January Wrap-Up!

Hello everyone! I hope your February has started in the best possible way (and let’s hope that this new month would be full of amazing things!). January wasn’t a bad month to me, and it was quite full of things. The only minor drawback is that I had some disappointment, books wise. But I have read some pretty good books, too so I am not complaining too much!

Books read: 12 + 1 DNF + 2 short novellas
Physical books Vs ebooks: 2 vs 13
ARCs: 5

The Amazing Ones!

Both of those books were books that I really really really wanted to read, and I cannot believe that I have finally managed it. Wow! But the best part is that I loved both of them. Luckily they weren’t disappointing. At all!

The Really Really Good Ones!

I have finally read the second book of this new Urban fantasy I have started last year and I have to say that Dark Arts and A Daiquiri was really good. I was a bit scared, but all the fun was still there, and now, obviously, I am so looking forward to the sequels! Filinona di Fine Estate is a short Italian mystery, and it was really really good! Blood of an Exile is a peculiar fantasy, but I enjoyed it and I hope to continue the series, sooner or later. Lover’s Knot is a long novella from Dorina Basarab series. I am enjoying this companion series more than the main one, for a lot of reasons, but mainly for all the amazing characters that we see here. And this novella wasn’t an exception. I love Dorina and I love Louis-Cesar, sure, but I love Radu too, and Marlowe! And we get to see both of them around here. A lot!!! And last but not least, I have finally read Strange Practice. This was a pretty good start for a series, and I really enjoyed the characters.

The Really Good Ones!

I have to say that I prefer Brigands to Scoundrels, as anthology, but even this last one was good. I enjoyed the majority of the short stories, and I had a really good time with it. Black Friday is a really short novella from Cassandra Palmer series. It is just a short story about Christmas shopping in Hell. And it was so good! It was fun and full of marvels!

The Good Ones!

All of these books were good but also sort of disappointing. Ride the Storm is the 8th book in Cassandra Palmer’s series, and I think that this series is not as good as it was at the beginning. On one hand I understand why is going on, since we are in the middle of the things here (plot speaking), but on the other hand, I think that the author is really milking it. This was quite a chunky book and we have too much happening in there, because Cassie (and us with her) cannot take a break. At all. It is a disaster after a disaster after a disaster. It is too much, and it is not so necessary. I mean, the part about Pritkin could have been a tad shorted and would not have been a bad thing, at all! Tower of Mud and Straw was an interesting reading, but it wasn’t the right one for me. The main problem was the setting, and the sort of dream-like atmosphere. But I liked the MC quite a lot, and it is an original book. The Doll House wasn’t bad, and it kept me hooked. But I think that psychological thriller aren’t really my thing. It is not that I despise them, but in the end I don’t like them as much as I wish to. Blind Sight was a disappointment so big it hurts. The book is not bad, it is really a good thriller, but I love this series because I love Mallory. She is questionable, yes, but she is amazing. But in this book we don’t see her a lot. We see how other react to her, we see the others trying to make sense of her, but we don’t see so much of her. I had great expectations from this one, because I loved all the other books in this series but… nope. Again, I enjoyed the book, but it wasn’t as good as I was expecting. And then we have the non-fiction book of the month. Do You Have Kids? Life When the Answer is No. It was interesting, but I was expecting something meant for people who do not have kids, and instead I got something more oriented to people who have relationships with people who don’t have kids. Anyway it was interesting, especially because we get to hear the story of so many different women.

The DNFed one

I tried with this one, because the premises seemed good and the main character is a thief but it was just so boring. I am really sorry, but I just wasn’t interested in it, at all, even after 60 or so pages.

Series:
Finished: 0
Continued: 3

I didn’t do great with the series this month, but I didn’t so bad either. I was hoping to finish a series but I am still reading the fourth and last book of the Greatcoats series, and I am loving it, but I am just going so slow with it, argh!

This month I didn’t wrote a single review. And I am not yet done with the recap posts, because I have to talk about the series too, and this is not so bad, because I am not really feeling like writing reviews, but I hope this would pass soon!

And what about you?  And have you read some of the books I have mentioned? And how was your January?? Let me know!!!

Happy reading!
S.