BLOG TOUR: Serwa Boateng's Guide to Vampire Hunting by Roseanne A. Brown *updated*

I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the SERWA BOATENG'S GUIDE TO VAMPIRE HUNTING by Roseanne A. Brown Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!

 

About The Book:

Title: SERWA BOATENG'S GUIDE TO VAMPIRE HUNTING (Serwa Boateng #1)

Author: Roseanne A. Brown

Pub. Date: September 6, 2022

Publisher: Rick Riordan Presents

Formats: Hardcover, eBook

Pages: 400

Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, Kindle, B&N, iBooks, Kobo, TBD, Bookshop.org

Best-selling author Rick Riordan presents best-selling YA author Roseanne A. Brown's middle grade debut about a pre-teen vampire slayer with a strong helping of Ghanaian folklore.

For most kids, catching fireflies is a fun summer activity. For twelve-year-old Serwa Boateng, it's a matter of life and death.

That's because Serwa knows that some fireflies are really adze, shapeshifting vampires from the forests of Southeastern Ghana. Adze prey on the blood of innocents, possessing their minds and turning them into hulking monsters, and for generations, slayers like Serwa and her parents have protected an unknowing public from their threats.

Serwa is the best adze slayer her age, and she knew how to use a crossbow before she could even ride a bike. But when an obayifo (witch) destroys her childhood home while searching for a drum, do Serwa's parents take her with them on their quest to defeat her? No. Instead, they dump Serwa with her hippie aunt and cryptic-obsessed cousin in the middle of Nowheresville, Maryland "for her own safety." Now, instead of crossbows and battle armor, she's dealing with mean girls and algebra, and for the first time in her life she doesn't have to carry a staff everywhere she goes, which is . . . kind of nice, actually.

Just as Serwa starts to get the hang of this whole normal girl who doesn't punch vampires every day thing, an adze infiltrates her school. It's up to her to whip some of her classmates into monster-fighting shape before all of them become firefly food. And when she uncovers a secret that upends everything she thought she knew about her family's role in the slayer vs. adze war, Serwa will have to decide which side of herself--normal girl or slayer--is the right one.

After all, seventh grade is hard enough without adding vampires to the mix.

Review: I read this out loud to my kids and my kids are not really into vampire and they weren't really hyped at first. But as we got into the story, they fell in love with the characters and the Ghanian mythology. The vampires being fireflies was a thumbs up in my kids eyes. They love that we got to read more about Gods and Goddesses that we were introduced to in the Tristan Strong series which we binge read this year and has become a favorite series of all time. They really loved that Anansi was mentioned as helping some kid in Chicago. That really got my girls hootin and hollerin'. 

There were so many plot twists and guesses as to who the vampire was going to be. The slave history of the town had me tearing up and just wanting to scream at the top of my lungs for all of the wrongs and injustices and cruelty that the enslaved people had to endure. 

I am keeping my eye out for a sequel.

 

About Roseanne A. Brown:

Roseanne “Rosie” A. Brown was born in Kumasi, Ghana and immigrated to the wild jungles of central Maryland as a child. She graduated from the University of Maryland with a Bachelor’s in Journalism and was also a teaching assistant for the school’s Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House program. Her debut novel A Song of Wraiths and Ruin was an instant New York Times Bestseller, an Indie Bestseller, and received six starred reviews. She has worked with Marvel, Star Wars, and Disney among other publishers.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok | Goodreads | Amazon | BookBub

 

Giveaway Details:

1 winner will receive a finished copy of SERWA BOATENG'S GUIDE TO VAMPIRE HUNTING, US Only.

