Hello everyone,
We suddenly find ourselves a quarter of the way through the year and for me at least, the time has flown by! The clocks moved forward here in the UK last weekend and that means extra hours of daylight, which is a very welcome return as it makes me feel much more happy and cheerful.
To mark the occasion, we were greeted with warm weather which I absolutely made the most of, by reading outside and taking a wonderful trip to Oxford. It is such a beautiful city and one of my favourite places to visit, so I could hardly have asked for a better day. However, as I type biting cold temperatures have suddenly returned for what I hope is one final fling, so it is all very unpredictable.
As for reading, I managed to finish five more books over the course of March and have two others on the go. I have enjoyed all of them in different ways, including two historical fiction buddy reads which provoked fascinating discussions. On another positive note, I feel like I am starting to make the tiniest dent in my substantial TBR.
Here are the books I read in March:
The Paris Library ⭐⭐⭐.5
My Sister, The Serial Killer ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
The Year Of The Flood (audiobook) ⭐⭐⭐
I Know You Did It ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Pandora ⭐⭐⭐.5
Although the plot did not completely deliver in the end, Pandora is one of the most beautifully written books I have read for a long time and was totally immersive, so it is one I am going to look back on with fondness. In contrast, The Paris Library had a great story with excellent character development, but the writing lacked a little depth.
Meanwhile, My Sister, The Serial Killer was on my TBR for a long time and I ended up loving it for all of its dark humour and quirkiness. Margaret Atwood’s The Year Of The Flood is witty and full of interesting, unusual concepts, and I Know You Did It is a far more tense, thrilling affair.
Looking ahead to my April TBR, my first aim is to finish my current reads, which are the final part of the MadAddam trilogy and The History Of Wild Places by Shea Earnshaw, which so far is intriguing and atmospheric. I have long-awaited buddy reads planned for The Gilded Ones and The Cottingley Cuckoo, along with The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell, one of my favourite authors.
March was a quiet month on the writing front with no poems written (to my shame!), but I did make a start on the first edition of the Soccer 360 magazine since I became the editor. It is quite something to know that all the articles I assigned to the various writers that will appear in the magazine were based on my own ideas. The actual editing begins this week, which should be interesting.
Work was exceptionally busy as we were working towards a deadline ahead of the university summer exams – there were some days where I could hardly pause for breath! On the other hand, I have found the time to do some other fun things, such as trips to the cinema to see Death On The Nile and The Duke, while I finally saw the stage production of The Lion King, which was a great spectacle and I loved all the songs.
April is all set to a very busy month, but it feels like there is a lot to look forward to! As an ending to this wrap-up, I am sharing a few of my favourite posts from other bloggers over the course of the month:
- Sofii writes detailed and insightful reviews, and recently she shared a post explaining how they are structured!
- Becky reviewed lots of advanced copies during the month, and I especially enjoyed reading her thoughts on Wild And Wicked Things by Francesca May.
- Staying on the review theme, Emily enjoyed Ariadne by Jennifer Saint just as much as I did, and her review was beautifully written.
- Sophie wrote a really fun post about her writing progress.
- NS Ford asked the question of how thrillers should be defined and what are their most common characteristics.
- Misty shared a wrap-up about how many books in her winter TBR she managed to read.
- Along with star ratings, Yesha likes to award a different cup of tea for each books she reads, which she explained in a recent post.
- Nicole wrote about the subject of updating the content of our old blog posts – a very fascinating discussion!
That is everything for this wrap-up. Have a wonderful April and happy reading! 🙂
Thank you so much for including my review, Stephen! I’m also happy the clocks have changed, especially being a night worker, it’s nice to be able to get a bit of daylight 😂. Looking forward to reading your review of A History of Wild Places, I’ve been intrigued by it & and I can’t wait to read what you thought. Hope you have a fab April!
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You’re welcome, Becky! Oh yes I’m glad you get to see some daylight 🙂 The History of Wild Places is an interesting, atmospheric read so far which I think you might enjoy. Hope you have a wonderful April too 😊
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Thanks so much for including my posts, Stephen! It’s always an honor!!! 🥺✨And I’m glad to see what a good month you’ve had in terms of readings, I see they’ve all been pretty good books, and that’s great. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
I hope you have an even better reading month in April. 🥰
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You’re very welcome, Sofii! It’s been wonderful to read your posts since you started blogging again 🥰 I hope you have a lovely April!
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Thanks so much for including my posts, Stephen! Looks like you had good month. I have my eyes on Pandora, I hope I can get it soon.
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You’re welcome, Yesha! Pandora is beautifully written, I hope you enjoy it 🙂
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Thank you so much for the share, Stephen! It always makes my day. I hope you have a truly fantastic April!!
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You’re very welcome, Nicole! I hope your April is wonderful too ✨
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Thank you so much for including one of my posts Stephen. The time change always annoys me. It like as soon as I get used to it it changes again and then I have to start all over and it’s so frustrating. I do like the extra daylight time though.
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You’re welcome, Misty! I see what you mean, the time change always takes a bit of getting used to every time.
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The weather here in the UK has been a mix recently from a solid week of sunshine to getting caught in the snow 😱😂 Sounds like you had a nice month, I would love to go to Oxford one day. I’m glad you had a nice time 🥰
I have heard quite a few things about My Sister, The Serial Killer… I’m glad you liked it. The dark humour does make me really curious about it!!
Thank you so much for sharing my post! ❤️ I’m so happy you liked it!
I hope you have a great April Stephen!!
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My problem with The Paris Library was that all the 1980s stuff was just unnecessary. But you know, some authors are hell bent on doing the dual-timeline bit, just to add pages to the novel. Too bad, because the WWII bits were very good.
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Thanks for the link to my post 🙂 Sounds like a busy month for you! I bet The Lion King was fantastic, it’s nice to see shows again isn’t it?
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Great wrap up, Stephen! It looks like you had a pretty good reading month 😊 I hope you enjoy The Gilded Ones when you read it this month and I hope you have a great month of reading ahead!
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Thank you! The Gilded Ones has got off to a good start. I hope you are having a great month, Dini 😊
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