Hello!

Another month has flown by and this time I managed to spend the majority of it reading, apparently!

I read 11 books in September (eleven!!) and whilst I lucked out that most of the books on my monthly TBR were quite short and I read a few novellas in the month, I’m still really proud of myself!

Most of these were read, at least in part, as audiobooks because ya girl has been sleepy and physical reading with my eyeballs has been a mission, but I did manage it at least a little bit!

But let’s jump right in because I do love a ramble and we have 11 books to talk about.

A Beautiful Evil – Bea Fitzgerald (3.5 ⭐️)

As per, my month begins with the books I didn’t quite manage to finish in the previous month – this book was an August release that I was so close to finishing, I read the last few pages on September 1st.

I really like Bea’s writing style and I did like a lot of the characters in this reimagining of the story of Pandora, I think my main issue with this book was that the plot felt a little directionless. In hindsight, I think this may be due to Pandora herself feeling directionless and uncertain of her future, but the pacing was done in such a way that I felt like we were in the endgame at only 30% of the way through and then 50% etc. I don’t want to say it made it a ‘difficult’ read, but I felt so tense and I didn’t know what to get invested in.

It may not help that I’m not familiar with the story of Pandora. All round, I had an enjoyable time reading, but it wasn’t my favourite of Bea’s books.

The Cornish Village School: Second Chances – Kitty Wilson (2.5 ⭐️)

This series feels a little bit like it’s haunting me 😂 I accidentally bought this book not realising it was the second in a series, so to be able to read this I read the first book (‘Breaking The Rules’, so edgy) in August and this was on my August TBR… which considering it’s in my September wrap up, clearly didn’t go to plan!

This book was so very ‘fine’ (in the average way) – it was a really quick read, very easy, stereotypical small town romance. There were some secondary character descriptions that gave me the major ick (and felt like an excuse to be sexist?) and the ‘slow burn’ just felt unnecessarily drawn out and over-complicated for no reason and I genuinely couldn’t tell you anything else about it because in a month the story has left my brain, apparently!

I have book three in the series which I think I’ll read because I have it, but I don’t think I’ll bother with actually buying the rest of the series.

Godkiller – Hannah Kaner (3.5 ⭐️)

Another one I started in August and finished in September – I think this one was impacted by my mindset when I read it. I’ve been super tired and there’s a few audiobooks that I know didn’t get my undivided attention because I had so much going on and I think my enjoyment of this suffered as a consequence, because even a month on I’m thinking of it more fondly.

I think the audiobook narrator made a weird choice with the voice for the FMC Kissen, because there were times where she would get lost in conversations with other men and I couldn’t pick her out. I feel weird saying it because I’m not saying all female characters should sound stereotypically female, but considering I was listening to this purely by audio, it was sometimes hard to differentiate her from other male characters.

It’s definitely got some fantastic world building and complex characters with a very grey moral alignment – the ending was really climactic and though I saw the twist coming, it has made me excited to read the rest of the trilogy. I think I will enjoy this series more as it goes on and I have a feeling I would enjoy Godkiller more on a reread.

The Boy At The Top Of The Mountain – John Boyne (4 ⭐️)

This one feels a little complicated because it’s a tricky subject matter. I already knew John Boyne was not afraid of writing about tricky subjects, it’s on the cover that he is also the author of ‘The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas’, but this one absolutely flips that on it’s head as the boy in this novel is taken under the wing of the leader of the Nazi party…

I decided on a 4 star rating because the journey the boy takes as he grows to a man and seeing the impact of being indoctrinated by propaganda is really impactful, but it was difficult to read. I didn’t necessarily have a good time, but I could definitely see this being the type of book that would be a good history study in schools.

Fearful – Lauren Roberts (5 ⭐️)

This is not a book that I anticipated giving 5 stars – I’m not one of the Powerless defenders, this is the first book in the series I’ve rated so highly and I really didn’t expect it… but I really enjoyed it.

Since getting the chapters in Kitt’s POV in Reckless, I’ve been more interested in his character – he wasn’t the walking stereotype that Paedyn and Kai were, he had nuance and moral ambiguity and complexity that the protagonists of the series lacked and I feel like he was robbed of a better story in Fearless (which I rated 2.5) but this is the story that gives him the context he deserved. I’d argue that it was probably written in to Fearless originally but that book was already long af.

I really liked Mara as a character, the ending was unexpected but beautiful in it’s own way and I really love Kitt. I don’t want to say #TeamKitt, cos that implies I wanted Paedyn to choose him – no, I want Kitt for myself please and thank you. After Fearless, I wanted to write fanfiction of a better story for Kitt. I don’t know if I’ll ever revisit the Powerless series, but I might just to be able to reread Fearful.

Alchemy and a Cup of Tea – Rebecca Thorne (3 ⭐️)

The Tomes and Tea quartet has finally come to a close and the conclusion I drew – I don’t vibe with cosy fantasy.

For me, it was just too low stakes – book 3 ended on an amazing cliffhanger, but that was then resolved by about chapter 3 in what I think was meant to be a funny/endearing way but just felt a bit too convenient.

I don’t know why I persisted until book 4 when I don’t really like the two main characters, there’s elements of romance but because they’d been together since before book 1 there wasn’t that much, and everything that could be considered a plot point was resolved almost imminently by the most convenient happenings.

