This is my 10th year of the Goodreads Reading Challenge. I’ve been challenging myself to read more books for the last ten years. After getting interested in the Wheel of Time series, I decided to spend the year reading the entire series mixed with a bunch of random books I come across.
Usually, I would have a separate post for each category, but this year was dominated by Fantasy Fiction interspersed with some short stories and suspense thrillers. So here goes!
Having watched the first season of the Wheel of Time series on Amazon Prime, my interest was piqued enough to read the books. So, at the beginning of this year, I dove right in.
I read the whole series on Audible. The series contains a prequel and 14 books. I will not review each book separately but here’s an overall review of the series.
The Bangalore Detectives Club by Harini Nagendra is one of those soft mystery books that take you on a journey while investigating a crime. It is the first instalment of the Kaveri and Ramu mysteries set in pre-independence India. The reader gets an inkling of the socio-political situation around the time, providing an interesting background for the story to evolve.
Harini Nagendra is a professor of ecology at Azim Premji University. She writes on issues of nature and sustainability and has published works of non-fiction on the topic of sustainability in urban areas. The Bangalore Detectives Club is her first work of fiction.
Lightseekers by Femi Kayode is not just your regular crime fiction but is based on actual events. Femi familiarises readers with the town, its people, and their history while trying to figure out what went wrong. I’ve been reading books from around the world for the genre. This year, I’m becoming more familiar with other countries and their cultures. This book hit all the right notes, and I recommend you add this to your reading list.
Lightseekers was inspired by the necklace killing of four undergraduates in a university town in Nigeria and is Femi Kayode’s debut novel and the first in the series of novels about the investigations of Philip Taiwo. The book won the UEA/Brown Little Crime Fiction Award in 2019.
La Hora Azul or The Blue Hour is a novel by Peruvian author Alonso Cueto and is translated into English by Frank Wynne. The book looks back on Peru’s history, exploring the aftermath of the Peruvian Civil War.
Alonso Cueto won the Herralde Prize in 2005 for The Blue Hour (La Hora Azul). The book has plenty of themes to keep you engrossed: family secrets; an obsessive love affair; the brutality, misery and guilt of war; and an anti-hero searching for answers.
Translated books are a treasure trove of insights into different parts of the world. I would highly recommend adding this and diversify your reading list.
I came across a few short stories on Amazon last year and loved them. Amazon has commissioned a series of original short stories by prominent writers. These stories are categorised by genre and are only available as digital books on Amazon or as audiobooks on Audible.
The stories are short but impactful. They take you on a journey and make you see the world differently.
Short stories in the Hush Collection ranges from political mysteries to psychological thrillers, in which deception can be a matter of life and death
I came across a few short stories on Amazon last year and loved them. Amazon has commissioned a series of original short stories by prominent writers. These stories are categorised by genre and are only available as digital books on Amazon or as audiobooks on Audible.
If you have a subscription to Kindle Unlimited, then you can read most of these for free. The narrators on Audible are often celebrities, so that’s something you might consider when choosing which format to get.
The stories are short but impactful. They take you on a journey and make you see the world differently.
Call Me by Your Name is a highly sensual, somewhat nostalgic and sweet novel by André Aciman about the longings of young forbidden love. The main character, Elio, is struggling with his sexual identity. He is 17 and falls in love with Oliver, his father’s new research assistant.
It is a coming of age story about a young boy’s first love told from his perspective as a grown man reflecting on the summer that changed his life. You can feel the longing, love, and passion throughout the book.
Call Me by Your Name has been adapted into a film starring Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet. The smooth voice of Armie Hammer narrates the Audible version of the book.
The One by John Marrs is a science fiction book that seems all too real. It is based on the concept of finding your soulmate through genetic mapping. We follow the lives of five people from different walks of life and whose lives are changed considerably because of this technology. There is a little romance and some sci-fi, but this is a suspense thriller to the very end.
Overall, I found the book to be interesting. The subject matter was good food for thought, and the underlying suspense of it all kept me hooked till the end. If you’re looking for a quick, fast-paced book for the holidays, The One by John Marrs is a good recommendation!
I came upon The Gilded Wolves series by Roshani Chokshi by pure coincidence. The series includes three books, namely The Gilded Wolves, The Silvered Serpents, and The Bronzed Beasts.
It is a series that mixes fantasy and history in a way that had me hooked right from the first page. It is set in Paris during the late 19th century, which in itself evokes a kind of romance that’s hard to parallel. It follows the story of a group of pariahs led by Séverin Montagnet-Alarie as they get thrown into a world of magic, myth, and political conspiracy.
Love, Life, & Beyond 