Month In Review: March 2019

March has come and gone here at Off The TBR! Spring has come (sort of) and with it the year is kicking into gear. This is the point where I start to get a sense for how busy things are gonna get from now through summer now that baseball season and spring ballet season has arrived (my kids extra-curricular activities). All in all March was a good month here on the blog. I did pretty good with my reading and I can’t complain about the number of reviews I posted. I did have one off weekend but that couldn’t be helped. I also managed to read some really good books. So without further ado here’s what happened…

Here’s a quick recap of what I’d planned to read in March:

• The Winter Road by Adrian Selby (I was reading this when the month began)
• Grey Sister by Mark Lawrence
• By Fire Above by Robyn Bennis
• And then two mystery reads that had not arrived at the time of my Monthly Reading Goals posting

Grey Sister and By Fire Above were “definite” reads while the mystery books were maybe’s depending on whether they ever arrived. Well here is what I actually read:

• The Winter Road by Adrian Selby (managed to finish this one early)
• Grey Sister by Mark Lawrence
• Sixteen Ways To Defend A Walled City by K.J. Parker (mystery read)
• Seven Blades In Black by Sam Sykes (mystery read)

So…um…yeah as you can see one of my “definite” reads never got read. But the two mystery reads arrived! I finished Sixteen Ways To Defend A Walled City and am about halfway through Seven Blades In Black which is a 600 page tome that could cause a concussion if I threw it at someone. Not that I would, but you know it’s a what if kind of example.

Anyway, I feel bad about By Fire Above because I’ve been putting it off forever. Right now I’m looking to pick it up later in the year, maybe in May.

So yes, as usual my reading plan at the beginning of the month did not pan out the way I’d planned. But at least I’m consistent with that right?

BOOK REVIEWS

I did manage three book reviews this month which is one more than last month! So WOOHOO for better stats! Here they are in order:

My first review of the month was for The Winter Road by Adrian Selby. I absolutely loved this book.

I finished The Winter Road…set the book down, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. I had to collect myself a moment – had to pause and digest it. The Winter Road is a story of the pain and heartbreak that underlies human achievement. It’s the kind of book I haven’t read in a while, like you’re drawing back the curtain on some grand event in history where everyone knows the glorious result, only to discover the grim truth about how it came to be. One where the reader is pulled through the wringer along with the characters…you may be new on the other side, but the pain and disfigurement of the experience lingers, some parts of you are left in the bucket, and you’ll never go back to the way things were before.

I gave The Winter Road 5 of 5 Stars. You can read the full review here.

The second review of the month went to Grey Sister by Mark Lawrence. I thoroughly enjoyed Grey Sister. It had a lot of work to do to follow-up on such a great first book in the series and Lawrence delivered. It’s paced well, action packed, and will keep you turning pages. I can’t wait for Holy Sister to come out in a few weeks. Until then I’ll be impatiently waiting.

I gave Grey Sister 4 of 5 Stars. You can read the full review here.

My final review of the month for Sixteen Ways To Defend A Walled City by K.J. Parker came on the last day of the month so I barely squeaked it in. But it made it nonetheless.

I liked this book. I just didn’t love it. It was a fun read and I don’t regret the time I spent with it. At the same time it isn’t one that made made a big impact on me. I didn’t hate the characters but I didn’t love them either. The story was good but not riveting like many others I’ve read lately. In the end, if you’r a fantasy fan you should like it and you shouldn’t regret your time with it either.

I gave Sixteen Ways To Defend A Walled City 3 of 5 Stars. You can read the full review here.

OTHER POSTS

Besides my reviews I posted three other times in March. Two were regularly scheduled Reading And Blogging Goals posts where I’m running through my ten goals for the year in detail, and one was something that came to me out of the blue about comics.

First I talked about my goal to start reading Dragonlance novels again. These were the book that got me hooked on fantasy as a kid back in the 90’s and I’m dying to try them out again and one day years from now maybe even finish all the books in the series (there’s like 150 of them or some such nonsense).

I’m also hoping to host a read along of Dragons of Autumn Twilight, the the first book of the Chronicles trilogy in November. If that goes well maybe we’ll do one for the others sometime later. You can read the full post here.

My second Reading And Blogging Goals post for the month was about my desire to read more self-published fantasy. I really discovered self-published fantasy last year and became a big fan but only read six books.

This year my goal from this point forward is to try to read at least one self-published book a month. I’m behind so far but plan to pick up the pace, and maybe host Self-Published Fantasy Month again later in the year. You can read the full post here.

My final non-review post was something that just came to me on a whim. I’ve been thinking of reading comics again and thought I might also review them.

I admit I don’t know much about comics other than I enjoy them so my reviews may suck but whatever. Though as I look at my calendar for reading I’m not sure when I may get to any of them. You can read the full post here.

Well, that’s it for March! How was your month? Have you read any of the books above? Love em or hate em? Interested in a Dragonlance Read? Let me know in the comments. Hopefully I’ll have a look ahead to my April goals up in a day or so. Till then Happy Reading!