April was a trying month. In the middle of the month I ended up having surgery on my wrist, and about two and a half weeks later, without much improvement, I found myself sitting in the hospital's emergency room last Monday (waited 2 hours and froze in the air conditioning!), only to get some antibiotics and a referral to get an ultrasound done later in the week. Results for that aren't in yet, but the guy doing the scan said there was no infection - awesome! - but I do have some keloid scarring happening... bummer. Unfortunately this is almost as bad as the original symptoms and I'm hoping that massage and future physio might do the trick. However, I digress as you probably don't want to hear about all that stuff, instead on to the book haul...
So with that in mind, it's perfectly understandable that I would turn to alternate forms of therapy to take my mind off the pain - and inconvenience of not even being able to do up my own bra! - with some retail therapy - and so I bought more books. Bad, I know, but I was just so sore (and yes, bored), that I needed a pick-me-up. However, I didn't expect it to be this problematic ;-D
Thankfully they didn't all arrive at once or else my mother, who stayed with me for nearly two weeks, would have had a conniption over all the parcels that the courier was bringing to my door. As of the beinning of May I have read 9 out of the 15 - woo-hoo! - and I'm putting some aside for future reading as I'm just not in the mood for them now, but I do want to read them at some stage (i.e., The Black Tulip).
First book I read was The Casquette Girls, and I really enjoyed this paranormal YA book. Was moody, atmospheric and had an interesting twist. Could really see it being made into a movie, or TVM, as the New Orleans backdrop was amazing.
Next I went on to The Obsession by Nora Roberts. It was pretty good, but not amazing. Could have done with a 5 page prologue and not the nearly 80 pages we got, but the rest was pretty good. She does write a good mystery/romance that you can read over and over again.
Then I thought I'd better start on my April #ayearofmarple challenge with A Murder is Announced. Took me till the end of the month to finish it, but I got there. Yeah, still isn't my favourite story, but won't be as bad as this month's offering, They Do It With Mirrors (which I really don't like).
After that, I sprinkled the week with my newly delivered Stephanie Laurens books - all three of them! Yes, I totally caved and bought the first books in the Cynters Next Generation series. I don't know why I did this. Why did the author have to continue on with a new generation that will guarantee at least another 20 books! I'll be needing a bookcase to devote just to her interconnected series by the time she's finished with them. I enjoyed The Tempting of Thomas Carrick more than A Match for Marcus Cynster, and I was not all that fussed with By Winter's Light as the main romance between Daniel and Claire was overshadowed by the meeting of Lucilla and Thomas.
The Liar was an impulse buy as I'd enjoyed The Obsession. But once again, I was feeling let down by the author as it was reminicent of other novels in her bibliography. It felt like I was reading scenarios from her other books that had just been transfered into this novel after changing characters names and other descriptive info, etc. Needed to revisit some older favourites to get the bad taste out of my mouth, so to speak. Indeed, I spent some quality time with The Search, The Witness, Black Hills, and a couple of bowls of ice-cream over the next few days ;-P
Then Garden of Lies arrived and I was a happy little camper. I have found these paranormal Victorian romance/mysteries quite entertaining. This one was okay, but I think I'll have to give it a re-read to see if it was just my mood, or it really was just an pretty good story.
And finally, the last book I read in April was the much anticipated Firebound, the second last book in the Sea Haven series. I was hoping for a great book, but I didn't get that. Don't get me wrong, Firebound was pretty good, and it furthered the storyline along, but there were just too many inconsistancies and far fetched scenarios for me to be able to buy into the fantasy of it. Will post a review in the near future discussing my thoughts on this series.
And so we come to the end of this mini wrap-up. I can't believe I bought this many books in April, and actually finished so many of them as well. Still awaiting a few more books, but thankfully I ordered those in the beginning of May, so they don't count ;-D
Hope you all had a fabulous reading month, and until next time,
