Home alone with all of the books…

Last week The Husband got on a plane to visit his family back in South Africa. He hasn’t seem them since BC (before Corona) times, and some of them even longer than that. I didn’t join him (plane tickets are expansive, and we are going on holiday at the end of the month as well…). So I was home alone (with Oi) for a week, and I got so much done!

I made some great progress regarding my studies (I will doing my next exam in just a few days), I almost finished my current crochet project, I made a puzzle, and I read 12 books!!!! So I figured I should do a wrap-up…

I listened to books five and six of the Temeraire series, and am starting to feel a bit meh about them. The first few were great comfort reads to just put on in the background. Although not all that much happened in them they were still intriguing. Now I feel we have just gotten too far away from the main story line. These books just felt like filler and I didn’t care about any of it. I do hope we get back to the greatness of the first few books now that we are nearing the end of the series though.

I listened to books 2 and 2.5 in The Chronicles of St Mary’s series. I did enjoy this second book a bit more than the first. It still tried to do too much, the plot was less all over the place like it was in the first book. I do very much enjoy the tone of the book, and although I highly doubt Max and I would be friends IRL, I do very much appreciate her voice narrating these stories. Also, we get to see Jack the Ripper which is always a win in my books. I could have done without the romantic drama though. A Child is Born is a tiny short story of half an hour, and was just fine. It was free on Audible Plus, so I listened to it. It didn’t add anything to the series though.

I will be watching the new Thor movie on Monday (after doing my exam) so I wanted to finish up the Mighty Thor series I was in the middle of. The third volume was totally unnecessary and apart from the artwork fairly disappointing (in that it was just filler). Some progress was made in the fourth volume, and then the fifth was Great (and signals that I might very well cry during the movie. Sorry lief). The artwork throughout it all is amazing, and I would recommend this series just for that alone.

It has been a while since I picked up a non-fiction read and I was really in the mood for one, so when I saw this on Audible Plus I gave it a try. And it was absolutely fascinating. We follow seven cases of very well-meant science, that with hindsight turned out to be some very bad decisions, as well as some current day examples that might follow these if we don’t do something soon. Highly recommend!

The Burglar’s Ball is the second book in the middle grade series that follows a young Jane Austen solving crimes. It was a fun and well written read (as one would hope from a book following a well known author), but possibly a bit too simple. It was only 170 pages long though. It would probably work well for its target audience, but doesn’t translate as well to a bit older one.

The Clockwork Queen was another quick middle grade read, and I actually wrote a review for this one which you can find over here.

Sticking with historical books, but definitely not middle grade is The Doll Factory. This was a very dark and creepy read (content warnings for stalking and kidnap), and although that started a bit later than I had hoped was eventually everything I wanted this book to be. It shows passion, obsession and art from its different sides and makes for a thrilling and engrossing read.

I also listened to Sullivan’s latest book Farilane, which I adored. I just wrote a full review for it, so please check that out. This book made me feel all of the feels, from laughing out loud to uncontrollable sobbing. Definitely among one of his best books.

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So those are the books I read while not being distracted by my gorgeous husband. It makes quite the contrast the the total of two books I read in June… And I read some proper gems as well. I think I should kick The Husband out of the house more often :p

My next post will probably come to you in August and be filled with pictures of our Iceland roadtrip/10 year anniversary. So get excited to be very jealous…

Hoping you are doing all kinds of wonderful,