My August Reading Plans Are Already Emotionally Irresponsible
I have apparently decided that August should contain as much darkness, danger, magic, and emotional damage as one reading month can reasonably hold.
This is less of a carefully balanced TBR and more of a list of fictional worlds I fully expect to regret entering.
There are immortal creatures. Dangerous bargains. Morally questionable characters. Fae, magic, feminine rage, vampires, forbidden romance, necromancy, and at least one massive book that already looks capable of consuming half the month by itself.
Very calm. Very reasonable.
I am also beginning August while finishing another Liv Zander duet, because apparently the Court of Ravens and Heartstring books did not teach me to protect my own feelings.
The current plan is to finish the Pale Court Duet and then move directly into another dark fantasy series before the emotional void has time to fully open.
This is preventative care.
Probably.
First, I Need to Survive the Pale Court Duet
Before I officially begin the August list, I need to finish Liv Zander’s Pale Court Duet.
I am not reviewing it yet because I have not completed it, and I refuse to become one of those people announcing that a series changed my life while they are still on chapter twelve.
What I can say is that my experiences with the Court of Ravens and Heartstring duets have made me deeply suspicious of Liv Zander.
I know what she does.
She introduces darkness, gives me a damaged man to become emotionally attached to, allows me to believe I might survive the experience, and then tears something important out by the roots.
And yet here I am again.
I am already preparing for the possibility that the Pale Court books will leave behind another very specific kind of emptiness—the one where no normal romance sounds interesting because I have apparently become accustomed to suffering, death, dangerous men, and fantasy worlds where love is never allowed to arrive without a body count.
That possibility shaped the entire August TBR.
Instead of choosing something light afterward, I immediately searched for books to read after Liv Zander.
Because I am an idiot.
My Top Priority: The Agía Sahnta Series
The Agía Sahnta series by Mariel Pomeroy is currently sitting at the top of the list.
It begins with Helfyre and continues with Honey, and I found it while searching for something that might fill the hole left by Liv Zander’s particular brand of dark fantasy romance.
Again and again, readers brought this series up as one of the closer options for someone who wanted another intense, dark, morally dangerous experience.
That was enough to get my attention.
What moved it to the top was the promise of immortal beings, dangerous bargains, darkness, romance, and the kind of atmosphere that suggests nobody involved has made a healthy decision in several centuries.
Perfect.
I am not expecting it to feel exactly like Liv Zander. I do not want a copy of the Pale Court, Court of Ravens, or Heartstring books with different character names pasted over the top.
I am hoping it gives me a similar level of intensity.
I want a world that feels dangerous. I want characters who are powerful enough to be frightening. I want romance that has actual teeth rather than a man being vaguely rude for two chapters before turning into a harmless golden retriever.
Most importantly, I want to disappear into something.
The Agía Sahnta series feels like the most likely candidate to take over the month if it catches me quickly. There are only two books, which means I can move straight from one into the next without waiting for another release or pretending I have the self-control to pause between them.
This is currently the plan.
We will see whether the plan survives first contact with Helfyre.
Entering the Onyx Mist
The Onyx Mist series by Sara Flanagan earned its place on my TBR by offering basically everything at once.
Dark fantasy romance?
Yes.
Magic and fae elements?
Excellent.
Feminine rage?
Hand it over.
Morally grey characters?
Obviously.
The series currently begins with Wish and continues with Revolt. I am not going into it because of one specific trope. The overall combination caught me.
I want an immersive fantasy world with characters existing in different shades of morality. I want rage that feels earned rather than added because an angry heroine sounds marketable. I want magic, secrets, and relationships that become increasingly complicated the longer everyone refuses to make a sensible choice.
This is the wildcard on the list.
The Agía Sahnta books are the series I am most deliberately preparing to begin. Onyx Mist is the one I suspect may quietly walk in from the side and become an obsession before I realize what happened.
Every monthly TBR seems to contain one book like that.
You add it because the premise sounds interesting. Then three days later you have abandoned the rest of the list, downloaded every available installment, and begun searching for special editions.
I am not saying that will happen.
I am saying I know myself.
Apparently “Vampire” and “Forbidden” Still Work on Me
The Assassin’s Way by J. M. Kearl moved onto the list for two very sophisticated reasons:
Vampires and forbidden romance.
