A belated post which will cover my three months of quiet.

Observation note 118: Pain Again. I have come to realise that winter is not my best time to write. For many years now, I start with semi-regular posts early in the year, just to drop the ball when I actually have the most time to write. I think it is because I am a sunshine person. It drives me and invigorates me and even though it is usually quite bright in winter Sydney, it still is not bright enough for me. In Observation note 117, I had discussed my couple of months of pain, having just started limping after sciatic and intercostal pain. Well, it ends up pain likes the number three because I thought the limping was muscle strain with perhaps some arthritis in my ankle, was much more. As the x-ray showed nothing, I assumed it was arthritis, so I kept moving my foot, even going to a Fat Boy Slim concert trying to get circulation to counter arthritic stiffness. I eventually I got an MRI which showed my ankle was broken (gah!!!!), and possibly I shouldn’t have tried to dance (or walked or moved).

So I was in a moonboot for 8 weeks (!). This also kept me from driving during that time because it was my braking/driving foot. Housebound in winter is crappy but this year I was living with my mum and “caring” for her. I couldn’t shop, I couldn’t clean (lucky!) so we spent the weeks talking and watching old Greek movies and soaps, as well as spending time on mum’s weirdass tiktok feed (all octagenarians should have one!!!). This was much more complex than what I write here and for the most part I was deep in busy-ness in that time. I am happy to be home again and reading again while preparing for Spring semester teaching starting in a few days. The moonboot is off and I even went for a super-long walk on the weekend.

Meanwhile, throughout May, June and July, I managed to read 18 books. I won’t discuss them all but I will point out a few which stay on my mind. And I would stop reading now if you object to spoilers. Here are some pretty book covers to give you time to look away.

Reading Note 67: Rachel Bailey’s The Lost Heir. First up, a disclaimer: the author and I are good friends so I am biased. We aren’t talking a slight bias because of that one time I sat with an author through a dinner kinda “friend”, but a friend with whom we have had multiple sleepovers and 5 hour conversations and lots of writing support. So yeah. Deep bias.  I try not to read or promote my friends’ books however I really loved this one.

Now for the book. This was a strong and serious romance. Totally unexpected story. I liked it and recommend it. This is a rather complex story which digs deep into the impacts of intergenerational trauma. The trauma is not only not on the page, but it isn’t trauma committed onto the main character, however he is the product of someone who has had trauma and his whole life is based on being hypervigilant. 

Reading Note 66: Sangu Mandanna’s The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. I deeply enjoyed this book. It had a gentle romance, a found family story and quite some sadness to the life of being a witch for the main character Mika Moon. It was delightful and it reminded me of my favourite witch stories I read growing up such as Betty Brock’s No Flying in the House which was superb and still resonates. I really hope that Mandanna’s Secret Society of Irregular Witches becomes a series with all these offshoot storiess both in adult fiction and in junior fiction for the various characters.

Reading Note 68: Made in Manhattan by Lauren Layne. This was an ok Pygmalion makeover story where the characters have to dig deep on whether they like the remake or not. Ugly duckling/makeover stories are a bit creepy as they feel as though their whole reason for being is based on the aesthetics of the person creating an inauthentic version of yourself. Layne tries to invert this by having the hero being the one who needed the makeover (by the heroine) but it still didn’t work for me.

Other than the makeover, there were a number of other icks. I couldn’t get on board with the hero Cain constantly calling the heroine Violet “Duchess” – like yuck. Also, there was a secret baby plot but for the adult hero discovering he has a grandmother because he only just discovered he was a secret baby (another trope inverted???).

Another annoyance is that the blurb does not equal what happens in the book. Surely someone in the publishing house could fix this issue with a tweak of an edit. Just saying.

Even though I’m a big fan of Lauren Layne, this novel didn’t give me my usual feels. Though it was OK enough that I read the book in two days.

Reading note 69: LOL.

Reading note 70: Two more books which stood out was Jeanette McCurdy’s deeply disturbing though uncomfortably amusing I’m Glad My Mom Died, and Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen’s The Library: A Fragile History which was mostly interesting except for when they went into the acquisition minutiae which was astoundingly dull.

Reading note 71: A quick note to acknowledge SuperWendy’s TBR challenge.

May’s theme was a Freebie: All but one of the 18 books I read are freebies as I only borrow from libraries. I only own war historian Joy Damousi’s Memory and Migration in the Shadow of War on the experiences of Greek migrants to Australia after their experiences of war. The book was a print-to-order as I couldn’t find a library copy anywhere. It was a harrowing read, much of which was a reflection of my parents’ war traumas.

June’s theme was Love is Love: I (hybrid) presented my latest research on a five year study of LGBTQIA+ diversity and romance in library displays at the IASPR conference in June. Go to page 42 of the conference program for more information: https://www.iaspr.org/conferences/romance-revitalised-birmingham-uk-2023/2023-romance-revitalised-program/

July’s theme was Opposites Attract: several of the romances I read were Opposites Attract but I am going to vote for Sally Thorne’s Second First Impressions which was equal parts lovely as it was tedious. Elements of the opposites attract trope worked for me, the old people’s home as a setting was gorgeous but I couldn’t work out why the main couple just didn’t resonate for me. The secondary characters though were a hoot and lovely and poignant.