I’ve read five books this month and there was one I didn’t finish (as life’s too short to waste time on something you’re not enjoying). As usual I stuck with either crime or romantic fiction for four of them, but I also read one book that was a bit different from my usual reading fare. It was a fantasy thriller novel with vampires and time travel. So, yes a bit out of my comfort zone.

However, I wasn’t actually being all that brave and ‘out there’ by including this novel in my February reading, as I’d read Olga Wojtas’s previous novel Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Golden Samovar and absolutely loved it. I reviewed it HERE.

And yes, I loved her latest one too. Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Vampire Menace is every bit as witty, funny, entertaining and captivating as its predecessor. The originality is refreshing and awesome and make the book quite unique.

Therefore even although I thoroughly enjoyed all five books that I did finish, it was fairly easy to decide on February’s book of the month just because of its sheer originality.

From the back cover:

Fifty-something librarian Shona is a proud former pupil of the Marcia Blaine School for Girls, but has a deep loathing for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which she thinks gives her alma mater a bad name.

Impeccably educated and an accomplished martial artist, linguist and musician, Shona is personally selected by Marcia Blaine herself to travel back in time for an important mission in fin-de-siècle France.

But Shona finds this mission very confusing. Why, for example, have so many people been torn to death by wild animals, what are Maman and the mayor up to, and is the reclusive aristocrat really suffering from toothache?

It’s a race against time to solve the mystery. It is also a very tall order but as Shona is wont to remind herself: Never underestimate a librarian!

 

Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Vampire Menace is available as an ebook and as a paperback and is published by Saraband.

What book has impressed you most this month? Feel free to share in the comments below.