Happy Friday! It has been an absolutely hectic week — you can’t imagine how relieved I am for the weekend! Regardless of the week’s craziness, I managed to read two books this week. Not bad!
Books I read
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
The Accidental Recluse by Tom McCulloch
I finished my first NetGalley book in ages — I’m determined to be better! The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle was a brilliantly weird and twisty book. I’ve heard it described as Groundhog’s Day meets Gosford Park, two movies I absolutely love. I really enjoyed this book! I loved unraveling the mystery and piecing the day together. I gave it 4 stars.
Next, I finished up The Accidental Recluse. I don’t always reach for literary fiction — it can be very hit or miss for me — but I liked this book a lot. It is an incredibly in-depth character study of a man who has lived an extraordinary life of fame and wealth, but is haunted by his past. I ended up giving this book 4 stars as well.
Books I am currently reading
City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett
The Missing Girl by Shirley Jackson
Planetfall by Emma Newton
State of Sorrow by Melinda Salisbury
A couple of these are new reads for me, while the others are being carried over from last week. As I said in last week’s post, I’m in a weird place with reading at the moment. I simply cannot stick to one or two books! I hope my book-related anxieties from last year aren’t coming back — yikes!
I won’t go into Planetfall or State of Sorrow because I talked about those last week. In terms of new books, I’m absolutely loving City of Stairs. It’s one of those books I’ve had on my shelf for years and never really caught my attention to until now! My lovely fantasy book club is meeting tonight and I need to finish it! I’m 191 pages in and think it’s just fantastic. I’m definitely going to pick up the rest of the trilogy.
I’ve also picked up another of my £1 paperbacks. This one is Shirley Jackson’s The Missing Girl, which consists of three short stories. City of Stairs has taken over all my reading time, but I have managed to read the first story in The Missing Girl and I really enjoyed it. Like The Breakthrough, which I read last week, I think this is a great introduction to Shirley Jackson.
Books I bought
None! Look at my glorious willpower.
Book post
Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio
I cannot tell you how excited I was to find Empire of Silence waiting outside my door this week! This debut novel is causing a bit of a stir already and it looks amazing! It comes out in July 2018 here in the UK, but I think I might actually read this one early. Like, next month.
Netgalley Approvals
Ashes of London by Andrew Taylor
The Fire Court by Andrew Taylor
Legendary by Stephanie Garber
These past two weeks have been fantastic for NetGalley approvals! I’m so pleased to have been approved for both Ashes of London and its sequel, The Fire Court. I love historical fiction and this particular period in time fascinates me. I cannot wait to dig in and potentially go to his event in Oxford next month!
The one I think most people will be excited for is Legendary, the highly anticipated sequel to Caraval. I read and reviewed Caraval last year and was disappointed. However I do believe that this is due to the insane amount of hype surrounding this book’s publication — there was no way it would live up to my expectations. I’m approaching Legendary with caution and plan to read it before everyone else does so it doesn’t get ruined!
That’s it for reading this week! I’m off to London tonight because Author Sister and I are going to Angie Thomas’s event tomorrow! I cannot wait to see her and hear what she has to say about her success as an author. I have The Hate U Give in my suitcase and am hoping to read it very soon. It’s about time. Give me a shout if you’re going to this event!!
I Should Read That 
I haven’t read any of these, but I’ve been wanting to read Seven Deaths. You were so busy this month!
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Seven Deaths is excellent! It’s a bit weird, but in the best way possible 😀
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