rhian_of_oz Reads in 2023 - July to December

TalkClub Read 2023

Join LibraryThing to post.

rhian_of_oz Reads in 2023 - July to December

1rhian_of_oz
Edited: Oct 16, 10:24 am

I'm Rhian from Perth and this is my fifth year in Club Read. So far this year my reading is *way* less than normal. This is my second year back at uni and for some reason I didn't have the headspace for new books so when I did read it was mostly skimming old favourites.

I have also badly neglected Club Read and I hope to do better in the second half of the year.

Currently reading:
The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn

Started, put aside, want to pick up again:
The Body by Bill Bryson
This Much Is True by Miriam Margolyes
The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal

Next up:
Vagabonds by Jingfang Hao

Suggested July reads (based on Category challenges or group reads):
MysteryKIT () -
RandomKIT () -
SFFKIT () -
SeriesCat () -

Priorities from wishlist(WL) or TBR

Series to finish:
Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Queen of Ruin by Tracy Banghart
Perhaps The Stars by Ada Palmer
Rosewater Insurrection by Tade Thompson
The Rosewater Redemption by Tade Thompson
Death's End by Cixin Liu

3rhian_of_oz
Edited: Jul 30, 5:58 am

Bookclub Recommendations
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor (Qualityland)
The Warehouse by Rob Hart (Qualityland)
Providence by Max Barry (Qualityland)

5rhian_of_oz
Edited: Sep 29, 10:31 am

6rhian_of_oz
Edited: Oct 16, 10:25 am

Quarter 4

October
  1. The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth

  2. Exiles by Jane Harper

  3. The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh

November
  1. Book One

  2. Book Two

  3. Book Three

December
  1. Book One

  2. Book Two

  3. Book Three

QTD
Books owned pre-2023: 0 (0.00%)
Books purchased in 2023: 3 (100.00%)
Books gifted in 2023: 0 (0.00%)
Borrowed books: 0 (0.00%)

YTD
Books owned pre-2023: 8 (13.33%)
Books purchased in 2023: 20 (33.33%)
Books gifted in 2023: 0 (0.00%)
Borrowed books: 32 (53.34%)

TBR: 138

7rhian_of_oz
Jul 3, 11:43 am

The Hollow of Fear by Sherry Thomas

This is the third in a series that is a take on the Sherlock Holmes story where Sherlock is actually Charlotte.

I enjoyed this a lot, so much that I read it in one sitting, *and* I've already requested the next one from the library.

8rhian_of_oz
Jul 3, 12:03 pm

The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear

I (mostly) like the Maisie Dobbs series and I also like stories about women operatives, so there was a good chance I was going to like this. Which I did.

The "current day" for this story is 1947 where our heroine Elinor is living a reclusive life in the country. Her history is revealed in flashbacks to the first and second world wars.

I felt the "current day" story was a little weak, with the resolution somewhat implausible, but I was happy to go along with it.

There are better "lady spy" books (see Elizabeth Wein and Kate Quinn) but this was a pretty easy read and I liked Elinor.

9labfs39
Jul 3, 1:56 pm

>8 rhian_of_oz: I'm a fan of the Maisie Dobbs books, so I've had my eye on this one. It sounds like it will be a decent filler while I wait for the next Maisie book. I also have Winspear's memoir on my Kindle to read.

10rhian_of_oz
Jul 4, 12:17 am

>9 labfs39: I'm not sure if I knew she'd written a memoir, I feel like yes but it got pushed to the back of my brain.

My local library has it but I've been on a bit of a book borrowing tear while my TBR pile stares at me accussingly, so I think I shall pop it on the wishlist for later.

11labfs39
Jul 4, 9:01 am

>10 rhian_of_oz: Always happy to add to your wishlist!

12rhian_of_oz
Jul 5, 3:06 am

The Eerie Excavation by Ash Harrier

This is the second in the Alice England series which are middle-grade mysteries.

In this instalment Alice and friends Violet and Cal go to a summer archaeology camp for a dig that is looking for proof of witchcraft. All is going mostly well until one of the students finds a human skeleton.

This was a fun, well-paced story that didn't rely on the characters doing stupid things to build tension, and it even had a Poirot-style reveal scene towards the end!

I am very much looking forward to the next one. The problem with reading a current series is having to wait!

13rhian_of_oz
Jul 9, 6:55 am

The Art of Theft by Sherry Thomas

This is the fourth in the Charlotte Holmes series and I enjoyed it as much as the third.

An old friend of Mrs Watson is being blackmailed and the "price" requires Charlotte and the gang to steal a painting from a highly secured location. Of course there ends up being more to it.

The story also further explores and extends the various interpersonal relationships among the characters.

I've so far resisted requesting the next one from the library but I'm not sure how much longer I will hold out.

14rhian_of_oz
Edited: Jul 9, 7:22 am

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

Billie, Mary Alice, Natalie, and Helen are on a cruise to celebrate their retirement from being professional assassins when Billie recognises one of the crew and they realise they're the targets.

What follows is a game of cat-and-mouse where our heroines are both the hunted and the hunters.

This was a lot of fun and perfect for the reading mood I'm in at the moment.

