A Book A Week – December 2019

I can’t believe I reached my goal and read 52 books this year. I was always feast or famine in my reading – banning myself on deadline, then bingeing and getting no work done – so I hoped the #bookaweek challenge would help, and it kinda did!

My first December book was House of Wishes by Jenn J McLeod(48/52), a wonderful story set in a small town in country Australia, with secrets, and mystery, and great, loveable characters. It’s related to earlier books House For All Seasons and Simmering Season, but all are stand-alones too…

I loved Secrets of the Chocolate Houseby Paula Brackston (49/52), book two in her Found Things trilogy. Set in beautiful Wiltshire, and slipping between now and the 17th century, it features time travel, history, magic, the beauty of nature – and it made me want to eat chocolate!

I also loved Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw (50/52), which is beautifully written, all lush and atmospheric and darkly magical, with a mystery that makes you keep reading. I loved her Wicked Deep from the year before too.

My sweet husbee and I do our gift-giving ritual on Christmas Eve, and as has long been tradition, he gave me books – which also happens in Iceland, where they exchange books and stay up reading, drinking tea and eating chocolate #bookflood #jolabokaflod. One was Nightbird by Alice Hoffman (51/52) which I stayed up half the night reading. It’s sweetly magical, a shortish, middle-grade-ish story of curses and secrets and family and enchantment and love. Accompanied y chocolate, of course!

And it’s devastating me to listen to Behrouz Boochani’s heartbreaking book No Friend But the Mountains (52/52), but I finally started, after putting it off cos I knew how truly distressing – yet important – it would be. I wish every Aussie would read it, especially every politician, although sadly I doubt they will. I can’t comprehend how a government can do this to human beings – and how our current PM can BRAG about his inhumanity and work so hard to be even crueller. I am shattered and inspired by the strength and bravery of the people suffering so grievously at Australia’s hands.

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NOVEMBER BOOKS

November is NaNoWriMo month, where I write feverishly to try to hit 50,000 words in 30 days. I made it, but it did unfortunately limit my reading.

I did skim-read Public Speaking for Authors, Creatives and Other Introverts by Joanna Penn(45/52), in preparation for my first public speaking event (I was terrified!), and it was really interesting and quite useful. One day I’ll get to spend more time with it…

I continued listening to Brene Brown’s Rising Strong audiobook (46/52), in those moments when I couldn’t write or read, and I really liked it. She’s a wonderful narrator, and it’s an inspiring, motivating book.

And towards the end of the month I started reading Alix E Harrow’s magical The Ten Thousand Doors of January (47/52), which was another recommendation from Menna van Praag, and I got a little sucked in. I would have written more than 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo, except I started making time each night to read, hee hee…

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OCTOBER BOOKS

In October I attended three mini workshops (and some great panels) as part of the HNSA (Historical Novel Society Australasia) Conference – by Kate Forsyth, Meg Keneally and Alison Goodman, so I read the latter’s Lady Helen novella in preparation (41/52). And I really enjoyed it, so I bought the first book in the series, The Dark Days Club, and have added it to my (admittedly out-of-control) tbr list.

I also listened to the audiobook of God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens (42/52), partly in honour of my uncle, who loved his work. It’s a fascinating read/listen, delving into the history of the world, and human thinking and belief,and the evolution of ideas, and outlining some of the atrocities that have been carried out in the name of religion. Whether you’re religious or not, it’s definitely worth reading, because acknowledging and addressing the incredibly damaging actions of supposedly religious people is so important, and the only way forward in an era of increasing disillusion, distrust and anger. (And it’s narrated by Hitch, which was wonderful, but he does read very fast!)

The next story for my Australian Fairy Tale Society research was Godfather Death (43/52), collected by the Brothers Grimm, who added a little religious spin to it, but also told by others, with interesting variations. It’s an intriguing story, and generated lots of great discussion.

And throughout October I was working madly on finishing the edits of Into the Air, so I didn’t have as much time to read for pleasure – but I read Air twice, so I figured it must surely count as one of my books for the month (44/52).

