Okay, stop what you are doing. We need to talk about the Waking Heart Series by Erica Ivy Rodgers starting with Lady of Steel and Straw. This series is officially certified as having everything The Page Ladies crave:

▫️Immortal Scarecrow Guardians

▫️Forbidden Love that should be illegal

▫️Enough Ghostly Chaos to literally raise the dead.

✨️If you like your fantasy lush, lethal, and ready to rip your heart out, you need to step into this kingdom that's currently on fire.

🔥The Chemistry You Could Slice with a Saber!

In Lady of Steel and Straw, we meet our two tormented souls:

👧Charlotte Sand: Fierce, stubborn, and refusing to bow to corrupt power. The perfect rebel.

👨Luc de Montaigne: The loyal captain torn between faith, duty, and the one girl he absolutely cannot stop loving.

Their dynamic is pure, tortured perfection! One minute they're enemies, the next they're saving each other's lives while the world burns around them. Rodgers doesn't just write tension; she writes tension so thick you could slice it with a saber, leaving you breathless with every turn of the page.

🔥Raising the Stakes and the Dead

Then Lord of Blade and Bone shows up and ups the stakes tenfold. The rebellion is in full swing, the kingdom is bleeding, and the emotional scars run deeper than any sword wound.

What truly obsessed us was the way Rodgers layers the world: we get bone collectors, haunted Guardians, and underground resistance networks; it's all so vividly cinematic and heart-wrenching. Charlotte’s fight for justice collides with Luc’s struggle for redemption, proving that love and sacrifice might just be two sides of the same blade.

We were emotionally wrecked by the end, half in love with every morally gray character, and absolutely desperate for the next book. The prose feels both lush and lethal like a velvet cloak concealing a dagger.

🗡️ The Page Ladies Verdict: Read This!

✨️If you're in the mood for a series that is beautifully macabre and romantic in equal measure, clear your schedule. The Waking Heart Series is a dangerous obsession we fully encourage.

❗️The Big Question for the Rebellion!

❓️If you were bound to a magical Guardian half spirit, half soldier would you fight for the living or follow the dead who still whisper your name? Tell us your choice in the comments!

Our December Booksworn Bookclub pick has been chosen by our Bright Stars! Really looking forward to the reactions, chats and videos all about The Only Good Indians with our First Swords and Bright Stars!

It's time for The Page Ladies Book Club's 2025 Book Lovers Secret Santa Gift Exchange! We're turning up the holiday cheer and using the magic of Elfster to handle the anonymous matching. Let's make this Christmas the most bookish one yet!

🎁 How the Gift Exchange Works:

Matching: Elfster will anonymously pair you with one lucky recipient.

The Gift: You choose the perfect read! It can be a newly purchased book OR a beloved title from your own collection new or gently used.

Wish List Wisdom: Please head to Elfster and clearly state your "wishes"! Include specific titles, preferred genres, and your preferred book format physical, e-book, etc.. Help your Secret Santa out!

⭐Dates to Remember:

Register by: December 24th

Matches Drawn: December 25th A Christmas morning surprise!

Send Your Gift by: January 1st

A Quick Note on Spending: Please ignore the $50 spending limit on Elfster it's just a site requirement! There is no minimum or maximum amount. The true magic is in the exchange!

📍Our Golden Rule: The success of this event relies on commitment. Please only join if you are committed to sending a gift. Let's make sure every member is feeling the love this Christmas!

❗️If you or know of someone who maybe interested in joining us tap or send them this link! https://tinyurl.com/4hafcpsu

Guess what I've got for you today...

...

...

I think that's enough to keep it out of the image preview, so....

Ta-daaaaa! Subscribers actually got this a couple weeks ago so shout out to you guys for keeping it a secret in the discord.

For those of you who don't know the lore here, let me give you a little background. Yes, you are reading that correct, that says this is announcing the 2024 Best of Books winners. In November. of 2025.

