Ashleigh 🌱

Frannie takes the lead in this book, telling her life story and gradually leading us to the events she stands trial for. As you can imagine, I adored the historical influences – simple mentions of The Old Bailey, nods to Moll Flanders and the experiments taking place at the time really solidified this book’s place in the 1800’s. With the added element of a F/F romance too, this book just had so many details I loved seeing, elements that when added all together formed a complicated story laid out to us for judgement. With the historical influences tied in with the elements of a good ol’ court drama, I easily fell into this book every time I returned to it.

helps set the scene perfectly, the pronunciations weren’t (and won’t be) a hindrance to me as I stop to google how everything’s said. but there’s something so soothing about it, and it’s a real struggle to open my eyes again to turn off the video Or the fact that – being a glass mug – it’s a bit clunky to carry since it can’t be folded away. It’s so easy to clean as the drink doesn’t stick to the glass

You’re not really reading if you’re listening” or “audiobooks aren’t real books! I actually don’t read books to escape – it just doesn’t work for me. It’s not a person who cares for me, trying to comfort me with repeated reassurances of “you’ll be fine” which actually make me feel worse, my brain arguing against the claim every time and reminding me of the anxiety I’m trying to stamp down. What I DO care about is how much audiobooks have helped me, have helped so many others, have encouraged people to read, have gotten people out of reading slumps.

It was a month of just getting by, juggling essays and trying not to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of plans I’ve got coming up in March. I’ve not read it cover to cover, but I’m gradually making my way through it annotating each section, and I just desperately want it to be one of those books that looks well read. Throughout the month of February I feel like I’ve had so much love from the people of twitter, from the hyping up of selfies, to birthday messages to secondhand excitement towards me chairing a Samantha Shannon event (more on that in a moment). The Priory of the Orange Tree, which if you know me at all, you’ll know it’s my newest favourite read.