Hayley's Reading in 2023

[Hayley]

Last year was one of my slowest ever reading years. According to my Goodreads record, I only read 11 books! This year I'm determined to get a lot more reading done. Not because I think there's anything particularly important about the number of books you read per year, but because I know that the amount of reading I do for fun directly correlates with how much time I'm actually giving myself to relax and enjoy things - and that's important. 

 

Last year I was setting things up to work completely for myself - taking on freelance work tutoring and editing to see if I could realistically do that full time. I was experimenting with how many hours I could do and how efficient I could be. It's fair to say that mistakes were made and I now have a better idea of how much is too much!  This year I will be putting everything into practice and trying to make this work properly. It's a little scary and there's a chance that it won't work out but if I don't go for it, I'll never know! Giving myself time to actually relax is going to be an important part of it working though. For me, that means reading!

 

So here it goes, 2023...

[Hayley]

The Last Smile in Sunder City

by Luke Arnold

3.5/5

 

I felt like reading something a little bit comforting to start the year off, so I went for this detective novel set in a fantasy world. It turned out to be quite a lot darker than I expected! Sunder City is where most of the action happens and it is filled with various fantastical creatures (vampires, demons, kobolds, werewolves etc.) but it is also in a world that has lost its magic. Due to what we'll refer to as an 'incident' (for potential spoiler reasons), the whole world has been impacted by a total loss of magical power. This has various consequences for the formerly magical beings. The detective element of the story is about the attempt to find a missing vampire teacher, but quite a lot of the time it's not really about that at all... it's about the detective and his role in the 'incident' and it's about the power dynamics of a society that's undergone a catastrophic shift. I liked all of the background to the construction of the world but it's also the reason I didn't give it a higher star rating. A lot of it felt like it was setting us up with information for something that's yet to come. There are already two (I think) more books in the series and I'll definitely be getting the next one. It's a really interesting concept and I hope that there's a bit more room for detective work in the next one!

[Hayley]

I just finished the last Frey & McGray book and I am so sad it was the last one 🥲. A proper review will be coming but it is, overall, such a good series…

[Madeleine]

14 hours ago, Hayley said:

I just finished the last Frey & McGray book and I am so sad it was the last one 🥲. A proper review will be coming but it is, overall, such a good series…

I've almost finished book 4 and am loving it, I think it's the best one so far, fast-paced, funny and dramatic, and definitely as the blurb says" properly Gothic and creepy", just one word - bats!

[Hayley]

On 1/26/2023 at 1:58 PM, Madeleine said:

I've almost finished book 4 and am loving it, I think it's the best one so far, fast-paced, funny and dramatic, and definitely as the blurb says" properly Gothic and creepy", just one word - bats!

Oh yeah, 4 was brilliant! I think the fifth one might have even better tension though! 

 

And as for the last one...

 

The Sign of the Devil

by Oscar de Muriel 

5/5 - I loved it

 

I have had this book since release but saved it for such a long time because I didn't want this brilliant series to be over! There is also the fear, with a final book, that it will be disappointing - maybe leaving loose ends that you'd hoped would be tied up. It's safe to say that I was not disappointed with this book. It was brilliant. It had the same combination of science and the supernatural, the familiar cast of characters, and the tension that stopped me from putting it down until past my bed time... 

It also had some twists I definitely was not expecting. 

Although this series is over (😭) I really look forward to seeing what this author comes up with next. Frey & McGray sits firmly amongst my favourite book series. 

And now for some comments on the ending for those who have finished the whole series (featuring extreme spoilers):

 

Spoiler

I can't believe the devil was Lady Glass!?!? Of all the things I thought might have happened, that was NOT one. And Pansy faking her 'insanity'! I knew she was more intelligent than they were giving her credit for, from the times she gave them clues for their investigations, but I never thought she was just completely faking it. 

 

In the last chapter, I really though McGray was dead. When Frey is walking his dogs as the chapter starts, I was internally screaming 'no! it can't end like that!'. Imagine my relief 😅.

 

And finally, a prediction:

I think that in the fictional future, Frey will marry Pansy .

