The Girl in the Tower

Published December 5, 2017 by Del Rey

Genres Fantasy, Historical Fiction, YA, Mythology

Pages 360

Format Paperback, bought

    There are some stories that stir your soul so deeply that they haunt you—in the best way. The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden is one of those books. I rated the first novel in this trilogy a glowing 5 stars, and this second installment has more than earned the same. Katherine Arden has written a tale that sings like wind through winter branches—melancholic, sharp, magical, and utterly alive.

    The story opens not with Vasya, but with her sister Olga, who left the wild unknown behind to take her place in the rigid order of nobility. It was painful—heartbreaking, even—to witness how tamed she has become. The life that was imposed on her, “the lot of women,” has broken her in quiet ways, and it was even more painful to watch her press that same fate onto her daughter. You can feel her daughter's spirit being slowly smothered beneath the weight of tradition and expectation, and I couldn’t help but ache for her.

    As with The Bear and the Nightingale, this book weaves folklore, history, and myth into a living tapestry. It starts as a ghost story, threading mystery through every page—who is this? Is it a chyerti?—and as the plot unfolds, it blends the fantastical with the all-too-human.

    The romance truly begins to unfold here, and it is both breathtaking and tragic. Spoiler ahead: Morozko begins to change—becoming mortal, becoming human—because of his love for Vasya. But she, scarred by a lifetime of control, betrayal, and abuse at the hands of men and the Church, reacts from a place of survival. She breaks his power, unable to understand the full weight of what he was offering. And he begins to fade.

    That moment wrecked me.

    It was a poetic metaphor for the way we sometimes destroy the very things we desire most—out of fear, confusion, or pain. We believe we're doing what’s right, what we must, only to later realize the damage we've caused. There is no undoing it. And that truth—hard and beautiful—sits at the heart of this book like frost on glass.

    Their kiss towards the end left me breathless. Arden captured something raw and sacred in that moment:

“She had never been kissed before, not thus. Not long and—deliberately. She didn't know how—but he taught her. Not with words, no; with his mouth, his fingertips, and a feeling that did not have words. A touch, dark and exquisite, that breathed along her skin.”

    This is what romance should feel like—charged, reverent, magnetic. Not the hollow, casual encounters passed off as “empowered” in so much modern media, but something transformative.

    I’ll admit, the pacing in the beginning was slow. But if you know Arden’s rhythm, it’s part of the magic. Like winter itself, it takes time to settle in—but when it does, it takes root in your bones. And trust me: it is worth it. The moment we meet Vasya’s grandmother, I gasped out loud. That entire section turned the book from something good to something unforgettable. It’s one of those moments that makes you sit forward and devour the rest.

    I’m also deeply invested in Vasya’s niece now (I wish I remembered her name!). Her presence is luminous, and the foreshadowing of her falling in love with a bird? I’m intrigued, nervous, hopeful, and totally obsessed. What does it mean? A chyerti like Morozko? Solovey, the horse-who-might-be-more? A spirit? A future love story blooming in the shadow of Vasya’s? I need to know.

    What continues to astound me in this series is Arden’s portrayal of magick and the Sight. She doesn’t just invent a fantasy system—she captures the truth of animism and mysticism. The way she describes characters as rays of light or shifting shadows resonates with how real spiritual Sight actually works. It’s not about the physical, but the intuitive, the soul-seeing. Reading her words reminded me of how powerful perception is, and how sacred it is to trust your inner vision.

    This book has inspired me deeply. So much so, I’ll be creating a video for my Priestess Guidance YouTube channel exploring how The Girl in the Tower portrays the Sight, what it means to see beyond the veil, and how to reclaim and trust your own magick.

    In all, The Girl in the Tower is a stunning continuation of a series that speaks directly to my soul. A story of strength, sorrow, beauty, and becoming. Arden doesn’t just write books—she casts spells with ink and frost.

    If you felt the call of the first book, follow it here. Even if the path is slow to start, it leads somewhere breathtaking.
    And I, for one, am ready to follow it all the way into the fire.

 

The Knight and the Moth

 

Published May 20, 2025

Genres Adult Gothic Romantasy

Pages 400 

Format Audio, Everand

I have not finished this book yet, but I am trying to hang on and finish. 3 strikes, and you're out. And it has already happened 2 times. The irreverence of spiritual truth *facepalm* (the whole reason I picked it up). But maybe the part about killing Gods should've given me a clue. 

