April was a mixed bag, read some absolute belters and few duds. Such is life I guess! 😀

The total read this month was 23 books, that’s put me at 79 so far this year. The end of the month had a lot of rereads in it, I was feeling a little slumpy after not enjoying one of my challenge books so I decided to take action by picking up a few favourites. Rereading can sometimes throw me off and I get caught up in the comfort and go on a reread binge. Well, it looks like that’s exactly what will happen in May! I have a plan though, read about that in next months wrap up! 😀

I read one book from the ✨TwentyOffMyShelf 2025✨challenge I’m participating in, which brings me to 17 books read. I’ve purposely slowed down in this challenge, it’s a cute challenge and I don’t want to finish too quickly. I read three prompts for this quarters Romanceopoly 2025 Challenge Hello Blossom Falls! Spring has officially sprung in Romanceololy land!

I also read book number four in my own Non-fiction reading 2025 challenge. I’ve read four memoirs in a row so I hope to change it up in May.

So onto the books read in April 2025:

Wild Love (Rose Hill #1) – 4⭐, Wild Eyes (Rose Hill #2) – 4⭐, Wild Side (Rose Hill #3) – 4⭐ by Elsie Silver

Wild Side (Rose Hill #3) by Elsie Silver was my first prompt for Spring (Blossom Falls) in the Romanceopoly 2025 reading challenge.

I felt compelled to reread Wild Love and Wild Eyes before the release of Wild Side. I do like this series but I don’t think it’s going to surpass Chestnut Springs for me. It’s a cute series though and I’m very excited for Bash’s story!

Sweet Obsession (Dark Olympus #8) by Katee Robert – 3.5⭐

Unfortunately I didn’t love this!

I actually enjoyed the love story, Icarus and Poseidon were wonderful, and HWAT together.

However, after eight books of build-up I’m just over the Circe storyline. War is on the horizon? War has been on the horizon for six or seven books now and nothing is happening, it’s just talk, talk, talk and no action!

The Circe nonsense started to take away from the building of Icarus and Poseidon’s relationship and it was such a pity because they had so much chemistry!

Zeus and Hera are next, we have been teased with them FOREVER, and I can only assume that we will also get the illusive ‘war’. I’ve been invested so long that I will for sure read their story and I feel like that will be the end of the series for me? I mean if Circe is dealt with I might be tempted to read more! We shall see!!

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner – 4⭐

This was cute, I liked the dual timelines and I was so invested in Caroline, Nella and Eliza’s story.

Seeing the comparison between the options Caroline has in the modern day and the lack of options women in the 1800’s have was sobering!

I actually really enjoyed how Caroline entered Nella and Eliza’s story, the mudlarking and investigation that uncovers the apothecary story but also leads to her own self discovery. Her husband was a total asshole and I was very concerned for a while there that she was going to forgive him.

“First, there was trust. Then, there was betrayal. You cannot have one without the other. You cannot be betrayed by someone you do not trust … what you have learned is the same heart-wrenching journey of every woman to whom I have sold a poison. And it is, indeed, the same path for me.”

The best part though was spending time with Nella and Eliza in the 1800’s, as macabre as it sounds, I kind of supported Nella and her mission. Obviously for the modern era I’d never condone wholesale murder but in the 1800’s women had no rights and very little recourse when being abused by men and, well, this is what happens when you don’t allow people to have any rights and then abuse them!

“Beneath the ink strokes of my register held betrayal, anguish and…dark secrets.”

It was all a little rushed there at the end and I would have liked more of Nella and Eliza’s story after the bridge. The recipes at the end were a lovely little addition though!

The World We Make (Great Cities #2) by N.K. Jemisin – 5⭐

I absolutely loved The City We Became and was unsure if I could love the follow-up as much but I shouldn’t have questioned the brilliance of N.K. Jemisin, this was utterly wonderful.

Granted, I was unreasonably pissed off for the majority of it but that was kind of the point! If only we could blame an obscure alien race for the shitshow that is currently happening in the world, but mostly the u.s.a.

Unfortunately we can’t, we can only blame fascism, racism and all out greed.

Part of me thinks that N.K. Jemisin shouldn’t be allowed to write books like this anymore because they feel scarily prophetic, look what happened after The City We Became, and look what’s happening now, is she predicting the future? Is she writing the future? But of course it’s just that N.K. Jemisin, as a Black woman in America, probably has very little choice but to keep a finger on the pulse of a very racist and fascist state and see what way the wind was going to blow.

