The start of the month was for short stories–including finishing up anthologies I’d been reading for ages and ages.

I read a lot of good books this month, including going back and re-reading a book I’d almost forgotten about.

As for my favorite books of the month, let’s start with A Fantastic Holiday Season: The Gift of Stories which was an anthology I picked up solely for the Patricia Briggs story. Which I’ve not read about five times, because I kept re-reading it when I’d flip past it or while on a Patricia Briggs reading bender. Not all the stories were for me, but in all it was a strong anthology.

I know I keep going on about Daniel José Older, but that’s because I really do love his writing. Ghost Girl in the Corner is set following the events of Shadowshaper, but follows Tee and her girlfriend Izzy. As expected, the teenage girls are all strong characters I enjoyed spending time with. Kudos again for that.

Ghosts in the Snow is a good book, but it is extremely dark, and I’m not sure that I was in the mood for that much darkness, but if you like supernatural mysteries, then I do recommend it. As long as you’re aware that it’s dark.

The Peculiar Crimes Unit series is one I really do like, and when I realized I had the first book as an ebook, I set out to reread. Second book was also inexpensive, but the third? Well, that’s why I moved into another series. I’m waiting impatiently for that to go on sale. I’d like to note that Grandmom really enjoyed this series.

The other two mystery series are also very good–I’m re-reading the Inspector Erlendur series–but I can only read a couple Karin Fossum stories at a time, because they tend to be extremely depressing–two of the mysteries were about murdered children. The third was about a murdered teen. So small doses of that.

Mystery

Inspector Erlendur
Jar City (2000/2004) Arnaldur Indridason translated by Bernard Scudder (8/10)
Silence of the Grave (2003/2006) Arnaldur Indridason translated by Bernard Scudder (9/10)
Peculiar Crimes Unit
Full Dark House (2003) Christopher Fowler (8/10)
The Water Room (2004) Christopher Fowler (8/10)
Inspector Sejer
Black Seconds (2002/2007) Karin Fossum translated by Charlotte Barslund (8/10)
The Water’s Edge (2007/2009) Karin Fossum translated Charlotte Barslund
Bad Intentions (2008/2010) Karin Fossum translated by Charlotte Barslund

Supernatural Mystery

Ghosts in the Snow (2004) Tamara Siler Jones

Fantasy Anthology

Street Magicks (2016) edited by Paula Guran
Beyond the Pale: A Fantasy Anthology (2014) edited by Henry Herz
A Fantastic Holiday Season: The Gift of Stories (2014) edited by Kevin J. Anderson & Kieth J. Olexa (8/10)

Fantasy Short Stories

A Wolf in Holy Places (2009) Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Burnt Sugar (2014) Lish McBride
Ghost Girl in the Corner (2016) Daniel José Older (8/10)

And now, the statistics! Huzzah!

14 books this month, which is about average.

All ebooks this month (not a surprise), with 5 re-reads, three of which I have in paper. I would have continued on with Christopher Fowler’s series, but I’m not paying that much for a ecopy of a book I own in paper (and paid full price for at the time, I might add!).

eBook – 14
Multiple Formats -3
Re-read -5

Genre, things were split pretty evenly between fantasy and mystery.

Fantasy – 7
Mystery – 8
Anthology – 3

As to author genre, it’s split pretty evenly between male and female authors this month.

Male – 5
Female – 6
Anthology – 3

And that’s it for this month! YAY READING!