That is it.
Sometimes I can give a thoughtful explanation about worldbuilding, political intrigue, character development, and the emotional complexity I hope to find in a book.
Sometimes someone says, “There is a forbidden romance involving a vampire,” and the book enters my reading orbit before they finish the sentence.
I accept this about myself.
The additional promise of assassins, danger, forced proximity, and political conflict certainly does not hurt. But vampires and forbidden romance did the actual work here.
I am hoping for tension.
I want the relationship to feel genuinely forbidden—not mildly inconvenient while everyone waits for the couple to admit the obvious.
I want reasons they should stay apart, followed by the complete emotional failure to do so.
Will this end well for them?
I have no idea.
Will I probably support every terrible choice once the chemistry begins working?
Unfortunately, yes.
Do I Dare Start Alchemised?
Then there is Alchemised by SenLinYu.
This is the intimidating one.
I read Manacled.
That fact alone makes Alchemised almost impossible for me to ignore.
I know it has been transformed into an original dark fantasy with its own world, characters, alchemy, necromancy, war, and mythology. I also know that my brain is unlikely to approach it as though Manacled never existed.
The comparison will happen.
I will recognize emotional shapes. I will wonder what changed, what remained, and how the story feels after being rebuilt into something legally and creatively separate from its original form.
That makes me deeply curious.
It also makes this the book on the list most likely to emotionally flatten me.
Alchemised is not a cute little weekend commitment. It is a massive, dark, war-torn fantasy involving missing memories, imprisonment, necromancy, alchemy, and a past that has apparently been buried for a reason.
Nothing about that sounds relaxing.
I already know what SenLinYu’s writing did to me in Manacled. Volunteering for another version of that experience feels less like choosing a book and more like signing an emotional waiver.
And yet I am considering it.
Of course I am.
The real question is not whether I want to read it. I do.
The question is whether I want to add a thousand-page emotional catastrophe to a month already containing multiple dark fantasy series.
That seems irresponsible.
Which means there is an excellent chance I will do it.
This TBR Is a Suggestion, Not a Contract
Let me make something very clear before August begins:
This list is not an assignment.
I am a mood reader.
I can create the most carefully considered reading plan imaginable, open one completely unrelated book on the first of the month, and disappear into a series that was not on the list at all.
That is not failure.
That is reading.
The current priorities are:
- Finish the Pale Court Duet
- Begin the Agía Sahnta series
- Enter the Onyx Mist series
- Read The Assassin’s Way
- Decide whether I am emotionally stable enough for Alchemised
The order may change.
Another book may appear.
One series may consume the entire month.
I may finish everything and begin creating an even worse September list before August is half over.
I refuse to turn reading into homework simply because I published a TBR.
The goal is not to complete every title so I can place a neat check beside it. The goal is to follow whichever world grabs me and refuses to let go.
That is also why I keep my reading tracker flexible. I want a record of what I actually read and how it affected me—not written evidence that I failed to follow a plan I made before my mood changed.
What I Hope August Gives Me
I want August to give me at least one new obsession.
That seems like a manageable request.
I want an immersive fantasy world that makes me forget to check the time. I want dangerous relationships that have me questioning everyone’s judgment while fully supporting the disaster.
I want to discover new authors and find another series capable of filling the silence after Liv Zander.
I want magic, vampires, rage, morally grey characters, terrible bargains, and at least one moment where I close the book and say, “What the actual hell was that?”
I would also appreciate an ending that does not leave me crying at work.
I am not optimistic.
August may go exactly as planned.
It may be completely derailed by the first book.
Either way, I will return at the end of the month with the truth: what I finished, what I postponed, what appeared unexpectedly, and which book did the most damage.
For now, the shelves are set.
The worlds are waiting.
And I am about to finish another Liv Zander duet before immediately walking into the next dark fantasy disaster.
Emotionally irresponsible?
Probably.
But at least I am consistent.
Morally Grey Margins is not affiliated with Mariel Pomeroy, Sara Flanagan, J. M. Kearl, SenLinYu, Liv Zander, their publishers, or any books and authors discussed in this article. These titles are part of my personal reading plans and have not yet been rated or reviewed unless otherwise stated.