Weekly Roundup

This week I’ve finished reading four books! I’ve posted two reviews, and did a monthly goal wrap up. Read on to get a roundup for the week and find out what I’m reading!

Sunday was the end of the month, so I posted my second Monthly Reading Retrospective for the year. I’m holding steady on most of my goals, which I’m really pleased about.

Tuesday was my Throwback Review for The Magic of Recluse by L.E. Modesitt Jr, and the start of a new format for that type of review. Since one of my monthly goals is to read older books. Older fantasy in particular I’ve been biased against in the past, so in my Throwback Reviews, I wanted to look at how the books compared to my perception of ‘classic’ fantasy. You can find the review here.

Then on Thursday I posted a review for the excellent Birds of Paradise by Oliver K. Langmead. I’m really surprised that the book has not generated that much buzz yet – I think it’ll have a broad appeal. Look for that to come out at the end of March, and check out my review here.

The first book I finished (not long after doing my monthly wrap-up) was Beneath the Sugar Sky, one of the Wayward Children novellas by Seanan McGuire. It was a nice book, and I’ve already got a quick review written and ready to go with my Shadowblack review. That will go up monday most likely.

After that I finished Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone, which features a very vivid and imaginative world, but that I failed to click with until quite far into the book. I also finish Second Sight by Amanda Quick, a paranormal romance book that I will not be reviewing. The reason for that, is that I rushed my reading of it to complete a reading challenge – in retrospect, I probably should have just DNFed it, as it was very much not my thing.

Finally, I started and finished Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb, and I was definitely surprised by how much I loved it. I’ll be doing a Throwback review of it very soon. I have a lot of positive things to say about Hobb’s writing, and you can expect me to be reading more of her books in the future. And I’ve started a book I’ve been looking forward to since I read the preceding volume – A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine. A Memory Called Empire was one of my favourite books last year, and the buzz around the sequel is that it’s just as good or better!

And now, my TBR shortlist! From last week’s shortlist, I picked up and read two books, Beneath the Sugar Sky & Assassin’s Apprentice! That’s definitely an improvement from the week before.

Here’s a link to my last Weekly Roundup, if you wish to compare the two. From the Farseer trilogy, it is the second book, Royal Assassin, that I’ll be picking up next. And the book at the bottom left is The Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne. I’m conscious that I need to try and read at least one ARC a month for the next few months, and it seems like epic fantasy is on the menu. There’s only two books in common with last week on the list, which I’d expect to happen after finishing so many books in one week!

Let me know if there’s anything there you’d recommend!