It’s been a kind of frazzled month mentally, but otherwise mostly calm. Lots of goslings by the water, a few ducklings, and even a red squirrel! Plus a visit from the in-laws, who are lovely, not the scary kind. I’m worn out, I think mostly by the heatwaves, but it was a decent month.

ARCs Received

MANY BEAUTIFUL ARCS! I almost couldn’t BREATHE when I got approved for Space Oddity – IT’S ONLY CATHERYNNE VALENTE’S NEXT NOVEL, NO BIG DEAL – and many of the rest of these are featured on my Unmissable list! EEE!

Read

I just managed to make it to 12 books read this month – as many as in May. It was a near thing, though. I’m still struggling to read properly – and I’m not even close to reading as much as I consider normal. Grah!

Hands of the Emperor was a beloved reread I was very happy to revisit; Rakefall blew me away; Long Live Evil was very funny and meta, and then THAT ENDING; Sorcery and Small Magics was hilarious and enchanting; and The Phoenix Keeper is officially my new favourite of 2024, given that it is PURE JOY. And Tasmakat was a wildly impressive ending to the arc of the main characters, leaving very curious about where the series is going to go next now it’ll be focusing on other people.

Poisoned Primrose and Letters To Half Moon Street were both every bit as soft and lovely as I’d been promised, whereas Faithful Dark was very twisty and left me with plenty to think about. I definitely need to review that one.

Mystery at Dunvegan Castle was a let-down after the previous book in the series, which rocked, but I’ll still be tuning in for book four; and The Sapling Cage was just fine, when I was expecting brilliance. Sigh.

To the best of my knowledge, 20% of this month’s books had BIPOC authors. I’ve definitely done worse, but I’d like to do better.

Reviewed

Uh, WAY more reviews that I expected to manage!!! And I’m quite proud of most of them, too. Yay! (My reviews for The Spellshop and Bone Harp should go live next month.) Maybe this makes up for reading less [than I’d like]?

DNF-ed

But Sia, I hear you say, there were only three books in your DNF round-up yesterday! Why do you have four here?

Well, because I was trying out the beginnings of several books I hadn’t read – something I normally don’t do until the 1st of the following month after my DNF post goes live – and House of Frank was just ABOMINABLY awful. So I will go back and edit my DNF post later to add it.

(Seriously, I hate it SO MUCH.)

ARCs Outstanding

I’ve finished a bunch of these now, and just need to review them! Which is actually the hardest part, but I’ll manage!

Unmissable SFF Updates

My Unmissable SFF of 2024 list is always getting updated, what with cover reveals, and new books being announced – or discovering books long-since announced, but which I didn’t hear about until just lately! After several new additions, the end of June brings us to a total of 101 Unmissable books!

How did my predictions/anticipated reads for May go? I declared seven books Unmissable for this month, and–

• there were four five star reads (Running Close to the Wind, Cuckoo, Rakesfall, and The Daughters’ War)
• one was a four and a half stars read (Saints of Storm and Sorrow)
• one I am still reading (The Wilderness of Girls)
• one I have not gotten to yet (The Fire Within Them)

5/7! That is pretty damn excellent! Let’s hope this winning streak continues for the rest of the year!

Misc

I had a spike in visitors coming from Facebook this month and was puzzled – then really touched when I found Christopher Buehlman’s post linking to my review of Daughters’ War, saying that I really got the book. I only occasionally tag authors when posting my reviews (and only for the positive ones, obviously!), and I didn’t tag Buehlman, but I love it when one of my reviews makes an author happy.

Looking Forward

There are, of course, a bunch more July releases I’m excited for than just these, but of the books I don’t have arcs of, these four are at the top. I’ve really been enjoying Harris’ fantasy, and The Moonlight Market has me hyped; Long Live Evil is Sarah Rees Brennan’s very meta Adult debut; The West Passage promises all the surreal weirdness my freaky little heart could ever hope for; and Rihasi is the beginning of a new arc in Neumeier’s Tuyo universe!

Here’s to a jubilant July for all of us!