A Winter Book Haul 🌲🕯️| The Book Castle | 2024

[@jessicaw1839]

I understand the “saving” of books for just the perfect time to read them. I’m 62 years old and I have a few books that I’ve been saving since as long ago as 4th grade. The Chronicles of Prydain series, The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, and Jane Eyre are among them. I’m retired now so I WILL read them in 2025!!

[@TheBookCastle]

You can do it!!! Jane Eyre is amazing ❤️

[@StashaA.]

I love this! 😊

[@GelaMarie83]

Hope you had a lovely holiday! So many of these books sound so good. Adding many to my TBR.

[@BrookeReadsBooks333]

I was JUST thinking about you!!! I hope you are having the best holiday season and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for the channel in 2025! Much love from NY!! 🗽❄️

[@TheBookCastle]

Thank you so much!!! 🥰❤️

[@elizabethc.9910]

Thanks for another great video! I recently read A Sorceress Comes to Call, and I really enjoyed it! Some of these books are on my TBR as well, and some I now need to add. An Academy for Liars is High on my list to read very soon. I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and that you have a fantastic New Year!

[@catsandbats77]

I really enjoyed The Deathless Girls. I have only heard one other person talk about it and I think it deserves more love. I just finished listening to An Academy for Liars. It was dark, but I read The Year of the Witching and it was pretty dark, so I knew Academy would be too. I really liked them both. The Lighthouse Witches was one of my favorite books this year. I am wanting to read The Weaver and the Witch Queen as I've heard good things about it. The Specimens sounds intriguing. I also love books set in Edinburgh too.

[@CarmenMPerez-yg7nw]

Thank you, and happy holidays!

[@bobbiforquer6237]

You always have the best books 📚 and I want to read them all. Hope you had a wonderful holiday.

[@TheBookCastle]

Thank you! You too! ❤️🥰

[@chigangrel]

Yesss new stuff from Bree Paulsen! I loved Garlic and the Witch as well, which I picked up from your recommendation actually - and it was a big hit with my niece. Her art is so cute though, I'll have to pick up the new book too! I'm especially interested in Curious Tides too, because I've seen comparisons to Ninth House which I LOVED. Had to add a few more of your recs to my TBR! We have similar taste so I'm glad you popped up in my algorithm a few months ago, you helped me find a few new reads lol

[@TheBookCastle]

Yesss, I’m so excited! 😃

[@hellopaulie]

Happy Boxing Day from Canada. I have no plans for the day except taking a bubble bath and then reading all day. I've been baking and cooking for two weeks, but I don't have to do that again for a week. I love the week after Christmas. So many interesting books here, and we have very similar reading tastes. I was looking at the Kate Khavari "A Botanist's Guide To..." series online last night. It has very mid ratings but besides reading, my main hobby is gardening, and I love plants, so I'm very invested in what you think of it. I want to know whether I can expect cozy or if it leans towards green academia.

[@TheBookCastle]

Your day sounds perfect 😍

[@Darkpumpkinspice]

Most of the books you mentioned I had never heard of, a couple are going directly on my mental tbr! I am reading Vita Nostra as we speak and so far (at about 50%), I am loving it! Have a great end of year!!!!

[@TheBookCastle]

Oooh Vita Nostra is such an interesting one! 😍

[@udishaverma7862]

I just checked your channel for any new videos, then moved on, and then suddenly a new video pops up! That Sun and the Void book looks so coool!!! And also the deathless girls, and the other two white books too. And also the last black book too. I want to eat them. I love white n black books, the the bigger the better. Hmm.

[@TheBookCastle]

Yay! 😃❤️

[@Kristina-df4kr]

If you like epistolary novels, I very much recommend Lady Susan by Jane Austen. It’s quite short and quick to get through. Has the classic Austen wit, while not quite following the standard narrative of her other books. Don’t know why it’s not spoken more about because personally I found it great and worthy of more recognition!

[@joyceredman2136]

Great book haul, Alice! I am also enjoying reading the Haunting Season.

[@TheBookCastle]

😍❤️

[@OneKdramaMomma]

I really enjoyed The Blue Book of Nebo. Look forward to hearing your thoughts.

[@andrewcrow1031]

Hi Alice, wintry greetings again from Toronto 🇨🇦. Thanks for the video, and special thanks for working on Boxing Day! You’ve given me some new titles for my TBR notebook as usual 📓. I hope you had a wonderful Christmastime and best wishes for the new year. Good reading to you in 2005!

