August went up and down – I had two weeks of appalling fibro pain, but luckily I also had a lot of great books!

ARCs Received

Just two ARCs this month! I’m really excited for the allegedly intricate non-human worldbuilding of Empire of Exiles, and VenCo just sounds right up my alley in every possible way.

Read

20 books read this month – five more than July! I found some real under-the-radar treasures, like Everything For Everyone by M.E. O’Brien & Eman Abdelhadi (which I’m currently working on a review for) and Welcome to Dorley Hall by Alyson Anne (review finished and scheduled for tomorrow!) Whereas I was fully expecting Oleander Sword, The Spear Cuts Through Water, and Moon Dark Smile to wow me – and they all very much did! (Click the titles to go to my reviews!)

I probably need a whole post to talk about the first three books of the Dante Valentine series (the short version is: it’s complicated) and Grant Morrison’s Luda gave me whiplash – I loved it unabashedly until the graphic, plot-irrelevant animal death in the last handful of pages, which retroactively ruined the book for me. (And left me sick and sobbing, so, you know, can we normalise fucking content warnings already, please.)

28.57% of this month’s authors were BIPOC (6 of 21 – I read 20 books, but one had two authors). Much better than last month’s 13%!

Reviewed

Six reviews is pretty excellent! And that’s without counting mini-reviews and DNF reviews. Pleased!Sia is pleased!

DNF-ed

I can barely believe it either, but I only had one DNF this month! Le gasp!

ARCs Outstanding

Bit by bit, I’m wrestling these down to reasonable numbers… I’ve just finished Luda, and I need to review it and Notorious Sorcerer, Genesis of Misery, Leech, and Hunt of Elk Mountain next month.

Misc

The Tarot Sequence hardbacks from Rainbow Crate went on sale, I was accepted as part of ST Gibson’s Street team, and my newest therapist is reading my novel, so. Yay!

Looking Forward

September is usually a pretty epic month for SFF, and 2022 looks ready to keep that trend going. I must confess to being especially excited for Golden Enclaves (the ending of the previous book!!!) and My Name Is Magic (Finnish magic school!) And of course, NONA THE GODS DAMED NINTH!

Bring on September!