…and summer seems to have reached the UK at last. I’m hoping it will stay for a while as I have a week off work coming up!

Looking back at my June reading, I have read eight books this month and my favourite was Sharon Bolton’s wonderful Little Black Lies. I’ve loved all of her books (apart from Blood Harvest, which is the only one I still haven’t read) but I think this one is possibly her best so far.

Also in June, I decided to set myself the challenge of reading the three plays on my Classics Club list and I’m pleased to say that this was a success! I read all three and enjoyed them all, especially the last two. I’ve never had a lot of interest in reading plays in the past but I feel much more enthusiastic about them now and will choose some more to read soon. The plays I’ve read this month are:

Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

In another attempt to tackle my out of control TBR pile, I chose ten random books from my Goodreads to-read shelf. The idea is to go through them one by one, either reading them or deciding not to read them – so that in one way or another they can be removed from my shelf. I have read one of the ten so far (Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood, which I loved and will be reviewing very soon) and I’m hoping to continue with some of the others in July.

My final three reads this month were all historical fiction, set in three very different time periods: Godwine Kingmaker by Mercedes Rochelle (Anglo-Saxon England), Rebel Queen by Michelle Moran (19th century India) and If You Go Away by Adele Parks (the First World War). I enjoyed all three of these, especially Godwine Kingmaker – my thoughts on that one will be coming soon too!

As we move into July I am still reading The Vicomte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas; I’m loving it but it’s a very long book and I want to take my time with it. And because I can never just read one book at a time the way I used to, I’m also reading Linda Holeman’s The Devil on her Tongue, a novel set in 18th century Portugal. After this, I have a copy of The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins by Antonia Hodgson, the sequel to The Devil in the Marshalsea, which I can’t wait to start reading!

How has your June been? What will you be reading in July?

May has been a better reading month for me than April was. I read nine books, most of which I enjoyed, and have written about five of them; I’ll be posting my thoughts on the other four in the next few weeks.

The first book I read in May was a non-fiction one – Piu Marie Eatwell’s The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife and the Missing Corpse. I was pleased to find that the book was as fascinating as the title suggested! I then read The Invention of Fire by Bruce Holsinger, the sequel to A Burnable Book which I read last year. Both novels are historical thrillers following the adventures of John Gower, 14th century poet and ‘trader in secrets’.

My next read was also part of a series…When Will There Be Good News?, the third in Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie series. Having loved the first three, I’m now looking forward to reading the fourth book in the series.

A Country Doctor’s Notebook by Mikhail Bulgakov was the book chosen for me in the last Classics Club Spin. It was very different from the only other Bulgakov novel I’ve read (The Master and Margarita) but I really enjoyed it for its humour and its insights into life in a remote Russian hospital.

Back in March I signed up for the Once Upon a Time challenge. I knew this really would be a challenge for me as the genres it covers (fairy tale, folklore, fantasy and mythology) are not ones that I often read, but I’ve finally read a book that counts – Uprooted by Naomi Novik. I won’t say too much about that book here as I’m hoping to post a review soon. I also still need to tell you about The Tutor, Andrea Chapin’s new novel about William Shakespeare. I welcomed Andrea to my blog in April to talk about her research for the novel, so it was good to have an opportunity to read the book for myself.

In the middle of May I visited Dubrovnik and this inspired me to pick up Sara Nović’s new novel, Girl at War, a book set in Croatia during the Yugoslavian wars in the 1990s. Also this month, I read The Chosen Queen, the first in a trilogy of historical novels by Joanna Courtney telling the stories of three women who played an important role in the Norman Conquest. And my final May read was The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson, which I enjoyed, though maybe not quite as much as the other Ibbotson novels I’ve read.

Plans for June

As we move into June, I am in the middle of two books by two authors who are very different but both of whom I would name among my favourites: Alexandre Dumas (The Vicomte de Bragelonne) and Sharon Bolton (Little Black Lies). I want to concentrate on finishing these two books first, but I have also set myself a little challenge for June…to read the three plays on my Classics Club list. They are:

Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

I struggle with plays and have been avoiding reading these, so it would be nice to be able to cross them off my list!

Another thing I would like to do in the next few months is try some of the books on Ancient Rome that were recommended to me in the comments section of my last Historical Musings post. I have compiled a list of all the suggestions which you can see here – feel free to add more!

What are you hoping to read in June?

I read six books in April which is fewer than I usually read, but as two of them were very long books and April was another busy and stressful month for me at work, I’m happy with that! I’m glad May is here because I have lots to look forward to this month: two Bank Holidays (the first one this Monday), my birthday and a trip to Dubrovnik!

