My Best Reading Month & Favourite Book of 2026 So Far 🎉 APRIL WRAP UP

Ajouté : 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Some way, somehow, April managed to be my best reading month of the year so far in terms of the amount of books that I read. Not in terms of my page count, though. That still very much goes to January where every book I read was enormous. But over the last 3 months, I haven't managed to read more than seven books. And in April, I read 10. And one of those 10 is my new favorite book of the year.

[00:00:27]So, in April, I did participate in Magical Readathon, which as you guys know is my favorite readathon of all time. And I'm happy to say that I did manage to fulfill all of the prompts that I needed for my calling. So, I'm now all set up for the autumn round, which will be, of course, Lita this year. There is one book that is contributing towards this wrap-up that I did not technically read in April. If you guys remember last month, I was filming my wrap-up a little bit early because I was going away for two weeks.

[00:00:56]So, one of these books I did read in March, but for the purpose of making sure everything adds up statistics wise and making sure that you guys get to hear about everything in my wrap-ups, we will be covering that one in this video.

[00:01:07]But, it is technically a March read. So, we're just going to crack on with those statistics to start us off. In April, I read a total of 3,675 pages across 10 books. And this broke down to an average of 123 pages per day.

[00:01:22]For the star ratings, I had four three star reads, five four stars and one five star, which broke down to an average of 3.7 stars per book. For the demographics, no change here. All 10 of the books that I read fell into the adult age category. I have not read a single book this year so far that is not adult, which is wild. I normally have just a couple of young adult in there if nothing else. For the formats, I read four regular standardly formatted novels, four ebooks, and two arcs. For the genres, we have a lot here. I read three romantasy books, two fantasy, one contemporary, one dystopian, one horror, one romance, and one thriller. For the places where I sourced these books from, four of them were sent to me by the publisher, two of them are from subscription boxes, two are books that I bought brand new, and two of them were from Kindle Unlimited. And lastly, for the amount of time that all of these books have been on my TBR, five of them were from my TBR that existed prior to the start of 2026. Three of the books I read I've hauled this year, and two of them were from my digital library, which essentially are the 2KU books that I read. The first book that I read was the one that I did wrap up right at the end of March, and that was The God and the Gooi Ho by Sophie Kim. So, this one is an adult fairy loot book from a couple of years ago that I was really excited to get to and I prioritized it this month because I was going to South Korea and this is a South Korean fantasy. It has been compared to a Kdrama. The way that the synopsis is set up is very reminiscent of a K drama. And also the author herself in the author's note or forward at the beginning of this does say that her main inspiration or one of her big inspirations for this book was Kdramas. This one is a paranormal fantastical story following a god and a gumiho. So in Korean law, gumho are ninetailed foxes and they feed on the organs of men. And our main female character in here is the Scarlet Fox, which is this legendary giho that disappeared at around the same time that Jack the Ripper did. She went on this massive feasting rampage, essentially killed a bunch of men, ate all of their livers. She was so satiated by that meal that she has never felt the urge to hunt or kill again. Our male main character in here is a god and he has been banished from his realm until he collects the souls of is it like 20,000 2,000 unruly. He has to kill a bunch of these like mythical creatures and release their souls back to the realm that his brother rules over for him to be granted entry back into his home realm. So one day our female main character is being followed by this group of guys. So she shifts back into her fox form very briefly and kills them all. There is also some sort of demonic presence on the loose around the city that is leaving a string of bodies in its wake. So news of both of these things gets back to the god's brother and he tells our male main character that if he can kill the scarlet fox and this demonic presence who he thinks are in league with each other then this will accelerate his quest to be accepted back into his home realm. This obviously turns a little bit romantic as our female main character gets a job as the male main character's assistant and she is essentially trying to throw him off her scent while he is hunting down the scarlet fox and this other demonic creature. Unfortunately, I did not love this one. I did end up giving it like a low three star rating. I feel like it falls more around a 2.5 for me if I'm being honest because while I really liked the concept, the setup, and the setting of this one, I felt like the execution of especially the romantic relationship of our main characters felt a little bit rushed and a lot of this book felt very surface level, like there wasn't a whole lot going on underneath in terms of depth and complexity. My main issue with this is that it was so heavily promoted as being like a Kdrama.

[00:05:34]The hallmarks of romantic Kdramas are things like slowburn relationships, tension you can cut with a knife. Their fingers touch and every that's the only contact that they have in the episode and you're like eight episodes in. That kind of slowburn with themes of yearning and longing is something that is common throughout every K drama that I've watched. Not saying that I'm an expert, just at the ones that I have experience with. And I felt like the transition of these two characters between hating each other because even though they don't know or the god doesn't know that the female main character is a giho, she still hates him because she doesn't like his coffee order and she thinks that he's obnoxious and annoying. So they go from a hatred to an acceptance, I guess, to a friendship, but I feel like that's very fleeting. straight into a romantic relationship. And to me, it just wasn't believable. I didn't really care about the characters. I didn't feel anything for them regarding their relationship.

