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Wendy's reading blog

@wendyreadwhat

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Want to know what your friendly neighbourhood bookseller is reading? Look no further.
Yorkshire, UK 🇬🇧

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Ten Before the End or The Best of Intentions

As a big fan of seasonal reading I know my December will be full of festive delights which means November is really my last chance to squeeze in those books that I really do want to read before the end of the year.

These are the ones that have slipped down my TBR a bit but I don't want to forget about them completely.

Featuring offerings from @benmyers76 @ellerylloyd_author @mattgoodfellowpoet and @joshsilverauthor, a bookseller recommended Elif Shafak, Sarah Hall who is a bit of a new obsession for me and a Roald Dahl adult collection which was a stocking filler from me to me last year and it would be a shame for it to spend a second Christmas on my bedside table unread. by @wendyreadwhat

Author Amanda Mason really sold this one to all of us when she came in to the shop to sign copies a few weeks ago. A gorgeously creepy story about a pregnant couple who move to the Yorkshire Coast during a 1970s winter plagued by blackouts. But what happens when the lights are out - nothing, right? Right? Maybe let's keep one on just incase...

The author is from Whitby so I imagined the village as a smaller version of there and it was absolutely the perfect setting for a windswept bit of folk horror with insular locals and a tinge of nostalgia.

In tone I'd put it up there with Andrew Michael Hurley or maybe even AM Shine which is not praise I employ lightly, shades of Lucie McKnight Hardy too. Maybe could have leant in to the terror a bit more but I think that's a me thing and my appetite for horror has changed. I'm feeling ready to explore the more depraved end of the spectrum.

@manilla_press @amandajmason
#YorkshireCoast #CoastalHorror #ScaredOfTheDark #KeepTheLightOn #HorrorReview by @wendyreadwhat

Remember when I said I needed to stop using this axe as the prop for my book reviews, well....

I've read a fair few Stephen King books but I'd put Misery off for years because from what I'd heard I thought it might be too much for me - it really wasn't that bad. Okay it wasn't exactly joy and rainbows but apart from two particular scenes it wasn't horrific. I guess a lot of the experience isn't so much about what's happening but fear of what might happen.

King has such a way of writing, you can tell a book is his even if you went in totally blind and Misery has absolutely all the hallmarks - the pop culture American references, the swearing, the quick snappy sentences as well as a meta reference to ominous goings on at the near by Overlook hotel a few years back. If you like Stephen King you don't need me to tell you he's an absolute master of modern horror and this is very much an exercise in tension and release. Sharp, terrible, sadly lacking in supernatural goings on but demonstrates that real horror can come from real people too.

#NumberOneFan #AnnieWilkes #BookReview #HorrorReview #BodyHorror by @wendyreadwhat

I'm still on a bit of an Adrian Tchaikovsky side quest and next up is Service Model which begins with robot valet Charles killing his human master and embarking on a quest to report a glitch in his programming. But who does he report it to?

What follows is a kafkaeque delve in to a disturbing vision of the future where the planet is devoid of nature, human survivors are few and rival gangs of robots fight an endless turf war harvesting their victims for parts. I loved the buddy comedy feel to this one and that the robots lack any nuance and take everything completely literally resulting in following the rules no matter how ridiculous the result. It owes a medium sized debt to Marvin the paranoid android from Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy and made mechuckle many times as well occasionally just hanging my head. Perceptive, prescient and perfect for the times we live in.

Not the future any of us want but possibly the future we deserve.

#AINovel #DystopianRobotFuture #SciFi #DouglasAdams #StandAloneNovel by @wendyreadwhat

Arctic horrors - and one Antarctic thriller but I feel like it still fits the theme. These are the stories of cold weather terror that get our hearts racing, it doesn't take a lot of imagination to conjure up ghosts when the landscape itself is so inhospitable, these a places where humans are not meant to survive.

What have I missed from my little spread, what tales of snowed in creepiness am I missing out on?

Whiteout @rob.burnett
The Haunting in the Arctic - @cjcooke_author
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Dark Matter - Michelle Paver

#ArcticStories #GhostStories #ColdWeatherReading #PolarNight #LongWinter by @wendyreadwhat

I so wanted this to be better. The blurb made it sound brilliant, kind of Maze Runner but with vampires/zombies and properly terrifying. It wasn't a bad book but don't put "pulse pounding" on the cover then serve up mild peril instead.

I found the pacing to be a bit off, after about 90% nothing massive had really happened and it was starting to look like the first in a series even though it didn't say that anywhere on it. It did get wrapped up but felt a bit rushed and anti-climactic after I'd already come to terms with having to track down the next book to get to the real action. Good bit of world building but was quite similar to existing YA franchises, characters we likable but again very similar to Hunger Games, Divergent etc.

Fun enough but not one that's going to stop me from sleeping.

