Offbeat Offline: December 2023

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!

Hello sweeties! and Happy New Year! 🎉

What happened last month to yours truly? Appalling house loan news, a shitty birthday (don't ask), Christmas laryngitis (because of course 😬), but also new money incomes and a whole lot of David Tennant 😍. I also tried to knock some review books off my list, and to actually WRITE some reviews...with meager results. In the meantime, my hair has reverted to shitty. Oh, and I saw my cousin again after...15 years? And of course I got tired a lot...

📚 (BOOKISH) LIFE IN SLOW MOTION. As I said above, I accomplished very little this month - except for requesting more books than I can handle. As of now, I have 9 ARCs to review (pub dates from February to July - the only month they don't cover is May), and I still have to read 7 of them 😧. I can't even blame the Christmas frenzy, because while everyone was running around in order to buy presents and obscene amounts of festive food, I was just...running around. For the same old reasons, you know. Also, some of these ARCs have been in my possession for months now...Anyhow, here's a rundown (yeah...to keep with the "running" theme...) of my bookish activity for the month... 

Approvals (2+1):

• The Building That Wasn’t by Abigail Miles (Adult, sci-fi?)

When Everly Tertium encounters a strange man in the park claiming to be her grandfather, she is invited to visit a mysterious apartment building. There, she finds herself in a constant state of déjà vu, impossibly certain that she’s already lived through these moments, already been introduced to these people, and already visited all of these rooms and floors. So why does she have no idea what’s happening to her? The longer she stays in the building, the more Everly becomes convinced there is more going on than meets the eye. Something is off, time seems to pass differently, and the people living there seem trapped. Slowly, Everly begins to wonder if she is trapped too. But would she even want to leave, if she could?

• The Pecan Children by Quinn Connor (Adult, magical realism - not really an approval, because it's Read Now on NetGalley)

In the struggling town of Clearwater, Arkansas, the annual pecan harvest is a time of both celebration and heartbreak. But even as families are forced to sell their orchards and move away, Lil Clearwater refuses to let go of the land her family has been rooted to for generations. She feels a connection to the earth that goes deeper than memory―which is why she reluctantly accepts her sister Sasha's return to the fold after so long away. It should be a time of joyful reconnection, yet it isn't long before things take a dark turn. There is rot hiding beneath the surface, and hungry eyes that watch from the dark. As phantom fires begin to light up the night and troubling local folklore is revealed to be all too true, the sisters―confronted with the ghosts of their pasts―come to the stark realization that in the kudzu-choked South, nothing is ever as it seems.

• The Book of Love by Kelly Link (YA, afterlife/supernatural/mystery)

Laura, Daniel and Mo disappeared without trace a year ago. They have long been presumed dead. Which they were. But now they are not. And it is up to the resurrected teenagers to discover what happened to them. Revived by Mr Anabin – the man they knew as their high school music teacher – they are offered a chance to return to the mortal realm if they can solve solve the mystery of their deaths, learn how to use the magic they now possess, and identify the mysterious fourth soul that crossed back over with them.

Reads (3):

• Linghun by Ai Jiang (YA/Adult, afterlife/magical realism - novella)

Terrific premise, but I expected more from the execution.

• Vangie's Ghosts by Paul Di Filippo (Adult, multiverse)

Another fabulous premise, another letdown (especially due to the clunky writing style).

• The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard (YA/Adult, magical realism with a time-travel angle)

Creative, quiet but poignant. Review to come in February.

Reviews (4):

• The Invocations by Krystal Sutherland (YA, supernatural)

I finally managed to review this one! On the blog later in the month.

• Linghun by Ai Jiang (see above)

Mini review (on Goodreads for now).

• Mislaid in Parts Half-Known (Wayward Children #9) by Seanan McGuire (YA, portal fantasy - novella)

Still stunned I got an eARC of this one! For this series, I'm continuing my tradition of writing a mini review after my first read and a full one after the second, though I hardly do that for novellas anymore. Full review coming in a few days (pub date is Tue. 9th).

• Vangie's Ghosts by Paul Di Filippo (see above)

Mini review (on Goodreads for now - on the blog in February).

