Oh October

Hello! I wanted to start off this late July report by saying a massive thank you to everyone who showed up at the shop throughout the month, we had our best month at the shop yet! Your support makes it easier to navigate the tight margins that come with running the shop as well as allowing me to talk about books and various smutty and lovely things all day long!

A real highlight of the month was Emma Denny coming out for our first ever author event, safe to say it was a special one! We spoke about feelings, publishing, severed heads and what it’s like being a writer today. Emma was absolutely dynamic and the time slipped away from me. Thank you so much to everyone who came out! If you missed the event but are curious to see what Emma is about we have the whole trilogy available in store!

We have had a lovely restock of bookmarks from Alice over at Alice illustrates, my favourites are the dragons notably the Dream Dragon.

The dark romance section now exists although small. Having it sectioned out allows me to see what I have and where we can grow. Buying stock is always a gamble but a trusted source has provided me with a list so my plan is to order those and then go from there. Budgeting stock is difficult, I have to balance restocking with bringing in new titles so things will grow, it will just take time!

By the time this comes out we should have some new events happening. Our midnight release for ACOTAR is officially sold out so thank you so much for doing that! We have another ACOTAR themed event happening at the end of this September that I cannot wait for! It is our FanCast event where people will have the chance to present who they would choose for the ACOTAR movie! This event is going to be lots of fun and the winner will get a free copy of ACOTAR 6 and a ticket to our sold out midnight release party!

We have a bookclub launching in the next couple of weeks so if you are interested keep your eyes out for that!

We have our first indie author in stock! The lovely Belinda Campbell has dropped off three copies of her magical YA novel Something Wicked, I’m currently reading it and loving every minute!

Aside from further event details, I think that is all for now! I hope everyone is keeping cool in this diabolic hell heat! 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!