School holidays are drawing to an end (already!) and I’m trying to get on track with posting regularly again.

What I read

My best month of the year!

Quick stats:
20 books read
115 out of 150 so far
25 ahead of schedule
1 BABAL* (And one about a journalist/publishing)
2 Val McDermids
8 new authors
4 library books

July’s five star reads:

Time to Shine – Rachel Reid
This is quite possibly one of my favourite books of all time. It has lived in my head rent-free for the past month and although I haven’t re-read it fully, I have kept it on my Kindle Unlimited shelf and dipped in and out reading my favourite parts again. I may also have bought the audiobook to listen to at bed time…

This is a grumpy/sunshine pairing between the Calgary Outlaws’ star left winger Casey Hicks and goalie Landon Stackhouse who’s just been called up to the Outlaws from the AHL to fill in due to an injury. Landon is quiet and introverted, and carrying a lot of grief and guilt. Casey talks non-stop, has no filter and hates being alone. Somehow Landon ends up agreeing to stay at Casey’s house and they fall for each other; only for Landon to be sent back down to the AHL when the Outlaws’ goalie recovers.

I cried. A lot. But it does have a happy ending. In as much as an ending can be happy when you’d like the book to go on forever.

The Kennedy Rule (On Thin Ice #1) – KC Carmichael
As you’ll soon see, I read A LOT of hockey romances this month, and I think I was trying to find something that made me feel the way Time to Shine did. Sadly, nothing hit that spot but this came close.

Connor Kennedy has it all; money, fame, the captain’s spot on his NHL team. He also has a spot on the USA’s Winter Olympics hockey team. But so does Gavin Marshal, an enforcer from Alaska. They hate each other. Until they suddenly don’t. Then it’s them against Connor’s father – who’s highly influential in the NHL and tries to instigate the Marshall Rule which says that two players can’t date.

The Call Up (On Thin Ice #2) – KC Carmichael
I may have liked this even more than The Kennedy Rule – but still not as much as Time to Shine.

Brandon Bouchard met Ryan Christianson when he was fourteen and Ryan roomed with his family as part of a hockey programme. Brandon’s older brother is already in the NHL and now it’s Brandon’s time to step up as a rookie, playing on the same team as Ryan. Only Ryan still calls him Baby Bouchard and now the whole team does, and all Brandon’s old feelings for Ryan have come back full-force.

July’s four star reads:

The Tiny Magic Bookshop (Tiny Magic Series #1) – August Bloom
I liked this but it was very emotionally heavy as Max wades through her grief after losing her mother. I liked the story around Max having to find her own way to run the bookshop her mother left to her, but I don’t think I was in the right headspace to appreciate it as much as I maybe should have when I read it.

Flint in the Bones (Norwich Map Runners #1) – Eva St John
When Eliza Barnaby – often better known as Bish – was a child something happened to the maps of Norwich. Something catastrophic which melded them – and the time periods the represented – together. Now Norwich is walled off, a city where wild magical waves tear people from their own timelines and dump them… well, nobody knows and they don’t ever come back. Quakes bring people forward, and collapse any building too modern to be on multiple maps. People from all centuries have had to find a way to live together. But Bish escaped to London. Until Cade, an escaped practitioner of magic is believed to have headed to Norwich and Bish is sent back home to try to catch him.

I loved the semi-magical world building and all the weird stuff that goes on in Norwich. Plus the mystery of who is Cade, really, and whose side is he on?

Moon Over Soho (Rivers of London #2) – Ben Aaronovitch
I’ve read the whole series in print so I’m revisiting in audio now. This one’s a fun story about what Peter calls Jazz Vampires – even if he is a bit thick about what’s been staring him in the face the whole time.

Check & Mate – Ali Hazelwood
I was mildly disappointed in this one until I realised it is actually YA. Mallory Greenleaf has given up chess forever. Until she loses her job and is offered the opportunity to play competitively again, with big cash prizes on offer. Plus, she’ll have the chance to beat Nolan, the world’s best – and most annoying – chess champion.

Booked for Murder (Lindsay Gordon #5) – Val McDermid
A friend of Lindsay’s has been murdered. Which is not unusual for a murder mystery series. What is unusual is that the dead woman was murdered in an identical way to one of her characters in her half-finished book. So Lindsay has to wade into the world of editors and literary agents to figure out who knew the plot and who had the means and motive to use it.

Still Life (Karen Pirie #6) – Val McDermid
Another twisty-turny mystery. A dead man’s pulled out of the sea. He was the main suspect in his brother’s disappearance some ten years before, but then disappeared himself. How is his death now connected to him maybe having murdered his brother a decade ago?

The Vicar of Nibbleswicke – Roald Dahl
A Roald Dahl I’d never actually read before. A funny little story about a vicar who often says random words backwards. Surprisingly rude for a children’s book as the vicar talks about drinks you must SIP and not to PARK on the grass.

The Rilloby Fair
Thoroughly enjoyed by Brodie who had all sorts of theories about how the locked-room thefts were carried out. Almost none of them correct.

