What I read

I beat last month’s record by three. I’m definitely getting good value for money from my Kindle Unlimited subscription this year. You’ll notice a theme… all I can say is KU is too good at recommending books based on what I’ve just read when it comes to romance. For some reason it’s not as good when it comes to any other genre. At least it’s not ALL hockey, though? Weirdly I actually enjoy reading the actual hockey parts of hockey romances. I’ve actually read some hockey romances where I’ve thought ‘there could be more hockey in this’.

You may also notice… no audiobooks! I’m still crawling my way through Murder at the Vicarage and also listening to a lot of music. (Ninth Key are my new favourite band and I’ve had them on repeat.)

Quick stats:
23 books read
138 out of 150 so far
38 ahead of schedule
1 BABAL*
0 Val McDermids
11 new authors
4 library books

August’s five star reads:

Gravity – Tal Bauer
Although this is a hockey romance it’s quite different from most of the other ones I’ve read. Much more emotional and really beautifully written. Tal Bauer’s author bio says that he writes breathtaking, heartfelt, and often action-packed gay romance novels. His characters are head over heels for each other and fight against all odds for their happy ending. Which sums it up far better than I could. Gravity is a story of two hockey players who become close friends at the All-Star tournament. Hunter’s not ready for it to be any more than that, which he comes to regret until he and Bryce end up on the same team.
Tear rating 3/5 tears. Tropes: Friends to Lovers, Secret Romance.

I could faint. I could also puke, right onto the ice, right between his skates. “Hi,” I squeak. “I wear your number.”

The Rest of the Story – Tal Bauer
I don’t know why I was surprised that this one made me cry so much after reading Gravity. Both have a (non break-up related) dramatic and tear-jerking final quarter. This one’s a bit heavier on the emotions all the way through, though. Morgan is traded to a new team and quickly finds out why it’s the worst team in the league – the players are falling apart under the abuse of the team captain. After raising hell Morgan is given charge of putting the team back together with his new co-captain Shea.
Tear rating: 4/5 tears. Tropes: Friends to Lovers, Grumpy x Sunshine.

Love was an unused muscle inside me. I’d ruin this seventeen ways before the week was out. Shea would be done with me before we’d even begun, and I’d deserve getting kicked to the curb. So I couldn’t be the guy he was waiting for. He needed someone much better than me.

The Fall – Tal Bauer
The only negative thing I have to say about this is that it ruined my run of reading a book a day. I was on six books in six days and then grabbed this thinking I could read it in 24 hours. Turns out it’s over 800 pages, so it took me a few days. But what an 800 page book it is. The blurb sounds a little bit unhinged. Torey’s hockey career is crashing, he’s got nothing to live for. Then he wakes up a year later in bed with a boyfriend he doesn’t remember, in fact he remembers nothing from the last year. He’s determined to hold onto this wonderful new life, though, and decides to fake it until he makes it. Crazy, right? Well, that’s only a fraction of the story. I don’t want to give away any of the twists but I really had no idea how it was all going to be explained in the end. I cried so many times while reading it as it gets very dark in places, there’s a lot of heartbreak and a lot of emotional moments.
Tear rating: 5/5 tears. Tropes: Amnesia, Hurt/Comfort

He is both tide and shore: every wave that threatens to swallow me ends up carrying me home to him.

Trick Shot (All These Lights #1) – LA Jasper
I spotted this one in Tesco but resisted, only to find it was 99p on Kindle and that I couldn’t resist. Nick and Matt were so cute together and although I prefer my hockey romances where both MCs are hockey players I loved Matt and his rock band.
Tear rating: 2.5 /5 tears. Tropes: Secret Romance, Hockey Player x Musician

Nick can’t imagine the kind of steel nerve it takes to expect to get clocked and still kiss somebody anyway. He’s never been that brave. He can’t imagine someone being brave enough to take that risk for him.

Unrivaled (Hockey Ever After #3) – Ashlyn Kane & Morgan James
Grady and Max sort of hate each other. Max is a rat on the ice, always trying to wind up the opposition to draw out mistakes and penalties. He really gets under Grady’s skin. So when he sees Grady on a dating app he assumes it’s someone catfishing. Only it isn’t. Somehow Max ends up trying to help Grady find someone to date, because they can’t date. They’re enemies… Lots of snarky fun as these two try their best to still hate each other even though they clearly don’t.
Tear rating: 2/5 tears. Tropes: Enemies to Lovers, Secret Romance

Grady rubbed his fingers over his stubble, but it didn’t hide the smile, which crept all the way up to his eyes and made the skin at the corners crinkle. It was such an obviously besotted expression that Max couldn’t help smiling in return. Then Grady shook his head and said, “Guess he missed my pretty face,” like he hoped it was true.