 

 

I'm now starting The Haunting Season: Ghostly Tales for Long Winter Nights.

[Madeleine]

I know, I don't want it to finish either, a shame it's finishing so soon but at least it won't drag on and grow stale like some series do. I stayed up past my normal bedtime as well finishing number 4, I had a mix of wanting to keep reading, but not wanting it to finish!  Glad it ends on a high, and I will avoid your spoilers.

[Hayley]

On 1/29/2023 at 5:04 PM, Madeleine said:

but at least it won't drag on and grow stale like some series do.

That is true. It would have been far worse if the books just became boring!

[Hayley]

The Haunting Season: Ghostly Tales for Long Winter Nights

4.5/5 - I loved it

 

I have to admit, I was initially drawn to this because of the cover, which is gorgeous. There was even a special edition was pretty sprayed edges! Then I looked at the contributing authors and there were a few whose books I've really enjoyed, including  Laura Purcell and Jess Kidd. So, obviously, that was a sign that I had to buy it (in the special sprayed edge edition...). 

It wasn't just pretty on the surface though, it is genuinely an excellent collection of stories. Each is very different. The authors all have their own style and there was obviously no attempt to make the collection too homogenous. Most of them aren't actually scary (which I didn't mind, personally!) but have a creepy gothic edge, which I always enjoy. I ended up reading a few of them in one sitting and they were all very easy to get lost in. My favourites were Thwaite's Tennant by Imogen Hermes Gowar (which seems to have been inspired by The Tenant of Wildfell Hall) and The Chillingham Chair by Laura Purcell. 

The one and only criticism I have is that the story by Natasha Pulley (The Eel Singers) contains a big spoiler for those who haven't read The Watchmaker of Filigree Street yet and (more annoyingly for me because I have read The Watchmaker of Filigree Street) gives something away that must happen in the second book, The Lost Future of Pepperharrow. 

I would highly recommend this one but know that you should skip The Eel Singers if you don't want Watchmaker spoilers!

 

 

The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield

4.5/5 - I loved it

 

This is a short story I started reading for the stream of consciousness book club challenge. As I've mentioned elsewhere, Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf is my favourite work in the stream of consciousness style, but I didn't want to read that again. When I was browsing, trying to decide what to read, I spotted this one and thought 'ah, also about a garden... and I know Katherine Mansfield - let's go for that'. I was about a page and a half in when I realised I had actually read it before! 

That was okay though because I do really like this story. It's beautifully written and a good example of the way stream of consciousness can capture the minutia of everyday experience and perceptions; but it's also a clever commentary on class and privilege. 

It's a quick read and one that I also highly recommend. 

 

 

The Hidden People by Alison Littlewood 

3/5 - I enjoyed it but...

 

This technically ticks a lot of boxes for the things I normally enjoy (folklore, fairy, a mysterious murder...) but I didn't love it as much as I thought I might.

When the main character, Albie, finds out that his cousin was burned on her own hearth as a changeling, he travels from his comfortable city life into the countryside to come to terms with what really happened to her. This begins the sort of 'is it supernatural or isn't it?' dilemma which I've also really enjoyed in other novels. Unfortunately though, it just didn't stay very exciting in this one. The beginning was good and the ending really picked up, but there was a large chunk just past the half-way point where I really started to lose motivation. It just felt as though Albie's actions had stopped progressing the story and nothing was really going anywhere. The lack of communication between Albie and his wife, although part of the story of their relationship, also started to become frustrating and less believable.

The final page was oddly unsatisfying after a really nice boost in the final part of the story and I wonder whether the author originally might have had different intentions for how things would go. 

There was enough about this book that I enjoyed it overall but I wouldn't particularly recommend it.

 

 

And now I can't decide what I want to read next! It's been quite a stressful couple of weeks and I have to do my taxes as a freelancer for the first time this week, so I'm thinking something gentle!

[Hayley]

The Appeal by Janice Hallett

4/5 - I really liked it

 

This book was different to anything I've read before. It is a murder mystery but told entirely through emails, texts and a few pieces of evidence (like advertisements and post-it notes). Almost everyone who's part of the correspondence is a suspect and you have to try to work out 'whodunnit' from the evidence you have. It is slightly guided by what seems like a whatsapp conversation between two characters who are also trying to work out who did it. 

