Bookhaul

Hi everyone

I bought a few new books over the last couple of days, and now that they’ve all arrived, I can finally show you what I got!

My new additions:

- Virginia Evans: The Correspondent

- Jackson Ford:  The Bone Raiders

- Kristin Hannah: The Nightingale

- James Islington: The Will of the Many

- Peter McLean: Priest of Bones 

Have you read any of these? Which one should I pick up first? Or do you have other recommendations based on these choices? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Happy reading!
Helena 

Toshikazu Kawaguchi: Before the Coffee gets Cold

Hi everyone

Before the Coffee Gets Cold is the first book in the series of the same name by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. I got this book from Bol.com.

"In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.
In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer's, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.
But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .
Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?"  

To be honest, it was very forgettable.

I hoped the book would be profoundly moving, charming, thoughtful, and lovely to read. Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to those expectations.
The stories all follow the same format, so after the second story, it felt very repetitive. Especially repeating the rules of time travel every single time was so unnecessary. It really felt like Toshikazu Kawaguchi thinks we’re all stupid.

The stories are all overly simple in both plot and writing style, and it’s obvious their sole purpose is to make us emotional. The characters are very stereotypical, one-dimensional, and old-fashioned.
From the very first story, I felt incredulous at these characters. The woman in the first story is a smart and highly respected manager who speaks multiple languages, but after her time-travel moment, she has the epiphany that she should wait for her boyfriend to come back and she’ll be happy. In another story, a woman gives up all her own hopes and dreams to make her parents happy. What? Mind you, this book was written in 2019 and is also set in that time. It was impossible to feel connected to the characters.

So yeah, interesting premise and lots of potential; but that’s it.

Have you read Before the Coffee Gets Cold? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Happy reading!
Helena 

Richard Osman: The Thursday Murder Club

Hi everyone

The Thursday Murder Club is the first book in Richard Osman's series Thursday Murder Club. I read this on my e-reader. 

"In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders.
But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.
Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it's too late?" 

This was such a fun, delightful, entertaining, uplifting, and lovely story.

Make no mistake: the focus of this book is not the murder mystery; it’s the characters. The mystery itself is nicely done, and I didn’t guess how it would end, but the characters are where Richard Osman truly shines. They are all so lovely, larger-than-life, hilarious, tragic at times, and utterly charming.
It’s not realistic; the characters can be a bit one-dimensional, and it’s definitely not a serious book. But I really enjoyed the typical English humor that runs through it.

I did feel like the chapters were too short (on average, about 3 pages). The frequent switching of POV sometimes made me feel disconnected from the story and it really cut the flow of the storytelling.

Despite that, The Thursday Murder Club was a joy to read. It’s lighthearted, witty, and full of heart so perfect for when you need a pick-me-up. I will definitely continue the series.

Have you read The Thursday Murder Club? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Happy reading!
Helena

Robin Hobb: Blood of Dragons

Hi everyone

Blood of Dragons is the fourth and final book in The Rain Wild Chronicles by Robin Hobb. I got my copy from Bol.com.

"Dragons will fly over Kelsingra once more
Attacked by hunters, Tintaglia is dying of her wounds. If she perishes, her ancestral memories will die with her and the dragons in the ancient city of Kelsingra will lose the secret knowledge they need to survive.
The dragon keepers immerse themselves in the dangerously addictive memory-stone records of the city in the hope of recovering the lost Elderling magic that once allowed humans and dragons to co-exist.
But war is coming: war between dragons and those who would destroy them. "

In keeping with my experience with the other three books in The Rain Wild Chronicles, this book wasn’t great.

The focus is way too much on teenage romance to be truly enjoyable. This has been, and still is, my biggest gripe with the series, and it persists here. It was better in this book than in the previous ones; not every page with the keepers was about their love/sex lives, but it’s still too much. It was uninteresting, repetitive, and tedious to put it nicely. And it all ends utterly predictably. I’m so, so tired of this love triangle; Hobb took it way too far, and it should have ended in book two at the latest.