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SEPTEMBER BOOKS

My favourite book this year is Harp of Kings (39/52) by my favourite author Juliet Marillier (with her Beautiful novel and Madeline Miller’s Circe very close second). It’s the first in her new Warrior Bards Trilogy, so now I’m impatiently waiting for book two! It’s such a beautiful, magical, mysterious, action-packed, adventurous, enchanting and hope-filled book, blending myth and legend so enchantingly.
“This breathtaking, often heartbreaking Celtic-flavoured fantasy novel couches a challenging quest in storytelling both earthy and unearthly … Most satisfying is her ability to weave multiple strands of narrative into a brilliant tapestry. This lush fantasy is sure to win Marillier many new fans.” Publishers Weekly

I also enjoyed The Baker’s Man by Jennifer Moorman (37/52), a sweet story set in America’s south, with a smattering of magic, and I saw the movie Ophelia, based on the book by Lisa Klein (40/52), which was a beautiful retelling of the character from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and I’m keen to read the novel now.

And for my Australian Fairy Tale Society research, this month was The Golem of Prague (38/52), a Jewish story that has similar themes to Frankenstein and other monstrous tales. I bought the book years ago in Prague, so it was cool to re-read it…

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AUGUST BOOKS

Circe is one of my absolute favourite books I’ve read this year, and author Madeline Miller’s previous book The Song of Achilles (32/52) is as beautifully written and almost as wonderful (it’s just obvious that I would lean slightly to goddesses and witchcraft rather than warcraft)…

While walking through our gorgeous park and visiting the swans, I listened to the audiobook of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (33/52), which was kind of depressing!

And in anticipation of the author event with Becky Albertalli and Jaclyn Moriarty, I read Becky’s books Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda (which the adorable movie Love, Simon was based on) (34/52) and Leah On the Offbeat (35/52), which were sweet YA reads.

I also re-read Jaclyn Moriarty’s Feeling Sorry For Celia (36/52). I bought Jaclyn’s Gravity Is the Thing when it came out earlier this year, and can’t wait to read it, and her Colours of Madeleine Trilogy is on my wish-list…

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JULY BOOKS

July was all about high tea book launches (thanks Kate Forsyth!), and falling for audiobooks, thanks to Juliet Marillier’s audiobook exclusive last month (well played Audible!). I’ve been listening to Michelle Obama’s Becoming when I walk each night after working out, or if I’m driving on my own, and I’m loving it. I’ve been reading paperbacks in bed and on the couch though, so I might keep my audiobooks to non-fiction, so I don’t get too confused. But we’ll see! It’s certainly a great way to squeeze in an extra book or two!

💙 Kate Forsyth kept me up way too late for a few nights, reading her gorgeous new book The Blue Rose (28/52). It was fascinating to hear the stories of her research in France, Wales and China at the high tea launch, and so wonderful to dive in and submerge myself in her enchanting storytelling that night – and the next few nights! I adore its faerytale roots, palace intrigue, and shift between Brittany, French-Revolution-era Versailles and the celestial kingdom of China, as well as its impossible love, plant and flower magic – and Kate’s beautiful writing, which weaves its own spell… I adore all of Kate’s magical books, especially Bitter Greens, Vasilisa the Wise and Other Tales of Brave Young Women, and The Witches of Eileanan series.

💜 I also loved The Arrival (29/52) by Kastie Pavlik. It’s gorgeously written, with a great page-turning plot and complex characters. It’s book one of the Children of the Morning Star series, and its new cover really conveys its lush setting, rich characters, well-built vampiric world, and epic good vs evil battle…

❤️ The Wicked Wolves of Windsor (30/52) by Byrd Nash is a collection of faerytales with a twist, and a touch of horror, including a dark retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, and stories of sorcery, princely lessons, talking horses, cursed wolves, Jane Austen-era Bath (with fae), and escape and redemption for the fiery, feisty women at the centre of each story…

💚 And I’m continuing to listen to the wonderfully inspiring Becoming (31/52) by Michelle Obama. She beautifully narrates the audiobook, which has brought me to tears a few times – tears of sadness, and joy, and gratitude, and hope. She’s such an incredible woman, and I’ve loved listening to her story come so vividly to life as I walk every night after working out… It’s thought provoking, honest, brave and beautiful…

And you can check out the Into the Mists Trilogy audiobooks here.

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JUNE BOOKS

I read some wonderful books in June as part of my Book A Week Challenge – although two have to be kept secret for now (yes, it is killing me – one is by one of my favourite authors!). But I will post about those two as soon as I can…

Juliet Marillier broke my heart with her beautiful, magical, sad, stirring new book Beautiful (book 24/52), then put it back together with her gorgeous, uplifting, hope-filled words. Stories *are* magic, they are truth, they heal hearts and challenge thoughts, they devastate and inspire and empower and enchant, they help us grow, and teach us about ourselves as well as the world, and she expresses this so beautifully.