I wish I had a reasonable excuse for this, I really do...but I don't. I genuinely can't even tell you why I didn't release this in January like I was supposed to or why I haven't released it in the many months that these images have been sitting in my Canva projects, but from the bottom of my heart I have no idea. Anyway, it has now been almost a full year since we first started the process of nominating books for our Best of Books 2024 and for the love of god I need this to not be hanging over my head anymore. I say that as though there was literally anything or anyone but my own damn self keeping me from getting this out, BUT THERE WASN'T.

You ever get a text or an email from someone that you don't reply to right away and then you kind of forget about it until it's a few days later and you go "oh my god I need to reply to that" but you've remembered at 1am and that's not a reasonable hour to text someone so you'll do it in the morning, and then you wake up in the morning and for many more mornings until the next time you remember it's suddenly been weeks and now it's awkward but you really should reply to it but you put it off because now you're embarrassed and then the longer you wait the worse it gets so you just never reply and suddenly you've ignored someone you really meant to get back to?

That's normal...right? Anyway that's basically what has happened here and I refuse to have this sitting on my dusty, unseen to-do list any longer so HERE are the winners of our 2024 Best of Books:

And there we have it! I AM FREE. Free to get started all over again on our 2025 nominations...

The December book club pick is The Bone Ships by R.J. Barker! I’m so excited to start this trilogy with you guys. I’ve heard amazing things, including that it’s dark, gritty, intense, and inventive. A word of warning—I’ve heard a lot of people say the first 100 pages can be pretty confusing. Barker tends to throw you in the deep end of his world-building and you have to teach yourself how to swim 😅 The glossary will be our best friend!

Just a reminder that we have a virtual book club meeting scheduled for Sunday, November 30th at 8pm PT 📱

Check the Discord for the zoom link and for this month’s giveaway winner!

Happy Tuesday, mis internet amigxs!

I apologize but it appears that the November 18th releases post didn't go up last week! I can't find the draft anywhere and I apologize for that. It's been a hectic few weeks, as my Mami has been having some health issues and we've been going to appointments nonstop. I'm working on the December post now for Libritos and Lectores members and it'll go up by next Monday and, of course, the regular newsletter on Tuesday. I'm actually debating just doing one big post for the month to give myself some breathing room to prepare for some new initiatives beginning in January.

I'll have a more robust post on what I'm working on, but a reminder that Lectores and Libritos members will have access to all the news FIRST as well as exclusive access to behind-the-scenes and exclusive content.

And, now, before we get to this week's books, a short holiday reminder--

A reminder that this holiday season, we're SHOPPING SMALL and we're getting our audiobooks at LibroFM! Their annual Shop Small sale begins today and ends December 31st. You can stock up on gift audiobooks (or some for yourself) with hundreds marked at $5.99 or less!

November 18th

Fruto: Bearing The Burden of Care by Daniela Rea and translated by John Gibler: This nonfiction work wasn't even on my radar until it was recommended to me by Marina Azahua at the Hay Festival. It's a memoir about childcare and rearing and the effects of it always falling to women caretakers.

NOVEMBER 25th

My Fair Senor by Alana Quintana Albertson (Audiobook) Before you dive into this one, I recommend you read some of the reviews by Latine reviewers on Goodreads, such as this one by Maya before picking this one up.

xoxo,

Carmen

International To Bargain With Mortals Day! is a thing I have just made up, but we’re going with it. 

Bargain has been out for almost a MONTH, which feels crazy. It’s out in the world. I’m seeing the pictures you guys send me of it from all over the place and people are reading it! It’s such a fun process to see this book that went from a tiny circle of people to a small publishing team to a little pool of early readers now be out in the world to everyone, but the work is not done! My work, anyway, but I’m gonna ask for your help on this one.

I’d love to ask for your help and support in making next Monday, December 1st, a big day for Bargain by doing any (or all!) of the following…

• Buy the book! For yourself if you haven’t picked it up yet, or if you’re planning on gifting it to a reader friend, it’s the perfect time

  • And there may or may not be an e-book sale coming up this week ;) 

• If you’ve finished the book, post your review!

  • On review sites like Goodreads (where we’re inching closer to 500 ratings!) or Storygraph, but even if you already have, it’s a great day to cross-share that review to retail sites like Amazon (this is extremely helpful), Barnes & Noble, Indigo, etc. wherever it is that you buy!
    

