All The Books I Can Read

1 girl….2 many books!

Jul 8

Review: The Couples Retreat by Mercedes Mercier

by 1girl2manybooks

The Couples Retreat
Mercedes Mercier
Penguin Random House AUS
2026, 336p
Read via my local library

Blurb {from the publisher/Goodreads.com}: There’s nothing more dangerous than someone who remembers who you used to be.

At a secluded beachfront mansion on Kangaroo Island, three wealthy couples gather for a weekend of partying and luxury indulgence. But beneath the glitter and excess, deep rivalries and explosive secrets fester between the old friends.

When they wake to a shocking murder scene, they are gripped first by fear, then by suspicion. With ferry services suspended due to a storm, the survivors and the killer remain trapped on the island together.

Thrust into the biggest case of her fledgling career, rookie police officer Emily Quinn quickly discovers that the locals are mistrustful of outsiders. When her dangerous ex-boyfriend tracks her down, Quinn’s past and present collide in spectacular fashion, threatening not only her new life, but the investigation of the most gruesome crime in the island’s history.

Set in one of Australia’s most beautiful locations, The Couples Retreat is a twisty, compulsive thriller that proves privilege cannot protect you from everything, and no one is as perfect as they seem.

Mercedes Mercier is one of those authors that’s been on my radar for a while but I haven’t had an opportunity to pick up one of her books. However this one was one of the books for my online book club and it was also going to be one of the two that we would be discussing live at our in person retreat. This is the fourth time about 100 of the book club have met up at a location for three days of bookish fun. I wrote more about that here and although I’ve been bad at finishing the book club books this year, I made a big effort to read both the books that were being discussed there, on top of the books I had to read for panel hosting duties. Luckily my library had this one available and I finished it three days before I needed to be at the retreat.

It centres around a young police officer named Emily Quinn who has recently been transferred to Kangaroo Island, an island off the coast of South Australia. It’s accessible by ferry or small plane and has a population of about 5000 and although it has several popular industries like wine and farming, it probably is most known for being a tourism destination, attracting a large number of visitors annually. It also experienced quite devastating bushfires a few seasons ago and is very much in a state of recovery mode. A part of the island is a National Park. I am not sure I’ve ever read a book set solely there before – if I have, I can’t remember but the setting was one of the reasons I was really looking forward to reading this one. When reading Australian books, I always love to find somewhere that feels new. I haven’t been to Kangaroo Island (I’ve only been to South Australia once in my life, actually for the very first in person book club retreat and haven’t explored extensively) so I was looking forward to getting to experience it as a setting.

Emily was raised by her parents to be independent, which means they basically weren’t going to support her after she finished school so she joined the police force as a way to get herself a well paying job that would enable her to support herself. After an incident in her personal life, she put in for a transfer and is arriving fresh on Kangaroo Island. On the ferry going over she observes several married couples who are heading to the island for a break. They are obviously very wealthy and Emily eavesdrops on their conversations unintentionally (she’s outside on the ferry to combat feeling unwell and can’t really avoid hearing them talking). As well as Emily’s perspective, we also get the perspective of one person who makes up the three couples heading to the island to stay in an exclusive holiday house. Ashley and her husband Nick are loosely connected to the other two couples – Nick went to university with both of the men and seems to be desperate to hang onto their favour. Ashley is less enamoured with them, having grown up in a very different lifestyle. She finds the men overbearing, entitled and gross and their wives fake and vacuous. But one of them has invested in Ashley and Nick’s athletic wear brand and they’re sort of stuck with him. Especially as Nick wants to ask him to invest more. Ashley is forced to go along with this vacation for the betterment of the brand, despite the fact that the friendship with these two couples is clearly driving a wedge between her and Nick.

You can guess what happens – after a few days settling in to her new home and being made to feel like a stranger for not being local, Emily and one of her colleagues are called to a murder at that exclusive holiday house. Several of the people staying there are dead, stabbed to death in a violent manner. There are some survivors who weren’t a part of the attack – are they the perpetrators, playing innocent to get away with it? Or did someone manage to find their way onto this property, attack and murder several of the people staying there and all without disturbing those who were unharmed? And while she’s dealing with her first murder investigation, Emily is also finding that the personal issue she left the mainland to escape has followed her to Kangaroo Island and it’s complicating her new job.

I have to say, well done to Mercedes Mercier for making several of these characters completely and utterly insufferable. The sort of characters where you actually hope that they’re the ones from the prologue that end up with the stab wounds – or is that just me? I think the story was told very well, alternating between Emily and our other perspective, which gave the reader an insight into both sides of the story, a glimpse into that wealthy and privileged lifestyle of excess….and then what happened when it all went wrong and some of them ended up dead. We also got a lot of complexity in Ashley’s narration, her feelings about being forced into this friendship where it’s quite clear she doesn’t like any of them really and they have no time for her either, because she’s not from their world. It’s causing problems in her marriage, she’s feeling quite distant from her husband and even though their brand has kind of really gone gangbusters, there’s always more expansion, always a need for more capital, which they don’t have. So they (well, Nick) continue to curry favour with these much wealthier couples, Nick seeks to be seen as ‘one of them’, part of that same crew. But he’s not and everyone knows it.

I also thought that the showing of Emily trying to fit in at her new role, taking up residence at a place that’s remote and insular, was well portrayed. There are a lot of places in Australia where you’re not seen as a ‘local’ unless you’re born and bred there, sometimes you can live there for decades and still be seen as the ‘blow-in’! Emily is trying to get to know her new colleagues, something that is complicated by several issues, she’s trying to settle into her new home, get the lay of the land. She’s thrown into a really big situation pretty much immediately, then she’s got the added personal drama that ends up cropping up again. Look there was a bit of a feeling for me that this wasn’t a super long book, so some of these things felt a bit glossed over, there was less focus but it was just there to complicate things a bit more or confuse Emily. A lot is made to how she was raised but…it kind of doesn’t really go anywhere, or really mean anything, I thought it might come up again later but it’s really only to showcase why she’s a police officer I guess and why she feels like she might have to deal with things on her own. I also feel like Emily is a character that Mercier could return to in the future, if she wanted to.

This was a tight, fast-paced story that moved along really well, gave some really creepy vibes and did a good job at exploiting its remote location and inaccessibility. I don’t read a lot of crime these days but I did enjoy this one! I should go back and read her earlier books because I’ve heard really good things about them.

7/10

Book #125 of 2026

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Jul 7

Top 10 Tuesday 7th July

by 1girl2manybooks

Hello and welcome to another edition of Top 10 Tuesday! Hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl, it features a different bookish related theme or topic each week.