[00:06:31]And that is really key for me when I'm reading something romantic. Like I have to kind of be invested in it. And I felt like this one felt really flat, especially given such a heavy comparison to Kdrama. The romance to me was just not too Kdrama level. I then picked up a book in Korea that I read on my way home, which was The Rainfall Market by Yu Yong Guang. This one has been translated from Korean into English, and it is sold on like the adult market. But I would say it is good to be aware that this reads a lot like a middlegrade going into it. Like we're following a quite young child as our main character as she is exploring this rainfall market. So, I've wanted to pick up one of the books in this style for quite some time. There is a little bit of a boom at the minute of translated cozy style fiction. And while I don't like cozy fantasy stories, I do actually really like translated fiction, especially Asian translated fiction. So, I wanted to give one of these a try. And I thought picking up this book in Korea would be an excellent opportunity for me to do this. So, this one is following a young girl called Sarin who is really down about her life. Her father has left her family. her mother is really struggling to make ends meet and she is kind of doing what she can to support her mother and be there for her mother but obviously like she's just a child and when she's at school she doesn't feel like she excels at anything. She's not the best at anything. She doesn't do particularly well in any subjects and she also doesn't have any friends. But in this city, every year during the rainy season, the rainfall market arrives. And prior to the arrival of the rainfall market, you can write them a letter telling them about all of the things in your life that are making you miserable. And you may be granted a ticket to enter. And you can exchange that ticket for a new, brighter future.

[00:08:20]Sarin is not only awarded a ticket, she receives the golden ticket, which means that she can actually sample quite a few more fortuitous futures before she settles on the one that she would actually like to pursue and the one that she would like to trade in her misfortunes for. The only catch is is that you have to leave the rainfall market before the end of the rainy period, otherwise you will be trapped there forever. So, this one is another one that I gave three stars. There was a lot that I enjoyed about it. Mainly, I feel the writing and the atmosphere. I loved the setting. I loved exploring the rainfall market. However, structurally, this did get a little bit repetitive for me. It follows the format of our main character kind of encounters an obstacle, explores the obstacle, moves on to the next one, and this happens like four or five times as Sarin is exploring her futures throughout the rainfall market. And I guess when I read books like that, I kind of just want like a change of pace. I want something a little bit different or out of the ordinary to happen instead of knowing that we're constantly going to be following this same pattern. Just given the nature of this story, that is not something that was going to happen. The whole vibe of this book is essentially like the grass is always greener on the other side and kind of reflecting and looking inwards on what you do actually have and what you have potential to have in your life as opposed to constantly striving for something that you may actually never attain. One of my favorite books of the year was Across the Vanishing Sky by Katherine Coohlles which was very kindly gifted to me by Evermore. So thank you so much to Evermore. This was my first feray into romantic suspense, which I thought was a genre that I had potential to enjoy, but this one still exceeded my expectations.

[00:10:05]This one is following a young single parent called Braden who moves from a big city into the wilderness. And she actually has a little bit of a history with this town because a few years, maybe one year prior to the start of this book, she was off hiking with her best friend who is as close as a sister to her and she went down to the stream like through this forest that they were walking through to take a photo of the water and when she came back her friend was missing. However, nobody seems to want to take this case seriously. People think that she was either mauled and killed by animals or she chose to run away or if she was taken then at this point she's dead and they have no leads to follow. So Braden moves to this town because she doesn't believe that her friend is gone and so she would like to take it upon herself to investigate and get to the bottom of what happened to her best friend Nova. Our love interest in here is Dex and he has just returned to his hometown after spending some time working as a hacker for the FBI. All of his brothers live in this town and he has moved back to be closer to his family. And while he is building his new home, like on the land that his family owns, he rents a cabin that just so happens to be next door to Braden's. Dex and all of his brothers feel like they have something that they need to atone for because their father was a serial killer. So, they are a little bit ostracized in time because everybody assumes that they must have known what their father was up to. And because they feel such a sense of guilt for what somebody so close to them was responsible for, they have dedicated their lives to chasing cold cases, each of them with a specific skill set that helps them to investigate these crimes and finding out what has happened to people who have been missing for quite some time. So when Braden moves next door, Dex, against his better judgment, ends up getting a little bit closer to her and vows to help her find out what happened to Nova. The reason why I thought I was really going to enjoy this one and why I've been excited to try romantic suspense for a while is because I do really like romantic stories, but sometimes I do find them a little bit boring if we had nothing going on outside of the romance. I obviously like romantic fantasy, but I was wondering if something like romantic suspense would be the perfect blend of romance and thriller for me. I was just a little bit worried about how well the mystery elements would be executed in a book that is predominantly romance. However, I feel like this was a perfect balance.

