I’ve had a weirdly busy week even by my pre-pandemic standards. Went out for a meal, had a work barbeque and braved Christchurch food festival, plus a long walk near Fordingbridge on Sunday. So with all that being out of the house, I didn’t write my final 20 Books of Summer reviews. I didn’t really want to post half-hearted ones but I will congratulate myself on the 17 reviews I did do on schedule, and will review the final three over the next couple of weeks.

Last week I reviewed one of my favourite reads of the summer, A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers and shared the books on my radar for September.

Here’s a very tired looking Scully on our weekend walkies, this part of the New Forest was surprisingly hilly!

I read Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune for review. I know so many people have loved The House in the Cerulean Sea so I was a bit disappointed with my first taste of his writing. It was a bit twee and the main characters were lacking depth. I might still try The House in the Cerulean Sea, because that sounds like it would suit being cutesy more, but this had an unlikeable character at the centre and the blurb gave away most the plot.

I also finished Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder by T.A. Willberg on audio for the Popsugar locked room mystery prompt. This has been the third book I’ve read this year where the locked room aspect was just a small part of the overall mystery, but at least this one happened in the “lock room” so I’m counting it as close enough. I liked the idea of the 1950’s underground detective agency with its gadgets, but the characters were a bit bland.

So not that great a reading week! I started Sarah J. Maas’ House of Earth and Blood for the longest book on my TBR prompt the other day and was a bit concerned that was going to be an overly long dud, but it has really picked up after all the infodumping at the start. I think she’s forgotten how to start a new series…

New books acquired:

Mina and the Undead by Amy McCaw
The Lights of Prague by Nicole Jarvis
Love in Colour by Bolu Babalola
The Women of Troy by Pat Barker (audio)