Summer – Anxious Nachos

#5OnMyTBR is a bookish meme hosted by E. @ Local Bee Hunter’s Nook and you can learn more about it here or in the post announcing it. It occurs every Monday when we post about 5 books on our TBR. Thank you E. for the awesome graphic for these posts as well!

Hi everyone,

We’re onto week 2 of the new lockdown in Melbourne and I’ve decided to start a new hobby to try keep me more upbeat in the current situation: candle making! I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of my candle kit. I bought some black dye as well so I can make goth candles and I can’t wait!

This week’s #5OnMyTBR theme is summer reads, which may be more difficult for me because it’s the middle of a rather cold winter here and thus I have forgotten what sunshine and vitamin D feels like. But more importantly: despite the fact I work in publishing, I still wouldn’t even be able to tell you what a summer read is. Something that’s relaxing and pleasurable to read on a beach? But that’s different for everyone, I cry! So for this, I tried to pick books on my TBR that feel lighthearted, warm, and easy to read, and thus the perfect book to curl up with under the sun!

Loveboat, Taipei by Abigail Wen

This YA novel is literally set across a summer, so surely that counts for this theme! It follows teen Ever Wong whose parents send her to Taiwan for the summer to study Mandarin. However the program she’s been sent to is less late night study and more late night clubbing as over-achieving kids let loose.

The Affair of the Mysterious Letter by Alexis Hall

This book sounds the lightest of the stack of SFF I have on my TBR, gifted to me by my lovely cat for mother’s day (yes, pets give gifts in this household). It is a Sherlock Holmes retelling with a female, pansexual sorceress Holmes and a trans Watson, and it’s full of sharks, gods, vampires and pirates! Aka: FUN.

Please Don’t Hug Me by Kay Kerr

Donuts = summer. I don’t make the rules…. Please Don’t Hug Me is a #LoveOzYA contemporary with ownvoices autism rep, written entirely in letters from Erin, a teen on the edge of adulthood struggling to accept herself, to her brother.

In the Vanisher’s Palace by Aliette de Bodard

Novellas feel like such as summer read because they’re usually quick and easy to get into and therefore make for a relaxing read on the beach! In the Vanisher’s Palace is one I’ve been meaning to read for so long but I finally picked up a copy. It’s a dark f/f Beauty and the Beast retelling if the beast were a dragon!

Ravensong by T.J Klune

I read Wolfsong in the Australian summer last year next to a pool in the sunshine and therefore it only makes sense that I put the second one in this series onto this summer reads list! I got about halfway through this and then got distracted by other books and never went back to it. But Ravensong is book 2 in Klune’s Green Creek series, which follows a pack of werewolves and their run ins with local witches. Whilst the first book followed Ox, Ravensong follows Ox’s friend and father figure Gordo.

That’s it for this week! I’m pretty sure that everyone else’s lists will be much more summery than mine because I tend to go for more intense, heavy duty fantasy books than light summer reads. But now I’ll go back to dreaming about sunshine whilst shivering on my couch because Australia has terrible building insulation!

So this week I found out about Top 5 Tuesdays, a weekly blog topic run by Bionic Book Worm. So I decided to join in! You can find Bionic Book Worm and join the fun by checking out the topics for the month here.

This week’s topic is Summertime Reads! As it’s going into Winter here in Australia, it’s been a while since I’ve read something summery, but here goes…

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – Taylor Jenkins Reid

I bought this book for a summer trip to Thailand a year ago. I started on the plane and just couldn’t put it down, got no sleep, and managed to complete it before the plane touched down. It was magnificent! Such a wonderful and bittersweet story about an old Hollywood starlet and the love(s) of her life.

The Rosie Project – Graeme Simsion

This was another I read in Thailand and was such an uplifting and happy read – perfect for summer! It tells the story of Don Tillman, a man with Aspergers who tries to find the perfect partner for himself by creating The Wife Project, a questionnaire designed to find the perfect partner. In the process, he finds out a lot about love and it’s such a fun read.

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue – Mackenzi Lee

This is one one of the funnest books I’ve read all year – I was so incredibly happy reading it. I absolutely loved all of the characters, it had the perfect amount of romance, drama and adventure for summer!

The Quiet at the End of the World – Lauren James

This is such a lovely little book – it is the perfect book for summer. It features a beautiful friendship between the two youngest humans on Earth, as they watch the world slowly end. There are lots of twists and turns, and whilst I didn’t expect the ending (and at the time wished it had been a bit less happy – I’m a killer for a book that hurts me), it’s definitely a book for a chilled, summer read.

The Travelling Cat Chronicles – Hiro Arikawa

This book is definitely a tearjerker but I think it has a really lovely message, and feels very summery to me. It tells the story from the point of view of a cat, Nana, and his owner, Satoru, as Satoru tries to find someone to look after Nana – though we don’t know the reason why. As a cat owner, this was so hard to read as Nana was so confused about why Satoru would want to give him away and it was just so so beautiful and sad and wonderful.

Paws out,

Rach + Draco