I’ve been going through the last couple of months, feeling that reading has been tricky this year. I started the year with a couple of books that I loved (Elinor Oliphant, The Hate U Give, Iron Gold) and have felt that February and March were a bit meh but actually it hasn’t been that bad. So for the last two months, this is what I’ve read..

 Dragon Actually – G.A. Aitken

Did not like. GA Aitken also writes as Shelley Laurenston and I thought I would enjoy this, but I didn’t.

The Duchess Deal – Tessa Dare

I did enjoy this, I have to do a certain amount of handwaving when I read Tessa Dare but she writes well, this was funny and I enjoyed Emma and her new friends.

Brooklynaire – Sarina Bowen

So I more or less autobuy Bowen’s books but I didn’t enjoy this as much as the others in the series. I think because there had been so much lead up to this story through the other books.

The Boy on the Bridge – M.R. Carey

I loved The Girl with All the Gifts and this is another story from the same world, that ties up some threads. I did really enjoy it, I found it had all the things that I liked from TGWATG but I was interested in these people and how they would live with themselves and with the world they were in.

Mister McHottie – Pippa Grant

This was free, and I’m glad it was because I would have been sad to have paid cash money for it. I did not find it hilarious and honestly, I didn’t much like or empathise with the hero or the heroine, which is a pretty bad thing in book.

A Princess in Theory – Alyssa Cole

I did enjoy this, but not as much as everyone else seems to have done. There’s lots about it I loved, Ledi is great, her best friend needs a slap. The book didn’t gel for me,  the first half of the book and the second didn’t seem to fit. The end was all bish bash bosh, problem solved and that didn’t seem right when the characters were so finely drawn to start with.

A Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L’engle

The film has not had great reviews but lots of people who’s opinions I respect are really excited about it and really love the book. So I read the book and I’ve worked out for me what the problem is. A Wrinkle in Time is a classic children’s book in the US, it doesn’t have the same following here. It was written in 1963 but I don’t ever remember seeing it in the library at school or home. It isn’t a book that parents here have passed onto children. It’s a good children’s book and I enjoyed it and if they were easily available, I’d read the others. I get why my friends are excited for the film but the story doesn’t have the same emotional heft for me.

Bringing Delaney Home – Lee Kilraine

This was free and thank goodness it was because it wasn’t that good. I just didn’t get it, there was too much going on in the town and not enough going on with the characters.

Digging In – Loretta Nyhan

This was also a freebie, it was an Amazon Prime monthly pick. I enjoyed it, it was very gentle but I would have actually preferred more gardening (of course I would!).

The Rook – Daniel O’Malley (re-read)

I loved this when I first read it and I loved it on second reading, which I did to reacquaint myself with the world before reading the sequel.

Stiletto – Daniel O’Malley

What happens when you make peace with an opponent that you have been brought up to loathe? In Stiletto, it all gets very confusing and complicated and funny.

Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life – Peter Godfrey-Smith

I loved this, I picked it up half price when I bought Ma a book for Mother’s Day, because books are my love language (I bought her The Catholics: The Church and its People in Britain and Ireland, from the Reformation to the Present Day, she did like it and has already been quoting bits of it to me!). As a present, buying something that gets me a cheap book it a win win, and I really enjoyed it. I’m not good at science but I understood pretty much all of it and I enjoyed the way that Godfrey-Smith mixes his experience of octopuses with explaining evolution, I really loved the explanation of the current theories of ageing. Overall, I was entertained and I learnt something I didn’t know much about.

Silver Silence – Nalini Singh

This is the second arch of the Psy-Changling series. I enjoyed it because I always do.

Tell the Wind and Fire – Sarah Rees Brennan

I really loved this so much I considered reading A Tale of Two Cities. (I’m really not a huge fan of Dickens). Anyway it was less funny than other SRB books but so good.