To begin with, I was a bit worried that it would be hard to get into the story and would actually feel like reading a selection of documents rather than a story. That quickly goes away though and as you get to know the characters, you become more invested in finding out what their motives are and what their next moves will be. The more pieces are added, the more the stories start to weave together too. There are a lot of twists and turns, some of which I predicted and others which really surprised me. I didn't work out who did it before the reveal at the end - although I do think it's possible to have worked it out in hindsight!

Very clever and intriguing. I would recommend it if you're in the mood for something a bit different!

 

If anybody else has read this please let me know as well because I'm dying to talk about one of the characters 😂.

 

 

Now reading Nicholas Nickleby for the reading group challenge!

 

[Goose]

50 minutes ago, Hayley said:

The Appeal by Janice Hallett

4/5 - I really liked it

 

This book was different to anything I've read before. It is a murder mystery but told entirely through emails, texts and a few pieces of evidence (like advertisements and post-it notes). Almost everyone who's part of the correspondence is a suspect and you have to try to work out 'whodunnit' from the evidence you have. It is slightly guided by what seems like a whatsapp conversation between two characters who are also trying to work out who did it. 

To begin with, I was a bit worried that it would be hard to get into the story and would actually feel like reading a selection of documents rather than a story. That quickly goes away though and as you get to know the characters, you become more invested in finding out what their motives are and what their next moves will be. The more pieces are added, the more the stories start to weave together too. There are a lot of twists and turns, some of which I predicted and others which really surprised me. I didn't work out who did it before the reveal at the end - although I do think it's possible to have worked it out in hindsight!

Very clever and intriguing. I would recommend it if you're in the mood for something a bit different!

 

If anybody else has read this please let me know as well because I'm dying to talk about one of the characters 😂.

 

 

Now reading Nicholas Nickleby for the reading group challenge!

 

This sounds interesting. I've never really been drawn to mystery books but this sounds like an intriguing take. Is this the sort of book that needs to be read printed or do you think it would work just as well on kindle? 

[Hayley]

10 hours ago, Goose said:

This sounds interesting. I've never really been drawn to mystery books but this sounds like an intriguing take. Is this the sort of book that needs to be read printed or do you think it would work just as well on kindle? 

I do think it would work well on kindle. I would imagine that one or two things might be split over two pages for the kindle version but it shouldn’t matter. I was really unsure whether I’d particularly like this book (I got it in a really good sale so decided it was worth the risk!) but I was pleasantly surprised! 

[Hayley]

I thought I’d post a quick reading update because it is taking an insanely long time for me to get through my current read, Nicholas Nickleby! I’ve been helping an older family member to move house during May and it is finally done. Solicitor issues and a house full of many years of stuff made it physically and mentally exhausting and I’m looking forward to gradually getting back to normal now! (Gradually because my own house is still full of boxes to be sorted…).

 

I have also been given a new bookcase though (unwanted from the old house), so I’m looking forward to setting that up! 

[lunababymoonchild]

Nicholas Nickleby is really long though, more than 700 pages and is would take a while even without interruptions. 

[Hayley]

22 hours ago, lunababymoonchild said:

Nicholas Nickleby is really long though, more than 700 pages and is would take a while even without interruptions. 

That is true, thanks Luna 😄. 
 

I set the new bookshelf up yesterday but realised that some of the little brackets for the shelves are missing, so I can’t put two of them on yet! I still managed to fill a couple of shelves with books I had just stacked in piles, so I’m very pleased with that. I will take pictures when I finally get it finished. 

[Hayley]

Review time! 

 

Nicholas Nickelby by Charles Dickens 

5/5 - I loved it, of course

 

I have loved every Dickens book I've ever read, so my feelings about this one were already expected. Dickens loved showing individual goodness overcoming the evil schemes of the powerful and that's very much the theme in Nicholas Nickleby. I found myself particularly invested in the story of poor Smike, a young man who was abandoned at a boarding school and is used horribly by the people around him. Dickens really builds your sympathy for him before strongly hinting that something terrible might happen. The tension was killing me! And that's one of the things I appreciated in this pretty lengthy (just under 800 page) book - there are so many schemes and escapes and tragedies that it's never boring for a moment. It also helps that Nicholas is probably one of the most headstrong of Dickens' characters. It's difficult to say more on that without spoilers, but he is not afraid to get himself into trouble.