[00:12:32]I went into this under no illusion that it was going to focus on the mystery more than the romance. I knew I was predominantly reading a romance novel and so I think that allowed me to temper my expectations and actually the level of plot we had in here was more engaging and compelling than I thought that it was with a lot of twists and turns in here that I wasn't expecting alongside a really compelling romance. I do think that having a split plot between the romantic relationship and the mystery plot line really helped to keep me absorbed in this one. And I also feel like it made me more invested in the romance because while I knew we were going to end with a happily ever after, the stakes were a little bit higher. And I love a man who comes to save the day.

[00:13:15]Okay. And I feel like there's so much potential for that in romantic suspense.

[00:13:19]And this one definitely delivered. The sequel to this, I'm pretty sure, is coming out in October. So, I'm really excited to get my hands on that. And I'm also really excited to read more from Katherine Coohl's. I have my eyes on the Sparrow Falls series because I think it's pretty obvious when reading this book that it does somewhat connect to that series. So, I feel like that would be a good place for me to explore next, but I do also want to continue reading more from Katherine Cowles and her romantic suspense as well in the future.

[00:13:46]Probably my least favorite book of the month, I'm not sure how this didn't get two stars. We'll call it a 2.5 again, was Hot Desk by Laura Dickman. I guess I gave this three because this has two plot lines in one book. And the difference between this and this is that it makes sense for the two different plots to be in this book. I don't know why this one has these two separate story lines in it. They did not work well together at all. But this one I originally thought was a contemporary romance about two rival editors who share a desk. Going to be kind of like the flat share. You know, they meet, they fall in love. However, this more than anything else is a contemporary story, Ella Evelyn Hugo. It has those kind of vibes to it. So, we are following these two editors and we do switch between their perspectives, but the female editor, who unfortunately is called Rebecca, I really hate characters that have the same name as me. I mean, luckily, it doesn't happen often, but in this case, it did. But both of these editors work for publishing companies, and an influential author has died. So both of the editors want to win the author's estate for their publishing companies that are both imprints of the same umbrella company. So Rebecca is actually asked by this author's widow to come and look at the estate, the short stories, the extra stuff that the author has that's unpublished. So she obviously jumps at the chance, but she's she's good at her job, but she's not especially wellknown. So she doesn't know why she has been chosen for this role specifically. When she arrives and she speaks to the widow, she finds out that her mother actually used to work at a newspaper with the widow and also her husband, the author who's died, and that they are somehow connected, which is why Rebecca has been chosen specifically. We then have a third perspective in here, which is Rebecca's mother in the 80s as she is working with these people. So, we learn how she knows the author, how she knows the author's wife, and how her involvement and association with them has influence the way that this author's material and published material may or may not be sold. And then we also have the perspective of Ben, who is the other editor who just wants to be successful.

[00:16:00]So, he just wants to be the person that wins the estate. and he cozies up to the author's son who is really going through it. He's off the rails. He's an addict.

[00:16:10]He's a party boy. And so Ben tries to cozy up to him to gain access to the estate. So we have the contemporary story line which is Rebecca's mother and I guess like a historical story line as well. It really heavily deals with the sexism that was present, I mean, in everyday society in the 80s, but especially in places of work and how women were always encouraged and almost forced to sacrifice their own agency and their own dreams in servitude to men.

[00:16:38]Rebecca is obviously wrapped up in this as well, but we do then also have a romcom plotline between Rebecca and Ben, which actually in this 350 page book, I don't think they've even actually met until like page 250. So, I have no idea why we had to make this into a romance between them. We also have way too many side characters in here. In the first three chapters of this book, we're introduced to Rebecca, all of the people that work in her office. She has a friend who is trying to be an influencer with her grandmother. And then we also have Ben, all of the people in his office cuz they work for different imprints, so they're different people.

[00:17:16]He has a sister. And then he also gets a part-time job at a pub where we have the people who own the pub and also the regulars. And then we have Rebecca's mom and all of the people that she works with in her office in the 80s. I did not need all of these people. The extra plot lines we had with Ben's sister and also Rebecca's influencer friend were so unnecessary. It was like they were almost added just to support the characters of Ben and Rebecca, but they didn't need fleshing out to that degree.

[00:17:46]It was almost like following random side taggents for the sake of it. And then at the end of this book, you have 10 pages of things like articles and like blog posts about what all of these side characters are now doing with their lives after the plotline that they have nothing to do with wraps up. Honestly, I do need to lower this to a two star. The only reason I dnf this is because I was intrigued about Rebecca's mother's plot line because the reason why the widow contacts Rebecca is because she hasn't spoken to Rebecca's mother in like 40 years. and you're kind of leading up to the moment of discovery where we find out what exactly stopped them from talking because they were best friends.

