Weekly Roundup

This week has been a slightly slower week for reading, although I did get through one fairly long book. I’ve since started three more, and posted one review and the reading retrospective for the month. Read on to find out the details!

I started and finished The Shadow Saint by Gareth Hanrahan this week, second book in the Black Iron Legacy series. I rated the first one highly, and I reckon this one was as good if not better. These books are packed with imagination – mad gods, a living city, family phylacteries, ghouls – and that combined with a plot that once it gets going, moves at breakneck pace. The third book is out this year, and I hope to be getting to it in the near future.

I also started The Girl and the Stars by Mark Lawrence, first in his latest trilogy set in the same world as his Book of the Ancestor trilogy. So far I’m enjoying it, although it’s not what I expected.

What is currently matching my expectations is Piranese by Susanna Clarke. So far it’s intriguing and whimsical, but I can see myself being underwhelmed if the story doesn’t build to anything much further.

On my favourite subreddit, r/fantasy, the mod-run book bingo has just begun, and one of the squares is SFF related non-fiction. To that end I’ve started reading a collected series of essays by Jo Walton called What Makes This Book So Great. It’s been really interesting to see her perspective on reading and rereading older novels (helpful for new reads for my monthly goals). I doubt I’ll review it in a post, however, I am considering a series looking at my thoughts and ‘plans’ for the bingo squares, since participating in the book bingo is one of the highlights of my reading year.

What I’ve not been reading is Royal Assassin, which I started over a week ago while reading a different book. I do intend to come back to it soon – my mood just has been in a different place. I did however read a few more stories in the Hidden Girl and Other Stories collection, mostly good.

This week I finally posted my A Desolation Called Peace review. You can read it here. Best book I’ve read this year so far? Definitely. I loved it, but part of me refused to give it the full 10/10. It took me a while to realise that while it was a great book from start to finish, I found the ending to not be as satisfying as I had hoped. There were a couple of other minor quibbles, but for a book to get a perfect score, I need a perfect ending. Still, better than anything I’ve read this year so far – read this book!

I also posted my Monthly Reading Retrospective, which you can find here. It was a pretty good month for meeting my goals. We’ll see how that continues when my current inclination seems to be toward modern fantasy.

For next week I hope I can manage to get two reviews out – The Bone Shard Daughter and The Shadow Saint. If not, then maybe a book bingo post alongside a review. At the very least there will be a review in the regular Thursday slot.

And now, my TBR shortlist! From last week’s shortlist, I’ve picked up The Shadow Saint, The Girl and the Stars and Piranese, which makes this a rare three books from the TBR shortlist picked, including a top row book! (Although it helps that I had just finished a book before adjusting last week’s TBR so I was pretty sure about what I planned to read next)

Here’s a link to my last Weekly Roundup, if you wish to compare the two. The blank cover in the middle is an arc of Brother Red by Adrian Selby. I’m not sure if I’ll get to any of these books this week, as I still have Royal Assassin on hold, along with two books on the go currently (not including non fiction and short stories)

As usual, let me know if there’s anything there you’d recommend!