This week it’s kind of half a freebie – we get to pick a word and include books with that word in the title. I had a bit of think about what word I wanted to go with and in the end, I got boringly inspired by the weather. It’s the depths of winter here and to many in the Northern Hemisphere, it doesn’t get truly cold where I live. However, it does get cold in terms of for Australia as a whole. I live in one of the coldest parts and we do have a genuine winter. It’s been 0 degrees C the last couple mornings when I’ve woken up! It doesn’t snow where I am precisely (I’m at sea level, so too low for snow) but it does snow on the Alps that are just a couple hours drive away and it snows in other parts of Victoria that are even closer. So….I decided to go with:

Books With Cold In The Title

Because that’s what I am right now. Cold. I’m actually typing this with fingerless gloves on, because my hands and feet are forever cold, even when it’s not actually cold. I feel the cold pretty strongly and winter is a miserable time for me. Unfortunate that I’ve ended up in one of the colder parts of the country, really!

Cold Coast by Robyn Mundy

I read this one about five years ago and it revolves around a woman who ventures into Svalbard to work as a trapper, decidedly not a woman’s domain, in the 1930s. I am really drawn to anything featuring either the Arctic or Antarctic, so I was super keen on this. It’s a fictionalised account of a real person and I enjoyed it a lot.

The Last Cold Place: A Field Season Studying Penguins In Antarctica by Naira De Gracia

Speaking of the Antarctic, here we are! This one has been on my wish list for a while now but doesn’t have an Australian distribution so it’s been pretty expensive. I keep watching it, hoping it’ll come down to a reasonable price and when/if it does….I’ll snap it up. I love anything about Antarctica and penguins are my favourite animal. Look at these cute little chinstrap penguins! I have a bunch of penguin related books on my wish list and I recently purchased another book about the research of Adélie penguins that I hope to get to soon.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

This has been on my vague TBR for decades as ‘a book I should get to one day’ but recently I read (I listened to it and quite recommend the Michael C. Hall narrated version) Breakfast At Tiffany’s by Truman Capote, which is a text for a class I am taking this study period. I really enjoyed it, far more than I expected to and it’s made me want to push this one back up my priority list.

The Coldest Girl In Coldtown by Holly Black

It’s me, I’m the girl. I love the Holly Black Folk Of The Air trilogy but I honestly have never thought to read this because that’s a terrible title. Maybe if you read it, it’s profound or something….but it just is very off-putting to me. Which I get is very shallow, especially because I’ve liked this author’s writing.

Cold Day In July by Stella Cameron

Isn’t it funny that I found two books with this title (the other is just Cold In July) and they’re both set in the US – Louisiana for this one, Texas for the other one and….. yeah. Anyway, this perfectly fits today because it’s almost 10am as I’m writing this and it is still 5*C (about 41*F).

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

I haven’t read this one either, we do own a copy though. Somewhere.

Before The Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Stepping away from cold environments for a moment for the first in this Japanese series about a cafe that will allow a patron to travel in time. I enjoyed the first two, I’m about 3-4 behind now, not sure why I haven’t picked up the rest. I will at some point.

The Book Of Cold Cases by Simone St. James

I’ve heard really good things about this book and this author. I don’t read much crime anymore but I’m tempted by this one.

Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie

I’ve never read Joe Abercrombie but this series in particular, is pretty popular. I hear a lot about it from people that love a lot of fantasy, especially grimdark or dark fantasy. Maybe one to try in the future although there’s already like a dozen or so books and that’s a big commitment.

Cold-Hearted Rake by Lisa Kleypas

I feel like I missed the Lisa Kleypas boat – several of her historical romance series are really popular but I didn’t get to read them when they were published, my library never has any of them and they’re always quite expensive on Kindle. So I haven’t read this one, which is the first in the Ravenels series. I mostly hear about books 2&3 in this series, a lot of people hold them up as their favourite historical romances.

I tried to choose a range of books that all had cold in the title, including using it to mean different things. Some I’ve read, others I haven’t, some I hope to read one day. I kind of amused myself finding so many books with cold in the title, I could’ve done this post a dozen times over probably. It was a good way to pass a frosty winter’s morning.

Let me know if you’ve read any of my cold titles. And are you a winter person or a summer person? Or do you prefer the moderate seasons in-between? If I had to pick a favourite season, it’s probably autumn/fall but that season here again, gives very different vibes to a northern fall….here it’s just summer, part 2 without the bit that burns you.

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Jul 6

Review: Heavenly Bodies by Imani Erriu

by 1girl2manybooks

Heavenly Bodies (Heavenly Bodies #1)
Imani Erriu
Penguin Viking
2024 (originally 2022), 515p
Purchased personal copy

Blurb {from the publisher/Goodreads.com}: You know the most dangerous kind of villain? A woman with nothing left to lose.

In a world ruled by the Stars, cruel and merciless gods, Elara has been cursed by fate.

A prophecy promises she will fall for a Star, but that it will kill them both.

Yet when the Star of Wrath and War descends to hunt Elara, the neighbouring kingdom sees an opportunity to take her from her home, the Kingdom of Night, to Helios, Kingdom of Light. Where she strides straight into the arms of an enemy prince.

There, Elara is forced to either let Prince Lorenzo train her into a weapon worthy of battling against the tyrannical reign of the Stars, or to accept her fate.

But there are shadows even within the Kingdom of Light – and they threaten to reveal the darkness in Lorenzo’s past and the ancient magic that slumbers in Elara’s veins.

And with it all, the undeniable, star-crossed pull between them . . .

I thought I would love this! I’ve heard such good things about it, people seem really excited about the sequel and the series as a whole. I got this for Mother’s Day last year and it’s sat on my shelf for over a year and then I added it to my 20 Books of Winter as part of a bunch of first in a series books that I’d had for a while, to make decisions about them. Did I want to continue buying the series, could I get future instalments from my library or would it just be best to part ways with the series?

There’s been a couple of weeks between me reading this and me writing this review and honestly, quite a bit of this has faded from my clear memory. I meant to start this review before the event I had that wiped me out for a solid week but didn’t get around to it with all the other tasks I had to complete.

Elara is a princess and after her birth, she was given a prophecy that said she will fall in love with a Star, but it will kill them both. This is a land ruled by the Stars, they’re kind of based on the 12 signs of the Zodiac, with one or other being the one that each country or nation, worships or prays to. One of the Stars, the Star of Wrath and War, takes exception to the prophecy. There are other aspects to the prophecy – I think she can’t be killed by him but it’s foretold that she can kill a Star, so he’s determined to remove her as a threat before she is one, or something like that. He murders her entire family, enslaves her court and whilst this is happening, the neighbouring court decides to kidnap her and hone her as a weapon, given she is believed to be able to kill a Star.

Elara isn’t a fan of her new home. They’ve been enemies her entire life and now she’s supposed to be trained by Prince Lorenzo in order to defeat the Star of Wrath and War. They do not hit it off – until they do, of course. But always looming over them is the prophecy. Elara is promised to another and it will be her/their downfall. How do they compete with that?

