October was a month spent travelling! I started with flying back to the UK for the first time in five years, popped over to Italy while I was in Europe then came all the way back home to Sydney. It was wonderful to be reunited with my family and friends if only briefly, and I was reminded of all the things about the UK I loved and hated! I definitely won’t be leaving it another five years to come back. I also launched my pre-order campaign and got my hands on the first Advance Copies of Greenteeth – holding the physical copies of my book was truly one of the best moments of my life.
Books
Normally I would get through a book a day whilst on vacation, but I was so busy that I only managed to read five books in the whole month! They were a diverse bunch, and I enjoyed all of them.
The Daughters War - Christopher Buehlman
This is the prequel to The Blacktongue Thief, which I read earlier this year. I absolutely loved and was devastated by this book in equal measure. It follows Galva, a young warrior, as she brings a new battalion of war corvids (ravens the size of stags) into the fight against the rampaging goblins. I have never hated and feared a fictional enemy the way I hate and fear these goblins! They are smart, vicious and totally uncaring of human life. I really felt the terror of the human armies as they battled against them and the desperation to win and survive. When I read The Blacktongue Thief I compared it to Joe Abercrombie’s First Law books, and I absolutely stand by that assessment – what a fantastic series this is turning out to be.
Trustee from the Tool Room - Nevil Shute
Another Nevil Shute book I found for free on Apple Books! I believe this is the last book Shute wrote and it’s a classic story of good people behaving well and trying their best. The titular Trustee is Keith, a modest man but excellent mechanic, who suddenly becomes the guardian for his niece. Her inheritance is lost at sea (due to some tax avoidance shenanigans from her parents) and Keith sets out across the world to try and get it back. It’s a good read but it is a little difficult to feel sympathetic on the tax front!
The Far Country - Nevil Shute
The second Shute of the month! This was perhaps a poor choice to read on my flight from Sydney to London as it is mostly about how bad the UK is and how great Australia is. To which I say: Hmmnnn I agree but not for the reasons you think! Shute’s main complaint is how the NHS and UK welfare state is preventing rich people staying rich and the thing he loves about Australia is that there’s a lot of meat. So, we’re not completely aligned on values! Also, he keeps describing people as dark skinned and then it turns out they’re from Poland, there are no actual aboriginal characters in this book. But hey ho different times and all that.
Darwin's Dreampond - Tijs Goldschmidt
A non-fiction book I have been trying to track down for years, Darwin’s Dreampond is a half scientific account of the evolution of fishes in Lake Victoria, half travel account of life as a researcher in 80s Tanzania. I very much enjoyed this book; the science was easy to read, and the stories of Tanzanian life were fascinating. I’m a bit of a fish nerd (what a thing to admit) so this was right up my alley, and I learned a lot.
Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands - Heather Fawcett
This is the second in the Emily Wilde series and this time our heroine has travelled to the Alps. I loved the developing relationship between Emily and Wendell, but I did miss the friendships she built in the Ljosland village of the first book. The Alpine villagers felt fainter and got less page time in this book. I am looking forward to picking up the third in the series where we travel back to Wendell’s kingdom!
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