April is over and we finally get a glimpse of spring! We alreadyh got this glimpse earlier this month as well, but the weather changed rapidly and so did my mood. I was tired, my energy levels went downhill together with the temperatures. This also reflected in my reading. Even though I picked up 12 books, I had 3 DNFs this month. That’s such unfortunate! So, let’s take a look into my reading month.

The books I’ve read

1. A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle L. Jensen – I saw so many positive reviews on other people’s blogs that I got curious. Even though it’s such an easy read, I couldn’t get the hang of it. I have no knowledge about Norse mythology and this seems very important in this story. I just didn’t know what I read and that’s a sign to DNF.
2. Love from Mecca to Medina by S.K. Ali – This is the sequel to Love from A to Z, which didn’t fully convince me some years ago. This was also the case for this book, one of the main characters annoyed me a lot. It’s not a bad book, it definitely has some interesting parts. But it wasn’t memorable.
3. Rules at the School by the Sea by Jenny Colgan – This book did what it’s supposed to do, being a nice breather. However, it addresses some serious issues but they are handled too quickly to make an impact.
4. Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas – I continued my TOG reread and enjoyed it very much still.
5. Jade War by Fonda Lee – I still need to find time to review this one, but this book is much better than Jade City. It picks up 2 years after the final events and the story is set over a 3-years time span. The world is enriched since we do some travelling, and different characters get the spotlight. I simply couldn’t do anything but rating this book the full 5 stars.
6. The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar – Not a bad debut at all, but I’m clearly not the target audience anymore. Younger readers will have a much better time with it than I had, although it has interesting themes.
7. The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi – I don’t know what went wrong here, because it definitely is a solid debut. The premise spoke to me and still does, but I just couldn’t get into the book. Whether it’s the writing, the characters or the timing, I simply don’t know. Maybe I willpick this up at a later time.
8. Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton – My first dark romance and I knew beforehand that this would be an interesting reading experience. It was exactly this indeed, but also by far the most disturbing book I’ve read in my entire life. The mystery part was much more interesting than the stalking and smut parts though. I just can’t be bothered to find out why Adeline has a stalker, because I have to read the sequel to find out and I just… can’t.
9. Tempting the Best Man by Jay Lynn – An old one which just has been translated into Dutch. However, I don’t like reading spicy books in Dutch, so I opted for the English version. Review to come soon, but I was slightly disapointed.
10. Trial of the Sun Queen by Nisha J. Tuli – Admittedly, I almost didn’t pick this book up since the premise didn’t interest me at first. However, I still saw it online a lot and I therefore gave it a try. The Kindle copy wasn’t that expensive after all. Even though the author clearly got inspired by a lot of older popular books, I highly enjoyed this read. Review to come since I only finished this book on Sunday.
11. In de mist van Golden Gate Park by Murat Isik – The only Dutch book I read this month and it was okay. I won’t write a review as it won’t make sense on this blog.
12. The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo – Well, confession time… After highly enjoying the first 3 original books in the Grishaverse, I simply didn’t enjoy a book by this author ever since. Six of Crows was just okay to me and so were King of Scars and its sequel. I barely made it through Ninth House, but since The Familiar has a different setting, I wanted to give Bardugo another fair chance. This book takes place in Spain during their Golden Age. I like historical fiction, if it transports you to that particular period in time. I never had the feeling i was reading a book set a few hundred years ago. Furthermore, the story progresses slowly and it never picks up pace for me. It strongly gives me The Invisible Life of Addie Larue vibes and I don’t like that book either, so looking back I’m definitely not surprised. I still understand why so many people seem to love this book, it just isn’t for me. I had to DNF halfway through.

Bookhaul

1. Tempting the Best Man by Jay Lynn
2. Done and Dusted by Lyla Sage
3. Godkiller by Hannah Kaner
4. Jade Legacy by Fonda Lee
5. The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo
6. A Court this Cruel and Lovely by Stacia Stark
7. Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
8. The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi
9. Trial of the Sun Queen by Nisha J. Tuli
10. Butcher & Blackbird by Brynne Weaver
11. The Lost Daughters of Ukraine by Erin Litteken
12. In de mist van Golden Gate Park by Murat Isik
13. If We Were Villains by J. L. Rio

Looking back, April wasn’t such a bad month. I picked up 12 books and finished 9 of them. Most of these were included in the 13 books I hauled this month. I hope May will bring me more reading joy again, because most books I read this month were mediocre at best.

How was April for you?