I think my biggest problem with this is, is that it both felt too long and yet also like the relationship, if you can call it that, between Elara and Lorenzo, felt rushed and like it was being forced on me instead of being allowed to develop organically. The book opens with Elara being kidnapped, taken from her own kingdom to a neighbouring one that they’ve basically been on and off at war with, or at least, hostilities with, her whole life. Hers is a kingdom of dark and shadows, this one is a kingdom of light. Elara possesses several different forms of magic, one of which she can’t access at the moment. The King of the country that has kidnapped her tasks his oldest son Lorenzo, with ‘training’ Elara, honing her as the weapon the King wants her to be. Elara is resentful – she doesn’t want to be here, she wants to go back to her kingdom and help free her people. But she reluctantly realises that in order to do that, she must learn to protect herself in what is sure to be a fight that will require every single bit of her skill and then some. She will have to defeat a God. And so she agrees – but her and Lorenzo fight and taunt each other and revel in their misconceptions about each other’s deeds and the deeds of others in the kingdoms.

It was so tedious. I honestly did not care. Both of them came across as childish and spoiled and okay, they’re royalty so maybe they are. But I just could not bring myself to become invested in this pairing throughout the entire story, even as they form a wary truce and then start to know each other more and then it just becomes a swift and all encompassing love story that both know is probably doomed because of this prophecy, etc. This was originally self published and from what I’ve read, the author did make some plot changes between the self and traditional publishing but for me, this still felt like it could’ve done with another round of edits. So much of the fighting training just felt generic, not like we were gearing up to fight a God. And not going to lie, there were a few things that felt ultra convenient – people with secret identities that just happen to be extremely helpful, etc.

However, there was a semi-decent twist at the end that saved this from being something that I really didn’t like, into something that I felt was just okay. But I also felt like that also felt mighty convenient? I might read the second one in the series however I’d get it from my library and I’m probably going to donate this one or pass it onto someone else. I don’t see the need to keep it on my shelf as I’m not going to re-read it and I don’t want to collect the whole series.

5/10

Book #124 of 2026

This is the 4th book I’ve read from my 20 Books of Winter list. I’m a little behind where I wanted to be, but hopefully I can catch up next month!

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Jul 3

Fun Friday: The Rachael Johns Book Club Retreat 2026 aka v4.0

by 1girl2manybooks

I have talked about the book club retreat that I go to each year quite a few times on this blog. For the last….7? I think? Years, I have been the online admin/moderator of an online book club run by Aussie authors Rachael Johns and Anthea Hodgson. Each month we read and discuss a book, most often by an Australian author with attention paid to a wide variety of genres etc. In 2023, we held the first annual in person retreat, in South Australia. It was followed up by the Gold Coast, Perth and this year, we were in Geelong for the fourth one. Technically it runs Friday to Sunday but quite a few people often arrive a bit earlier/stay a bit later. It’s a good opportunity for many people to take a small break for themselves, see and explore places they might never have been before, that sort of thing. Last year I stayed a couple extra days in Perth, went to Rottnest Island and did a couple other things. This year however, the retreat was only an hour away from me and was in a city that I am very familiar with and have spent a lot of time in, so I was only going Thursday to Monday.

I checked in around lunch time on the Thursday and chilled in my room for a bit and then popped over to the shops to grab a few things to have as snacks throughout the days. In the afternoon there was this rainshower that then treated me to this amazing view from outside my balcony:

Day 1

The event always starts at about 4-5pm on Friday with registration but there’s always quite a bit of organisational stuff to do – the making up of swags, name tags, cross referencing, sorting and wrapping of prizes, just little tiny organisational things that take up time. On the Friday night, the first event is always a welcome cocktail party with some games and ice breaker activities and there’s always a dress up theme. This year, in honour of Anthea Hodgson’s new release, The Palace Of Lost Virtue which is set in Kalgoorlie in the late 1800s and 1926, it was a miners or madams theme! There were some INCREDIBLE outfits.

Day 2

Saturday was an early one – I was up just after 6 to help the book seller (Dymocks Waurn Ponds) with their stock and with set up. Whilst that was going on, some others were in the optional Yoga class, taught by Sophie Green. At 8.30, the day officially started with a welcome, acknowledgment of country and a brief discussion on the book Rachael has recently finished, a co-written cosy crime series with Mercedes Mercier. It’ll be out in January of 2027, I believe and….I can’t say too much but I think it’s going to be AMAZING.

The first book we discussed was The Palace Of Lost Virtue by Anthea Hodgson. I feel like I have been hearing about this book for a few years now, as Anthea has spent a lot of time researching and writing it and it’s now out in the world and it’s so incredible! I finished this one about two days before the retreat started and it was absolutely fantastic. I’ll have a review of it up here on the blog really soon. Anthea is a great speaker, she’s very funny and this book was clearly a real passion project for her and I hope it does really well.

We had morning tea and then the first round of speed dating with authors, which is always a highlight although I will say, this one, the room was a bit….intimate and it made for definitely a lot of noise and struggle to hear the author. However I love being able to chat with authors in this manner, hear what they’re working on and sometimes they have questions for us as well. For example, one author asked us how many points of view we thought were too many and received a lot of answers that had them thinking about how many to include.

After lunch was the first author panel that I was chairing, titled You Never Forget Your First Time. On the panel was the wonderful Brooke Crawford, author of Better Than The Real Thing, Holly Brunnbauer, author of What Did I Miss?, Sarah Clutton, author of The Bookshop Of Buried Pasts (and other novels) and Leearna Shaw, author of A Farm In Golden Clouds. All of these authors were amazing and had such interesting stories about being published and their writing processes and were just warm and generally really engaging and made my job so much easier. I’ve spoken before how anxious I get before doing these but when you have great people on there, it really does make it a wonderful experience. I’m always glad I push myself to do these things, it’s just the lead up that is nerve-racking!

After that, there was another panel, hosted by Sophie Green called Why Are We All So Obsessed With Crime? featuring Holly Craig, Kate Solly, Michelle Prak and Georgia Harper. Also an incredible panel, lots of really fun discussion on this one and this combined with Holly’s speed dating had me adding her book to my wish list right away.

That basically wrapped up the first part of the Saturday – there was a designated author signing time and I went upstairs and lugged a large amount of books back to be signed in 2 trips! Because this one was close, I packed an entire suitcase of books to get signed (and I still didn’t mange to get them all done) whereas in previous years, I’ve been restricted to taking 1 or 2 to be signed.

It was time to get ready for the formal dinner after that and look….if you were there…. let’s just say someone accidentally set off a fire alarm but she maintains it was not her fault and….yeah. Ironing is dangerous. We all should just do less of it. That’s all I have to say about that.

The formal dinner is always a fun time as well. This year the theme was tropical break – wear what you’d want to wear on a fun beach or tropical break with your besties. We were supposed to be chatting to Anita Heiss about her newest release, which fit this theme but she had a personal situation that meant she could no longer attend. I got to hang out a little with one of my family members Chelle, who was one of the book sellers on the day and stayed for the formal dinner.

I’m really careful about what I eat because of my medical condition but this meal was super delicious and did not flare anything. Big win!

