my biggest book haul ever?! 📚 30+ books

Hello friends! How are we doing today? I am so excited because we're filming one of my favorite videos to film which is a book haul. I just love talking about books I've bought and I am very excited today because I think this is my biggest book haul ever. I don't know, I haven't done the numbers but it feels like it. We've got over 30 books to talk about today. Usually I do book hauls around the 20 book mark but I think those 10 extra books just added up somehow. So yeah, we got like 32-ish, I don't know, books to talk about today and I genuinely feel like we've got so many good ones. We've got so many good books to talk about. I think my last book haul I looked up was mid-May. This is all the books I've hauled since mid-May. 32 books in four months. It's not bad, is it? No, that's fine. That's an okay amount. Okay. I basically, my TBR hasn't gone up or down because I think I've read around that many books in the last four months. So shall we just get into it? I think I'm going to chat about the books I've hauled most recently because they're the ones I'm like super excited about and we'll go back in time to like mid-May when the first of these. I've got them roughly laid out in chronological order. These are some of the ones I'm most excited for. So first, is the next especially medical book. It's the next Thursday Murder Club book. I am so excited. If you're a regular here, you guys will know that the Thursday Murder Club, it's one of my favorite series of all time, and this is the next one. This is the fourth in the series. We're having a break. If you haven't heard, there won't be a Thursday Murder Club next year. It will be a different series that Richard Osman is starting. So this is our last Thursday Murder Club in a while. I'm nervous. Okay. I'm just going to shut down and I don't want to talk about it. If you don't know, I mean, I'm sure you do know, but we're following some elderly residents of this like retirement home who are friends who like to solve, try and solve cold cases of murders, but then murders start actually appearing on the doorstep. And they're a very interesting group of characters. They are all so lovely and have such different characteristics, but are so, oh, they're just like this little found family. I just love them. But this series also says a lot about grief. Obviously you're dealing with older characters and aging and like what it is like to age. And I just love this series. And Richard Osman has said, this is his favourite in the series so far. This is the most emotional in the series so far. And that he said in interviews, I was talking to my patrons about this last night. He said in interviews that in particular, there's one character whose story I think we're going to heavily focus on in this book. It's a character that always makes me cry. I don't know. I don't want to, he said it in interviews so it's not a spoiler, but there's a character. Oh, I'm not ready. I'm going to cry. I know I'm going to cry a lot. I've made the controversial executive decision to leave any books that I think are going to be in the Goodreads Mystery Thriller category for that video. I've thought about it a lot, right? Because my two choices are read a lot of them beforehand so that I'm like ahead and don't have as many books to read or leave them all for the video. And last year when I did this video last year, I didn't read The Bullet That Missed in the vlog, but it's what I ended up voting for and that kind of feels like a bit of a letdown. I'll probably end up voting for it. I imagine if this, The Bullet Came Missed came third last year in the voting, I imagine this has to be nominated again. So I'm leaving it for that. But if it's not nominated, I'll be really sad because what's a girl supposed to do? Like I won't have read it. No, you've made the wrong decision. Then we have The Last Word by Taylor Adams. This is one that I've wanted to buy for a long time, but I've been holding off on. This one is we're following a reviewer who writes a bad book review and the author like starts to stalk her, which I just- that's camp. That's camp, guys. It's camp. I have heard mixed things about this, but like I've said many times before, No Exit by Taylor Adams is my favourite like action thriller ever. I think it's the best. Like I don't think anything else comes close to touching it. So I'm hoping for good things, but I hated Hairpin Bridge by Taylor Adams. I thought it was really bad. So where will fall on that scale? I don't know. Then we have The Christmas Guest by Peter Swanson. This was very kindly sent to me by the publisher and it's a short mystery thriller Christmas novella and I'm gonna read it near Christmas. It's my plan. I think it's about a girl who goes to stay with her friend's family at this Cotswold Manor, but there's like weird stuff. The family are like- they're a bit sus and maybe it descends into murder. I don't know. I really do enjoy- I've done it a few Christmases. I didn't do it last year, but I did it the year before. Like reading Christmas mysteries, sort of Christmas murder mysteries around Christmas. Like I do like to read a good Christmas book around the Christmas time. A Christmas