 

It also left me strongly wishing that there were more real Cheeryble brothers in the world...

 

 

The Devil and the Dark Water 

4.5/5 - I loved it 

 

I really expected this to be a typical detective story and it is not. It has some of the same tropes (which you're clearly meant to recognise - like the detective/sidekick duo and the locked door mystery) but there are also twists and turns that I'd never have expected. The detective being imprisoned at the very beginning of the book is one of them! The fact that nearly all of the events of the novel happen onboard a ship really starts to build the claustrophobic tension as we go. It begins to feel like a case of 'solve the mystery or die trying' and it is not an easy mystery to solve... especially when nobody can be trusted. 

I stayed up far too late for two nights in a row reading this book and I think that says enough about how gripping it was.

The author notes at the end of the book that he did sacrifice some historical accuracy (it's set in the 1600s) for the sake of the narrative and I can imagine that some people might be annoyed by that, but I didn't personally think that it mattered. 

 

 

[Hayley]

I'm sorry for being very quiet around the forum recently. September was a bit of a difficult month, which ended with the death of my nan. Books have, as always, been a good escape though, so I have a few reviews I finally feel up to posting:

 

The Leviathan by Rosie Andrews

3.5/5 - I liked it!

 

3.5 almost feels a bit harsh for this book and I did consider bumping it up to four. Set in the seventeenth century with a significant focus on witch trials and suspicion, this slightly reminded me of my last read, The Devil and the Dark Water, only this one had a very different atmosphere. Where The Devil and the Dark Water had deaths and intrigue galore, this one had a more sinister and more mythological tone (partly for this reason, it also reminded me of The Essex Serpent!). We begin with the narrator receiving a letter from his sister, telling him that she has suspicions about a new woman who's come to work for them. He returns to find that all of their farm animals are dying and things are lot more complicated than he first assumed...

It's not immediately clear whether the supernatural is going to be real or imagined in this book and it's interesting to consider it from both sides. If something truly supernatural happened, does it make any of the consequences better? The moral wrestling of the main character is the key element of this book, really. He has his own past demons and serious ethical dilemmas arise when some of the women around him are arrested for witchcraft. The narrative jumps between the past and the present, with the present events seeming incredibly strange and really driving you to want to know what led to this point. 

I did really enjoy the book and would happily recommend it - it's a really interesting read. I found some elements of the plot unsatisfying, personally, which is why I didn't give it a higher rating.

 

Tales from the Depths and Other Strange Tales from the Sea ed. Mike Ashley

4/5 - I loved it

 

I read this while on holiday in Cornwall, with a view of the sea, and that really was the perfect way to read it. It's one of the British Library's 'Tales of the Weird', so you get a selection of short stories from various eras, with a short explanation at the beginning of each one to explain a little bit about the author, the story itself and why it's been included in the collection. All of the stories in this one were good - there genuinely wasn't one I disliked. There was enough overlap between some of the themes to note interesting patterns, but simultaneously they were all individual enough to keep me both intrigued and entertained through every story. I looked forward to finding out what would be next every time I started a new tale. 

Some of them are genuinely really creepy, so maybe not for those who hate horror, but otherwise I highly recommend .

 

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

5/5 - It was brilliant

 

This is the kind of book you can really escape into and, at the same time, a book that was definitely written for people who really love books. In fact - I think it's for people who really love stories in all their forms. It's like a celebration of narrative in every form, wrapped in a magical metaphor. 

