Welcome to another Monthly Summary on Pages and Tea.
The new year of reading is underway and has included a variety of genres so far. I started out with fantasy as I finally picked up The Once and Future Witches. I’d wanted to read this book for a while as I enjoyed The Ten Thousand Doors of January and wanted to check out Alix E. Harrow’s next novel. This didn’t disappoint at all. I was totally drawn in to this tale of three sisters and their desire to bring about a new age of magic and empowerment for themselves and women just like them. Family and found family, a cast of intriguing characters and enough magic and conflict to keep me turning the pages. A good choice for my first read of the year.
From fantasy to horror, my next choice was the novella Nothing But Blackened Teeth. That cover! It’s a fast-paced tale about a group of friends who venture off to an abandoned mansion to celebrate the upcoming wedding of two of their party. The appeal for them is the story of the house, the heartbroken bride said to still linger, awaiting the groom who never arrived. The party descends into violence and chaos quickly as tensions mount between the group and the house seems to come alive around them. I wanted something different and this certainly was!
Onto some crime next, one of my under-explored genres mentioned in my Reading Resolutions. I don’t tend to read much crime at all, but picked up Buried, the first book featuring Jack Warr. A tale that starts out with a burnt out cottage but leads to links with crimes from previous decades proved an entertaining beginning to this series. Jack Warr himself becomes an interesting character as his search for his biological father takes him to unexpected places and changes his attitude going forward.
My Beat the Backlist challenge is off to quite a good start; all these books can count towards the challenge, and I managed to find a category for each on them on Beat the Backlist Bingo, which is much easier at the beginning of the year when there are so many categories available!
I’ve also seen a lovely photo prompt bingo card which I mentioned in my monthly Reading Review and I might try and have a go at that too.
Away from the books I completed my first book tag of the year, the Good Intentions tag created by Lynn, in which I looked at books read and books yet to read (and there are many).
Here’s a round up of January on Pages and Tea…
Book Reviews
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow
Featured Posts
Book Tags
The ‘Good Intentions’ Book Tag
Other New Posts
Beat the Backlist 2022 Challenge
Pages And Tea 
Nothing But Blackened Teeth looks horrific! Might be too scary for me, based on the cover alone! If I read it, it will be e-book so I don’t have to see it! lol. I’ve read Lynda LaPlante’s Widows series and really enjoyed it. Might dabble in the new Jack Warr one.
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😀 It was one of my library ebook loans. Cover caught my eye and I thought that if it turned out to be too scary then I could return it without finishing it (I did get to the end though).
There was a Widows movie I can remember enjoying and am thinking now it was possibly based on the series you mentioned. I’d be tempted to try it after enjoying the Jack Warr story.
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It’s hard to believe we’re at the last day of January. Hope your February is good as well😁
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I know, it’s gone by so quickly.
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Yes, there was a Widows movie a couple of years ago, 2018 maybe? I never ended up watching it but it seemed to stray a bit from the series, as all adaptations tend to do! I guess it was originally a British mini-series in the 80s and LaPlante decided to turn them into books. She wrote the screenplays for the show. I just Wiki-ed it and it turns out there was 2002 American mini-series as well. Huh!
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That’s interesting, so the mini-series came before the books then. I had no idea there was an American series either.
There are some interesting women in the Jack Warr book I read so I’m definitely tempted to check out this series at some point.
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Yes, I found that interesting too!
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That cover for Nothing But Blackened Teeth gives me the heebies – it scares me too much to pick it up – was it very scary??
Lynn 😀
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It’s definitely an eye-catching cover. I borrowed the ebook and thought I could return it unfinished if it was too scary 😀 Good news is I did make it to the end so it wasn’t too scary.
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