This month had an incredible birthday (hubby surprised me with red velvet cake!); some illness and a bad fibro flare; a visit to the pet-dentist (the Chihuahua was DEEPLY unimpressed); a really wonderful date-day where the hubby and I saw much amazing street art; and the discovery that our local pizza place does an AMAZING pan pizza (super hard to find here!) Plus, of course, so many great books!!!

ARCs Received

This month my arc requests were almost all new-to-me authors (not including Son of the Morning, and I DID scream out loud when the approval for that came in!!!) New-to-mes are always a bit nerve-wracking, but you can’t say they’re not exciting too.

Read

20 books read in March (not counting three Tremontaine Season One episodes, because it’s just too fiddly to add them). More than February! I’m pleasantly surprised, because I felt so brain-dead this month I was sure I wasn’t getting much reading done!

The River Has Roots was, if anything, even more spectacular than I was expecting; The Raven Scholar surprised me by rocketing onto my Best of 2025 list, EASILY; Soulstar had me sobbing, in the very best way; and Pagans delighted endlessly with its incredibly thoughtful worldbuilding. (The History and Culture of Japanese Food, by the way, is very much worth tracking down if you have an interest in the topic; a little repetitive, but wonderfully thorough!)

Rereads included the Cemeteries of Amalo books; Point of Hearts, which was maybe even better the second time around; and Gaywyck, which is so over-the-top I can’t help but love it.

Reviewed

Pretty happy with my reviews this month! Especially given how brain-fried I was for the last few weeks.

DNF-ed

Dungeon Crawler Carl wasn’t on my DNF post yesterday, because I was reading it last night and the post was already up by then. It’s incredibly readable, I get why it’s so popular, but as I suspected the subject matter is just not for me. I’ll edit my DNF post to include it later.

ARCs Outstanding

All right, this might be getting out of hand. Just a tad.

Unmissable SFF Updates

We have the first Unmissable that I didn’t know to anticipate, but added to the list after I got to read it – The Raven Scholar! Plus, many awesome cover reveals!

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

• two were five-star reads (The River Has Roots and Point of Hearts)
• two were four-star reads (Tomb of Dragons and Murder by Memory)
• one was a three-and-a-half star read (Homegrown Magic)
• one was a DNF (Aunt Tigress)

Not bad at all!

Misc

If you’re in the UK, a friend of mine has organised an event at the Oxford Literary Festival; The Frozen Frontier: Facing the Unseen! It’s about supernatural horror set in the arctic circle. It is ticketed, but there are still spots available! It’s going to be on the 4th of April, and if you go I will be extremely jealous of you!

Looking Forward

New releases from some long-term favourite authors, like Saint Death’s Herald(!!!!!); a collection from Aurora Martia; the close of the Godkiller trilogy; and new Akwaeke Emezi and Nghi Vo all show up next month! To say nothing of releases from new-to-me authors: Eat the Ones You Love is one I’m very hopeful for, and I’m incredibly excited for the illustrated story of Afia and the Land of Wonders! And while I’ve gotten to read Raven Scholar already, I’m hoping to reread it after release day. Eee!

Wishing all of us an awesome April!