[00:18:25]So, that is the thing that kept me hooked throughout most of this and then by the time I'd figured that out, I was so close to the end I may as well continue. But, this was just a lot of things and I don't really think any of them were executed well. A book that I did really enjoy was Asy Souls as Stars by Natasha Seagull. This one is a very short sappic fantasy. It is a love story, but it is not a romance. And that is part of the reason why I really enjoyed this one. I was really drawn to it to start off with because it is following these two women. One is the daughter of an alchemist and the other one is this like shadowy dark demonic creature. They meet in the 1500s because our human character Sibil who is the daughter of the alchemist is part of a magical family. The firstborn child in her family in every generation is a witch. However, if that firstborn child is a woman, then they are cursed. So, Syibil is the cursed daughter and she brings misfortune to everyone around her. Our shadowy demon character, Miriam, doesn't have a soul. And so, she survives by eating everybody else's. And when she sees Cibil, her soul is so bright that Miriam knows that she has to claim it. Miriam normally claims the souls of her victims by offering them a bargain. And you know, humans aren't especially careful about how they bargain. So, she always finds a loophole that turns out really badly for the human. And try as she might, she cannot get Cibil to tie herself into a bargain with Miriam. So, she waits until Cibil's curse has got her in a position that is so dire that Cibil has to accept Miriam's bargain to be able to survive.

[00:20:01]And the bargain that they strike is that Cibil will be reincarnated as the next cursed daughter of her bloodline. and she will be given the opportunity to make things right and break the curse.

[00:20:12]However, she will once again only have 23 years to do it. So, in this book, we follow three different timelines, three different reincarnations of Cibil as she tries to break this curse that is destroying the lives of the women in her family. And of course, in every lifetime, she's very closely tied to Miriam, who is just standing by, actually kind of trying to sabotage Sibil so that she can claim her meal of Cibil's soul. And even though Cyibil doesn't always know who Miriam is, there is also this level of desire that is consistently tying them together. As soon as I read the synopsis of this book when I hauled it last year, I knew that it was going to have some really lush pros. And while it could have been more floral, it could have been slightly more descriptive, my favorite thing about this one was the writing and the atmosphere. From the synopsis, I knew that we were going to have a sense of longing that really penetrated through all three of the timelines, and so the writing had to be strong enough to support that. And I do definitely feel like the strength of this book is within the writing and the atmosphere. I also really loved the characters in here and their connection throughout their timelines. And I also really loved how this book ended. I did give it four stars. It wasn't perfect for me and I think that that is just because of its length. It's just 300 pages and I felt what I really wanted from this was just a little bit more like more timelines, more interactions between these two characters, maybe a more fleshed out plotline cuz I would say that this is more character driven than it is plot driven, which I mean for the purpose of this book was fine. I personally just wanted more of it because I feel like I could have been more absorbed and more enamored with the love story between these two characters. But if you are somebody who loves a love story but does not always appreciate the shortity of a romance like me, the fact that romances have to end in a happily ever after or happy for now sometimes takes the fun out of the relationship for me. So, if you are somebody who likes stories about love that don't necessarily wrap up neatly, I do think that you would really enjoy this one. And it really is beautifully written. A book that I've already forgotten to mention because I don't have a physical copy of it is The Housemaid by Freda McFaden. This was my second Freda McFaden book. I read The Boyfriend last year, gave it five stars, and I loved it. I was obsessed. So, I was expecting really good things from The Housemaid knowing that it was Freda McFaden's most popular book. And I also wanted to read this one sometime soon so that I could watch the movie, which I have since done. But this one is following a young woman who was in prison for 10 years. I think that she's in her probably mid20s. She's around 26 or 27, I think. And she is looking for employment because the conditions of her parole is that she stays employed. And she's just lost her job, so she doesn't have anywhere to live either. and she answers an advertisement from this well-off family for a nanny and a housemmaid. So, she goes to the interview thinking that she's never going to get it because obviously they're going to do a background check.

[00:23:19]But lo and behold, she does get the job and she moves in to the attic of this house. It's gorgeous house and it has this kind of threadbear lowkey scary attic which is where our main character is going to live. and she starts to realize very quickly that the lady of this household is not the woman that she thought she was. She was kind. She was welcoming during the interview. She was very appreciative of the help. But as soon as the main character moves in, she is being accused of things that she hasn't done. She's been told to run errands and when she goes and she can't fulfill them, she's being told that she was never given that information. She shouldn't be there. And the main character can't really figure out what's going on with this woman. But what she does know is that her very handsome, very kind, very patient husband is incredibly put upon and deserves a woman much better than his very much unhinged wife. So I feel like you can see where part of this is going. And actually the thing that I really like about Freedom of Fan books is that they go in the direction that you expect them to. This is how I felt about the boyfriend as well. I feel like given the synopsis of Freda's books, you very easily make a set of assumptions of how the story is going to unfold. And I think the beauty of Freda McFana's plot twist is that she allows you to go in that direction.

