Good afternoon! It’s been a busy week as ever, and not as much reading time as I’d like, but here’s hoping I’ll find all the time I want today. And without further ado, let’s jump into my new books, etc.

Books acquired this week

This is actually a bit of a catchup; over the last three weeks I’ve been featuring the books I got for Christmas, but some other books have found their way to me now via vouchers I got for Christmas, other miscellaneous gifts, preorders and ARCs. Let’s take a look first at the light novels I’ve got…

Technically volume 4 of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation hasn’t arrived yet, and I really don’t know what Waterstones/Royal Mail are playing at there, but I figured I’d feature them all together anyway.

And then there’s the other handful of books I got: a new pop-science book, the new volume of A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation, and this month’s British Library Crime Classic via my subscription.

I’m excited for Murder as a Fine Art, since I love Carol Carnac/E.C.R. Lorac’s work almost every time.

And finally, here are a couple of review copies I received!

I need to read Necrobane before I can start on Advocate, but I wanted to do that soon anyway.

So as you see, there’s even more to keep me busy! Especially nice since I’m going to be having something of an unplugged week from Wednesday to the following Wednesday, with a bit less gaming time (though I will have my Steam Deck) and a bit more reading time.

Posts from this week:

As ever, let’s have a bit of a roundup.

• Non-fiction: They Came to Slay: The Queer Culture of DnD, by Thom James Carter (4/5 stars)
• Romance: The Paper Boys, by D.P. Clarence (1/5 stars)
• Fantasy novella (ARC): The River Has Roots, by Amal El-Mohtar (4/5 stars)
• Queer comic: Breaks, vol 1, by Emma Vieceli and Malin Rydén (2/5 stars)
• Non-fiction: Enchanted Creatures: Our Monsters and their Meanings, by Natalie Lawrence (2/5 stars)
• Classic crime: The Big Four, by Agatha Christie (3/5 stars)
• Historical fantasy: The Apothecary Diaries (light novel), vol 1, by Natsu Hyuuga (4/5 stars)

Other posts:

• Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Goals for 2025
• What Are You Reading Wednesday

What I’m reading:

For the weekend, I’m focusing on Mr Pottermack’s Oversight, by R. Austin Freeman — a classic mystery — and Sing Like Fish: How Sound Rules Life Under Water by Amorina Kingdon. I’m having fun so far, though I’m going slower than I’d like with my reading, a sure sign of a somewhat overly busy week.

Still, I got a few books finished (more than I’d thought), so here’s a sneak peek of what I read and plan to review, this week.

And that’s it for me, for this week! Any exciting reading plans, folks?

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, as usual!

Wooo, the weekend! It’s been a cold and icy week here, really treacherous (including our car dramatically almost trying to slip off the back of our carpark and down onto the house a few metres below!), but we’re doing okay. Hope everyone else is doing alright.

Books acquired this week

For a certain value of “this week”… time for the final installment of books I got for Christmas!

First up, the remains of the fiction:

Technically there’s a little more fiction to come that I haven’t shown off, since I had a couple of vouchers to spend after Christmas (and my wife got me a couple more for non-Christmas reasons), but we’ll save that for next week.

You might’ve noticed that I already featured a volume one of The Apothecary Diaries a few weeks ago — that was volume one of the manga, though, and I decided to dig into the light novel. This isn’t at all confusing! Other than that, there’s a couple of picks that were just recommended somewhere (e.g. on Shepherd), plus Thus Was Adonis Murdered, which I was suddenly seeing everywhere a month or so ago.

Next, the rest of the non-fiction!

As ever, it’s a bit of a mix.

And that’s the last of the enormous Christmas haul (part one, part two)… except for a couple of books I bought later with vouchers etc. Next week is really, really the last of it!

Posts from this week:

First up, a quick roundup of reviews…

• Fantasy/teen romance graphic novel: Camp Spirit, by Axelle Lenoir (3/5 stars)
• Christmas romance: Look Up, Handsome, by Jack Strange (4/5 stars)
• History/folklore: Saints: A New Legendary of Heroes, Humans and Magic, by Amy Jeffs (4/5 stars)
• Fantasy: A Man and his God, by Janet Morris (1/5 stars)
• Non-fiction: Space Rover, by Stewart Lawrence Sinclair (4/5 stars)
• Romance manga: A Side Character’s Love Story, vol 6, by Akane Tamura (4/5 stars)

And some non-review posts:

• Top Ten Tuesday: Upcoming Books of 2025
• What Are You Reading Wednesday

What I’m reading:

First up, a quick roundup of the books I’ve read in the last week — which has been a pretty quiet one, by my recent standards! Reviews will be showing up in due course (with one of them already posted).

