With real life inconveniently demanding my full attention over the past few weeks, not only has my blog been neglected, but my reading has too.
Writing up this post has given me a much needed break this weekend, and the pretty books covers have cheered me up.
I love the summer vibes going on here, and a consistent theme has been strong women written by strong women, which we love to see.
And just like that, 2023 is a month old.
January felt like it dragged by, but now we’re here on the 31st it somehow feels like it disappeared.
My only reading plan for the year is to just read, and so far I’ve read 3 books, all of which I’ve enjoyed. So all in all, a good start.
DCS Kat Frank knows all about loss. A widowed single mother, Kat is a cop who trusts her instincts. Picked to lead a pilot programme that has her paired with AIDE (Artificially Intelligent Detective Entity) Lock, Kat’s instincts come up against Lock’s logic. But when the two missing person’s cold cases they are reviewing suddenly become active, Lock is the only one who can help Kat when the case gets personal.
AI versus human experience.
Logic versus instinct
With lives on the line can the pair work together before someone else becomes another statistic?
It is the last day of 2022, and given that I hadn’t planned to start blogging again this year, I’m happy to be writing this post and to be scheduling some new content for 2023.
For this wrap-up post I thought I would share some of my favourite things of 2022, and I’ve included a handful of the books I bought myself for Christmas.
There will be even more blog tours in 2023. In the meantime, here are my 2022 tours.
It’s very satisfying that my 30th blog post coincides with the 30th of the month. (Completely unintentionally, but I’ll take the win.)
November has been another quick month in a year which seems to have just disappeared. It was also my birthday month, so obviously I had to buy myself some books.
The Holiday Trap easily has to be my favourite book of November. Essentially The Holiday (Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet swap houses for Christmas, meet some new people, fall in love) but with LGBTQ+ characters, the story was heartwarming (and spicy) and the perfect book for this time of year when you want to just curl up with blankets and a good story.
Firewatching also deserves a mention, as a reread I enjoyed every bit as much as I did the first time round. Cold cases, present tense narrative, and a good plot.
A Fatal Crosing had one of the most infuriatingly unexpected plot twists at the end. (The only other one which comes to mind is Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz. If you know you know.) If there’s a book award for Book You Threw Farthest Across The Room, then it deserves to win all the prizes.
It was blog tour overload this month. You can catch up on them all via the images below.
I’m a few days late with my review of October. I’ve been a little absent from everything due to work, and with the festive season approaching I’m going to be busier with getting myself organised so I can hopefully avoid a last minute panic.
I also have signed up to even more book tours with Rachel’s Random Resources, which I will share further into this post. Majority are non-review posts, but I have two reviews due in November and then three in December.
Two more authors stopped by in October to talk about writing: Heather Atkinson and Sharon Bairden. You can read their interviews by clicking on their names, or by visiting the handy tab above which mentions authors.
And finally, November is my birthday month, so I have plans to treat myself with lots of books and chocolate. My November wrap-up will include all my bookish purchases which I’m excited to share even though I haven’t bought them yet and don’t know which ones I will end up with.
I have some ideas, though, and a credit for a bookshop, so it’s a perfect combination.
Not My Problem and An Ear For Trouble were highlights for me this month. Ciara Smyth is a fantastic writer, so I’ll be checking out her backlist.
While I didn’t dislike Find Her First, and The Nothing Man, I found their endings different to what I expected, so I can’t quite bring myself to say I enjoyed them. I didn’t not enjoy them, though, and I can see why they’ve had lots of good reviews.
I’ve been in a reading slump for a few weeks now, so I haven’t been making much progress with these books. They’re all good in their own way, but I’ve been finding it easier to pick up a whole new book rather than continuing with the ones I’ve already been reading, so I’m hoping to finish them at some point in November.
Below are a handful of the books for which I’ll be taking part in blog tours throughout November.
Avoiding Reality With Books 
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