Hello all,

I’m back. I apologise for being MIA yet again and I would promise I’m sticking around but I can’t honestly say I won’t disappear again. Working from home is really not conducive to blogging. The last thing I want to do after a long day/week sitting in my house in front of a laptop is spend my evenings/weekends sitting in my house in front of a laptop. I will however endeavour to post a bit more than once every three months.

Anyway, having failed miserably at both blogging and reading the books on my summer TBR (I read 4 of 16) I’m back to try yet again with an Autumn (Fall for those of you in the US) TBR. Autumn is my absolute favourite time of the year. I’m a big fan of jumpers, boots and keeping cosy indoors with a good book. I always look forward to October in particular and picking up those chilling and creepy novels I’ve been saving up for spooky season. Needless to say you can expect a few books with ghosts, witches and maybe the odd vampire in the list that follows.

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Bookshelf books

I am unable to resist a pretty cover or a signed special edition so despite the huge number of books I own and have yet to read I’ve picked up quite a few new books in the last few weeks. It’s not my fault, they shouldn’t be releasing so many tempting books all at the same time although I have to admit my visit to Bloody Scotland last weekend and new signed fiction subscription at Bert’s Books probably haven’t helped.

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• Hyde by Craig Russell – Winner of Crime Book of the year at Bloody Scotland this is a book that I’ve been tempted to pick up for a while. I don’t typically go for historical fiction but I loved his previous book The Devil Aspect and I can never resist a book inspired by a classic or fairytale.
• Horseman by Christina Henry – Another “inspired by” story, this time based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Henry is an autobuy author for me. If she writes it, I’ll read it. It’s also a very pretty book with red sprayed edges.
• Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff – I pre-ordered a copy of this months ago and am very excited/scared to get stuck in. It is mahoosive which is slightly off putting but early reviews have all been raving about it so I’ll probably dive in soon.
• Five Minds by Guy Morpuss – This is the September book from Bert’s Books and while I hadn’t heard of it before it landed on my doormat I am very excited to read it (I think it’s going to be up first of all the books on this list). It’s a mix of science fiction and murder mystery with a really unique premise (and I love a unique premise) of five minds inhabiting one body.
• Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber – Technically hasn’t arrived yet but I pre-ordered a few months ago so should be here soon. I was a big fan of the author’s Caraval series and this seems to be set in the same world so has been one of my most anticipated books

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ARCS

I still have rather a lot of ARCs sitting waiting to read, some of which are not exactly ARCs anymore as the book has been out for a while.

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• Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney – I really should have read this by now. I’m a big fan of Feeney’s books and it sounds like a great story.
• The Doll by Yrsa Sigurdardottir – This will be my first venture into this author’s work. I can never resist a creepy doll story so I’m hoping this lives up to expectations
• The Hawthorne Legacy by Jennifer Lynne Barnes – I really liked The Inheritance Games, it did have the obligatory love triangle but the mystery side of it was great, so I’ve been keeping an eye out for the sequel.
• The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles – I have somewhat mixed feelings on this one. I loved A Gentleman in Moscow but it was very character driven and slow. I suspect this may be similar so I’ll probably need to be in the right mood for it.
• Opal Country by Chris Hammer – This will also be a new author to me but I’ve heard a lot of great things about his books and have loved the other Australian crime fiction I’ve read so I’m looking forward to it.

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Backlist books

I have a ridiculous number of books sitting on my kindle unread so I decided to move some into an Autumn TBR folder in the hope it’d be less overwhelming. I ended up with 40 books!! Even I am not delusional enough to think I’m going to read 40 books in the next couple of months (I average 1 or 2 books a week) so these are the ones I think are the most likely.

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• The Creak on the Stairs by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir – I bought this on a bit of a whim. It sounded quite creepy and I like translated fiction so fingers crossed.
• Dark Matter by Michelle Paver – Everyone seems to rave over this book so I think it’s finally time to read it and see if it lives up to the hype.
• My Best Friends Exorcism by Grady Hendrix – I read The Final Girl’s Support Group a month or so ago and really enjoyed it so I’m planning to work through the author’s backlist starting with this one. I’m a child of the 80s so I love books set in that time period, am looking forward to lots of references.
• House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland – I bought this a while back and, like many of the books I’ve bought, have been meaning to read it for a while. It’s been picked as a book of the month in one of my Goodreads groups though so that should give me the push I’ve been needing to finally read it.
• Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia – Another book I bought a while back based on all of the rave reviews. I do love a bit of a gothic horror and this sounds very similar to another book I read last year and really loved.
• Perfectly Preventable Deaths by Deirdre Sullivan – An author I follow on Twitter was raving about this book so I bought it (it really doesn’t take much to convince me to buy a book). I do absolutely love the cover and I believe there’s a sequel coming out soon so…

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Audiobooks

Finally, I have a few audio books lined up on audible.

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• The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary – This was actually on my Summer TBR but I have now downloaded it onto my phone so it’s absolutely definitely (well maybe) going to be up soon
• On Her Majesty’s Secret Service by Ian Fleming – This is a bit of a cheat as I’m around halfway through it already. It’s a little bit dated (the portrayal of women is not great) but David Tennant narrates so that’s making up for any shortfalls in the story.
• Traitor’s Blade by Sebastien de Castell – I had quite a few audible credits so used them to pick up the first three books in this series on the recommendation of someone on Goodreads. I’ve heard the narrator is excellent so here’s hoping the series is too.

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I suspect I’m being a little overly optimistic with this list and I can pretty much guarantee I’ll wander off (it’s a little light on romance) but I am hoping I can read the majority of the books on this list (or at least do better than I did with my summer TBR). Hopefully I’ll also manage to get caught up on some reviews and manage to blog a bit more frequently.

Have you read any of these? Any recommendations on where I should start? Let me know in the comments.

Happy Reading

Ax