 Hey guys it's Leanna and I'm here today with my April wrap up. If you've been following me for a while you know that I you don't usually do monthly wrap ups but now that we're home 24 and 7 I figured why the fuck not. I did manage to read nine books in April so let's get into what I read. I'm just gonna pull it up on my phone. There's a lot of the books that I read were e-books so um I don't have them to hold up to show you anyway. So my stack will look very sad even though I read nine books. The month did not start out strong. The first book I read this month was Dangerous Alliance by Jeneke Cohen? Jeneke Cohen? Well whatever. I if you watch my vlogs then you know I feel about this book. I hated it oh my god it was so bad. It was bad as a historical it was bad historical fiction. It was bad romance. It was bad plot. It was bad humor. It was just bad bad bad bad bad bad. There was literally nothing to like about it. I was looking forward to just nothing earth-shattering but a fun rom-com historical romance something just light and fun and fluffy. So the bar I set for my expectations was already very low and it didn't even meet those standards. So yeah I do not recommend that book. Oh it was it wasn't funny. It wasn't accurate. It wasn't interesting. Oh if you don't know the premise of the book it takes place during like Jane Austen's time like literally like during her lifetime because she is currently publishing books. She is a contemporary of our main character and our main character sees her life through the lens of Jane Austen novels so she keeps comparing her own life to Jane Austen which again I knew that going in and as a concept I thought that would be kind of cute and funny and quirky and sure I'm all for that. That'd be a funny interesting spin to have the heroine do basically what a lot of us do nowadays when we like sort ourselves into Harry Potter houses and whatnot. She's doing it with Jane Austen. So in the beginning like it already seemed quite heavy handed at first and then it just it it got old real fast and the dialogue was again not interesting or funny also historically completely inaccurate and it was that weird middle kind of like trying to sound old-timey and failing so it wasn't modern and it was an old-timey. It was just bad and inaccurate and clunky and not accurate for any period of the world. There was no chemistry for our love interests. There was the plot was so weird and dumb and convoluted and I again do not recommend. I give it one star. The next part I read was Nifron Rising by Michael J. Sullivan. I feel like I'm cheating but I'm not because the first three books the Reiria Revelations are each a bind up of two books. So Theft of Swords which is the first book in the Reiria Revelations is actually two books bound up. Rise of Empire the second book is actually two books bound up. So Nifron Rising is the first book in Rise of Empire. So I didn't finish Rise of Empire which is a bind up of two books but I finished Nifron Rising and I'm counting it separate because it's not my fault they decided to bind them up. They are separate books like they are literally broken up that way. It's not like it continues as one contiguous story. There's a break where then it suddenly says that now you've moved on to book two and book two is the Emerald Storm. I always forget what the second one is called but anyway I read Nifron Rising. It is in the Reiria Revelations which is a fantasy epic by Michael J. Sullivan. The prequel trilogy is Reiria Chronicles and the prequel prequel trilogy is uh well it begins with Age of Myth but I don't know what the series is called. Anyhoo it's fun uh like for fans of Lies of La Climora. It follows two sort of thief heisters who are known like their group is known as Reiria, Hadrian and Royce and they've got good banter and they've got that good kind of thieves with a heart of gold kind of thing going on. The fantasy world in the books is very traditional but fun for that so you've got a very you know medieval Europe setup. You've got dwarves and elves and things like that and it's just a good time. It's not especially groundbreaking but it's a good time. The next I read Romancing the Duke by Tessa Dare after hating bringing down the duke in whatever rather than March and then also hating Dangerous Alliance. I was still on the hunt for a satisfying fun fluffy historical romance or historical rom-com or historical comedy or whatever. So I was like Tessa save me. So I read Romancing the Duke because Amanda had highly recommended that to me and it had been previously like on sale on Kindle for like a dollar or something so I had it and it was so funny and so cute. Definitely one of my favorite Tessa dares and I've read quite a few at this point thanks to Amanda. It's uh I mean like all Tessa Dare books it's a historical romance comedy but in this one they're just larping because the main character her father like wrote us like a periodic like a serialized like fantasy story that people were big fans of and then he died leaving the story unfinished. So everyone's obsessed with the story and these larpers follow our heroine around because they're obsessed with the story and when they show up the duke is not impressed. So funny. Then