Day 3

Sunday morning….yeah I did not get out of bed until pretty late! I think that was the only decent sleep I got whilst I was there. I had a very late rushed breakfast in the buffet before arriving into the room just on 9am for the discussion on the other book we were focusing on, The Couple’s Retreat by Mercedes Mercier. Anthea interviewed Mercedes, who had loads of interesting stories. We then had morning tea, the second of the author speed dating sessions, lunch and then my second panel: What Authors Get Up To Behind Closed Doors. This one was all about what they might do when they’re supposed to be writing – the snacks, the procrastination, that sort of stuff! On the panel was Alli Sinclair, Fiona Lowe, Claire van Ryn and Lauren McKellar. This panel was also really incredible, lots of funny moments and stories. Highlight was probably Fiona Lowe’s story about her son finding a dating app on her phone that was….for research purposes.

I stole both the phots of my panels from someone, perhaps someone on my Not My Best Friends crew, so thank you to whoever took these!

We then had the inaugural Romance Knockout which was a gameshow that had multiple rounds and knocked out one of the authors each round. I was one of the judges alongside Sophie Green and Anthea’s daughter Audrey. This was loads of laughs and the eventual winner was Emma Pignatiello, whose answers were so fun and creative – I would 100% read her populate Mars, there’s only one bed in the spaceship story. Someone snap that up! Emma Mugglestone, the runner up, I’ve read her books before and they’re great, so her pitches also sounded incredible.

The finale, as it is every year, was The Great Debate. I think this is always one of the funniest things and this year’s topic was This House Believes That Romance Books Give Women Unrealistic Expectations of Men. The affirmative was Fiona Lowe, Nina Kenwood & Renae Black, the negative was KM Golland, Kate Solly & Sophie Green. Look, the negatives were at a severe disadvantage from the very beginning because Fiona Lowe nailed her opening statement and it was absolutely one of the best and most hilarious speeches I’ve heard in a long while. The affirmatives were a strong winner via vote in the Facebook group.

After that, it was time for some people to leave, so we had some goodbyes and then a few of us that remained went out for a really quiet dinner at a place a couple doors down from the hotel. I was reminded why I don’t go to bars (I literally haven’t been one since Sunday evening in Scarborough, last year!) when I paid $26 for a coke and a bowl of chips, haha. Then it was back to the hotel to pack – my hotel room, which I had basically only gone back to in order to change and/or sleep, was a bit of a bomb site so I had to tidy that up, pack up all my stuff. I zoned out in front of the TV for an episode of something easy.

Monday morning I met up with Rach who was leaving at 8.30 to say goodbye and take some stuff from her that she didn’t want to take on a plane. I got to say goodbye to her and Anthea, I’m always so grateful for the way they have included me in this group and the admin activities and the opportunities they’ve given me. I didn’t get a chance to say a proper goodbye to Audrey, who is a wonderful errand runner and kept me supplied with Coke and water, so thank you Auds, for everything that you do, you are a true star. Auds is a retreat original, who has been to every single one with us and is invaluable every time. Thanks to Liz and Kelly for our NMBF shirts, to Pat, who always brings little handmade items for us! Thank you also to Gail, who gave me a wonderful gift of beautiful handmade bath products, and to people like Karina, Rebecca & others who contribute lovely things for the prizes table. Seriously, thanks to basically everyone, it was lovely catching up with people like Ros, Sandra, Rebel-Kim, Emma, other Sandra, Phil, Craig, Fiona McArthur, Elaine and many others, as well as meeting new people. To anyone I missed, thank you also. All the authors that were there, thank you to you too, you’re all amazing, so generous with your time and information. Thanks especially to my panel authors, again, you make my role so much easier, all your stories and fun facts were such a joy to hear.

I’m just going to throw in a few more photos because I can!

Next year’s retreat is in Hobart – this is a new place for me, I’ve never been to Tasmania before! I’m considering staying a little longer after the retreat to explore Hobart a bit because there is no time during retreat to see or do pretty much any of the things! It’s something I’ll have to think about in the next 6 months or so!

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Jul 2

Review: The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

by 1girl2manybooks

The Tainted Cup (Shadow Of The Leviathan #1)
Robert Jackson Bennett
Hodderscape
2024, 406p
Read via my local library

Blurb {from the publisher/Goodreads.com}: In Daretana’s greatest mansion, a high imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree erupted from his body. Even here at the Empire’s borders, where contagions abound and the blood of the leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death both terrifying and impossible. 

Assigned to investigate is Ana Dolabra, a detective whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities. Rumor has it that she wears a blindfold at all times, and that she can solve impossible cases without even stepping outside the walls of her home.

At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol, magically altered in ways that make him the perfect aide to Ana’s brilliance. Din is at turns scandalized, perplexed, and utterly infuriated by his new superior—but as the case unfolds and he watches Ana’s mind leap from one startling deduction to the next, he must admit that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.

As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.

I have heard really good things about this series since this book was released. It came up as a suggestion for a prompt for a challenge that I’m doing and I thought that gave me a really good opportunity to try it out.

We are introduced to Dinios (Din) Kol, a young assistant investigator (technically still an apprentice) who is assigned to Ana Dolabra, a detective who is as eccentric as she is brilliant. In this society, people can be modified in many ways and Din is magically altered to be an engraver. He can remember something perfectly when he sees it and recall it at any time, whenever he’s asked. Every single detail, from every word spoken to every thing he’s seen, to smells and sounds. Ana’s eccentricities mean she stays at home whilst Din visits crime scenes and later on, explains to her what he has seen. She then draws her conclusions from that. It’s not orthodox but it works for them. Din and Ana are in what is known as the outer ring, which means they are closest to the sea walls that protect them from the leviathan beasts that dwell in the sea. Occasionally, the walls are breached and those closest, within that outer ring, must evacuate. The wealthier and more privileged you are, the closer to the first ring you live and the further away from the dangers. When the book begins, Din is called to the scene of a murder. A high imperial officer has died in the home of one of the richest families – in a violent, gruesome way, with a tree erupting from his body. Din is not expecting this sort of case, they have mostly just investigated fraud before. It soon becomes obvious that this imperial officer is not the only victim of this tree contagion and so Ana is required to handle the entire investigation and Din with her.

There were things I did like about this. The world is sort of interesting and it feels like we’ve only just touched the surface in this first book. Din doesn’t seem to know a lot about it, so we don’t know what the leviathans are, other than huge, sea beasts who occasionally breach the protective wall that separates the sea from the land. They are usually killed by the guard/soldiers charged with protecting the realm. There are a lot of engineers in charge of the wall as well. And then the land is divided into these rings – outer ring, third ring, second ring, first ring, etc. The Emperor and presumably most of the wealthier, important people reside within the first ring, well away from the dangers of the sea and the protective wall. Din is young, he’s definitely not from a wealthy or privileged background and states that he underwent the augmentation to become an engraver so that he could get a job in the department and send his salary back home to his family with the hopes that they could afford to move away from the outer ring and to a safer location.

I also liked the character of Din himself, who is someone I definitely want to know more about. He’s quiet but I got the feeling a couple of times that he definitely could be trouble when provoked. Din is hiding a secret, he has learning/reading difficulties and struggled to pass his exams before suddenly blitzing them and being chosen by Ana Dolabra to be her assistant. One of her superior officers smells a rat and constantly seems to taunt Din, saying he’ll find out how he did it eventually. Din being chosen by Ana seems to have mostly removed him from this man’s circle and I’m not sure if that’ll continue to be an issue with the way this book played out but it felt important at the time.

