I didn’t even notice how many books I’ve been buying recently until I looked at the dreaded bedside pile and saw what we can only call a stack. What can I say? I get excited and end up *add to basket* *add to basket* *add to basket*. Bookshops have reopened in the UK now so I will quite likely be…buying even more…

Anyway! 👋🏽 To the haul!

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The Familiars – Stacey Halls

Synopsis: Fleetwood Shuttleworth is 17 years old, married, and pregnant for the fourth time. But as the mistress at Gawthorpe Hall, she still has no living child, and her husband Richard is anxious for an heir. When Fleetwood finds a letter she isn’t supposed to read from the doctor who delivered her third stillbirth, she is dealt the crushing blow that she will not survive another pregnancy. Then she crosses paths by chance with Alice Gray, a young midwife.

The Beauty of the Wolf – Wray Delaney

Synopsis: In the age of the Faerie Queene, Elizabeth I, Lord Francis Rodermere starts to lay waste to a forest. Furious, the sorceress who dwells there scrawls a curse into the bark of the first oak he fells: A faerie boy will be born to you whose beauty will be your death.

I always get books for my birthday, which is in the first few months of the year, and these two were this year’s. I have not read the former, although it’s definitely been on my reading list for ages, so I’m glad to finally have it – and it’s such a great design, too! – but I have read The Beauty of the Wolf and I have to admit I wasn’t much of a fan.

Insurgent Empire – Priyamvada Gopal

Synopsis: Much has been written on how colonial subjects took up British and European ideas and turned them against empire when making claims to freedom and self-determination. The possibility of reverse influence has been largely overlooked. Insurgent Empire shows how Britain’s enslaved and colonial subjects were not merely victims of empire and subsequent beneficiaries of its crises of conscience but also agents whose resistance both contributed to their own liberation and shaped British ideas about freedom and who could be free.

Again, this is a book I have been meaning to read for ages. I finally decided to just go ahead and buy it, because I’m terrible at reading non-fiction otherwise. As the summary says, this book dispels the myth that countries colonised under the British Empire were passive accceptors of their fate rather than engaging in a continuous struggle for freedom. Empire is something we tend to think of as ancient, but that’s not so at all – the last countries to gain independence from Britain did not achieve it until the 1990s.

Record of a Spaceborn Few – Becky Chambers

Synopsis: Centuries after the last humans left Earth, the Exodus Fleet is a living relic, a place many are from but few outsiders have seen. Humanity has finally been accepted into the galactic community, but while this has opened doors for many, those who have not yet left for alien cities fear that their carefully cultivated way of life is under threat.

I finally purchased the third of this series in preparation for the fourth and final of the Wayfarers series. It’s out now, but I’m waiting for the paperback! (For consistency!)

The Thief – Megan-Whalen Turner

Synopsis: Eugenides, the queen’s thief, can steal anything-or so he says. When his boasting lands him in prison and the king’s magus invites him on a quest to steal a legendary object, he’s in no position to refuse. The magus thinks he has the right tool for the job, but Gen has plans of his own.

This is one that has been on my Amazon Wish List for a very long time, enough that I’m no longer even sure why? I am still excited to read it, though.

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A Deadly Education – Naomi Novik

Synopsis: Enter a school of magic unlike any you have ever encountered. There are no teachers, no holidays, friendships are purely strategic, and the odds of survival are never equal. Once you’re inside, there are only two ways out: you graduate or you die.

Naomi Novik did not disappoint. I really loved this book! It did have issues, I will admit, mostly what other people have pointed out in regards to representations of race, but I really enjoyed the diverse cast and a very engaging storyline.

The Fires of Vengeance – Evan Winter

Synopsis (for book 1): The Omehi people have been fighting an unwinnable war for generations. The lucky ones are born gifted: some have the power to call down dragons, others can be magically transformed into bigger, stronger, faster killing machines. Everyone else is fodder, destined to fight and die in the endless war. Tau Tafari wants more than this, but his plans of escape are destroyed when those closest to him are brutally murdered.

I reviewed the first of this book recently. After I read it, I had to get my hands on the sequel immediately, and thus, this book.

Mansfield Park – Jane Austen

Synopsis: Taken from the poverty of her parents’ home in Portsmouth, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank and with her cousin Edmund as her sole ally. During her uncle’s absence in Antigua, the Crawford’s arrive in the neighbourhood bringing with them the glamour of London life and a reckless taste for flirtation.

On account of the fact that I’ve been planning to read this book since last year, I thought I would finally purchase the Chiltern Classics edition I have had my eye on, and I’m glad I did!

Aside from all of these, I also have purchased quite a few eBooks, about six just this year! So I have a lot of reading to keep me occupied for the rest of it, I think!

Tell me which books you’ve been buying!!