January was rough. There were some very bright spots – I discovered the Foreigner series by CJ Cherryh and went Fully Autistic about it! – but there was fuckery with a surgery I was supposed to have (only found out on the operating table it was going to be general anaesthetic, which everyone admitted there was no medical reason for, and long story short the surgery didn’t happen) and there’s been Netgalley and Big River fuckery (details in the Misc section) that’s been upsetting and exhausting. To say nothing of all the…everything that is adjusting to a new house!

*falls over*

ARCs Received

These hit very differently knowing they might be the last Netgalley arcs I ever get! But if this IS a send-off, you’ve got to admit it’s a magnificent one! Awakened I legit had to jump through hoops for, but SO WORTH IT!

Read

It was not at all a bad reading month! I read 21 books; more than December, which was more than November! And some of these were wonderful: Point of Hearts, the forthcoming new installment in the Astreiant series, was a DELIGHT; I absolutely luxuriated in Patricia McKillip’s Ombria in Shadow and Bards of Bone Plain; Undercover by Tamsyn Muir BLEW MY DAMN MIND; and as mentioned, Foreigner kicked off a full-on hyperfixation (which the sequel Invader only intensified!!!)

Sweet Invention, a nonfiction history of dessert, proved to be a great bedtime read – knocked the hubby RIGHT out every night, although personally I didn’t find the writing dry (a common complaint in the reviews). I learned a lot of fascinating trivia!

Stand-out rereads included Point of Sighs (perfect timing before the Point of Hearts arc!), Beguilement (the Sharing Knife series remains unimpeachable); and Gilded Crown, which I hope to review this time!

I spent a big chunk of the month gathering Middle Grade fantasies to read, which will probably start showing up in my Read section going forward. At the moment I’m not planning to start reviewing MG; it’s for myself, after several awesome people suggested MG as a good place to find BIPOC authors doing cool things. We’ll see how it goes!

Reviewed

Foreigner is the only review I’m happy with this month; all the rest felt very lacklustre to me. I was working through so much brain-fog, and struggling so much to be excited, or just have any strong feelings at all, about anything I read. Which definitely comes through.

(The last three of these reviews go live in February.)

DNF-ed

After DNFing FIFTEEN books in December, I’m relieved to be back to a reasonable number this month! As I said in my DNF post, Outcast Mage and Death of the Author are not bad books; just not a good fit for me. (Furthermore is probably fine too, but I didn’t get far enough to tell.)

ARCs Outstanding

26! So I have PLENTY to get through even if I’m done with Netgalley.

Unmissable SFF Updates

As always, I had new books to add to the list this month! Some extremely exciting additions, and a bunch of covers to attach to their books. Check it out!

How did my predictions/anticipated reads for January go? I declared just two books Unmissable for this month, and–

• one was a three-star read (Motheater)
• one I haven’t finished yet but am enjoying immensely (Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear)

I’m not sure we can call this a month of terribly accurate predictions…!

Misc

I…got auto-approval from Orbit on Netgalley?! WHAT?!

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…But it might be worthless, because Netgalley has abruptly changed to using LCP on their files. Which, long story short, seems to mean I won’t be able to read Netgalley arcs any more. (Neither will anyone who uses an ereader that doesn’t belong to the Big River site.) I was pretty devastated about this yesterday (which is when it went live) but today I have perspective again. If there are arcs I really want in the future, I can reach out to the publishing contacts I have now; and ultimately, I don’t need arcs at all.

It might even be good for my mental health to not have them anymore. Anyone who pays attention to these monthly summaries can see I’m pretty addicted to requesting arcs, and the obligation to get them all reviewed is definitely stressful. So this might end up being for the best, for me, though I still feel awful for everyone else affected.

I have plenty of arcs to get through before I run out, but after that, I guess there will be much less focus on upcoming books here on the blog! Which isn’t the worst thing in the world, although I do wonder if it makes a difference to anyone currently following me. (Sound off in the comments if you have an opinion!)

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…For one more reading-related blow, I learned that the Big River site is phasing out the ability to download-and-transfer-by-USB. Which means losing the ability to have a backup of your ebooks; if the Big River deletes your account or just one specific ebook (which they’ve done in the past) you lose access completely. Currently download-and-transfer is still working for older models like mine, but it’s been advised everyone go ahead and download all their ebooks now, before the ability vanishes. (And since they make you download your ebooks one by one, it’s going to take a while to get my whole 3000+ library…)

Needless to say I’ve cancelled the last of my Big River preorders. I’ve been moving more and more to buying via Kobo anyway, and I’m definitely not buying via BR if I might lose the download function (which I depend on for so many accessibility reasons I don’t want to get into).

I’m so damn tired.

Looking Forward

Many, many exciting releases next month! The Crimson Road is the newest novel in Slatter’s Sourdough universe; the trad-pub release of Swordheart; Pride & Prejudice with dragons from Tansy Rayner Roberts; the first of Burgis’ Queens of Villainy (the kind of series title that will always get my attention); Antlered King, the sequel to Gilded Crown; sapphic gothic vampires in Hungerstone; and two Middle Grades I have a covetous eye on, A World Worth Saving and Labyrinth of Souls (illustrated by one of my favourite artists!)

May we all have a FANTASTIC February!