Vampires, ghosts, witches, multiverse...those short stories have it all!
Always love stories one way or another.
This was my first Olive Blake and I must say it made me want to check her other works.

The audiobook is made by several narrators and give life nicely to the different stories.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan UK Audio for access to the audiobook against an honest review.*

4 stars

If you are already a fan of Olivie Blake's writing style, then you are going to love this anthology of short stories. Olivie Blake's style of writing is addictive and poetic at times. Each story or fairytale is unique, interesting and character driven. The characters are complex and interesting. As it says on the front of the book each story is filled with love, magic and betrayal. My personal favourite in the collection was the Animation Games.

I also listened to the audiobook, and it was fantastic. Each voice actor added to the stories and the emotion and talent really came through adding to the whole experience.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

A really fab collection of short stories and the line up is truly great. Olivie Blake is a really great author and this one will be a beloved hit for many!

The audiobook quality made this rather difficult for me to listen to and it somewhat took me out of the book. I struggled to engage with the stories and I find short stories need more of my interest and concentration which I struggled to achieve with the quality.

It’ll be sorted for the final publication I’m sure but it was a reason I had to dnf because I’m hard to hearing anyway so my brain struggled to get to the juicy tales within!

I’ll definitely give it another go in the future though maybe with the book version!

I read this as an audiobook arc from netgalley.

4.5 stars

I really really enjoyed this. Some stories as you can imagine, I was more invested in then others but overall, every single story was well written, perfectly paced and packed a punch.

It was beautiful, inspiring, gut wrenching, heartwarming and at times overwhelming human.

I couldn’t stop listening at all and now I need a copy of this beautiful book.

The one thing about me is, if Olivie Blake writes it I will read it.

The Januaries is a collection of stories written like never before. I would say it's a bite sized introduction to Blake’s writing and I think every story shows how amazing she is in what she does.

I can't pick favourites but I loved:
- Monsterlove
- Fates and Consequences
- Sensual Tales for Carnal Pleasures

I LOVED the audiobook as it was just as if someone was telling me stories and I could just get away for a bit while listening to one of the stories. So nice!

Go read it, its so much fun and when you get the physical copy, the illustrations are just OUT OF THIS WORLD BEAUTIFUL!

This collection is by an author I've never read before, but the stories are narrated by some really excellent narrators. I will say the audio quality is pretty poor; I would hope this is fixed for the final release.

The writing is pretty good, maybe a bit YA, but this isn't a problem for me. I liked the fairytale elements and the variety of stories on offer here.

Overall, I'd definitely recommend if you're a fan of fairytales and short stories.

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for the ALC

Why the quality of the audio is that bad ? I thought it was because ARC was modify a bit . I don't know maybe this publisher change their audio .

I don't have much to say unfortunately . I DNFed it.
The quality + the lack of interest I have did not help that book .

Thanks again to the publisher and obviously Netgalley !

I think the stories themselves are quite good but I couldn't bear myself to go through the whole audiobook. The quality was unfortunately very bad and it feels like talking to someone on the phone with bad service.

Normally I am quite fond of short stories, however the two I managed to listen to ended up lacking depth and structure.

I am not able to finish this audiobook since the quality is horrible. It sounds like an ancient voicemail from a mile away. Even with the volume turned up all the way it is barely audible. Which is weird since the sample does sound normal.

The first story; there was a nice buildup despite some ‘he said/she said’. However, the ending did not so justice to the plot. The idea was nice though.

The second story; the ending was so abrupt I reversed twice to see if it really was the end or just my phone acting weird. To me, the ending did not really make any sense. Once again, the idea could’ve been very interesting.

If not for the quality of the audiobook I would probably have finished all the stories to give them a chance.

Thank you NetGalley for the ALC ✨

This book is a collection of short stories and it has beautiful illustrations as usual. I absolutely love her books for the brilliant writing , the mesmerizing plotline, charming characters and the beautiful illustrations 🤌✨💫

The theme of the stories are love, magic and betrayal. Each story was unique and brilliantly penned down by the author. Her writing is different and refreshing, well the same vibe is kept in this one too.

Again, she left me feeling wholesome and happy after finishing the book.

These short stories felt like they were missing depth and it felt quite jumbled. I really struggled to get into them.

Narrator was great though.

