After a weirdly slow and sluggish July, August was a fabulous month for reading! I credit the cool down: we never hit 90*, and by the last few days our nights were slipping down into the 50s. Can we say happiness? I am so here for the in-between season. I’ve got a lot of indoor projects to work on this hibernation season, but I’m hoping to keep the reading mojo flowing as September kicks the ‘Ber months off. But first, let’s look back over August, shall we?

📖 No One was Supposed to Die at This Wedding | Catherine Mack | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 1/2
I know it’s strange to say a murder mystery is fun, but y’all … this series is fun. This second installment is twisty and wacky and one wild ride of a long weekend. I figured out whodunnit – but not all of the whodunnit. There’s layers on layers going on here. Not to mention the whole Oliver-Eleanor-Connor drama. Devoured this in 3 sittings, and eagerly waiting for April and book 3!

🎧 Wild Dark Shore | Charlotte McConaghy | ⭐⭐⭐⭐
First: audio was 5000% the way to go for this one – the full cast narration made it, and Steve West continues to rank as a favorite narrator. Second: this book is … perilous? Rather bleak at times, while also managing to cling desperately to hope and the possibility of something better. The setting is wild and untamed and unfathomable, and that pretty much describes the entire story.

📱 Maine Characters | Hannah Orenstein | ⭐⭐⭐⭐
I keep seeing reviews that say this is like a grown-up The Parent Trap – and that feels pretty accurate. Especially love when the two {half} sisters actually watch that movie together. The Maine lake house setting screamed summber vibes to me, and I enjoyed the ride. Lucy and Vivian are so different, and it was interesting to watch them slowly learn to recognize their similarities and become sisters, while also working out their own life junk. {And man, they had drama going on!}

📱 The Great Misfortune of Stella Sedgwick | S. Isabelle | ⭐⭐⭐ 1/2
Thanks to NetGalley for a review copy of this one! This YA read follows Stella’s journey after finding out she would inherit the estate she grew up in – where her mother was nursemaid to the family children. Stella is something of a tornado unleashed on Victorian London Society, and while she faced numerous obstacles as a young woman of color, she was also incredibly spiky and hard-headed. Her friends and family called her on this many times, but it took a literal fever dream to make her start to see things clearly. This has been compared to Bridgerton, and there are definitely those vibes, especially the newspaper element. Stella’s spikiness aside, the rest of the assorted cast of characters are colorful and intriguing in their own rights.

📖 The Orchids of Ashthorne Hall | Rebecca Anderson | ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Another Instagram book club pick, and this one had all the Jane Eyre-meets-Northanger Abbey vibes. Hyacinth was imaginative, but also able to think through events logically thanks to her scientific background. The hothouse and gardens sound amazing, absolutely loved that Hyacinth was a “flower girlie.” The romance was ridiculously fact-paced, but later in the book Hyacinth does recognize how fast it developed.

🎧 Accomplice to the Villain | Hannah Nicole Maehrer | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Y’all. I don’t know how to explain the way I love this series. It’s silly. It’s a little campy. It’s deeply human and emotional. It’s a fantasy world with the wildest magic system/way of things. It’s twisty and convoluted and every time you think you know where it’s going, there’s a wild left turn. I simply love it. So much.
And … while finishing the listen, I had a theory about the title of book 4. Then the Epilogue happened, and I now have TWO potential titles/theories for book 4. See? Twisty and sudden left turns.

📱 Unmarriageable | Soniah Kamal | ⭐⭐⭐ 1/2
As mentioned, I dove into the Kindle archives for this one, and thought it was a decent take on Pride & Prejudice. I particularly liked that Alys was an English literature teacher who assigns rewriting Jane’s classic opening line, and all the other literature related references {there are many}.

📖 The Rushworth Family Plot | Claudia Gray | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 1/2
This series gets better with every installment, and I am yearning for the next one already. Juliet Tilney and Jonathan Darcy are absolutely adorable, and I love the way they bring out the best in each other. Also a favorite aspect: the way Gray is systematically removing the detestable characters from the original novels. This one was such a perfect reward for plowing through Mansfield Park last month, and I feel vindicated in some of my opinions. Another familiar face appeared in this one: Caroline Bingley is back on the Darcy hunt!

📖 Pride and Premeditation | Tirzah Price | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Oh this one was fun! Why have I been sitting on this series for so long? Thoroughly enjoyed this approach to the story, and found Lizzie and Darcy as wannabe-barrister-rivals extremely entertaining. I can’t fully gush about some of the updates I liked best without giving it away, but Lady Catherine is a whole extra piece of work. Will be reading the rest of these very soon!

Listening:
Audiobooks. I did manage the Jane Austen Year podcast episode, but otherwise: audiobooks. Not included in the 25+ hours listed above is the 85% of one that got stranded for September finishing.

Watching:
Not very much screentime this month, but we did stay almost caught-up on YouTube videos.

On the Blog:
August was slow on the blogging front, but I did share one of our new favorite recipes and spotlighted some of the delicious eats from home and abroad. As the garden starts slowing down and shifting gears, we got our tomato seeds saved for next year. We enjoyed a stretch of rainy days, and I completed another month of the Jane Austen Reading Challenge {8 down, 4 to go!}.

I’m hoping to share more recipes as the seasons shift, and have several posts in the works for the month ahead. There’s something about the transition from Summer to Fall that sparks new energy, with projects and tidying/readying the house for hibernating.

How did August treat you?
What was the best book you read?
Have the temperatures moderated some? After our super rainy start, we are now dry dry dry again and in need of another round of showers.