Hello!

We’re in February already, when did that happen? We have Valentines’ hearts in the window at work, and Easter Eggs on the shelves and this year seems to already be passing quickly. It’s been a rather eventful week since my last post – Brexit happened (joy), I started a Patreon for some of my writing projects, had a run-in with a reposter who turned out to be nothing more than (I hope) a teenager looking for a fight who didn’t have a leg to stand on, and finally got through a scene in my novella that has been giving me no end of grief. I also spent a good ten minutes tangling with the word ‘them’ which I had written as ‘theb’ (got to love dyslexia and muddling letters), wherein I kept deleting the ‘b’ and then promptly typing it back in again – brain, why?

As such reading took a little bit of a back seat, plus I was still processing ‘The Wolf of Oren-Yaro’ by K.S. Villoso (Review here). I did, however, read ‘West’ by Carys Davies and ‘The Honjin Murders’ by Seishi Yokomizo – both of which I gave *** (3-stars) on Goodreads because while they were enjoyable enough reads and quick ones, they didn’t grasp me as fully as I would like. I also started ‘To Kill a Kingdom’ by Alexandra Christo, while I have decided for the time being to set aside ‘The Final Empire’ by Brandon Sanderson. I’m hoping that if I come back to it when I am in the right mindset, I will enjoy it more than I am at the moment, as it is one that has been highly recommended to me by several friends, and I have seen it on all the big ‘lists’, and I at least want to finish book one. But, not right now.

I also did some book therapy, I got these ones from work, hoping to expand a bit more beyond my fantasy reading (although I will always come back there)

 

I also grabbed the rest of the SPFBO 2019 finalist books that I didn’t already own, as I have been finding that I am enjoying self-published books more and more at the moment, and hopefully, it will give me a good idea of what to e

xpect when my own is ready. I also scooped up some other kindle books including ‘Devices and Desires’ by K.J. Parker, ‘A Throne of Swans’ by Katherine and Elizabeth Korr and ‘The Queens of Innis Lear’ by Tessa Gratton.

Between that, the books on my growing TBR pile and a couple of blog tours coming up, as well as some others, I won’t be running out of reading material anytime soon. Next week’s reviews will be a double feature on ‘To Kill a Kingdom’ and ‘Into the Crooked Place’ by Alexandra Christo, and I am also hoping to finish the first editing run on my novella. Then I get to do a second one, before parcelling it off to someone else who can track down the wayward letters that I will have either missed or managed to add during the editing.

Rowena

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January Reading Summary:

‘Dragonsong’ – Anne McCaffrey [Re-read]

‘The Honjin Murders’ by Seishi Yokomizo

‘The Last Unicorn’ – Peter. S. Beagle

‘The Loop’ – Nicholas Evans [Re-read]

‘Many are the Dead’ – Anthony Ryan

‘Never Die’ – Rob. J. Hayes

‘Operation Large Scotch’ by Bill Flockhart

‘Protector of the Small Quartet’ (First Test, Page, Squire and Lady Knight) – Tamora Pierce [Re-read]

Seraphina’s Lament – Sarah Chorn [Re-read]

‘West’ – Carys Davies

‘Winterglass’ – Benjanun Sriduangkaew

‘The Wolf’s Call’ – Anthony Ryan

“The Wolf of Oren-Yaro’ – K.S.Villoso

Total: 16 Books