September 2026 - Reviewed

Despite it being eleven years since I last began a school or university year September still feels like a fresh start. It's a time when I always want to reset and check in on my goals, but without the overwhelming eleven and a half months between me and the Christmas break that January has. In Sydney it's also the start of the D'harawal season of Ngoongungi, where the weather starts to get warmer, the waratahs bloom and the flying foxes fill the skies.

I've not had the entirely successful new start to September that I was hoping for but I did get to read seven excellent books - and really who could ask for more?

Wolf Worm - T Kingfisher

 Another excellent addition to the Kingfisher canon. I really can't believe that I only discovered her work a few years ago but that just means that there's a great stack of books for me to devour! This is probably my favourite so far, telling the story of a young naturalist and illustrator who takes a position drawing bugs in post Civil War Carolina. Kingfisher absolutely nails the cosy/grim style and I had such a good time reading this, even whilst I was horrified at some of the gloopier scenes.

Horus Rising - Dan Abnett

This is the first in the Warhammer series, the Horus Heresy, and I picked it up after a friend indicated that they were "not that bad really". He was right, this was actually fun read, especially if you can take it in the spirit it's meant, which is incredibly buff space potatoes punching each other. Unfortunately because I enjoyed it I now want to read the rest and there are...sixty-five volumes. And if I want to read the Warhammer books not in this series - there are over a thousand. So my TBR just took a beating worthy of the Luna Wolves! That's a Warhammer reference, apparently it's my thing now.

False Gods - Graham McNeill

The second in the Warhammer Horus Heresy books. This is very much more of the same, except there's a very long dream sequence where no one punches each other. I deducted one star from my rating for that.

The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

 The third in the Warhammer Horus Heresy books, The Hobbit is a violent, imperialistic, wait no.! My apologies, I got carried away there. I needed a break from punching so I picked up my deeply beloved copy of The Hobbit, given to me by my grandfather as a tenth birthday present. It's really just as good as it was the first five times I read it, and for my money, a better book than LOTR. I assume that if you're reading the blog of a fantasy author that you've already read it but if by some chance it's slipped through then you have a delightful treat in store.

Bodies of Magic - Freya Marske

My favourite book of the month! I adored Marske's Hugo nominated novella Cinder House, so when I saw that she had just released this magical dark academia book I jumped to pick it up. It's set in a medical school, where five young would be healers must solve the murder of their most brilliant classmate whilst trying to pass their final exams. I liked the worldbuilding, it was well thought out whilst not being info dumped, and the characters were interesting and flawed in their own ways. I appreciated the covid analogy that was layered through the text, and I enjoyed reading a book with high personal stakes that didn't involve violent death. I also just loved Marske's writing style, which is the perfect intersection of simplicity and depth that I adore and features in almost all of my favourite books. I think I will be adding this author to my automatic read list.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark

I am trying to make my way through a long list of more modern classics and since I have struggled to find the book I actually wanted to read by Spark, The Girls of Slender Means, I satisfied myself with picking up Brodie instead. I found it... meh. I know lots of people love this book and find it witty and incisive but to me it just felt a bit nothingy. I didn't really get any of the humour and I didn't really care about any of the characters, except loathing the creepy art teacher Mr Lloyd. Swing and a miss for this one.

A Trade of Blood - Robert Jackson Bennett

This is the third in the Ana and Din botanical mystery series and I spent quite a lot of my time reading it worried that it was the final part of a trilogy and things weren't all being rounded up. Happily when I got to the end and then went searching online it was clear that there will be plenty more to come and I think had I known that during the reading process I would have enjoyed it more. I still had a great time reading it, the cattle ranch setting was very interesting to explore and the deadly fungus wielded as a weapon really put me off my enoki mushrooms for a while. This is now the third in the series that I have read this year and I'll have to wait for Bennett to write the fourth, but I am already looking forward to doing a full re-read when that comes out.