Very loosely based on the faerytale East of the Sun, West of the Moon, this new novel is an Audible exclusive, which for a non-audiobook-listener like me was a little challenging. But I wasn’t going to not “read” a new Juliet book! I absolutely love this story, and Juliet’s beautiful writing, and the narrator was wonderful too.

I became even more appreciative of the wonderful narrator when I tried to listen to the Frankenstein audiobook (27/52). Sadly I couldn’t finish it, because I didn’t like the narrator at all. Now I know what people mean when they say the narrator can make or break the whole experience!

My other two June reads were advance copies, so I can’t write about them yet, but they were wonderful, and I look forward to sharing more about them when I can…

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MAY BOOKS

May was a little tricky for reading, because I was in England for the month with my beloved, and we spent all our time searching for stone circles, wandering across the moors, climbing tors, and drinking tea and eating scones in little tearooms.

But between the English Heritage website and google maps, I dipped in and out of Tom Cox’s Help the Witch and 21st-Century Yokel. I’d wanted to read the latter before we got to Devon, but it didn’t quite work out that way. What I did read was great though – I love the way English journalist-turned-author Tom writes about landscape and the magic of nature in this non-fiction tome, and I enjoyed the sections of Help the Witch I got to as well. This one is a hard-to-define collection of short stories and flash fiction, a little weird, but intriguing too. Between the two I’ll claim this as one book finished… 20/52

When we moved from the Lake District to a little cottage on the North Yorkshire moors, I felt compelled to read Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Which was a struggle, I must admit. (Seriously, *how* is it a romance??? Everyone in it is awful, Heathcliff is violent, vindictive and cruel – how is he a romantic hero??? – and Cathy is self-indulgent, destructive and cruel too.) I almost gave up, but Juz started reading it too, so I gave him the ipad and bought the paperback, and persevered. Cue obligatory pic of Wuthering Heights *on* the moors, and in the bath 🙂
[Love this by author Alice Hoffman: “Read Wuthering Heights when you’re 18 and you think Heathcliff is a romantic hero; when you’re 30, he’s a monster; at 50 you see he’s just human.”] 21/52

I promised myself (and Juz!) I wouldn’t buy any books while we were away, but, um, I failed at that. And, to be honest, Juz encouraged me a little – and even managed to squeeze them all into his suitcase on the way home 🙂 When we were in Glastonbury I bought Celtic Fairy Tales, and I spent a wonderful afternoon in Chalice Well Gardens reading by the well and in the meadow. It is a strange collection, but kinda cool too. 22/52

And when we were in Totnes in Devon (the village dubbed Glastonbury for grown-ups), I saw the adorable Everdark by Abi Elphinstone, and couldn’t resist. It’s a lovely, magical middle-grade read, full of adventure and bravery, sea dragons stirring in the depths of the ocean, silver whales surfacing beneath the moon, a midnight full of magic, and a dangerous quest for a young girl and her monkey friend. Poetic and enchanting. 23/52

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APRIL BOOKS

I’m still doing well with my Book A Week Challenge, and managed five this month too (although I can’t talk about or show you the cover of one just yet – but it shouldn’t be too long…)…

My absolute favourite book of the year so far is Circe by Madeline Miller, which is saying something, because there have already been wonderful books by some of my favourite authors. Once I started Circe, all I wanted to do was read it (which made Camp NaNoWriMo a bit of a challenge that week!), and when I was finished I felt totally bereft. Now I’m kind of paralysed over what to read next, because part of my head is still with this wise witch-goddess, planting herbs and casting spells on her island, living, loving, hating, grieving, learning, growing, hoping, dreaming… It’s a truly beautiful, enchanting story, based in history and legend yet wholly of today in its themes. 18/52

All my reading the first week of April was variations of the Vasilisa the Wise/Fair/Beautiful/Terrible faerytale, for the Australian Fairy Tale Society gathering – with a focus on Baba Yaga, who is so badly maligned in so many versions. Not in Vasilisa the Terrible by April A Taylor though, which is brilliantly creepy and thought provoking, with a nod to the Salem Witch Trials. Juliet Marillier’s beautiful short story By Bone-Light is hauntingly wonderful too. Kate Forsyth’s retelling in her book Vasilisa the Wise and Other Tales of Brave Young Women is lovely, and gorgeously illustrated by Lorena Carrington. And the original Russian tales have their own magic too – not to mention a southern America version called Slue–Foot Sue and the Witch in the Woods by Laura Frankos… 16/52

And it was awesome when my preorder of Kate Forsyth and Lorena Carrington’s new collaboration, The Buried Moon and Other Tales of Bright Young Women, arrived. Featuring beautiful retellings of The Buried Moon, The Six Swans, A Mother’s Yarn, The Blue Rose, Tam Lin, The Maiden Wiser Than the Tsar and Molly Whuppie, it’s a wonderful collection of old stories with a new spin. 17/52

I also did a beta read on a friend’s book, but I can’t talk about it yet!

