Offbeat Offline: April 2026 (Back but Probably Hiatus-ing Again Soon)

Welcome to Offbeat Offline, where I bring you up-to-date with what went on in my life during the month just gone, give you a sneak peek of my next shenanigans, and share my favourite posts of late!

What happened last month to yours truly? I made a tiny dent in the chaos at home, went for my routine LLC-related bloodwork (the results are practically the same as the last time - too bad they were worse than the time before that to begin with) and...read. Seriously, a totally uneventful month, which I'll take any day now, because when something happens is always bad (see March recap). In other news, I'm already contemplating another hiatus in June, but this time I'm going to actually schedule my daily activities in advance or I'll accomplish nothing (or next to nothing) as usual (...I mean, June is usually too hot for me already, but a girl can hope). OK, anyhow, let's see what shenanigans I was up to last month...

📚 SAME OLD, SAME OLD. You all know I can tear through a book in two days, and this month was no different - but reviewing continues to throw a wrench in my works. So, basically, I ended up reading less than I could have, and I struggled with reviews (even the minis). Which is a problem because I'm starting to have reading anxiety...I have far less books in my TBR pile than the average reader, but I can't seem to make progress with it anyway. Anyhow, I had a great reading month, quality wise. Here goes...

Approvals (2):

• The Burn Line by Jonathan Sims (Adult, urban fantasy/mystery)

It's the hottest summer on record and the city is suffering. Prices are high, pay is low. And on one fateful morning five travelers find themselves trapped in a tube car deep in the London Underground. 

It will change their lives forever. 

By the time they leave the train they will be bound together as witnesses to a single horrific event. Something terrible, irreversible, and monstrous. Something hungry.

But they can't remember what it is.  

On their own, they each begin to experience strange dissociative events. Time gets lost. Friends disappear. Something stalks them in the shadows. They make an unlikely team, but to remember what they encountered that day on the train, they will have to work together. Because now it's up to them to understand what horror they saw – and stop it in its tracks before it drags everyone else down below.

• Of Sorcery and Science by Mike Chen (YA, portal fantasy/contemporary)

Months after entering a portal, becoming a powerful mage, and saving a distant realm, disgruntled Asian American high schooler Andy Lao returns home to find that absolutely no one believes what happened to him. In fact, things are worse than ever before as his subpar science and math grades make him a target of his parents' disappointment. But how do you think about tests and college applications when you’re The Chosen One of a magical land?

One day, at the portal's location, Andy sees a glowing bit of mana on the ground. And with that, magic is possible again. But when a mysterious, surly teen girl comes through the portal, she claims to be the Chosen One...and that Andy’s the one who doomed the realm. Together, they’ll save magic—because the answer lies in modern science.

Reads (6):

• Unnamed Bones by Lora Senf (YA, supernatural)

The author put a refreshing spin or two on a common enough YA trope - a group of teen stranded on an (often impossible) island that does its best to break their bodies and their sanity - and made excellent use of an Inside-Out-adjacent premise.

• Solace House by Will McLean (Adult, multiverse)

This one was great! I haven't written a review yet, so I can't quote from that like I usually would, but basically, it's a mind-fuckery of a horror tale (both of the psychological and real variety) about multiple universes, full of twists and turns, and set in the '90s - and even if the characters, for the most part, aren't what you would call "likeable", the story more than makes up for that. The writing is awesome, too.

• The Hazel Wood (The Hazel Wood #1) by Melissa Albert (YA, fantasy/multiverse)

For a while I thought there wasn't much novelty in this story, and I wondered where the rave reviews were coming from...until the twist came and changed EVERYTHING. Very much like Albert's The Children - though in a different fashion - The Hazel Wood is an ode to the power of creation (in all its beauty and cruelty), very meta yet heartbreakingly human...and yay, I found a rare popular book that I loved! 😂

• The Night Country (The Hazel Wood #2) by Melissa Albert (YA, fantasy/multiverse)

Darker and more violent than The Hazel Wood, but at the same time poetical and whimsical, TNC is yet another ode to the (equally double-edged) power of storytelling, and to those characters who jump from the narrative a tad more literally than one would expect. Except, even if you've read Book 1, you're not ready for the spin it puts on it...Also: multiverse galore 😍.

