My Bookish Month of February 2022

Hi and welcome to another monthly overview!

February was a month of terrible lows and one incredible high. I’m still recovering from COVID and I’m starting to feel better now, but for the longest time, every day I felt a bit better was followed by two days of feeling like death warmed up, which also impacted my mental health. It’s hard to stay positive when you feel like your health is deteriorating instead of improving and the brain fog is so dense you can’t even read. So yeah, there were quite a few days I felt terribly sad. Of course, the current affairs in Eastern Europe did not help, I feel so sad for the Ukrainian people, the news reports have been absolutely harrowing. But I’m also angry, I mean, haven’t we all been through enough with this bloody pandemic?! Fortunately, the month ended on a personal high when I got the very best news I’ve had in a very long time. I have to keep it under wraps for now (you never know who might be reading this) but I’ll be able to shout it from the rooftops soon.

Bookwise, February was much the same as January: I listened to fewer audiobooks than I usually do, because I didn’t have to commute and I did only the bare minimum of household chores, but I did read more than I usually do.

These were my favourite reads of the month:

In figures February looks like this:

February
Novels: 8289 pages across 26 books
Audiobooks: 32 hours across 6 audiobooks

And here’s what I did in February and some of what I’ll be posting in March:

What I read:

The Justice of Kings, Richard Swan
How to Survive Everything, Ewan Morrison
The Key In The Lock, Beth Underdown
The Gilded Cage, Lynette Noni
Twin Truths, Shelan Rodger
The Little Book of Hygge, Jonny Jackson & Elias Larsen
The Lobotomist’s Wife, Samantha Greene Woodruff
Unmissing, Minka Kent
Randomize, Andy Weir
The Clockwork Girl, Anna Mazzola (review to follow)
Get Well Soon: History’s Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them, Jennifer Wright
Gilded, Marissa Meyer
Sons of Anarchy, Volume 1, Christopher Golden & Damian Couceiro
Our Violent Ends, Chloe Gong
No Abras Los Ojos, John Verdon
Thinner, Stephen King
Opal Country, Chris Hammer
When I Was You, Minka Kent
Begars Abbey, V.L. Valentine (review to follow)
Seven Years of Darkness, You-Jeong Jeong
Jamaica Inn, Daphne du Maurier
The Influencers, S.V. Leonard (review to follow)
All at Sea, Chris McDonald
The Shot, Sarah Sultoon (review to follow)
How to Stop Overthinking, Chase Hill & Scott Sharp
Six Crimson Cranes, Elizabeth Lim

What I listened to:

The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux
Grendel’s Game, Erik Mauritzson
The Other Girl, CD Major
The Song Never Dies, Matthew Costello & Neil Richards
How to be Sad, Helen Russell (review to follow)
Lemon, Kwon Yeo-Sun

What I read earlier but reviewed in February:

Unhinged, Thomas Enger & Jørn Lier Horst
The Haunting of Las Lágrimas, W.M. Cleese
River Clyde, Simone Simone Buchholz
Nasty Little Cuts, Tina Baker

I also talked about the Sturmtaucher trilogy by Alan Jones and shared an excerpt from Off-Target by Eve Smith.

Let’s have a look at the books that landed on my lap in February:

A gorgeous FairyLoot sequel, an anticipated hardback that didn’t quite live up to my expectations, three Orenda paperbacks to complete my collection, a short story collection from Flame Tree Press and a cosy mystery from Red Dog Press:

Ebooks: an anticipated YA fantasy, three 99p deals, five NetGalley eARCs and five eARCS courtesy of Orenda Books:

I hope you had a good month and that you are safe and well! Thanks for joining me today and happy reading xxx