Another month, another book wrap up! Here’s everything I read in March 2022.

5 Star Favorites

  1. Daughter of No Wolds by Carissa Broadbent — I found this fantasy-romance book off a forum recommendation with the preface of “this book has ruined all other fantasy-romance for me” and… I’ve gotta agree. It was truly fantastically written; the characters were so well-developed, the plot was engaging, and I just loved every second. I’m pretty sure this was close to a one sitting read for me. I can’t wait to read the followup novels and anything else this author comes out with.
  2. Persuasion by Jane Austen — Jane Austen was my favorite author as an eleven year old but it’s been a long time since I’ve read a lot of her work. I decided to pick up Persuasion as it was a story I wasn’t familiar with (aka hadn’t seen any movie adaptations of it) and it did not disappoint. The writing of the main characters feelings, the emotional build-up, the slice of life: it all culminated into a lovely novel.

Fantasy

  1. The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett — The first absurdist novel from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, which has a total of 40-something books. The premise? What if the world were a disc held on the the back of elephants standing on the top of a turtle that flies through space?
  2. Hellblazer Volume 2 by Jamie Delano — The second volume series of the Hellblazer comics, continuing the misadventures of John Constantine, occult expert and general morally gray antihero. I really loved 10-13, found 13 to be good/fine. Annual 1: The Bloody Saint and Horrorist Antarctica 1-2… really not my thing and pretty hard to follow. The art usually helps with this, as I’m used to it in Delano’s style by now, but it just didn’t hit the mark there for me on this one. Gonna average it out to a 3, probably more a 3.5 if we don’t include the annuals and Horrorist.
  3. Best Knight Ever by Cassandra Gannon — Gryphon Trystan gets put in charge of fetching Knight Galahad, but they end up traveling all over the place after realizing they have a bigger mission to save the race of gryphons and saving each other on the way. It was definitely much heavier on the fantasy than on the romance, which was fun but also not exactly what I was in the mood to read. The book focused heavily on the background of both characters (lots of flashbacks to moments when they were fighting in the canonical war) and I found myself kinda bored, but the characters were so dang charming.

Romance

This was a romance-heavy month for me, especially when combined with my lower-than-average number of books completed.

  1. To Love a Scandalous Duke by Liana de la Rosa — The childhood friend of the female main character (FMC) comes back to town and sparks fly, but he’s got a scandalous past, including the unsolved murder of his brother. This was a very well-written, well-formulated historical romance novel with a trope of marriage of convenience. I’d say it was heavier on the historical than I usually prefer in my novels but I did enjoy a lot of it. As per usual for my taste, it could’ve used another 50 pages of slow-burn but the mystery side of the plot was really well paced (and entertaining enough to keep my interest despite the fact that I’d figured it out about 15% into the book).
  2. Morning Comes Softly by Debbie Macomber — I’m so tempted to give this one star but I enjoyed the first 20% of the book too much. It just went so downhill. The male main character was so unlikeable with no redeeming qualities or development. Spoiler (not really): his big development is being semi emotionally available for his adopted kids and getting a gold star for doing the bare minimum. Guess I’ll chalk it up to being written in the 90s, but it would’ve only made sense set in the 1890s? Sigh..
  3. The Pact by Max Monroe — An honestly quite forgettable book with a truly unbelievable premise (and that’s saying something) but I do remember finding it charming. Lots of grumpy/sunshine energy.
  4. Forever Right Now by Emma Scott — Another forum recommendation for a contemporary-romance. Single dad via surprise baby meets a recovering drug addict and they heal. I really did love this one but I don’t think it was the most well-written of all things.

 

So that’s all of March! A total of 9 books read and an average rating of 3.5/5. That makes 29/100 books read for the year so far!

Till next time,

Sarah