Ends October 7^th, midnight EST.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tour Schedule:

Week One:

9/1/2022	booksaremagictoo	Review/IG Post
9/2/2022	More Books Please blog	Review/IG Post
9/3/2022	xbookwormcafe	Review/IG Post

Week Two:

9/4/2022	BookHounds YA	Excerpt/IG Post
9/5/2022	wiltedpages	Review/IG Post
9/6/2022	The Real World According to Sam	Review/IG Post
9/7/2022	GryffindorBookishNerd	IG Review
9/8/2022	Eye-Rolling Demigod's Book Blog	Review/IG Post
9/9/2022	Feed Your Fiction Addiction	Review/IG Post
9/10/2022	hodophile_z	IG Review

Week Three:

9/11/2022	Wanderingwitchreads	TikTok Review/IG Post
9/12/2022	Log Cabin Library	Review
9/13/2022	Lifestyle of Me	Review
9/14/2022	@lexijava	Review/IG Post
9/15/2022	A Backwards Story	Review/IG Post
9/16/2022	Confessions of a YA Reader	Review
9/17/2022	@meetcuteromancebooks	IG Review

Week Four:

9/18/2022	Nerdophiles	Review
9/19/2022	The Bookwyrm's Den	Review
9/20/2022	hauntedbybooks	Review/IG Post
9/21/2022	onemused	IG Spotlight
9/22/2022	Ya Books Central	Excerpt/IG Post
9/23/2022	@thebookishfoxwitch	IG Review
9/24/2022	@jacleomik33	IG Review

Week Five:

9/25/2022	The Momma Spot	Review/IG Post
9/26/2022	PopTheButterfly Reads	Review/IG Post
9/27/2022	Two Points of Interest	Review
9/28/2022	@ReadsReaders	YouTube Review/IG Post
9/29/2022	@drew_ambitious_reading	IG Review/TikTok Post
9/30/2022	The Clever Reader	Review/IG Post

Top Ten Tuesday: Books with Geographical Titles

 

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jana from That Artsy Reader Girl. 

This week's topic is to share books with geographical titles and I am so ready to see what everyone else chooses for this prompt. Some of these books are on my TBR for the rest of this year and then some, I don't know when I will exactly get to them because I am going to be buddy reading them with my 13 year old who is taking her first high school course this year and she has to read these for her Composition and Literature class. Luckily, I never had to read these in school so it will be a good experience for the both of us.....hopefully. I will share those two first.

The others are on my personal TBR for the rest of 2022.

September Reading Plans// Sunday Post #38

 

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly from The Caffeinated Book Reviewer. 

The first full week of September went by in a flash and it felt somewhat wasted in some ways. I didn't get much done but I got a lot of other things done... if that makes any sense. I had a whole September TBR planned and I think I threw that out of the window when I decided to pick up a 1200 page book that my daughter found researching Ancient Japan and I wanted to read it with her.... turns out she will not be reading it because content. The book is The Tale of Genji and he is a straight MANWHORE!!! The guy has a different woman every chapter it seems. I am reading the unabridged version which is sucha slog, but in a way I am enjoying it somewhat.

My TBR for the month was to read the month in books where I pick a book for every letter in the month. So I had my nine books picked out and I actually thought I would have achieved my goal if The Tale of Genji didn't tempt me and my kid. Some of the books I chose will still be read to my kids because they have been bugging me to read these ones next. 

SEPTEMBER IN BOOKS

S- Small Favors by Erin A Craig

E- the English Assassin by Daniel Silva

P- the Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

T- Tristan Strong Keeps Punching by Kwame Mbalia

E- Everland by Wendy Spinale

M- My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich by Ibi Zoboi

B- Blood Tainted Winter by T.L Gregory

E- Everything Must Go by Camille Pagan

R- Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

In other news on September 14th, it will be mine and my husband's 15th anniversary. We started dating in 2007. High school sweethearts!!!!! We have been together half of our lives and got three cool kids. I AM LUCKY!

October 21, 2007

(first trip to Tybee Island, GA)

May 29, 2013

(Cayce's 23rd birthday)

 January 11, 2022

(our babies)

Watchmen Review

Serwa Boateng's Guide to Hunting Vampires blogtour

The Last Book You'll Ever Read blogtour

Top Ten Tuesday

Hope you all have a great week. I am hoping that I will get a good chunk of The Tale of Genji read. 

