Queendom of the Seven Lakes is an entertaining, if not wholly original, political fantasy; a quick read, which centres around the journey of the first male ruler of a Queendom, and the assassin that must protect him.
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Since we moved into the house we currently live in, I’ve had more of an interest in gardening than ever before. I’ve got an array of kitchen herbs, pots of roses, two deeply rebellious buddleias, and thanks to my in-laws, a new row of tomato plants! As we rent, a lot of our plants are in pots on the patio, and so I was very interested to read Kate Bradbury’s book about rescuing a small paved garden. Unfortunately, I was disappointed.
After so thoroughly enjoying The Dragon With A Chocolate Heart, I thought I’d pick up some more of Stephanie Burgis’ work. A Most Improper Magick, also published as Kat, Incorrigible, is a really lovely middle-grade Regency romp that is perfect for fans of feisty heroines and lovers of Austen.
I honestly can’t believe I’ve never read this before. It’s sat on my shelf for absolutely ages, but I suppose I thought it was going to be a bit Twilight-y, given the cover and the sort of thing that was popular when it came out. To my delight, it’s a gorgeously spooky forest-and-fae fairy tale, with a F/F relationship!
Back when I was at university, I was a moderately successful beauty/fashion blogger. It gave me a chance to get excited about something when I was feeling bogged down by work. It’s also the period in my life when I read the least, because after reading around 10 books in four days, then writing 2000 words about them, every single week, the last thing I wanted was to spend my free time doing more reading! I missed out on a lot of fiction in those years.
However! That time with beauty products as my main hobby left me with two things – a great skincare routine and a deep, deep love of perfume. After leaving university, I got into indie perfume, and I now have over 500 different scents in carefully labelled boxes. I jumped at the chance to read this book when Harper360 asked for reviewers, because the tag line (“a novel in perfumes”) sounded perfect for me.
Malory Towers is my dream school, and I was always a little concerned that if I picked up the “new” stories (authorised, but written by Pamela Cox) then I’d be disappointed. It looked like a money grab to me. But I read all the St Clare’s books for the first time last time, including the new ones, and I couldn’t really tell the difference, so I thought I’d give the Malory Towers reboot a go…
One of my most anticipated books for this year was The Unbinding of Mary Reade, which is a YA story based on my favourite gang of pirates – Calico Jack, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. There’s a fair bit of controversial content in this book, but if you’re prepared to weather a few somewhat uncomfortable situations, then this is a very interesting read that brings Anne and Mary’s relationship to the fore.
(The e-ARC I read had no cover art, so I’ve stolen this from Goodreads. Aptly piratical.)
