Hi everyone! Today I’m sharing all the books that I read in May! Each of the books that I read were for Medievalathon which is my favorite readathon and the only one I’ve been able to successfully complete! In May, I managed to read 7 books which is my average books in a month, and that ended up being a total of 2,811 pages! Of course, I did start more books than I finished so my true page count is actually higher than this, but these are the pages read for the books I completed.
As for the rest of my stats, all but two of these books were e-books (the other two were hardcover) and 4 were fantasy with 1 thriller, 1 contemporary and 1 romance. All but one were part of a series, one of which was a continuation while the rest were first books in series. 4 books were 2020 releases (2 were ARCs), 2 were 2019 releases, and one was a 2017 release. 6 of the 7 books were by authors that were new to me and 6 were written by female authors. Finally, I had two 5 stars, two 4.5 stars, two 4 stars, and one 3.5 star.
Now let me show you all the books I completed!
If you are interested in the books I originally had planned for Medievalathon, check out my May TBR!
The Wallflower Wager by Tessa Dare – ★★★★★
This book fulfilled the prompt to read a romance to get a bow for Medievalathon. I loved following Penny in this book because out of all the women so far, I think I like her the most. I love how caring she is towards both people and animals, but especially animals! Honestly, if I could have a house full of animals like her I would. My only con for this book would be that this entire series if pretty formulaic, but that’s usually the case with romance anyway. Two people meet, start to develop feelings that they hide from one another, then confess their love and everything goes well until something happens to make them break it off even though it makes them unhappy then find out it was a misunderstanding or that they were meant to be together and they live happily ever after. I don’t have a problem with that, but after this one I decided to take a break from the romance books for a bit.
The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune – ★★★★★
This fulfilled the prompt for green on the dust jacket to get a green outfit for Medievalathon. Oh my god this book was so sweet! This was the perfect warmhearted read that I needed to take my mind off of everything that is going on in the world right now. I loved the message of this book and how it encourages you to just be yourself and everything will turn out fine in the end. These children are just so precious I want to protect them from everything bad in the world! At the beginning, I didn’t really like Linus – in fact, I almost hated him. Then as the book went on I found myself rooting for him and wanting him to get his happy ending!
The Court of Miracles by Kester Grant – ★★★★☆
This book fulfilled the prompt to read a book with a title that begins with a “C” to get a cat companion for Medievalathon. This is a retelling of Les Mis, which going into this book I knew the bare minimum what it was about. Of course, I ended up watching the movie after I was done reading this so I could see the differences and similarities between this book and the source material and I loved how it took inspiration from the original while making it into something new! The one thing I found lacking was the character development. You don’t really get a sense of who the characters were. I think the main reason for this happening is that there are massive time jumps that don’t really let you know how far forward we are moving and what has happened since we last saw the characters. This was an ARC that comes out on June 2nd so be sure to check out my full review and read the book when it comes out!
The Obsidian Tower by Melissa Caruso – ★★★★.5
This book fulfilled the prompt to read a book with something pointy on the cover to get a sword for Medievalathon. This was the other ARC that I read in May that comes out on June 4th, so I also have a full review of this book available as well. This was the first book of Melissa Caruso’s that I’ve read even though this is set in the same world as her other series starting with The Tethered Mage. After reading this and LOVING it, I immediately moved The Tethered Mage up my TBR! I loved the world and all the politics and backstabbing that happened in this book! I also fell in love with the characters and how amazing they all were. I mentioned in my review that I sometimes got frustrated with Ryx and how she interacted with the other characters, but considering that she’s never had the chance to really learn how to physically interact with others it made sense she wasn’t sure what to do/what cues to take. I also loved that this had a bisexual MC, a non-binary side character and lesbian side characters. It felt very natural and fit well with both the story and the characters
The Devouring Gray by Christine Lynn Herman – ★★★.5
This book fulfilled the prompt to start or finish a duology to get dual daggers for Medievalathon. Even though I gave this a 3.5, I’m still not really sure how I feel about this book. On one hand, I loved the atmosphere and the sense of dread that filled this book. On the other hand, I hated some aspects of the writing (the white man, the black woman, and EVERYTHING is freaking red-brown in color!) Also, while there was definitely a great atmosphere, I never truly felt like the characters were in danger or anything which was a shame. After reflecting on this read, I realize that it doesn’t really seem like anything really….happened. I have a full review discussing my feelings on this book if you want to check that out!
Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine – ★★★★☆
This book fulfilled the prompt to read a book with orange on the dust jacket to get a fox companion for Medievalathon. This book was really fast paced and I read this so quickly! There were a bunch of twists, some of which I saw coming but some of them I didn’t! I really liked that there was a playlist included at the end of the book to give you the vibes of the book (I wish more books did this!) I haven’t read too many thrillers that center around serial killers, so this one was really enjoyable. The only thing I can say that I didn’t really enjoy was just how paranoid Gwen was – she didn’t trust anyone ESPECIALLY if it was a man. I’m curious to see where the next book goes with this because it’s a series, and the way this ended really intrigued me!
Bone Crier’s Moon by Kathryn Purdie – ★★★★.5
This book fulfilled the prompt to read a pristine book to get a pink dress for Medievalathon. I got the gorgeous Owlcrate edition for the April box, and this was one of my most anticipated releases for 2020! I’m considering writing a full review for this since it’s a new release, but to be quite honest, it would be more of a gush post than anything else. I loved the concept, the characters, and the magic! The only reason it didn’t get a full 5 stars is because (without going into spoilers) the ending and the character brought in at the end made me really frustrated and the story took a completely different turn than what I was expecting. It just felt a little out of the blue, but I’m still interested in continuing with the series because I love this concept!
As just a final wrap up, here are the seven books that I read in order to reach my goal of becoming an Empress! What books did you read in May? Did you participate in Medievalathon?
Melting Pages 
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