Accidentally Engaged
Reena is a great baker with a loving but interfering family.
Desperate to enter a couples’ cooking competition she persuades her next door neighbour to pretend to be engaged.
This a sweet little ‘fake engaged’ story with some interesting insight into a particular segment of American Muslim society.
It’s an engaging read but it’s not much more than that.
The Bookish Life of Nina Hill
Nina Hill is happily working in bookshop when event arounds her conspire to change her life forever.
This is a pleasant read with enjoyable turns in the plot.
Battle of the Linguist Mages
This is a fun book full of invention written by an author that shows real promise.
Her work as a PR consultant brings her into contact with the firm that produces the game and she finds herself brought into the inner circle where she learns that he vocal commands can have actual real world effects.
As I say it’s a lot of fun and I really enjoyed a lot of the invention on display here.
Unfortunately where the book falls down is in the area of plot because as the story draws to a conclusion it becomes messy and confusing.
I’m looking forward to future books where hopefully all the promise shown in this one bears fruit.
Fast Forward
This book covers the career of New Order, the Hacienda nightclub, the music of The Other Two and the relationship between himself and Gillian Gilbert (also a member of New Order).
This book is just as good a read as the previous volume but it is a little more vague about the various ructions that happened in New Order particularly as it gets to the point where Peter Hook leaves.
There does seem to be a promise to one day cover the court case where Hook sued to wind up the band and the period where Gilbert rejoined after taking leave to care for their kids.
Record Play Pause
This is a very good rock autobiography.
Morris recounts his wayward childhood, his burgeoning interest in alternative culture, drugs and particularly music.
He becomes a member of Warsaw who eventually rename themselves Joy Division.
He talks in frequently humourous detail about the trials and tribulations of being a band on the rise in the late 1970s.
The book concludes with singer Ian Curtis committing suicide and the remaining members deciding to carry on under the name New Order.
I’ve already bought the follow up to this where he covers the New Order years and I’ll be reading it next.
Very much recommended for anyone with an interest in Joy Division.
Grave Reservations
First book in a new series from the very talented Priest.
This one features a Seattle based travel agent with psychic gifts helping a homicide detective with an investigation.
It’s a very charming read. I’ve heard there will be a sequel and I’m looking forward to reading that when it comes out.
This was a decent year for reading admittedly boosted by re-reads of low quality romances and fantasies.
My favourite book of the year was Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie but that was an audiobook.
Of the books I physically read I would say it was A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik.
Ancillary Mercy
A well written and enjoyable novel.
For all that it was a tiny bit of a disappointing end.
I was listening to the (excellent) audiobooks of this series and got so drawn in that that I needed the speed of reading it myself.
I highly recommend this series to anyone who likes science fiction. The first book in particular is of the highest calibre and the other two still very good.
The Truth of the Divine
This is the sequel to Axiom’s End.
It’s an even better book than the first but by god is this one bleak.
I’m interested to see where the series goes from here. I hope there’s some uplift at some point though.
The Last Graduate
El is no longer an outcast at the Scholomance school of magic.
She has an alliance and – even better – friends.
After the events of last year everyone is enjoying a breather from attacks by the Mals.
Everyone except El!
This is a very good second installment of this series. I really hope she sticks the landing in the last book.