What I read in June 2022
Now is the summer of our book events. In June, quite aside from reading ten really great books, posting six reviews, and judging my first round of BBNYA 2022 extracts, I attended five: four were part of Essex Book Festival (including one where I read my piece from the Colchester WriteNight Anthology), and one was at Waterstone’s. I also won five books in a Quick Book Reviews podcast competition!
This month I’m really looking forward to Primadonna Festival. These things do tire me out, though, so I’ve booked a whole week off to prepare for and recover from the weekend! Hopefully I won’t spend all that leave sleeping, and will fit in extra reading, a bit of writing, perhaps some board gaming too.
Parklife, by Lucy Nichol - 4.5*
The Locked Room, by Elly Griffiths - 4.5*
No Less the Devil, by Stuart MacBride - 4*
Nothing Else, by Louise Beech - 4.5*
The Gone and the Forgotten, by Clare Whitfield - 4.5*
The Dark Matter of Natasha, by Matthew R. Davis - 4*
The Seawomen, by Chloe Timms - one of the books I won, and as soon as I read the blurb, I knew I had to read it ASAP. It’s amazing, and exactly what I wanted it to be from the description. 5*
Hotel Du Jack, by Dan Brotzel - 4*
Tasting Sunlight, by Ewald Arenz, translated by Rachel Ward - 4.5*
Love Me Tender, by Lorraine Mace - 4*
Looking ahead…
I have so many books to choose from at the moment! My physical TBR is worryingly precarious.
I’m on the blog tour for Hotbed, by Joanna Scutts. Which my “erstwhile historian” hat on, it looks super interesting (I should add: I did start The Ruin of All Witches, by Malcolm Gaskill, in June as planned! I just finished the month with 80 pages still to read!).
Eight Detectives, by Alex Pavesi, is a book I’ve been meaning to read for ages, and winning it in the competition mentioned above has provided extra motivation.
How Much of These Hills is Gold, by C. Pam Zhang, is my pick for July’s Book Shelf Raiders - the theme is “a book with an animal on the cover”.
Lesley Kara, author of The Apartment Upstairs, is local to me (and her publisher once took us and a bunch of other local booksellers and bloggers out to dinner!), so I always go along to her new book events at Colchester Waterstone’s. This time, not only did I buy a copy of the latest title, but got a piece of a yummy cake that looked just like the book.