15rhian_of_oz
Jul 9, 7:44 am

The Serpent in Heaven by Charlaine Harris

This is the fourth in the Gunnie Rose series, the third of which I read nearly two years ago so I was a little hazy on some of the details going in.

What I liked most about this series is Lisbeth "Gunnie" Rose so it was a little disappointing that this book was from the POV of her half-sister Felicia, though I warmed to her quite quickly.

The tone of this was much more YA-ish (somehow) than I remember the others being, and there is so much going on! It is very disjointed, like the author had lots of things she wanted to include and just shoved them in.

I read this in one sitting but I was dissatisfied once I was finished. I see there is another in the series due out later this year which I will more than likely read and hope that it is better than this one.

16rhian_of_oz
Jul 11, 10:05 am

The Lost Village by Camilla Sten

In 1959 police discover the village of Silvertjarn completely deserted except for a woman tied to a pole who has been stoned to death, and a crying baby.

60 years later Alice, whose grandmother's family were some of the disappeared, returns as part of a small group on a scouting mission for a documentary on the mystery.

The story is told in interleaving parts of Then and Now.

I definitely enjoyed the Then sections more than the Now, and I was happy with the resolution of the mystery - as long as I didn't think about it too hard.

The Now parts weren't as good. I could literally see when the author was trying to build tension. I didn't find Alice particularly sympathetic, and I thought the resolution of the Now mystery to be ... implausible.

I don't read thrillers/horror because I don't like to be scared. This didn't scare me so I think it also won't scare people who like this genre.

17rhian_of_oz
Jul 18, 2:45 am

The Boardwalk Bookshop by Susan Mallery

This is an ensemble contemporary romance where our three main characters Bree, Miki and Ashey co-lease retail space on the beachfront.

This is pretty standard romance fare (relationships, conflict, HEA) with the added friendship element. I liked the characters and their relationships, and the conflicts were believeable.

This was light and entertaining and would make a good beach read for those of you lucky enough not to be currently shivering through winter.

The last Susan Mallery book I read (The Friendship List was a stinker so I was a bit wary about getting this out of the library. I'm glad my concern was unwarranted.

18rhian_of_oz
Jul 18, 3:07 am

City of the Dead by Jonathan Kellerman

This is number 37 in the Alex Delaware series where an apparent accidental person versus truck turns out not to be.

These stories are usually convoluted and this was no different, and the resolution relied on a massive coincidence that strained my suspension of disbelief (there may have been a slight rolling of eyes).

This is definitely only for fans of the series.

19rhian_of_oz
Jul 18, 3:42 am

Friday Barnes Last Chance by R. A. Spratt

The 11th instalment of the Friday Barnes series sees Friday as an Interpol agent working undercover as an art student at the Louvre to solve the mystery of a possibly fake Mona Lisa.

I didn't love this and I'm not entirely sure why.

When the series started Friday was 11. The books were definitely written for that age, and they were almost slapstickish in their scenarios, but a good level of ridiculousness.

I think the problem for me is that Friday is now 16 (I think) but the tone still feels the same as when she was 11, while the scenarios now seem farfetched and not in a good way.

The cliffhanger (which the books always end on) had me thinking "Really? Haven't we seen this before?" which is probably not the intented reaction.

The next book is due out in February and then I'll need to to decide whether to buy it, or get it out from the library. I'm not ready to abandon Friday completely just yet.

20rhian_of_oz
Jul 26, 10:32 am

Sleepwalk by Dan Chaon

In a near future dystopian America our protagonist Will is an indentured henchman who does what he's told, from transporting people to assasination. Will is undocumented, having numerous aliases that he refers to as the Barely Blur, travelling with his dog Flip in his camper The Guiding Star. Our story begins when he is contacted on all of the burner phones of his various identities by a woman claiming to be his daughter.

Will takes lots of drugs and has a history of mental illness which makes him a (potentially) unreliable narrator, and certainly makes us question whether his paranoia is justified. There seems to be multiple parties interested in Bill, all of which are claiming that they're there to help and that the others are a conspiracy.

The mood of this book isn't quite ominous but there is an almost constant state of waiting for the axe to fall. At the same time some of the events are almost surreal, so I sort of felt continuously off balance. Will is an extremely sympathetic character and I was definitely hoping for the best for him.

I felt like this lagged a bit toward the end, and parts of the plot felt unnecessary, but I wasn't sure what was going to happen right up to the very end.

This was a BB from multiple CRers and I can see why. I will definitely look to read other books by this author.

21labfs39
Jul 27, 7:51 am

>20 rhian_of_oz: That sounds interesting, Rhian. I've never read anything by this author before.

22rhian_of_oz
Aug 13, 7:48 am

Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops by Shaun Bythell

This is a mostly amusing, occasionally mean, attempt at a taxonomy of bookshop visitors that Mr Bythell has seen in his years as a secondhand bookseller.

This was easy enough to read, both because it is small, and also because each of the seven categories is broken down into sub-categories, allowing for a quick dips in and out.

I'm not inclined to seek out his other works, though if I happen across them and I'm in the mood I would probably pick them up.