The Summer Book Swap Verdicts Are In (One Certified Flop)

Show Notes

Before summer, each of us picked a book for the other two – something we were sure they’d love, or at least survive. Now we’re grading our own homework: which picks were hits, which one was a genuine flop, and whether this experiment has finally turned Sarah into a fantasy reader.

First, a quick round-up of current reads: Sophie’s revisiting a half-remembered classic from school, Sallie’s fighting through some steampunk terminology, and Sarah’s 80% into an ARC sequel to one of her all-time favourites.

Then the swap: an oral-history rock novel, a body-horror grief story that maybe moved too fast, a horror pick that taught Sallie something about her own limits, a 900-page vampire epic with the best final sentence of the year, a Sarah J. Maas series that isn’t the one you’d expect, and the fantasy book that finally cracked Sophie’s “why has no one made me read this yet” list.