The heatwave here finally broke, the spouse is on vacation…that’s about it, really, things have been nice and unexciting. Except in my head, where the stories have been playing!

(I did have a galaxy-brain moment wherein I realised that, since the spouse and I met via online text roleplaying and I loved him as a(n?) rp partner before I loved him romantically, this means that my extremely persnickety taste in writing styles is what brought me and the love of my life together. I SHALL NEVER APOLOGISE FOR BEING PICKY ABOUT PROSE EVER AGAIN!)

ARCs Received

Lots of promisingly WEIRD arcs this month! Millennium Bug, alas, already proved not to be to my taste, but I’m loving Oblivion’s Hymn so far, where we have shapeshifters and divine magics galore. The Iron Garden Sutra has been on my radar for ages, and since I’m auto-approved for that publisher I nabbed it the second it showed on Netgalley!

One Morning Sun is the finale of Avi Silver’s Sãoni Cycle (EEEEEEEEE!), and Hell’s Heart is Alexis Hall’s first sci fi (I plan to read it simultaneously with Uncontinented Stars, since the premises are so similar and I want to compare them!)

Strange Animals is the first fiction offering by the person behind the cryptonature tumblr I’ve followed for years (nothing to do with crypto currency, just spooky woodsy feels), so I’m very curious to see what it’s like!

The Heart of the Nhaga was on my Unmissable list for this year until it was pushed back to 2026, and We Will Rise Again is a collection of stories and nonfic essays about resisting fascism – a collaboration between very well-known authors and equally well-known protest organisers.

Canon sounds utterly bizarre and has promised to be very queer – in some listings it has the subtitle A Nonbinary Epic, so, you know, obviously I had to check it out. I already know from glancing through it that it’s written in a more experimental style, so I’m hopeful!

Read

25 books read this month! Many of which were novellas, which obviously upped the numbers by a LOT. I’m still thrilled!

I loved Earth Logic EVEN MORE than I loved Fire Logic last month, and I was absolutely obsessed with Lessons in Magic and Disaster, where weird queer witches made many messes and nobody should blame them ever. The Duke is a sapphic regency romance in an England where women can be lords, and it knocked me RIGHT out of a reading slump and the start of a depression-spiral – so many glittery Feels! I thought I was going to DNF Hymn to Dionysus, but instead it went on my favourites shelf; I just couldn’t get enough of the prose, so many stunning turns of phrase. The Thread That Binds is one I’d previously DNFed a few times, but again, won a spot on my favourites shelf: low-stakes fantasy about making magic books, how the hells could I NOT love it??? Origins of Desire in Orchid Fens was strange and beautiful, water spirits and Roma and environmentalism in a novella where most chapters were just a page or two.

Rereads included most of the Penric & Desdemona series and some of the Rivers of London books, to refresh my memories before diving into the latest instalment in each (it’ll be a while before I get to the new RoL book, I guess!) Karen Memory, too, I reread because the sequel is out NEXT WEEK (well, the first full-length sequel – we did have a novella sequel years back).

DNFed

I guess it makes sense that in a month where I read more than usual, I also DNFed more books than usual! I feel genuine regret for a few of these, though.

(Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil wasn’t listed in yesterday’s DNF post, because I defenestrated it after the post went live, but I’ll add it later.)

Reviewed

Stunned and delighted by how many reviews I got written in August! AND most of them weren’t for arcs!!! (My mini-reviews of What a Fish Looks Like and Karen Memory go live next Sunday, which is why you haven’t seen them yet.) I feel like I had an easier time this month saying ‘it doesn’t have to be perfect’? Which took a lot of the pressure off, which made writing easier.

I doubt I’ll be able to keep writing this much in the near future – knowing how my body works, I’m probably due a collapse – but I need to keep the mentality, clearly.

Next Up

(Discounting arcs and new releases, ofc)

I have so many arcs whose release dates are in October – so those are what I need to focus on in September. But I also want to get to Adventure of the Demonic Ox, the latest Penric & Penric & Desdemona novella, and continue my Rivers of London reread! The newest Warriors’ Guild book is waiting for me too, and I need to read Three Seeking Stars before I can pick up my arc of One Morning Sun. I adored Legendborn when I read it last month and really want to get to the sequel, Bloodmarked, and since my Rainbow Crate edition of How to Survive This Fairytale should show up this month, I’d like to finally get to that as well!

