#TBRPile 📚 “I like to imagine there were more of us in the beginning. Not many, I suppose. But more than there are now.”

#TBRPile 📚 “There was once an inn that sat peacefully on the bank of the Thames at Radcot, a long day‘s walk from the source.”

I‘m so disappointed, y‘all - I wanted to enjoy this dark academia fantasy a lot more than I did. It just felt very unbalanced; a lot of time was spent in the characters‘ heads, some of the POVs were more developed (and so more interesting) than others, and very little time was spent on exposition so that I never had a grasp on the world it was set in or the magic system that existed within it. A generous so-so.

A dark, witty, lyrical and oddly life-affirming look at death, this charmed me at first but then lost me. Some people will love this, but I found that the story lost its way after 100 pages and dissolved into a lament about how shitty the modern world is. The author is a spoken word artist so possibly a story that‘s better on audio. Another book down for #AwesomeApril #readathon @Andrew65

First book down for #AwesomeApril 🥳 One of my favourite things about Brandon Sanderson is the original and meticulously thought-out magic systems he comes up with which have clearly defined rules that even the protagonist can‘t break. I loved the Rithmatic magic system 😘 but sadly it was the only thing I loved in this book. It wasn‘t that it was bad, just a bit meh and lacking the usual Sanderson depth of character and world building. @Andrew65

A day late to the party but the timing of the #awesomeapril #readathon is absolutely perfect! I have two weeks off with no plans 📚 bring on the books! My goals are to finish off the tagged, finish at least one of my Libby holds, and my #doublespin book, Magic For Liars. @Andrew65

#TBRPile 📚 “I have heard it said, by those that cannot possibly know, that in the final moments of a man‘s existence he sees his whole life pass before his eyes.”

#TBRPile 📚 “It sounds like a sentence: Victoria Falls. At any rate, that‘s the joke I used to make until Her Royal Majesty Queen Victoria actually died in 1901, just before I landed on the continent.”

#TBRPile 📚 “This is the story of a Polish family, and of what happened to them during the Second World War and immediately afterwards.”

#TBRPile 📚 “You will fail, Teyr Amondsen. My eyes open. The truth wakes me. You will fail.”

#TBRPile 📚 “There‘s nothing fresh about this start.”

#TBRPile 📚 “The night Kate Harker decided to burn down the school chapel, she wasn‘t angry or drunk. She was desperate.”

I actually enjoyed the first three-quarters of this YA-thriller. The central mystery was intriguing and the messy, complex characters felt very realistic in how they dealt with their grief. However, the ending was a real let-down, knocking this down to a so-so.

#TBRPile 📚 “Between Logan International Airport and Spencer, Massachusetts, most of it on an old warhorse of a Greyhound bus that stank of diesel and midsummer sweat, three people eyed her olive fatigues and thanked Charlie McCabe for her service.”

#TBRPile 📚 “By the time Duane Chapman died on the Hilketa field, his head had already been torn off twice.”

#TBRPile 📚 “Only fools climbed to the surface. It was stupid to put yourself in danger like that, my mother always said.”

#TBRPile 📚 “Black circles under the eyes were not, Kaylin decided, a very attractive statement.”

#TBRPile 📚 “He had many names.”

#TBRPile 📚 “They say that on the day he was to become a man, he cried and wet himself in fear as soon as the uroko bull charged out of its cage in a blur of fury.”

#TBRPile 📚 “Although you may not recognise it, you are standing in Covent Garden […] the piazza in puris naturalibus, in its mid-eighteenth-century state, complete with cobblestones, dust and open drains.”

Hornblower, but in space! There‘s a big ship, mysterious aliens, sabotage, ambitious midshipmen and a whole lot of action as the Athens sails to the edges of the known galaxy. While I didn‘t really like the MC (despite being a Poor Orphan™️ she was amazingly instantly good at everything), the world building was beautifully done and there were enough twists and turns to keep me interested for 400 pages.

#TBRPile 📚”I‘ve got a question for you: How the fuck did we end up with the name ‘Dark One‘ anyway?”

Thanks for the tag @RamsFan1963
1. More than I used to now that I‘ve realised that my English teachers mostly picked the boring ones 😂
2. I‘m slowly working my way through an audio book of A Tale of Two Cities - I was named after Lucie Manette!
@TheSpineView

I very much enjoyed this clever and unusual murder mystery that played homage to the rules of the genre but used my own assumptions (and an unreliable narrative) to keep me guessing until the last page. A great pick if you like whodunnits!

