As predicted, August was not an exciting month – turns out that having a broken rib is both very painful and very boring.

What I’ve been working on

My run of non-fiction projects continued – including one that has got to be up there as one of my longest proofreads ever: 222,500 words. This was an autobiographical look at the work of local politicians. A much shorter, but still substantial, proofread followed of an exploration of modern law enforcement. I hadn’t had any on-paper proofreads for quite a while (at least six months, I think), so it was nice to be able to get out my red pen again. I found myself much more in my comfort zone, though, with the development edit of an epic YA fantasy.

What I read for fun

I’ve had Juno Dawson’s Her Majesty’s Royal Coven on my TBR shelf for a while. (I’m hoping that a TBR shelf rather than a TBR pile will prove harder for me to neglect – this remains to be seen.) The idea of a secret government department of witches is an intriguing one, and there’s clearly lots of potential in that premise. The focus, however, isn’t so much on this, but rather on a prophecy about a possible imminent apocalypse. I enjoyed the world-building, but I wanted a little more exploration of HMRC itself. The writing is mostly engaging, and I always appreciate cultural references that are very much ‘of my time’. The ending, though… I don’t know if I can bring myself to read the next book in the series for a while.

Book reviews

My latest book review for the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading has been published. Arika Okrent’s Highly Irregular is interesting and entertaining, and I loved her reminder that language is ‘not […] something we control but […] something we do’.

Looking ahead

September is the month of my birth. It’s cake time.