• Tales from the Hinterland (The Hazel Wood #2.5) by Melissa Albert (YA, fantasy/multiverse - anthology)

Albert has a way with words, and the gift of making you care for her characters even in so short a page count. It doesn't hurt that these stories have the typical flavour of classic fairy tales (minus the happy ending), yet at the same time their mythology is fresh and creative. All the main characters are female, often wronged or abused in some way, always trying to regain their agency whatever the cost, sometimes becoming villains in the process - but you can't help sympathising with them all the same (more so if you read the rest of the series and learned the even uglier truth about their world).

• The Book of Love by Kelly Link (NA, afterlife/supernatural/mystery - reread [pub. 2024])

This one is MUCH more than the story of three deceased teens who come back to life. For one, it encompasses a number of genres - building on its afterlife premise, it soon turns into a mystery, a supernatural fantasy with a magical-realism feel, and a strong coming-of-age narrative. It's both dreamy and brutal, tender and acerbic, with messy characters you can't help but love and who feel like flesh and blood even when they're...something else. I've never read anything like it and probably never will. Here's my old ARC review.

Reviews (4):

• Unnamed Bones by Lora Senf (see above)

On the blog closer to pub date.

• The Hazel Wood (The Hazel Wood #1) by Melissa Albert (see above)

Mini review on GR for now - on the blog later.

• The Night Country (The Hazel Wood #2) by Melissa Albert (see above)

Mini review on GR for now - on the blog later.

• Tales from the Hinterland (The Hazel Wood #2.5) by Melissa Albert (see above)

Mini review on GR for now - on the blog later.

Here are my scheduled reviews for this month:

• The Bone Door by Frances White, The Door in Penrose Forest by Sean David Robinson and Lost Girls of Hollow Lake by Rebekah Faubion (in a mini-review round on Thu 7th);
• The Children by Melissa Albert (on Wed 13th);
• The Bad Ones by Melissa Albert (on Wed 21st).

Reviews aside, I'll participate in the Tell Me Something Tuesday meme on the 26th (question: Which books are you looking forward to reading this summer? (June-August)). In the meantime, here's the TMST prompt list for the month of May, in case you want to join in:

• May 5th: What toppings are on your ideal pizza?
• May 12th: What's a skill you'd like to master?
• May 19th: What is your favourite flower?
• May 26th: Which books are you looking forward to reading this summer? (June-August)

🧹ROOM SERVICE. As usual, my hiatus wasn't particularly fruitful, but I did make an attempt at housekeeping. I tackled the spare room, a small section at a time (mind you...it's still a work-in-progress), and pulled a Marie Kondō on it 😂. Just kidding, but I mean, in a way...because I trashed A LOT OF STUFF that once meant the world to me (like my ex-favourite singer's autograph + dedication that he wrote for me the first time we met...40 years ago 🤯). Mementos of my past (destined to be let down) self, or of a happier and still hopeful time, only serve the purpose to make me sad now - so why keep them? (I had already destroyed my weight's worth in diaries years ago - well, I'm exaggerating, but still). I also made a pile of all the books I didn't intent to reread/keep and put them in bags, then I disposed of them in the easiest way I knew. I didn't have the patience to bring them to a yard sale (especially considering than more than half of them were in English, so I didn't think the market people would have valued them much, if anything), so I took them with me to one of the local supermarkets that has a little book-sharing angle and dropped them all there before I proceeded to go shopping. I don't know if they'll find a new home, or someone will collect them and do what I couldn't bother to do (that is, sell them), and frankly, I don't care. It would have been neat to be able to do a series of giveaways and let some of you have them, but alas, I can't afford international postage.

Since I was on hiatus, I haven't blog-hopped at all in April, so I've got nothing 🙁. But I'm getting back in the game, so this section will be operative in my next monthly recap!

That's it for now. My next post will be up on May 7th, and it will be the mini-review round I mentioned above.

So, what were your highs/lows in the past month?