There is one scene that really stuck in my head and feels particularly relevant for what’s happening right this moment, it’s when Aislyn and Veneza (although I much prefer squiggle-bitch) are in a pizzeria on Staten Island. Aislyn ordered her favourite pizza and can’t eat it because it tastes bad. Veneza turns up and explains that she needed to make changes to everything Staten Island (including it’s pizza) so it’s less ‘New York’ and therefore easier to control, when weakass and racist Aislyn decides to eat the horrible pizza, I found how she justified it fascinating:

“It still tastes awful. The cheese is bland, the crust gummy, and the fake truffle oil’s funk pretty much overwhelms any better aromas that the slice might have. But it isn’t so terrible, is it? To be less unique, more common. All cities change, after all. Change isn’t always a bad thing.

So Aislyn chokes the slice down and orders a Coke to wash the taste from her mouth, because sometimes that’s the kind of sacrifice you have to make, for a friend.”

I don’t know, this just reminded me of the way the cult followers are talking about choking down tariffs for their cult leader. Feels a bit like Vaneza trying to make Staten Island better while in reality she was ruining it and it’s pizza!

Eh, I’m probably just trying to find similarities because of all the craziness currently going down!

N.K. Jemisin’s acknowledgments give me the impression that I might not be wrong though. I’m sad there won’t be a third book but I also totally understand why she can’t go on. I can’t imagine it was a fun place to spend the amount of time needed to write an entire book, it was an incredible book but I’m depressed AF after reading it, and I’m not currently living in what is fast becoming a fascist dictatorship! 😦

Shattered Sea (Tattered & Torn #4) – 3.75⭐ & Fractured Sky (Tattered & Torn #5) – 4⭐ by Catherine Cowles

I’m still enjoying this series, I usually read these books on a Sunday afternoon, they are easy reading and a great way to switch off.

Shattered Sea was way more emotionally devastating than I thought it would be, I personally think that the amount of trauma Laiken was dealing with was more than enough and we didn’t need the addition of Boden’s trauma and toxic brother but CC does like to go big with the drama and this was no exception. I will say that I was glad she spared Laiken another hospital stay and it was ‘nice’ to have the MMC be the one dealing with multiple injuries throughout the book. Then again, Laiken had chronic pain to contend with so I guess anything on top of that would be unusually cruel.

Fractured Sky was the book I was waiting for, Shiloh’s traumatic past has been the elephant in the room during this entire series and I did wonder who would be able to break through the walls she had built in order to feel safe after what happened to her as a child. Ramsey was exactly who she needed, I mean we all knew that he was going to be perfect but I wasn’t expecting him to be that perfect. No miscommunication, no games, just a man with a heartbreaking past who is able to give another person suffering from multiple traumas time and space to work through all the things she needs to work through!

I loved seeing both Shiloh and Ramsey opening up and begin to start living their lives to the fullest.

I don’t think Shiloh needed more trauma at the hands of Howard though, I just feel like she’d already been through so much. I think after everything that came with the couples previous to this book, Shiloh and Ramsey could have had just had their little HEA and not have to endure more terrible things.

As I said, enjoyable reading, I can’t wait to read more Catherine Cowles! She really entertains!

Butcher & Blackbird (Ruinous Love #1) – 4.5⭐, Leather & Lark (Ruinous Love #2) – 4⭐& Scythe & Sparrow (Ruinous Love #3) – 4⭐by Brynne Weaver

Butcher & Blackbird (Ruinous Love #1) by Brynne Weaver was the first main prompt for Spring (Blossom Falls) in the Romanceopoly 2025 reading challenge.

The first book was so fun that I had to dive right into the next two, book one was definitely the best out of the trilogy but I still had fun though, and I’m sorry to see this bunch of lunatics go. It looks like we might be getting some more unhinged characters though, recommend reading that second epilogue!

Still Standing (Wild West MC #1) – 4⭐, Smoke and Steel (Wild West MC #2) -5⭐& Smooth Sailing (Wild West MC #3) – 4.25⭐by Kristen Ashley

As the month progressed I was in the mood for rereading, the more I read Still Standing the more I appreciate it, it’s still basically another version of Motorcycle Man but I think Buck is slightly less of an asshole compared to Tack?

Helen and Core in Smoke and Steel are really cute and their book is my favourite out of this series so far.

I’d actually forgotten that Smooth Sailing came out this year and I’d read it in February, it felt like it was last year, how is this year going both really fast and slow? What even is time? Hugger and Diana were perfection but I feel like the ‘drama’ around them getting together was a little weird and it all sorted itself out very quickly and it kind of dragged after they got together properly. The end of it killed me though, still not over it!

An Unexpected Kind of Love (When Snow Falls #1) by Hayden Stone – 2.25⭐

An Unexpected Kind of Love (When Snow Falls #1) by Hayden Stone was prompt number 10 in the Romanceopoly 2025 reading challenge, I was not a fan! 😀

The Woman Left Behind (Misted Pine #4) Kristen Ashley – 3.25⭐

So this was perfectly fine. It was definitely too long and the romance was kind of lacking but I enjoyed the other relationships. It very much focused on the sense of community in Misted Pines and the community surrounding Lillian and Harry. That was cute. 

