What I read in 2019

I couldn't work out how to share the Goodreads "My Year In Books" graphic to a blog (rather than to Twitter or Facebook - although I did finally find a permalink) so I won't - also, despite telling me that I'd read 40 books for the year in the reading challenge, it only acknowledges 38 in "My year in Books", so something is skew-wiff there. 

I will say that when you (I) look at my reading for this year... there's a lot of romance. I did a very rough genre breakdown and came up with the following numbers:

Historical Romance: 10
Contemporary Romance: 10
Historical fiction that is not strictly romance: 2
SFF: 9
YA (I know, it's not a genre): 1
School Stories: 1 (only one?)
Self help: 5
History: 2

Some other things of note:

• all female authors but one and a half (Max Gladstone is half of This is how you lose the time war)
• all authors but three are white, and this is something I really want to work on next year. I have a goal of reading at least twenty books by non-white authors in 2020.
• Some of the SFF could just as easily have counted as Romance, and vice versa. In fact, I've switched the Heather Rose Jones books from Historical Romance to SFF and back a couple of times: they're not strictly historical (being Ruritanian) and they're not strictly Romance, either, which is why I've finally left them in SFF.
• There is at least one long-form fic counted in here - Telanu's Truth and Measure. I went on a massive re-read of fics after finishing Casey McQuiston's Red, White and Royal Blue, and earlier in the year I went on a massive NCIS re-reading spree, but for some reason the only one I went looking for (and found) on Goodreads was T&M. Might try to do better with that next year?

As for the 30 (oh, help!) books on my Currently Reading list... there's actually quite a lot of NF History there. A couple library books I need to finish sooner rather than later - and some that have already gone back to the library. Must update the list...

Hopefully I'll be a bit better at updating this blog in 2020.  Wouldn't that be nice?

Wednesday Reads - 23rd October 2019

After a very long hiatus...

What I've recently finished reading:

Goodbye Picadilly, by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

First of the War at Home series, which I've begun mostly because I'd been reading some really great Downton Abbey fic and that reminded me that this existed. I enjoyed it: it's about a family who are comfortable upper-middle class (although the local Earl and Countess do figure!), and their servants and other members of the community. The structure of the series is that each book covers one year of the war (plus 1919 for the beginning of the post-war period), so this one is really only a few months, although plenty happens! There's some parts from the perspective of those on the battlefield, but very little: the series is the war at home, after all. Sadly this was not quite as good as the Downton Abbey fic, but it was perfectly readable, and as you'll see, I've already begun the second in the series.

[fic] Trust and Providence by Rachel Smith Cobleigh (rated M, m/f, Matthew/Mary, Anna/Bates)

This is the Downton Abbey fic mentioned above. It's a WIP, and last updated in 2015, so I don't have my hopes up. However, it ends at a nice enough spot as it is, and there's 400k words "so far". Christianity plays a significant role in the fic, so it's not for everyone. But I really rather liked it.

What I'm reading now:

Keep the Home Fires Burning by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

Second in the War at Home series.

The Mystic Marriage by Heather Rose Jones

Second in the Alpennia series. I read the first a few months ago and loved it. The fourth in the series is coming out late this year.

What I'll be reading next:

More Alpennia, more War at Home, and I hope to get back to Alison Weir's "Six Tudor Queens" series.