Here are my scheduled reviews for this month:

• Mislaid in Parts Half-Known (Wayward Children #9) by Seanan McGuire (on Sat. 6th);
• You're Breaking My Heart by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich (on Thu. 11th);
• The Invocations by Krystal Sutherland (on Thu. 18th).

Reviews aside, I have a post coming about having to discontinue my blog newsletter, and...that's it. I plan on reprising my participation in the Tell Me Something Tuesday meme in February though. For now, here's the TMST prompt list for the months of January and February, in case you want to join in:

• January 2nd: What are your blogging/reading goals for the new year?
• January 9th: Which outdoor winter activities are your favourite?
• January 16th: Besides reading, what are some of your favorite hobbies?
• January 23rd: Is it easier or harder to write a review for a book you loved?
• January 30th: It's the movie of your life: who do you cast in the leading role?
• February 6th: What's the last book you re-read? Did you like as much as the first read?
• February 13th: Share your romance (HEA/HFN) recommendations.
• February 20th: What's your favorite type of candy?
• February 27th: Which books are you looking forward to reading this Spring? (Mar-May)

🤑 MONEY MATTERS. We got a letter from the bank saying that, for a number of reasons, our 20-year house loan will be extended by 7 more years! Now, we think that the numbers don't add up, so we'll have to talk to someone at the office and probably go there in person (which is tricky, since the loan is in the hub's name, and he can't go out yet...). At least my husband's early retirement and attendance allowance requests have been granted, and in a few weeks we should get a monthly money's worth equivalent to our old stipends combined, or only slightly smaller (plus his severance pay, of course).

😍 TENNANT FIX. I watched the 2nd and 3rd Doctor Who specials featuring my beloved David (you might remember that the 1st aired in November), and the 1st half of the Around the World in 80 Days mini series with him as Phileas Fogg (the rest will air this week)...plus I read that Good Omens 3 was officially greenlit...Oh, and a couple of lovely friends sent me DW/Tennant Christmas cards/artworks...Thank you so much!     

[On a side note: I also watched the special introducing the new Doctor, and I pretty much hated it. Disney partnered with BBC for international rights, and even if its influence wasn't super-obvious in the previous specials (thank goodness) it blatantly shows in this one. It's part superhero blockbuster (the anti-gravity gloves and the Doctor jumping through air in an almost-horizontally fashion in order to grasp a rope ladder???), part fantasy movie (goblins??? seriously???), and it even has a godforsaken MUSICAL NUMBER in it, with the Doctor and his new companion SINGING to their enemies...This is a parallel universe - it must be. GIVE MINE BACK].

🤬 COUGHING CHRISTMAS. Icing on the cake of my usual gloomy festivities: my yearly laryngitis landed on Christmas' eve this year. I always feel more miserable and angry than ever this time of the year, so of course I had to have one more reason to. The laryngitis ultimately got company in the form of a bad cold after Boxing Day. So...here I am, coughing my lungs out and blowing my nose, day and night. Of course, I expect the hoarseness to go on for the usual month or so...😫

😮 IT'S BEEN A MINUTE. A few days before Christmas, I saw my cousin for the first time in...15 years? She lives in a different region, and has made quite a nice life for herself - the one that I could have had, if I hadn't made a bunch of bad choices, or more like, non-choices...

🤦‍♀️ IT'S A WAR. I swear this is the last time I'm going to talk about the matter, at least until my next perm (scheduled for May as usual), but yeah...my stupid hair - which seemed to have taken when I repermed it a month ago - has turned wavy (or here and there, even straight-ish) again...where are the old, proper chemicals? Or, are there still chemicals that do the trick even if they're less aggressive than their old counterparts? And how can I know, unless I try every hairdressers under the sun? I can't win this war 😭.

Since I was on hiatus (and exhausted), I haven't blog-hopped at all this month, so I've got nothing 🙁. But as I said above, I'm going to reprise my normal routine, so this section will be operative in my next monthly recap!

That's it for now. My next post will be up on January 6th, and it will be the review for Mislaid in Parts Half-Known I mentioned above.

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