This weekend I’m hoping to spend some more time reading, but we’ll see how it goes. I’d certainly like to dig back into A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation, since volume 10 has just come out on Friday, and I’ve got started on the light novels for The Apothecary Diaries. Buuut we’ll see where my whim takes me: I read 66 books in December, so if my brain wants a rest, a rest it shall have.

How’s everyone else doing?

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, as usual!

Happy new year! Yep, time for the first STS/Sunday Post of 2025. It’s been a busy week for me and 2025 has so far been tired and meh, on balance. I don’t believe that that has to set the tone for the whole year, luckily!

A bright spot (as ever) is books, so let’s get to talking about those…

Books acquired this week

Time for the second installment of my Christmas haul (the first part being last week’s post here)! Here’s a selection of the non-fiction…

As ever, a weird mix, as ever! I’m trying to decide where to start, since I’m a bit spoiled for choice…

And the fiction selection:

I really liked the sound of all these — I’m hoping I’ll be in the mood to continue Rebecca Thorne’s series soon, since I know the third book is out relatively soon (and the fourth in August, I think?). But as ever, I’m going to let my whim guide me!

Posts from this week

As ever, let’s have a bit of a recap. I’ve stepped up my posting schedule a bit due to a backlog of reviews (though mostly for graphic novels and manga!), so there was plenty going on!

• Christmas romance comic: Snowflake Kisses, by Jordan Greene & Yayira Dzamesi (3/5 stars)
• Classic mystery: Dramatic Murder, by Elizabeth Anthony (4/5 stars)
• Archaeology: Digging for Richard III: The Search for the Lost King, by Mike Pitts (3/5 stars)
• Romance manga: A Side Character’s Love Story, vol 5, by Akane Tamura (4/5 stars)
• Science/history: Lunar: A History of the Moon in Myths, Maps and Matter, by Matthew Shindell (5/5 stars)
• Horror novella: Crypt of the Moon Spider, by Nathan Ballingrud (2/5 stars)
• Historical mystery: Murder at the Ashmolean, by Jim Eldridge (2/5 stars)

And there were a couple of other posts!

• Top Ten Tuesday: Best of 2024
• What Are You Reading Wednesday

What I’m reading

As ever, time for a sneak peek at the books I’ve finished recently which will be coming up for review… eventually (I mentioned that backlog, right?!).

For this weekend, I want to really settle into my 2025 reading! Only one of the books just above was read in 2025; I’m a bit bogged down in my second read, Jonathan Silvertown’s Selfish Genes to Social Beings. I’m hoping to finish that and read a couple of volumes of A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation, at the least!

But we’ll see how it goes… How’s everyone’s 2025 so far?

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, as usual!

Good morning! I hope everyone who celebrates has had a lovely Christmas period. I’ve certainly been spoiled, and had a lot of fun spoiling others in turn.

Books acquired this week

Hold on to your hats! There’s a lot to come. I’m not going to post them all at once, since the post would be huge, and I won’t be getting any other new books for a bit, so I’m going to show some arbitrary subset now and continue next week (and the week after and possibly the week after). First up, here are my new graphic novels and manga!

Technically, the volumes of A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation were bribes to keep my spirits up for work/study on the 23rd and 24th, rather than Christmas presents. I’m sad that I have the whole series for now — but volume 10 is out at the end of January!

Now for some of the non-fiction I got! I won’t try to pick out a theme, let’s go with randomness and not over-think it…

 

As you can see, the main gifter of books (my wife) tried to give me a bit of a range of non-fiction to choose from! I can’t wait to skip my way randomly through my new stacks, and indeed (as you’ll see below) I’ve already begun!

But before we get to that, here’s some of the fiction I received!

Bit of a mix, as ever; I think I found out about most of these via other people’s blogs, so, thank you! I can’t remember how I came across A Case of Mice and Murder, though.

As you can see, I’ve got plenty to dig into, and at least two more STS posts to come to show off my full haul. Well and truly spoilt!

