Hello! April was a mixed reading month for me, I finished 10 books and, whilst I loved most of them, there were a couple that let me down. Three of my April reads really stood out to me, one a regency romance, a paranormal romance/fantasy, both of which I loved and can see making my favourite books of the year, amnd I’m sneaking in a standout sci-fi book that I *technically* didn’t finish until May 1st! What books stood out to you from your April reads? Let me know, I’m always looking for more books to add to my ever growing TBR.

The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno Garcia

They are the Beautiful Ones, Loisail’s most notable socialites, and this spring is Nina’s chance to join their ranks, courtesy of her well-connected cousin and his calculating wife. But the Grand Season has just begun, and already Nina’s debut has gone disastrously awry. She has always struggled to control her telekinesis—neighbors call her the Witch of Oldhouse—and the haphazard manifestations of her powers make her the subject of malicious gossip.

When entertainer Hector Auvray arrives to town, Nina is dazzled. A telekinetic like her, he has traveled the world performing his talents for admiring audiences. He sees Nina not as a witch, but ripe with potential to master her power under his tutelage. With Hector’s help, Nina’s talent blossoms, as does her love for him.

But great romances are for fairytales, and Hector is hiding a truth from Nina — and himself — that threatens to end their courtship before it truly begins.

Favourite Quotes.

“You do not know what it is like to want something for so long, you forget why you even wanted it in the first place, until the only thing left is gnawing need and there is nothing that can fill it. And even though everything in your body tells you that you are killing yourself wanting it, you cannot stop.”

“Each word she had spoken to him since they met, he thought, had been like kindling, until in wonder, he had to admit he was on fire, and now that he looked at her in the morning light, he could not understand why he had not realised this truth sooner.”

“A sea roared inside her and made demands, but she waded it, she bobbed up, took a breath, and opened her eyes to the cold winter morning. Then she rose because the day was there, the world was there, and she wanted to be part of it.”

I’ve been a fan of Moreno-Garcia’s writing for a while now and she is one of a few authors who have got me to, not only cross genre, but read genre’s I would not usually pick up. The Beautiful Ones is an intoxicating story of first love and first heartbreak, with a wondrous cast of characters and a setting I could just dive into.

Judgement Day by Josie Jaffrey.

Jack Valentine finally has her shit together. She has a great job, great friends (well, one at least) and a girlfriend whom she loves, even if she can’t work up the courage to tell her that yet. Unfortunately, she also has an archnemesis who’s about to punish her crimes in the worst possible way: by making her spend time with him.

Which she could cope with, maybe, if she didn’t have problems at work as well. When the body of a human judge is found in a locked library, there’s no denying that she was murdered by one of the Silver – by a vampire – and the evidence points worryingly close to home. If that wasn’t bad enough, some of Jack’s least favourite people are opening a new blood bar in Oxford with questionable motives. For Jack and her team, it’s becoming increasingly hard to separate allies from enemies.

With conspiracies on every side, the simmering tensions in Silver society are about to come to a head. As usual, Jack intends to be right in the middle of it. She does like it when things get messy.

Favourite Quotes.

“Oh my god.’ I gape at her. ‘You really do have a mental dick Rolodex.’ ‘Why would you call it a ‘mental dick Rolodex’,’ she says, ‘when Rolodicks is right there?”

“We need to talk to Windsor again,’ I say. ‘We haven’t spoken to him about the lockbox. He’s in the middle of all this, and he’s acting suspiciously.’ ‘How?’ asks Naia. ‘He was polite to me.’ She nods, accepting this as incontrovertible proof that Windsor is up to something. I might be insulted if he was less of a wanker. “

I didn’t think May Day could be topped, by Jaffrey went and did it anyway with the sequel Judgement day. Funnier, more adventurous and slightly smuttier than the previous book I found myself unable to put this down.

The Ones We’re Meant to Find by Joan He

Cee has been trapped on an abandoned island for three years without any recollection of how she arrived, or memories from her life prior. All she knows is that somewhere out there, beyond the horizon, she has a sister named Kay. Determined to find her, Cee devotes her days to building a boat from junk parts scavenged inland, doing everything in her power to survive until the day she gets off the island and reunites with her sister.

In a world apart, 16-year-old STEM prodigy Kasey Mizuhara is also living a life of isolation. The eco-city she calls home is one of eight levitating around the world, built for people who protected the planet―and now need protecting from it. With natural disasters on the rise due to climate change, eco-cities provide clean air, water, and shelter. Their residents, in exchange, must spend at least a third of their time in stasis pods, conducting business virtually whenever possible to reduce their environmental footprint. While Kasey, an introvert and loner, doesn’t mind the lifestyle, her sister Celia hated it. Popular and lovable, Celia much preferred the outside world. But no one could have predicted that Celia would take a boat out to sea, never to return.

Now it’s been three months since Celia’s disappearance, and Kasey has given up hope. Logic says that her sister must be dead. But as the public decries her stance, she starts to second guess herself and decides to retrace Celia’s last steps. Where they’ll lead her, she does not know. Her sister was full of secrets. But Kasey has a secret of her own.

Favourite Quotes.

“Because it was possible to love someone without fully understanding them. Possible to love parts of them, and not their whole.”

“Others might believe there’s power in a single step,” murmured Actinium, the cadence of his breath brushing Kasey’s ear. Her eyes widened. His warmth was real. So was the brace of his arm. The press of his chest. “But most choices are made before you reach the edge.”

“Logic ended where love began.”

This book blew me away. How the author blended elements of mystery, science fiction and climate fiction together to make a book with one hell of an emotional impact is just amazing! There is nothing I didn’t like about this book, and it’s a story that will definitely stay with me for a while.