romance. I like reading Christmas books. That's what Christmas is about, isn't it? Yeah. So I'm gonna read this later this year and I'm very excited. And then the last from this stack, my books I've hauled very recently stack, is A Very Lively Murder by Katie Watson. This is the sequel to The Three Dahlias. I forgot the name then. Which if you've heard me speak about it before, is a mystery where you're following these three actresses who have played this world-famous detective over the years. Think kind of Aki Poro, but like a young female detective version. And the first book is set at a fan convention at the author's family estate and murders start happening. And this one I think is set at a- yes, it's Lights, Camera, Murder. One of the actresses filming her first film as this detective and murder starts happening. The first book just felt like such a love letter to the genre of murder mystery that I'm just really excited to see where this series go. Janice Hallett blurbs it. Yep. Yep. Yep. Then I'm just quickly gonna mention Wayward. Okay. Security! Can you please escort this lady over here out? I bought this for the vlog where I read like the most popular books of the year. I read one from each genre that I hadn't read yet according to Goodreads. It was a list that Goodreads did. And this is what I chose for historical. We did not get along. Did I give it a 2.5? Because if I did, it's a two. I didn't like it. It promised me witches, didn't give me witches. It was triple timeline. We were set up to not like each other just with that. I'm sorry. Quick mention to one I've already read is Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. This won my patron book club pick last month. And so I've already read this. I really enjoyed this. I gave it four stars. I didn't love it as much as Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. But this is the story of a girl who is found dead. And it's the story of her family dealing with the aftermath of her- she drowned in a lake nearby. And it's dealing with the aftermath of her death. But we also go back in time to when the parents first met and kind of follow them through their lives. And it's really a story of like family and what parenting can breed. Like how, you know, being in touch with your children's needs or being in touch with like what you are putting onto them can do. And I just thought it was a really beautiful book. And it's a lot- there was a really, really good book club discussion. We had so much to talk about. So already read it. And then I did pick up the next in the Lady Hard Castle Mysteries. This was on TBR Cluedo like a couple months ago and I haven't read it. I don't have an explanation for you. And you may not get one. That's it. As far as I'm concerned, the issue is dead. I'm moving forward. You guys know I love the Lady Hard Castle Mysteries. They're my favorite cozy mystery series. This is like the seventh? Yeah, this is the seventh in the series. So I'm quite deep in at this point. Um, there's an airplane accident in this one. In between strolls to the dog and duck and planning for the annual village show, the daring duo dust off the crime board and go undercover at Bristol Aviation. Come on. Like, come on. Come on. It's a vibe. I love this. I love Lady Hard Castle and Flo. So I will read this at some point. I picked it up because it was on TBR Cluedo. I was supposed to read it like two months ago and that didn't happen. Two other new releases from some of my favorite authors I'm really excited about. First we have Just Another Missing Person by Gillian McAllister. I read Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister for last year's Goodreads Mysteries World Awards. I don't think this will be in there because Wrong Place, Wrong Time had more hype. Granted this has only really just come out a couple weeks ago so hype could build but I don't know if this is gonna make it onto the nominations. We shall see. This one a girl goes missing. She goes down like a one-way alley and never comes out again and we're following the detective who is tasked with finding her but in order for that detective's family to be safe she must not find out what happened to the girl. So I'm hoping it will be Wrong Place, Wrong Time played with time in that if you haven't read that book our character's son kills someone and she goes back in time constantly. She keeps going back further and further in time to try and figure out what happened and stop it happening. This one I'm hoping will play with some conventions of the mystery genre a little bit because that's what I love so much about Wrong Place, Wrong Time. So I don't know if this- I'm not counting on this being in the awards but one that I think probably will be because I'm gonna look at this when I do my predictions to figure out whether this will be or not. This is, you know, a bit iffy but I can't remember a time when a Ruth Ware book did not make the top 10 of a mystery thriller awards in Goodreads. I'm figuring this out. I'm like Scooby and Shaggy. I'm solving a mystery. I feel like she always makes top 10. I reckon you have to go quite far back in her oeuvre for her to not make top 10 because at this point like she's so popular and so