So, that was a bit of an unintended hiatus. It's not actually that I haven't been reading, although the first week of April I finished absolutely nothing and read less. But I just got distracted by all the chaos and never got around to posting. So this is a three week or so wrap up, I think?
What I’ve finished reading since I last posted:
The Duke and I by Julia Quinn - I read this for three reasons: because the Netflix series is coming later this year, because Twitter-friend and now colleague Adele Walsh is doing a podcast about the Bridgerton series, and because my wife asked about them (in re the Netflix series) but reading Regency romance is really not her thing, especially not the cliched stuff. Okay, so holy consent issues, Batman, even if they’re not the ones you might expect. On the other hand, so much of it was so delightful… until I ran into the consent issues and some of the treatment of stuttering-as-disability. I’m really conflicted on this, and I think I gave it three stars on Goodreads because of that. I loved so much of this book, but, but, but…
Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen, by Alison Weir. I think Weir made some really interesting choices in this one, and justified them well in her afterword. She didn’t exactly change my mind on Jane, but I didn’t find this book the chore that I was kind of expecting to. Again, well done to Weir, and I definitely appreciate her current fiction more than her earliest attempts.
Brimstone, by Kelly Gardiner. First book in the Fire Watcher Chronicles. I have the second to go on with straight away (the night I finished Brimstone my wife was powering through the second, Phoenix, so that she could give it to me.) It took me a while to get through this but that wasn’t at all because of the book itself, just the world in which I was trying to read. I’ve found it harder to read the last couple weeks but I’m making a conscious effort to get back into it again. Brimstone was good - although I did find myself yelling at Christopher to stop telling people all about the future and hadn’t he ever read any timeslip books before! (Definitely lack of genre awareness, there, Christopher! This is an in-joke and not a criticism of the book!) Looking forward to the second.
What I’m reading now:
The Countess Conspiracy by Courtenay Milan. Time for some more Milan :-) I need light, fluffy escapism right now, I really do.
What’s catching my eye on the TBR:
Evaristo’s Blonde Roots is still beckoning me, as is the second Fire Watcher Chronicle, Phoenix. I’ve also got that Zen Cho novella, The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo that I really ought to read.
Also the Hugo Award finalists are now out, so there's a bit of a reading list for me. (I was going to be at WorldCon this year! I'm so upset!)
