This month, Tor tweeted my review of Helm of Midnight, and Erehwhon Press gave me auto-approved status on NetGalley! I feel like these are Book Blogger accomplishments that ought to be recorded.

Anway: onwards!

Books Read

I got so much reading done this month!!! I’m not sure how – although it’s probably at least partly due to the fact that I’m reading 40 books at once at any given time (no, I’m not kidding, I’m just…weird). It means I’m slower to finish, but then I finish a whole bunch of books at once. At least half of these I started reading before April.

I have to admit, by the end of the month I was feeling pretty raw. Love Bites and Memory of Souls were real chores to get through, for the most part, and Route, Wife, and Hollow all ended up being either depressing-awful or horror-awful. (Although I will say that in House of Hollow‘s case, I mean awful in its archaic definition, inspiring awe. It’s a very good, beautiful book. I just wasn’t prepared for how it would rip my heart out.) I think I’ll be steering clear of anything even a little bit dark for a while.

Now: in April, out of 20 authors, I read

• 14 women, 6 men, 1 genderqueer author
• 3 authors of colour

Same number of non-white authors as last month. Not cool. 3/20?! I have got to do better.

Of the books;

5 Rereads

• The Waking Engine
• The Goose Girl
• The Golem and the Jinni
• The Fifth Sacred Thing
• War for the Oaks

3 ARCs

• Gifting Fire
• The Unravelling
• The Route of Ice & Salt

11 New-to-Me

• The Seventh Perfection
• A Ferry of Bones & Gold
• Travel Light
• The Library of the Dead
• The Unbroken
• The Charmed Wife
• The Defiant Heir
• In the Eyes of Mr Fury
• Love Bites
• The Memory of Souls
• The Centaur’s Wife
• House of Hollow

Books Reviewed

Ten reviews this month!!! WOO! Although only four of them were ‘full’ reviews; the rest were DNF mini-reviews.

There were a lot of books I wanted to review properly this month, but I didn’t spend a lot of time on the computer in April, so not much typing up got done.

…Although in fairness, I did also manage to write 25 mini-reviews of my r/Fantasy Book Bingo reads. Even if each of those only counts as half a ‘real’ review, I think it comes up to a respectable number overall!

Books DNF-ed

Most of these got mini-reviews that cover why I didn’t finish them, bar Stone Road and Wood Bee Queen. So: The Stone Road was made completely unreadable by having commas everywhere they shouldn’t be, and lacking where they were needed. It’s a shame, because if you lifted the commas away, the prose beneath would have been quite lovely.

The Wood Bee Queen was a prose issue as well; the writing was just…off. Sentences were given unusual structures, common phrases had the words in slightly different order than expected, and the dialogue was stilted. I honestly wasn’t sure if the effect was deliberate or not, but either way, it really didn’t work for me.

ARCs Received

I was (and am) so beyond excited to get approved for Witness for the Dead, Light From Uncommon Stars, In The Watchful City, and The Actual Star!!! They’re all on my most-anticipated 2021 list!

I wasn’t sure what to expect of Monkey Around, but I took a gamble, and so far it’s been a lot of fun, with great writing and a unique take on shapeshifters and magic. Summer Sons was another gamble, but it’s paying off; there’s a great juxtaposition between pretty lovely prose and the actions that are taking place. The All-Consuming World didn’t sound like my thing at all, but after Circe Mokowitz’s endorsement I had to give it a go – and within three pages I was head over heels in love, so. And just today, For the Wolf! Which I have heard so many good things about, and the very first sentence hooked me. Many new and unexpected loves this month!

ARCs Outstanding

Some of these I’ve finished, some I’m in the process of reading. I think that at least Wolf and the Woodsman and Catch Lili Too are going to end up with mini-reviews rather than huge sprawling essays. I make no promises about the rest of them.

Looking Forward

I was losing interest in the Chorus of Dragons series – not because it’s not wildly clever and subversive, but because the prose is kind of…blunt? But I forced my way through Memory of Souls just a few days ago, and that ending!!! Singlehandedly catapulted House of Always onto my grabby-hands list. The Unravelling and In The Ravenous Dark are both books I’ve had ARCs of, but I’m so excited to see them be released into the world at last!!! Having read an amazing book no one (or almost no one) else has read yet is its own kind of torture; I can’t wait to be able to talk about these with other readers, finally!

Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake is not even a little bit spec fic, but it’s by Alexis Hall so I don’t care one little bit. It’s about a bisexual baker in a baking competition, with romance thrown in. Maybe I wouldn’t be so interested if it were by another author, but it’s Hall. His books are always perfect.

Wyrd & Wonder 2021

May is Wyrd & Wonder month, where we celebrate all things fantasy, and I plan on taking part again this year! I have a list of ideas for posts and rec lists and so on, and I’m praying my fibro behaves itself so I can actually get them all written. I’d really love to have some deep, meaningful essay like last year’s Why Fantasy?, but I have not yet come up with any deep, meaningful topics I feel qualified to write about.

Unless it’s finally time to start talking about Book Magic? Hm. Perhaps.

Regardless, I’m really excited to see what everyone else will be writing about and sharing! I added so many books to my tbr after last year’s Wyrd & Wonder, and found so many other bloggers to follow. Hee!

MAY IT BE A WONDERFUL MAY FOR ALL OF US!