Posts from this week

It’s been a bit of a light week, but I did put up a couple of reviews, so let’s recap those!

• History: The Book Makers: A History of the Book in 18 Remarkable Lives, by Adam Smyth (4/5 stars)
• Short mysteries set at Christmas: Crimson Snow, ed. Martin Edwards (4/5 stars)
• Romance manga: A Side Character’s Love Story, vol 4, by Akane Tamura (4/5 stars)
• SF novella: The Cybernetic Tea Shop, by Meredith Katz (4/5 stars)

What I’m reading

The end of the year is approaching, so I’ve been reading a lot to try to reach my reading goal, though I don’t plan to review all of it. Here’s a sneak peek at the books I finished this week which I do plan to review, as usual:

 

As you see, quite a few books, but it’s been pretty light reading for the most part.

Over this weekend, I have a few Christmas-themed books I’d like to get round to reading — Look Up, Handsome by Jack Strange, Dramatic Murder by Elizabeth Anthony, Miss Beeton’s Murder Agency by Josie Lloyd… and we’ll see how it goes and whether I get round to them before it feels too post-Christmas for them!

How’s everyone else doing? How was Christmas, if you celebrated?

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, as usual!

Happy Saturday! Last weekend before Christmas, and as ever I’m inundated with presents to wrap, ready to spoil my loved ones mercilessly.

Books acquired this week

I’ve been getting some early Christmas presents, which is lovely, along with some bribes (the two volumes of manga) to help encourage me when I was feeling meh and having difficulty getting up and getting to work.

Aaand then while I was doing some Christmas shopping, I ran into a seasonal romance that sounded fun… And a bit more importantly, a localish queer bookshop had a window smashed in and lost a day of trade in the week before Christmas, along with the till being robbed. To show support, I bought a few more presents there, and also used the opportunity to snag the second volume of MDZS, and a book for myself that I’d been eyeing for a while.

And let me just take a moment to offer that bookshop a little more support, too: The Bookish Type are back up and running now, but a lost day of trading on the week before Christmas can be a big deal. They have a pay-it-forward programme where you can buy a book for someone who can’t afford it, and a large online shop. If you’re in the UK, I recommend taking a look (and I imagine the pay-it-forward option should work worldwide).

Posts from this week

As usual, here’s a roundup of the reviews posted this week:

• Non-fiction: The Dead of Winter: The Demons, Witches and Ghosts of Christmas, by Sarah Clegg (4/5 stars)
• Classic mystery: The Secret Adversary, by Agatha Christie (3/5 stars)
• Romance: Cruel Winter With You, by Ali Hazelwood (2/5 stars)
• Fantasy manga: A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation, vol 1, by Misaki, Momochi & Sando (4/5 stars)
• Horror: What Feasts at Night, by T. Kingfisher (4/5 stars)

What I’m reading

First up, the usual sneak peek at books I’ve finished reading which I plan to review soon! As you see, it was a quieter week around here than the last couple of weeks, but that’s fine! I’m making up for it this weekend.

As for what I’m reading now, there’s another volume of A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation awaiting me, for a start, and I’m already partway through a book of short stories that feature mysteries set at Christmas, Crimson Snow. Other than that… who knows?

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, as usual!

A busy week for me, on the book front! Life-wise things have been mostly calm, just work and studying and so on, as per usual.

Books acquired this week

I didn’t expect to acquire any books this week, but… that’s not how it turned out, ahaha. First up, some library holds came in…

Aaand then I also got an early Christmas present from my bosses at Postcrossing, and of course it was also time for the British Library Crime Classic release, meaning I got the new one via my subscription.

And then while straightening out my wishlist right before setting my wife loose on it for Christmas presents, I picked up a couple of ebooks that were going cheap aaaand I also purchased a new light novel on a whim, just to see what this series is like.

 

As you see, I’ve given myself plenty to keep me busy until Christmas (and beyond)!

Posts from this week

Time for the usual roundup! Reviews first, as ever:

• Non-fiction: All the Violet Tiaras: Queering the Greek Myths, by Jean Menzies (4/5 stars)
• Mystery: Murder in the Bookshop, by Carolyn Wells (1/5 stars)
• Fantasy novella: The Wood at Midwinter, by Susanna Clarke (2/5 stars)
• Romance manga: A Side Character’s Love Story, vol 3, by Akane Tamura (3/5 stars)
• Non-fiction: The Bookshop, The Draper, The Candlestick Maker: A History of the High Street, by Annie Gray (3/5 stars)

And just one non-review post, my What Are You Reading Wednesday update.

