June was a difficult month – some pretty unfortunate family news consumed a lot of my non-work time. (I am fine, but there will be a stressful six months or so ahead.) One highlight, though, was a trip to the seaside. Ella and Rocky were very excited to try their first-ever pup cups – one of the duo snaffled theirs before a photo could be taken.
What I’ve been working on
I finished off the developmental edit of a feminist urban fantasy novel that I started in May. I also completed the copy-edit of a YA fantasy novel that I’d had the privilege of providing a developmental edit of previously. To round off the month I took on another developmental edit – this one a mystery thriller with supernatural elements based on East Asian mythology.
What I read for fun
My June read was Frances White’s Voyage of the Damned. I haven’t read anything quite like it before. We follow Dee, an heir to a province, as he attempts to solve a series of murders on a magical ship. It’s a difficult task to establish this level of world-building when most of the book takes place at sea, with a dwindling cast, and I think Frances White deserves a lot of praise for that. Dee is a likeable and engaging central character, and I absolutely adored little Grasshopper. There are certainly some twists in this story!
Looking ahead
I will have a doggy visitor at the beginning of July, but I am hoping that the rest of the month will be quiet. The CIEP has decided, as part of its website overhaul, to remove most of the library of members’ book reviews. It seems a shame for them to disappear completely, so I’m going to update mine and post them to my own blog in due course.
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