I was surprised that I read nine things in January, so I’m even more surprised that I managed to get through ten things in February!

I devoted my February reviewing (and a lot of my reading) to the romance genre, and while I definitely had a lot of fun with it I am looking forward to a much more eclectic blogging month in March. I also gave myself a TBR for February, but it’s safe to say there were quite a few books I didn’t find the time to read. Oh well!

What I read in February…

I’m so pleased that three of the books I read this month – The Bear and the Nightingale, Of Curses and Kisses and The Empress of Salt and Fortune – were all NetGalley reads. I feel like I’m getting better at priorisiting my NetGalley reads!

I enjoyed The Bear and the Nightingale (the one book on my Faebruary TBR I actually managed to get to!) and I’m definitely interested in checking out the rest of the trilogy, and I liked The Empress of Salt and Fortune a lot, too. If you want to read more own voices Asian-inspired fantasy, this is one novella you need to try! Of Curses and Kisses, on the other hand, was sadly a bit of a fail for me.

I’m still on my reading romance journey and discovering which subgenres within romance I like, and reading Of Curses and Kisses and A Princess in Theory in February has taught me that I’m just not into royal romances. I enjoyed A Princess in Theory a little more, and I’d be interested in checking out the other books in this series at some point, but I’m in no rush to read more right now.

In fact I ended up not being a huge fan of either of the Alyssa Cole romances I picked up in February! I also treated myself to a copy of her novelette, Agnes Moor’s Wild Knight, after I discovered it’s set in Tudor era Scotland, and I love the Tudor era. Unfortunately while the main romance itself I quite liked, and I think it would have benefitted from being a novella rather than a novelette, my love of Tudor history got in my own way because of the way Cole portrayed James IV and Margaret Tudor as a loved-up married couple. I wrote an article about Margaret Tudor for work last year so I’ve ended up learning quite a bit about her, and, sadly, Cole’s version of her completely took me out of the story.

I honestly don’t think that’s a problem – the novelette is ultimately just a fun romance story based on a real event in history I hadn’t heard of before, so I’m really glad it brought that event to my attention! – but I think other Tudor nerds like myself might find it a hard story to get lost in.

I stepped even further back into the past with A Gathering of Ghosts, which is set in the Middle Ages. Karen Maitland is an author I’ve been meaning to read for years so I couldn’t resist borrowing this one from my library – especially when I discovered part of the story followed a group of nuns! I did enjoy it, but not quite as much as I hoped to.

Everything else I read in February, though, I had a really good time with! I finally read Well Met which was such a fun rom-com, I’m really looking forward to continuing with this series, and I loved getting to return to one of my favourite series with Gail Carriger’s new novelette, Meat Cute. I also returned to Grace Draven’s Wraith Kings series with the second book, Eidolon, which ended up being a lot of fun to read.

I think the highlight of my month, though, was One of Us is Next – which I didn’t expect! I picked it up when I was starting to get a little bogged down by romance, and it turns out a YA thriller was the perfect palate cleanser and just what I needed. I really enjoyed One of Us is Lying and didn’t know what to expect from a sequel, but I ended up enjoying it just as much and Karen M. McManus is certainly a YA thriller author I’ll happily read more from in future.

What did you read in February? What was your favourite read of the month?