What I’m reading

As ever, here’s a sneak peek at the books I finished reading this week which I plan to review on the blog! As you can see, it’s been another busy week, helped along by novellas and manga.

I’m going to be reading more of A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation this weekend for sure, but what else…? Probably some more of A Side Character’s Love Story, and finishing up with Michael Waters’ The Other Olympians, my current serious read, which is about the fascist and specifically Nazi origins of sex testing in sport.

But, as ever, it depends on my whims in the moment.

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, as usual!

I’m very much enjoying the advent season so far — as I’ve probably mentioned before, I usually go overboard on creating a custom advent calendar of gifts for my wife, a whole mix of things like craft kits, nerdy phone charms, books, etc. I watch out for people’s reviews of horror books all year (especially from Mogsy at The Bibliosanctum) so I can make some good choices Lisa wouldn’t otherwise hear about, since it’s really not my genre. So that’s a lot of fun, and adds a bright spot to every day.

Hope everyone’s having a good December so far, whether or not you’re celebrating any kind of holiday this month!

Books acquired this week

This week I got a couple of eagerly-awaited books to review via Netgalley: I love the Mossa and Pleiti books, and I’ve been adoring the Emily Wilde series. I also forgot to mention Neon Yang’s new book last week, so here it is!

I’m really excited to dig into these.

Posts from the last week

First up, the reviews!

• Memoir: Nothing But The Truth, by The Secret Barrister (2/5 stars)
• Classic mystery: The Secret of Chimneys, by Agatha Christie (3/5 stars)
• Non-fiction: The Book at War: Libraries and Readers in an Age of Conflict, by Andrew Pettegree (3/5 stars)
• Historical fantasy: Wormwood Abbey, by Christina Baehr (3/5 stars)
• Romance manga: A Side Character’s Love Story, vol 2, by Akane Tamura (3/5 stars)

And the only other thing I posted was my WWW Wednesday post.

What I’m reading

I have a long way to go to meet my stretch reading goal this year: as I write, I have to read 52 more books to meet my goal, and I haven’t given up yet! I’ve been reading quite a lot this week, finishing 17 things that count as books on StoryGraph (though a couple of them were very short, and there were a lot of graphic novels and manga in the mix). Here’s a sneak peek of the ones I plan to review here!

I know, I know, it’s a lot!

Over the weekend, I plan to do a bunch more reading — for one thing, I want to dive into The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses, and there’s more manga I want to read, and I’m partway through Murder at the Ashmolean and Black Ops & Beaver Bombing…

Suffice it to say, I’ll be keeping busy!

How’s everyone else doing?!

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, as usual!

Hurrah, it’s Saturday! I’ve been spending the day finishing up my wife’s custom “advent calendar”, but it’s time to think about books now!

Books acquired this week

I managed to get down to the library this week, hurrah! It was cold later in the week, but there was one warmer day that was perfect at the start of the week.

I keep meaning to try H.G. Parry’s work, and I’m pretty sure I have a book by Rose Black already on my TBR. As for Miss Beeton’s Murder Agency, it looks like a fun seasonal mystery! I enjoyed reading a bunch of those around Christmas last year, so I thought I’d give this one a shot.

I did get a couple of new books to test out my new ereader with, as well. It’s my first colour one, so I wanted to pick a book with colour, and also a manga to try out on it (since one of the reasons to get a faster ereader was to spend more time reading manga).

I actually got a few of Sewell’s books, but I’m not reviewing them all here — it’d be very repetitive.

Posts from the last week

As usual, here’s the round-up!

• Non-fiction: The British Museum: Storehouse of Civilizations, by James Hamilton (4/5 stars)
• Non-fiction: Feeding the Monster: Why Horror Has a Hold On Us, by Anna Bogutskaya (4/5 stars)
• Romance: The Pumpkin Spice Café, by Laurie Gilmore (1/5 stars)
• Romance manga: A Side Character’s Love Story, vol 1, by Akane Tamura (3/5 stars)
• SF horror: Rose/House, by Arkady Martine (4/5 stars)

I didn’t do TTT this week, so the only other post is my What Are You Reading Wednesday post.

