Month: December 2021

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | November & December 2021

Posted December 31, 2021 / 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. I had a horrible month in November and decided yet again to combine two months for a wrap-up to finish off the year. I read a ton in December thanks to holiday books and my push to complete my reading challenge at least! 14 books read in November and December 14 new books • 0 rereads • 0 DNF Pages read: 4145 • Average rating: 3.93 stars Sources: 6 review, 4 purchased, 1 gifted, 1 preordered, 1 library, 1 borrowed Formats: 5 egalley, 4 hardcover, 3 mixed, 1 audio, 1 ebook Genres: 8 contemporary, 3 nonfiction/cookbooks, 1 graphic novel, 1 fantasy, 1 mystery Age Target: 11 adult, 2 YA, 1 kids Check out my 2021 challenge sign-up post for more details, goals, etc.! Popsugar Reading Challenge 1 read this month | 25/40 read total Place you’d like to visit in 2021, oxymoron in title, shortest book, from last year’s TBR A-Z Reading Challenge None read this month Calendar of Crime Challenge None read this month Breakdown: 5 purchased | 0 borrowed | 1 free/gifted | 10 for review All review copies were […]

2022 Illustrated Covers

Posted December 29, 2021 / Book Lists, Features / 2 Comments

I asked people for help building out my 2022 release queue because I didn’t spend my usual amount of time on Goodreads this year. Andi and Morgan came through with links to their shelves and I added a ton of books! I was looking at all of the cute covers and thought I’d do a little roundup of some of my favorites coming next year.

Top Ten Tuesdays #367: Best Books of 2021

Posted December 28, 2021 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments

Best Books I Read in 2021 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 did some rereading this year so I won’t be counting ACOTAR and ACOMAF as five-star reads from 2021. I actually only read FIVE books rated five stars, which feels low? But I guess I’d have to check from previous years! Because of this, I’m going to be annoying and include all of the 4.5 star books I read (there are a lot), with the exception of cookbooks and novellas. 5 Stars 4.5 Stars

Holiday Reviews: The Christmas Pact and The Twelve Dogs of Christmas

Posted December 27, 2021 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

Story I decided to listen to this on a whim when I ran out of podcasts on December 22nd – I had a lot of Christmas errands to run and knew the 2 hour runtime would be something quick and easy to bolster my holiday reading AND Goodreads challenge. I ended up enjoying it quite a bit! Riley Kennedy and Kennedy Riley work at the same publishing house and constantly receive each other’s emails. When they finally meet at the company Christmas party, they end up making a Christmas pact: Kennedy will go to Riley’s Christmas Eve to show her mom she DOES have something exciting in her life, and in exchange, Riley will go to Kennedy’s brother’s wedding after New Years. I thought the chemistry was actually well-done (very THE HATING GAME!) in a novella. I usually struggle with plot development due to the length and find there to be too much instalove, but this felt just right for me. I loved the characters and their families: they slotted into each other’s lives nicely. Wintery Setting & Holiday Feels Yes, there’s a smattering of Christmas and a mention of New Years but in a novella, not a ton of time to develop holiday feels. It has a company holiday party, Christmas Eve and morning (briefly) celebrated… and that’s about it. The setting is upstate NY so there’s some snow too! Overall The ending was a bit silly but I enjoyed it – it kind of made sense! There were […]

Holiday ARC Reviews: The Christmas Village and Duke, Actually

Posted December 22, 2021 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Story I love Annie Rains’ books – that’s no secret around here. I’ve read them all so far under the Forever Romance umbrella, and can’t wait to dive into the novella that occurs right after this book! I can always count on her to deliver an enjoyable Christmas story each year and THE CHRISTMAS VILLAGE was no exception. This is the second book in the Somerset Lake companion series, a setting we’ve only seen so far during summertime. Lucy and Miles were high school sweethearts who were once engaged before Miles unceremoniously called it off. Neither of them truly moved on from it though. Now they’re back under “one roof” (more like “one yard” as Miles is renting Lucy’s garage apartment temporarily) and sparks are flying again. I do love a second chance romance and this couple was totally worth rooting for! I don’t love reading books about cops but the “Christmas Crankster” mystery that Miles worked on throughout the book was entertaining and he’s really a great guy. Wintery Setting & Holiday Feels Somerset Lake’s residents love Christmas and that was clear in this book! They spoke about the holiday season in its debut novel so I was really looking forward to seeing how they celebrated. There were a lot of decor references and holiday events that made me feel Christmassy, especially decorating Lucy’s big pink house for the neighborhood competition. Overall This series continues to impress! I was sad that Sweetwater Springs was no longer the setting for […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #366: Santa

