The Sunday Salon: An exceptionally late June 2013 Reading Wrap-Up

Hello everyone. It’s been silent here for one of the longest stretches in blogging memory, and I only managed to post a review last week because I’d written it significantly ahead of time. My family have had a rough week and a half as my grandma passed away last Sunday night, and I flew home to the United States last Tuesday for her wake and funeral. My grandma was a wonderful woman, and my favorite grandparent by far, so this has been a difficult time, and was a really hard end to June. But at least her struggles are over and she can rest in peace, and life will now resume some semblance of normality for the rest of my family too.

As you can imagine, I spent a lot of June buried in books. And not writing reviews of them. I really had very little enthusiasm or energy for anything at all. I had a brief period where I started to get my energy back and I had three days of posts in a row, and I’m hoping that will happen again and stick around this time in a couple of weeks. I’ve read so many amazing books and I really do want to talk about them, so I intend to do so eventually, even if only in mini reviews. (And this week I will choose winners of my giveaway – apologies to those waiting for the news!) I’m as usual reading a lot of series, and I think I’ll probably write little cluster reviews rather than individually review books, like with the Confederation novels by Tanya Huff.

Fiction

• The Heart of Valor, Tanya Huff
• The Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Arnim
• Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters
• Deception, Kris Kennedy
• Three Parts Dead, Max Gladstone
• The Better Part of Darkness, Kelly Gay
• Have His Carcase, Dorothy L. Sayers
• Gaudy Night, Dorothy L. Sayers
• Busman’s Honeymoon, Dorothy L. Sayers (yes, I went on a binge)
• Graveminder, Melissa Marr
• Shapeshifted, Cassie Alexander
• Elisha Barber, E. C. Ambrose

Non-fiction

• Pompeii, Mary Beard
  
• The Churchills, Mary S. Lovell

Favorites of the Month

I continue to love the Confederation novels; The Heart of Valor made me instantly buy the next two in the series, after which I *think* it ends. I also spent a good week immersed in the world of Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, but Gaudy Night was (predictably) my favorite, as it not only brings up a lot to think about and an interesting perspective on academia for women at the time, but also shows Harriet’s opinion of Peter changing beautifully for the better. And Pompeii was just fascinating. All recommended.

What’s Ahead in July

More posts, I hope! Here are the books I have lined up to read over the course of the rest of this month:

I’m actually looking forward to all of these books without exception. You can see that I want to finish the Confederation novels, as they’re both on the pile. And look, there are even two works of historical fiction, so I might actually feature a book that is in my “niche”. Crazy.

What’s ahead for you in July?