Tag Archives: evie woods

Monthly Reading Summary – August 2023

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Top Book of the Month – ‘Falling Hard for the Royal Guard’ by Megan Clawson

Book Club Book This Month – ‘The Cat Who Saved Books’ by Sosuke Natsukawa

Books Read This Month:

Books Bought This Month:

  • ‘Falling Hard for the Royal Guard’ by Megan Clawson
  • ‘The Afterlife of Anne Boleyn: Representations of Anne Boleyn in Fiction and on the Screen’ by Stephanie Russo
  • ‘Tudors and Stuarts on Film: Historical Perspectives’ by Susan Doran & Thomas Freeman
  • ‘The Historian and Film’ by Paul Smith
  • ‘Holbein’s Hidden Gem: Rediscovering Thomas Cromwell’s Lost Book’ by Owen Emmerson & Kate McCaffrey
  • ‘The Boleyns of Hever Castle’ by Owen Emmerson & Claire Ridgway
  • ‘It Should Have Been Me’ by Phillipa Ashley
  • ‘The Witch is Back’ by Sophie H. Morgan
  • ‘The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper’ by Hallie Rubenhold
  • ‘Broken Homes’ by Ben Aaronovitch
  • ‘Foxglove Summer’ by Ben Aaronovitch
  • ‘The Hanging Tree’ by Ben Aaronovitch
  • ‘A Ticket to Oblivion’ by Edward Marston
  • ‘The Circus Train Conspiracy’ by Edward Marston
  • ‘A Christmas Railway Mystery’ by Edward Marston
  • ‘Blood on the Line’ by Edward Marston
  • ‘Murder on the Minnesota’ by Edward Marston
  • ‘The Cosy Cat Society’ by Charlie Lyndhurst
  • ‘Murder in a Mill Town’ by Helen Cox
  • ‘Styx and Stones’ by Carola Dunn

Statistics:

  • Books Read – 5
  • Currently Reading – 2
  • TBR – 216
  • Fiction – 4 (80%)
  • Non-Fiction – 1 (20%)
  • Male Author – 1 (20%)
  • Female Author – 3 (60%)
  • Multiple Authors – 1 (20%)
  • Paperback – 4 (80%)
  • Hardback – 0 (0%)
  • eBook – 1 (20%)
  • Audiobook – 0 (0%)
  • Total Pages Read – 1,769
  • Average Pages Per Book – 353.80
  • Hours Listened – 0.00
  • Average Star Rating – 4.2

‘The Lost Bookshop’ by Evie Woods

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Genre: Adult Fiction – Fantasy

Published: 2023

Format: eBook

Rating: ★★★★

I really enjoyed this book. The magical realism was completely believable within the story which is always important when you want to make your characters and the world feel real. It wasn’t too much but seemed to strike just the right balance. The books sort of presenting themselves to the characters was a clever way of steering them in the right direction.

Martha and Henry I loved – they both had their flaws as so many characters do in these kinds of books, but you could see how they helped each other and how the house itself helped and guided them. Some books you find that the character development isn’t so much a development as a switch flipped and suddenly they seem to become someone different, but that didn’t happen here. It was gradual and you could see it building. Opaline was also a very intriguing character, and what a hard time she had of it. I didn’t see the bombshell with her brother coming, though maybe I should have believed there was more to it than first met the eye.

Trigger warning for domestic violence and mental asylums in this book. It deals with some quite weighty topics but without dragging the storyline down too far. The domestic abuse of the ex-husband storyline seemed to drag on; the story became more engaging and faster paced once he was out of the picture. I honestly didn’t want to put it down after my lunch break with about 40-50 pages left, I was so engrossed in the reading I actually lost track of time and very nearly went over on my lunch break!

One thing that bugs me about this book is that there is never any clear answer to exactly who Madam Bowden is. I wish that had been resolved by the end of the story. It doesn’t quite feel complete without that knowledge, I don’t think.

I really enjoyed this book and would definitely read something else by Evie Woods again!

Monthly Reading Summary – July 2023

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Top Book of the Month – ‘The Cat Who Saved Books’ by Sosuke Natsukawa

Book Club Book This Month – None

Books Read This Month:

Books Bought This Month:

  • Jenn McKinlay – Summer Reading
  • Evie Woods – The Lost Bookshop
  • Phillipa Ashley – A Secret Cornish Summer
  • Richard Osman – The Bullet That Missed
  • Conor Byrne – Lady Katherine Grey: A Dynastic Tragedy
  • Sosuke Natsukawa – The Cat Who Saved Books
  • Martha Waters – To Marry and to Meddle
  • Carol Ann Lloyd – The Tudors by Numbers: The Stories and Statistics Behind England’s Most Infamous Royal Dynasty

Statistics:

  • Books Read – 5
  • Currently Reading – 1
  • TBR – 199
  • Fiction – 3 (60%)
  • Non-Fiction – 2 (40%)
  • Male Author – 2 (40%)
  • Female Author – 3 (60%)
  • Multiple Authors – 0 (0%)
  • Paperback – 3 (60%)
  • Hardback – 2 (40%)
  • eBook – 0 (0%)
  • Audiobook – 0 (0%)
  • Total Pages Read – 1,443
  • Average Pages Per Book – 288.6
  • Hours Listened – 0.00
  • Average Star Rating – 4.6