#TheFeeding #SurvivalHorror #FutureDystopia #DystopianHorror #TheRedoubt by @wendyreadwhat

Family reading for Halloween because the family that scares together cares together...

I'm on Misery which has had me fully squirming in my seat and reading through my fingers exactly as I'd hoped.
Husband has started this whopping Lovecraft collection which I suspect may turn into a several years long project.
7 year old has been reading The Skull because we absolutely love I Want My Hat Back, I might have bought this one more for me than for them.

#HalloweenReadingList #StephenKing #HPLovecraft #JonKlassen #FunForAllTheFamily by @wendyreadwhat

A super atmospheric start to my Halloween reading, I knew Laura Purcell would not let me down. Not scary-scary but a nice creepy haunted house story if all out horror is not your thing.

I loved historical details like women's pockets being a separate garment worn in between layers of skirts but there were a few bits that sounded out of place such as the phrase 'Mona Lisa smile' which felt a bit wrong and a quick Google suggests was not in use until a good hundred years later.

I didn't realise this was a sequel to The Silent Companions and was going to knock stars off it for being too similar ie all about the companions. It's s been so long since I read the first book that I'd forgotten the name of the house and hadn't realised it's the same family a few generations later, works perfectly well as a stand alone too.

Appetite truly whetted, I'm ready for more spooky goings on now.

#HauntedHouseStories #HistoricHorror #GothicNovel #OutForBlood #HouseOfSplinters by @wendyreadwhat

I'm usually a bit behind with reviewing ARCs but this one I really wanted to read before it's published. It's a hefty one so I did take a few breaks just so I wouldn't end up resenting it for slowing me down, it was actually really nice to drop in and out of it, like following a long running comfort tv series, and there were a few natural breaks in the text.

A worthy follow on to Rivers in the Sky with a few of Shafak's hallmarks such as an East meets West culture clash, staggering depth of research and a perfect blend between epic sweeps of history coupled with tiny, intimate details. For my tastes not quite as interesting as her previous but the author's beautiful writing - honestly the types of sentences that make you want to go back and read a bit out loud to see how it sounds - makes it way more interesting than the initial premise - not many author's could get me to read a book about Gustav Flaubert but if she writes it I'll read it.

The way it features lots of female voices and real historical figures as part of the fiction actually put me in mind of Lucinda Riley's Seven Sisters series and it had a similar tone in that it's a simple enough read but deceptively complex. There were even parts that made me think of Hamilton in the way the women address the audience directly to set the record straight about their roles in this famous man's life.

Definitely worth the time but I fully support having two on the go at once. A few other notes - this picture will make more sense once you see the finished cover, yes I did just happen to have three peacock feathers and yes I am now on the waiting list for Madam Bovary on audio from the library because apparently I like it when books give me homework.

@penguinukbooks
#ElifShafak #ILikeBigBooks #NewRelease #FiveStarRead #InOneBriefMomentAllEternity by @wendyreadwhat

Witch Wednesday 🧙‍♀️🌛🔮

We're well in to Halloween season now so it seems like a perfect time time to grab some witchy books that may or may not make it to the top of my pile in the next few weeks.

#HalloweenTBR #BooksForAutumn #SpookyBooks #WitchcraftReading #EveningWitches by @wendyreadwhat

Another short book whilst I took a break from a bigger one - have to say this was a bit of a weird one and not in the trendy #weirdgirl style, just odd in the old school sense.

Our protagonist finds out her husband is leaving her for a woman called Maggie her the same week as she finds our she has breast cancer - so of course she starts referring to that unwelcome visitor as Maggie too.

I enjoyed that it was a little window in to a world that thankfully I know nothing about (the being left and the cancer) so I got to experience that but the format was a bit rambling: no chapters, little snippets of the progress of each Maggie storyline but not a lot of major plot points. Bleakly contemplative, sort of very low key kick-ass and comforting at the same time. I guess if you can find a smile when the absolute worst is happening then the rest feels easy.

#MaggieOrAManAndAWomanWalkIntoABar #CancerStories #BreakUpNovel #KatieYee by @wendyreadwhat

Took a break from my big book for something fast and a bit daft - in this case a weekend getaway for the children of serial killers that, surprise, seems to have attracted the attention of a serial killer.

I didn't love the writing style, I found it a bit vague and jumbled and I often struggled to keep track of who was who (and where) even though the chapter headings are literally the character's names. I get that the author was trying to misdirect us to make the twist more shocking but it still has to make sense and I'm not entirely sure that this did. Right up until the end I wasn't sure if there were two seperate time lines that would come together or if everything was meant to have happened in the same day - couldn't quite tell which 'he' were talking about.

All in all did exactly what I'd hoped for, a nice little palette cleanser that I'll probably never think about again.

#SerialKillerStories #TrueCrime #SlasherMovie #DeathRowClub #HalloweenReading by @wendyreadwhat