Looking back at my April reads, I started the month with The Edge of Dark by Pamela Hartshorne, a time slip novel set in York and telling the stories of two women in two different centuries whose lives are linked by a recently restored Elizabethan building. I loved the combination of history, suspense and the supernatural. While I was reading this I was also dipping into a non-fiction book, The Gothic by Nick Groom, part of the Very Short Introduction series. I particularly enjoyed Groom’s discussion of Gothic literature, but the book also covers many other aspects of Gothic culture.

The two very long books I read in April were both for reading events. The first was The Eustace Diamonds, which I read for Karen’s Anthony Trollope Bicentennial Celebration. I’m slowly working through Trollope’s Palliser novels and this is the third in the series. I did like it but found it quite repetitive and at 800 pages I thought it would never end! The second very long book was my choice for Lory’s Elizabeth Goudge Reading Week: The Child from the Sea, a historical novel based on the life of Charles II’s mistress, Lucy Walter. My first experience of Goudge’s work was a good one and I’m looking forward to trying more of her books.

After spending some time in the 17th century with Lucy Walter, I then went back to a much earlier period – to the 7th century, in fact – and met Edwin: High King of Britain. This is the first in a trilogy by Edoardo Albert called Northumbrian Thrones and I found it both a fascinating and an educational read.

The final book I read in April – and the only one I haven’t had time to write about yet – was The Fatal Flame, Lyndsay Faye’s third Timothy Wilde mystery novel set in 19th century New York City. I enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed her previous two, The Gods of Gotham and Seven for a Secret, so I was sad to discover that it’s the last in a trilogy (I had been hoping she would go on to write more books in the series).

As we move into May I have three books on the go (I wish I could go back to the days when I only read one book at a time, but that just doesn’t seem possible any more). I’m reading Piu Marie Eatwell’s intriguingly titled The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife And The Missing Corpse, Kate Atkinson’s third Jackson Brodie book, When Will There Be Good News?, and The Invention of Fire, Bruce Holsinger’s second historical mystery novel. As soon as I finish one or two of those I will be starting my book for the Classics Club Spin and I also want to read at least one book for the Once Upon a Time Challenge.

Did you have a good April? What are you hoping to read in May?

March is over and I can’t say that I’m sorry to see it go. It’s been a stressful month for me at work as the woman I’ve been working with and sharing an office with for the last six years retired last week and the company directors decided to take the opportunity to restructure our department. This means that I’ve spent the whole month not knowing if my job would be changing, who I would be working with and even where I would be working. Things are settling down now and while I’m not exactly thrilled about the changes, at least I know what’s happening now and I’m hoping April is going to be a better month for me.

In terms of reading, March got off to a great start with Ross Poldark, the first of Winston Graham’s Poldark series which I really enjoyed and finished just in time for the start of the BBC’s new adaptation. I also finished two long novels that I had begun in February. One of these was George Eliot’s classic novel set in Renaissance Italy, Romola, a detailed and demanding read but one that I loved; the second was Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh, the first in a trilogy set during the Opium Wars. Sea of Poppies ended on a cliffhanger but luckily I had a copy of the sequel, River of Smoke, so I could start that one straight away!

I managed to read two books for Jess’s Forgotten Histories challenge. One was Temeraire by Naomi Novik, an alternate history in which dragons play a part in the Napoleonic Wars. The other was City of God by Cecelia Holland, a novel set in Borgia-ruled Rome. I’m interested in reading more by both of these authors, particularly Naomi Novik – I have the second Temeraire novel, Throne of Jade, and also a review copy of her new novel Uprooted waiting to be read.

I also read two Tudor novels this month – Dark Fire, the second book in CJ Sansom’s Shardlake series, and The Tapestry, the third and final volume of Nancy Bilyeau’s Joanna Stafford trilogy. I read some non-fiction too – An Accidental Tragedy by Roderick Graham, a biography of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Rebellion, the latest book in Peter Ackroyd’s History of England series. And I continued working through Baroness Orczy’s Scarlet Pimpernel books; The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel is a collection of short stories and although they were fun to read I’m disappointed that none of the Pimpernel sequels I’ve tried so far are as good as the original novel.

There were also two books that I started reading towards the end of the month but didn’t finish. I read the first three chapters of The Marigold Chain by Stella Riley, which I was interested in reading because I’d heard that it was similar to Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles; I wasn’t prepared for just how similar it was, to the point where it made me feel uncomfortable and I had to stop reading. I gave up on The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro as well. It was a very intriguing book with some fascinating concepts and ideas, but somewhere in the middle I accepted that I wasn’t engaging with either the story or the characters and couldn’t go any further. I’ll probably write more about that book soon as I did read more than half of it before abandoning it.

In April I’m hoping to read The Eustace Diamonds for Karen’s Anthony Trollope Bicentennial Celebration. Lory is also hosting an Elizabeth Goudge Reading Week and I would like to read something for that too. And of course, there’s Easter to look forward to this weekend!

What did you read in March? Do you have any plans for April?