Moonlake’s Book Discoveries- June 2026

Memoir

The Dressmaker’s Daughter by Kate Llewellyn

This is the first book going towards my mini-reading challenge this year and possibly my first official memoir (I had read a partial one from a beta-reader swap that I was in from being a women’s writer group some years back) but the book itself has nothing to do with Waterlily. It’s just that the author had written another memoir whose title had the word waterlily in it. 

A memoir is not some usual foray since I prefer fiction. This book most preserves what I find absorbing with fiction except for specific chapters containing snippets from the author’s diary or letters. Those I find on the boring side and I was sorely tempted to skip a whole chapter that is just concatenated from a series of diary entries or letters. But overall, an okay read that I can treat as a historical fiction about a decade before I was born. 

Mystery

Deep Water by Peter Corris

This is also part of my mini-reading challenge but has even less relevance to waterlily. But it’s an okay mystery. Not sure that I would come back for more but okay. 

Preface to Murder by M.S Morris 

I listened to this in audiobook format and the narrator was okay but sometimes I can’t distinguish between various male police officers very well. Also, I expected this to be a single protagonist book but actually this seems more of a teamwork approach. Not that this is an issue per se. The twist is functional but I’m not pleased or displeased with it particularly. 

Fantasy

Well of Darkness by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman

I haven’t been reading epic fantasy lately and I’m just returning to one of my comfort authors. This is okay, a bit refreshing because it seems like it actually starts off with an anti-hero story even though I’m not too enthused about the anti-hero presented. For that reason, I’m not sure whether I’m keen to read book 2 even though apparently it reverts back to a more traditional epic fantasy according to the blurb. We will see. 

Iron and Magic by Ilona Andrews

Refer to my Broadening Horizons Reads 2026. 

Romance

The Lord I left by Scarlett Peckham

Refer to my Broadening Horizons Reads 2026.