What I read in July 2019

Another month of 2019 down! And once again, I haven’t managed to write any reviews… but I did write a blog post about graduating from my PhD. My PhD blog posts get a lot more traction than my book ones, but I really do have no PhD left to write about - the one downside of finally getting the thing out of my life.

I wasn’t expecting ancient Welsh king Glendower (or his poet, Iolo) to be such a theme of my reading this month - I’d come across him in the first two books of Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle, and then he unexpectedly popped up in the amazing Sleeper’s Castle, by Barbara Erskine. He felt a bit like an old friend when I returned to the Raven Cycle not long after that!

The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective, by Susannah Stapleton - 4*

Crooked Kingdom, by Leigh Bardugo - 4.5*

The Herb of Grace, by Elizabeth Goudge - 4*

Tick Tock, by Mel Sherratt - 4*

Sleeper’s Castle, by Barbara Erskine - 5*

Dark Dawn Over Steep House, by M. R. C. Kasasian - 3.5*

Blue Lily, Lily Blue, by Maggie Stiefvater - 4*

Rivers of London, by Ben Aaronovitch - 3.5*

The Poison Garden, by Alex Marwood - 4.5*

The Room of the Dead, by M. R. C. Kasasian - 4.5*

Looking ahead…

I’m hoping to finish Elizabeth Goudge’s Eliot Chronicles with The Heart of the Family this month, and I really should sit myself down and write a blog post about this series - I have a few thoughts about it and can bring in what I know about the author from my PhD.

Ruth Ware and Val McDermid are authors whose books I’ll reserve/order as soon as I hear about them. How the Dead Speak will land on my Kindle right at the end of the month, on the 29th, but I tend to drop everything to read a new Val McDermid title, so I’m pretty likely to read the whole thing while it’s still August.

Meanwhile, my love affair with Maggie Stiefvater and Barbara Erskine shows no signs of abating. Good thing I still have quite a few (OK, absolutely loads in Barbara Erskine’s case) of their books to get through!