Posted December 21, 2021 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 1 Comment

Books I Hope Santa Brings Me 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 actually didn’t ask for a ton of books this year, so I’ll include the ones on my wishlist for my dad to get, as well as some of the books on Amazon I have preordered and/or will apply gift cards to when the time comes! On my Wishlist I asked for two fictions books by authors I’ve loved, one nonfiction/memoir that is a leftover from my wishlist last year, and three cookbooks. Clearly I have a bit of a cookbook obsession lately… Gift Card Purchases: 2022 Preordered I already have these three cookbooks preordered for next year (whoops) so I will probably apply any Amazon gift card balances to these preorders before getting anything else from there. I love Mandi’s instagram account and blog recipes so her cookbook was a given. I’ve been using the Workweek Lunch program for a while and love the easy, meal prep-oriented recipes, so I had to preorder that one too. And finally, the new Half Baked Harvest cookbook! Gift Card Purchases: Upcoming Releases I was jazzed to learn Lauren Layne had another book coming out next year, since I’ve loved her books […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #365: Winter TBR

Posted December 14, 2021 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 1 Comment

Winter TBR (Jan-Mar) 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’ve said it before and I’ll say it a million more times – I love a TBR post. I’ve already shared my EOY TBR, including all of the holiday books I plan to read, so I’ll be sharing the books I plan to read in January, February, and March. Usually these are just new releases or upcoming books (I don’t usually share my ARCs). January February March

Blog Tour Review: Sleigh Bells Ring

Posted December 13, 2021 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Buy Links: BookShop.org // Harlequin // Barnes & Noble // Amazon // Books-A-Million // Powell’s Review I’ve been reading RaeAnne Thayne’s books for years now and was excited to sign up for this tour! She always writes fun and cheery holiday stories with adorable small town settings. This book was no exception for the most part – instead of a small town with an adorable main street, this takes place on a sprawling ranch in Wyoming. It was very festive with lots of decorating and Christmas cheer, especially through the eyes of a couple of children. SLEIGH BELLS RING centers around Annie, the caretaker of the ranch, and her brother’s children. The owners of the ranch, including her childhood crush Tate, come in for Christmas and she is working as the de facto chef and host to all of them for one final Christmas before they sell it. I was expecting to only read their two POVs but Tate’s sister, Brie, ends up as a main character after the first 20% of the book or so. I immediately knew where her perspective was heading and I was intrigued to see what would happen for her. She wasn’t spoken about very favorably in the beginning of the story so I was curious to see what her reasons would be, or where her head was at during the story. I enjoyed the setting and the family feels in this one. However, I think the writing was a bit repetitive. The characters had the same […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #364: Freebie – Holiday Covers

Posted December 7, 2021 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 2 Comments

Freebie: Fave Holiday Book Covers 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 thought it would be fun to put a holiday spin on my usual “freebie” topic – anything to do with book covers – and share some of my favorite HOLIDAY book covers! I have to be honest, I think my favorite of all these is THE HOLIDAY SWITCH. Of the books I’ve read, MY TRUE LOVE GAVE TO ME has always been a favorite of mine. I loved the book and how each of the couples was represented skating on the front cover.

Holiday ARC Reviews: The Holiday Swap and No Ordinary Christmas

Posted December 3, 2021 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Story I love a good swap story! Identical twins Charlie and Cass switch lives for a week during an incredibly busy time in their lives. Charlie manages the family’s bakery in their adorable hometown, where she’s under the gun to finish their famous holiday bread by Christmas Eve while her parents are on vacation. Cass lives in LA, a few hours away, and is a famous celebrity baker. She’s filming a limited-run holiday-themed baking show with a shitty coworker and needs everything to go well so she can “win” her own TV show. When Cass gets a concussion and loses her sense of smell and taste, she and Charlie switch places – Cass doesn’t need those to bake her well-known family recipes and Charlie is a great baker that can step in for the show. Naturally, the two ladies fall for some cute guys where they are, under the guise of their sisters. These kinds of stories usually come with a ton of drama and predictable results in the end, but honestly this one was tame! There were a lot of side plots for both of the MCs and annoying characters, but I think everything got a decent amount of page time to feel necessary. Wintery Setting & Holiday Feels I enjoyed the holiday feels throughout this one. They had a lot of tasty-sounding holiday-themed baked goods. I will admit that Cass’s chapters in their cute, snowy hometown had more holiday feels for me than the scenes in LA (with good […]