Review: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

 

A new series started and I can tell ya'll now that I will be finishing this series next year. I know it is crap YA and it is the same main character of badass girl saves the world or the chosen one, but I ate this up. This is not my first Sarah J Maas book and I forgot how much I like her writing style. It flows and it is so fast paced. 

After hearing about this book for years and thinking I knew what would happen, I was wrong. I actually thought that maybe the stroy had been edited and changed due to me reading the special edition that I got for Christmas years ago. I thought throughout the whole book that I was reading a completely different story. All of the reviews that I have heard and book talks was very toned down and I am glad that I went into this not knowing much at all except character names. 

I was not bothered by the love triangle trope and I was constantly trying to remember who ends up with who and who is who from the reviews. I did give this 4 stars because I was annoyed by the constant talk of beauty and Celaena being the most beautiful and her being unattractive because of her year of slavery in the salt mines. 

I loved the magic aspect and I have to say that I felt teased by the Fae story and it not playing a bigger part. I dislike Fae stories most of the time but this time, I just wanted more. The tests and the whole competition gave me MAJOR Hunger Games vibes with the eliminations and how many criminals were competing. 

I was a little miffed by the ending when she was given conditions and it involved people and one of the people was standing right next to her and it didn't even faze them. They took it in stride... like person, your life was just threatened if she fails or essentially misses curfew and you are asking her what she wants to do first with her first day of servitude. 

I don't know when I will be picking up Crown of Midnight, but I am hoping to squeeze it in before the end of the year. 

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Read That I Need My Own Copy

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jana from That Artsy Reader Girl. 

This week's topic is books that were so good that you needed your own copy. I am tweaking this topic a bit and will be sharing books that I read from the library or ebook or audiobook that I want my own copy, but have not purchased it yet for reasons.

I am a walking contradiction. I will not buy new books for fear that I won't like them and they will be a waste of money but then if I love a book I don't own and really want my own copy, I can't justify buying it because of already reading it and the risk of never re-reading it because I don't re-read because it feels like a waste of time. But I am hoping that I will re-read these books one day.

August 2022 Reading Wrap Up// Sunday Post #37

 

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly from The Caffeinated Book Reviewer. 

Happy September. I hope everyone's week was a great one. My week was a really productive week and I got a lot done, but it got very emotional because I found out that one of my childhood friends passed away on Wednesday. I don't know how and I am scared to ask because I have an idea because he was sort of a loner and kept to himself. I hate assuming and his funeral was today and the guilt I felt at the thoughts that I had just made an already crappy day worse. So my post today will contain my reading wrap up for August. 

But first, I am currently reading Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas and Tristan Strong Keeps Punching by Kwame Mbalia. I am enjoying Throne of Glass way more than I expected and I want book 2 in my hands now. I am reading Tristan Strong to my kids during our school day and it is the third and final book in the Tristan Strong series. I have started and will be finishing a series in a year... who the hell am I. I start series and never finish them so this is an achievement. 

Now on to the wrap up. I will be sharing the books according to my ratings. 

5 Stars:

4 Stars: 

3 Stars:

Review: Crying In H Mart by Michelle Zauner

 One of my most anticipated books from last year and a birthday gift that has been sitting on my shelf just asking to be read. I had seen this book everywhere last year. So many articles and book lists including this book. It also won a Goodreads award and that was a sign that I needed to read it. I knew that it would make me cry but I didn't know why.

Back in June, my husband's aunt who is like a second mom to him revealed to us that she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She is currently doing chemotherapy, then will move to radiation and surgery. I also lost my grandfather in January of 2005 to lung cancer and I never fully got over that. 

Reading this made me cry multiple times. I thought that I would have had to DNF this book when I read one word that took me back to Christmas of 2004 at my grandfather's house and seeing the Ensure bottles on his table because it was the only thing he could keep down. 

Other than the crying, this book made me really really hungry and I wanted all of the korean and chinese food. I did get some Asian hot wings and fried rice on the day that I had the flashback. 

This is just a book about the author's mother and their strained relationship prior to the cancer diagnosis and Michelle trying to make up for being a problem child and also trying to figure out her identity to being Korean American.