April Wrap Up

April really did live up to it's April Showers name last month some pretty wacky weather, raining, snowing, hail, sunshine, it really could not make up its mind! Despite the weather though April was a nice month with three wonderful events I went to. The first one was actually the tale end of my bday celebrations with friends, where I had an a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory themed afternoon tea which was delightful. The food was unlimited and we had a very special Willy Wonka chocolate tea which was actually divine. It was also just lovely to catch up with my friends that I hadn't seen in a while. 

The next event I had the pleasure of attending was Isabelle Broom's book launch for her gorgeous debut My Map of You. This was also one of the books I read this month. Isabelle has one of the best jobs in the world in my opinion, she is Heat magazine's Book Editor and I think she is great. I was thrilled to hear her debut was publishing and even though I had to leave a bit early it was great to go to her book launch and also catch up with other fabulously bookish people.

The last event for April was the Books With Bite blogger event. Books with Bite are the young adult publishing group of Hachette and are a mash up of Quercus, Orion, Hodder and Little, Brown. I am so into my YA fiction at the moment, and there are some absolute delights coming out from all those imprints very soon. 

More on my Books with Bite event on Friday, but other non- book things that happened were that I went on holiday to the Isle of Wight. I love it over there and the weather held good for us over the bank holiday weekend apart from a little rainy Monday, but it was nice to have a break from work. Now onto the books I read in April.

Considering how busy I usually am and my current work load, I was quite impressed with the 8 books that I managed to read this month and all of them except one were pretty hefty books.

1. The Girl of Ink and Stars by Kiran Milwood-Hargrave

This was such a beautifully crafted, well put together story, full of magic, friendship and bravery. Upon opening, my imagination was immediately whisked away to the island of Joya. It felt fairytale like in its storytelling and its setting and I got completely lost in amongst the pages. I can't quite believe this is a debut as it was just utterly fantastic.

2. My Map of You by Isabelle Broom

I was so excited to hear that Heat's very own Book Editor had her debut coming out and I got stuck straight in. If you have never been to the Greek island of Zakynthos (like me) then after reading this, you will be hankering to go. My Map of You makes for perfect summer reading and I liked the little unexpected twists and turns this story had. Summer hurry up now please!

3. The Missing by C.L Taylor

Cally Taylor fast became one of my favourite thriller authors when I read her second book The Lie last year. I had been so excited for her third book The Missing and although not as good as The Lie, this was still an excellent thriller that had me gripped from start to finish.

4. The Doubt Factory by Paolo Bacigalupi

This book started off really really good with a mysterious gang that leave 2.0 spray painted in places and a boy that seems to be stalking the main character Alix, but I'm sad to say that it got quite boring and very political very quickly. Great concept but just got to much and too unrealistic in places.

5. Foxlowe by Eleanor Wasserberg

I so wanted this book to be good as it had such an intriguing premise about a different kind of family that don't interact with the 'outside' world. I thought this was going to be really gritty and have me hooked, but the whole way through I just felt so completely detached from the entire story.

6. Yellow Brick War by Danielle Paige

I was all set up for this book to be the last in the series, but it's not and I am so happy as I am not quite ready to leave this twisted world of Oz just yet. This is the third book in the Dorothy Must Die series- the story after the story of The Wizard of Oz and it's gruesome and not wholesome but I have been loving it. Bring on book four!

7. Relativity by Antonia Hayes

There was something beautiful about the way that Relativity was written. I just loved the theme of physics running throughout the novel, I never thought you would be able to incorporate elements of physics and it’s theories and use them to explain human emotions and make it work, but Antonia has managed to mix them so well and make it an enlightening and heartfelt experience. I was expecting the science elements to throw me a bit, but this wasn’t the case at all. If anything this story would not have been the wonderful story that it was without it. A very original, clever story that is simply beautiful.

8. The Last Days of Summer by Vanessa Ronan

There was something close and claustrophobic about reading this and this was further emphasised by the blistering heat and humidity of where the book is set. It was a lot darker that I had anticipated and the author leaves very little to the imagination in her descriptions, it's explicit in its detailing. Vanessa is brilliant at creating not only a vivid setting, but a palpable one, I felt like I was right there in Texas in amongst the characters and you could sense the tension between them. A vivid and suspenseful debut from Vanessa Ronan. 

That ends another bookish wrap up. Let me know if you have read and enjoyed (or not) any of the above.