Ana was…..different. I wasn’t sure how I felt about her for most of the book, she’s definitely one of those characters that figures everything out on their own and is then a bit ‘oh, didn’t you realise that? How silly!’ to everyone else which is a bit annoying. She’s also really easily overstimulated I think, so she spends most of her time blindfolded. She’s augmented enough to read books via her fingertips and Din wonders about a lot of her other alterations and he constantly kind of has to remind her to not be rude or harass people. Ana would consider it a conversation, most others would consider it an interrogation. Her social skills at times seem decidedly underdeveloped but I’m honestly not sure if it’s just because she doesn’t find those situations bearable or she knows how she’s acting but doesn’t care.

My biggest problem was that this felt like it dragged for me. It’s 400p and honestly, I felt every one of them, particularly around p150-300. I don’t think I was invested in this enough. I felt like for a lot of it, I was just plowing through to finish. There are things I find interesting but a lot of this felt like a chore to read. I forgot who people were sometimes, there are a lot of characters, most of which we’ll never see again and I did occasionally be like ‘who are you again?’ when someone reappeared on the page and it was some random officer. I didn’t hate it but I did not fall in love with this. I think I might’ve liked it a lot more if it felt like Ana and Din had anything remotely resembling an interesting conversation but either he’s just telling her things that he’s seen so she can do what she does, or she’s telling him that it’ll all become clear to him soon, if they don’t die first.

I did like the end – not the resolution of the crimes because most of those felt like obscure motives from people we didn’t even know which meant I didn’t care about them at all, but Ana’s reaction when Din confesses something to her and their potential investigative future. Ana being in this backwater at the beginning of the novel suddenly made more sense, given her inherent genius.

I’m not sure if I’ll read the second book, A Drop Of Corruption. All the books in the series have extremely high average ratings on GR but given I didn’t love this one, I’m not sure if I should just accept that the series isn’t for me….or try the second book and see if it improves on anything for me and then make a decision about the series after that. Din is my favourite thing in it and given he’s the narrator/focus maybe it’ll be worth it? The second book is even longer than this one though and the length of this one was a real issue for me. It definitely did not feel like it needed to be this long. I do want to know more about the leviathans though?

If you’ve read these, tell me if it’s worth going on with for someone who didn’t love this one.

6/10

Book #122 of 2026

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Jul 1

June Reading Wrap Up

by 1girl2manybooks

Total Books Read: 19
Fiction: 19
Non-Fiction: 0
Library Books: 10
Books On My TBR List: 9
Books in a Series: 10
Authors I’d Never Read Before: 7
Male/Female Authors: 3/16
Kindle Books: 3
Audiobooks: 1
Books I Owned or Bought: 8
Favourite Book(s): No Matter What by Cara Bastone, Winterlight by Kristen Britain & The Palace Of Lost Virtue by Anthea Hodgson
Least Favourite Books: Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Books That Qualify For Challenges: 8

June was a surprisingly good reading month, despite the fact that I didn’t pick up a book for like 8-9 days of it? I read 19 books, some of which were for my retreat (I had the two books we were discussing to read at the retreat plus a couple I still needed to read for my panels) and some of which (5) were for my Books of Winter, 2026. I should’ve read 7 for the Books of Winter but I did not, so now I am behind in that challenge, whoops. I also meant to start Doctor Zhivago in June, which I’m supposed to read before the 5th of July….and…..look, technically I did start it but I’ve only read 18 pages of this 450-ish (plus notes and appendices) Russian novel, so I’m kind of in trouble there.

I had the month of June entirely off studies so I had the time to read quite a bit and I could read whatever I wanted with no set readings. I had 3x 4.5 star reads and 6x 4 star reads. I had a couple that were kind of average though – actually throughout parts of June I got stuck in runs of books that I found just average, which was dragging me down for a bit. I did read plenty of books that I really enjoyed although I wouldn’t consider it anywhere near my best reading month.

As I mentioned, I had my book club retreat in June, I was away for 4-5 days and for that time and the 2 or so days either side of it, I didn’t pick up a single book at all. I was busy the entire time of the retreat, only going back to my hotel room to change or fall into bed and most days I was up early. When I got home, I was mentally exhausted and took a couple of days to just catch up on sleep and rot on the couch. I will have a post about the retreat up soon, I just have to collect my photos and actually write it!

Challenge Check in #5 for 2026: 

2026 Nonfiction Reader Challenge: 6/6 {complete!}

2026 Historical Fiction Challenge: 11/15

26 In 2026: 13/26 {still on track}

2026 Speccy Fic Challenge: 7/12

Tim Winton Project: 5/11 {ongoing, carried over from 2025}

Which brings me to July.

Guys.

I am so over-committed for July but….I’m not going to change it. It’s my toxic trait. So, I have a couple of different categories of books I want to read in July:

Books I am prioritising the most:

The Windmill in the Silver Gums by Léonie Kelsall – a review copy courtesy of the publisher/author. I’m on a review tour for this one, my date is July 11, so it’s definitely a big priority.
Out Of The Blue by Penelope Janu. This one came out over a month ago, Penne is one of my favourite authors and I haven’t had a chance to read this yet since I bought it, so it’s definitely a priority for early July!
Elantris by Brandon Sanderson. I am loosely joining a read-a-long of the entire Cosmere universe and this is the first book.
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak. Already talked about above. Technically I’m supposed to finish and post about this before the 5th but….look….I might fail that portion of the Classics Club spin but I’ll consider it a success if I finish it in July.

Technically I need to read 8 books from my Books of Winter in order to “catch up” to where I should be. I picked these ones, they are the shortest of the books I have on my list and they look like relatively easy ones to churn through and they’re all books I’m pretty keen to read. Treacle Walker is a guided read-a-long throughout the month of July, books like A Smart Girl’s Guide To Second Chances, The Woman In The Seal Skin, Wallaby Lane and Shout Out To My Ex are all books that have been on my TBR for longer than they should have been, so I’m excited to hopefully finally get to them! And then I picked a couple others that I thought would be quick reads.

And my final category: Books I Can’t Renew From My Library During July. Some of these I have renewed 3x and not read them yet – it’s not that I don’t want to, I just haven’t had time with other priorities. Two of those, Ocean and Steel Gods and probably even A Language of Dragons I could return and then check out again, I just have to physically process them back into the library system before I can check them out. However Theo Of Golden and Yesteryear I know are going to have lengthy queues on them, I won’t be able to renew them even once, so I’m going to have to read those or face going to the back of the line, which I don’t want to do. So those two will be a priority, the others will be if I get a chance, if not, I’ll return them and then end up re-getting them.

It’s possible for me to read everything on this list but….we are discounting anything new that takes my fancy and I have 2 July releases pre-ordered already: The Someday Garden by Ashley Poston and A Study In Sparkling by Jodi McAlister. I dare say there’ll be other things I read about or see somewhere and get curious on. I know my relative that works in a bookstore has a couple of exciting things to pass onto me as well.

