One full-third of the year is gone already, can you believe the audacity!?!
I was still riding my high from the last week of March and April became a whirlwind of activity; I had to take care of business, prepare to host my second nephew for a couple weeks, get ready for ComicCon Cape Town and then go back to stressing about the usual things.
Of course, this included a furious round of catch-up yet I’m still behind…
April, too, saw the Spring Semester at Orillium Academy for #MagicalReadathon and it became a whirlwind of reading since I tried to get it all done before Con week.
Anna O by Matthew Blake
The synopsis sounded more like a sleep study than a thriller and really wasn’t quite interesting, so believe me when I say I wasn’t looking forward to reading this book…To my utmost surprise, however, this novel was rather quite enjoyable.
Anna Ogilvy killed her two best friends while sleepwalking one day and has been asleep for four years; she cannot be convicted for the crime while in this state and the government is desperate to put this case to bed.
Enter Dr. Ben Prince, sleep expert – using his new and untested technique, it is now his job to wake her up in order to give her a chance to prove her innocence before they convict her forever. Will he be the one to discover if she is “Sleeping Beauty” or “Anna O”, as dubbed by social media?
Find my full review here.
Heartstopper: Volume 2 by Alice Oseman
After a very long, very sh*tty year, I got me this as a treat for going through the most…
Having read volume 1 a long time ago, and then getting volumes 3 and 4 at an event, I have been, literally, itching to get volume 2, not only to read it but to add it to my collection; of course, I grabbed the very first opportunity to read it.
Jumping right back in where we left off, I couldn’t stop myself from smiling practically the whole way through. These boys have my whole heart and I will destroy everything to protect them!
There is absolutely no reason, none at all, why you shouldn’t have Heartstopper on your shelves; highly recommend it!
Rating: 5 stars
Magicborn by Peter Bunzl
I got this at a #TandemEvent in 2023 and it has been sitting on my shelf with my other ARCs.
It seems that historical fantasy has become a firm favourite of mine simply because I can lose myself in that particular era, imagining what my life would have been like if I had been born then.
Things to look forward to:
- A fairytale setting,
- An unscrupulous Sorceror,
- Prince’s and Princess’s,
- The hidden world of the Fae,
- Magic,
- Found family
What endeared me to this story from the outset was that our little heroine, Tempest, has two dads, whom she calls “pa” and “da” effectively creating a queer-normative world for our younger readers.
Rating: 4 stars
Pick Of The Month
CTRL+S by Andy Briggs
I got this in a Nightowl Bookish Bag.
Right off the bat, I’m going to dub this as Ready Player One meets Strange Days (a 1995 SciFi thriller movie based on a story by James Cameron) and it is brimful of action and suspense.
Meet Theo Wilson, your average twenty-something just trying to pay the bills, who enjoys hanging with his friends in SPACE (think OASIS from RPO with a three-hour daily user limit) between his shifts as a barista. One day, his mom goes missing and receives a gruesome death threat from someone – our first villain is a South African and I am totally here for it; the author even got the Afrikaans lingo down pat – leading him down a dark and dangerous path both online and off, looking for her, picking up on the clues his mother had hidden.
I thoroughly enjoyed this and, if you’re a fan of Ready Player One, virtual reality, scifi, thillers and whodunits, then you will, too.
Check out the first part of my #MagicalReadathon vlog for more on all of these.
Sleep Like Death by Kalynn Bayron
I have become a fan of this author’s queer-normative worlds and, in my opinion, I believe anything she writes will be instantly better in this setting.
Not being the biggest fan of Cinderella Is Dead, not gonna lie, I put off reading This Poison Heart; and then along came You Weren’t Supposed To Die Tonight, which I enjoyed immensely even if I’m not the biggest horror fan, either.
It seemed to me, for the first hundred pages or so, that the author may have gotten their fairytales mixed up but once I saw the classic elements, I really started enjoying it more.
Find my full review here.
Check out my #MagicalReadathon Magical All-Nighter video for more on this book.
Heartstopper: Volume 3 by Alice Oseman
I got this at the #JBPxBookTok event last year as part of my goodie bag; thank you.
After recently reading Volume 2, did I look for any excuse to grab Volume 3? Yes. Yes, I did!
Our boys go on a school trip to Paris, the city of love, where they learn about the challenges each other faces, like being accepted, being labelled, etc. They also have to face their fears about being caught in a relationship and telling people about it.
I cannot tell you how happy (yet also sad that I wasn’t born 2 generations later) I am that books like this exist today and are so readily available; if you don’t have these on your shelves, then we can’t be friends, lol.
Rating: 5 stars
Silence And Shadow by Erin Beaty
Silence and Shadow was the first book on my April TBR because I simply couldn’t wait to dive back into this amazing world and discover what would happen to our poor, beloved Catrin and her beau; having to now make a new life for themselves, they head towards Londinium and an uncertain future.
Just as in the first book, there is a lot to expect in this one; the pacing is great because there is always something going on; the characters are phenomenal and the character growth is perfect; the magic system, which is fresh and unique, is expanded upon; there is deception, betrayal, intrigue, mystery, suspense and romance – what is there not to love?
I am completely blown away by this duology! More, please!
Check out my Read With Me! part 2 video for more.
This brings us, finally, to my audiobook adventures and I, sadly, had to say goodbye to the Discworld series. I needed to continue the series with Raising Steam but the audiobook wasn’t available on YouTube so I had to pass it over and read the final book, The Shepherd’s Crown by Terry Pratchett. The Tiffany Aching sub-series may just be my favourite of them all. Rating: 5 stars
While trying to find something I wanted to listen to, I eventually stumbled on an author I’ve heard much about but have never had the chance to read, Tamora Pierce.
The Immortals Quartet is sooooo good! I love great fantasy, I love mythology and I absolutely adore great characters; I definitely recommend this series. Rating: 4.5 stars
Do you know how YouTube always has a list of suggested videos with every video you watch? Well, that is exactly how I found Pawsitively Poisonous by Melissa Erin Jackson, a cosy paranormal mystery about a witch who lives, secretly, in a town centred around cats whose best friend is mysteriously murdered. Rating: 3.5 stars
Do let me know what you’ve been reading, what you thought of any of the above, or if you have a suggestion/recommendation for me, in the comments below or on any of my other socials. Until next time…
Happy reading!
Mr Pink Ink 
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