April is probably my best reading month for a while. In May I started graduate school so I expect that both May and June will be light in terms of reading fiction. But going back to April: I read 8 books and two of them are new favorites The Dream Daughter by Diane Chamberlain and The Villa by Rachel Hawkins.
The Dream Daughter is a suspenseful family drama that includes time travel. I listened to it on audio and was completely engrossed. The Villa is Rachel Hawkins' another thriller that includes an investigation into a murder that happened in the 70s at an Italian villa and involved famous musicians. Some say that Hawkins drew her inspiration from a time when Mary Shelley, Lord Byron and Percy Shelley vacationed together in Italy and where Mary Shelley on a dare wrote Frankenstein. I can definitely see those parallels.
To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose is a compelling fantasy novel that is rooted in Native American mythology. I read it for a bookclub and we had the author join our discussion, which was incredible. I am definitely planning to read the sequel.
The other reads for the month were mediocre. The biggest disappointment was The Crimson Moth - a fantasy romance, overhyped on social media. I am happy to report that the second book is better (I read it in May). I have a separate longer review for Melania - what a disaster! And, I am glad I finally read Soulless by Gail Carriger. The entire Parasol Protectorate series had been sitting on my shelves for at least 10 years. After reading book 1, I decided I am not going to continue in the series and it's been donated to my local thrift store. I am sure if I read it when it was first published, I might have enjoyed it. But it does not hold up with time. The tone in particular seems trying to be funny way too hard, and characters seem more like caricatures than real personalities -- the book is just filled with stock images and twists.