We’ll see how I go….see you back here in a month!

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Jun 30

Top 10 Tuesday 30th June

by 1girl2manybooks

Hello and welcome to another instalment of Top 10 Tuesday, hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. It features a different bookish or literary related theme or topic each week. This week (today) we are actually halfway through the year, which is a terrifying thought. How on earth did we get here so fast? Anyway, because of that, we are looking at the books we are excited about that are being published in the second half of 2026….which made me think, how did I go with the books I was excited about that were being published in the first half of 2026. Let’s see.

I read 8 of the 10! I DNF’d one….and there’s one that I never got to. Honestly, I feel like that is incredibly successful. I’d say that when I make TBR’s or lists of books I’m excited about, I average reading 5-6 because there’s always books I forget about or new things that get announced, etc.

Let’s see if I can hit a similar percentage with this list of books.

Most Anticipated Releases For The Second Half Of 2026

The World Beneath Her Feet by Holly Ringland

I absolutely loved The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart – it was my favourite book the year that I read it. And I also enjoyed The Seven Skins Of Esther Wilding although not quite to the same level of Alice. I am really looking forward to this, Holly Ringland’s third fiction novel, about a woman living in London who inherits a rewilded property in southern Queensland, Australia. I expect a lot of beautiful writing about nature and probably heartbreaking backstories.

American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee

Pachinko was so good! Honestly, it’s been so long since I’ve read that now but I remember how much I loved it and I’m really excited to read something else from Min Jin Lee.

The Unselected Journals Of Emma M. Lion (Vol 1) by Beth Brower

I know these have been self-published previously and everyone was reading them there for a bit but by the time I’d heard of them, they were no longer available in my market to read via KU or wherever. They’d been removed from that platform to be traditionally published and now the first at least 2, are coming out in August. I think these start off relatively short and then get longer in subsequent volumes but they seem really fun and a lot of people were so obsessed with them! So I’m keen to see what the fuss is all about.

Theodora’s Tea Shop by Christy Anne Jones

Christy Anne Jones is on YouTube and I have occasionally come across her videos before although I wouldn’t say I’ve watched her regularly. I remember reading when this was sold to the publisher and honestly, it had me at tea shop in the title! I feel like I’d read anything that revolves around tea…and this sounds fun. It’s a 1920’s inspired historical fiction with magic and witches.

Bound & Unbound by Ali Hazelwood

This is a bind up of two books that were audio exclusives I think, that are now being published in print for the first time. You read one and then turn your book around and flip it upside down to read the other story. Although a couple of Ali Hazelwood’s last few books have been misses for me, I’m still quite excited to read this and see what it’s like.

Time Travel For Beginners by Jaclyn Moriarty

This sounds like what I wish The Astral Library was.

Mestra by Madeline Miller

This is a short story, but it sounds intriguing and I love Madeline Miller’s writing.

A Conspiracy Of Charming Monsters by Holly Black

This is a collection of short stories, much like How The King of Elfhame Learned To Hate Stories and honestly, I will be buying/reading it for this line: A reluctant king is thrown into turmoil when the girl he loves to hate is stolen by the Undersea. There are other stories in this, including one from Madoc’s point of view when he’s in exile but I’ve always wanted more from Cardan’s perspective and this one especially? Yes.

Daggerbound by T.Kingfisher

I was lucky in that I only read Swordheart this year, so the wait has not been that long for me – some people have been waiting for the next in this series for a very long time! This is set in my favourite world of T. Kingfisher’s, the World of the White Rat. I’m also really excited that Daggerbound will see the return of Learned Edmund, who appeared in the Clocktaur War duology as a very gifted scholar with some interesting ideas about women – that he eventually came to better himself on. And of course we have another of the soldiers trapped in a weapon. This is hopefully going to be amazing.

Peck & Peck by Bonnie Garmus

I’m really curious about this one! I enjoyed Lessons In Chemistry a lot and this sounds interesting – New York, early 1980s, a poetry magazine? Fun times.

There are lots of other books I’m really excited about, like The Someday Garden by Ashley Poston, A Study In Sparkling by Jodi McAlister, Burn Of The Everflame by Penn Cole, Adversary To The Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer, Grim Tidings by B.K. Borison but I’ve included them in quite a few Top Ten Tuesdays already in recent times, so I tried to pick some new ones here.

Does anything on my list take your fancy?

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Jun 29

Review: Tough Guy by Rachel Reid

by 1girl2manybooks

Tough Guy (Game Changers #3)
Rachel Reid
Emblazon (Harper Collins AUS)
2024 (originally 2020), 300p
Purchased personal copy

Blurb {from the publisher/Goodreads.com}: They have nothing in common—so why does Ryan feel most like himself whenever he’s with Fabian?

Pro hockey star Ryan Price may be an enforcer, but off the ice he struggles with anxiety. Recently traded to the Toronto Guardians, he’s determined to make a fresh start in the city’s dynamic LGBTQ Village. The last thing he expects to stumble upon in his new neighborhood is a blast from his past in the fabulous form of Fabian Salah.

Aspiring musician Fabian loathes hockey. But that doesn’t stop him from being attracted to a certain burly, ginger-bearded defenseman. He hasn’t forgotten the kiss they almost shared back in high school, and it’s clear the chemistry between them has only intensified.

Fabian is more than happy to be Ryan’s guide to the gay scene in Toronto. Between dance clubs and art exhibits—and the most amazing sex—Ryan’s starting to feel something he hasn’t experienced in a long time: joy. But playing the role of the heavy on the ice has taken its toll on his body and mind, and a future with Fabian may mean hanging up his skates for good.

Ryan Price was introduced to readers in the second book in this series, Heated Rivalry, when he played with Ilya Rozanov in Boston. They won a Stanley Cup together. Ryan is what’s known as an enforcer in the league – a big, broad, bullish defensemen usually, kind of an outdated position in modern times although some teams do still have someone who fits the role. It’s Ryan’s job to ‘protect’ the stars of the teams he plays on by stepping up and fighting anyone who lays a bad hit on them and generally acting as a deterrent. This is a role he’s been slotted into as a 6’7 D-man who can swing a punch thanks to his boxer father. It’s not a role he enjoys but it seems to be the only thing that teams hire him for. He’s been shoehorned into it and so he shows up, night after night, taking 5 minute majors when required and protecting the smaller, faster forwards, some of which really don’t deserve it.

Ryan is traded to Toronto and immediately given ‘the speech’ by another coach – protect the star, do what you’re told, dole out the punches, etc. He’s jaded already, before he even starts playing and the ‘star’ he has to protect is a douche. Ryan is also gay and although he’s not super closeted in that he has had casual relationships and hookups, it’s not something he announces. In Toronto, he settles into the Village, an area known for its LGBT+ vibe and there, he runs into Fabian Salah. Ryan was billeted with Fabian’s family when he was a teen (a common practice in junior hockey leagues, allowing talented players from rural areas or areas without hockey teams of a certain level to live and play for bigger, established teams that will end up funnelling them into the draft). Fabian’s father is a teenage hockey coach and Fabian, as his only son, is a mystery to him. Fabian’s father wanted a son like Ryan – a big, talented hockey player. Instead he got Fabian, a small, slim man with an eye for make up, who plays music for a living. Fabian didn’t like the parade of big, jock hockey playing teens in his life growing up but Ryan was different. He was someone Fabian could’ve liked…..and when they connect again in Toronto, something is still there to explore. Fabian is very much what Ryan finds attractive, the antithesis to his own big, lumbering body.