⭐️⭐️⭐️ (Tentative 3 stars)

The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig is a beautifully written book with a dark, mist-laced atmosphere that immediately drew me in. The poetic prose, the gothic tone, and the character of Sybil—torn between spiritual depth and external pressures—have enough gravity to keep me reading for now.

But I’m reading with caution.

As someone who walks the path of priestesshood and honors mysticism as something sacred and alive, I found this book’s portrayal of spiritual work unsettling. It doesn’t just use mysticism as an aesthetic—it belittles it. Priestesses and their vows are painted as naïve or even laughable, not from a place of exploration or nuance, but from a place that seems deliberately dismissive.

Worse, the second time these themes surfaced, the story began romanticizing casual sex—not as something neutral or individual, but as a supposedly enlightened alternative to sacred devotion. That’s not awakening. That’s shallowness dressed up as liberation. Deep, soulful connection—between ourselves, others, and the divine—is what makes us truly alive. Reducing intimacy to impulsiveness, and depth to outdated tradition, doesn’t feel revolutionary. It feels like joining the crowd in a world that already fears depth.

I’m continuing the book because I’m still drawn to the writing and setting. But if the narrative continues to tear down what is sacred, treating spiritual connection as something to “outgrow,” I may have to walk away.

For now, I remain intrigued, but alert.

Also... I pre-ordered the special edition from Barnes and Nobles. AND bought an audio copy from Everand. PLEASE get better!

Get the book here

The Bear and the Nightingale

Published: January 10, 2017 by Del Rey

Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction, YA, Mythology

Pages: 319

Format: Paperback, bought

    While reading the last part of the book, I was transported back in time. But no, it wasn't back in time. It's that space, that energy, that KNOWING, that we all have in us, always. 

    We like to say we lose it after childhood, that only children are capable of feeling that fairytale energy, that *something* just beneath the surface. It does make it bitter sweet, as an adult, to find it again. Because you only realize you've lost that...magic...when you find it AGAIN. 

    

    And its found in certain books, the kind you rate 5 stars, when you usually only give books at the most 4 stars, and if it was a REALLY good book, 4.5 You find it in the depths of the Forest, when you realize you are slightly farther away from the path than you intended. But yet, you're HOME. 

    Some people say that it's a feeling you can find with being high, with certain drug use. But no... The thing is, we are ALWAYS searching for that feeling. That childhood feeling. It's like a drug, like chasing the dragon. And like the dragon, it's illusory. It will never be caught. Because you can't feel it by CHASING it. 

     "It cannot be found by searching," said Solovey. "You must look away just a little." 

     It's that word that's just at the tip of your tongue. It's that niggling feeling just at the corner of your brain. It's that SOMETHING, that you can't quite remember; you remember just enough to know there's something TO remember, but that's all. 

    It's that time in between waking and dreaming, when you're full of knowing, full of the quality of the dream state. And you try to focus your attention, and you're mind just can't quite comprehend what it's focusing ON. Because it's a vastness. It's nothingness and everything, all at once. 

    It's that truth, right beneath the societal conditioning that we have to cloak ourselves with to live in a society. But we all have it. And this book embodies all of this. I rated this book 5 stars because of this. 

     "You Are too attached to things as they are. You must allow things to be what best suits your purpose. And then they will." 

     "You can't CHANGE it to a brush. Because that would be to believe it is now straw. Just allow it, now, to BE a brush." 

     "Nothing changes, Vasya. Things are, or they are not. Magic is forgetting that something ever was other than as you willed it." 

     "I do not understand DAMNED. You ARE. And because you are, you can walk where you will, into peace, into oblivion, or pits of fire, but you will always choose." 

 

 

Sims 3 Lepacy Challenge, Gen 0 - Base Game

     Simis Bachelor and Jocasta Bachelor are Bella Bachelor and Michael Bachelor’s parents. They are pretty traditional, and live in the base game world of Sunset Valley with base game traditions. Simis is a sci-fi author, the owner of the Bachelor’s Nook bookstore, and the lead reporter of the town. Jocastor is a little more than a 1950s stay at home mom. She does have a part-time job at the bookstore, but that’s only because someone needs to be there to manage the place, and Simis is too busy. But Simis and Jocasta have a wholesome relationship, so there is no control between them. 

