Ah, February. The days are getting a bit longer, and spring doesn’t seem so far away. But around here, this month is traditionally the snowiest and coldest of the winter months, so there’s still plenty of days ahead that promise to be perfect “curl up under a blanket with a mug of tea and a good book” kind of days.
I think the shortest month of the year is the perfect time to dive into some short story collections/anthologies. I’ve also been craving an epic fantasy, so I decided to try to fit in both of these themes. I had my reading list all set, then some unexpected book mail on February 1 and an unplanned trip to the local library changed things up a little bit.
For my short story selection, I have been eagerly anticipating Victoria Dalpe’s Les Femmes Grotesques, where “…horror mixes with humor…and the ordinary with the macabre.” Totally right up my alley. My unexpected book mail on the first was an anthology that I won through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer monthly giveaway, Tales of Sley House 2022. Glancing through this last night, I realized these are all new-to-me authors. I love discovering new authors so this looks to be a potential treasure trove.
For me, epic fantasy and cold winter days just seem to go hand-in-hand, so I decided to finally start Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay. This has been sitting on my shelf for way too long, and the description of “…a setting that evokes the dazzling Tang Dynasty of eighth-century China” has me intrigued. At 567 pages, it’s a pretty big one for this month, but I’m hoping to read a majority of it by the 28th. First up though, is my library find, Hailey Piper’s No Gods For Drowning, which sounds like a blend of fantasy and horror. I was pleasantly surprised to find this one, and a shoutout to our local library for stocking more indie writers and publishers.
My friend M. is also a monthly subscriber to NightWorms, and we were talking about how many of those books we haven’t read yet. So, we decided to create our own little unofficial NW book club. We each picked five titles and we’ll be taking turns doing random drawings for our monthly read…
…and this month will be Full Immersion by Gemma Amor! I’m familiar with Amor’s work through her short stories so I have high hopes for this novel.
As for January, I read a total of eleven books, including both of my January selections. One of those picks, Garrett Cook’s Charcoal, was hands-down my favorite of the month.
What are your February reading goals? Drop me a line and let’s talk books!
Stay safe, and Happy Reading!