[00:24:41]You'll be reading the book and for the longest time it's going exactly the way you expected it to. And I feel like that almost disguises the true direction of the story because you're having all of your expectations met. you're kind of missing or not even looking for all of the other stuff that potentially could be going on because it's unfolding exactly the way that you thought that it was going to. So, I find that Freedom of Fen's plot twists do tend to be a little bit more impactful because of that. I know that Freda McFaden is a very hit or miss author for a lot of people, but as somebody who is not a massive thriller reader, but also somebody who reads thrillers for entertainment, I love Freda McFaden. I just eat her books up.

[00:25:21]I find them so compelling. and I read them so quickly. And the two that I've read so far have taken me by surprise. I didn't love this one quite as much as I liked The Boyfriend. I ended up giving this one four stars. I did find that the plot twist just like wasn't as surprising. And maybe that is because I've already read a Freedom of Fandom book. So, I kind of know how she writes and so I knew even though things were progressing the way that I thought they were going to that we were going to go in a different direction. And I don't think the direction we went in was incredibly unexpected. But this is such an incredibly popular book as well. I think it was really hard for me to go into this completely unbiased with no expectations because of how many people have read it and how many people have loved it. But I do also think that this novel is similar to Gone Girl in a way where when Gone Girl was released, it was the most incredible like revolutionary story that existed in the thriller space. And as time has gone on, obviously those tropes, those themes, those plot twists have been used more and more within the thriller genre that it's no longer as revolutionary and spectacular as it was when it was released. And I feel like the same has kind of happened for the housemaid. So I am still very excited to continue reading from Freda McFaden. If I do continue the Housemmaid series, which I might because I know there is a sequel movie coming as well, I am aware that the sequels are considered to be huge flops in comparison to the first book.

[00:26:45]So, I'm definitely already going in with those expectations, but I'm very happy to continue reading from Freedom of F, and I really enjoyed this one. The next book that I read was another four-st star read, but this is one that took me completely by surprise, and that is Poster Girl by Veronica Roth. This has been on my TBR for a couple of years now, but I have previously read from Veronica Roth before. I've read the entirety of the Divergent trilogy, and dystopian in general was never my favorite. There are some series that I really liked within the genre, but it has never been one of my favorites, especially in terms of like YA dystopian. And Divergent for me even fell flat in that regard. Like I wasn't a massive fan. This one being a like 250 page book from the same author, I didn't have incredibly high expectations for, but this one was honestly so gripping. I could not put it down. And I am so impressed with what Veronica Roth managed to do in the 250 pages that she had in this book. So, this one is the story of the poster girl for the delegation, which is an oppressive governmental regime that has since been overthrown. So the delegation relied on people having ocular implants so they could essentially turn in everyone around them for poor behavior. Whether that was that they were slightly rude or whether they were actually committing crimes. The way that they incentivized people to do this is by rewarding them coin like real currency within this world for good and bad behavior. So if you were rude to someone on the train, you would have Dezcoin knocked off your account. And if you gave your handkerchief to an old lady with a cold, then you would have coin credited to your account. So our main character is somebody who while this system was in power very much subscribed to it and she is also the poster girl for this regime.

[00:28:36]Like all of the posters throughout the city had her face on it. So when the regime was overthrown, a bunch of influential people within the government were put into this area of the city which is maybe a couple of blocks instead of a highsecurity prison. So they're essentially secluded there and they live on rations like they kind of have to salvage a little bit and fix up old stuff to be able to get by. But the alternative was prison. Now, the new governmental regime has decided that the children who were imprisoned because their family were influential within this government. It's not really fair that they should have to live the rest of their lives in this area. But our main character, unfortunately, is just slightly too old to be released under these conditions. So, the government wanting to appear benevolent offer her an opportunity to earn her freedom by finding a missing girl. Because under the delegation, you could only have one child per couple. If there was a second child, the government took them and rehomed them. Now, since the new government has come into power, they have been rehoming all of those children or sending them back to their original families. And this girl is the only one that they cannot find. So, they send our main character to do that. And she is very aware that this is a fool's errand.

[00:29:51]Like, if they can't find her, why would she be able to find her? But there is a reason why she does go along with this and actually try to complete this mission even as the states get higher and higher and she discovers that maybe they don't actually want this girl found at all. So, this one had a pretty fast-paced compelling mystery plot line, which I think is the real reason why I enjoyed this. When I think of dystopian, honestly, because of how popular it was.

