Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Started: 12.1.26

Finished: 16.1.26

Paperback / Audiobook

I've seen loads of positive reviews for this book, but I still wasn't sure that I was going to like it, as I'm not really into sci-fi. However it was a very pleasant surprise! A space survival story, chock-full of science and maths which I didn't even try to understand (but, to be fair, all explained in an as easily digestible way as possible), and which didn't deter me from enjoying it all the same. It was funny and moving in equal measure, and the ending was perfect.

I listened to some chapters in the audiobook, which helped with some of the pronunciations.

Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillig (The Shepherd King Duology)

Started: 11.1.26

Finished: 12.1.26

Kindle Unlimited

Well this duology was absolutely brilliant! A perilous race against time into the mist-cloaked forest in search of the missing Providence Card. A royal battle between good and evil. A fitting end and a new beginning 500 years in the making. Great well-written characters and a gripping plot. It seemed like Ravyn and Elspeth were meant to be the main romance pairing in the first book, but in this one it was definitely Elm and Ione. Elspeth was there, but her body was kind of overtaken by Nightmare/The Shepherd King for most of it, which was hard to remember sometimes. Happy that this was one of my first forays into fantasy, it was a really good start!

One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig (The Shepherd King Duology)

Started: 9.1.26

Finished: 11.1.26

Kindle Unlimited

First book read on my new Kindle Paperwhite!

This really had me gripped! A gothic fantasy involving a deck of cards imbued with magic, a young woman tormented by a nightmare and a group of highwaymen trying to rid their kingdom of a centuries-old curse. Immediately going to start book 2...

Pagebound

A few days ago I was watching a random Booktuber (Gavin Reads It All) and he mentioned Pagebound, so I had a look and now I'm obsessed! It's got a website and an app, like Storygraph, and it's good for tracking, but it also has the more social aspects of Fable. I'd only just started using Fable again, but now I think I'll stick with Storygraph and Pagebound.

The Spell Shop by Sarah Beth Durst

Started: 4.1.26

Finished: 10.1.26

Paperback

Cosy cottagecore fantasy with sweet romance and found family

Kindle Paperwhite

I caved in!

Even though my Kindle Fire works perfectly fine (apart from being a bit slow to charge, and quick to drain), I decided to treat myself to a Kindle Paperwhite. I got a screen protector, a really nice case, and even a remote page turner, which is the height of laziness but so cool!

Currently reading One Dark Window on it - very happy!

Magical Midlife Madness by K. F. Breene

Paused... to come back to...

I started this yesterday I think, and although it was ok, I feel like I have other books that I'm in more of a hurry to read, so I've put this back on the TBR pile for now. I didn't want to make it a DNF because I would still like to read this series, just not yet...

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

Started: 5.1.26

Finished: 8.1.26

Kindle

Whew! It's hard to know what to say about this book. It's sad, but uplifting too. It's about friendship and love. It deals with resilience and loneliness. There's a certain lack of meaning to the plot, yet it's so meaningful too. It's heartbreakingly beautiful.

The Descent by Alma Katsu (The Immortal Trilogy)

Started: 3.1.26

Finished: 4.1.26

Paperback

Hmmm. Hmmm. 

I wanted to love this book as much as the first two. But it just seemed to go in a weird direction. 

It begins a few months after Luke has died from cancer. (He and Lanore had spent 4 years together, after Adair had let her go). I'm not sure what the point of Luke was really. I know he played a role in her life, but I'm not sure how necessary it was.

Lanny is having nightmares about Jonathan being tortured in the underworld. Yes, she's still obsessed with him, which I found increasingly frustrating.

Although he did redeem himself towards the end of his life, he was never really very good to her, but she couldn't let him go. She decides that she must go to the underworld to rescue him, and the only person who can help her with that is Adair.

He has been living in exile on a mystery island, although when Lanny arrives she finds that he is enjoying the company of two young women. He later confesses to her that he thinks they may be possessed by / reincarnations of two witch sisters who he'd wronged in a previous lifetime. That was a bit random and out of the blue.

Adair is now a changed man, and just as he agrees to help Lanny go to the underworld, she finally realises that she loves him. At last!!

He doesn't need to kill her, he just casts a spell to send her spirit there to look for Jonathan. What feels like just minutes and hours for her, are months passing for Adair while he keeps vigil over her sleeping body. The sections in the underworld also felt like months passing for me, to be honest, it really slowed things down.

At one point, Adair is drugged by the two women (who are the witches, as he suspected) and they throw Lanny's body into the sea. He summons huge waves which wash her back to him, but wash away the two women. So that's that. 

He has no way of knowing what is happening to Lanny in the underworld, and realises that the only thing he can do is join her there, which he does.

It transpires that Adair is actually the King Of The Underworld, but he'd escaped and had all his memories erased, and new ones implanted, to allow him to survive in the real world. The Queen is actually his sister; he didn't want to marry her though, because, ew, incest! (Nevermind all the other stuff he's done). In the end, they have to ask The Big Man (God - long white hair, toga style outfit) for permission to be allowed to return to the real world and live as mortals, which he allows. Meanwhile, Jonathan is promoted to Queen Consort / new King Of The Underworld.

The whole underworld section is just where it fell down for me. It turned out that the Queen had sent those nightmares to Lanny, and that actually Jonathan was quite happy and didn't need rescuing, so once again she'd screwed things up chasing after him. I'm glad that she finally realised that she loved Adair, and that it'd kind of been him all along, but when they returned from the underworld, it was practically on THE LAST PAGE! We never got to see them together, properly in love!

The Reckoning by Alma Katsu (The Immortal Trilogy)

Started: 1.1.26

Finished: 3.1.26

Paperback

3.1.26 - I'm 39% of the way through. After being 'buried alive' behind a brick wall for 200 years, Adair has been released (the mansion was being demolished). He goes to the house of Jude, another immortal, who has to teach him about modern life in 2010. Meanwhile, Lanore senses that he's free, and runs away from Luke, to protect him. 

Adair at first is filled with murderous rage at Lanore, but as time passes he realises that he is actually in love with her. He doesn't want to kill her, but he's still angry with her for leaving him, and he's scared of what his rage might make him do.

He has used a reincarnation spell to raise the badly decomposed body of Jonathan, with a view to moving his soul into Jonathan's body, in the hope that Lanore will love him.

I wish I had someone to talk to about this book! Adair is, I think, what they call 'morally grey'. He's done some horrific things, but he is capable of remorse, some of the time, and he's also capable of love, albeit quite a possessive love. I don't know how I feel about Lanore though. 

3.1.26, later - Just finished! Jonathan brought with him news of the 'Queen Of The Underworld' who Adair was quite afraid of, so he eventually sent him back. He found Lanore, and by then was completely in love with her (although raped her as soon as they met, so, hmmm). He let Luke survive, after removing all memories of Lanny, and then Adair and Lanore moved to a house in the mountains above Lake Garda. After two months of realising that she wasn't going to love him in the way that he wanted her to, he let her go. 

Bring on book 3!