In the blink of an eye, February has come and gone. Sometimes it feels like time is passing and I barely have a second to catch my breath, but this month, I felt acutely present in a way that I don’t often feel I get to. It was a month full of almost exclusively highlights, which is something I’m keen to appreciate.

In February, we celebrated Valentine’s Day with baby girl, which was endlessly fun now that she’s old enough to understand at the very least that something unique is going on. We decorated so she would wake up to fun and interactive Valentine’s décor, and then my husband baked a pile of some of the most delicious cupcakes I’ve ever eaten. It was a ridiculously fun day for something we’d previously looked at as kind of frivolous. Isn’t it wonderful how children do that though, make even the silly or mundane feel so fresh and new?

I also spent some time in London for work, which ended up being a ridiculously enjoyable trip that I was able to squeeze a ton of fun bookish items into. Sometimes work travel is remote and grueling and so non-stop that you don’t get to take a minute to relax until you’ve already been home for a week, so it was lovely to have some actual free time to see some of the sights and do a few items on my bookish travel itinerary. More on that later.

And finally, February was FULL of books! I’ve finally got a good routine back in place that’s allowing me to make some real progress on my TBR. I covered a lot of ground in February and had some books that were true highlights of the year already.

On that note, let’s look at what I covered in the past month.

Books Read in February 2025

1. The Prison Healer by Lynette Noni: this YA novel felt distinctly like a throwback to the dystopian fiction of my youth, with a light magical twist. The story, which follows a young woman who has been an inmate in a notorious prison most of her life, was dark and compelling and I couldn’t stop turning pages. I rated this one 4 stars with a full review to come
2. The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle L. Jensen: I’ve started referring to Jensen as a Queen of Romantasy because she well and truly deserves the title. This is my second novel and second series from her, and she’s just a master of the genre. This book had all the political machinations and morally grey and black characters I could ever want, combined with an irresistible slow burn romance. This book was an easy 5-stars for me with a full review to come.
3. The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion Volume 1 by Beth Brower: I’d been seeing this series everywhere and for good reason, because it is the perfect cozy fiction. Written through journal entries by Emma, she approaches her life with distinct humour and wit, and makes even the most mundane of activities feel interesting. Also, watching her conflict with her family unfold was endlessly entertaining, and I can’t wait to see where the story goes from here. This was a 4-star read for me with a full review to come.
4. This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune: I was an enormous fan of Fortune’s debut novel Every Summer After, so I perhaps went into this one with expectations that were too high. While I did wind up enjoying the love story at the centre of this book, the way that it unfolded felt underwhelming most of the way through. I’d also been really excited about a Prince Edward Island setting as an Atlantic Canadian myself, but the novel felt very much like something written by someone from Toronto (which it was, to be fair) and I felt it failed to capture the depth of the people here. I gave this one 3 stars because I quite liked how it came together in the end, but I likely won’t write a full review because most of it felt just okay to me. 
5. Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillig: this was an absolutely excellent end to a duology. I was initially trepidatious at the choice to almost completely shift perspectives from the first book, but I came to love the characters this one focused on even more than book one. Gillig has quickly become an auto-buy author for me, every book I’ve read by her has been truly excellent. I rated this one 4.5 stars with a full review to come.

TBR Lists

Between family, travel, and reading, I didn’t actually have a huge amount of time to be casually perusing social media or bookstores. The only book I added to my TBR this month was We Who Have No Gods by Liza Anderson. It’s a story about a society of witches, a human woman trying to keep her family safe, with a gothic dark academia fantasy setting. This one has all the fundamentals of what I like in a book, so it sounded promising.

What I’m Loving Right Now

There was so much to love about February.

A growing toddler who is picking up new words and skills every single day. 

A day to celebrate love, where we poured ourselves into making magic for our little one.

An escape from the snow and sub-zero temperatures for a climate where daffodils were already springing up through the ground. 

But ultimately, where I think I’ll focus today is on how wonderful it is to infuse a bit of bookishness into travel. 

In the last couple of years, I’ve tried to ensure that each time I travel somewhere new, I do a little bit of work ahead of time to identify some key bookish places that I’d like to take in. I don’t always have time to hit every place I’d like to, but squeezing in one or two brings a special kind of joy to each of my trips.

On my trip to London this month, we hit a few different literary areas that made my days feel extra bright.

The first place that I squeezed in was a trip to Cecil Court in London. Cecil Court is a street full of bookshops and other similarly oriented storefronts that leave you full of wonder. I visited a shop that housed exclusively signed editions of a whole range of literature, including some of my all-time favourite authors, and another shop that had maps and other cartography related items that dated back hundreds of years. 

It’s a tiny little street that, from the outside, looks very unassuming, but I could have spent hours here wandering the shelves of each shop. It was definitely worth the visit.

Next up, I took a trip to Daunt Books, a two-floor bookshop that wasn’t far from where I was staying. Having grown up with a British mother, I was keen to be able to pass along some of the stories that I’d heard as a child and Daunt was the perfect place to pick up a few items for my daughter. I grabbed a board book with the original Paddington Bear story, and a special-edition Paddington pop-up that is so stunning it’s almost stressful to me that I handed it to a toddler. That said, she’s enchanted with it so far, so it was worth the trip (and the likely destruction to the books). 

Finally, we took a quick trip across the Thames to admire the Shakespeare Globe Theatre.  We didn’t have time for a full tour (I was there for work after all) but even taking it in from the outside while reading the materials related to the theatre itself was awe-inspiring. Coming from Canada, a country which by all standards is exceptionally young, you can’t help but marvel at how long arts and culture have been flourishing in places beyond your usual immediate surroundings.

We took a trip through the National Gallery as well, where we were able to observe a lot of pieces from Rembrandt, Monet, Van Gogh, and more that some never get to see in person, and it just left me with such a sense of appreciation for the opportunities I’ve been afforded. It’s easy for work travel to feel exhausting and lonely, but carving out time to go and see things beyond my usual reach really helps. Adding in bookish elements that are uniquely tailored to my personal interests are what’s really tipped this type of travel into a more enjoyable space though. 

So that was February! It was busy in all the best ways, but I’m ready for a month of being a homebody to recover. Looking forward to all that March has to bring!