Susan’s Book Blog

  My newest custom funko pop project was a Christmas gift for my dear friend Ditte (@booksaboveeverything on Instagram). We both adore this book and I was inspired to make the main characters when I found some pops that looked like they could make good versions of them. Above is Kadou, holding a hold coin as he does on the cover.  Below is Evemer, wearing his dark blue kahyalar uniform and sword.  Here are the Pops I used to create them: Below : The body of House of the Dragon’s Viserys Targaryen was a good match for Kadou. I thought his medieval style robes made a good kaftan with the length and the gold edging. He also made it easy to swap out his hand for one that holds a gold coin. (See further below.) Below : Daemon Targaryen provided Kadou’s head and Evemer’s body. I bought it primarily for the body but the head had long hair so I figured why not use it. Below : the Box Lunch exclusive Yennefer from Witcher is holding a gold coin so I cut her hand off and superglued...

  📚 Fave Reads of 2022 Countdown 📚   #5 A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland  A cinnamon roll prince and his cinnamon roll bodyguard fall for each other in a slow burn mystery/romance set in a long-ago middle eastern-style fantasy world. I read this one back in August and I still think (daydream, internally scream) about it practically daily. There are kaftans and doors and hinge pins and JUST READ IT OKAY  My full review of A Taste of Gold and Iron can be found here . 

Book Mail days are always exciting and this was an especially exciting delivery!  You may have seen my recent post on A Taste of Gold and Iron. It’s an amazing book and absolutely one of my favorite reads of the year. So of course I had to have a physical copy! I googled to see if there were any special editions coming out (as one does) and discovered a couple small UK companies offering one. But of course I’d missed the bus on both as they’d both been small runs and offered via presales several months earlier. So when my Booksta bestie Ditte informed me that Broken Bindings, one of the UK booksellers offering a special edition of ATOGAI, had received their stock and was putting up for sale the limited number of extra copies they had available after fulfilling the preorders, I considered it for a bit as it was slightly out of my budget but then I caved. And I was lucky enough to snag one! And I am so so glad I did. Broken Bindings’ edition is signed by the author (and a very cool ...

This beauty is now released into the world! Well, in the US. The UK release is tomorrow Sept 1! Please go pick it up, you won’t regret it!  You can read my original review of it HERE ! 

  A Taste of Gold and Iron   by Alexandra Rowland Pub Date: Aug 30, 2022 🪙 4.5 stars out of 5 🪙  This book really hits the ground running. It introduces the main character and his complicated situation in a blazing info dump of a first chapter. It took me a while to get the hang of things, especially who was who among the cast members.  (But I’m not very used to reading fantasy.) This is one of those books that gets better and better as it goes on - the way the plot thickens and the romance develops, it was hard to put down. I really fell in love with the characters and they definitely kept me turning pages. I was surprised to discover so much humor in the book. It’s a serious tone for most of it but some of the characters are pretty funny - one in particular was especially enjoyable. It was far more character-driven than I’d expected. And the pace was surprisingly swift for such a long book. I liked Prince Kadou from the start. He’s sweet, sensitive, dutiful, and ...