Not a monthly wrap up

Hey everyone – remember me?  🙋🏻‍♀️

It’s been a while (this is my first post since 21 February! 😬) and while I’d love to say that I’ve just been too busy having fun and adventures since then, it’s simply not the case. 

I had a bit of a rough time at work – nothing serious, I was just a little overwhelmed – which meant that blogging was the last thing I felt like doing in my spare time.  That passed, as those things do, and since then… well, I have no excuse but utter laziness, and so what was intended to be a brief break to get me through a rough patch became an unintended and extended hiatus.

So what have I been up to since we last spoke?  I thoroughly enjoyed the Spring edition of Derby Book Festival in March where I attended events with Joanne Burn talking about her latest novel The Bone Hunters, Stef Penney discussing The Beasts of Paris, and Sophie Elmhirst providing the background to her book Maurice and Maralyn, the true account of a Derbyshire couple stranded in the Pacific Ocean for over 100 days. 

The extended Easter weekend was a great opportunity to go camping in beautiful Northumberland, and while it was cold at night, the days were sunny and clear.  Until, of course, it was time to pack away the tent, at which point it rained extensively, so much so that the tent had to be put up in the back garden to dry out later in the week.  It was lovely to get away for a few days though, despite that.

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If I’ve not been blogging, I have at least been reading:

Read in February:

• Broken Light by Joanne Harris
• These Days by Lucy Caldwell
• Bitch by Lucy Cooke
• Tangerine by Christine Mangan
• Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
• Farewell Fountain Street by Selçuk Altun (translated by Nilgun Dungun and Mel Kenne)
• Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

Read in March:

• Love Marriage by Monica Ali
• The Beasts of Paris by Stef Penney
• The Gifts by Liz Hyder
• A Stroke of the Pen by Terry Pratchett
• Arsene Lupin Versus Herlock Sholmes by Maurice Leblanc (the translator for my edition is sadly unacknowledged)
• Outlawed by Anna North
• Divine Might by Natalie Haynes
• The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
• The Night House by Jo Nesbo (translated by Neil Smith)
• The Witch in the Well by Camilla Bruce
• Land of Milk and Honey by C. Pam Zhang

Favourite books from the last two months

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Books acquired – February

Books acquired – March

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TBR Watch

• Books out = 16 read* + 1 DNF** = 17
• Books in = 20
• Gives an increase of 3 in my TBR

*Two of those listed above – Slaughterhouse Five and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – were rereads.

**I may come back to the DNF at a later date, but for now it has been removed from my TBR.