Monthly Summary: September 2016 Wrap Up

Hey bookish friends – the end of the month has arrived, so it’s wrap up time.

After a summer of nothing but reading, I returned to university this month to study Mental Health Nursing. So yay to me and 3 more years of studying….but once I graduate, I can combine that with my degree in criminology and really understand all these crime fiction criminals. In the real world setting, I would like to work in a [young offender] forensic mental health setting. That’s all the non-bookish news I have, so let’s move on…

I didn’t get through as many books as last month but it was still a good reading month.

The Good

These three books stole the show this month:

1. Bird Box by Josh Malerman was utterly terrifying, if you’re looking for a creepy read this Halloween, I highly recommend it – you can read my review here.
2. As part of #diverseATHON, I read Journey Under the Midnight Sun by Keigo Higashino along with a bookish friend of mine, my first crime fiction read by a Japanese author, if you enjoy a good mystery book, then I cannot recommend this one enough – you can read our review here.
3. Meet my new favourite read of 2016 so far – Method 15/33 by Shannon Kirk. I can’t rave about this book enough, read my review for this great title here.

This month I was introduced to DI Simon Fenchurch, in a new police procedural series set in the heart of East London, written by Ed James. Both books earned a solid 4 star rating: Book 1 – The Hope That Kills (review here) and Book 2 – Worth Killing For (review here). Needless to say, I am looking forward to book 3!

Thanks to my local library, I was able to get my hands on a copy The Missing by C.L. Taylor, a refreshing psychological thriller about a missing fifteen-year-old (review here). Before the blog, I read ‘The Lie’, also by Taylor, which I really enjoyed, hopefully I can get my hands on a copy of ‘The Accident’ soon!

Different Class by Joanne Harris, was my fist buddy read of the month, a slow-building psychological thriller, with an unsettling undercurrent throughout (review here).

If you don’t want anything to unsettling from a psychological thriller, I recommend Anna Snoekstra’s debut novel – Only Daughter. I referred to it as ‘the last of the summer reads’ – a quick, easy and enjoyable ready (review here).

The Fire Child by S.K. Tremayne gave me a taste of the supernatural, the last third of this book was utterly gripping, this is where this book really earned its stars (review here).

Kimberley McCreight’s Reconstructing Amelia came highly recommend to me this month, and while it didn’t quite live up to my expectations, it’s a book I would highly recommend to younger readers, I just felt too old for the story (review here)

The Bad

I’m pleased to say, I did not read a single book this month that fits in this category (although I did abandon Illuminae for genre reasons, you can catch up with my bookish rambling here).

The New

As, I’m sure, is the case with most of you, I again appear to have acquired more books this month than I have read. This months newest additions:

1. Without Trace by Simon Brooker
2. The Ice Princess by Camilla Lackberg
3. Exhume by Danielle Girad
4. The Wolf Road by Beth Lewis
5. Alex by Pierre Lemaitre
6. The Swedish Girl by Alex Gray
7. My Girl by Jack Jordan
8. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz
9. The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
10. Bone by Bone by Sanjida Kay
11. Dead Simple by Peter James
12. My Husband’s Wife by Jane Corry
13. Nemesis by Roger A. Price
14. Jihadi: A :love Story by Yusuf Toropov
15. Someone Else’s Skin by Sarah Hillary
16. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
17. Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
18. In Bitter Chill by Sarah Ward
19. House of Thieves by Charles Belfoure
20. Undertow by Elizabeth Heathcote

I also received eight new books through Read it, Swap It which are mentioned here, and my latest swap was for ‘The Business of Dying’ by Simon Kernick.

According to Goodreads my current owned TBR stands at 124 books!

October Readathons

Lauren @ Wonderless Reviews is hosting an amazing Halloween Read-A-Thon from the 10th – 31st October which I looking forward to participating it. My Read-A-Thon TBR is currently being finalised and will be announced soon….but for now head on over to the original post to find out more.

I will also be participating in Diverse Detective Fiction Month. The first book I will be reading for this challenge is Along Came a Spider by James Patterson.

As I wrap up my second month as a book blogger, I again want to thank you all for taking the time to read, engage with and share my posts!