I found the start of this book to be the best part of it, it was all very emotional and just very sad, once Lilly and Harry decided on each other it was a bit boring though, as I said, perfectly fine, but there was no excitement, and I felt like they didn’t have much chemistry.

I don’t know what to say, cute but forgettable? 

I’ll be continuing on with this series, I need the twins story ASAP!

Whispers of You (The Lost & Found #1) – 3.25⭐ & Echoes of You (The Lost & Found #2) – 3.75⭐by Catherine Cowles

More Catherine Cowles goodness, I didn’t fully get why either Holt or Nash found it necessary to hurt the women they loved by not dealing with their emotions, therapy would have been much less painful for everyone, then there would be no books though! 😀

Echoes of You was my favourite out of the two books, it was a lot more heartbreaking though, Maddie has suffered a lot and it was tough seeing her so low, Nash did step up but I also feel like it wasn’t all him saving her, she left her dickhead ex herself and came home herself, she set herself up in a home and she got herself a job, and most importantly she reconnected with the friends her ex tried to cut her off from. One of those friends just so happened to be a man who wanted to save her, and he helped, but I actually feel like she did a lot of the hard work herself. Maddie is absolutely traumatised but she is also a badass. I enjoyed them both but she was my favourite out of all four characters over both books!

Happy to take a little break from Lost and Found though, Caden & Grae are next and the little bit of interaction we’ve gotten so far has kind of annoyed me. I will be picking it up, just not right away! 

The Will (Magdalene #1) – 5⭐, Soaring (Magdalene #2) – 4⭐ & The Time In Between (Magdalene #3) – 5⭐ by Kristen Ashley

I always seem to reread this series in April, it’s full of Spring vibes and my brain craves it this time of year. I wish there were more books in this series, I love that the MMC and FMC are older, and I also love the setting, I’ll probably never set foot in the usa again but had it not gone the way it’s gone I’d have liked to visit New England, Maine in particular.

Savage Her Reply by Deirdre Sullivan with Karen Vaughan (Illustrator) – 5⭐

So I’m pretty sure that every Irish person knows the story of The Children of Lir, at least everyone I know. It feels like it’s engrained in our DNA but actually I think we learn it in like junior infants (kindergarten), and just forget where we learned it because we were so young! 😀

I liked the story when I was young but as I got older I saw that it was really christian propaganda, and also that the story wasn’t as old and mythological as I was led to believe.

So a retelling that’s told from the POV of the villain? The villain that christianty chose? I say yes please!

Aife is still very much the ‘evil’ stepmother but Sullivan made me feel very sympathetic toward her, and she also made me see Bodhbh and Lir in a whole new light, and you know what? I feel like they were as much to blame as she was. And also, Aife taking to the bed for a year being seen as her being dramatic when girl was obviously depressed as fuck was an eye opener. As I mentioned, everyone knows this story, so is it any wonder that we as a nation are still struggling with accepting depression? I mean I’m not blaming The Children of Lir for Irelands lack of mental health acceptance, but that lack of care sure didn’t happen in a vacuum. I feel the need to look at our mythology and how mental health is portrayed as a result. Obviously trying to understand mental health is a relatively new phenomenon, but it would be so interesting to see if there are many other stories that have characters who very clearly have an illness, and it is just shrugged off, and they are portrayed as the villain!

I enjoyed how all the women in this book were portrayed, Fionnula was a particular favourite, how strong and take charge she was but also how she was seen to be humoring Mochaomhóg, I honestly feel like after surviving 900 years, there is no way she is going to fall for his bullshit.

As usual with stories about Celtic Pagans, this made me mourn a culture that is very much lost to us. I’ve always connected with Paganism much more than catholicism and stories like this remind me how powerful that connection is. Maybe it’s the Paganism that’s embedded in our DNA?!?

A wonderful retelling and a lovely way to end my reading month.

The quote below put me in mind of how, many years ago, I won the argument about not going to mass. I’d stopped practicing pretty much all catholicism at about 16, but Christmas mass was still nonnegotiable. One year we’d had a massive cold snap with lots of snow, so much snow that it had covered the beach and caused the sea water to freeze at it’s edges, which was very unusual in the part of the country where I grew up. Christmas morning was a clear, crisp winter wonderland and I wanted to celebrate the holiday with a morning walking on the beach. I asked, “If there is a higher being, wouldn’t it make more sense to take in the wonders of what they created rather than standing inside a man made building?” Shockingly they both agreed and the rest is history. That walk and how connected I felt to nature at that time is still something I think about all these years later. My walks are actually how I celebrate a lot holidays, just most of them are now the Pagan holidays.

Sociopath: a Memoir by Patric Gagne – 5⭐

Forth non-fiction of the year — Sociopath: a Memoir by Patric Gagne