successful but this one, Zero Days, I am a bit nervous about because we're following a husband and wife, okay, and we know I'm not a big fan of like domestic thrillers but I don't know if this is really that because basically this woman and her husband are hired by companies to break into like security systems and she finds her husband dead at their home and she's the main suspect. So it's a little bit like espionage, it's a little bit domestic thriller, it's a little bit murder mystery. I think without reading it I can't be sure where this is gonna fall like on that scale but me and Ruth Ware, she is one of my favourite authors. I have given her three five stars so she does qualify as a favourite author but she can sometimes be hit or miss. I didn't love the It Girl and I'm just worried that she's going in directions that like aren't my favourite so we shall see. Then I have got sent some amazing books by Book Break. There's some actually is another stack later in the haul. Two of these are the ones I'm most excited for. Two were sent unsolicited but I'm still excited for but the two that I requested firstly, this is a 2024 release, this comes out February 2024. It is called The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder. Try not to say mother challenge. Failed. Now if you know me, I don't know how often I speak about this, Bargain Hunt. The American, if you're not in the UK you won't know what this is but there's a show called Bargain Hunt, right, in the UK where basically like there's these two teams and they each get 300 pounds. They have to buy three items from an antiques fair and they then go to auction and sell them. There's also a big show in the UK called Antiques Roadshow which is being compared to. I don't watch Antiques Roadshow but I do love. Bargain Hunt is my lunchtime slash dinner time viewing. I've watched every episode that's on BBC iPlayer. I've run out. I've had to stop watching it as much because I've run out of episodes. That's concerning. Come on. It's literally made for me. What antique would you kill for? I don't know if I've ever been more excited for a book in all honestly and I think the author's mum was one of the main experts on Antiques Roadshow so like we've got the expertise. I am so- I don't think I've ever been more excited for a book. Like it's literally written for me. I might have to read this soon. I might have to just like- I haven't got plans to but I might just have to pick it up because I am so excited. And then another one they really- I mean this is like incredible. This is an incredible haul. Thank you so much to Book Break because another book that I'm gonna have to read this soon. I might read it in one of my vlogs coming up in the next couple weeks. Starling House by Alexei Ha. This comes out in October this year and I have mentioned this to you a few times and the plot always evades me a little bit. It's a gothic novel. There is Starling House and it's a bit weird and our girly- our main character is like oh yeah. I vibe. But I don't care, right? It's gothic and look at the vibes. Look at the vibes. It's going to be beautiful. It's going to be lush. It's going to be- if you guys don't know, once in a future which is. It's definitely- I think it was definitely my top 25 books of all time when I did eventually make that definitive list. And this, I just think it's going to be up there. I think Alexei Haro is the writer for me. I am so into Starling House if you dare. I'm so excited. I'm so excited. I'm gonna have to read this soon. I think it's going to be incredible. So thank you Book Break. And then the two that they sent to me that I didn't request but do sound interesting. So I don't know as much about these. We have This Dark Descent by Cailin Jovesison. I know this has been compared to Six of Crows which gets me excited. Oh we've got a family. I love a good family tree. And what's this? Oh like a hierarchy of stuff. How exciting. But I've seen a lot of people, even on my Patreon, getting really excited for this book. So I am excited for it too but I didn't know a ton about it going in. And then one- I literally got this yesterday actually. This is When Ghosts Call Us Home by Katja D. Bureka. This sounds so good. So when our protagonist was 12, she starred in her sister's amateur horror movie. The movie inspired a cult. Five years later her sister has disappeared and she has to find out what's happened. So I am guessing it's going to be a little- oh yeah. It's a little bix media-y. I'm really really intrigued by this one. But I just want to say thank you Book Break for sending this to me. I'm very appreciative. This is a- this is not anything to do with you. This is to do with my long-running battle, long-running fight, my long-running nemesis of UK book covers. Because I just want you guys to look at the US one. This is the- I think this is the final cover of the UK one. This is the US one. That gives you a vibe, right? It gives you- I'd be even more excited to read this if that- why can't we have the same cover? Like it's so gorgeous, okay? I mean there's many books. The Last Word, so many of these books, the US cover is better. And I'm fighting a losing fight, you know? But this- I mean really, what