March was a mix of classics and fantasy, mostly. 15 books, 5705 pages of happy reading. Somehow I felt like it was a month of long books, books > 400 pages, but while there were many of those too, apparently there were quite a few rather short ones as well. Funny how these biases go 😄

• The Herbalist’s Apprentice, by Mabel Maplewood – A sweet cozy mystery in the lines of forgiving yourself and getting past mistakes.
• A Ghastly Catasrophe (Veronica Speedwell 10), by Deanna Raybourn – Ah, Veronica and Stoker! Danger and drama and danger of drama, and the treat of the guest-starring Lady Julia and Nick Brisbane!
• Turms kuolematon (Eng. The Etruscan), by Mika Waltari – One of the historical tomes of Waltari, very much classics of Finnish literature. Intriguing read, though a bit long-winded.
• The Ornithologists Field Guide to Love (Love’s Academic 1), by India Holton – Whimsical and magical as Holton’s books are ever. Full of magical birds and somehow villainy and heroism aren’t exactly clear 😄
• Villette, by Charlotte Brontë – I guess there’s something akin to Jane Eyre in this story about the teacher and a curmudgeon, and still I liked this one better.
• The Sun and the Starmaker, by Rachel Griffin – Starcrossed lovers, a fate to be challenged. Romantacy like a Chinese myth.
• The Geographer’s Map to Romance (Love’s Academic 2), by India Holton – No more birds, now it’s earth rumbling with magic as fey lines fail. And the walls built by our married(!) protagonist couple crumble down too. What a fate – to fall in love with your spouse! Though more like allow them to find out you fell in love long ago.
• The Violin Maker’s Secret, by Evie Woods – Magical realism. A violin born from love and tragedy, singing the sorrow of the soul bound to it. Coveted by many. Too many.
• Magic and Mischief at the Wayside Hotel, by Elizabeth Everett – Romantacy in a sentient “hotel” that’s stuck on earth with a guest list including a vampire, the Fate sisters, fairies, a bloodthirsty gnome and whatnot, even a god or two in the mix. And there’s more to come \o/
• Lady Susan / The Watsons / Sanditon, by Jane Austen – Some less known novellas/short stories by Austen. Lady Susan was a bit meh but obviously completed, whereas The Watsons really should have become a novel, same as Sanditon (which has been completed into one or maybe few versions, one of which I’ve read; probably there’s completed Watsons around too, hmm).
• Mayhem and the Mortal, by Shanora Williams – D&D meets Wizard of Oz, enemies to lovers romantacy adventure, a wild goose chase with an unexpected ending (and honestly, there NEEDS to be a sequel for this!)
• The Astral Library, by Kate Quinn – Who wouldn’t want to roam through their favorite (public domain) books? Or live in one for good? As long as the ignorant forces stay away.
• Get Over It, April Evans (Clover Lake 2), by Ashley Herring Blake – LGBTQ romance, enjoyable read .💜
• Wayward Souls (Harker & Moriarty 2), by Susan J. Morris – So, Ireland, and Samhain is nigh. Sam and Hel save the day, but Professor Moriarty is still on the loose, so expecting a book 3.
• Kingdom of the Wicked (Kingdom of the Wicked 1), by Kerri Maniscalco – First in a wicked enemies to lovers trilogy. Someone is murdering youn witches, but is it the demons, or is it your neighbor?

Mar 11, Reading India Holton’s next series (Love’s Academic) now, and I mean, her satire of every (romance) trope! Now inns don’t necessarily have even just one room left (unless such is specifically orchestrated, in which case it is the honeymoon suite), and never mind the matter of a bed. There may be a storage room with seven beds – but they’re all stacked on top of each other. Then again, the innkeeper just might surrender his kids’ rooms with sufficient bribary. And, well, you can’t have sex in a kid’s bed, now can you?

And lo and behold, the issue of holding (or inhaling) your breath! “…releasing a breath she’d not only been holding but had tied up and gagged too.” Take that unconscious breath-holders!

Mar 12, Finished Villette (by Charlotte Brontë) today and I don’t know if I really liked it better than Jane Eyre, or if the latter simply was colored in my eyes by hype (which makes me shy away from even things I might like), but I do claim to have enjoyed it (more? unlike?). I mean it is overly long, and at times boring and boorish, and it reads like a spoken narrative, with narrational styles flipping back and forth sometimes rather annoyingly, and it happily mixes in untranslated French in dialogues (though I do read that to an extent so not entirely lost on me), but the story is quite an agreeable one.