As diverse, chaotic, and disorientating as Lagos itself, Lagoon never quite coalesces into one story. Instead it weaves together vignettes as an alien walks out of the water bringing change in her wake. Some welcome her, some fear her, and others seek to take advantage. There‘s a dazzling array of characters, human and not, making it more like a collection of folktales rather than a sci-fi. A unique and imaginative take on the first contact theme.

A beautifully written historical thriller about a cavalry officer coming to terms with a terrible things he saw and did in the Napoleonic Wars. It‘s slow and lyrical and the perfect read to kick off a week‘s holiday at the beach.

#TBRPile “If you want to know the history of a town, read the gravestones in its cemetery.”

A fierce feminist East Asian inspired sci-fi that didn‘t live up to my expectations. The MC was shouty and judgemental rather than fierce, she seemed to hate the few other female characters in the story, and she was such a Mary Sue that I disliked her. Also, everything was so over the top that it was exhausting. However, the book did make some insightful points and I appreciated the diversity rep but that alone was not enough to redeem it.

It‘s arrived! Thank you so much @TheAromaofBooks I‘ve been wanting to read this so so long - it‘s going to go straight on my March TBR list.

A little late, but better than never!
1. Backwards! But never to stay for long 😂 I like the comforts of the present
2. Tagged! A historian gets accidentally trapped in plague-ridden England as a futuristic (ish) Oxford deals with an epidemic of its own. A chunky book but worth the read!
@TheSpineView

This book ❤️ It was funny and gentle and big-hearted and had lots to say about loneliness and second chances. Thanks for the rec @ozma.of.oz This was a fab pick for #NYWD @monalyisha

I‘m setting this one to one side for now. I like the concept of mismatched detectives investigating weird shit in Victorian Edinburgh but the humour‘s a bit too silly and it‘s draaaaaaaaging. I may come back to it, but it‘s a bail for now.

I loved this novella about a research expedition gone wrong from the perspective of a socially awkward ‘bot! Murderbot is my new spirit animal.

I know this isn‘t on your #nywd list @ozma.of.oz but I figured I should start at the beginning of the series! This was a lot of fun to read and made me nostalgic for Buffy and Supernatural and all those other shows I used to watch back in the 00s. Also, how do I get my own Aeslin mice???

Going home for the first time in two years and a houseful of family has meant I‘ve been a little MIA from Litsy these last three weeks. But I‘m heading back to Bangkok - a long journey and plenty of reading time!

#TBRPile 📚 “My parlour smelled of linseed oil and spike lavender, and a dab of lead tin yellow glistened on my canvas.”

#TBRPile 📚 “Mars was empty before we came.”

All of these books from @ozma.of.oz look so good! I already have The Conductors, and the Chambers and Klune are both on my Xmas list. I just read (and LOVED) Middlegame so I'm excited to read more of Seanan McGuire. Also, that cover is giving me serious mid-00s urban fantasy nostalgia! #NYWD22 @monalyisha

#TBRPile 📚 “I will always remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard that my father had died.”

#TBRPile 📚 “There was a razorstorm coming in. Sylveste stood on the edge of the excavation and wondered if any of his labours would survive the night.”

#TBRPile 📚 “The child was awakened by the knotting of the snake‘s coils about his waist.”

#TBRPile 📚 “Film legend and ‘60s It Girl Evelyn Hugo has just announced that she will auction off 12 of her most memorable gowns through Christie‘s to raise money for breast cancer research.”

#TBRPile 📚 That night, when Mrs Chamberlain called, Emira could only piece together the words “…take Briar somewhere…” and “…pay you double…”.

#TBRPile 📚 “Rachel White flung the cab door open, tossed the driver a banknote and dived into the rain.”

#TBRPile 📚 “The new doctor took her by surprise.”

#TBRPile 📚 “My sainted mother taught me the seven acts of corporeal mercy: to feed the hungry; refresh the thirsty; clothe the naked; shelter the traveler; comfort the sick; visit those imprisoned; and bury the dead.”

I really enjoyed this fifth mystery- it‘s slow and it‘s as much about Strike and Robin as it is about the 40 year old mystery they are investigating. I didn‘t guess the ending (although all the clues were there) and even though both detectives had a lot going on personally, the story never felt too much like a soap drama. A long but enjoyable read! #bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks

#TBRPile 📚”The snow came down so thickly that it formed fragile snowballs in the air, which rumbled and melted as soon as they landed on the horses lined up along the dock.”

#TBRPile 📚 “Four or five days after she died, I sat alone in the living room wondering what to do.”

#TBRPile ? “Each year, at the end of March, a great fair was held in Cría, the capital of Galla.”