does the cover matter? We all know it does matter. But at the end of the day it won't affect my enjoyment of the book. So I'm really intrigued by this one. The other one that I got for a specific video and have read already was Murder in the Family by Kara Hunter. If you guys saw I did a video where I tried to solve this book. I won't tell you how I did. I know actually when I'm filming this, this came out in the US this week. When you see this it came out in the US this week. So if you are in the US and are interested in watching that video and solving along with me, I know some people have been doing that and really enjoying it, get your hands on Murder in the Family and read it along with me and solve it along with me in that video. Because I think that's probably the most fun way to consume the video. So yeah, this is fun. It's like a mix- completely mixed media murder mystery and I had a lot of fun trying to solve it. Another two that I have already read, so I won't talk about these long, are The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali and The Southern Book Club's Guide to Saving Vampires by Grady Hendrix. I mentioned this yesterday in my full recommendations video, but I read these for Jeleny's booktube twin test video and I really enjoyed both of them. These were both 4.5s for me actually. This one's a romance set in Iran during like war there and this one's about mums killing vampires. And I really enjoyed them both, so go check out that video if you want to hear more in-depth thoughts. This one was very kindly gifted to me off my Amazon wishlist by one of my patrons, Charlie. This is one of the books that I'm most excited for and another one that I've been like hesitating about whether I read now or whether I save for the good reasons, because I think this will be nominated and that is The Only One Left by Riley Sager. Now, me and Riley, as everyone does with him, have complicated history. Do you like me? Yes or no question. Say yes or no question. Do you like me? I've given him one star. Did I give Survival of the Light one star or two? Anyway, low. Didn't like Final Girls, but I love The Last Time I Lied. I really enjoyed The House Across the Lake, which I know a lot of people didn't enjoy, but I've heard so many good things about this one. So we're following this old woman who many years ago, all of her family died and many people believe that she killed them all and she's a mass murderer, but I don't think there was enough evidence to convict her. And now we've got our protagonist who's looking after her and Leonora starts to type her story of what happened for the first time. And I've seen a lot of people really enjoying this. I've got a hair somewhere on my nose and I think I'm going to love this. This is like maybe, this is like a four to five star prediction. I don't want to say five star because Riley can surprise you, you know? You can think you're going to love it and then you don't. But I always say, even with the ones I haven't liked from Riley, like Survival of the Night, trash, but you're going to have a good time. I look back on Survival of the Night fondly, even though I think it's terrible, because I think you're going to have a good time with Riley, you know? So I'm really, really excited to read this. I hope it makes the top 10 and I read it in that video. Wouldn't that be fun? I think there's going to be some surprises in there that I'm just not predicting though, you know? Then I've got a haul of six books that I bought when I went to London and visited some bookshops there, which was a whole video on its own, so I've already like technically hauled these. So we'll just run through them really, really quickly. We've got Bad Gays, A Homosexual History by Hugh Lemmy and Ben Miller. I have wanted this for so long. I almost bought it last time I went London to book shopping. But it's just about like bad gays throughout history and I'm very excited. I think this won the Goodreads nonfiction or, I know there's loads of nonfiction categories, like maybe the history one, but come on. It's just like, I love the cover as well. It's such a vibe. An unconventional history of homosexuality that subverts the notion of gay icons and queer heroes and asks what we can learn about LGBTQ history, sexuality and identity through its villains and baddies. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. What a vibe. Then I also picked up London, A Guide for Curious Wanderers by Jack Tresher. I follow him on Instagram. I think he has TikTok as well, but he does like Secrets of London and this book is just taking you through all these little secrets of London and like history that is immortalised on the streets of London. And it's definitely, I love all the pictures and it's just, sounds like a really interesting read. So I picked this up when I saw it. Then I got Eight Detectives by Alex Pavese. I have heard mixed things from you guys about this one. I'm a little bit concerned. All murder mysteries follow a simple set of rules and a mathematics professor worked these rules out. Then he disappeared. I think this could be something I enjoy. I think I can enjoy it. I think I remember Mara saying that she enjoyed this. So I'm trusting