Got the single line on my Covid test and managed to venture out for a proper walk this week. Rather than paying the extortionate parking at Moors Valley, we walked from Ringwood along the Castleman Trailway, the route of the former railway. Then we had lunch at Boston Tea Party, and since we were right outside Waterstones, I nipped in to buy a book while waiting for the food to arrive!

Here’s Scully colour coordinating with the heather:

Labrador dog in purple harness sat in front of purple heather

I can’t believe we missed Scully’s birthday due to Covid. So I’m gonna just make a fuss on her gotcha day in September instead. I usually take her to the pet shop to choose a toy and a treat.

This week I read and reviewed Hothouse Earth by Bill McGuire , thanks to everyone using my Blackwell’s affiliate link to buy it! I also reviewed Dead Water by C.A. Fletcher and shared the August releases on my radar.

In a push to read a few more of the tricky Popsugar challenge prompts, I picked up Eve by Una, which was a bit of a dreary and aimless disappointment. Becoming Unbecoming was so much better. But at least I ticked off “palindromic title”, leaving 15 prompts to go.

Then to reward myself for doing challenge reading I picked up Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson, which thanks to a trans character and a TERF villain, I could totally use for the gender identity prompt. I loved that she chose to write about witches in their thirties, so much urban fantasy is about young whippersnappers.

All the romance ebooks listed below are 99p on UK Amazon at the moment. I kinda felt like binging on some lighter reads.

New books acquired:

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
[gifted] Loki by Melvin Burgess (Hodder)
The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston (ebook)
Tag, You’re Dead by Kathryn Foxfield (ebook)
The Secret of Life by Howard Markel (audiobook)
Tweet Cute by Emma Lord (ebook)
Something Wilder by Christina Lauren (ebook)
Love From A to Z by S.K. Ali (ebook)