The Unlikely Spare (Unlikely Dilemmas #3) – Jax Calder
My favourite of the trilogy. Book one (see below) was a fairly standard romance. Book two (also below) introduced a more dramatic plot and book three follows on in an even more dramatic fashion. The royal spare, Prince Nicholas is off down under for a Commonwealth tour. What he doesn’t know is that threats have been made and it may be an inside job. Enter Eoin O’Connell, a police detective masquerading as his bodyguard. This is a comedic/dramatic romance so it doesn’t take itself too seriously but the drama was good, and the love/hate relationship between Nicholas and Eoin was full of great snark.
Tear rating: 1.5 tears out of 5. Tropes: Prince x Bodyguard, Enemies to Lovers

“I just want to make sure I get it correct, since my royal training didn’t quite cover the protocol for when one’s protection officer kisses one senseless during an attempted kidnapping.”

August’s four star reads:

The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next #1) – Jasper Fforde
This is my second reading of this. The next book in the series comes out later this year and so I needed to remind myself how the story went. Thursday Next is hard to explain. It’s the 1980s. Wales is an independent, self-governing communist country separate from the United Kingdom. Cheese is a major black market commodity. There’s a toast marketing board. Special Operations divisions include Literary Detectives (where Next works), The Chronoguard and Vampire and Werewolf Disposal Operations aka Suckers & Biters. And that’s not even starting on Thursday’s ability to enter books and change their endings…

Fire in the Flint (Norwich Map Runners #2) – Eva St John
Bish is now the special envoy to Norwich and is living there full time. Her envoy work is somewhat derailed by a high-profile murder, though. Cade’s still on the run and she still doesn’t know who he really is. Still loving the world building in this.

The Jewel Keepers – Sara Sheridan
Araminta McKenzie-Moore has never been to Scotland before. But then an elderly aunt – who she’d never heard of before – summons her to Edinburgh. Araminta is desperate to find out all about her family but her Aunt only has time to drop some baffling hints before she dies. Araminta is left reeling and with no idea where to start on the treasure hunt she’s inherited. An exciting romp around Edinburgh ensues with Araminta trying to unravel the clues before her enemies do.

The Treasure Hunters – Lisa Thompson
Brodie chose this as one of the books for the Summer Reading Challenge. Vincent hates any sort of sports and outdoor activities but somehow ends up as one of four children from his school signed up for The Wilderness Challenge. He is not happy. Hiking and camping and navigating by maps? Not his thing at all. Neither is hunting for real life treasure but somehow he gets roped into that as well by one of his team-mates. This was a decent read though the treasure hunting was actually quite a small part of it, much more time was given to the four misfits learning how to be friends.

The Wide Window (A Series of Unfortunate Events #3) – Lemony Snicket
After the death of Uncle Monty the Baudelaires are off to Aunt Josephine’s house. Unfortunately Aunt Josephine is terrified of almost everything from the telephone to the oven. She’s not afraid of Captain Sham, though, despite his shiny, shiny eye and poor grammar. She should have been…

Little Miss Marple: Bump in the Library – Adam Hargreaves
A funny little story with lots of famous Mr Men and Little Miss characters by Adam Hargreaves, the son of Roger Hargreaves. First Major Bump is injured in the library and then more mysterious things happen to him and Miss Marple has to unravel what’s really happening.

On Thin Ice (Maine Marauders #1) – Rebecca Norinne
A fairly standard hockey romance plot – grumpy veteran Ethan meets sunshine rookie Stryker and sparks fly. The one thing that stood out was that while Ethan was closeted Stryker was already out, which made the secret romance element more one-sided than usual.

Scoring Position (Hockey Ever After #2) – Ashlyn Kane & Morgan James
I think I liked this better than the first book in the series. Ryan – a 3rd line nobody – is traded to a new team and expressly asked to make friends with Nico who’s supposed to be a superstar but is not meeting his potential. Nico’s furious about this so they get off to a rocky start but then become friends, roommates and then more. There’s also a deeper backstory behind the move which comes out later and adds more interest to the story.

