Hello bookish pals. Long time, no see! I’ve been away recuperating following an operation on my shoulder for the last month and a bit but I am delighted to confirm that I am back for the foreseeable. My shoulder has healed nicely and I returned to work at the end of last week. Not only have I missed you lovely lot in the online bookish community but I have also missed the fabulous folk who frequent our local library (best job in the world!). It’s beyond marvellous to be back and chatting all things bookish again. Whilst away I have been reading like a trooper. Writing reviews has taken a bit of a back seat though so it may take me a little while to catch up. So the obvious thing to do in this situation is to put a hold on the reading for a few weeks and prioritise the review writing, right?! WRONG! And to prove what a true numpty I am, welcome to my #20BooksofSummer sign-up post!

The 20 Books of Summer Challenge is hosted by the fabulous Cathy of 746 Books and has been running for ten glorious years now. I’ve taken part five times over the last six years with varying degrees of success. Or, if you want to be factually correct, I’ve failed every single year bar one. The only year I managed to hit the target of 20 books was in 2020 when we were all locked inside our houses due to COVID. The other thing I need to take into account is that the challenge takes place over the school summer holidays and I have two children who expect me to entertain them from the moment they wake, to the moment they begrudgingly return to their beds at night. Who I am kidding? They’re thirteen and ten. They don’t need me fussing around them like they did when they were younger. This is just me coming up with excuses and pre-empting my imminent failure at completing the challenge to save face 😂

Our lovely host as always is the fabulous Cathy. If you would like to take part yourself then you’re very welcome to join in – the more, the merrier. More information about #20BooksofSummer can be found HERE where you can also sign up yourself if you fancy it. Cathy is very relaxed about the rules, which is lucky for me. I think I may need a spot of leniency this year 😰 (I think I say this EVERY year!). You can choose to read 10, 15 or 20 books during the challenge. Want to change your choices part way through? That’s fine. Want to drop from 20 to 10 books. Also fine. Check out Cathy’s sign up post for all the information you need.

In a bid to make life as difficult as possible for myself I am aiming to read 20 books between 1st June and 1st September. However, I have only selected 15 titles so far with 5 empty, still-to-be-confirmed spots. I’ve done this because in recent years, as soon as I’ve posted my challenge sign-up post, a flurry of gorgeous books come onto my radar. They’re always books I cannot ignore. I have to read them. So it’s sometimes a challenge to get the original 20 read plus the extras (and I know Cathy is very relaxed about the rules and doesn’t mind any of us switching and changing things up, but I MIND! Rules is rules is rules. Even if they’re stretchy, bendable ones for other people… 🤷🏻‍♀️)

This year’s list is made up of mostly review copies. I seem to have committed to more ARCs this summer than I have in a long time. They’re all advanced reader copies bar one and that’s Butter by Asako Yuzuki. My son bought this book for me for Mother’s Day earlier this year and he’s so keen for me to read it (I am also very keen!). It’s a high priority book, for sure. I am hoping that because the majority of books on my list are review copies I should *hopefully* manage to get them reviewed on time. This has always been a flaw of mine in recent years. I struggle to get everything reviewed before the end of the challenge. So much so, that I still have two books to review from 20 Books of Summer 2023 (Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent and It Ends at Midnight by Harriet Tyce – both great books, just haven’t gotten around to reviewing them yet!). Hopefully you’ll see those two reviewed on the blog soon…🫠

Anyhoo, without further ado here are the books…

Freakslaw by Jane Flett
Home is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose
Vengeance is Mine by Michael Wood

Middle of the Night by Riley Sager
A Talent for Murder by Peter Swanson
Into the Flames by James Delargy

Honeycomb by S.B. Caves
All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker
The Revenge of Rita March by Nilesha Chauvet

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
Heads Will Roll by Josh Winning
The Examiner by Janice Hallett

The Reunion by M.J. Arlidge and Steph Broadribb
Butter by Asako Yuzuki
Rewind by Joy Kluver (no cover as yet)

Aren’t they gorgeous?! Have you read any of them? Any you’re really looking forward to reading? Are you taking part in the challenge this year? I’d love to see your books so please feel free to leave a link to your challenge post in the comments!

If you would like to join in then there’s still time. Go on, give it a try. How hard can it be, right…? 😉