And I brushed up on The Mabinogion, the Welsh collection of the earliest prose stories of the literature of Britain, compiled in the 12th–13th centuries from earlier oral traditions, and full of tales of brave knights, gods and goddesses, kings and queens, treachery, love and heartache. It was because I was spending an afternoon with some of my Fairy Tale Society friends watching a wonderful performance of the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogion, but it was also magical to revisit Rhiannon’s story, told in the First and Third Branches… 19/52

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MARCH BOOKS

One of my plans for 2019 is to make time to read more books. My post-NaNoWriMo December book binge* got me off to a great start – I devoured five books, which was bliss 💕📚🌟 And I did that again in January, and in February, and in March too. Such bliss!

My first read this month was Lamp Black, Wolf Grey by Paula Brackston, one of my favourite authors. (I’d been saving it, cos it was nice knowing I still had one of hers that I hadn’t devoured yet.) It was as magical as her others, set in the wilds of Wales and full of myth and legend, in modern times and old – although a little disturbing too. And now I have to wait til October for Found Things Book Two: Secrets of the Chocolate House.

My favourite this month was Bury The Living by Jodi McIsaac. I’d never heard of this author, or any of her books, but on a rabbit hole adventure involving checking for pirates and wondering if I need Blasty, I stumbled across her (love those unexpected discoveries!), bought it on a whim, and loved it. Set in Ireland against the backdrop of the Troubles, it has real-life politics and history, plus time travel, Celtic myths and a wonderful female friendship. (And now I want to read the sequel, and her other series, and re-read Cal by Bernard MacLaverty, one of my childhood faves…)

I also loved Dancing On Knives by Kate Forsyth, another one of my favourite authors. (If you haven’t read her Witches of Eileanan series, you really should check it out.) I bought this book when it came out a few years ago, then put it “somewhere safe”, doh! But I finally found it 🙂 It’s Kate’s only book set in Australia, and is by no means a light hearted tale, but it is beautifully written, with lines that make you ache with love, loss and yearning.

I read Catherine Greer’s YA debut Love Lie Repeat, in time for its recent book launch. The publisher described it as Liane Moriarty for teens, as it’s rich kids on Sydney’s north shore, and although it’s not my usual thing, I found myself drawn in to the mystery. There’s love and lies, secrets and betrayal, friendship and rivalry, family breakdown and the forging of new bonds – and it’s quite disturbing too…

I also read Witch Way to Mistletoe & Murder by Adelaide author Jane Hinchey, which was a super-fun witchy cosy, with likeable characters, great friendships, a cool mystery and a cute town populated by witches, vampires, shifters and ghosts. I’ll definitely read more of her books.

And I kicked off my research into Vasilisa the Wise/Beautiful for the next Australian Fairy Tale Society meeting by reading Juliet Marillier’s short story By Bone-Light (by candlelight during Earth Hour), from her wonderful short story collection Prickle Moon, which is definitely worth a read.

And it wasn’t planned, but this month was three Aussie authors plus one Aussie/Canadian, and a Canadian and an English writer. We have so many amazing writers in this country…

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FEBRUARY BOOKS

Some of my February books were short reads, but I figure it’s a short month, right? 🙂 💕

This month I had a book club meeting on faery tale retellings, so I started with the novel Enchant: Beauty and the Beast Retold by awesome Perth author Demelza Carlton, which is full of magic and adventure, with a wonderful twist. I loved her Fly: Goose Girl Retold too, and look forward to reading more from her wonderful Romance a Medieval Fairytale series (25 books and counting!)… 💜

I adored re-reading Kate Forsyth’s seven gorgeous retellings in Vasilisa the Wise and Other Tales of Brave Young Women, illustrated by the amazing Lorena Carrington. Here the young women at the centre of the stories are brave, resourceful, clever and kind – and they all save themselves or their sisters, not waiting around for a prince to rescue them. I can’t wait for the next in the series, The Buried Moon and Other Tales of Bright Young Women (you can pre-order here). And right now I’m reading another one of Kate’s novels, Dancing On Knives, for my March reading month… 💚

