It hasn’t been a stellar reading quarter, mostly due to health issues (headaches & the depressy-stressy disorder make reading tricky), but I’ve definitely found some new faves. Arkady Martine has written a beautiful Sci-Fi duology (with more books to come?!?! we can only hope) about politics, colonisation, and technology set in space with sapphic heroines. Honestly, it’s like she wrote these books just for me. The first book is called A Memory Called Empire, which is just an excellent & haunting title. And I finally picked up the first book in Seth Dickinson’s SF trilogy, The Traitor Baru Cormorant, and it also is exactly all the things I love in a book. I would die for Baru. The third SF book that blew my mind was Kate Elliot’s Unconquerable Sun, a gender-bent Alexander the Great retelling where his horse Bucephalus is a star ship. Five stars, will read again, cannot wait for the sequel!
I’ve also learned a couple of things about my reading preferences:
- I hate short chapters with a passion because I read fast, and like to pause at the end of the chapter to really ruminate on the happenings; and if it’s short, I’m stopping way too often.
- The only Romance sub-genre that I like is, oddly, Contemporary Rom-Com. Historical bores me, Paranormal/Sci-Fi/Fantasy annoys me, Suspense makes me straight up hate the romance aspect, and YA is not adult. Erotic is fine, but I don’t want to seek it out. A Romance novel has to have a Happily-Ever-After or Happily-For-Now ending, and honestly I like real angst & tragedy in my stories way too much. But Rom-Coms… they feel like they’ve earned that ending.
- I can read 150-200 pages an hour. No wonder I churn through books. And my mother tells me I could read before I was 2 years old, so I’ve been doing it for… a long time.
- I like owning print books but I prefer reading eBooks, because they’re so much more accessible when I’m ill. Mum gave me a Kindle Paperwhite for my birthday last year, and it is getting A LOT of use!
January
The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley
Pestilence by Laura Thalassa
A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske
Beach Read by Emily Henry
Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade
All the Feels by Olivia Dade
The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James
Seven Devils by Laura Lam & Elizabeth May
We hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal
All of Us Villains by Amanda Foody & Christine Lynn Herman
Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Crier’s War by Nina Varela
Iron Heart by Nina Varela
A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
February
A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine
Hunt the Stars by Jessie Mihalik
The Wicked King by Holly Black
The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black
The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson
Orc-Ward Encounters by Sam Hall
House of Sky and Breath by Sarah J. Maas
Electric Idol by Katee Robert
The Perks of Loving a Wallflower by Erica Ridley
Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson
March
The Last Watch by J.S. Dewes
Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston
A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Bluebird by Ciel Pierlot
The Kindred by Alechia Dow
A Dark and Hollow Star by Ashley Shuttleworth
The Professional by Kresley Cole
The Master by Kresley Cole
The Player by Kresley Cole
Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree
River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey
Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott
Knot My Type by Evie Mitchell
The Exiled Fleet by J.S. Dewes
Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake
Jade City by Fonda Lee
1979 by Val McDermid
Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames
44 in total.