[@andrewcrow1031]

I meant 2025!

[@TheBookCastle]

Best wishes for the new year to you too! 🥰❤️

[@astoldbykat]

I got "Deathless Girls" one or two years ago and tried to read it, but DNFed because I'm honestly SO tired of nearly every story about Dracula's lives starting with them being on the brink of death, their entire family murdered, or them being sold into some kind of servitude that Dracula "saves" them from. Doubly so if they're teens. I want one where they CHOOSE him willingly for their own reasons, knowing exactly what they're getting into. I did my last book haul of the year (and a few months, tbh) yesterday. I picked up the last two books in the Winternight trilogy (I LOVED "The Bear and the Nightingale"), "Spinning Silver" by Naomi Novik (my Tokyo bookstore FINALLY got a non-messed-up version of the paperback), "The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door" by H.G. Parry, "Lovelight Farms" by B.K. Borison (I needed another light read and chose this one because I heard the romance was good), "Wisteria" by Adalyn Grace, and "Long Live the Pumpkin Queen" by Shea Ernshaw (getting a head-start on next year's Halloween).

[@eileennielsen5165]

Hi Alice!! Hope you had a nice Christmas. Were you with your family or friends? I was by myself, always am...family😑 So just as well but lonely. I read most of the day🙂 Last time you mentioned The Haunting Season, I ordered it. Am saving for Jan. I also love epistolary bks. and books set in Scotland like the witch ones. Would love to travel there someday. Have you? I wrote down 5 bks. from your list that I would like to read. I didn't have a very good reading Dec. Read maybe 2 bks. ( to do w/ Cmas; but then went into a HUGE slump trying numerous Cmas bks. I annually read and some new ones. Just couldn't get into anything. I think it was depression and " heart crush" due to family. Today I started reading "Yours Cheerfully " by A.J. Pearce(book 2 out of the series of 3 so far). Helped.🙂 I wish the best for you, your channel, your studies, your job in 2025! 🤗

[@nataliebaker918]

Great list! I look forward to your opinion on Deathless Girls👍

[@TheBookCastle]

🥰❤️

[@РоманПаляниця-к5э]

Thank you for this interesting video! As always, I was intellectually and aesthetically pleased! Your image and review of interesting books are really useful for the soul, even in such a difficult situation: yesterday, on Christmas Day, the Russian army attacked the entire territory of Ukraine with cruise and ballistic missiles. There are dead and wounded civilians. The objects of the energy infrastructure were destroyed, so in most cities of Ukraine there was no light and heat for most of the day. Today, the Russian occupiers are shelling our community with guided aerial bombs and Shahed-type drones. Explosions vibrate the air, the ground, and the walls of buildings. The lights in the city were turned on at 1:00 p.m. and so far it is on, I hurry to watch your video to write a comment. Congratulations on Christmas and the coming New Year!

[@TheBookCastle]

Sending you my thoughts ❤️❤️❤️

[@shellkay]

Unfortunately I didn’t like An Academy for Liars…actually DNFed it pretty early as it wasn’t for me despite the way it was marketed. I didn’t care for House of Hunger by the author either, so I am not going to pick up anything further from her. Several of the others you hauled are on my radar, though. Happy almost new year, Alice!

[@starlasell5698]

❤📚📚❤️

[@TheBookCastle]

❤️

[@helenm4357]

A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons by Kate Khavari - I have read the first 3 books and am waiting for the fourth , fun with enough depth to make them stand out a bit from the crowd and be interesting

[@TheBookCastle]

Yay! 😍

[@birgitaushamburg]

I have this very firm, very strict voice in my head, telling me "You Are Not Going To Buy Any More Books In 2024. You Are Not Going To Buy Any.... But. You See, one or two little books are okay, maybe? I mean, "The Blue Book of Nebo" is one of the books I really never heard of before but which immediately calles out to me (quiet, slow books where nothing much happens on the outside are so written for me...). And wouldn't "Spirits Abroad" be a perfect addition to my reading plans for spring reserved for books by Asian female authors? Thought so.😁. Thanks for your recommendations!

[@TheBookCastle]

I am the biggest enabler sooooo yes of course! 😅❤️🥰