This is a good entry into my current trend of listening to cosy fantasy books.

It tells the story of Tao, displaced from her native land and making her living in a new country by telling 'small fortunes'.

There are themes of racism, a missing five-year-old girl, threats to the main characters from a seemingly authoritarian government, and quite a ( Read more... )

I got to go on a reading retreat this past weekend, for the first time in over year, which was awesome!

I have six reviews to provide - on audiobook I finished on the way there, four books I read over the course of the weekend, and one I DNF'd after I got home.

Inheritance by Nora Roberts:

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I recently revisited this book for my podcast:

Audio: https://stillloveit.libsyn.com/episod...

Transcript: https://alobear.co.uk/?p=1560

The Will of the Many has been doing the rounds of the BookTubers I follow for some months, with mostly positive reviews. I thought it might make a potentially good Christmas present for someone, but I've become wary of buying books for people without reading them first - so I thought I'd read it first!

And, overall, I thought it was really good.

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I wasn't overly excited by the prospect of The Wild Robot on seeing the trailer, but I agreed to go because Dave was keen. And, overall, I enjoyed it. It was tonally a bit hit and miss in the first third (with a lot of 'jokes' about animals eating each other, which jarred once the robot learned the 'animal' language and they all became ( Read more... )

I finished two very different books last week.

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This past weekend, we went to Handycon, a lovely board games convention that's held several times per year in Milton Keynes.

On arrival, my plan was to find my friends and play games I already knew - but then, can't I basically do that any time?

So, what I ended up doing was almost exclusively playing new games (to me, at least) - of which there ( Read more... )

Last night, I went to see Waiting for Godot at the Royal Haymarket - and it was glorious!

I first saw the play in 2009, when it starred Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, which I remember being a stand-out theatre experience, but I wasn't sure if it was the play I loved or just the casting.

It was both.

It turns out - I like absurdism! Which ( Read more... )

I've had The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by VE Schwab on my list for a while - and was finally prompted to listen to the audiobook when I saw that the free version I'd got on Audible would be disappearing from my library (quite appropriately) in the next couple of weeks.

And, for the most part, I absolutely loved it.

Addie escapes an arranged ( Read more... )

I picked up A Pinch of Magic by Michelle Harrison in a recent charity shop adventure because I liked the cover. After losing several weeks to a mammoth historical family saga, it looked like a good option - and there's certainly nothing wrong with it in terms of writing, characters, intriguing plot, etc. It's just I didn't realise when I picked it ( Read more... )