissants from Feeding Tiny Bellies and they were a BIG hit in my house! 👩🏽🍳Word of the (now) wise: there is a difference between Phyllo Dough Pastry Sheets and Puff Pastry Sheets - you want the puff pastry ones! 😅😆
✨ Made a 9.5 lb pork shoulder in the Le Creuset for pulled pork for tacos. Froze a few bags for easy meals. So delicious!!
✨ Yesterday evening I decided to do something I’ve been meaning to do for ages — I cleaned out our kitchen pantry. I tossed stale and expired food and reorganized a little bit. How do we let our pantries get so bad sometimes? Most of what I tossed expired 1-2 years ago but I had a few things that expired before my kiddo was born and she’s 3. 😅😆
✨ My kiddo’s 6 month dental apt - interested to see how well we’ve actually been doing on keeping her teeth clean with brushing. She loves her Spidey battery operated toothbrush but it’s hard to tell how well the teeth are getting brushed.
✨ Unboxing all the lovely (mostly Halloween) goodies I bought from Epilogue Book Co.
✨ Attending a highly anticipated cookbook launch event. Photos, thoughts, and recipe notes to come!
✨ Dealing with the aftermath of a massive book unhaul. Deciding on what to post on Pango and what to donate to the local friends of the donate bookstores
✨ Impatiently (but respectfully) waiting for @DeltaRiseCo to post the Halloween and Fall launch. Do I need more earrings? Nope, not at all, but you can bet that I’ll be ordering one of just about everything. 💸😅😆 Use JOYFUL15 in the shop 💕
✨ Can you believe I haven’t decorated the house for Halloween yet?! Solo-parenting over the holiday weekend was fun but required a lot more energy than when there’s two of us, so decorating was not on my to-do list.
What’s something that brought you joy this past week?
Wishing you a week filled with good books and joyful moments.
xoxo, Arielle