Mara, not you, but it's one I picked up on a whim. I'd never heard of it when I picked it up. And then a few of you have told me what you've thought about it since. But yeah, I think I'm going to enjoy that. Horror Store by Grady Hendrix I have already read. I didn't love this as much as, I think it's probably my least favourite Grady Hendrix I've read so far. This is the one that's like set out as an Ikea catalogue, which is such like, it's such a fun quirk. But as a book, I just feel like it wasn't my favourite, but I did enjoy it. I would recommend it. It's the kind of book that I feel like everyone would enjoy to some degree. I went to Forbidden Planet and I picked up This One Summer by Gillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki because I have read, which one is the one I've read? Oh, I've read, Laura Dean keeps breaking up with me, but I think that's Mariko. And I just wanted some another graphic novel and this one I really like the kind of blue tones of it. So I might not read this like soon because it's like summer vibes, but I'm glad to have it on my haul. I should have read this whilst it was still summer. And then I picked up The Other Side of Mrs Wood by Lucy Barker. I love the cover of this. I think it's such a cool cover, the way their like faces are made up. I love it. This one is to do with like Victorian spiritualism. I've read a few different books kind of based around this if you don't know. The Victorians were obsessed with like ghosts and spiritualism and seances and this one's to do with that. And I think we're following the most celebrated medium in London, but then stuff starts to go wrong. I don't know, but I'm just interested. I love anything. I think this could be a really good autumn read. You know, it's like Victorian ghosts, seances, spooky, dark, you know. Ah, that's history. Two that I received from Book of the Month when working with them recently. We have Dark Corners by Megan Golding. Hey Meg. This is the sequel to Nightswim, which I really, really enjoyed. And in this one we got the same true crime podcaster following this case where we've got this man in prison and an influencer goes to visit him and then she's kidnapped. And I'm guessing this will dive into some heavier topics and I thought those heavier topics that were covered in Nightswim were covered really well. So I'm very intrigued to like carry on reading from this series. And then I also got Love Theoretically by Ali Hazel. You guys know I love Miss Ali. I have all of her books in the Book of the Month, which I'm very grateful for. It just so happens that the months I've been working with them have been when these have come out. So I'm very grateful. So this is a 2023 release. Gully is putting out like 10,000 books. She's already got another one coming out late this year and two announced for next year. Like what? Ali, relax. Take a deep breath. Calm down. I don't know what this one's about. It's going to be another STEM romance. What are the tropes in this? Is it fake dating again? It's fake dating again, which was the love hypothesis. I would have thought she would have gone to a different trope, but perhaps not. So thank you Book of the Month because these are two of my most exciting books. Then I've got another few that I got sent by Book Break. They're like literally like making my TBR for the better. First we've got the Kamogawa Food Detectives. I mean there's a cat. Father and daughter duo who own the restaurant are known as food detectives capable of recreating a dish from their customers past that may well unlock forgotten memories and inspire ongoing happiness. I mean come on. It's cute. It's short. I feel like I'm gonna really enjoy this and it's a cat. I kind of like asked for it because of the cat. Then we have Before We Say Goodbye by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. This is the fourth in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series. I've only read the first one but I own the whole series at this point so it's like a little bit, you know, come on Megan. Hurry up. It's a little bit of a problem but I'm hoping- I might make progress in this series at some point this year, in the next couple weeks. So like hold me to that. What is the next one? Is the second one Tales from the Cafe or Before Your Memory Fades? I think it's Tales from the Cafe, right? I think it's this one. I don't know but I own them all. So I thought, you know, might as well pick the next one up. One day I'll just read my whole way through the series. And then we have Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll. This one sounded really interesting. A set in the 1970s and I think it's about like a mass murder or like there's women going missing and our protagonist thinks that the same man is responsible. I know this era in America was like big for serial killers, wasn't it? I think a lot of- am I right? Like a lot of the serial killers that we know about today were like 70s and 80s. So I think this will obviously examine our relationship with true crime, with serial killers, with like idolising serial killers, with their victims. But I'm really interested. I've heard actually really good things from people who have been reading