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.
I don’t use bubble bath much but I do use bath oil, I make it myself. Four fl oz of almond oil, with 10 drops each of clary sage, cedarwood and lavender essential oil. Added to the water when the bath is running and a soak of at least 15 minutes.
Yes I’m aware that my feet in this photo are filthy, my top tip for clean feet is not to spent the day on the allotment in your Birkenstocks, how not to have ugly feet is not a thing I can help you with (maybe not have my parents!), I’m just grateful they still work and you can hardly see the scar on the left one!
Fortunately, 70 litre bags are easier to carry than 120 litre bags. We put a bag in each of the beds that haven’t already had compost and covered them until we are ready to start sowing things which should be very soon.
Ma and I also worked out where the squash bed at the top of the plot would go and she forked it over. My eventual intention is to build a bed but for this year I’ll raise the bed with compost and we’ll plant squash there. 
This also gives a good picture of the state of the soil, it’s wet underneath but dry and cracked on top, having a bed there will stop us walking all over it. Ma set up the last flower circle at the front of the plot. We’ll get to sowing some seeds in there shortly, we can already see the self seeded californian poppies coming up and I’m happy for them to do their thing.
Nic Dempsey 