Hello everyone,
We suddenly find ourselves a quarter of the way through the year and for me at least, the time has flown by! The clocks moved forward here in the UK last weekend and that means extra hours of daylight, which is a very welcome return as it makes me feel much more happy and cheerful.
To mark the occasion, we were greeted with warm weather which I absolutely made the most of, by reading outside and taking a wonderful trip to Oxford. It is such a beautiful city and one of my favourite places to visit, so I could hardly have asked for a better day. However, as I type biting cold temperatures have suddenly returned for what I hope is one final fling, so it is all very unpredictable.
As for reading, I managed to finish five more books over the course of March and have two others on the go. I have enjoyed all of them in different ways, including two historical fiction buddy reads which provoked fascinating discussions. On another positive note, I feel like I am starting to make the tiniest dent in my substantial TBR.
Here are the books I read in March:
The Paris Library ⭐⭐⭐.5
My Sister, The Serial Killer ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
The Year Of The Flood (audiobook) ⭐⭐⭐
I Know You Did It ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Pandora ⭐⭐⭐.5
Although the plot did not completely deliver in the end, Pandora is one of the most beautifully written books I have read for a long time and was totally immersive, so it is one I am going to look back on with fondness. In contrast, The Paris Library had a great story with excellent character development, but the writing lacked a little depth.
Meanwhile, My Sister, The Serial Killer was on my TBR for a long time and I ended up loving it for all of its dark humour and quirkiness. Margaret Atwood’s The Year Of The Flood is witty and full of interesting, unusual concepts, and I Know You Did It is a far more tense, thrilling affair.
Looking ahead to my April TBR, my first aim is to finish my current reads, which are the final part of the MadAddam trilogy and The History Of Wild Places by Shea Earnshaw, which so far is intriguing and atmospheric. I have long-awaited buddy reads planned for The Gilded Ones and The Cottingley Cuckoo, along with The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell, one of my favourite authors.
March was a quiet month on the writing front with no poems written (to my shame!), but I did make a start on the first edition of the Soccer 360 magazine since I became the editor. It is quite something to know that all the articles I assigned to the various writers that will appear in the magazine were based on my own ideas. The actual editing begins this week, which should be interesting.
Work was exceptionally busy as we were working towards a deadline ahead of the university summer exams – there were some days where I could hardly pause for breath! On the other hand, I have found the time to do some other fun things, such as trips to the cinema to see Death On The Nile and The Duke, while I finally saw the stage production of The Lion King, which was a great spectacle and I loved all the songs.
April is all set to a very busy month, but it feels like there is a lot to look forward to! As an ending to this wrap-up, I am sharing a few of my favourite posts from other bloggers over the course of the month:
- Sofii writes detailed and insightful reviews, and recently she shared a post explaining how they are structured!
- Becky reviewed lots of advanced copies during the month, and I especially enjoyed reading her thoughts on Wild And Wicked Things by Francesca May.
- Staying on the review theme, Emily enjoyed Ariadne by Jennifer Saint just as much as I did, and her review was beautifully written.
- Sophie wrote a really fun post about her writing progress.
- NS Ford asked the question of how thrillers should be defined and what are their most common characteristics.
- Misty shared a wrap-up about how many books in her winter TBR she managed to read.
- Along with star ratings, Yesha likes to award a different cup of tea for each books she reads, which she explained in a recent post.
- Nicole wrote about the subject of updating the content of our old blog posts – a very fascinating discussion!
That is everything for this wrap-up. Have a wonderful April and happy reading! :)
Stephen Reads Books 