In 2019, my husband gifted me a subscription to The Strand’s The Book HookUp. We’d visited New York City for the first time the previous Christmas in 2018, stopping in at The Strand bookstore, of course, so it was the perfect gift. What I love about this subscription is that it’s quarterly, so not a huge commitment.

• Boxes ship out in March, June, September, and December—or Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter.
• The box comes with two books—typically one is a signed currently hyped book and the other is an advanced reader copy, but this time it was something different.
• It also includes other bookish and local goodies.

My Winter box had some fun and unexpected items!

Let’s wander in!

My box is a young adult box, but you can choose from a variety of boxes, including fiction, classics, and sci-fi. However, the prices differ for some of the boxes. There’s also a spoiler link on the website where you can see what the main title will be in your next box. I can never resist a peek!

What I found inside:

The Books

(Link to Goodreads synopsis through book title.)

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• This box included a signed hardback of You’ll Be the Death of Me by Karen M. McManus (Due to Covid-19 restrictions, it included a signed book plate instead of a signed copy of the book). I finally read One of Us is Lying last summer, so I’m excited to pick up this one, inspired by the classic 80’s film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off!
• And while the second book is typically an advanced copy of an upcoming book, this time my box included an older book, The Lying Woods by Ashley Elston published in 2018. I’d never heard of this one, but oddly, when my box arrived I was reading Elston’s more well-known book 10 Blind Dates, which I was enjoying, so I was happy to see my box included another book by her.
• Also included was a sneak peek booklet including excerpts of Rory Power’s Burn Our Bodies Down (2020) on one side with Wilder Girls (2019) on the flip side, both of which I have not read.

You’ll Be the Death of Me Synopsis:

Ivy, Mateo, and Cal used to be close. Now all they have in common is Carlton High and the beginning of a very bad day.

Type A Ivy lost a student council election to the class clown, and now she has to face the school, humiliated. Heartthrob Mateo is burned out–he’s been working two jobs since his family’s business failed. And outsider Cal just got stood up…. again.

So when Cal pulls into campus late for class and runs into Ivy and Mateo, it seems like the perfect opportunity to turn a bad day around. They’ll ditch and go into the city. Just the three of them, like old times. Except they’ve barely left the parking lot before they run out of things to say…

Until they spot another Carlton High student skipping school–and follow him to the scene of his own murder. In one chance move, their day turns from dull to deadly. And it’s about to get worse.

It turns out Ivy, Mateo, and Cal still have some things in common. They all have a connection to the dead kid. And they’re all hiding something.

Now they’re all wondering–could it be that their chance reconnection wasn’t by chance after all?

From the author of One of Us Is Lying comes a brand-new pulse-pounding thriller. It’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off with murder when three old friends relive an epic ditch day, and it goes horribly–and fatally–wrong.

Published on November 30, 2021

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The Lying Woods Synopsis:

Owen Foster has never wanted for anything. Then his mother shows up at his elite New Orleans boarding school cradling a bombshell: his privileged life has been funded by stolen money. After using the family business, the single largest employer in his small Louisiana town, to embezzle millions and drain the employees’ retirement accounts, Owen’s father vanished without a trace, leaving Owen and his mother to deal with the fallout.

Owen returns to Lake Cane to finish his senior year, where people he can barely remember despise him for his father’s crimes. It’s bad enough dealing with muttered insults and glares, but when Owen and his mother receive increasingly frightening threats from someone out for revenge, he knows he must get to the bottom of what really happened at Louisiana Frac–and the cryptic note his father sent him at his boarding school days before disappearing.

Owen’s only refuge is the sprawling, isolated pecan orchard he works at after school, owned by a man named Gus who has his own secrets–and in some ways seems to know Owen better than he knows himself. As Owen uncovers a terrible injustice that looms over the same Preacher Woods he’s claimed as his own, he must face a shocking truth about his own past–and write a better future. 

Published on November 13, 2018

Blots Card Game

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Blots Card Game by Galison – I’d never heard of this game but it looks like a great one to stick in your bag and take for on the go!

Pipcorn

A reading snack: Pipcorn Heirloom Cheese Balls

Sips by Tea

A cute mini box from Sips by with a sample of Macaron Menthe Chocolat tea by Chez Lulu, some reusable tea bags, and a promo code for a discount on a subscription tea box. I’m excited to try the tea because I’m a fan of mint AND chocolate. 🙂

Also included in my box was a promo code for $10 off an Oh Reader magazine subscription. It’s a quarterly magazine about books! I wish it would have included a sample issue, but the subscription is only $29 a year, so $10 off is a great deal!

Have your read any of these books? Tried any of the other items? Let me know in the comments!

Happy Wandering!