Hello! Friday’s probably going to be my new (sometimes) weekly update day thanks to me being back in work. I have a lot to take in so by the end of the day I am too tired to do things like blogging. Hopefully I’ll settle in soon and will have more energy for reading and finishing my novel that I started in November. I did actually write about a thousand words last week, so it’s not been completely abandoned.

Anyway here’s a glimpse of the gorgeous endpapers from Godkiller, one of the few books I’ve finished these past two weeks:

End papers of Godkiller showing an illustration of a city on a bridge, surrounded by mountains.

Maybe I should start Endpaper of the Week, since it sure is easier than coming up with a nice photo to illustrate this post each week.

I keep accidentally reading books that fit the prompts I crossed off of Popsugar, so I’ve updated my challenge goal to read 40, which still allows me to skip the ones I really can’t see myself doing.

On the blog:

Review: You Are Here by Eva Woods

Review: World Running Down by Al Hess

Books read:

 

Godkiller by Hannah Kaner

Fantastic debut fantasy, with found family and a god of white lies. I really like stories where gods existence is based on belief; the more people believe in them the stronger they are but all the opposite is also true and they can disappear when no one worships them any more. The only thing stopping this being a five star read is that the pacing was a bit uneven, but I highly recommend.

  • ATY # 8. An author’s debut book
  • Popsugar # 4. A book by a first-time author

Goshawk Summer by James Aldred

James spent much of the 2020 lockdown up a tree in the New Forest filming goshawks and this is his diary with some additional musings on how humans and nature can coincide. I was probably in the forest at the same time as him on a  few occasions, and definitely share his frustrations on how some people were acting.

  • ATY # 9. A book nominated for an award beginning with W
  • ATY Rejects: A nonfiction nature book

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

I haven’t read any of her other books so I can’t compare but this seemed a bit basic and unsubtle. PACT (Preserving American Culture and Traditions Act) is a believable concept for a US dystopian system, echoing recent anti-Asian sentiment and book banning, but I didn’t click with the characters and there’s not a lot of plot. I admit I zoned out of the audiobook at times so I could have missed something…

  • Popsugar # 30. A book that’s on a celebrity book-club list

Books acquired:

Last year I signed up for HarperVoyager’s subscription box, The Locked Library, and the first book is a super pretty edition. The first two selections are books I wouldn’t have pre-ordered so yay for no duplicates but I’ll have to see if they are books I end up actually reading…

Bought – Physical:

Don’t Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones

The Thorns Remain by J.J.A. Harwood

Lore Olympus Volume Three by Rachel Smythe

Bought – Digital:

Murder at Haven’s Rock by Kelley Armstrong

Dazzling by Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ (audiobook)