Two months into the new year and my reading mood are as good as ever. At this point, I’m just waiting for a reading slump to hit me hard. Meanwhile, I’m taking advantage of it as much as I can! February had one more reading day this year, and even though it still has fewer days than January, I read six books one more than the month before. For someone that was reading one to two books a month, this is pretty awesome!

Wrap-Up

When I was presented with the opportunity to review another book by Karl Drinkwater for a blog tour, I had to grab it. Chasing Solace is the continuation of Opal’s scavenge through the universe, and I wanted to reread the first book, Lost Solace, to refresh my memory on everything that happened. I enjoyed Chasing Solace even more, and now that I know there is a third book in the making, I think this won’t be the last time I mention this series.

In between both books, I had to do a little detox and read Waking Nightmare by Carly Anne West. I couldn’t avoid this book for much longer. I loved Missing Pieces so much I had to do a review while I waited for the next book to come in the mail. Waking Nightmare hasn’t as spectacular, but it was really good and made the mystery even bigger and complicated. Now I haven’t bought the third book because the series isn’t over yet, and I only have three more books so far (that I know of). And I need to make them last.

I also had an ARC of Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker since forever, and February had to be the month I read it. After all, it’s a graphic novel, it doesn’t take that long to read. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a story for me. As refreshing as it was to read about diverse characters, the fantasy elements weren’t explored enough for me to like. I felt this book needed to be bigger to leave room to really dive into the magic world and the relationship of the characters. If you enjoy witches, werewolves, and spells maybe give this book a chance.

The next book I read needs a bit of context. I’ve been “obsessed” with the video game Subnautica and Subnautica Below Zero. The story is so cool and interesting that I’ve been hunting for books that have a similar story, and I found a few recommendations, one of them was Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. And it was a disappointment! Firstly, it has nothing to do with the game, and secondly, it didn’t age well. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is the second Jules Verne book I read and enjoy the writing, although this book is about travelling the world through the ocean not exactly explore the deep dark. And even when they explored the aquatic nature around them, it was most of the times with a hunter mindset instead of scientific curiosity. “Oh look a seal! Here let me kill it.” For 1869, this might have been a normal view of the aquatic animals, but we are in 2020, and this type of content isn’t well-received as it was back then. Sadly, this was a miss for me.

To finish off the month, I read my TBR Jar pick for February, Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman. I read the last few pages on the first of March, but let’s pretend that didn’t happen. It will be our secret! Shhhhh… Laura Lippman writes amazing female characters that break from the “normal” women behaviour, be good mothers, loyal wives, stay at home moms, and everything society considers to be a “good woman”. Lady in the Lake wasn’t an exception. The book is even told in various points of view which explore even more the different perspective women and man have in 1966 Baltimore coming from various backgrounds. Although this was a crime mystery book, and that is where it didn’t work. I enjoyed the book for all the different voices it had but not the crime it was exploring.

Haul

I was so happy with all the books I’ve read so far that I couldn’t avoid reward myself with more books. I should probably get myself into a ban or else my TBR won’t reduce at this rate. One book that I had to buy was The 100: Homecoming by Kass Morgan. I’ve been enjoying this series and slowly making my way through all the books. Whenever I have the opportunity, I like to buy the next one to have it available on my shelf.

Since I can’t resist a good deal, especially if we are talking about translated books, I couldn’t miss the change to buy The Girlfriend by Michelle Frances. I’ve been eyeing this psychological thriller for the longest, and soon I’ll know all the secrets and lies it hides. Meanwhile, The Feed by Nick Clark Wido was a book that I’ve heard of before, but I didn’t know it was turned into a TV series. And what caught my attention, despite the colourful cover was the promo for the series. I was thinking about watching the first episode to see what it was all about, but I never made the connection with the book. Now I can read the book and also watch the series – not a plan for March though!

And I should have stopped there, but no, my cheap ass couldn’t resist to the Book Depository* discounts. So I bought The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams because I’m lacking sci-fi in my shelves, and The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide since I’m slowly diving into the Japanese literature. Both books are shorter than I thought they were going to be, so either I devour them in a day or they are really slow and will take me a month to read.

TBR

My TBR Jar has been working well, so I’m going to keep on doing it. For March, somehow I picked up another ARC to read, The Present by Charlotte Phillips. I don’t understand how this is possible, more than 80% of the books in my TBR Jar aren’t ARCs, so how does this keeps happening? Oh well… This book has a companion novel also called The Present by D S Devlin. Both books are set around Christmas, but one is a romance and the other is a mystery thriller. I already started reading the book by D S Devlin back in December however I never finished it. Instead of just reading the book by Charlotte Phillips, I also want to read the other book as well.

Another book that I want to finish is the anthology A Thousand Beginnings and Endings. I’ve been trying to read a few pages every morning before going on Twitter, and short stories are perfect for this. I can easily read one story a day and quickly enough putting back the book on my shelf as read.

So far, these are my reading plans for March. I’ll be taking part in two blog tours this month, and the rest of the free time I’ll leave it up to my mood to decide my next read. Talk to you next month with more books!

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