An Unrivaled Off Season (Hockey Ever After #3.5) – Ashlyn Kane & Morgan James
A novella with a bit more story about Max and Grady. I love getting more content about characters I love. Max and Grady are both trying to work out how to propose to each other over their summer break but nothing eve goes as plans.

Sex at a Funeral – K Sterling
This sounded fairly unhinged from the blurb but I’m glad I gave it a go. Skylar and Mason have liked each other since they were teens but then Mason went and married Skylar’s sister. Awkward. Skylar learns that it’s a lavender marriage but still… he shouldn’t go there. (But of course he does…) To be fair the family dramas in the background were unhinged, and I really felt for Skylar having to deal with that on top of Mason’s poor decisions.

Below the Belt – Marlowe Kent
Barnaby Fitznorman-Bicester is a marquess and an Olympic eventer. Lex Murphy is a  heavyweight boxer from Barking. These two really shouldn’t be a match made in heaven, but they bond over weird Japanese snacks and become friends and then fall for each other. This is complicated when it is revealed that Lex and his friends had a running bet as to who could pull the most unobtainable athlete at the Olympics that year and Barnaby was top of the list… Ouch.

The Unlikely Heir (Unlikely Dilemmas #1) – Jax Calder
This is the more standard romance referred to earlier – or at least as standard as Prince x Prime Minister can be. Callum was an insurance agent, 11th in line to the throne. Until a royal scandal ousted the top ten. Newly first in line, and American to boot, he flounders but finds a steadying friendship in Oliver, the prime minister. Their friendship is really lovely, but then they have to deal with the fact that royals have to be politically neutral.

The Unlikely Pair (Unlikely Dilemmas #2) – Jax Calder
Oliver’s former chief of staff Toby hates the opposition leader Harry. So it’s very frustrating that they have to attend a climate change summit together. It’s even more frustrating when they end up on the same private jet on the way there. And it’s extremely frustrating when that jet makes an emergency landing and the pilot tries to kill them. Toby and Harry have to survive in the Finnish forest while evading a group of armed men. And they have to survive each other too. Loved the snark in this book and the inevitable romance was very sweet too.

August’s three star reads:

Play the Game (Maine Marauders #2) – Rebecca Norinne
This one suffered (for me) as it was a hockey player x political advisor story. It was also a second chance story, where the two characters went from hate to friends a bit quickly. Not enough hockey for another star.

Changing the Game (Offsides #1) JJ Mulder
I will say that this was very, very sweet. Unfortunately not much happened. Definitely a cosy romance but there was really no drama – beyond about two pages where Sam wasn’t sure how his mum was going to take him bringing a boyfriend home – or heartache or anything.

August’s two star reads

Revenge Puck – Sara Ney
I should have avoided this one from the blurb. Didn’t really like either of the characters. Aaron finds his girlfriend is cheating on him with his best friend. So he decides to make his best friend’s sister fall for him the break her heart. He lets that go on way too long. Juliette – the sister – is one minute shy and sensible then throws caution to the wind for the hell of it. Didn’t understand why anyone did what they did and was kinda rooting for Juliette to end up with one of the other hockey players.

August’s one star reads

The Painting Puzzle – Sufiya Ahmed
Will do a proper review later but for now… it was bad. So bad. Avoid.

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

• Square to the Puck (Offsides #2) JJ Mulder
• Murder at the Vicarage (Miss Marple #1) – Agatha Christie
• The Ring O’Bells Mystery
• Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next #2) – Jasper Fforde
• The Portrait of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde

What I watched

• A few episodes of the Simpsons, and Only Connect.
• We finished the first season of The Pitt which got way more dramatic towards the end.
• Lego Masters Grand Masters of the Galaxy is now showing so we’ve watched the first couple of episodes of that too.

What I did

• I started my new job so I’ve been getting to grips with running a community library
• Brodie had his ninth birthday so we had a week off to do some fun things. We went to the aquarium where they’ve got otters now too, and I tried out Nando’s for the first time as a non-gluten eater. (They take it very seriously which is good.) We went for a few walks so Brodie could try out his new scooter and visited the zoo as well.
• We went on a bear hunt in Perth and managed to cross the causeway in the Tay to Moncrieffe island, right before the tide rose and it was covered again. (There’s stairs from there up onto the railway bridge so we weren’t trapped.)
• We went geocaching and found some which involved solving cryptic clues (followed by ice cream)
• There was a Lego event in town so we went along to see all the models.

I made a more deliberate effort to record places my Kindle got used, so here are the results.

How was your August?

*Books About Bookshops and Libraries