October Wrap-Up and November TBR

How is it that time again?! The end of another month and another step nearer Christmas (yay!) and the end of 2020 (*huge sigh of relief*).

This month I have read 11 books and hit my GoodReads Challenge target of 100 books for the year!

It’s been a funny month with some real reading slumps as well as some absolutely BRILLIANT books. So, without further ado, here’s what I read this month…

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October Wrap-Up

I started the month with the brilliant ‘More Than a Woman’ by Caitlin Moran – an often funny, fresh and brutally honest take on what it means to be a middle-aged woman. This was my first five-star read of the month – you can see my review here.

After this, I read ‘Jeeves and the Leap of Faith’ by Ben Schott, a new Jeeves and Wooster novel written with the blessing of the PG Wodehouse estate. Nothing quite hits the highs of Wodehouse’s original novels, but Schott has done a great job of the language and comic elements. You can read my review here.

Next up was a blog tour for ‘The Creak on the Stairs’ by Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir, a chilling and dark piece of Nordic Noir crime fiction. Set in Iceland, this follows Chief Investigating Officer Elma as she tries to solve a murder that is stirring up the unsavoury past of some people in the small town of Akranes. You can read my blog tour post here.

Then came ‘The Servant’ by Maggie Richell-Davies, a dark historical tale of a girl who has fallen on difficult times in Georgian London. This book won the Historical Writers’ Association award for a (then) unpublished novel and is definitely worth a read – my review is here.

One of my audiobooks (listened to in the car with my kids) this month was Roald Dahl’s ‘Boy’, read by Dan Stevens. We all enjoyed this one – a lively performance of a book that I’ve loved since childhood. It has been a joy to relive the experiences of Dahl at school at Repton, on holiday in Norway, with his eccentric family and upsetting teachers and sweet-shop owners alike.

Next up was ‘The Phoenix Project’ by Michelle Kidd for another blog tour in November. This was a fast-paced thriller with a wide scope – London, Paris, Africa, Russian spies and the British Government – and all very tense! Watch this space for my blog tour review.

Then I enjoyed Walburga Appleseed’s ‘The Princess and the Prick’, a short book with some very concise feminist retellings of fairy tales, myths and nursery rhymes. Beautifully illustrated, this managed to pack plenty of food for thought into a small space.

Another short but powerful book was ‘Essex Girls’ by Sarah Perry, a feminist celebration of the qualities of the Essex Girl stereotype. In Perry’s book, Essex becomes a state of mind rather than a geographical location and we are introduced to a host of fabulous women from history. My review is here.

Another of my five-star books this month was ‘Practically Perfect: Life Lessons from Mary Poppins’ by Katy Brand. Anyone with any love for the 1964 film should read this as it is fascinating but delightfully comforting. My review can be found here.

Then I listened to another audiobook, ‘The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid’, a charming and funny book about Bill Bryson’s experiences of growing up in the 1950s in Des Moines in Iowa. This one is read by Bryson himself and his dry wit really comes through in the recording.

Finally, I finished the month with ‘The Devil and the Dark Water’ by Stuart Turton, a historical crime novel that I absolutely loved. You can read my review here.

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November TBR

I am absolutely awful at predicting what I will read in the future – I read according to my mood and who knows where that may take me!?

However, I do have a lot of NetGalley ARCs that I should read. Here is just a selection:

• ‘The Shape of Darkness’ by Laura Purcell – I loved her previous books and this one promises to be equally fabulous.
• ‘The Whole Truth’ by Cara Hunter – this is the latest in a great series of police procedurals in which we follow DI Fawley as he tries to uncover truth. I’ve loved the other books so have high hopes for this.
• ‘The Dead of Winter’ by Nicola Upson – another series I’ve followed for a long time, this one puts crime writer Josephine Tey into the role of detective against the backdrop of Europe in the lead-up to World War II.
• ‘Hyde’ by Craig Russell – Russell’s first book, ‘The Devil Aspect’, was amazing and I hope this one will be every bit as good. Set in Victorian Edinburgh and featuring a series of mysterious ritualistic murders, this looks like it will be a dark and thrilling read.
• ‘Mr Wilder and Me’ by Jonathan Coe – I’ve loved previous books by Coe and this, set in the heat of the 1977 summer, looks glorious.
• ‘Nick’ by Michael Farris Smith – this new book about the early life of the fictional narrator of ‘The Great Gatsby’ looks really interesting.
• ‘Lie Beside Me’ by Gytha Lodge – the latest in another crime series that I’ve enjoyed vey much. This is the latest to feature DCI Jonah Sheens.
• ‘Let’s Do It: The Authorised Biography of Victoria Wood’ by Jasper Rees – I’ve been granted this one on audiobook and am looking forward to learning more about Wood from her closest friends and colleagues (some of whom narrate the book).

This is ignoring the huge stacks of books in my house and my jam-packed Kindle so we shall wait and see what I actually manage to read!

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Header photo with thanks to Alex Geerts for sharing their work on Unsplash.