A Joyful July

September, I remember.

We are nearing six months of being open, and what a six months it has been! September saw us host our first book club, where we were joined by Emmy Hart, author of The Best Ex of My Life, at Sugar and Spice, a fully vegan café here at Fargo Village. The community that's developing around the shop is quite simply wonderful and more than I could ever have asked for. You guys make me laugh like nothing else!

September saw some vibrant weekends and some quiet weekdays. It also saw our first FanCast Academy event, where we presented our dream cast if ACOTAR became a movie! It was brilliant, and highlights included Chris Hemsworth as Tamlin, Hugh Jackman as Mr Archeron, Matthew Daddario as Azriel and Edna Mode as Amren!

We're getting excited for our sold-out midnight release party for A Court of Splintered Harmony! The week of the 26th brings the midnight release as well as our second book club meeting, where we'll be discussing Shirlene Obuobi's Die For Me, a sensual paranormal romance.

Our last non-book-club event of the year is on Friday 6 November: we're bejewelling The Cinnamon Spice Inn by Harper Graham and indulging in some seasonal snacks and tea! I plan on making pumpkin pie tartlets, but we'll see if they come to fruition. It's going to be a really lovely event, so if you're interested, tickets are still available!

A few new things have found their way into the shop, most notably a limited selection of Brittany Keller's art prints: Starfall from ACOTAR, the field kiss from Pride and Prejudice, the bridge kiss from LOTR (Aragorn was my first and forever crush), Xaden and Violet from Fourth Wing, and a lovely scene of a reader in a fantasy world. They come framed, and at $35 they'd make a great Christmas gift for someone in your life! Apologies for the dollar sign; my computer is also Canadian and lacks the pound symbol.

On a second-to-last note, the Indie Mart won't be opening over the Boxing Day weekend, so if, unlike me, you're planning around the holidays, here's an early heads-up. I'll also be taking the chance to close for a two-week holiday! Since the shop opened in May I've only taken the occasional sick day, so a break is overdue. I'll be back up and running in time for A Court of Forgotten Melody, and I have an exciting event in the works for that release, so stay tuned!

On a final note: you might notice a new face in the shop on Sundays, and that's because the lovely Megan will be taking over for me! I have both pelvic and thoracic endometriosis, which varies in how hard it is to manage, so bringing Megan on before I hit physical and mental burnout is going to be a real relief, and it means we can stay consistently open for our lovely community. Megan is so kind and loves D&D, music, reading and all sorts of other cool things. If you see her on a Sunday, please do say hi!

That's all for now, folks! Thanks for reading, and catch you at the next one!

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!