[00:30:18]From maybe around 2010 up to 2015, dystopian was in its boom. And when I think of dystopian, I do think of things like The Hunger Games and Divergent. So, this having a mystery thriller adjacent plotline was not something that ever occurred to me, would be within the dystopian space, especially cuz we're reading from an author here who has written dystopian in the past. So, I feel like that is the main reason why I enjoyed this one so much because it kept me hooked the entire way through. I also think that Veronica Roth did a really good job of establishing this society, both the government that had fallen and also the new one that had come in to take its place given that this is quite a short book. It is a standalone as well and then we also had all of this mystery plotline going on alongside it. So, it's not just a speculative novel where it's saying kind of like look at this world like look how bad the world could become under these certain conditions. It does also have a plot that drives the narrative. So, for 250 pages, I think that Veronica Roth executed this beautifully. I'm so impressed by this. I really honestly expected to DNF this. I didn't think it was going to do anything for me. And now, I'm very enthusiastic to pick up more from Veronica Roth in the future, specifically looking at her adult work. I believe there is urban fantasy that she's released recently that a lot of people really love. So, I do think that is the direction that I'm going to be going in. But, given this four stars was not on my bingo card for April. I then read my favorite book of the year which was Rights of the Stalin by Debne Perry. If you follow me on Instagram, Tik Tok, if you've watched any of my videos I filmed recently, you are going to be sick of hearing about this book because I am obsessed. This one is the sequel to Shield of Sparrows, which is one of my favorite books of last year. It is a romanty series following a young woman who is forced to marry the prince. She's a princess and she's forced to marry the prince of a different kingdom to fulfill a treaty called the Shield of Sparrows. The Shield of Sparrows essentially ensures that the kingdoms of the land maintain peace so that they can band together to fight off these huge eagle-like birds that migrate across the world every generation and decimate everything in their path. Now, our main character was actually not supposed to be the bride for the Shield of Sparrows. It was supposed to be her younger sister. But when a delegation from this prince's country come to her kingdom, they decide that she is the one that they would like to take and there's nothing that she or her father can do about this. So she goes to this other country and her father gives her a mission to actually feed him back information about their capital city. And the only information that he gives her is that it will help them defeat the migration or protect them from the migration. So she goes with this in mind, but obviously very illquipped to do this cuz she hasn't been trained for it her entire life like her younger sister has. And when she arrives in this country, she realizes that these people are not necessarily the enemy that her father has portrayed them to be. And to make matters worse, instead of falling for her new husband, the prince, who seemingly does not really want anything to do with her, he doesn't want to spend time with her. She finds herself drawn to the guardian, who is this kingdom's legendary monster hunter. The interesting thing about this series, I think very similarly to what I said about Freedom of Fed, I feel like Devany Perry plays with your own assumptions about the world and the story and then subverts them as you go.

[00:33:45]So, there's a lot about this series that is very typical of the romantic genre.

[00:33:50]You have the arranged marriage. You have the princess sent to infiltrate a different kingdom. You have this big burly like muscular warrior as your love interest. As you get more and more into this story, the world becomes more and more complex. While there was one plot twist that I saw coming a mile off in the first book, there were two or three at the end that completely took me by surprise. So, going into the Rise of the Starin, I felt like I was a little bit nervous cuz I feel like I've been disappointed by a lot of sequels recently, and this one actually took the series in a completely different direction than I was expecting it to.

[00:34:22]And we also had a second perspective introduced in here as well. The reason why I didn't expect this book to go the way that it did, is because based on where we left book one, I thought we were going to continue advancing the plot. Typically with series like this, especially as this is a trilogy, you will have a first book that sets up the world and kind of starts the plot right at the very end and then the following two books will be actually following the core plot line of the series and then obviously bringing it to a close in book three. But instead of progressing the plot in book two, Devany Perry actually took it a step backwards and further developed the world. This is a world that keeps giving. I feel like I have been lulled into a false sense of security by so much mediocre romanty that I've stopped really questioning some fantastical elements because I feel like a lot of romanty these days is just recycled Sarah J. Mass, for example. And so I don't need to think about the law.

[00:35:17]I don't need to think about why things are the way that they are because I know all of the world building cuz Sarah J.

[00:35:22]Mastered it even though the authors that are lowkey ripping it off are not bothering to do that world building. And so it was really refreshing to have this world that had so much more to it than I expected. I feel like we actually have a lot of complexity in here that I've been missing in the romanty genre for a long time. And this as well is the way that you write romanty with high stakes. Like with romance, I'm tired of reading romanty that is a done deal because everything that I read is just so unserious, knowing that everything is just going to be okay in the end and that everyone's going to be fine and they're going to go off into the sunset.