I also loved Juliet Marillier’s novella Beautiful, from the fantasy anthology Aurum, which is based on the faery tale East of the Sun, West of the Moon. (Beautiful has just been nominated for best fantasy novella at the Aurealis Awards, while the absolutely gorgeous Blackthorn & Grim series is nominated for the Sara Douglass Book Series Award. Winners will be announced May 4…) And I’m so excited that Juliet has expanded the novella into a full-length novel, focusing on one of the other characters, who I can’t wait to follow on her adventures! It will be out at the end of May as an audiobook exclusive, and I can’t wait! 💛

I supported the Kickstarter campaign for The Adventurous Princess and Other Feminist Fairy Tales, which was written and illustrated by Canberra artist Erin-Claire Barrow, a fellow Australian Fairy Tale Society member. And it is wonderful. It includes retellings of nine traditional faery tales with a feminist twist, all beautifully illustrated. It will be officially launched in late March – you can check it out here. ❤️

And I really loved DL Richardson’s magical YA novel One Little Spell. About Ruby, the singer in an all-girl band who is in love with her small town’s misunderstood bad boy, it was sad, touching, funny and wonderful, all at once, with a dose of ghostly magic and a great twist… Not much writing got done over these days, as I had to know what happened. What harm can one little spell do? Plenty if you’re not a witch. 💕

Funnily enough, although this wasn’t planned, all five books are by Aussie authors!

And March is off to a great start too, with Lamp Black, Wolf Grey by Paula Brackston, Bury the Living by Jodi McIsaac, which were both awesome, and now Dancing On Knives by Kate Forsyth (I finally found my copy, after putting it “somewhere safe” when I bought it a while back, doh!)…

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JANUARY BOOKS

First up was one of my Christmas presents from my sweet hubby, the wonderful Blood Communion by Anne Rice. It’s the new Lestat book, and it was like visiting old friends, and meeting a few new ones, and I was totally swept away in the mystery and intrigue – and that heart-stopping, OMG! moment… (No spoilers!) Anne has always been one of my favourite authors. I love the way she writes, and the beauty, magic and history she weaves through her books. (She could also be the reason I favour long and lush sentences in my books too, ha ha!)

Then I read To Nowhere and Back by Margaret J Anderson, the author of one of my favourite childhood books, Searching For Shona. It’s full of mystery and magic, and a different kind of time-slip adventure, and I loved it. Hooray for the publishing revolution that has made so many old books available again! (There are a lot of typos, I guess from scanning in the original books, but they didn’t take me out of the story too much.) I also bought Margaret’s In the Keep of Time and In the Circle of Time, time-slip novels set in magical Scotland, and am looking forward to them.

Gretel and the Case of the Missing Frog Prints by PJ Brackston is the first of a very different series by one of my favourite authors, so I was curious to try it. Admittedly her Paula Brackston witchy historical fantasies are more my thing (I love love love The Winter Witch, The Silver Witch, The Witch’s Daughter and others), but this fun cosy/mystery/hilarious adventure is laugh out loud funny, and clever, and intriguing enough that I stayed up til after 3am (oops!) to find out who, how any why. Lots of fun! (And yes, it’s that Gretel…)

My favourite for the month (I know, a big call given Lestat!) was A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness, which I devoured without pause. Not much work got done that week – and not much sleep was had either – there were a few staying-up-til-3am nights. I absolutely loved it, and can’t wait for the rest of the books to arrive – although it’s probably a good thing that they’re being posted, so I can get some work done in the meantime 🙂

And for our February discussion at the Australia Fairy Tale Society, an early Australian tale was chosen, The Magic Gun, from the early 1900s book Fairy Tales Told In the Bush, a collection by Sister Agnes. It’s long out of print, and out of copyright, so you can read the book here… Just remember that it was a very different time – the portrayal of Aboriginal leader William Barak in The Magic Gun is awful. Yet in reading the story, we all researched him, and learned about this important ngurungaeta (clan leader), activist, artist, liaison and real-life hero, who we may not have heard of otherwise – you can read about him and his achievements here. I much preferred some of the other stories in the book, and also loved going down the rabbit hole of early Australian fairy tales and finding many more, like The Two Fairies in Tales For Young Australia, the sweet but awfully girls-should-be-obedient Mr Bunyip, or, Mary Somerville’s Ramble, and Fairy Tales, Fables and Legends by Mrs Beatrice Wilcken, amongst many others. Want to venture down the rabbit hole too? The National Library of Australia have collected and preserved so many, which you can read online…