The Willoughby Book Club

I received a very exciting package on Saturday. My first delivery from The Willoughby Book Club. I’d read about this book club when I was looking for gift ideas, and I liked their policy of sending a brand new book to Book Aid International for every book sent out as part of a gift subscription. Book Aid supports all kinds of libraries in Africa through supplying books, running training programmes and engaging children with reading.

When I was exploring book subscription services, WBC looked like the kind of subscription I would enjoy, particularly their Bespoke Book Club. Lucky me, then, that I should win a prize in The Reader’s Room Winter Scavenger Hunt Challenge. I’m such a geek, I seriously felt like I’d already won a prize just by taking part and expanding my reading horizons. It was such a fun challenge. And then I learned that my prize for completing all 31 challenges by the end of March was the book club subscription I’d spotted on WBC.

Jen at The Reader’s Room set the subscription up, and on Saturday I picked up the first package from my local sorting office. I brought it home and opened it up, with my husband looking on. I’d borrowed a couple of books from him during the challenge and talked to him about surprising books and the more active participation the challenges sometimes required, so he was intrigued to see what I received.

The book was beautifully packaged and came with a button badge and a bookmark. It’s as though they knew me already! I love button badges, you can never have too many bookmarks, and scarlet is one of my favourite colours.

Even better was the book hidden by the scarlet tissue paper.

Yes, I’d completed a questionnaire about favourite genres and favourite authors but, because I read so many books, I was slightly apprehensive about receiving something I’d already read or something by an author I don’t like. Top marks with this book, though! Crime is top of my list of books to read, and I particularly enjoy Scandinavian Crime. Camilla Läckberg is an author I’ve wanted to read for a while, but held off starting her detective series because of my TBR being over 100 books strong. Now I have my chance!

I’m roughly a quarter of the way through, and it’s good. I’ll review it when I’m done, but right now I’d say it’s a fair bet that I’ll be reading the other books in this series.

I’m also looking forward to seeing whether WBC can sustain their good start with their next delivery.

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