I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets which is a reread but I read it when I was a kid so it's been a minute and I always forget how much better the books are than the movies. The movies are obviously freshest in my brain. Harry Potter like Harry the character I always think of as a lame milk toast character because he's that way in the movies but in the books he's snarky. He stands up for himself. He's got a mouth on him and I don't know why they cut that out of the movies because he just comes over so useless. Comes across so useless in the movies but in the books like he makes fun of Dudley and he talks back to the teachers and he's like a little shit. I love it. Anyway I don't need to go into Harry Potter. Harry Potter is Harry Potter. Then I read Prosper's Demon by KJ Parker which is more of a novella. I read it because he wrote 16 Ways to Defend a Wild City which I'm currently in the middle of and I'm quite enjoying his humor and Prosper's Demon was suggested to me as another of his and it's very strange but funny. It's a quick read. It's very short so I don't even know how to explain it. It's like a guy who's able to see demons when they possess other people and therefore it's his job to like expel them from other people but he's like not exactly like into his job but he's kind of has to do it because he's born with that power so he's a very reluctant hero and he like it's been compared to Deadpool and I see why because he's like saving people kind of but like it's not exactly heroic and then he's got this like long time nemesis who's a demon who keeps inhabiting bodies and he keeps running into and there. It's very strange um and but I do like KJ Parker's humor a lot. Next I read The Wolf of Orin Yara by KS Villosa which was one of the books written by one of the panelists from the Social Decence Book Fest panel that I hosted. I was trying to read all my panelists books before the panel which did not occur but I did get through a couple. So The Wolf of Orin Yara is the first book in there's definitely a second book. I don't know if it's a trilogy or just a duology. There is another book though that I haven't read and I talked about it a lot when I vlogged reading it. It's historical fiction fantasy like it's heavily inspired by like Filipino history and culture and geography. That part of it I was found unique and refreshing because you know I've kind of had it with medieval Europe as your inspiration for your fantasy world. We've seen enough of that. Also the main character is a female and it isn't it doesn't fall into so many of the traps that I've seen with fantasies that have a female heroine or either the female is just like a dude but with tits is how the character is written or is so ultra femme that you're like why why just because it's about a girl now it has to be about romance and clothes and flowers no that also doesn't work for me. So the main character in The Wolf of Warniaro is very well written. She's written as a powerful and strong independent thinking character who's also navigating holding a position of power as a female in a fairly sexist misogynist world but because of her status then she is given more privilege and more say so than your average female but still like how to navigate that and her concerns both her personal and emotional concerns as well as the way that she views ruling and her responsibilities about her people they are subtly informed by her being a female in a way that I feel like so many authors don't do well because it's not that being a female means you are weak it's not that being a female means like it's just your outlook is going to be slightly different the female experience makes your perspective slightly different and it doesn't mean like that you can't deal with these things it doesn't mean that you suddenly always choose the nonviolent approach it just means that your approach is slightly different and I think KSV also did a really good job at doing a female character it is totally completely fully fleshed out through dimensional and strong and independent but very also definitely a female and again that I'm not an expert on Filipino history culture or geography or anything so I have no idea how accurate it is as far as I understand it is decently accurate in terms of its inspiration and the incorporation of that which I found refreshing being a total novice to see a world that's unfamiliar to me and learn about it and explore it a bit so I quite enjoyed it um it did drag here and there is a little bit serious here and there but overall I really enjoyed it and I kept them on my toes and I would recommend then I finally read read vengeful by the usual which I started reading when it came out and I have like 10 copies of it I mean I actually have four copies of it and uh I didn't dislike it when I started reading it when it came out I just put it down and never picked it back up again and the day that I read now I had just seen a triggerler for the new HBO Perry Mason which put me in this mood for something like noir with gangsters and cops and I was like what the fuck do I have that I could read that would be like that and it was like vengeful and oh did it hit the spot so good it gave it five stars like I think I'm still like vicious better but vengeful