July was busy, and slipped past me when I wasn’t paying attention.

A fair amount of rereading this month, because I’ve been feeling extra vulnerable. But I did manage some new reads, including two new releases!

Dianne Freeman’s latest book, Countess of Harleigh, A Bride’s Guide to Marriage and Murder is a series I’ve very much been enjoying and enjoyed this book as much as the previous ones. And I was finally able to borrow An Impossible Impostor from the library. I like this series, but not quite as much as the other, and Deanna Raybourn is popular enough I don’t fear that series ending any time soon.

Although it wasn’t one of my favorite books, I appreciated Andrew Grey’s Twice Baked for some of the twists it did NOT take.

Speaking of books that stuck with me, I reread Dahlia Donovan’s Sin Bin series, and was as drawn into as much this time as I was the first read—far more than the average rating I gave it, which had to do more with the need for editing and the inconsistencies that stemmed from that than anything else. These stories did all sorts of unusual things, including one book with an unflinching look at chemotherapy and dealing with cancer, and another book that was about a rescued man and the years it took him to recover himself (and the patience of the man courting him). Both of these stories faced difficult topics, but did so with sensitivity, and I deeply cared about what happened to the characters.

There were also some disappointing books, but the rereads made up for it.

Mystery, Historical

The Thief-Takers by Alissa Johnson
A Talent for Trickery (2015) 8.5/10, A Gift for Guile (2016) 8.5/10, A Dangerous Deceit (2017) 8/10
A Bride’s Guide to Marriage and Murder (2022) Dianne Freeman (Countess of Harleigh Mystery) 8/10
An Impossible Impostor (2022) Deanna Raybourn (Veronica Speedwell) 8/10

Mystery

Renovated to Death (2022) Frank Anthony Polito
Murder in Pastel (2015) Josh Lanyon 7/10

Science Fiction

Fugitive Telemetry (2021) Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries) 9.5/10

Romance

The Sin Bin by Dahlia Donovan
After the Scrum (2016) 8/10, The Wanderer (2017) 8/10, The Caretaker (2017) 7.5/10, The Botanist (2017) 7.5/10, The Royal Marine (2017), The Unexpected Santa (2017),
The Lion Tamer (2018) 7.5/10
Color of You (2017) C.S. Poe (A Lancaster Story) 7.5/10
Twice Baked (2019) Andrew Grey 7/10
The Cubby Hole: A Bear Camp Short (2022) Slade James 7/10

Fantasy

The House in the Cerulean Sea (2020) TJ Klune 9/10

Non Fiction

Pandemic 1918: Eyewitness Accounts from the Greatest Medical Holocaust in Modern History (2018) Catharine Arnold

Audio Books

Soulwood, Audio Edition by Faith Hunter narrated by Khristine Hvam
Flame in the Dark, Audio Edition (2017) 8.5/10, Circle of the Moon, Audio Edition (2019), Spells for the Dead, Audio Edition (2019) 7/10

I know I haven’t been doing stats recently, but as a quick update: I’m at 140 books for the year, which is a lot slower than the past several years, but that’s still 20 books a month. And I’m at about 35% rereads, which is down from last year where almost 50% of the books I read were rereads, which is possibly a sign I’m starting to feel a little better.

Maybe.