On the surface, the book is about a world you can travel to (if you're the sort of person who can find a door) which is essentially like the most incredible library you can possibly imagine. Only somebody is trying to stop others from reaching this place - and obviously destruction and chaos ensues. We follow one main character, Zachary, for most of the narrative (he's very nerdy and likeable) but his story is interspersed with snippets of things that seem like fairy tales. Those tales weave cleverly into the main plot eventually, but I can imagine them becoming a little frustrating for those who prefer a faster pace. I liked them. Even when they seemed entirely unrelated to what I'd just been reading, they seemed like pieces of a puzzle at their most intriguing, or bed-time stories you could just dip into to distract yourself for a few minutes. 

I highly recommend this one. It's just pure, crazy, brilliant imagination. 

And I really wish the place beyond the door really existed, so I could sleep in a library and have cupcakes on demand.

 

The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera

4/5 - I loved it

 

This book is essentially like a modern folk tale, which immediately appeals to me. The author wrote it for his granddaughter, who asked him why the heroes in stories were always boys and the girls were just waiting to be rescued. So, this uses actual Maori mythology and introduces the modern life (well, 80's life) of a family who are trying to maintain their traditions and heritage in a world that's becoming increasingly commercialised and losing the connection between humans and nature. 

As such, it's partly about equality, partly about respecting the environment, and partly about the importance of cultural heritage. It doesn't feel particularly didactic though. It's short and very easy to read. Interestingly, each chapter begins with a short section following a whale pod on their journey, before returning to the human family. It's beautiful in it's simplicity and it did have me welling up on a couple of occasions. 

Definitely recommend. 

 

 

I'm now reading Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.

[lunababymoonchild]

I'm sorry for your loss, Hayley.

[Chrissy]

Sorry about the loss of your Nan, Hayley. I hope you and your family are doing OK. x

[France]

I'm sorry about your Nan Hayley but agree with you about the effect of being able to immerse yourself in a book. The right ones really do give you a sort of inner peace for a while.

[Madeleine]

So sorry to hear of your loss.

[Hayley]

Thanks everyone ❤️

[poppy]

Nans are very special. Big hugs Hayley 

 

Whale Rider is also a rather lovely film.

[Hayley]

On 10/6/2023 at 12:34 AM, poppy said:

Nans are very special. Big hugs Hayley 

 

Whale Rider is also a rather lovely film.

They are. Thanks Poppy ❤️

 

Brian recommended the film too! (In the group read thread). If they managed to capture the tone of the book, I’m sure it will be really good

[Hayley]

Finally, it’s time to do the final update of my 2023 reading so I can begin the exciting task of setting up my 2024 reading log  

 

Since The Whale Rider, I read…

 

The Fascination by Essie Fox (4/5)

I find Victorian entertainments, especially the fairground and ‘freak’ show, really interesting… fascinating, you might say… obviously part of that fascination stems from the fact that it was, in general, a pretty horrific practice. This book feels like that - fascinating in a this-is-so-horrible-I-can’t-look-away sort of way. I wasn’t really expecting just how horrible it was going to get! And yet there’s also an element of camaraderie and hope as the members of the ‘freak’ show come together to save one of their own. 
I’d definitely recommend this one but with the warning: be prepared for it to get dark.

 

The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman (4/5)

I felt like I needed something lighter after The Fascination, so decided to go for the first Sally Lockhart book. These are just really good. The characters are brilliant, the mystery is intriguing and it’s a pretty quick, gripping read. 
 

The Shadow in the North by Philip Pullman (4/5)

Then we got to this one… ok, it is still brilliant for all the same reasons as above but WOW is it sad. I did actually shed tears at one point .

 

The Mad Women’s Ball by Victoria Mas (4.5/5)

One of the other things I find interesting about the Victorian era is the approach to ‘insanity’. This book is set in the infamous Salpetriere Asylum in Paris, as hypnotism is being trialled on the ‘insane’ women at the institution. We get to see a a few women’s stories (which gave a great overview of the different reasons women could be ‘put away’ in those places, while still feeling like an immersive part of the story rather than an explanation) but we mainly follow one character who’s there because she claimed she could see and speak to the dead. This new patient makes one of the nurses question everything she believed about the asylum. I highly recommend this one, it was a brilliant book. Again, quite a dark one. It does deal with subjects like rape and self harm/ attempted suicide. The ending wasn’t exactly what I expected and it turned out to be quite a thought-provoking book.