is really good also I thought that it was the conclusion of a duology but the way vengeful ends it is not conclusive so for getting another book in this universe I am all for that uh then I read the silence of bones by June Herr which was another of my panelists books and this is um historical suspense set in Korea and it's uh it's basically a murder mystery but unlike horrible books like stalking Jack the Ripper which again completely misrepresent what it would be to be a feminist in historical time period here you again you have a female main character who's independent thinking and intelligent and navigating being a female in a place in a time when being a female means that you are lesser and she doesn't walk around being like how dare they mistreat me I'm the same as you because no woman in historical time period would have been that entitled like of course she would be frustrated by the fact that she has denied things that men are given but she doesn't walk around acting like she deserves it or is entitled to it because no one in her life in that period would no woman would be told that she is entitled to that it wouldn't occur to her to think that she is frustrated by it however and she she keeps trying to be subservient and obedient the way she's supposed to be but she just can't sometimes keep her mouth shut and she like chastises herself for it but she is like again it's handled very very well but she is an independent thinking and courageous female in historical time period where that is not an easy thing to be and the murder mystery itself was interesting and engaging and I enjoyed the the setting being again non-western I definitely recommend then I read The Paris Hours by Alex George and that's the last book I read in April. I've read two more books since then but it's uh one of my book of the month club books otherwise I would never have picked it up some of the reasons I like Book of the Month Club because I end up reading a lot of books that I wouldn't have picked up otherwise and it's historical fiction it's also quite short and it takes place post world war one in Paris and it follows the lives of is it four or five people that ultimately converge at the end of the book in the same place and time but at first they don't they seem unconnected other than being sort of geographically near each other like in the vicinity and you follow you learn more and more about each of these stories and each of these people's backgrounds and they each seem to have a past or a secret or something that is haunting them or guiding them or driving them and as you learn more about them you begin to see connections between their between these people and then again at the end of the book their lives do actually converge like in a specific place and time so it's kind of like crash or something like that where you have these different lives that suddenly meet and it also kind of reminded me of the movie Paris I Love You except set in like post world war one France it's not modern day so you definitely get a huge flavor for for Paris in the 1920s for but it's not this like idealized like baguettes and perfume and everything so wonderful and it loves in there it's a very gritty kind of realistic like there are poor people there is racism there are many it's a melting pot that isn't very melty and there's but there's there is also delicious pastries and coffee and everything that is Parisian so it's this it's this messy and rich portrait of Paris and of the people that inhabit it and it was somewhat loosely inspired by one of the plotlines that kind of ends up affecting all the others quite a bit is based on the actual chambermaid of Marcel Proust they changed the author changed the name of that character and changed some things about her background and her story but basically like he learned about this chambermaid and what he learned about her got him thinking like what if she had done x y z and from there kind of sprang the rest of the novel and you do have some famous people but they're definitely in the periphery of the story so Ernest Hemingway shows up Gertrude Stein shows up but they are not by any means the main characters they're kind of like adding color to this portrait in the same way that the baguettes are they're just sort of like iconic for the period so they're thrown in the way that the Eiffel Tower would be thrown in I thought it was really good they're uh it depended on the person's story a couple of the stories didn't grab me as much and others of the stories of the people that we follow really affected me and were kind of heart wrenching so it's a very short read very atmospheric so I would recommend and those are all the books that I read in April I mean all the comments down below what you read in April if you read any of the books that I read in April if you intend to read any of the books that I read whatever you want to let me know I post bookish videos still on Saturday is my vlog schedule has shifted and as of the filming of this video I am posting vlogs on Tuesdays and Thursdays now this is the new schedule and if that changes I will let you know in any case let me know the things in comments down below if you enjoyed this video please like and subscribe and I'll see you when I see you bye