Best Books of January
As I say every month, I’m shamelessly stealing this idea from Jessica Lahey. She has a recurring monthly date where she reviews all the books she reads that month. Book reviews are important for authors, and I want to get better at doing this.
So. I’m going to review them here and also online, but I’m going to do it a little differently. I’m only going to review the stuff I really liked. I don’t see a reason to spend my time writing about something I didn’t love; it’s just using up more of my energy. So only positive reviews.
These are the books I liked (or mostly liked) from January.
All the Queen’s Men (S.J. Bennett): I loved The Windsor Knot so much that I immediately started the second book in the series. It was even better than the first one, and the best part was going on a tour of Buckingham Palace right after reading it and getting to walk through a section of the palace impacted by the reservicing plan discussed in the book. And I saw the Canaletto exhibit they’re putting together in the book when it was at Holyrood in 2018. Real-life intersecting with fiction is one of my favourite things.
Murder Most Royal (S.J. Bennett): Then she did it again! Bennett made an even better book for the third in the series, and the first two were so strong. These books are exceptional, and I want to keep re-reading them. I love every character — the portrayals of the real people and all of the fictional ones.
Heartstopper, Volume 5 (Alice Oseman): Oh Heartstopper… these are very quick, sweet reads. You’ll cheer on these teens and hope they find college and romantic peace.
One of the Good Guys (Araminta Hall): This book is creepy, full-stop. It will make you think. It will judge you. It will provoke you. It is not a good mystery, and you probably will not like any of the characters, but it’s still worth a read if you go into it, knowing it’s about challenging how we think and talk about women.
The Fury (Alex Michaelides): I guessed his last two books pretty early on, so when I guessed the twist in this one, I rolled my eyes. BUT he totally got me because that twist was just one of many, and I was so distracted by it that I didn’t notice everything else coming down the road. It’s a clever one, and you’ll see characters from the other two books pop up in this one.
What did you read last month?
2 comments
So glad you’re enjoying S.J. Bennett’s books! I just started “A Death in Diamonds” ( #4 in the series, which takes us back to 1957). It’s not available in North America yet, and no publication date planned (boo, hiss…), but I was happily able to secure a copy. 🙂
I finished 4 books in January, all reviewed on my blog, as well as Goodreads & StoryGraph:
* “The Christmas Orphans Club” by Becca Freeman. This one was recommended by Nora McInerny of Terrible, Thanks for Asking, and I thought it sounded like a good potential future pick for a childless book club I belong to. It was. Not too heavy, about four friends who form a “chosen family” and have celebrated Christmas together for the past decade. What happens when jobs, romance & other factors start taking them all in different, separate directions?
* “Anne’s House of Dreams” by L.M. Montgomery, for my LMM Readathon Facebook group. Anne of Green Gables marries her Gilbert and starts a new life with new friends in a small community on the coast of PEI. This one is notable because (spoiler alert) it deals in part with baby loss, and even though it was written more than 100 years ago, every word still rings true today. The author was a loss mother herself.
* “Bel Lamington” by D.E. Stevenson, in advance of my DES fan group’s discussion. Typical Stevenson fare: Bel is an orphan, raised by a kind aunt who died as she was entering adulthood. She’s now living a lonely life in London, working as a secretary and tending to her rooftop garden, but her life starts to change in some dramatic ways when she arrives home one day to find a strange young man sitting outside in her garden.
* “Living the Life Unexpected” by Jody Day. A re-read (for the 5th time, I think! — with a group of other childless women, one chapter a month for an entire year). This is an absolute must-read for anyone dealing with a childless life that they didn’t plan or expect to have.
Oooh, I’m going to have to look up that mystery. I’m always interested in new revelations about how we speak about girls and women.
I had a good reading month in January. Though that’s really because it was summer holidays here, and reading was almost compulsory! lol
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, by VE Schwab, was wonderful. A little mystical, but still really interesting – especially when we think about what is important in our lives.
Circe by Madeline Miller – another fabulous read by Madeline Miller, bringing the Greek myths alive.
As a result of your recommendation here a few months ago (I think?), I thoroughly enjoyed Rob Rinder’s The Trial, and can’t wait for his next book.
A short story by Claire Keegan, So Late in the Day, was recommended on our national radio, and so I gobbled it up in an hour or two. I’m not usually into short stories, but I’ve already put her next book on hold at the library.
And finally, I decided it was time to catch up on the Outlander series, as the TV episodes had gone beyond what I had read. We already had the hard copy of An Echo in the Bone (the 7th in the series), and I read that. It was both a novelty and an enormous pain to read something in the hard copy. But I got into their world, and have since read the next book, and I’m on the ninth now.