Hi and welcome to another monthly overview!
I can’t believe August is over! It seems like five minutes ago I was still looking forward to my summer holiday and now it’s September 😱 We kicked off our holiday with one of our chickens dying on us (RIP, Bien-Cuit), which was not great. I know it’s “just a chicken”, but it was our chicken and she was really sweet. Since her companion, Bleu, is a bit of a scaredy-cat and chickens are not meant to be all alone, we decided to expand the family. We got one laying hen and two bantam chickens and spent the rest of our holidays trying to keep the peace between the old hen and the new ones 😂 They are for sure the most monitored chickens in the history of the world 😂 Meet Brünhilde (you can still see the dinosaur in that one, can’t you 😂) and Wylma & Dot, our fluffy bantam Wyandottes, who prefer sitting on the roof of their shelter instead of under it.
My bookish month was fab! I had a few duds, two anticipated reads from favourite authors (Downing and Feeney) didn’t quite meet expectations, and one sequel (Carrick) didn’t either, but I did enjoy most of what I read and listened to. I continued blog-hopping, but I did take a break from blogging and reviewing and social media and it did me a world of good.
Honourable mentions to Death of the Black Widow, A Fatal Affair, The Orchid Hour and The Dark Half but these were my favourite reads of the month:
In figures August looks like this:
August
Novels: 8443 pages across 23 books
Audiobooks: 53 hours across 9 books
And here’s what I did in August and some of what I’ll be posting in September:
What I read:
Ruby, V.C. Andrews
Pines, Blake Crouch
The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
Death of the Black Widow, James Patterson & J.D. Barker
The Silence, Katerina Diamond
The Revels, Stacey Thomas
Case Sensitive, A.K. Turner
Sun Damage, Sabine Durrant
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson
The Deep, Deep Snow, Brian Freeman
A Fatal Affair, A.R. Torre
The Vagus Nerve Gut Brain Connection, Wendy Hayden
Microbio, Fernando Gomez Echeverri
A Twisted Love Story, Samantha Downing
House of Roots and Ruin, Erin A. Craig
The Abrupt Physics of Dying, Paul E. Hardisty
The Illusions, Liz Hyder
Sirens, Joseph Knox
Kill Creek, Scott Thomas
The Orchid Hour, Nancy Bilyeau
Labyrinth’s Heart, M.A. Carrick
The Secret Hour, Scott Westerfeld
White as Snow, Lilja Sigurðardóttir (review to follow)
What I listened to:
The Liar, Nora Roberts
A Dinner to Die for, Matthew Costello & Neil Richards
A Quiet Retreat, Kiersten Modglin
The Dark Half, Stephen King
Thornhedge, T. Kingfisher
Crash Land, Doug Johnstone
Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng
They Came to Baghdad, Agatha Christie
Good Bad Girl, Alice Feeney
What I read earlier but reviewed in August:
Delicate Condition, Danielle Valentine
All the Little Liars, Victoria Selman
Let’s have a look at the books that landed on my lap in August (and please try not to judge 🙈😂):
Two finished copies for the Orenda collection, two historical fiction novels, the new Cassie Raven, two fantasy novels and two thrillers I had to buy after loving the first in the series:
One 99p deal, one anticipated read that didn’t quite meet expectations, two NetGalley eARCS and three Orenda eARCs:
I hope you had a good month and that you are safe and well! Thanks for joining me today and happy reading xxx
I’m sorry you lost one of your chickens but you saved 3 in return and they’ll have a great life with your family! That’s a loooong list for August, looks like it was as a good month for reading. I’m going to watch Little Fires Everywhere btw, the series starts on tv this week!
I hope you love the show more than I did the book cos I clearly read a whole other book than most people and ended up feeling rather underwhelmed 🙈
So glad I removed Downing from my list and didn’t spend money on it.
Pretty sure you would like it less than I did 😅
Love your new chickens, but sorry you lost one. My husband loved Sirens and has got The Smiling Man to read next and I’m going to read them too!
Thank you xx I’m looking forward to diving into The Smiling Man later this month. Sirens is rather dark and very compelling, I have high hopes for the sequel!
omg, Bien-Cuit!! This is really sad. I feel bad about making those chicken jokes a few years ago!! But I guess it was just her time.
Those new Wyandottes are amazing. I’ve never heard of them before. I love the grey feathers. Very stylish!! I would run away from Brunhilde, though LOL!!
I hope you have many happy years with them.
I guess it was indeed her time, she didn’t have any symptoms, we think it was just old age. The Dottes are very dapper, aren’t they! Don’t worry, Brünhilde’s bark is worse than her bite 😂
I’m sorry about Bien-Cuit! Your new chickens are adorable though… And what a list for August! It’s good to see Death Of The Black Widow And A Fatal Affair mentioned. Also, fantastic haul! ❤
Thank you, a bit of a sad start of the month, losing Bien-Cuit. But yes, lovely new chickens and a great bookish month! xx