Yes, I know. We’re a week into April, but sometimes I don’t realize we’re in a new month until we’re a week into it. That’s how I roll.

Anyway.

March. A good reading month, overall. Warm weather, lots of rain, otherwise not typically March-like because it’s usually cold and snowy or full of thunderstorms. Now that we’re in April, the trees are starting to bud and flowers are blooming, and it’s starting to look more green than brown.

I read fourteen books, or 3,869 pages in March:

• Fatal Enquiry (Barker and Llewellyn #6) by Will Thomas, audiobook narrated by Antony Ferguson
• Our Riches by Kaouther Adimi, translated from the French by Chris Andrews
• The Lays of Beleriand (The History of Middle-earth #3) by J.R.R. Tolkien, ed. Christopher Tolkien
• Melmoth by Sarah Perry
• Roverandom by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Persian Pictures: From the Mountains to the Sea by Gertrude Bell
• Tolkien Treasures by Catherine McIlwaine, J.R.R. Tolkien
• Giving up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel
• The Hidden World of the Fox by Adele Brand
• Walk the Wild With Me by Rachel Atwood, audiobook narrated by Matthew Lloyd Davies
• A Morbid Taste for Bones (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael #1) by Ellis Peters, audiobook narrated by Patrick Tull
• The Empress of Salt and Fortune (The Singing Hills Cycle #1) by Nghi Vo
• The Shaping of Middle-earth (The History of Middle-earth #4) by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien
• One Corpse Too Many (The Chronicles of Brother Cadfael #2) by Ellis Peters, audiobook narrated by Patrick Tull

Statistically speaking:

• 72.2% of the books I read were written by women, while 27.8% were written by men.
• 55.6% were written by English authors, 33.3% were by Americans, while 5.6% each were by Algerian or Canadian authors.
• One book was a work in translation.
• 50% were physical books, 33.3% were audiobooks, and 16.7% were ebooks.
• 27.8% were fantasy novels, 16.7% were mysteries or nonfiction, while 5.6% each were science fiction, art, science and nature, memoir, general fiction, travel, and gothic.
• 50% were from my own shelves, 38.9% were from the library, and 11.1% were from NetGalley.
• The years of publication ranged from 1895 to 2021.

My favorites of the month (not counting re-reads) were A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters, Giving up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel, and The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo.

Melmoth was the book I liked the least, just for the weird coincidental meeting toward the end and the end itself. The rest of the book was fine, but the ending was a letdown.

What’s on Tap for April:

• Deathless (Leningrad Diptych #1) by Catherynne M. Valente
• The Glitter in the Green: In Search of Hummingbirds by Jon Dunn, ARC provided by NetGalley
• Thief of Souls: An Inspector Lu Fei Mystery by Brian Klingborg, ARC provided by NetGalley
• Redoubt (The Collegium Chronicles #4) by Mercedes Lackey
• The Lost Road and Other Writings by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien
• Njal’s Saga by Anonymous, translated from the Icelandic by Robert Cook
• Rule of Wolves (King of Scars #2) by Leigh Bardugo
• When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain (The Singing Hills Cycle #2) by Nghi Vo

I have three ARC reviews due this month, so I need to get those read first off. I don’t think it will be too hard, as they aren’t terribly long, and I’m already done with one of them (The Galaxy, and the Ground Within). I’m a little way into The Glitter and the Green, and so far it’s beautifully written. The Lost Road and Other Writings is the next stop in The History of Middle-earth books, and deals with Tolkien’s unfinished time travel story, while Njal’s Saga is the next in my Big Books Challenge. It’s been on my shelf since I bought it in Reykjavik the first time I was in Iceland back in 2017. I’ve read several Icelandic sagas, but Njal’s Saga is the longest.

Redoubt is the next installment in the Reading Valdemar project that Mel, Jackie, and I are embarking on this year. It’s the fourth in the Collegium Chronicles, and we’re all hoping it gives us a new take on the story, as the first three books were about a group of mysterious foreign bad guys who just leveled up from one book to the next while Bear and Lena spent a bunch of time crying about their crappy families instead of doing something about it. I completely forgot to write a post for the last book, Changes, which I seemed to have enjoyed more than Mel or Jackie (though I fully admit it has its problems).

I’m hoping to get to Rule of Wolves before the Netflix series Shadow and Bone comes out on the 23rd, but I’m not going to hold my breath. I’m looking forward to it, whenever I get to it.

There will likely be other books along the way, because there are a few series I’d like to get farther along in, but we’ll see what happens through the rest of April.

What are you planning to read during April?