The things I’ll do for an average series with pretty covers!

The Dragon’s Eye – Dugald A. Steer (3.5 ⭐️)

Actually I think it says a lot when I rate a middle-grade dragon book from 2006 higher than an adult cosy fantasy new release! This book was so much fun and reminded me that some age range books are minimums and some are maximums – some middle grade books will only be enjoyed by middle grade readers and that’s absolutely fine, it’s who they’re written for (the maximum age), but some middle grade books are for middle grade readers at a minimum and can be enjoyed by those of any age!

Don’t get me wrong, it still read like a middle grade book – it was age appropriate, it was an easy read for me (as someone who is not middle grade aged, surprisingly) and it even had illustrations but I thought the concept and world building was wonderful, the child characters were accurately written but not irritating and I even considered getting the sequel and continuing the series.

I think they’re out of print, so they’re difficult to get hold of but I’m definitely keeping this book and will probably enjoy reading it again some day!

Harry’s Game – Gerald Seymour (3 ⭐️)

This one was my wedding library pick for the month (tl;dr – when my husband and I got married, we asked our guests to gift us a copy of their favourite book and I’ve been reading one a month in an effort to get through them) and it’s a crime book that was published in the 70s.

I liked the concept – the book opened with the murder of a British politician and initially followed the murderer as he went underground to make his way home. Then a secondary character is introduced as a spy who will go undercover to find the murderer. My issue was that it wasn’t very clear in the audiobook when it changed perspective and the murderer was an unnamed character for about half the book, so it was all a little confusing.

Also, because we were following the crime from both sides, as the reader there was no mystery because we knew who did it. Storygraph labels this book as a ‘thriller’ and I think there was an attempt at this, as the suspense came from not knowing how these two characters were going to find each other, but it didn’t feel very thrilling at all and the ending was quite anticlimactic.

Not my favourite wedding library book but not my least favourite either!

Though at this point in the month, I’d finished the 4 out of 5 books on my monthly TBR books that were available, so I got to move on to my Book Queue!

Queen B (Her Majesty’s Royal Coven #0.5) – Juno Dawson (4 ⭐️)

I have been itching to finish off the HMRC series ever since I finished Human Rites, and this prequel novella was no disappointment – it follows a character called Grace, who is a lady in the peripherals of the wives of King Henry VIII. She becomes close with Lady Anne Boleyn and the story tells a dual timeline perspective on Grace’s experiences with the witches around the crown.

It was absolutely fascinating to see how Dawson’s already expansive and intricate world building slotted into history – what I’ve been saying about this series is that it genuinely feels like it could be real and us mundane’s wouldn’t know, and I love that. So being able to also apply that to the monarchs of five centuries ago is amazing.

The audiobook is incredible and I’m already so excited to reread this series in it’s entirety. I was going to say I’ll give it a while yet, but it might be a 2026 reread after only finding the series in February this year!

Kill Joy – Holly Jackson (3.5 ⭐️)

This is where I lucked out with another novella coming in from the library at the perfect time! This was one of two Holly Jackson books I hadn’t read so I when I found it available through my library I thought I’d take the chance!

This is a prequel novella to the ‘A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder’ series and tells the story of Pip attending a murder mystery party with her friends ahead of choosing the topic for her EPQ project.

I thought this was fun – it was really short, written in Holly Jackson’s classic style with a sarcastic narrative and highly suspenseful moments and characters that were realistic but not always likeable.

My biggest issues were that once the first jump scare is navigated, the rest felt a little unnecessary because we’d established what was going on, and then that Pip just took it all way too seriously. It makes total sense with her character and especially leading into AGGGTM, but I just got a bit frustrated that not one of her friends turned to her and said ‘dude it’s just a game, chill out’.

Now just to read that final Holly Jackson book and I’m all caught up!

Faebound – Saara El-Arifi (2 ⭐️)

Then last and maybe least, I finally read Faebound – this is a tricky one, cos I started reading it just physically as I’d sampled the audiobook and the narrator sounded awful, but then I was just so tired that I needed the support to get through the book.

But the narrator really was awful.

I really did like the world building – it was relatively simple, but immersive enough that I could immediately understand what was going on, who was who and what species was where. But the characters just weren’t there – I don’t know if it’s a case of the author knowing her characters really well so kind of forgetting to give that insight to the reader, but there was just no depth or personality to most of the characters. This then led to the two (fairly obviously) romance plot lines having no tension whatsoever because they were both insta-love and the connection that these four characters were feeling did not radiate from the page.

I read some other reviews and most seemed to say the same as I was thinking – the characters just didn’t have any depth, so not only do I feel like I don’t know them, but I don’t care either.

Which leaves me in a strange position because I find myself wanting to read the sequel, ‘Cursebound’, but only to find out what’s going on in the world and the wider plot. I don’t care about the characters, the prophecies or the war, really. I’m not sure if I’m going to read the sequel – I’m going to give myself a break and when I come round to the sequel in my Book Queue, I’ll evaluate whether I still care enough to bother, especially because there’s a third book due out next year.

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And in a couple of thousand words (sorry!), those are the 11 books I read last month! A slightly below average month I think – Storygraph says my average rating was 3.41 which isn’t great, but I did find my first 5 star book in three months and I’ll take that as a win!

Thank you so much for reading,

Sophie xx