Holiday Review: Christmas Crimes at the Mysterious Bookshop

Posted December 18, 2024 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

Overall Average 3.5 stars across the 12 stories. This wasn’t a bad collection but not very memorable. I liked the stories that centered more around the bookstore. Lots of them were about authors or writers (which made sense) and had a ton of literary/mystery references. Probably a great collection for a classic mystery lover. Stories Black Christmas – Jason Starr This was a bit creepy and depressing to start off the book of stories, but I didn’t mind it. I could assume where it was going but the very end confused me. A Midnight Clear – Lyndsay Faye I kind of thought this was too similar to the first story but it took a more interesting turn toward the end. You expected it to go in one direction and it didn’t. Wolfe Trap – Loren D. Estleman This is meant to be a “Claudius Lyon Mystery” apparently and even though you could argue you don’t need to know anything about that series to read this little standalone, it definitely would have helped… I’m still pretty confused about who the characters were, including the narrator. The ending was funny but overall not worth the effort and confusion.” Secret Santa – Ace Atkins This was my favorite so far, easily! You expect a certain story arc and it repeatedly changes. The author did a whole lot in a short story. “The Writer” character himself went up and down in likability as well – lot of complexity in this. The Gift of the […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #457: Winter TBR

Posted December 17, 2024 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments

Books on My Winter 2024-2025 to-Read List Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. As usual, I could go a month and a half without posting a TTT and then there’s a TBR-related one… I’m back! I’m going to include the books I plan to finish my year with as of right now (writing this post 12/16), as well as January and February titles. There’s something about a new year that juices me up for reading again! EOY 2024 I’m currently reading THE MOST WONDERFUL CRIME OF THE YEAR and will finish before book club tonight (whoops). I’m halfway through A WINTER WISH and unfortunately my Libby book got sent back to the library when I turned off airplane mode lol it was on sale so I bought a physical copy and it arrives tonight so I can finish soon. THE HOLIDAY HONEYMOON SWITCH is probably? my final holiday full-length book for the year – also a Libby one waiting on my Kindle. I think I’ll actually end the year on THE SONGBIRD OF THE HEART AND STONE because it’s a fantasy that I can take my time with, once my holiday reading is done. These are the final three short stories […]

Holiday Reviews: I’ll Be Gone for Christmas and Spectacular

Posted December 11, 2024 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

Story I’m a sucker for THE HOLIDAY and any book that promises that kind of “holiday house swap” will certainly make it on my TBR. I went and requested a bunch of Christmas books a few weeks ago and this was the first one that came in on Libby, so I ended up making it my first holiday book of the year! Clover and her ex-fiance, Knox, are still living on the same property, working the family farm after her mom passes away. Bee is living in San Francisco and looking to escape her twin sister, Beth, after she made some mistakes with their shared company. Luckily Bee’s friend invented a house swap app and the two gals end up leaving their lives behind for the holiday season. The book saw Clover start to fall for Bee’s sister and Bee begin to fall for Knox – as expected. The story itself was absolutely a cute, drama-free, slow burn romance with practically zero spice. It certainly is a more diverse version of THE HOLIDAY and exactly what I wanted in that regard. There were a lot of character names for no real reason (one of them was named Dee and another was Bee, which should be illegal) and I got a little confused when trying to keep two plotlines straight. Wintery Setting & Holiday Feels The premise of following a holiday season in the city along with one in a “Christmas-obsessed” small town in Ohio sounded like the best of both […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | November 2024

Posted December 10, 2024 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 0 Comments

The Bookmark Lit Bulletin wraps up the last month in reading and what was on the blog, as well as what’s coming up next. You can check out my book haul, books read, posts shared, challenge updates, etc. You can read past bulletins here. If you’re looking for more personal updates, you can check out my Lauren Lately feature; it highlights my life events and non-bookish fun from the previous 30 days. This was a rough reading month. It was really hard to even decide what my favorites were! My overall rating is a full star less than last month’s rating. I know I’ll be finishing the year strong because I have plenty of other books to read that I’m looking forward to. 9 books in November 8 read • 0 reread • 1 DNF Pages read: 1,873 • Average rating: 3.06 stars Genres: 5 mystery/thriller, 2 fantasy, 1 contemporary, 1 nonfiction Formats: 4 ebook, 3 mixed format, 2 hardcover Sources: 4 Kindle Unlimited, 2 library, 1 purchased, 1 preordered, 1 BOTM Age Target: 8 adult, 1 young adult Here are all the books I read this month with ratings and one-line thoughts! Popsugar Reading Challenge: 40% 52 Book Club: 71% Book Cover Bingo: 84% 24 in 24: 33% Breakdown: 5 hardcovers | 1 paperback | 5 egalley | 0 ebooks | 0 audiobooks All review copies were provided for free in exchange for an honest review. Physical Books Preordered: Games Untold by Barnes, HBH Quick and Cozy by Gerard Purchased: What To Cook When You […]