I really enjoyed being mad at the dragons for how superior they act. Aside from Tintaglia (I wouldn’t have minded her death were it not for her Elderlings) and Sintara, I liked reading from their POVs, getting to know them, and understanding them. Their arrogance and one-dimensionality made them frustrating but fascinating in a way.

I don’t have an issue with the pace of the story. Hobb’s writing is so good and engaging that I usually enjoy the slow pace of her novels. The whole series is lighter than her other works, which I enjoyed.
However, I was disappointed that we got a long buildup to the "war" only for it to happen off-page. It felt like a missed opportunity.
My second problem with the plot is the sudden addition of the Silver and its importance. This came out of nowhere; it was never mentioned as being important, and suddenly it’s as important as breathing? It felt forced and unearned.
Another minor gripe was Hest’s death. I love how he dies, but I don’t understand why it remains a mystery. How can no one know anything about it, including Davvie? 

The book (and the whole series) would have been so much better if Hobb hadn’t spent so much time and so many chapters writing about the keepers’ love lives. Instead, she could have focused on the worldbuilding, exploring Kelsingra better, and uncovering more of its mysteries and the surrounding country. Even Chalced was barely explored, and it would have been so much more interesting to dive deeper into its politics, culture, and conflicts. I love Robin Hobb’s worlds and usually, she's wonderful with worldbuilding, and I would love to read more about them, just without all the teenage drama.

Have you read Blood of Dragons? Did you enjoy it more than I did, or did you feel the same way? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Happy reading!
Helena 

Stephen Baxter & Alastair Reynolds: The Medusa Chronicles

Hi everyone

I just finished The Medusa Chronicles, a collaboration between Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds. I read this on my e-reader.

"Following an accident that almost cost him his life, Howard Falcon was not so much saved as he was converted, through the use of prosthetics, into something faster, stronger and smarter ...but also slightly less human and more machine than he was. And with this change came an opportunity - that of piloting a mission into Jupiter's atmosphere, and ultimately of making first contact with the life forms he discovers there. Picking up the threads of humanity versus artificial intelligences and machines, and of encounters with the alien, this collaborative novel between two superb writers is a sequel to Howard Falcon's adventures."

This was boring as hell.

The premise of this book intrigued me, but it went nowhere. The book should have been called The Falcon Chronicles because the Medusa got next to no screen time. It’s all about Falcon, and he is one boring, uninteresting, and one-dimensional character.

The book skips a lot of time, and you’d hope it would be to get to the interesting parts; but nope. It’s all tedious and boring, with no tension in the story anywhere. The story and the writing are so bland and uninspiring. A few promising characters or subplots get introduced, only to just fizzle out and not go anywhere.
And don’t get me started on the philosophy; it really felt like the authors were trying so hard to be intellectual.

The only reason I kept reading is because I love reading about discovering new worlds, species, and cultures. There were a few parts I really enjoyed, but unfortunately, they were few and far between.

Have you read The Medusa Chronicles? Did you enjoy it more than I did, or did you feel the same way? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Happy reading!
Helena

Wrap Up: June 2026

Hi everyone

June has flown by, and as we start a new month, I like to look back on the books I read the previous month. June brought sunshine, and a real heatwave here, so no reading outside for me! Instead, I snuggled up indoors with some great stories (and a few that didn’t quite hit the mark).

Here's what I read, with links to the reviews. 

• Harriet Muncaster: Isabella Maan onder de zee 
• Stephen Aryan: The Warrior 
• Ilona Andrews: Magic Slays
• Richard Swan: The Justice of Kings
• Bill Watterson: The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
• Harriet Muncaster: Isabella Maan gaat kamperen 
• Katherine Arden: The Warm Hands of Ghosts
• Emma Donoghue: Akin
• Anne McCaffrey: Dragonflight

What books did you read in June? Did you discover any new favorites, or revisit old ones? I would love to hear your thoughts and recommendations!

Happy reading!
Helena