Hello, hello, hello, Dear Readers! Happy Tuesday to all.
First up: THE BOOK OF SNOW & SILENCE is on a Kindle Countdown deal right now and you can snap it up for under £2, but only for today - then the price increases by £1 (although that's still £1 off the normal price). So if you're interested in owning it, now is the time to snap it up.
Today I bring you a veritable blizzard of reviews, all of books I've read pretty recently. I was on a major fiction-reading slump while working on my dissertation - mainly because I spent all my time devouring academic books to try and prove that the point I'm arguing in my essay isn't utterly bonkers - but now that it's finished and I'm nearly ready to hand in, I've gone... a bit book-mad. I just had a lot of novels queued up on my ereader, and once I started, I couldn't stop!
Some of these reviews are looong. Some are short and sweet. There's no way I can copy and paste all of them here in full, so I'm just going to list the books with a one sentence summming up, and a link to the full thing over on Goodreads. These are presented to you in reading order, not order of preference, and I'm only sharing reviews for standalone books.
A Warning: I do not hold back on expressing my feelings, here! If I inadvertantly trashed your favourite book, I apologise for any hurt feelings - but just know that however negative my review may seem, I myself have been the recipient of ones ten times worse, and survived. Also, although I may refer to the authors, I will always focus on the book or character's traits, not the writers' (presumed) ones.
Onward!
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. Finished: the 28th of June. My Summary: gorgeous but incoherent and ultimately unsuccessful. Full review.
Angel Mage by Garth Nix. Finished: the 4th of July. My Summary: Enjoyable mash-up of fun elements that left me feeling somewhat let down by the close. Full review.
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. Finished: the 13th of July. My Summary: an intriguing take on the well-worn Groundhog Day trope which has a lukewarm start, a bubbling-hot middle, and then goes off the boil at the end. Full review.
The Bookshop of Yesterdays by Amy Meyerson. Finished: July the 30th. My Summary: I went in looking for a whimsical, life-affirming, bibliophile-friendly tale, but I got uninteresting family drama and a heroine so miserable and dense that it was a struggle to finish. Full Review.
Sorcery of Thorns by Margeret Rogerson. Finished: July the 29th. My Summary: Fast-paced, thrilling fantasy which is vaguely reciminiscent of my favourite bits of LIRAEL by Garth Nix and has an ending which is Just Right. Full Review.
The Shadows Between Us by Tricia Levenseller. Finished: July the 31st. My Summary: A brilliant premise sadly wasted because the characters are unbearably shallow and boring. Full review.
Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust. Finished: August the 1st. My Summary: A twisty fantasy which offers Persian inspired mythology and worldbuilding and characters that absolutely scintillate with inner life. Full Review.
Let me know if you've read any of these (or plan to) and what you thought in the comments, Muffins!
