Books Read in August
On top of these, I also read about 300k of student major projects!
1. Sometimes I Lie – Alice Feeney
My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me:
1. I’m in a coma.
2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore.
3. Sometimes I lie.
Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and a series of childhood diaries from twenty years ago, this brilliant psychological thriller asks: Is something really a lie if you believe it’s the truth?
2. The Muse – Jessie Burton
A picture hides a thousand words . . .
On a hot July day in 1967, Odelle Bastien climbs the stone steps of the Skelton gallery in London, knowing that her life is about to change forever. Having struggled to find her place in the city since she arrived from Trinidad five years ago, she has been offered a job as a typist under the tutelage of the glamorous and enigmatic Marjorie Quick. But though Quick takes Odelle into her confidence, and unlocks a potential she didn’t know she had, she remains a mystery – no more so than when a lost masterpiece with a secret history is delivered to the gallery.
The truth about the painting lies in 1936 and a large house in rural Spain, where Olive Schloss, the daughter of a renowned art dealer, is harbouring ambitions of her own. Into this fragile paradise come artist and revolutionary Isaac Robles and his half-sister Teresa, who immediately insinuate themselves into the Schloss family, with explosive and devastating consequences . . .
3. The Goldblum Variations – Helen McClory
We like Jeff Goldblum. You like Jeff Goldblum. Helen McClory likes Jeff Goldblum. Treat yourself to The Goldblum Variations, a collection of flash fictions, stories and games on the one and only Jeff Goldblum as he, and alternate versions of himself, travels through the known (and unknown) Universe in a mighty celebration of weird and wonderful Goldbluminess. Maybe he’s cooking, maybe he’s wearing a nice jumper, maybe he’s reading this very pamphlet. The possibilities are endless.
4. The Silence – Tim Lebbon
In the darkness of a vast cave system, cut off from the world for millennia, blind creatures hunt by sound. Then there is light, there are voices, and they feed… Swarming from their prison, they multiply and thrive. To scream, even to whisper, is to summon death.
Deaf for many years, Ally knows how to live in silence. Now, it is her family’s only chance of survival. To leave their home, to shun others, to find a remote haven where they can sit out the plague. But will it ever end? And what kind of world will be left?
Total this year: 45 books
Loose reading goals:
Read more romance: None
Re-read some old favourites: None
Read more classics: None
Continue to read diverse books/books by marginalised authors: The Silence has a deaf viewpoint character, The Muse has a Trinidadian protagonist, and a character in Sometimes I Lie has OCD.
Read nonfiction: Nope
Read women: Sometimes I Lie, The Muse, The Goldblum Variations
Sign up for my F/F romance newsletter