Januaries is an absurdist and fantastical collection of short stories and novellas from the outstanding Olivie Blake. The collection is divided thematically by season and captures the human experience in the form of tales of love, magic and betrayal. Love, loss, motherhood, and mental health are just a few of the things touched upon, and are explored through a variety of genres, ranging from fantastical to mythological to paranormal, featuring witches, goddesses, and the multiverse. I am not usually a fan of short stories but was blown away by this collection. Each story emits a sense of wonder and are unique in their content and form, providing something for everyone. In this audiobook format I thoroughly enjoyed the narrators, particularly the short story read by the author themselves. It is difficult to choose a favourite, but Chaos Theory is a standout gem. Olivie Blake has yet again delivered a showstopping 5 star read.

I hope to add a positive review later on so I’m leaving this placeholder as I wrote the publisher note in the previous feedback box and to submit I have to publish the review.
Unfortunately the audiobook recording quality is very poor so I was not able to listen to it.

I really like the concept of the stories and was looking forwards to listening but the audio file has an echoey quality like listening back to an answerphone message from years back and I couldn't get on with it.

<b>"Is love beauty?"
"Yes. But not always beautiful."
</b>
A collection of stories contemplating human existence, relationships, and the pain of loving and living and leaving divided into seasons.

Overall, sadly more misses than hits. I think this was too chaotic and melancholic for me. It felt like a brain vomit, but also sometimes a cathartic experience?

Notable mentions:

<u>SPRING</u>

<i>The Wish Bridge</i>
This is a story about the guardian of a bridge that appears with every full moon who is able to grant wishes.
This has the biggest case of miscommunication, unrequited or misplaced love, and murder as a backdrop to a persistent wanderer who can't make up his mind who wants the guardian to wish for herself.

<i>The Audit</i>
The Life Audit pilot program uses the latest AI technology to determine a person's capacity for accumulated lifetime wealth which is given as an up front as a loan before the age of 30 where the person must work to pay it back.

Blake satires the fear of growing older, the mislabelled freedom of youth, and the bonds between people.
Money doesn’t buy happiness.

<b>What do I want? I have all the money in the world. What do I want? What do I want? Time feels like it's slipping away from me. It's already been five days. I can't breathe.
</b>
<i>Sucker For Pain</i> - Not a huge fan - problematic.
Nora, an ordinary human, is adopted by an immortal cruel woman to be little more than maid, plaything and co-student for her son who is training as a witch.

This one made me uncomfortable. Not only is the nickname ‘kitty’ used, Nora is seen as a pet. This had a great urban paranormal setting, but the storyline left me feeling icky.
For a similar recommendation I adored - A Sorceress Comes to Call by T Kingfisher.

<u>SUMMER</u>

<i>The Animation Games</i>
With a boy like Bran Barza and a girl like Rhosyn Viteri, sparks were no doubt going to fly— but this is no tale of ordinary love. Rather, it is a twisted story of murder, revenge, and obsessive, toxic love.
Think the currently popular serial killer romance book ‘Butcher and Blackbird’, but with haunting reanimations.

<i>To Make A Man:</i>
A story about a being which seemingly isn’t human and the fighter who she confides will die in one year unless he changes.

<b>Repetition is the beast of captivity, habit the tyrant of awe. He would have traded euphoria just to keep her, to make her the subject of his tedium. To live a colorless life in the shade of her bones, in the sound of her breath, knowing and eternally recounting the monotony of her details until he ground himself down to nothing, never learning or experiencing another beautiful thing,
</b>
<i>Monsterlove</i>
What the heck?! What. No. Just no.
What did I read?
My least favourite by far.

<i>Fate and Consequences</i>
Guy Carrington’s thread of fate was mistakenly cut which finds him meeting Hades’s and suffering in the Underworld.
Do we deserve our fates? What determines our actions?

<i>Sous Vide</i>
Cooking for demons.

<b>I don't get how people can say that money doesn't buy happiness. Because my whole life revolves around money. It has to! That's the system I'm plugged into! You know? You can't be happy without money, because in order to be happy you need choices, you need freedom, you need the ability to think and dream and wonder and you just simply cannot do that if you spend all day and night thinking about how you'll pay your next bill.
</b>
<u>WINTER</u>

<i>A Year in January</i>
Using Craigslist to find a roommate may have been a terrible idea, but it finds her January. January is odd for sure, but very endearing.

This was one of my favourites! This reminded me of the book Beautyland!

<b>I explained that I'm more like a place than a thing; I have seasons of poor weather, tourist seasons, El Niño or Santa Ana winds. At my foundation I am always the same, but atmospherically there can be issues.

“Transcendentally it's an issue of work product."
"What type of work?"
"Well, the canvas is me, I suppose? But the debilitation of creation is such a competing factor."
"Shouldn't the not-knowing keep it interesting?"
“Yes, I think so? But it's also quite exhausting," I said, referencing where I lay on my bed.
</b>
Thank you to Tor for providing me the arc in exchange for a review!