Happy November! As if it got the memo, the weather suddenly dropped fifteen degrees today, the air turned crisp, and the trees decided to dump most of their leaves. So it really feels like fall.
I rounded off my Halloween reading with a re-read of Simone St. James’s The Broken Girls
, which I first read years and years ago, when it was still in manuscript, before it was even an ARC. And it really is just as good on a fifth (or sixth) re-read.
Jumping ahead a bit to Christmas, I picked up Poppy Alexander’s 25 Days ‘Til Christmas
, in the spirit of Trisha Ashley and Jenny Colgan, about a down-on-her-luck single mum trying to make the best of Christmas for her six year old– and finding love in the process. It felt just like drinking a warm mug of Swiss Miss.
Right now, I’ve just started T. Kingfisher’s Clockwork Boys
, a fantasy novel about a madman, a forger, and an assassin on a dangerous mission, and keep wondering where these books have been all my life and why I haven’t read them before, because the voice is just so, so good.
What have you been reading this week?
I’ve been listening to The Death of Mrs. Westaway on my commutes—gotta love a good Gothic thriller during the week of Halloween. And I’ve started The Christmas Spirits on Tradd Street! I was the first person to check it out of the library, and I feel so lucky! (Of course, putting it on hold the instant that I could helped that out.
It’s time for those Christmas books! I’ll have to check out Poppy Alexander’s!
Penny for Your Secrets by Anna Lee Huber.
I finished Ribbons of Scarlet by Kate Quinn et al., a very good French Revolution novel, and then read An Unconditional Freedom by Alyssa Cole, a wonderful conclusion to the Loyal League series although I think my favorite remains A Hope Divided.
I Owe You One, Sophie Kinsella; The Friend Zone, Abby Jimenez; Burning Moon, Jo Watson; 99 Percent Mine, Sally Thorne; Meet Cute, Helena Hunting; and No Judgements (Meg Cabot). All relatively enjoyable as long as you’re a fast reader. There were quite a few grammatical/style errors in some of them that made me cringe and cry but the stories and characters were engaging enough for a 2-hour read.