What I’m reading

First of all, let’s have a peek at what I’ve finished in the last week which I plan to review here! Here’s a sneak peek:

I’ll be rereading more of A Side Character’s Love Story this weekend, and I think digging into Murder at the Ashmolean, by Jim Eldridge. I’d like to get round to more of The Spellshop, too.

And that’s me for the week! How’s everyone doing?

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, as usual!

Hurrah for the weekend!

I’m a little behind on comments/blog visits, but I’m finally starting to get back on track with my studies, so I’m calling this week a win. Looking forward to spending time today visiting other blogs, replying to comments, etc, etc.

Books acquired this week

There was no library trip this week owing to the wintery weather: first it was too cold for me to cycle without gloves, and then once the gloves arrived, sadly everything’s covered in ice. It’s supposed to warm up a bit this weekend, so we’ll see how that goes.

Nonetheless, I did get some new books! I discovered the Inklings series, from 404 Ink. They’re on a very random range of topics, in a way that delights me, so I’ve snagged quite a few — they’ll serve as quick reads to maybe start catching up with my reading goal for this year.

 

And I did also get a couple more books from my wife, namely these:

So as you see, it’s been a bookish week, and I’ve inhaled many of them already! (The Inklings books are quite short.)

Posts from this week

First up, the roundup of reviews posted this week:

• Speculative fiction: The Mountain in the Sea, by Ray Nayler (4/5 stars)
• Poetry: The Lost Words, by Robert Macfarlane, illustrated by Jackie Morris (4/5 stars)
• Crime: Murder at the British Museum, by Jim Eldridge (3/5 stars)
• Horror novella: Cold Snap, by Lindy Ryan (2/5 stars)

And other posts:

• Top Ten Tuesday: Oldest Books On My TBR (basically a gallery of classic crime)
• What Are You Reading Wednesday

What I’m reading

Well, as usual let’s start with a sneak peek at what I’ve finished reading this week…

 

As for what I’m reading over the weekend, I’m just finishing up with another of the Inklings books, Blind Spot, and then I want to finish Carolyn Wells’ Murder in the Bookshop and Sarah Beth Durst’s The Spellshop. I also want to get back to Amal El-Mohtar’s The River Has Roots.

I need to read 80 more books by the end of the year to reach my stretch reading goal, and it’s looking very far away and unlikely… but we’ll see how it goes.

How’s everyone else doing? Reading anything good?

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, as usual!

Oh boy, it’s not been a week for reading. I did carve out some catchup time for my classes, though, and I trust I’m on the way back to an even keel.

Books acquired this week

First off, the books I snagged at the library this week:

I didn’t adore Alix E. Harrow’s work that I’ve read so far, but I did enjoy it well enough, so I thought I’d give Starling House a shot. I’ve been curious about Fathomfolk a while, and I had the idea at the back of my mind that I’d seen someone say good things about Where the Dead Brides Gather, so… another one to give a shot.

I did also get a new book from my wife this week, as well. There’s a couple more coming, but for now it’s just this one:

Looks like a quick read, and I’ve been curious about this series of short books for a while.

Posts from this week

As usual, here’s a roundup of what I’ve been posting this week:

• Classic mystery: The Man in the Brown Suit, by Agatha Christie (3/5 stars)
• Chinese light novel fantasy/romance: Heaven Official’s Blessing, vol 8, by MXTX (5/5 stars)
• Non-fiction: Overleaf: An Album of British Trees, by Susan & Richard Ogilvy (4/5 stars)
• SF dystopia: Arch-Conspirator, by Veronica Roth (3/5 stars)
• Classic mystery: Rope’s End, Rogue’s End, by E.C.R. Lorac (3/5 stars)
• Non-fiction: The Secret Life of the Owl, by John Lewis-Stempel (3/5 stars)

Other posts:

• What Are You Reading Wednesday

What I’m reading

I’ve really been struggling to read this week, so I only have one book lined up ready for me to review here at some point soon:

Not sure what exactly I’ll read this weekend, but I’ve made a start on All the Violet Tiaras, and I’m partway through Amal El-Mohtar’s The River Has Roots. So those are good guesses for where I’ll start. I’ll probably also try to get back to The Other Olympians, which is a fascinating lookback at the development of sex verification as a concept in sport (and of course all the transphobia that goes with it). I hope to find a bit more time for it this week!

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, as usual!