Depression, an ADHD diagnosis, and a new (and very promising!) CEO at work! It’s been a bit of a whirlwind, and I’ve had a lot of trouble concentrating on things…but I also wrote more this month than I have in a while, which makes me really happy. And I don’t think I did too badly blogging-wise either!

ARCs Received

I have been UNBELIEVABLY BLESSED with arcs this month!!! All books that are on my Unmissable SFF of 2023 list, with one bonus (Lucky Red). I spent a lot of April SHRIEKING WITH DELIGHT as Netgalley approval notifs made it into my inbox. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Read

I didn’t get much read this month, but for the most part what I read was excellent! A Restless Truth, in particular, was amazing and left me with the biggest book hangover; and Between Two Fires, while very different, was strangely brilliant too. Rereading Empress of Timbra for the millionth time was a joy, and I did a lot of mood reading. TJ Land’s newest novella, To Add Drunkenness To Thirst, was a freaking BLAST, and The Warden surprised me by being super readable when I was struggling to concentrate on anything.

To the best of my knowledge, 31% of this month’s books had BIPOC authors. (I’m counting Transmogrify as one point, it seems like cheating so do otherwise.) Massively better than March!

Reviewed

A whole bunch of reviews!!! I wasn’t very happy with a few of them, though – especially Untethered Sky and The Salt Grows Heavy, I felt like the reviews came out very wishy-washy. But I FINALLY managed to review Rituals – after literal YEARS of trying to put its awesomeness into words! – so I’m taking that as a win!

DNF-ed

Alas, three DNFs this month. I really do think Venom & Vow and Mortal Follies are objectively good books, but I wasn’t clicking with them – and I do think it’s a it’s-me-not-you thing. I encourage other people to try them out if the blurbs appeal to you!

ARCs Outstanding

I have reviews-in-progress for a good number of these – but they’re such good books I’m really struggling to do them justice! Gah. The books I’ve started but not finished yet are all excellent, too, so far!

Misc

No rec lists or anything this month, but I’ve been trying to prepare for Wyrd & Wonder in May, especially re my now-annual rec lists of Magical Abilities and Magic Systems! It’s getting harder to find ones I haven’t featured before, but I’m pretty confident I’ll manage.

I’d like to write some kind of essay-thing for W&W, but I haven’t settled on a topic yet. Suggestions are welcome!

Tomorrow my interview as part of Ada Hoffman’s Autistic Reader Month series goes live! The link will be here – and you should definitely take the time to read through the earlier interviews, because they’ve all been amazing. The whole series has made me so happy, hearing other autistic readers and writers talking about their relationships with reading and writing. It’s been very…validating? And oddly comforting. I think those are the words I want.

Looking Forward

I’m reading Witch King at the moment, and working on a review for To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, but that doesn’t make me any less excited for their release days – I can’t WAIT for everyone else to be able to read them too! And I’m ridiculously to get my Illumicrate edition of Witch King in the mail – I still can’t believe I finally nabbed an Illumicrate subscription after all these years! And Elyse John and Felicia Davin are both on my favourite-authors list, and Orphia and Eurydicius and The Scandalous Letters of V and J both sound incredible – albeit very different!

Which wraps up April – now let May be marvellous for us all!