ARCs Outstanding

No comment!

Unmissable SFF Updates

I belatedly added The Sign of the Dragon to this year’s Unmissable list, which brings us to 82 books! I also got to add some covers – we officially have no more covers-to-be-revealed entries, they all have their covers now! – and adjust the release date for The Entanglement of Rival Wizards, which I had listed as in September but at some point was moved up to the end of this month instead. Woo!

Now because I didn’t do them last month, I’m going to have a rundown of the Unmissables for July AND August here!

How did my predictions/anticipated reads for July go? I declared twelve books Unmissable for July, and–

one was a four-star read (Daughters of Flood and Fury)eight were DNFs (Moonrising, Secret Market of the Dead, Bloodless Queen, Resistance of Witches, Library of Hellebore, Beasts of Caraval, Blood Slaves, Memory Hunters, and Silvercloak) – although Library and Blood Slaves were by no means bad, just far too scary/dark for me!two I haven’t gotten to yet (Stone and Sky and Covenant of lce)

That’s…pretty abysmal! Yikes. Most of the DNFs were new-to-me authors, so I guess I continue to really suck at gauging authors I haven’t read yet. Or – since I’d imagine most people can’t judge an author before they read them! – it’s probably a reflection of how picky my tastes are. Hm. I should do some kind of survey of how many new-to-me authors I’ve loved this year… Try and guesstimate what the odds are I’ll enjoy a new author, and see if they’re really all that low?

How did my predictions/anticipated reads for August go? I declared seven books Unmissable for this month, and–

two were five-star reads (Mad Sisters of Esi and Lessons In Magic and Disaster)one was a four-star read (The Entanglement of Rival Wizards)one was a three and a half read (Hemlock & Silver)two were DNFs (House of Dusk and Katabasis) – though again, I thought House of Dusk was pretty great, just not for me.one I haven’t finished yet, but am entirely in love with (Helm)

MUCH better than July! And it’s the exact opposite situation: almost all of these books were from authors I already know. Which is likely very relevant!!!

Misc

The Every Month Is Pride list got a big update this month – a whole bunch of new books added, ones I wasn’t aware of or somehow forgot about when I first put the list together!

I put way more thought and work into my 10 Books Sure to End Your Reading Slump list than anybody asked for, but I had a lot of fun with it – and I stand by my selection!

Pagebound is an alternative to Goodreads and Storygraph that I stumbled upon this month, and have been enjoying a lot! The creators, inspired by fanfiction sites like archiveofourown, have reimagined a lot of features we’re familiar with – like the quests in place of Storygraph’s reading challenges, where only one user chooses the books instead of everyone contributing possible selections. (I am, obviously, ridiculously delighted that I can now make lists which other readers can’t mess with, although I do hope there’s an option for collaborative ones, and collaborative quest-suggestions, at some point.) There’s a reading challenge WITH A SANE LAYOUT (why does Storygraph make us scroll forever to see our reading challenge and why did Goodreads decide to copy them?!), a reading plan function that I am about to become obsessed with, a forum for every book to make it easier to discuss them with other readers, HALF-STAR RATINGS – and no Amazon or ‘AI’. There’s a few niggly bits and pieces that need polish, but I have faith they’ll get it. I encourage you to try it out! (And if you’d like to be friends, my username is Siavahda!)

Looking Forward

A most eclectic mix to look forward to next month! Almost all of them indie, too! Audition For the Fox is already one of my favourites of the year, but I can’t wait to see how everyone else reacts to it; Bind Me Tighter Still is mermaid burlesque with real mermaids. Summer War is one I wouldn’t be interested in from a different author, to be honest, but it’s Novik so I’m hyped! Angel Maker is the newest Karen Memory adventure, and One Morning Sun, as mentioned above, closes out the Sãoni Cycle. And last but likely not least, a new fantasy from Rachel Neumeier that I know nothing about! No idea what to expect, but the odds are good that I’ll love it!

What new releases are everyone else looking forward to?

And now, let us all go ahead and have a stupedous September!

The post In Short: August appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.