A Joyful July

I like to think of myself as a reader and always have been. Outside of infancy I can’t remember a time when there wasn’t a book in my hand, even as I type this there are three books that I have on the go next to me.

Armed with discounts and ARCS courtesy of my jobs working in large book retailers I was able to feast from a table of epic literary proportions, sampling many authors I might not have reached for without the means.

No matter how curious I have been or how far I stray from romance, it is one of two genres I ever return to for re-reading the other being manga and graphic novels! At the beginning of this year I found myself feeling quite spiritually derelict and couldn’t seem to finish a single book that I picked up. I was deep in the throes of quite a serious pity party when I remembered Tessa! 

Tessa meaning Tessa Bailey who was and remains one of my longest loves. I picked up It Happened One Summer and felt my spirit settle. Since then this year I have almost exclusively been rereading books from my favourite authors. 

Even if you love reading with every fibre of your being, when you read for a job the burnout can so easily sneak in. I can easily go from reading the best book of my entire life to not wanting to pick up a book ever again. With the pressure off and the comfort dialed way on, the romance genre holds me ever so softly when I need it the most. 

There are times for expansion and times for retreat, part of being a good bookseller is knowing how to balance these things in a never ending ebb and flow. It never gets easier but a delightful way I have found to manage it this year is by reading more non fiction. 

Non Fiction is the literary equivalent to fibre, without it nothing can pass! It often adds illuminating context that allows me to digest everything else with ease! While it might not seem like Elsie Silver and Non Fiction would ever be paired together, Fire Weather by John Vaillant provided me with additional context to Bash’s character. Bash works as a Fire Pilot in Western Canada that is dealing with increasing levels of wildfires, hence Fire Weather! 

I haven’t come across any good Non Fiction on fishing in the Bering Sea to pair with my Tessa Bailey, so if you know of any good books on that please help a girl out! 

Thank you for bearing with me (wink wink) as I ramble on about rereading and somehow get into wildfires, I hope your current read is treating you well! 

Hello from my cramped desk here at Cupid’s Bow! I hope that this incessant sun and futuristic heat have been bearable and that you are keeping as well as possible! June was a busy month here at the shop, slowly but surely it’s coming together and I personally am loving what it’s looking like!

This year has been filled with one reading slump after another for me despite having set two separate reading goals one of them being to read ten indigenous books and the other is to read ten nature books. I’m two down for each goal but have found the motivation to read in general to be quite lacking within myself. At this point you might be wondering if I am ill! I can happily confirm that chronic illness aside I am well just operating on limited brain space.

During June I did manage to read eight books and while that is low for me it is high for this year! Upon the news of the Love, Theoretically adaptation coming to Prime I promptly pulled it off my shelf and reread it in a day. I can in fact confirm that Jack Turner-Smith is just as fine as he was when this book was released back in 2023! I have found myself going back to reread many of my favourite authors this year. The comfort of a familiar story after many years feels like a warm hug for my soul.

Another notable read from this month was Baby and the Late Night Howlers. I found it to be erotic and gripping with the perfect level of stakes and I cannot wait for the sequel Lola and the Millionaires that comes out in the next few weeks.

At the end of July we have our first ever event with the brilliant Emma Denny! Emma is the author of the Barden trilogy, queer medieval books that centre around a trio of siblings. All three of them have my heart and I would wholeheartedly recommend that you read them so that they can have yours as well! It’s going to be a great evening with a Q&A as well as a signing afterwards, I would love to see you there! Tickets are available through the events page on the website and are $6! I do mean six great british pounds. My laptop is just from Canada!

Other notable things are that we have a small but burgeoning dark romance section now and are starting the fantasy expansion! With time they will keep developing and growing, as will the whole shop so thank you for your patience as we go on this ride! I think that’s all for me for now, but please do check out our Emma Denny event if you are so inclined it’s going to be a great night!

See you soon!

Yesterday I heard someone say that traditional publishing was boring. I sat there aghast as they explained why. They said that traditional publishing can get boring so they prefer indie books. It sat on my mind all day and into the night, as I sipped my tea I wondered how someone could get bored with traditional publishing.

It is a fact that indie publishing is full of brilliant authors who hone the craft through the books that they create. Indie authors are not restrained in the same way as traditionally published authors, for example they might not have to think of the book's commercial appeal the same way. Without the confines surrounding the trad pub structure authors are free to express their most creative selves in boundless ways. As with Indie music Indie authors set trends and shape culture. There is also the notion of accessibility, the Indie structure allows for anybody to create according to personal needs. This is a beautiful thing!

What sat heavy on my mind wasn’t the implication that indie is better than trad when both have equal strengths and weaknesses, it was the idea that books could ever be boring. Even as I’m typing this I am overwhelmed with a sense of incredulousness!

I am a lifelong reader who has made a career out of something that started as an escape, became a joy and then became a purpose. I am a naturally curious person, if I see something interesting I’ll pick it up and try it. During COVID-19 alone I read 200 books! This is not me attempting to humbly brag, this is simply just background information because not once in all my years of reading have I ever been bored. I actually rarely read a book that I don’t at least appreciate in some form.

With this context you can perhaps understand a little more why this revelation of boredom shocked me. I have been working with books for a long time now and my curiosity has both been my biggest asset and my financial downfall! I could go into just about any section in a bookshop and find a book that piques my interest in some way. I learned throughout the years to allow my curiosity to guide me from page to page across continents and genres and my life has been made all the richer for it.

You might be thinking that this is all well and good but what is the advice? My advice is to simply be curious. Although some may find that curiosity is not so simple, it is always worth following. I say this because I know with certainty that by only engaging with books that are familiar you might find yourself bored! Being bored with familiarity is not a reflection on what is published, it is perhaps merely a sign that it is time to try something new and to get curious.

We can very naturally gravitate to voices that sound like our own, I’m not perfect even I can find myself easily falling into reading patterns. I however have always believed that the fun and pleasure of reading comes from unfamiliarity. People experience the world in innumerable ways, one story can be told a thousand different times entirely dependent on who’s telling it. Engage with the choices you make in the bookshop, stop and think if something is new or interesting or maybe even just ask if you have ever read something like this before.

We as human beings are capable of such expansion in this life and expansion doesn’t just happen all at once in an explosion of shadow and smoke. Expansion happens incrementally bit by bit every time we choose something a little bit different. So the truest advice I can give is to be curious, engage with voices that sound different than yours and you might find yourself surprised at how easily the shackles of boredom are shed and how much fun you can have along the way.