Predicting My EOY Reading

Posted November 14, 2024 / Book Lists, Features, TBR Lists / 1 Comment

At the time of writing this post, I’ve read 87 books and am currently reading 3 books. That leaves just 10 books(!!!) between the second half of November and all of December to finish off my Goodreads challenge. If I’m being honest, there’s a good chance I’ll finish more books than this because I have five holiday novellas (plus two other super short/kind of novellas) to read in addition to other full-size books. I thought it would be fun to predict the final ten books of the year if I had to guess, but also share the additional books I think I may realistically read beyond my reading challenge. I knew 100 books would be a challenge since I’ve kept my goal at 80 books the past couple of years. I’ve read some shorter books and novellas to get me over the hump so it would be nice if I can hit 105 or 110 books on the year. Current Reads I’m finishing up reading a cookbook (yes, I read them cover to cover) called WHAT TO COOK WHEN YOU DON’T FEEL LIKE COOKING. I have a Christmassy romance going on my Kindle from Libby called I’LL BE GONE FOR CHRISTMAS, which is super cute as of now. And finally, my physical read mixed with audiobook listening is ONLY IF YOU’RE LUCKY for my in-person book club. I forgot the meeting was already coming this Monday so I had to get going. Holiday Novellas Amazon released another novella series this year, so […]

Recent Reads | Love and Other Conspiracies and Hemlock House

Posted November 8, 2024 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

I saw this book getting some love on Goodreads and decided to request it on a whim from the library. I really haven’t read a lot of romance this year and was hoping to find a win… and boy did this deliver! I absolutely loved this romance – A+, no notes. Hallie is in need of a breakthrough show for her job at Skroll (basically like Buzzfeed I guess but heavy on video content) when she finds a random conspiracy show on TV and falls for the guest of the episode, Hayden. She learns of his successful podcast and immediately thinks he has something special. The two of them begin a show where he discusses conspiracy theories and hunts cryptids. She’s the skeptic and he’s the believer, and their banter on the show quickly turns into something more. I absolutely loved the tension and chemistry in this book. Hayden honestly set the bar high for other romance heroes. He was thoughtful, caring, and sweet at every single turn. Hallie had a horrible previous relationship with her ex that still works at Skroll, so there was a lot of heaviness and gaslighting in this book. It was hard to read and I prefer my romances super fluffy, but the swooniess of everything else overpowered it. I was rooting for Hallie so hard. I knew pretty early on that this was going to be a five-star read and it maintained that level of excellence throughout the entire story. It will certainly go […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | October 2024

Posted November 6, 2024 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 1 Comment

The Bookmark Lit Bulletin wraps up the last month in reading and what was on the blog, as well as what’s coming up next. You can check out my book haul, books read, posts shared, challenge updates, etc. You can read past bulletins here. If you’re looking for more personal updates, you can check out my Lauren Lately feature; it highlights my life events and non-bookish fun from the previous 30 days. Another weird month for October but generally read a decent amount quantity-wise… just not length-wise! I read a few novellas to flesh out the month since I just never got in a good rhythm with full-length books. I’ll see how the rest of the year goes, I guess. I don’t doubt I’ll reach my Goodreads goal but I do think there will be a lot more novellas unfortunately. I have so many novels I’m excited to read but just can’t make the time! 8 books in October 8 read • 0 reread • 0 DNF Pages read: 1,952 • Average rating: 4.06 stars Genres: 5 mystery/thriller, 2 contemporary, 1 historical fiction Formats: 4 ebook, 3 mixed format, 1 hardcover Sources: 4 Kindle Unlimited, 1 BOTM, 1 library, 1 preordered, 1 purchased Age Target: 7 adult, 1 young adult Here are all the books I read this month with ratings and one-line thoughts! Popsugar Reading Challenge: 40% 52 Book Club: 69% Book Cover Bingo: 84% 24 in 24: 33% Breakdown: 3 hardcovers | 1 paperback | 1 egalley | 2 ebooks | […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #456: Covers

Posted November 5, 2024 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments

Books with Flowers on the Cover (TBR Edition) Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. I am always a sucker for book cover-related prompts so here I go as usual! I decided to fill in the “blank” on the cover with flowers because duh. I didn’t want to pull the same books you would have seen around here recently so there’s a mix of release dates below. All of these books are on my TBR.

November TBR

Posted October 31, 2024 / Book Lists, Features, TBR Lists / 0 Comments

My monthly TBR feature here shows my progress based on last month’s TBR, my plans for this month, and anything else I might be thinking about from a reading perspective. Sometimes I feature a little poll at the bottom so you guys can help me figure out a certain title I should read from a group of books. November TBR October was weird – I read some novellas from Amazon and got through a few books on my TBR but also forgot what else I even had on here haha. We’ll see how the rest of the year goes! Kindle/KU Books I got an offer for three free months of Kindle Unlimited so I’m trying to read some books off of that TBR over the next couple of months, and potentially holiday books in December! I read the first Chesnut Springs book this past month and enjoyed it so I’m curious to move on to the next one soon. I’m currently reading PHANTASMA for a spooky season book but it’s long as hell, so it’ll definitely take me through November. I have REMEMBER ME TOMORROW as an egalley that I’m really looking forward to but just haven’t read yet. Library Books I have these three out from the library right now. I’m really intrigued by all of them but A CURIOUS BEGINNING has been on my TBR for ages. Really hope to get into it before the end of the year, or else I’m pushing an entire series binge to […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #455: Halloween

Posted October 29, 2024 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 1 Comment

Halloween Freebie: Creepy, Scary, Atmospheric Books Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. I read a good amount of mysteries and thrillers, not a lot of horror, but I thought it would be fun to share some of the creepy or atmospheric or spooky books I’ve read. Not a ton of jump-scares in my reading life but these books gave me the creeps, had a few scary moments, or just had a great Halloween-esque atmosphere!