Sorry this is a day late, I had a difficult start to the week and it was hard to engage my brain!

I have only collected two books this week. One because it was only £2.00 and the other because I was struggling with life and needed something else to focus on (plus it was only £5 in Sainsbury’s, as opposed to £12.99 in Waterstones.)

• The Guest List by Lucy Foley
• Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

I’ve discarded 3 books this week, all on Kindle.

• The Garden of Lost and Found by Harriet Evans
• Last Light by Helen Phifer
• The Girl from the Sea by Shalini Boland

The Garden of Lost and Found – I bought this last week in an impulse buy, the premise sounded really good and I actually enjoyed the first couple of chapters and the mystery surrounding the past. But then, it got a little too chaotic, and started to read more like a romantic midlife crisis and I just felt like I was wading through treacle trying to read something that had completely lost my attention. I made it to chapter 9 before I admitted defeat.

Last Light – really confused me I had thought it was the 3rd in a series but really it was the prequel to the series but I had already formed opinions about the characters and their interactions with each other and reading about the past confused the characters for me and I couldn’t quite place what I should feel nor was I able to recognise the characters as earlier interpretations of the same I was reading in the series. It lacked the drive to read, so I gave up.

The Girl from the Sea – This one had a really promising blurb, which is why I found it so disappointing that I couldn’t get on with it. It was another sort of ‘wading through treacle’ moment. There were a lot of words but they weren’t necessarily coming to life or telling me a story. The main character felt very one dimensional and she irritated me more than anything. I didn’t find myself feeling curious about her story.

I’ve actually been better this week! I’ve read 3 books so far! (I mean, considering all my other weeks of this post, I’m winning!)

• Fever of the Blood by Oscar de Muriel
• Orion Lost by Alastair Chisholm
• Last Breath by Karin Slaughter

I can’t recommend Oscar de Muriel’s Frey and McGray series enough. It’s crime in 1888, Edinburgh, mixed with the superstitious and acts of impossible nature. The banter between Frey and McGray alone begs to be read!

Orion Lost by Alastair Chisholm is a Children’s book from the 9-12 section that I impulse bought with some of my birthday book tokens. It’s about a thirteen-year-old girl who is travelling in space and suddenly finds herself in control of the situation. The five children around her are pulled into an adventure like no other…and this reads like a sequel..

Last Breath by Karin Slaughter. I’ve been hearing a lot about this author but I have never had time to read her works. This book is the 1st of 5 I have on my tbr shelves, and I thought it would be best to start with the shortest (136 pages!), and I was very impressed with the story inside the pages and how well everything came across in such a short time.

I’ve still got 3 days left, so might get to finish a few more books before the week is out!!