• Post about it on social media!

  • Whether you have 10 followers or 10,000, visibility is so incredibly important for a book. Post about Bargain to your feeds and/or in your stories, share it on your personal pages to let friends and family know what you’re reading, I’d love to see my mentions flooded with people sharing Bargain! 

The holidays are both an extremely important and extremely difficult promotional time for books, and I want to close out 2025 with as strong a finish as possible by giving Bargain as much of a leg up as we possibly can in its first months.

And on my end of our little celebration, I’ll be doing a giveaway of (possibly the last?) one of our VIP ARC boxes that we sent out to influencers to promote the book ^_^ So keep an eye out for that on Monday as well as whatever else I'm cooking up over here.

More to come, but I wanted to get this out of my brain and into your hands <3 Thank you all for being here. More than ever, I'm feeling so dedicated and motivated to create a space in publishing that is equitable and supportive of our authors and the work that we love so much, that refuses to overlook stories and writers based on the choices of executive boards and social media trends, and the way that we can continue to do that is by giving as much love and support to our books as possible.

- Emma

📚The Book: The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

📽️The Movie: Directed by Derek Cianfrance 2016, starring Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander

The novel The Light Between Oceans is a quiet masterpiece, a story that starts with isolation and ends with devastation. As readers, we become privy to the innermost torment of Tom and Isabel Sherbourne on Janus Rock, forcing us to ask: If fate offered you a second chance at happiness at the cost of another's grief, would you take it?

❓️But did the film adaptation manage to capture the same moral storm that left us hollow and teary?

▫️Where the Movie Shines: Visual Beauty and Raw Grief: The 2016 film, directed by Derek Cianfrance, excels where cinema is naturally superior: visual atmosphere.

▫️The Setting as a Character: The movie beautifully captures the isolation of Janus Rock and the brutal, luminous beauty of the Australian coast. You can visually feel the salt spray and the overwhelming loneliness that makes Isabel's desperation believable.

▫️The Acting: The casting of Michael Fassbender, Tom and Alicia Vikander, Isabel was powerful. Vikander expertly conveyed Isabel's fragile, aching grief after the miscarriages, making her immediate, visceral connection to baby Lucy completely understandable. Fassbender, meanwhile, nailed Tom’s rigid moral principles struggling against his boundless love for his wife. Their performances anchor the tragedy.

📚Where the Book Holds the Light: Moral Nuance and Internal Torment: While the movie is beautiful, the book is necessary to truly grasp the depth of the couple's moral decline.

▫️The Weight of Silence: The novel spends significant time inside Tom’s conscience. His meticulous record-keeping and his background as a war survivor give immense weight to his decision to keep Lucy a secret. The book lets us experience the slow erosion of his certainty; in the film, this shift often feels faster, fueled more by passion than by the gradual weight of the lie.

▫️Isabel’s Justification: In the book, we fully inhabit Isabel's grief, which helps us understand not necessarily forgive why she feels entitled to this gift from the sea. Her desperation is the driver of the tragedy, and the book allows us more space to feel her profound loss before the baby arrives.

▫️The Blurry Spaces: As I noted in my review, the novel excels in the blurry spaces the moments where good people genuinely believe they are doing the least harmful thing. The movie, by necessity, has to simplify these internal dilemmas into spoken dialogue or expressions, sometimes lessening the terrible, aching inevitability that Stedman crafted on the page.

⚖️The Verdict: A Luminous, Yet Less Layered, Reflection: The film is a luminous, heart-wrenching visual tribute to a tragic story. If you loved the novel, you will appreciate seeing the world of Janus Rock brought to life.

However, the book remains the definitive, complex experience. It is the source of the profound moral questioning of the beautiful, aching torment that makes the story one that truly stays with you.

▫️Your Thoughts: In the book, Tom’s principles clash directly with Isabel’s maternal desperation. If you were the one who found the boat, and you were completely isolated, which object would you hide away with the baby to make your lie feel justifiable: the deceased man’s wedding ring symbolizing loss or the lighthouse logbook symbolizing Tom’s conscience?