I had been quite excited for this one because even though Ryan was only in one scene with Ilya, I really liked him. I also love an enforcer role in hockey, so I thought that’d be fun to explore. And there were things I did like about this – it’s exploring different types of people, an opposites attract, what masculine ‘means’ and the book is filled with queer characters of many different types. I understood that hockey was not for Fabian – it’s not for a lot of people. And he grew up surrounded by it and it’s probably tied up into him being not what his father ‘wanted’ in a son or thought his son would be like.

But the weird hysteria around Ryan’s ‘enforcer’ role was kind of funny to me. Look, fights are a thing in hockey but very few players do them well. They’re 95% about performance and hyping up a crowd and your team (watch the players on the bench after a decent fight), rarely are they genuinely fights of hatred. You get a few exceptions (New York vs Washington, the game after Tom Wilson crushed Artemi Panerin’s head into the ice comes to mind) but these guys are on ice skates, wearing about 50lbs of padding. Very few of them can swing accurately and they generally just exhaust themselves trying to land a blow before the refs move in, separate them and send them to their respective penalty boxes. There’s a scene in this where Ryan fights a young player on another team and after, that young kid is like “thanks, that was awesome!”. Because a ‘fight’ for many young players is a bit of a rite of passage. There’s also the Gordie Howe Hatrick – a goal, an assist and a fight in a game. That’s not to say no one ever gets hurt in a fight – sometimes people do. But people also get hurt taking hits, falling over, skating, shooting for goal, diving to save a goal, falling into the boards, taking a puck to the face or body (often deliberately, to block a shot), taking a high stick, etc. It’s professional sports. The dangers are everywhere and honestly, these days, fighting makes up like, a minute percentage of injuries. But this book kind of treated it like it was cage fighting to the death in every game. Two players this current NHL season recorded the highest number of fights, 10 fights which is an average of 1 fight every 8 games (there are 82 games in a season). Which means that there were 72 games potentially, where they didn’t fight. You can also fight more than once in a game. So if it’s a particularly scrappy game, it’s possible to register a couple, if you’re the sort of player that gets involved in stuff like that. Last season my team’s goalie had a fight against the opposing goalie (which almost never happens, because a goalie is not supposed to cross the centre line and it’s a game misconduct) and it was honestly, one of the most hyped moments of the season. There are 32 teams, each with about 50 contracted players (about 20 of which will be dressed for a game) so that’s not really many people fighting. I found it funnier because in the book, Ryan doesn’t get hurt in a fight. He hurts his back bending over to pick up something and like….ok, relatable 30yo+ things.

I enjoyed the romance itself, I liked the opposites attract and I liked Ryan as a lead. Despite being a big, brawny hockey man, Ryan has quite low self-esteem, doesn’t think much of himself and his looks. He also has terrible anxiety, for which he takes medication which has certain side effects and this felt like one of the few books I’ve read where one of the characters had problems finishing (sexually) and had to try different things, it didn’t always work, etc. I also like the lack of emphasis that was put on that, during the times when he could not, or ‘lost the moment’ etc. I felt like the book could’ve gone deeper on that, deeper on Fabian’s family as well. A lot of these books are very surface level in many ways, like I am skimming a story but in reality, the story is just not that deep. There are many issues explored in here that could’ve made for great exploration on a deeper level, including conflict. There are times when Fabian felt quite judgy about Ryan’s job and we get it, you don’t like hockey.

Does Ilya Rozanov turn up in every book for literally the flimsiest of reasons? It feels like he does but I guess I’m not complaining because he’s the funniest character in the series.

“I don’t want to teach kids how to fight,” Ryan said, just to make it clear.

Rozanov looked at him like he was stupid. “No. You are a defenseman. You will teach them how to stand still and not score goals. Defenseman things.”

Lil hockey joke.

Also I loved the character of Wyatt, Toronto’s back up goalie who befriends Ryan when no one else really does, takes the time to get to know him, recognises some of his anxiety triggers and tries to be helpful. He gets traded to Ottawa in the book (Rozanov’s new team) so perhaps he’ll turn up again in The Long Game.

This was fine. It had some really good points – I enjoyed the friend groups (Wyatt for Ryan, Fabian’s little crew) and the opposites attract, the showcasing of Ryan as a ‘different’ sort of hockey player and love interest, the exploration of his anxiety. But there were other things that could’ve gone deeper and had more attention paid to them, the ending and Ryan’s decision felt very abrupt and a neat end to avoid any potential conflict and Fabian ever having to deal with something he didn’t like and the weird obsession with the enforcer role when I doubt in real life, anyone thinks that much about it, maybe ever.

6/10

Book #121 of 2026

This is book #3 from my 20 Books of Winter list.

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Jun 26

Review: When The Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker

by 1girl2manybooks

When The Moon Hatched (Moonfall #1)
Sarah A. Parker
Harper Voyager
2024, 560p
Purchased personal copy

Blurb {from the publisher/Goodreads.com}: As an assassin for the rebellion, Raeve’s job is to complete orders and never get caught. When a rival bounty hunter shatters her world, Raeve finds herself captured by the Guild of Nobels – a group of powerful fae.

Crushed by the loss of his great love, dragon rider Kaan Vaegor took the head of a king and donned his melted crown. Now on a tireless quest to quell the never-ebbing ache in his chest, a clue lures him into the capital’s high-security prison where he stumbles upon the imprisoned Raeve…

Together, they seek truths that threaten to unravel everything they knew about their world – and each other.

I have a bunch of first in a series books on my shelves that I’ve picked up and haven’t gotten to yet and the sequels are about to come out or have recently been published. I decided to prioritise reading a couple over this season to see if I wanted to continue on with them, if I wanted to purchase future instalments or if it might be sufficient to get them from my library or if they weren’t for me and could go on my donate pile. When The Moon Hatched was one of those. It’s had a huge amount of buzz and is very popular on social media platforms. It’s got a pretty cover, there are dragons and apparently, a few people have told me that the writing was a lyrical challenge. So I figured I’d add it to my TBR and see how I went.

Raeve is an assassin for the rebellion in a society that separates its magical users from its non magical. Those with magical ability are swept up by the powers that be and funnelled into an education program to be useful to the crown. Those that are not are marked to show their null status. There’s poverty, crime, by all accounts it’s mostly a miserable time. Raeve is one of the best assassins working for the rebellion but she also has her own motivations and side projects, things she fights to be able to put into action. She’s also being hunted by a bounty hunter, who lures her in. She’s captured, beaten, whipped and set for execution. But that execution doesn’t go as planned.

