Best Books of April
As I say every month, I’m shamelessly stealing this idea from Jessica Lahey. She has a recurring monthly date where she reviews all the books she reads that month. Book reviews are important for authors, and I want to get better at doing this.
So. I’m going to review them here and also online, but I’m going to do it a little differently. I’m only going to review the stuff I really liked. I don’t see a reason to spend my time writing about something I didn’t love; it’s just using up more of my energy. So only positive reviews.
These are the books I liked (or mostly liked) from April.
A Flaw in the Design (Nathan Oates): I raced to finish this thriller because I wanted to know what would happen, and it definitely didn’t go where I thought it would go. The author did a really good job keeping the reader off-balance without feeling like you’re about to fall. It’s a great book if you like unreliable narrators and open questions.
The Golden Spoon (Jessa Maxwell): This book was going along so well and completely fell apart at the end. Just like a cake on the Great British Bake Show, which is the setting (a fictitious version) for this mystery. I wish she had stuck the landing, but the book was so enjoyable up until that point that I would give it a chance.
The Cruelest Month (Louise Penny): This is the third Inspector Gamache, and it’s the book where I felt Penny ease into her series. The first two books are good but not great. But the third book (and points beyond) are not only great mysteries but also fantastic world and character-building. I love Three Pines and will keep reading until the end of the series.
A Tidy Ending (Joanna Cannon): I bumped this book up to the top of my TBR list on the strength of a bookseller’s bestseller list, and it did not disappoint. It is bonkers, similar to a Samantha Downing book. It was a very clever read.
What did you read last month?
2 comments
Mel, I read “The Cruellest Month” by Louise Penny last month too, and I agree, it’s the best one so far! By the way, dh has also started reading the series 😉 and he too liked this one the best so far.
I read three other books in April (4 total), all reviewed on my blog and on Goodreads:
* “Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story” by Bono. Long, but well written and highly entertaining.
* “The Empty World” by D.E. Stevenson. This was a re-read with my D.E. Stevenson group. It’s a bit of a departure from her usual books — an apocalyptic/speculative/dystopian novel, written in 1936 but set in the then-distant future of 1973. Early on, there was talk of abandoning this book and choosing something else to discuss together; the consensus at the end was that it won’t be a favourite but it was an interesting experiment for her, and we’re glad we stuck with it. We had some interesting discussions!
* “Without Children” by Peggy O’Donnell Heffington. An interesting historical look at women without children and why (contrary to the current handwringing over plunging fertility rates) this is not a new phenomenon.
I just finished Remarkably Bright Creatures. It was original yet predictable. I enjoyed it, even so. Other than that, I haven’t read anything that stands out – I’m reading Maame right now, and suspect I will not enjoy the rest of the book if it goes where I think it’s going. And I have VenCo to read, but I haven’t started it yet.