The Tartan Thesis – Scott K Good
Set in Edinburgh, Beau from Texas and Torin from the highlands are both studying Scottish history. They both love Scotland and Scottish history, but after getting off on the wrong foot at their first meeting they become academic rivals, complicated by the fact that under it all they really do like each other. Then their tutor tells them to work together or face being thrown off the course for their disruptive arguments and that just makes it ten times harder.

Boyfriend Material (London Calling #1) – Alexis Hall
Luc O’Donnell is the kind of character I love. He’s a totally adorable mess. He has an estranged rock-star dad, he works for a ridiculous charity, his flat is a mess… somehow he manages to get papped every time he falls over drunk. He needs to start improving his public image, like last week.

Enter Oliver Blackwood – the straight-laced lawyer who’s already harshly knocked him back. But Oliver needs a date to some events, and Luc needs someone who’s going to make him look good…

Enemies to lovers via fake dating, basically. And a lot of fun, but with some strong emotional stuff as sub plots.

The Prince and the Bodyguard (Prince Pact #4) – Nora Phoenix
I’d been waiting for this for a month after reading book three and it didn’t disappoint. Prince Gregory (of the UK) finally gets his year at university in the states. Only he has to have a bodyguard. Enter Bash, a former marine turned secret service agent. His job is to protect Greg. Not fall in love with him.

OK it’s a little bit silly that the only way the two of them can room together on campus is to pretend to be a couple in the couples-only dorm. It probably could have worked without that as it already had the forced proximity trope. But if you ignore that, then Greg and Bash were incredibly cute together.

I’m sad this series is over but Nora Phoenix has a new princes at university series coming out at the end of the year so I guess I’ll just have to look forward to that.

Winging It (Hockey Ever After #1) – Ashlyn Kane & Morgan James
This was silly but fun. Gabe and Dante fall for each other, but Gabe’s not ready to be out as a hockey player. And honestly I can’t remember a whole lot more than that about it – probably because I read too many hockey romances in such a short time.

July’s three star reads:

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – RL Stevenson
I wanted to love this because I know how influential it was for the genre, but being told by a third-party who’s only witnessing half the story, and other parts being told by letters… it was disappointing. Or at least, not what I was hoping for,

Winging It Holiday Special (Hockey Ever After #1.5) – Ashlyn Kane & Morgan James
More cuteness from Dante and Gabe, but relied heavily on a fairly silly and very huge coincidence. And someone abruptly out of nowhere making a life-changing decision on a whim.

Old Banff & McDuff – Alan Cooper
It’s like a rule that when you go on holiday in Scotland your holiday house has to have an “Old…” book about the local area. My rule is that I always read them. I mostly read them to find out about the old buildings that are still around; what they used to be, how the harbour used to look etc. I’m not so into the little anecdotes about what one family did one time in 1885. So how I rate these depends on the balance of these elements.

July’s two star reads

Body Check (Chicago Storm #1) – Piper Cross
I liked the idea of this. The general plot – closeted grumpy veteran hockey player and out sunshine rookie. But it lacked depth and had a lot of annoying mistakes, a confusing timeline, and there are a lot of accusations that AI was heavily used in the writing. Unproven, but even if not, it really needed a good editor.

Cross Check (Chicago Storm #2) – Piper Cross
And yet I still read book two, hoping that the writing/editing would have improved. Again, I loved the idea. A player accused of a betting scandal is drafted to a new team and another player is asked to house them and keep an eye on them. Nico (the accused) is practically broken by all this, but slowly finds his way back with the support of Keiran. But again, lots of idiotic mistakes like them taking their assigned seats on the coach, one is in seat 3 and the other in 11. Yet the one in 3 was the one staring at the back of 11’s head? Plus a whole lot of annoying repetition and short punchy sentences which sort of made me lean towards thinking it is AI.

July’s one star reads

None, thankfully, though the above two came close.

Not yet rated, as I didn’t finish them in July:

On Thin Ice (Maine Marauders #1) – Rebecca Norinne
Murder at the Vicarage (Miss Marple #1) – Agatha Christie
The Treasure Hunters – Lisa Thompson
The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next #1) – Jasper Fforde

What I watched

A few episodes of the Simpsons, Richard Osman’s House of Games, Only Connect and Wire in the Blood,
Red, White and Royal Blue (for the second time) and Jaws 2.
Family movies were Jurassic Park 3 and The Sheep Detectives (It took me a good few minutes to realise that the reported in The Sheep Detectives is actually Prince Henry from Red White and Royal Blue, and I think I only caught it because I watched them within days of each other.
We also started watching The Pitt which I’m not entirely sold on but I do keep watching

What I did

Visited a trinket trade box and swapped some of my extra mini books for a toy gorilla
Spent time enjoying the sun in the garden and eating strawberries we picked
Went to Broughty Ferry for their Window Dressing competition, where you had to spot the one ‘one-one-out’ item in each shop window – some were as small as a hair clip – and saw the lifeboat lego exhibition.
We went on holiday up to Banff and explored the area, mostly just wandering around exploring, finding geocaches and visiting beaches where we paddled and swam and collected sea pottery.

I have a habit of taking photos of my kindle if I happen to be reading somewhere more interesting than my house or the staffroom at work. Here’s a few of the places my kindle got taken in July.