So first off, to anyone who’s subscribed here, I am so sorry for all the emails yesterday. I am both very bad with computer-y things AND wasn’t able to bring myself to break routine and not post the Can’t Wait and DNFs yesterday – and I probably should have. Meep.

This month we got hit by a heat wave (did anyone NOT? and if so, can I move to your country?) which knocked me flat. We also set out multiple wide, shallow bowls full of water in the yard, and it’s been so lovely seeing birds come to drink and bathe! The magpies especially are a delight to watch. Less delightful has been my war with my local health centre to get them to give me my meds – this has been going on for two and a half months now, I think. Sigh. Thank fuck, once again, for good books! (What would we do without them???)

ARCs Received

I was interested in A Fae in Finance because it looked fun, but didn’t have any plans to request it until I learned that the author is (apparently openly) queer, which nudged it over the line as something I should try and review! Ragwort is the sequel to a book I didn’t adore, but which had awesome worldbuilding – and the ending heavily implied that this instalment was going to be much more my thing! The others are all from my Unmissable lists (two from next year!)

Read

When I completed the Mid-Year Freakout tag at the start of the month, I was really upset to see how few BIPOC authors I’d read – so this month I decided to read only BIPOC authors. (With the exception of The Fellowship of the Ring, which I was reading to the hubby as a bedtime book. We hated it, for the record!)

What effect did this have? Well, I read more books than I did in August – 18 instead of last month’s 13! Several were books that had been on my tbr for ages, and I ended up loving many of them!

The Devourers is one of the best books I’ve ever read in my life, and both Legendborn and The Sign of the Dragon lived up to every bit of hype I’ve seen for them! The Formidable Miss Cassidy was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed The House of Binding Thorns so much more than I did the first book in the trilogy! Ninefox Gambit was objectively excellent, and has made me very curious about the rest of the series. Daughters of Flood and Fury didn’t quite live up to book one – it really should have been split into two books, imo, made a trilogy instead of a duology – but I still really enjoyed it!

Three stunning rereads this month: The City in Glass, which I’m still not smart enough to Get but continue to enjoy immensely; Darknesses, which got me out of a reading slump because OF COURSE IT DID; and To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, which I wanted to reread before diving into my arc of the sequel!

If you want to read the mini-notes I wrote on each book, the ones for July start here! (Bluesky thread.)

DNFed

Yet again, some of my most-anticipated releases let me down! I am BETRAYED.

(If I was only reading BIPOC authors this month, how did I DNF two not-BIPOC-authored books? Simple: I wasn’t reading them, but I looked at them and realised I never wanted to continue reading them after July was up.)

Reviewed

I’m really happy that I managed so many non-arc reviews this month! So often I only manage to review arcs, which is a huge shame. (Granted, this month’s arc-review is for one of my favourite books of the year!)

Also, I put the ‘Reviewed’ section after the ‘DNFed’ one to make it easier to count the DNFs as reviews. Because they are! And I realised I should be giving myself credit for them.

Next Up

I’m the moodiest of mood readers, so no promise at ALL that I will in fact read (any of) these next month – but here are the books that, at this moment in time, are at the top of my tbr! (Discounting arcs and August’s releases!)

If you’ve read any of these already, what did you think???

ARCs Outstanding

Luckily, I don’t have many arcs due in August, so I’m hoping I can get a good bit of progress made with these! Clearly I need it.

Unmissable SFF Updates

Some pub dates were changed – one book had to be removed from this year’s list, since it won’t be out till next year, and Whalesong was pushed back but only to October. We’re down to 80 books! I’m sure it’ll be getting longer again soon, though. And one book’s publication date was moved UP: Angel Maker will now be out on September 2nd, instead of September 25th! How often does THAT happen?

2026’s list is steadily growing; there are now 13 books on it!

Because of my BIPOC-authors only rule for July, I didn’t get to most of my July Unmissables (which says a lot about how few BIPOC authors are on the Unmissable list), so I’m not going to go through them here like I usually do. Maybe I’ll include it with next month’s wrap up, along with the August ones.

Misc

I was really happy that I made a LONG rec list of self-published fantasy books for Self-Published Authors Appreciation Week!

There was also a fair bit of back-end shenanigans going on, what with changing how post notification emails go out to subscribers. Y’all missed a lot of me pulling my hair out and weeping over the keyboard. (I exaggerate, but only slightly.)

Much more interesting was the copy-editing I got to do for a micro-press I massively admire! I was asking the editor about something else, and when he mentioned wanting to do a new edition of one of my favourite books, I offered a copy-edit. And he took me up on it! I’m still so delighted. It was so much fun, and I’m really looking forward to seeing his and the author’s responses!

Looking Forward

Next month Mad Sisters of Esi is being released in the US and UK, two years (I think?) after its release in India! I got to read it when it was first published, but I plan on rereading and finally reviewing this incredible fantasy about two sisters, a galactic whale, and a magical island! Teo’s Durumi is the sequel to Ocean’s Gidori, which I read earlier this year and PASSIONATELY ADORED – futuristic Korean sci-fi with really fun retro vibes! Hemlock and Silver probably needs no introduction, but obviously I am HYPED; Automatic Noodle is a novella about robots running a noodle shop that sounds adorable and fun; and House of Dusk is an epic fantasy standalone delivering sapphic princess/bodyguard and also fire-wielding priestesses. The most unexpected release has to be Her Subtle Investigations, because I had NO CLUE we were getting another book in this setting until a couple weeks ago, and I am extremely excited for the promised mercenaries and polyamory!

Now let’s go and have an awesome August!