My Bookish Month of March 2022

Hi and welcome to another monthly overview!

Last month I told you that I’d received the very best news but I had to keep mum for a while longer. Now I can finally put it out here: I got a new job! Meanwhile I handed in my notice at my current job, my official last day there is the 31st of May, I’m counting down the minutes! I’m going to be doing a completely different job in a completely different environment, moving from a huge and well-known multinational to a small team at a local GP’s. It’s a tad scary but something had to give. The observant reader might have noticed a recurrent theme of me complaining here every month about stress and anxiety, I’m working in a stressful and often toxic place, and these last couple of years I’ve been noticing the effects on my physical and mental health. It was such a relief to be offered the job and to be able to quit, even if I do have to stay and work my notice period for a few more weeks. The future is looking a lot brighter than it did last year!

Bookwise, things have returned to normal with me reading less and listening more than the previous months, now that normal service has resumed and I’m back at work. The weather has been great too, so I was able to garden, which is my favourite thing to do while listening to audiobooks.

I read many great books in March but these were my favourite reads of the month:

In figures March looks like this:

March
Novels: 7118 pages across 20 books
Audiobooks: 60 hours across 10 audiobooks

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

What I read:

Shadow Flicker, Gregory Bastianelli
Death in the Sunshine, Steph Broadribb
The Last Snow, Stina Jackson
Music of the Night, edited by Martin Edwards
Bilis Negra, Samantha Devin
The Eternity Fund, Liz Monument
Pieces of Her, Karin Slaughter
The Undiscovered Deaths of Grace McGill, C.S. Robertson
The Interview, C.M. Ewan
Bullet Train, Kōtarō Isaka
Little Drummer, Kjell Ola Dahl (review to follow)
Nothing Else, Louise Beech (review to follow)
The Plague Letters, V.L. Valentine
The Night Shift, Alex Finlay
First Born, Will Dean
The Turn of the Key, Ruth Ware
The Marsh House, Zoë Somerville
Keep Her Sweet, Helen FitzGerald (review to follow)
Gallant, V.E. Schwab
56 Days, Catherine Ryan Howard

What I listened to:

Summer Sons, Lee Mandelo
Reckless Girls, Rachel Hawkins
The Mist, Stephen King
The Song Never Dies, Matthew Costello & Neil Richards
Sleeping Murder, Agatha Christie
The Paris Apartment, Lucy Foley
Hide and Seeker, Daka Hermon
The Mother Fault, Kate Mildenhall
A Taste for Poison, Neil Bradbury
A River Enchanted, Rebecca Ross

What I read earlier but reviewed in March:

Reputation, Sarah Vaughan
The Clockwork Girl, Anna Mazzola
Sundial, Catriona Ward
The Influencers, S.V. Leonard
The Shot, Sarah Sultoon
How to Be Sad, Helen Russell

I also shared an excerpt from The Way Out: 40 Empowering Stories by Laura Stamps, River Clyde by Simone Buchholz and Faceless by Vanda Symon.

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

Three pressies (thanks Eva!!) and two additions to my Orenda collection:

Three NetGalley eARCs, an eARC courtesy of Orenda Books, a blog tour eARC, two 99p eBooks and an anticipated read:

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