Monthly Round-Up: January

So January's been a bit of a slow month for me again, but January is always just kind of depressing and boring so I feel like I can be let off the hook a bit because of that. Though this January wasn't as awful and boring as it could have been because I got some lovely books and got to go to some lovely events and see lovely people.

Books Read:

The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley
Wolf-Speaker by Tamora Pierce
The Indigo Spell by Richelle Mead
Vicious by V E Schwab
Emperor Mage by Tamora Pierce
The Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
The Realms of the Gods by Tamora Pierce
Dead Ends by Erin Lange

So, only 8 books this January, but I liked all of them. Though I feel like I should probably start reading more books from this century again... But I can kind of see where the whole Tamora Pierce lovefest thing has come from now. I wasn't that keen on the Alanna books when I read the first two around this time last year, but the I got on with the Immortals series much better. Maybe it'e because there were so many animals in it... I do love animals. And dragons. Let's not forget about those anytime soon.

Books reviewed:

Bloodlines by Richelle Mead

A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge

Vicious by V E Schwab

The Golden Lily and The Indigo Spell by Richelle Mead (mini-reviews)

Dead Ends by Erin Lange

I'm just realising that review-wise this was actually an okay month for me! That's put me in a much better mood now. So yeah, that was sort of it for the blog this month.

Best Book:

Vicious by V E Schwab, but Dead Ends and Book of a Thousand Days were also brilliant.

I was also lucky to get to go to a couple of publisher events this month which up until the past few months I didn't really do, and they have all been really fun. I went to Random House and Faber on Saturday, and there are some books that I'm really excited about coming out from both of them. Echo Boy by Matt Haig (RH - also, Matt Haig was at the event and he was really great), Bird by Crystal Chan (RH, and I think it just came out yesterday?), The Fearless by Emma Pass (RH - I never read Acid, but I like the sound of her new book a lot), Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Tucholke (Faber - heard some mixed things, but I am all for the creepy books so I'm excited about it), and many others coming up in the next few weeks. I also went to the Books With Bite website launch, which was also a lot of fun and there are some great books coming from Orchard/Hodder soon, too. Plus I got to see a lot of people again which was really nice because I haven't been to much since November and I like getting to see all of the UKYA bloggers in real life at things!

Um, Sherlock series 3 started and finished, and it was pretty good but, in my opinion, not as good as the first two. And The Fault in Our Stars film trailer came out! I've only watched it a couple of times, but I think it'll be a very good film. And I will cry buckets. It doesn't come out until late June over here I think, though, so plenty of time to prepare myself emotionally (who am I kidding I'll never be prepared.)