Simis wants to have the house be worth 200,000 simoleans before he dies, because he wants the family to have a strong foundation. Jocasta loves gardening, and wants to help the wealth of the family by growing perfect produce for self sustainability and wealth. 

    This legacy will also incorporate the store world legacy. This is the order:

Gen 0: Base Game - Simis and Jocasta

Gen 1: World Adventures - Bella, Mortimer, and Michael (mummy)

Gen 2: Riverview - Bella and Mortimer's children (Cassandra and Alexander) possibly a french, chinese, or egyptian child as well.

Gen 3: Ambitions (have a simbot)

Gen 4: Barnacle Bay

Gen 5: Late Night (have child with vampire)

Gen 6: Hidden Springs

Gen 7: Generations (have child with imaginary friend)

Gen 8: Lunar Lakes

Gen 9: Pets (get all pets, and start a legacy with all pets as well.)

Gen 10: Lucky Palms

Gen 11: Showtime (have a child with Genie)

Gen 12: Sunlit Tides

Gen 13: Supernatural (Have a child with a werewolf/fairy/witch, have 2 other sims become the two other occults.)

Gen 14: Monte Vista

Gen 15: Seasons (become impregnated by an alien)

Gen 16: Aurora Skies

Gen 17: University (become a plant sim, have a baby plantsim)

Gen 18: Dragon Valley

Gen 19: Island Paradise (become a mermaid, have a baby mermaid)

Gen 20: Midnight Hollow

Gen 21: Into the Future (have plumbot)

Gen 22: Roaring Heights

Gothic (literary) Subculture

 So new realization of the disconnect between me and others(that I originally thought I would have connected with). When I say Goth/Gothic, I mean the literary subgenre. That's where MY subculture comes from. I don't mean the music subgenre. Gothic literature is the original term. Gothic literature was named for the Gothic architecture.

The term Gothic was coined by Italian artists of the renaissance, who attributed the first original use of the word Gothic (i.e. the Gothic tribes), to the architecture. I did some more digging and research on why, and this kind of circles back around to the fact that the term "goth" means "vandal" "uncivilized".

And we all know that the word "uncivilized" is just a fancy word for those who are shallow and can't think for themselves to degrade anyone who is individualistic and doesn't follow a mindless herd mentality.

If you want to know what is really goth, look at books like Dracula. Goth is it's own genre. Some say that Gothic literature is horror. I disagree. I had to actually look up the dictionary definition of horror: Noun - an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust. In books like Dracula, I don't get any of those feelings. What I do get is a sense of awe, a sense of beauty, a sense of wonder. Go to a Gothic cathedral and stare up. Do you feel fear? Disgust? What do you feel? That's what true Gothic is. That's what true Gothic literature, music, clothing, lifestyle, etc. should invoke.

For me, if it's for shock value, it's being a poseur/attention seeking, etc.

Also, I think the reason why people fear something that is actually beautiful, such as Gothic literature, is because as a society we are conditioned to fear our emotions. We are conditioned to think that crying always means something is wrong, and you need to "fix" it right away. To some, the sense of awe can feel like fear/anxiety if they don't have any emotional intelligence and maturity. Next time something feels too intense for you, stop and wonder, "am I actually afraid, or am I just feeling emotions that I'm unfamiliar with?"

*Gothic cathedral and my current favorite version of Dracula*

Lectio Divina

 Here is a quote from my Lectio Divina I did today:

"“Seeped into the mainstream”. THIS. This right here. It’s ridiculous. They make so many spiritual and religious and cultural, IMPORTANT things, into a laughing stock marketable gimmick and toy. That’s why these annoying cookie-cutter dudes look down on these things and don’t take it seriously. I wouldn’t either if I didn’t have the research and study I have under my belt."

Things like "moon child", astrology, rituals, even the Gods themselves, are thrown about in media and are taken and adopted by these people who have NO IDEA what they mean, or any truth about them except for what is shown on TikTok, magazines, celebrities, movies, etc.

This also happens with psychotherapeutic things as well. Real terminologies become "buzzwords" and are thrown about everywhere, so when it is something actually serious, now everyone already has a connotation that it's NOT that serious, or it's a type of "crying wolf" trope, and now real victims and people who need real help are overlooked/ignored.

Liberals perpetuate this shit, and conservatives take it and believe it.