July Reads

I’m feeling a little more on top of things this month, getting this post out BEFORE the month is two-thirds over, haha. As usual, the photos/links below are mostly Amazon affiliate links so should you make a purchase through one of the links I’ll earn a few pennies. For some reason, most of the book covers embedded as ? when I tried to add the photos so for most of the books I’ve linked the book titles instead.

Now that, that is out-of-the-way. Let’s see what I was reading last month!

Harry Potter and the philosopher’s Stone – J K Rowling

I decided for the 20th Anniversary of Harry Potter that I would listen to the whole series on audiobook. As much as I adore the series, I haven’t re-read it since it first came out so listening to it all again is every bit as magical as it was the first time. And Jim Dale does a fantastic job as the narrator. You really can’t go wrong with this one!

Heartless – Marissa Meyer

After finishing The Lunar Chronicles last month, I wanted to wrap up my Marissa Meyer novel-reading by reading Heartless, which is a re-telling of the Queen of Hearts. Well more than that, it is an orgin story for her which was really interesting. I wasn’t overly familiar with the Alice in Wonderland series so my knowledge is entirely based on the cartoon and movies so this was really interesting to me. I’ve read that die-hard fans of the series may not feel that same way, and I’m not really happy with the last little chunk of the book, but overall I’m glad to have read it.

Sea of Shadows – Kelley Armstrong

Zoe gave me both this and Empire of Night a while back, and when I found out the third book in the trilogy was waiting for me at the library, I figured I better get to work on the series!

Sea of Shadows starts of pretty darn slow. It was confusing at times, but still interesting enough that I was eager to get into book two when I finished this one.

Empire of Night – Kelley Armstrong

And so here we are at book two. This one picked up the speed (in my opinion anyway), and I think I read it in two days, finishing one night at 1:30 am – and proceeding to swear at the last sentence. Curse you cliff-hangers!!

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – J K Rowling

I’m not going to bore you with my endless yabbering about how good this series is, suffice to say – I finished book 2, it was amazing, everything is amazing, the end. haha

Forest of Ruin – Kelley Armstrong

Book three. I’m not sure how to take you. It was suspenseful, there were twists I didn’t see coming, overall I liked it, but like many one aspect grieves me. But I won’t spoil it for anyone else in case you decide to read it. This too, seemed to slow down in pace like book one, but by the end things were flying fast and furious!

Doctor Who System Wipe – Oli Smith

This was a novella that came with one of my nerd boxes last year and I just hadn’t got around to reading it. I’m trying to pick away at my “to read” pile at home instead of requesting more books from the library, but we’ll see how long that lasts. This was fine. Nothing amazing, nothing terrible, I really don’t have much of an opinion on this one…

Reclaiming Your Body : How Your Body’s Wisdom Can Help You Heal from Trauma –  Suzanne Scurlock-Durana*

I received a copy of Reclaiming Your Body from the publisher to review, but my general rule is that I don’t take any book that I don’t think I’ll enjoy when it comes to reviewing. Ain’t nobody got time for books they know they won’t like! Anyway, as I work my way through my YogaFit for Warriors trainings, many of the concepts of healing trauma through breath and movement come into play so it was very interesting to me to read this book which took a slightly different – but still relevant approach to healing from trauma. It was a really informative book which brought up concept I didn’t know and hadn’t thought of, overall I really enjoy it. Those working in a trauma setting would really benefit from this book, even if only by learning about the concepts.

Landline – Rainbow Rowell

Oh Rainbow, I love you. This wasn’t my favourite of her books, and I don’t think I can really tell you which of her books I liked the least because they are all so closely collected together in the love category. It started slow, and I hadn’t even read the book jacket so I had no clue what was going on, but man did I enjoy it once it got rolling.

It’s safe to say Rainbow (who also has about the best name around), has quickly joined Sophie Kinsella as one of my “must read” authors. I don’t need to know anything about a book beyond that she wrote it, to know I want to read it.

Deep End of The Pool Workouts – Melinda Edwards, Katalin Wight*

I received this as a free review copy from the publisher, but as an aqua fitness instructor it was totally up my alley. I’ve long wondered why more trainers don’t utilize water workouts for training clients, and was always annoyed back when I watched the biggest loser about how they didn’t utilize the pool well. If they did do a workout in the pool it was push ups on the side of the pool and lots of kicking. There are so much better ways to workout in the water! This book is amazing for both instructors/trainers and those looking to put together their own workouts. It has everything you need and dittoed so much of my own training (which is always nice to see). Definitely a great book to pick up – especially for runners looking to reduce their training time on the road – water is your BFF!!

Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, Book 2 The Hammer of Thor – Rick Riordan 

This is the second in a new series from Rick Riordan, who also wrote the Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus Series. I adored the Heroes of Olympus but found the first in this series on the Norse Gods to be written for a younger audience, so while still a great story, a little bit less up my alley. The same went for this book though the very last paragraph hinted towards what might happen in the third book in the series and I was instantly intrigued. So even though I had intended to abandon this series after book two, it’s pretty likely that I’ll check out book 3 at some point. Man, I’m easily influenced, hahaha.

Harry Potter And The Prisoner of Azkaban – JK Rowling

Once again this is a re-read for me, but in the audiobook format instead of the written word. And once again – still amazing, magical and everything that a story should be. In looking up the link for the book on Amazon I see the Illustrated copy is set to be released this fall. I’m seriously considering getting all the illustrated books. They are gorgeous!

It always saddens me to be *almost* done a couple of books as we enter a new month, and right now I’m almost done two books that could have been on this list if I had managed to finish them. Yes, it’s a silly thing to even think about, but welcome to my brain, haha.

Anyway, this is it for July, what books have you read lately? Anything I should pick up?

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post but it does include Amazon Affiliate links. Those books indicated by an * were provided to me free of charge from the publisher in order to facilitate a review.