During one of her missions, Raeve crossed paths with a mysterious man who seemed to know her. The same man finds her in the dungeons when she’s captured. Raeve has no reason to trust him, especially if he belongs to the family she thinks he does. But there’s something about him, even though she doesn’t want to think about what that might be.

For the most part, I enjoyed this. I thought the world building was interesting and there were plenty of things in here where I was intrigued and wanted to know more. Raeve comes across as the kind of stereotypical assassin character but there’s some mystery and depth blended in. There were a lot of throwaway references or kind of clues I guess, in this book that you have to put together. We also get another point of view mixed in and it takes a while to see where that is going.

To be honest, I didn’t really notice the writing being overly poetic or unusual, it had been mentioned to me that it was a book I probably wouldn’t be able to read in a day because it was written in such a manner but although I read it in a couple of days, that was mostly because I was also reading and doing other things – I don’t think I would’ve had an issue reading it in a day if I’d wanted to do that. The writing itself was fine for me.

There’s a past between two of the characters and I’m not sure that for me, enough was done to really make me care about that. And I get why it was mostly alluded to or briefly talked about but it just meant that I didn’t really care. I liked both the characters, I enjoyed their present day interactions but the past could’ve been about anyone for me. It didn’t really make a single difference to the story for me, it was just….fine. I think it needed more, especially towards the end when all of the pieces start falling into place. And the second novel may have more of that, may explore it in a deeper way but in terms of this one, it just felt like it skimmed the surface for me.

I’m struggling to find a lot of things to say about this one (can you tell?) because honestly, not a lot really happens. There’s heaps of world building and character interaction but for the actual plot, it’s mostly just laying groundwork for what feels like will be some sort of future all out war. I am interested to see where it goes, but this very much did feel like a book that is setting things up and laying foundations and so honestly – it was a fine read but nothing outstanding. However I do feel like this is a series I could end up really enjoying as the next couple of volumes are released and I did pick up the second one when I got it at a decent price. Maybe it’ll be on my books of winter in 2027, who knows.

7/10

Book #120 of 2026

When The Moon Hatched was on my 20 Books Of Winter for 2026 and is the 2nd book that I have read so far from my list.

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Jun 25

Review: A Woman’s Voice by Alli Sinclair

by 1girl2manybooks

A Woman’s Voice
Alli Sinclair
Penguin Random House AUS
2025, 459p
Copy courtesy of the publisher/author

Blurb {from the publisher/Goodreads.com}: When violin virtuoso Laura Hartley’s priceless instrument is stolen, more than just her celebrated European career disintegrates. Her rare gift of seeing music in colour fades to grey, crushing the sense of self she’s always expressed through her performances.

Fleeing to her grandmother’s home in the Australian outback, Laura discovers an extraordinary legacy woven through sheets of music – a powerful symphony born from the revolutionary hearts of suffragettes who refused to be silenced, their defiant voices rising above the doomed decks of the Titanic.

But as Laura traces each note of this forgotten masterpiece, she uncovers more than just music. She finds a story of women who dared to smash society’s chains, claim their own destiny and fight for a world where every voice can be heard.

When scandal rocks the tight-knit community of Gungderring, Laura must confront the question that has haunted generations of women before will she remain safely in the wings, or step forward and fight?

I have read most of, if not all of Alli Sinclair’s novels over the years and enjoyed every single one so I figured this one would be no exception. I love a dual time line novel and this one splits its time between Austria and rural Australia in the 1960s and Germany, England and Australia in the early 1900s.

Laura is a violinist, a prodigy, who plays her beloved grandmother’s violin and tours the world. She also has synesthesia, seeing music in colour, which helps her with her playing and makes the music sing. She seems like she has it all – a brilliant career, loving fiancé, loving grandmother. However in what feels like moments, everything she had is lost, leaving her bereft and unsure of herself.

Laura finds herself in limbo. Without the violin, without the colours she sees in the music, nothing feels the same. She doesn’t know what she wants to do next although she doesn’t think Australia is home either, despite the community she finds in Gungderring. There’s a handsome pilot, the local school teacher and some other women who take Laura under their wing and make her feel at home, sharing stories of her grandmother and allowing her to see different sides of her. Laura finds some mysterious things in the house during her stay and she wonders exactly what other secrets it holds.

Interspersed with Laura’s story is that of Ida, a young German woman in the early 1900s, who is the daughter of a luthier. At the time, early feminism is sweeping through Europe and Berlin and Ida finds herself fascinated by the fight. Trapped into a situation that would allow her father to choose her husband for her (and sell her to the highest bidder), Ida finds herself wanting to join the fight, wanting to forge her own career as a luthier, against her father’s wishes and choose her own partner in life.

There’s so much story in here and I found myself engrossed in it all – Laura in the more modern timeline and Ida. Laura goes through an awful lot in a very short amount of time. Although her grandparents live in Australia, Laura’s mother left when she was a teenager, gave birth to Laura in London and moved her around a lot as a child. As an adult that has continued as she travels to perform and record music. It feels like during her time back to Australia, it might be the first opportunity she’s had in a while to just….stay put for a bit and breathe. She isn’t sure what steps she wants to take next – performing doesn’t seem likely anymore, nor does a potential opportunity in Berlin. She isn’t sure Australia is home either yet, despite the community she finds here. And a potential romance, which was very enjoyable to watch unfold, although not without its own complications!

So much research must’ve gone into the writing of this story. From the early and later waves of feminism, the construction of violins, classical music and other certain events, the story swept me through so many different topics but in a way where it never felt busy or crowded with information. I really enjoyed Laura and Ida as characters and felt for them in their fight for what they wanted. Ida in particular, it’s good to see where some of the rights we have as women today came from, the women in the past who stepped into danger and protested, demanded that they be treated as human beings rather than as property by fathers and husbands. And that’s not to say the fight is over – boy is it not over but the early waves of demanding the vote and basic human rights changed a lot of things. Even in the 1960s portion of the story in Australia, women can’t enter the public bar and instead must sit in the ‘Ladies Lounge’ instead. Many old country pubs still have rooms that were designated Ladies’ Lounges back in the day.

I really felt like this book built that country community feel – but not in an idyllic, no negativity way, in an incredibly realistic way that felt so familiar to me, as someone who has spent a lot of time in country Australia, from small, very rural hamlets to coastal places that started off small and sleepy and have exploded in size. Country towns come with their downsides as well and Laura finds herself on the wrong side of one of the local residents, a forever unhappy woman who is dangerous in her campaigns against things she deems immoral or wrong. There’s gossip and shame, again there’s a good indication of the way women bear the sole judgement and responsibility for things when men face nothing. In many ways, this still happens today.

There were a couple things that I thought wrapped up a bit quickly in the end (the reappearance of something that was thought lost, a resolution between two characters) but this was such a good read. Really entertaining, explored historical women’s issues and other things like grief so well.

8/10

Book #118 of 2026

I included A Woman’s Voice on my 26 to read in 2026 and it’s the 13th novel I have completed so far.

It also counts for my participation in the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge for 2026, hosted by Marg @ The Intrepid Reader and is the 11th book read so far.

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