Earl Grey Books

Well here I am with the next round of my most recent reads—we’ve got a bit of a weird mix of genres in here alongside the start of my Eurovisionathon reading. But without further ado, let’s get into what I’ve read recently.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

This is officially my second-last Austen—I’ve only got Emma left to go now! So I’m a big fan of Emma Thompson’s adaptation of this—she is truly a treasure and I’ve seen it many times. I have to admit, I think I was a little less impressed with reading this. Look, I like Elinor—I’m also a very reserved person so I can understand the way she sees the world and I can see why she reacts to things the way she does. But I’m not sold on the love story between her and Edward in the slightest. Austen is always telling us that they have this connection between them but I don’t feel it at all. To me, this is really the story of Marianne but from Elinor’s perspective and at the end Austen gave her the consolation prize of Edward Ferras for being a good sport about the whole thing.

Wicked Games (Queen of the Damned #2) by Kel Carpenter

It took me literally six months, but I finally got around to reading this sequel after enjoying book one, Lucifer’s Daughter. I was just really in the mood for this book this week and I managed to read the whole thing in about two hours. Honestly, my favourite thing about this series is how quick they are to read. The stories always move fast so this was the perfect book for me to pick up and read while I was feeling a little under the weather. These books are honestly a little weird and sometimes things are just a little too fast but they’re a fun read where you can just shut everything off and just have a good time following along with Ruby, her boys, her best friend and her pet raccoon.

A Rogue to Remember (League of Scoundrels #1) by Emily Sullivan

This is part of a post that I’ve kind of been procrastinating for a while now because I’ve been disappointed by most of the reads for it so far, and sadly, this one was no different. I really enjoyed the start of this—we meet our heroine, Lottie, in the Italian countryside after she’s left her lady’s companion behind. I really enjoyed the parts set in Italy—I love books set outside the US and I loved getting to see things from a historical point of view. Unfortunately, I didn’t like the characters. There wasn’t anything wrong with them, other than the fact I was just tremendously bored by them and their story. On the plus side though, this book has made me realise that I’m not actually a huge fan of second-chance romances so at least some good has come out of this.

The Beautiful Summer by Cesare Pavese

This was my first completed book for Eurovisionathon this year, and another set in Italy. I found out about this Penguin European Writers series earlier this year and immediately picked up two with Eurovisionathon in mind—the editions are absolutely stunning and really nice to read from, so highly recommend them if you’ve looked into them at all. As for this book, I’m honestly not sure how I feel about it. It’s one of those books that never quite plainly says what’s happening—I felt like I constantly had to read between the lines to try and work out what things meant. It was originally published in the 40s and is translated from Italian so some of that feeling is probably a result of that. But at times, the translation feels a little off—there are some phrases that are very British and don’t really sound like the voice of a 17-year-old Italian girl. For the most part, I did like this, possibly because it’s just over 100 pages and was a quick read. I’ve heard that Pavese is an outstanding writer, so I’ll definitely be looking into more of his works even though this one didn’t really impress me.

The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry

This was my second read for Eurovisionathon with this one covering my prompt for Switzerland. I bought this one last year but it didn’t arrive in time for me to read it so I knew I wanted to get to it this year. I’m sad to say that I didn’t really like this one. On paper I should’ve loved this one—it draws a lot from 19th-century children’s literature and mixes it with a dash of Roald Dahl and Lemony Snicket all things I loved as a child., but it just didn’t work for me. Neither the characters nor the story were interesting to me at all the only benefit was that at least it was short and quick to read. This is my second Lois Lowry and both of them have left me feeling very disappointed, so I don’t think she’ll be an author I ever reach for again.

And there we are. Honestly, it’s been a bit of a disappointing week or so of reads, but hopefully, it’ll pick up and I’ll have some amazing reads ahead of me!