[00:35:58]This book has real consequences to actions. It has real catastrophic events that unfold in it. And honestly, that was one of the main reasons that I love this one. I am so excited to read the third book in this series. I'm also very eager to read more from Devany Perry because traditionally she is a straightup romance writer. She does write a lot of romantic suspense though and as that is something that I was looking at getting into anyway, but also now that I've enjoyed Across the Vanishing Sky, I'm really excited to pick up some of Devany Perry's romantic suspense. Specifically, I think I want to start whatever series starts with Indigo Ridge is the one that I've got my eye on. And I will definitely be keeping my eye open for more romanty from Davany Perry in the future because this series has exceeded my expectations. It is a new god tier romanty series for me. And honestly, I looked back through all of my spreadsheets to find out when the last time was that I gave a romanty book five stars and then also gave the sequel the same rating. It hasn't happened since Acckatar actually because you know how I feel about the sequels to House of Earth and Blood. So yeah, if you have similar tastes to me, if you like the same kind of romanty that I do, I think that you will really, really love this one. And this one is now my favorite book of the year so far. It's been so long since I've been so invested in a series and I'm so glad that I read this one. I then picked up a book that is very different from my usual, a little bit outside of my comfort zone, and that was Fem Ferrell by Sam Bessinger. So, this one was sent to me by Bloomsbury. So, thank you kindly to Bloomsbury for that. And this one is a satirical horror novel that compares per menopause to transitioning into a werewolf. So, our main character in here is called Ellie, and she is 44 years old, and she's noticed that she's a little bit forgetful. She's having hot flushes. is she feels very anxious, unsettled. So, she goes to her doctor and he tells her that she's permenopausal. Now, this is coming at a really inconvenient time in her life because she's currently up for promotion. And when we meet her right at the beginning of this novel, she's actually just about to go into an important meeting where she is going to be given the CEO position of this company that she has worked for since its inception. However, when she arrives at this meeting, she finds out that they've actually brought this guy in from the outside to take the CEO position. So, she obviously feels like this was her job and it has been taken from her by a younger man. And the man in question has never worked in the tech industry and he's been brought in to provide all of these fresh ideas.

[00:38:28]Meanwhile, Ellie has actually been essentially running this company for years as the person who actually is practical and handles all of the logistics and the day-to-day running. As well as that, she is struggling a little bit at home. She finds that her husband is incredibly passive and his father has dementia. He's been living with them now for a little while and she feels like even though she is the one that works the most in the relationship, she is also the one who is then taking up most of the responsibility regarding her husband's father. So throughout this book, she just has all of this frustration building and building and building. She also has all of these permenopausal symptoms and she is also transitioning into a werewolf and killing animals. Enter our second perspective, which was my favorite one in this book of Brenda. Brenda is 84 years old and she is losing her eyesight and she is on her way to the DVLA to beg them to allow her to keep her driving license even though she can't see for And before she does that, she's looking for her cat. She does unfortunately find her cat ripped in half on her neighbor's doorstep. So, do beware. There is a lot of gory cats and small animal stuff that happens in here.

[00:39:39]But Brenda is a difficult, crotchety, grumpy old lady. And because of this, she says like in her first chapter, she says like, "I've never had anyone in my life who would call me friend." Her family can't be bothered to put up with her. and she lives in a rented flat in London. She's lived in London her entire life. She's seen some She's had a bit of a hard life. Her cat being killed is the final straw. So, she puts together this Facebook group to investigate this string of deaths of small animals that happened on this one specific night that coincidentally is the same night that Ellie was wandering around in her pajamas before she conveniently blacked out. So, from the synopsis of this, I wasn't sure if this was going to be for me. Mainly because it was very obviously going to be satirical and humor does not always work for me. And it was also quite obvious that this was going to be heavily dealing with the topic of perry menopause, which at my current stage in life is not something that I can relate to. However, I did find that perry menopause aside, there was so much about womanhood in this book that I could relate to that I ended up really enjoying this one. I was really heavily invested in it. I did enjoy the character of Brenda more than Ellie. I did really feel for Brenda because she's 84 years of age and literally nobody can stand her and she just feels so much frustration. Like she doesn't understand why people won't inconvenience themselves for each other. She feels like friendship and family means nothing these days and she is the only person who is trying to find justice for all of these people's pets that have been killed. Whereas Ellie, I definitely felt her frustration and there were a lot of things that happened to her that I could relate to and I was getting as angry as she was about them. I do think that there were a lot of things that were putting pressure on her that she technically did have the power to change. That being said, a lot of this book did deal with societal expectations and the role that women are expected to uphold, the things that they're expected to bear, their responsibilities that they're just expected to shoulder. So, I do understand why we had that element of Ellie just putting up with all of the stuff that she was dealing with until it was bubbling into this big ball of frustration and causing her to explode.

[00:41:54]But I do feel like of the two perspectives, I did definitely sympathize with Brenda a lot more because while she was a very angry lady, she had a few anger issues, I do feel like that a lot of what was happening to her was kind of outside of her control and she'd had this long hard life and found herself in this position of of loneliness. In the vlog where I read this, I did say that I'm going to struggle to recommend this book because I haven't read anything like it. So, I have nothing to compare it to and say, for example, like if you've enjoyed this book, you'll enjoy this one. And I didn't expect to like this. I don't think that I'm necessarily this book's target audience. And I also don't think if I'd have seen this on a shelf and it wasn't sent to me by Bloomsbury that I would have ever picked it up. So, I don't know who to recommend this to. But if you like funny, sarcastic, feminist books that you know what, kind of satisfying to read actually because obviously this is about Ellie getting so mad at the things that she has to deal with that she literally turns into a werewolf and slices people's face off.

