Hidden Gems

This book surprised me! I found it randomly on hoopla. full of twists I didn't see coming. Echoes by Alice Reeds is a mystery/thriller, young adult book, centering around two teens: Fiona and Miles, high school enemies who are both selected to work at Briola, a bio-med company in Germany for their summer internship. Wake up on an island with no memories of how they got there.

Sorry if this isn’t allowed, I’m just selling a lot of books on Pango. There’s new releases, classics, mangas and every genre in-between. Store link is here: https://pangobooks.com/bookstore/sarah605940

This is an unusual recommendation, as it’s a multimedia endeavor. Zona is a combo analysis/musing about the classic Tarkovsky movie “Stalker;” know going in that this is very slow paced and heavy on beautiful cinematography, and the book very reflective. This is full of deep dives into analysis of the movie as well as the authors life, full of footnotes referencing other films, etc. It’s a really fun experience if you like this sort of thing, but won’t be for everyone.

If you’re in the market for the best vampire book you will ever read, this is it as long as “best” isn’t synonymous with “gory and over the top.” It’s full of history, love, loss, longing, empathy, and love and unrequited love and love. There are two story main story lines that converge beautifully. It truly is a gem.

Excellent mind bending speculative fiction/horror/thriller story. The inner story from the protagonist is full of turmoil and confusion, there is lots of jumping around with no preparation (be warned if you don’t like that), and it’s an amazing journey through working out what’s real and what’s controllable.

Solid 3.7 stars Extremely intriguing world and characters and a really freaking gorgeous cover, but a chaotic writing style with the narration jumping around a lot. Kind of low-key Night Circus vibs, minus the lyrical otherworldly-ness. The second half is much less jumbly and it really starts to pick up steam, but be warned that Vandy is extremely stupid-stubborn through out. Trigger warnings for emotional abuse and horrific gaslighting. Sexual assult and suicide also occur in the background.

Not an Ask, just a recommendation that isn't available in the book search yet. If you like your fantasies a little epic, a little cozy, a fair amount of funny, and involving a whole lot of world and character building, I highly recommend Midlife in Gretna Green by Linzi Day. Currently the first 5 books are available on Kindle Unlimited

Good morning everyone! I have a bookshop at PangoBooks, as well as an Etsy store. Since a lot of the things I create or sell are bookish, I thought it would be good to create a group where we can promote each other’s shops or work. Here’s the invite 👋 I think you would be a great addition to this group. https://likewise.com/groupinvites/10000_reads_under_the_sea/byuser/sarah_ortinau

Just finished another hidden gem (first person on likewise to like it). This is a beast of a book but it comes together in a really amazing way. It’s a mashup of a diarists memoir’d life, speculative fiction, magical realism, existentialism, and plenty of gritty reality thrown in for good measure.

Only 2 likes on likewise, which is nuts. This is a retelling of hamlet (didn’t know going in, BRILLIANTLY DONE looking back with that info) and is an unconventional format. Bits and pieces from different narrators, text exchanges, emails, operating system reports, etc. Really enjoyed the format!

Liked by 8 people on likewise, what?! Anyway, this is a very dark coming of age story from the perspective of the main character and her friend (friend in the form of letters to the main character). Expect intense and toxic competitive sports, hormones, familial pressure, longing, and mermaids.

This book took me by surprise! It’s a bit of a dark academia fantasy thriller, following two sisters and their family’s magic books. One sister has tied her entire life to the books and lives off the map, one sister never stays in one place past November 7th. Both estranged until their father ends up dying clutching a magical book. Definitely a slow burn, but the second half of the book I flew through

I think this is a hidden gem? Only 700 ratings. All I know is this blew my mind. The plot centers around humans in a conflict with alien spiders, but it's not your typical story where the alien spiders are weird mindless monsters. They have a culture, feelings, and complex technology, which is described in detail every other chapter. At the end of the book, I was kinda cheering for the spiders to win, bc the humans kinda suck (in a good way). Please read this book. It's so beautiful and epic.

I only just now realized that this one has all of 85 ratings on Goodreads, so it definitely qualifies as a Hidden Gem. Very promising series starter, a space action/adventure similar to Lindsey Buroker's Fallen Kingdom and Star Nomad series with lots of snarky characters and even an excessively cheerfully ship AI (that totally speaks in Jodie Whittaker's voice in my personal head cannon, I don't care if it's name is BRO).

There are 4 people who have rated this book on likewise, so at least for now it counts as a hidden gem. This is a book that’s best jumped into without knowing much, and you can totally knock it out in one sitting (or two if you don’t have 1-2 hours together). It was great!

If you can stomach some extremely descriptive horror, this Novella is absolutely amazing.

If you can get down with slow paced, reflective books, this is phenomenal. Easily one of the best historical fiction books I’ve read.

Really fantastic collection of short stories. They all make you consider the relativity of “normal.

Are you interested in punk/music/feminism? This is written by a music journalist who has been there from the beginning, is incredibly enjoyable to read, is expansive in her geographic scope outside of the usual US/UK, and while it’s a lot of punk style music, the punk she explores encompasses the concept, not just the style. And there are playlists with each chapter!