Hi and welcome to another monthly overview!
It’s June, how did that happen?! May was such a weird month, mainly because of of all the stress and emotions that went with my final week at my old job, and the aftermath. It was very hard to say goodbye to so many people I’ve known for so many years. I got the loveliest presents, I felt really really spoiled. I had the rest of the month off, mostly due to overtime I had accumulated, and it felt weirdly like truancy, especially because the weather was so lovely 😂 Today is the first of June, which means it’s my first day at my new job! I did go for a dry run last week, so I do know what I’m in for but it’s still a bit intimidating, so wish me luck!
I had expected to read more in May, seeing as I was off work for a while. In practice though, my head was all over the place and my concentration was low. I just had a lot to process, I think. Still, May was a pretty good bookish month, I enjoyed not all, but most of what I read and there were quite a few books I absolutely loved.
Honourable mentions to The Hunger of the Gods, Butterflies, The Daughter of Doctor Moreau and Upgrade but these were my favourite reads of the month:
In figures May looks like this:
May
Novels: 6310 pages across 20 books
Audiobooks: 59 hours across 9 audiobooks
And here’s what I did in May and some of what I’ll be posting in June:
What I read:
Murder on a Mississippi Steamboat, Leighann Dobbs
Little Bones, N.V. Peacock
Cuckoo, Sophie Draper
The Hunger of the Gods, John Gwynne
Every Last Fear, Alex Finlay
Butterflies: Beautiful Flying Insects, Julianna Photopoulos
Hack, Duncan MacMaster
Tasting Sunlight, Ewald Arenz
The Box, Dan Malakin (review to follow)
Night Shadows, Eva Björg Ægisdóttir (review to follow)
Castle of Sorrows, Jonathan Janz
The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (review to follow)
Truly, Darkly, Deeply, Victoria Selman (review to follow)
La isla de los cien ojos, Mikel Santiago
Upgrade, Blake Crouch (review to follow)
Out of her Depth, Lizzy Barber
The Island of Doctor Moreau, H.G. Wells
Whisper Down the Lane, Clay McLeod Chapman
Hamlet, William Shakespeare
The Leviathan, Rosie Andrews
What I listened to:
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Victor Hugo
The Last Final Girl, Stephen Graham Jones
Vespertine, Margaret Rogerson
The Children on the Hill, Jennifer McMahon
Nettle & Bone, T. Kingfisher
A Caribbean Mystery, Agatha Christie
The Younger Wife, Sally Hepworth
Come With Me, Ronald Malfi
Finn, Stephen King
What I read earlier but reviewed in May:
The Fugitive Colours, Nancy Bilyeau
The Last to Disappear, Jo Spain
The Dance Tree, Kiran Millwood Hargrave
I also had a look at my bookish challenges and goals for this year, I shared an extract from Little Drummer by Kjell Ola Dahl and from Keep Her Sweet by Helen FitzGerald.
Let’s have a look at the books that landed on my lap in May:
Three paperbacks: an addition to my Orenda collection, a theme park horror novel I couldn’t resist and hope to start today and a sequel I finally got around to buying:
Six NetGalley eARCs (oops 😬), three eARCs courtesy of Orenda Books and two Kindle deals:
I hope you had a good month and that you are safe and well! Thanks for joining me today and happy reading xxx
I hope your first day went well ?! Oh you already read Night Shadows? Is it as great as the previous novels?? I pre-ordered it twice, then suddenly remembered and cancelled the first order 🙂
I’m also eager to read Out of her Depth because I really enjoyed this author’s first novel. Great month, I hope June will be just as good for you!
It did, thank you 😊 Night Shadows is great but IMHO a tad less atmospheric than the previous ones. I really loved Out of her Depth, especially the Tuscany part of the story.
Seriously, what’s with the humongous pictures?! 🤣
Good luck today! Hope the new job is everything you’re hoping it will be. 🤗
Thanks Tessa 😘
Good luck with your new job, hope the first day went well x
Thanks Jill 😘 It did!
Sounds like you had a great bookish month and I hope your first days at your new job went well! xx
I did and it went great, thank you 💜