Francesca's Thoughts

Long time no chitchat. It feels a long time, because I was working on the final module of the semester when I last wrote and now the film debuted two months ago. How’s your summer? Done anything fun? Raged against the machine? Me too, if you count working on mirrornovel as an alternative to reading the news, beginning to scream, and not stopping.

I know a lot of ‘long time no see’ posts say things like ‘I took a digital break!’ or ‘I had my eighth child and adopted a cat then moved continents!’ This is the longest pause I’ve ever had in posting, but it was neither a self-imposed break nor a slipping of the mind. Masters degrees are hard, I have a chronic illness, the cost of living in Bath is rising and I have more important things to think about than talking into the void of the blogosphere, which cannot be relied upon to talk back. Something I have managed to do is read a lot, because the opportunities for entertainment when you are stuck in bed are limited to reading, TV or the radio and a lot of the telly, frankly, has not been up to muster. So. Let’s chat books.

I started writing titles for a ‘best of so far’ post in June or July and I’m already thinking… this list could be longer. Heroically I am limiting it so you can read this while your coffee brews or your emails load, then request them to your local library in a jiffy.

The Bone Season

A serious contender for best new-to-me series of the year, although I’ve started Rivers of London and have a good feeling about that. I’m also finally reading The Lord of the Rings and I really think this Tolkien chap might be one to watch.

I don’t often pick up dystopian fantasy, because I survived the Terrible Dystopian Fantasy Deluge of the 2010s, and but Samantha Shannon is excellent, so, check it out. I did a Read, If You Like if you’re in the mood to hear about Author’s Preferred Texts. Samantha is also lovely in person and I cannot wait to read the next instalment in the Roots of Chaos series, which is worth every one of its one billion pages. Speaking of long books.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

GoodReads keeps telling me I’m ‘behind’ on my reading for the year. This is because Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell took the entire month of January to read. A WORTHY PERSUIT. (Here is my post about it.) I’m glad I read it on Kindle, for purposes of avoiding pins and needles, but if and when I find myself with more shelf space, I’d be sorely tempted by a nice hardback edition. I do like a footnote. And God help the Goodreads tracker now I’m reading the The Lord of the Rings in a single volume.

Giovanni’s Room

In which the classics are classics for a reason. Almost no one in this novella is someone to hang out with in your spare time. FANTASTIC.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

Twilight could never.

I have a habit of downloading books to my Kindle, completely forgetting about them and reading them whenever the title takes my fancy. So I may be the only person in literature who picked up Bury Our Bones without the knowledge it is a vampire novel.

I’m not mad about that.

Like Jonathan Strange, Bury Our Bones meanders its way through history, taking its time setting up a sense of place. It lets the reader come to their own conclusions about who the good guys are and who the bad guys are (could some people… be both?). I had a fantastic time. This was my first VE Schwab novel, somehow, but definitely not my last.

The Listeners

Did I worry that Maggie Steifvater’s adult debut might not be in my wheelhouse even though I’m almost 30 and therefore have been in theory too old for her other work the entire ten years I’ve been reading her stuff? Not really. She’s the My Chemical Romance of writers: some days I might be in the mood for one book over another, but has she ever missed? No. And The Listeners is good. Like ‘good gosh the rest of the bookshop is scrap paper’ good. It explores a lot of ideas, but at its core is about seeing as human those people we might prefer to other, so right up my alley but definitely not one for the read-protected-characteristics-off-a-menu crowd.

Julie Chan is Dead

I’m considering logging out of social media permanently – to be honest, keeping up with a handful of authors in this list is my main reason to stick around. That and dog videos – and Julie Chan is Dead by Liann Zhang might prove to be the very best book to have read while that’s on my mind. I finished it in an evening and couldn’t sleep after. It’s in a similar vein to Yellowface insofar as you’re rooting for the protagonist’s criminal behaviour even as they do appalling things.

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None of the characters being likable is a definite theme in this list. This may be useful to you if you’re ever thinking of browsing my work.

I’m not going to say see you soon, because who knows. Enjoy the books if you give them a go! Or don’t! I’ll be propping up The Lord of the Rings with an entire pillow if you need me. Who needs the gym indeed.

Look after yourselves,
Francesca

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Thanks for reading. If you’d like to read my short stories and see behind-the-scenes work, you can sample? the No. 1 Reader’s Club on Patreon for a month with this link. No pressure to stick around! Think of it as trying a miniature dessert with no requirement to eat the whole menu. You can also find me on Ko-fi. Thank you for your support – you’re helping to fund this space and pay for other costs of running a creative business, like paying editors.

Here are the books I’ve published so far and where you can find them. If you enjoy my book recommendations, browse my Bookshop.org page here.

I’m on social media (reluctantly), via Instagram, Tumblr and Facebook. I prefer my montly-ish newsletter! You can find all my books and my unhinged reviews of books I love on GoodReads and StoryGraph.