This Week in Books is a feature hosted by Lipsy at Lipsyy Lost and Found that allows bloggers to share:
- What they’ve recently finished reading
- What they are currently reading
- What they are planning to read next
A similar meme is run by Taking on a World of Words.
I’ve read all the books since my last update! I finished Mare by Emily Haworth-Booth, and then moved on to The Lamb by Lucy Rose and Homebound by Portia Elan. Three very different books, but I liked them all!
For a long time, she and her husband have their dog and she almost certainly doesn’t want to have a child. But then the dog dies and she learns she can’t have a child even if she wanted to, and she begins to think about horses again. When she hears about a mare who needs looking after part-time, it sounds like an ideal arrangement. Something to care for two days a week, without getting in too deep. But as she brushes and feeds and rides the horse, affection grows into obsession and she must confront what it means to love a being who did not come from her body and who does not belong to her.
Emily Haworth-Booth’s award-winning debut novel is a bold and beautiful exploration of contemporary (non)motherhood and the surprising ways in which desire can enthral us and set us free.
A FOLK TALE. A HORROR STORY. A LOVE STORY. AN ENCHANTMENT.
Margot and Mama have lived by the forest since Margot can remember. When Margot isn’t at school, they spend quiet days together in their cottage, waiting for strangers to knock on their door. Strays, Mama calls them. Mama loves the strays. She feeds them wine, keeps them warm. Then she satisfies her burning appetite by picking apart their bodies.
But Mama’s want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, little Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires and make a bid for freedom.
With this tender coming-of-age tale, debut novelist Lucy Rose explores how women swallow their anger, desire and animal instincts – and wrings the relationship between mother and daughter until blood drips from it.
1983: a grieving teenager is left a game to complete.
2083: a scientist makes a radical discovery about the human spirit.
2586: a sea captain navigates the perils of a flooded world.
Meanwhile: an astronaut is on a rescue mission in deep space.
How do they connect? The puzzle leads back to that teenager. What she is coding will outlast her by centuries, but it will shape the lives of these four pioneering women across centuries, vast oceans and far-distant planets. It will also introduce them to a remarkable robot destined to gather together this disparate crew.
Homebound is a coming out and coming-of-age story, a wild and precarious sea adventure, a space odyssey. As it slips through time, grief, storytelling, found family, it journeys deep into humanity’s future and capacity for love.
I’m currently (finally!) reading Who Wants to Live Forever by Hanna Thomas Uose.
This is the greatest romance you will ever read without the happily ever after.
Yuki and Sam are soulmates.
They are destined to spend the rest of their lives together.
They are supposed to love one another, forever.
But when a miracle drug is released which can extend a human’s life indefinitely, Sam chooses to live forever, instead of loving Yuki forever – and the world they know is spun inside out.
WHO WANTS TO LIVE FOREVER plunges into a parallel universe where forever is on sale to the highest bidder. What comes next is a world-building epic narrated by an intersecting cast of characters that will drive you to the edge of reality and leave you to answer biggest questions of all: What is life without death? What is life without love?
My next read might be The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei.
SAVE ONE WORLD. DOOM HER OWN.
Maya Hoshimoto was once the best art thief in the galaxy, returning stolen artifacts to alien civilizations. Until a disastrous job forced her into hiding. Now she just wants to enjoy a quiet life as a graduate student of anthropology, but she’s haunted by persistent and disturbing visions of the future.
Then an old friend comes to her with a job she can’t refuse: find a powerful object that could save an alien species from extinction. Except no one has seen it in living memory, and they aren’t the only ones hunting for it.
Maya sets out on a breakneck quest through a universe teeming with strange life and ancient ruins. But the farther she goes, the more her visions cast a dark shadow over her team of friends new and old. Someone will betray her along the way. Worse yet, in choosing to save one species, she may condemn humanity and Earth itself.
And that’s my week in books! What are you reading this week? Let me know in the comments! 😎
Jo's Book Blog 
Looks like a fab bookish week, Jo! Just added Mare to my Spotify TBR. x