this so far so I should pick it up soon. We only have four books left, guys. We are almost done. Okay, two that I have read already. We'll just chat on these quickly. We have You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Caelan Bayron. I bought this specifically, I think, because I knew it would be good for Summerween. It's about this like camp that hold- like holds fake like serial killer nights, like immersive serial killer nights. But then maybe, yeah, there's a serial killer like at the camp one night and like our girlie's working there. She's like, oh my god, I'm gonna die. I enjoyed this. It was a step up from Cinderella is Dead for me for Caelan Bayron, which I really did not enjoy. I think this is fun, you know. It's a fun short book but I think if it had been 100 pages longer it would have been better because there were certain elements of this, particularly like the villain or like how long it took for us to actually get to the murdering and then when- how quick the murdering was that I didn't love. So I think this could have been better if it was a little bit longer. And then I have read Yellow Face by R.F. Kuang. I enjoyed this. I gave it four stars. We're following June Hayward, who- best friend is Athena who's like a literary darling and Athena dies in front of her one night and she steals her manuscript. Athena's Asian, June is white and June is like the most terrible character ever. Like, she just doesn't see, you know, she's just like de lulu. She doesn't understand what she's doing is wrong. But yeah, it examines the racism in the publishing industry, it examines cancel culture and how like Twitter works and like the attitudes of people on Twitter and stuff. One thing that I think- this is very focused on race as a divider in publishing, but I think it could have been even better if it had focused on other dividers in publishing. Like, I think it could have brought in class as a privilege because publishing- particularly like in terms of who publishing hires, I think there is a big disparity in class and authors with class and I just think this book could have been even better if it was a bit larger. I don't know, it didn't feel as like- Babel and the Poppy War feel like so like tomes of like, I don't know. I don't know how to describe it. Magnitude, right? And this is more of like a thriller contemporary satire and I don't- I didn't- although it's discussing of course important things, I didn't feel it had the same gravitas that her other books had and she doesn't have to write books like that all the time, but I think we could have brought in even more elements like class, like I mentioned, and it would have been even better. And finally, two sequels that I got my hands on. One is for one that I haven't even read the first book yet. Why am I like this? Why am I like this? I got Death in a Parish by Reverend Richard Coles. This is the sequel to Murder and Even song where we're following a priest as he solves murders in his little town. It's similar, I think, to Thursday Murder Club and I just picked it up because I wanted the dogs, okay? I wanted- I wanted the spray dish for the dogs and I didn't want to wait too long and not get them. So I don't know anything about this sequel and I don't want it because I don't want to spoil the first book, but it's cozy mystery. I think this is a bit cozier than Thursday Murder Club. People often class Thursday Murder Club as a cozy, but I don't think it quite is. It has a bit more grit dealing with upsetting topics than I think cozies usually do and I think this is more on the cozy side. And then a sequel I'm so glad I picked up is The Shadow Cabinet by Juno Dawson. I just read in my last vlog, if you haven't seen it, Her Majesty's Royal Coven and it was a five stars, so I'm so excited to pick this up. We're following- Her Majesty's Royal Coven is the witchy department of government in the UK and I said in that one I loved- I loved the first one, but I said I would love for it to go more into the politics and how the witchy coven relates to like, you know, mortal politics and people have said it does in this one, so I am so excited. I love the first one so much and I just think I'm gonna love this one too and I'm just so excited. I think it has such a lovely tone of voice. I loved the way it was written. It was funny, but it was sincere. It was heartwarming. I loved it. So very- I'm so glad I picked up the hardcover with the sprayed edges signed of the second one. I'm so glad I pre-ordered this because like, I'm a genius. So there we have it everyone. That is my biggest book haul ever, perhaps. Please let me know any of these books I haven't read yet. Which ones are you most excited to see me read? Read? Read? Which ones are you most excited to see me read? Which ones have you read? Please let me know which ones from here you have read and enjoyed because I need to know what to prioritise and I'm excited to read all of them. So I hope you enjoyed this video. If you got to the end of the video, what should we comment? Comment a bird emoji for Starling House. Comment a bird down below if you got to the end. Thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you very soon in another video. Bye!