A quick round up of the books I read this month and an update on my writing projects.

Reading

NUMBER OF BOOKS READ = 11

Books I read in April 2024:

• Seaside Stranger Vol. 6: Harukaze no Étranger by Kii Kanna
• Daemons of the Shadow Realm Vol. 4 by Hiromu Arakawa
• Jade Fire Gold by June C.L. Tan
• House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones
• The Way of the Househusband, Vol. 11 by Kousuke Oono
• Choujin X, Vol. 5 by Sui Ishida
• Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
• March Comes in Like a Lion, Volume 2 by Chica Umino
• My Girlfriend’s Child Vol. 4 by Mamoru Aoi
• Lost in the Never Woods by Aiden Thomas
• Daughter of the Deep by Rick Riordan

What was my favourite read this month?

I’ve been looking forward to reading Carrie Soto for ages, but for some reason I kept putting it off. Then this month I finally sat down to read it, and really enjoyed it. As a fan of TJR’s writing and also sports anime, I thought it was the perfect match up between the two. The big twist in the third act was very predictable, but the rest of the book was enjoyable. A really interesting look at women in sport and female rivalry. I’m so excited to see what TJR does next in her career.

What book disappointed me?

Quite a lot of books this month, but I want to talk about Seaside Stranger Vol. 6. This manga used to be my all-time favourite and it’s starting to slip off the pile. The first couple of volumes are amazing and are such a great exploration of some of societal prejudices against gay people in Japan. But volume 6 was so… pointless. The series really needs a new direction and fast in order to keep it interesting. I like cosy books as much as the next person – and I have a feeling Kanna Kii is trying to make this series just that – but cosy series still need to have some direction and conflict in order to make them interesting.

Did anything I read this month make an impression on me?

While I was reading Daughter of the Deep, I started thinking about consequences. Daughter of the Deep starts with a massive catastrophe, and during the rest of the book the characters never deal with the aftermath of that catastrophe. They talked about it a little, sure, but the plot moved on very quickly, and I thought the characters never processed their emotions or had a chance to mourn. And it made the rest of the book very… odd.

Did anything inspire me?

I was going to say nothing this month, but then on Thursday night I saw Leigh Bardugo in Bath. With author events these days, I don’t tend to take much away from them in terms of writing advice. When I go to see authors at talks, I prefer learning about their books and who they are as a person. At this stage in life, I’ve heard all the writing advice I can stomach. But when asked how Leigh Bardugo knows that the idea is “The One”, she said that it’s not so much as finding the idea to fall in love with, but more about staying in love with the idea you have. Which I thought was an interesting insight, especially with the struggles I’ve been having with my WIP.

What are my reading plans for next month?

My plan for next month is to get started on preparations to read books 7, 8 and 9 in the First Law series. I read Red Country when it came out over 10 years ago, so it’s been a while since I was in the world! I’m going to read Sharp Ends this month and then look up summaries for the other books, ready to read A Little Hatred in June. I’m finally going to read The Dragon’s Promise – which I tried to read last August, but found it hard to get into during a time when I needed something easy to read, so had to put it down. I also want to get on with Brandon Sanderson’s secret projects, so am going to pick up The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England. I also want to read A Season for Scandal, and also Gwen and Art Are Not in Love. And then I’m sure they’ll be some manga as well.

Writing

CURRENT WIP

Word count on 1st April = 0

Word count on 27th April = 14,397

This month… did not go to plan and, as a result, this year will likely not to go to plan.

The plan for this month was to write the first third of Book 2 of the YA Urban Fantasy series. As you can see, I have written a couple of thousand words. And I was on track for quite a bit this month to make the goal. But then I had one bad week, and that bad week lead to a bad weekend (to be fair to myself, I wasn’t feel 100% so had to take a break). The bad week started when I found myself starting to find holes in the plot for Book 2 – things I thought could be expanded, things I was skimming over, and things I knew I needed to write in Book 1 but hadn’t done.

And I kept thinking about the fact that Book 1 was incomplete and that really kept bugging me. I couldn’t concentrate on Book 2, because I kept thinking about how there were bits missing in Book 1 that would effect Book 2, and how by not addressing them now I was setting myself up for a massive load of editing.

And then I started thinking about my plan to publish all four books in very rapid succession, which for me as a self-published author was going to be a rather expensive venture. Especially when I am trying to save as much as I can in order to move house. And I’m still not even close to paying myself back for the investment cost for Otaku Trash and The Blood Twins.

So a lot of thoughts and a lot of self-doubt combined with not feeling very well led to a messy last half of the month.

At the moment I’m still trying to work out what I want to do with the YA Urban Fantasy series. It’s not going to die, but I need a new plan of attack, because this one is not working.

I took a break this week from the project to work on something that I will be talking about later. I think I will make that something else my main focus for the moment. That will give me time to think about the YA Urban Fantasy series and decide what to do about it.

LAUNCHED BOOKS

Another quiet month this month in terms of sales, because, yet again, I’ve done no marketing… *sigh*

But I did get a couple of page reads on KU, which was a nice surprise. (And by a couple, I mean a couple… Enough to make me 2p in royalties…)

HOW MANY BOOKS DID YOU READ THIS MONTH? WHAT WERE YOUR FAVOURITES? HOW DID YOUR WRITING GO THIS MONTH? COMMENT DOWN BELOW. LET ME KNOW.

My new book, The Blood Twins, is out now on Amazon. Click the below banner to find out more about it, and my debut novel, Otaku Trash ⬇️