My favourite month is over, but summer has finally come and I couldn’t be happier and more excited!!! Let’s look back on what I read this month ;)
My June consisted of:
🎂 birthdays celebrations
📖 reading on the balcony
🪁 work finally feels lighter = appreciated the little beauties of the season
🌱 watering my neighbor’s garden
🎟️ participating in my small town’s events
🍔 eating out
🧖♀️ doing a lot of self-care
🧊 started making iced coffee instead of hot black one
🐈⬛ We Solve Murders by Richard Osman
“But most communication is by message or email. High-end criminals are much like millennials in that way.”
» Genre: mystery - crime - fiction
» Summary:
A brand new series. An iconic new detective duo. And a puzzling new murder to solve...
Steve Wheeler is enjoying retired life. He does the odd bit of investigation work, but he prefers his familiar habits and routines: the pub quiz, his favorite bench, his cat waiting for him when he comes home. His days of adventure are over: adrenaline is daughter-in-law Amy’s business now.
Amy Wheeler thinks adrenaline is good for the soul. As a private security officer, she doesn’t stay still long enough for habits or routines. She’s currently on a remote island keeping world-famous author Rosie D’Antonio alive. Which was meant to be an easy job...
Then a dead body, a bag of money, and a killer with their sights on Amy have her sending an SOS to the only person she trusts. A breakneck race around the world begins, but can Amy and Steve stay one step ahead of a lethal enemy?
»Rating: ☆☆☆☆ 4/5
»Favourite quote: I have some!!
🛫 “Everyone is taking the best shot they’ve got, and some shots are just luckier than yours. Anytime you feel your unhappiness turning into bitterness, you have to check yourself. You can live with unhappiness, but bitterness will kill”
🛫 “He doesn’t get casinos or infidelity. Why earn money, just to lose it, and why look for love, just to betray it?”
🛫 “Steve is grateful that at least he feels loved. Because if you don’t feel loved, it’s difficult to feel anything at all.”
»Favourite character: Steve
My review:
"Oh, Amy, I'd rather be murdered than bored."
this was really fun!! I really enjoy Osman's books and will always pick them up <3
I love how the plot was interesting but in an entertaining way; it's not like I was on the edge of my seat the entire time, it felt more like taking a peak at these characters' lives.
I liked this new group a lot, especially the bond between Steve and Amy – but Rosie was also great! ♡
I do have to say, the ending felt underwhelming to me. The mystery's premise felt so big and complicated, but I found the solution quite simple and joyful. There wasn't the big revelation I had been expecting all along.
One thing that is always on point is the humour. Osman's writing is incredibly fun and I have never found anything quite like it. It gives so much personality to the characters and makes them extremely relatable.
✒︎ "What unfortunate timing. If she'd known she was going to die this morning, she would have ordered pancakes."
I am so glad I finally read this one! It was one of my most anticipated reads and it did not disappoint.
🧡 Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
“That’s the first time it occurs to me: I’m falling in love with him. Maybe it should scare me. It doesn’t. I never want it to stop.”
» Genre: contemporary - romance - fiction
» Summary:
Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry.
Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years--or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century.
When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game.
One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over.
Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication
Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition.
But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.
And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.
»Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆ 4.5/5
»Favourite quote: I have some (spoilers ahead) ↓
🧡 "Just because you've made a decision about how I feel," he growls, "doesn't make it true."
🧡 Love isn't something you can cup in your hands, and I have to believe that means it's something that can't ever be lost.
🧡"That's not how this works," she said.
"Honey, there's never been a me or you before," he replied. "This works however we say it works."
🧡 "It's yours," he offers.
I laugh. "Oh? I can have the world?"
"Mine," he says, "yeah. You can have mine."
»Favourite character: Alice
My review:
Hayden on my mind.
Alice all the time. ♡
What a great big beautiful story!!! Emily Henry has done it again. 💘
I loved this story, it is different from her usual, but also true to her style. I always like to consider her books as contemporaries more than romances, because she's really able to capture real life and craft characters that feel like existing people, and this one felt that way even more than the others.
The focus was their job: telling Margaret Ives' story. In between our storyline, we get Alice's notes from the interviews with the famous actress, making it a double story, not only Alice and Hayden's but also Margaret's – and Cosmo's.
There were so many passages that spoke to me and made me feel so intensely, both for the characters and for what resonated with my own life.
As for every EmHen book boyfriend, I fell for Hayden. What a gorgeous human being he is!! So kind and respectful and cute and fun and amazing 😘🤌
I only took half a star off because of two things, 1) towards the end, Margaret's story took up a lot of space, taking away our main storyline; 2) the "problem" at the end (that I loved and was so worried about how they were going to solve it) came a bit too late in the book, and I think the solution happened way too quickly. Other than that, it is perfect!!
Truly truly amazing, I’m so grateful that every year, during this time of the year, we get a brand-new Emily Henry story. I wish I could live in her universe. 💛
That’s all for now! I have very VERY exciting (reading) plans for July that I can’t wait to share with you at the end of the month. I also have, for the first time in a while, a monthly TBR of books I want to get to!! I will share it here:
As always, thank you so much for reading! I promise the busy months are over, and now I will have much more time to dedicate on the things I love – I will be back to talk about more books, shows and stuff! Thanks for sticking around <3
june was YOUR month baby!! and every book in that tbr is getting ticked off soon <3