Earl Grey Books

Lately, I’ve just not had the mental space to write posts lately so I’ve been taking a somewhat unplanned break again. I think for the foreseeable future I’ll just be posting when I can rather than trying to post to a certain schedule. But today I’m here to talk about five (somewhat) recent reads—these are mostly early to mid-March, with three of them specific to this vlog in which my friend Mel picked my reads, plus two others. So let’s get to it.

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley

I’d say I went into this one with mid-expectations—I’d enjoyed The Guest List but on the whole, I don’t enjoy crime/thrillers beyond cosy historical ones for the most part. I gave it a chance, and I ended up DNFing it. This definitely has a very creepy, unsettling feeling to it which on one hand is great because that’s kind of what you want in this type of book. For me, it was just really ramping up my anxiety. But it also wasn’t really grabbing me—what I read beyond giving up was pretty slow, no real action had occurred, and I was feeling pretty bored by it. I did end up reading the last 30-40 pages and looked up a summary of what happened because I really couldn’t guess what the point of the book was from what I did read. I honestly wasn’t impressed by the story, and I’m glad I didn’t end up reading the whole thing for what felt like very little pay-off to me. Maybe I would’ve felt differently had I read the whole thing, but I just don’t think it would’ve been for me. As usual, I don’t give star ratings to books that I DNF.

Chocolat (Chocolat #1) by Joanne Harris

I really wasn’t sure about picking this one up—it’s really not my usual genre, but I gave it a shot for Mel. I’d seen the movie probably ten or twelve years ago, but I didn’t remember too much of it. I think at the very start, having seen the movie did actually help—it helped me picture some of the characters, the chocolate shop and the town which made it easier to immerse myself in the story. I was surprised by the fact that I really enjoyed Harris’ writing style—it’s relatively easy to follow, and there are some nice lines here and there. I think the part I struggled the most with was the characters and their purposes in the story. I didn’t understand the priest’s point-of-view chapters. I personally felt like excluding them really wouldn’t have changed the story at all. None of the characters, apart from maybe Madame Voizin, really interested me at all. They felt very bland and one-dimensional to me—I just couldn’t bring myself to care about them. I think had I not found Harris’ writing style so easy to follow, I most likely would’ve ended up DNFing this one, but instead I ended up mildly enjoying it.

Radiance (Wraith Kings #1) by Grace Draven

This one had been on my radar for years, so I was glad to finally get the chance to pick it up in March. At the start, I was feeling very unsure about it. The story really throws you in with very little context about the world, and you just have to follow along with it. Once the actual world-building started, I was definitely enjoying it more. The romance is pretty sweet; it’s a political marriage friends-to-lovers situation, and it was undeniably cute. I usually don’t gravitate towards friends-to-lovers, but I enjoyed it in here. The whole thing was going to easily be a four-star read for me, but there was a small scene that ended up dropping half a star for me. I won’t mention it here because there’s no way for me to add spoiler tags, but you can find my Goodreads review here where I’ve included that instead of this bit, if you’d like to read it. Apart from that, I did mostly enjoy reading this but at the same time, I know I’m never going to come back to it or continue the rest of the series.

And now we get into the ones outside of that vlog…

Entered in the Alien Bride Lottery (Khanavai Warrior Bride Games #1) by Margo Bond Collins

Sometime what you need is a good bit of alien smut, and that was exactly what I was looking for when I picked this up. I think this is the third alien smut series I’ve picked, so I’m by no means an expert of the genre, but I loved this. Within a few pages I was already cackling along and just having an all around good time with it. I love the banter and the back and forth between the two characters, especially the awkward moments of cultural (species?) difference between them. I also liked that it’s a shorter novella—it kept things from getting boring or stale because it kept moving. It’s really making me think I should be picking up more romance novellas. I’m already so invested in this series, and I’m so excited to see how that one plays out since we got a little sneak peak in here. I have to wait until June to get my copy of it, but I imagine I’ll be reading this series pretty quickly once I have it.

A Most Novel Revenge (Amory Ames Mystery #3) by Ashley Weaver

This series has also been one of my best bookish discoveries in a while. I’d been waiting on this one to come into my library after reading book two in January, and it finally did in early March. I’ve been having a lot of fun reading this series so fun—they’re relatively light and cosy, easy and fun to read. I really enjoyed the plot and the setting of this one in particular. I hadn’t enjoyed book two as much which was set in London, so returning to a more remote country house setting was much more interesting to me. I still really like Amory as the lead, though occasionally she’ll have a moment, she’s pretty likable on the whole though. One of the things I was most excited about in this one was getting to meet Laurel, Amory’s cousin who we’ve heard about multiple times now—I liked her, but I hope we get to see a little more of her in the future books. Overall, I just had a good time reading this, and I’m excited to continue with the next book when that comes in at the library.

And that’s it. Have you read any of these?