The fact that I have not managed a single blog post since my March reading wrap-up speaks to the chaotic nature of what life has been like the past couple of months. Baby girl is now squarely in her toddler era and busier than ever, work for both my husband and I has been nearly all-consuming, and we’re still passing daycare illnesses back and forth every other week. 

Despite this though, I’ll admit, life has been magical lately, chiefly due to an immense amount of family time. Baby girl is the most fun that she’s ever been, learning new things every day and asserting her independence at every opportunity. I genuinely love spending every second that I can with her; she’s wild and fierce and knows exactly what she wants. It’s a joy to witness her move through the world. 

Our family is also moving into a new era where for the first time ever, our schedules will largely be aligned. If you’re someone who has a shift worker in your family, you know how hard it is to layer the unpredictability of different shifts and days off each week onto an already-busy family life. The concept of more predictability in this area has all of us feeling like we can take a deep breath for the first time in a long time.  

The significant uptick in family time while balancing demanding work schedules has definitely left less time for reading, but so it goes. Some seasons demand more of your presence than others, and I know that I’m currently in one. With what little time I have had, I’ve just been focusing on picking up books that grab me and that I can have a good time with. 

Speaking of which, let’s get into what I’ve covered over the past couple of months.

Books Read in April and May 2026

I’ve only read a handful of books lately, including:

1. The Favourites by Layne Fargo: I know that so many people have raved about this book, but I thought it was just okay. It was a promising premise, and I felt like Katarina was a great heroine full of sharp edges that refused to be dulled, but plot-wise it tried to cover so much ground that the catapulting through time, to me, felt like a lost opportunity to really dig into some of the more meaningful core themes and aspects. I dragged myself over the finish line on this one, leaving it with a 3.5 star rating. Not a bad read, but not a favourite.
2. Spark of the Everflame by Penn Cole: this book, however, was a real slump buster! It was everything that I love in a good romantasy, including an interesting world full of political intrigue, a mysterious type of magic with a lot of potential for future growth, and a romance that was well-balanced with an action-packed plot. It was a little predictable, but I didn’t care in the slightest because I was enjoying myself so much. This was an easy 5-star read and I can’t wait to read the next book in the series.
3. The Inadequate Heir (The Bridge Kingdom #3) by Danielle Jensen: I never love a perspective shift mid-series after I’ve already fallen for with what I as a reader have assumed to be the cast that will carry the story, so this took me a bit to get into, but that’s largely on me. It took about a third of the book for me to start to really feel invested in Keris and Zarrah, but once I was, I was hooked. Jensen is not just a master of romance, she’s also a truly talented political fantasy author, and I loved seeing the depth of the machinations in this one, layered on top of a familiar plot but through new eyes. The end left me completely stunned and I can’t wait to pick up the next in this series. I rated this one a 4.5 stars with a full review to come.
4. The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper: it’s rare I pick up historical fiction, but this one had such a compelling story I couldn’t resist. The story follows Amara, a woman enslaved to a brothel in ancient Pompeii, desperately seeking a way to freedom while detailing the extraordinary challenge of what life demanded of these women at this time. It took me a long time to get through this because both the subject matter and the story were endlessly heavy, but I felt it was told with a lot of compassion. I ended up rating this one 4 stars and feel like it’s a story that will stick with me.

TBR Lists

I didn’t have much time for casually looking through books this month, but I did note a couple of books to add to my TBR:

• Night Shade by Autumn Woods: a gothic-sounding dark academia book set at a university in the Scottish Highlands where main character Ophelia seeks revenge while falling in love. So many things I love about a book wrapped in one story that I immediately added this one to my TBR.
• The Poet Empress by Shen Tao: I saw an absolute rave review about this debut fantasy novel that follows a woman who seeks to learn a forbidden form of magic to save her desperate family. It was described as having deeply moving themes related to family and an undercurrent of feminine rage. Definitely one I hope to pick up in the coming months. 

What I’m Loving Right Now

While I haven’t had a lot of time for reading, I have had a lot of other cup-filling activities on the go lately. The things that have been giving me the most joy include:

Getting Our Backyard In Order

This may sound small, but the scale of work that was required to get our backyard toddler-ready was astounding. We’ve had a lot of work done to our house over the past twelve months, which left a lot of contractor waste and general yard issues that rendered the whole space unusable. My husband and I rented a full dumpster on the first nice weekend in May and while the grandparents played with baby girl, we hauled everything we could find into it until the backyard felt like a space we could actually use again. It was 10 straight hours of non-stop effort, but worth it for the ability to take our energy-packed toddler outside whenever she wants. Now that all the trees and flowers are in bloom and she has soft grass to roll around in, it feels like a paradise that we didn’t properly appreciate before this year.

Consistent Strength Training

In addition to trying to get runs in a few times a week, I’ve layered back in strength training and honestly, there is little that makes me feel better. Cardio is rewarding in its own way, particularly as you scale your training and things that were once miserable feel less so, but strength training always feels immediately relevant and beneficial to me. The way I can throw my daughter in the air, or lift an enormous bag of groceries, or haul a wheelbarrow of dirt around for my garden; they’re all things I can do because of strength training. When I was younger, weights were always about looking a specific way, but as I age, the things it allows me to do feel so much more important. It is a genuinely enjoyable activity to me and one I plan to continue to prioritize.

Reading Outside

We’re still early days for setting up outside to read, but we’ve had a couple of days where it’s been possible and WOW do I ever feel like a different human for it. I absolutely love living in Atlantic Canada, there is nowhere else I’d choose to raise my family, but those 8 full months of winter really do give me pause every single year. I’m glad to be coming back into a season where we all remember why this place is so wonderful.

Our First Family Vacation of the Year

One of the things that kept us busy for a full week in May was a packed vacation to Cape Breton. We dropped the pup off at the kennel, loaded up our car, and road tripped all the way to Sydney for a few days before packing up again and heading up to the Cape Breton Highlands. 

Everything about the trip felt like a breath of fresh air. Getting to spend uninterrupted time with family, letting baby girl run around like a wild thing in fields and forests, taking in the breathtaking views, and spending a secluded weekend in a picture-perfect log cabin were just some of the highlights. I’m so glad that amongst the chaos we were able to step away and just be with each other for a stretch. I’m already looking forward to the next time we’re planning to do so! 

With more balance on the horizon, my hope is that this isn’t just a random drop-in, but instead a welcome return to my little world of reading and writing about reading. I have some very exciting books on my shelves for June, so here’s hoping I can knock some of them out!