[00:42:55]And I would be lying if I told you I'd never been so heated in a moment that I wanted to slice someone's face off. So I think it was quite a cathartic read in that regard. But I guess all I can say about this is that if I've said anything that sounds interesting to you, then go ahead and give it a try and you may end up as surprised as I was by how much you enjoy this one. And then the final book that I read in April was Face and Furies by Helen Shorer, which is the third book in the Legends of Thesmar series. So, The Legends of Thesmar is a romantic series following a woman who wants nothing more than to be a legend of Thesmar, which are these legendary warriors that are tasked with holding back these dark creatures that are trying to break through into the human realm and terrorize the land. However, there is a prophecy that says a woman that wields a blade is going to bring about the end of days. And so, women are no longer allowed to be warriors in this world. However, Thea ends up in a position where she's able to petition the royalty for an exception to the rule. And she is indeed granted that privilege and goes to train as one of these warriors where she finds that over the last 20 years or so, a lot of sexism has set into the guild now that women are no longer present. As part of her training, she also has to work closely with the existing warriors of Thesmar, including the sleiest and most reclusive of the bunch, Wilder Hawthorne. This is a romanty, so I'm sure you can see where it's going, but I have had very mixed feelings about this series so far. I actually really enjoyed book one. I thought that it was really promising.

[00:44:30]Book two, I really disliked. Then there is a standalone in this world that like roughly connects to the series, and I don't really love standalone romanty, so I didn't love that one either. And so I was feeling a little deflated going into book three. I wasn't particularly excited about picking it up. That being said, I do think that this is the best book in the series so far. We definitely toned it down on the amount of smoke that we had, which was my main complaint about book two. They were just like going at it like rabbits from about 25% maybe earlier in the book right through to the end. And there were some places where we just had like backto-back chapters of sex scenes. This book definitely takes it down a notch understandably based on the end of book two. and I feel that that reinstated the tension a little bit which made me enjoy this one a little bit more. That being said, I did give this one three stars as opposed to the four-st star rating that I gave book one because while I do think that this is the better book, for the third book in a series, I would expect a greater level of emotional attachment and investment on my part, which sadly at this point I just don't have for this series. I find that it's really enjoyable to read in the moment and it does read really quick and I am interested in it, but then I find when I put it down, I have no real desire to pick it back up. And in hindsight, I don't have any kind of like strong feelings about this series. I do think that this was difficult as well because I read this just a couple of books after I read Rights of the Starin, which I thought was a phenomenal romanty sequel.

[00:46:01]So, this one just didn't quite hit that mark for me. I do really like where this book ended, though. I like I said about Rights of the Starling, I feel like the stakes in romanty are never especially high anymore. And based on a couple of little clues we had towards the end of book three, it's left me hopeful that we do have some higher stakes in this series than I typically expect from romantasy. But then there is that part of me that doesn't believe that we're actually going to take it to that level and that everything's just kind of going to be fine. And that is my main issue with romance these days. Like I need at least the illusion of high stakes delivered in a believable way where I feel like the consequences of actions in this romantic relationship don't last very long. Like I was very surprised to see some of our characters in the same locations in within like 15% of book three based on where we left book two.

[00:46:54]And we also had a whole section where the two main characters were talking about some issues that they had had in the past and how that was creating like a bit of a block in their relationship that they magically like resolved within 12 hours. So I feel like there's no kind of space within the relationship to create any tension cuz everything is like okay this is the plot point and now it's resolved and consistently moving on. So, I don't have a great level of investment in their relationship, but it's okay. I would I would actually describe it as about average for the genre at this point. It's not doing anything amazing for me, but I don't outright dislike it, which is always a good sign. So, that pretty much wraps up my April TBR. Down in the comments, let me know if you've read any of these and what your thoughts on them were. And of course, as always, let me know what your favorite book of the month was so that I can get some recommendations and some inspiration of books to add to my TBR.

[00:47:51]Not that I need to, but you know, your girl's always got her eye on new books.

[00:47:55]And of course, if you would like to let me know you were here, but you don't feel like you have anything to say, leave me some sort of sky related emoji for Across the Vanishing Sky by Katherine Cows. But aside from that, guys, please don't forget to like this video if you liked it and subscribe if you want to. If you head to my description box, you'll find a link to my Goodreads, my Instagram, and my Patreon if you'd like to follow me on any of those. But that's it from me today, guys. Bye.

[00:48:29]We're never going to quit it. No, we're never going to quit it. No.