Month: October 2023

Top Ten Tuesdays #428: Halloween

Posted October 31, 2023 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 1 Comment

Halloween Freebie: October Reads 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 know that today is the final day of October, but I had planned to read some spooky / atmospheric books this month for Halloween. I ended up not reading as much as I expected but thought I would share some of the books I DID manage to read, as well as those on my TBR that I would have liked to read this month. Read – Great for October I read THE NATURALS and ONCE UPON A BROKEN HEART (the full series of each!) this past month. Both were nice books to read in October. The latter is obviously a fantasy series, which I always think is great for the fall. THE NATURALS follows teens who work for the FBI – it got really dark as they chased down serial killers! IN NIGHTFALL is a vampire book that I really enjoyed this summer. It’s perfect for spooky season. DAISY DARKER is another great one for October – I won’t say why, but I can say that it’s super atmospheric and (if I remember correctly) it takes place on Halloween. And finally, for a non-spooky option, I’m reading THE PUMPKIN SPICE […]

November & December TBR (Non-Holiday)

Posted October 30, 2023 / 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 and December – EOY TBR Not Including Holiday Books As you may know, I usually combine my November and December TBRs into one post that excludes all of the holiday books I plan to read (that post comes separately). I have a bunch of books I’d really like to read before the end of the year, and try to mix those in amongst some holiday romances across both months. Just easier than making distinct TBRs for both months since I never really know where the books will land! Non-Holiday ARCs: Late and Upcoming These are three romances I’ve been so excited to read and have ready to go on my Kindle! I definitely thought I would have read THE WAKE-UP CALL the moment I got it but for some reason I keep back-burnering it. (To be fair, it has some holiday elements but I’m keeping it in this post because I don’t think it’s truly Christmas-forward compared to others.) RAIDERS OF THE LOST HEART was one of my most anticipated reads so I’m thrilled to have that one. I also grabbed SKIP TO THE END via audio on Libby so fingers […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #427: Atmospheric Books

Posted October 24, 2023 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 4 Comments

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’ve been lazy with TTT lately but this topic inspired me! The person who suggested this topic for TTT defined atmospheric reads in their own way, but my definition is just “books where I really FEEL like I’m there and understand the super distinct, fleshed out setting/vibes.” Here are some books that hit that mark for me.

Series Review: The Naturals

Posted October 19, 2023 / Book Reviews / 1 Comment

My introduction to JLB was well before THE INHERITANCE GAMES was published with some of my favorite reads: THE FIXER and its sequel THE LONGE GAME. (Still wish more books were added to that series…) I had always planned to go back and read THE NATURALS series (which was published before those books) but ended up getting swept up in her new releases as they were all coming out. I read LITTLE WHITE LIES followed by THE LOVELY AND THE LOST followed by DEADLY LITTLE SCANDALS (sequel to LWL). I just kept going with all of her new books from 2018 and beyond. Then, the mother of all series started with THE INHERITANCE GAMES in 2020. I had high hopes because of how much I adored her writing in allll of these other books, and this series (now 4 books with the 5th and final coming next year) knocked my socks off. Her popularity really took off with that series because of booktok and generally because it’s excellent. I kept thinking I should buy THE NATURALS books at some point and give them a read but I kept delaying… which worked out in my favor, since they rereleased all of them with new covers this year. NOW was the time. I preordered the new covers and made a plan to binge-read the series in October of this year. It was the most open month based on other reading commitments coming to an end. All that to say… I’m finally caught […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | September 2023

Posted October 11, 2023 / 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. September, as always, wasn’t the best reading month for me. I always have travel and birthday plans on and off throughout the month. I did manage to finish 6 books and one of them was over 900 pages, so I will count it as a major win overall! 6 books in September 6 read • 0 reread • 0 DNF Pages read: 2,789 • Average rating: 3.83 stars Genres: 3 mystery/thrillers, 1 contemporary, 1 fantasy, 1 nonfiction Formats: 2 hardcover, 2 mixed, 1 paperback, 1 egalley Sources: 3 preordered, 1 review, 1 owned, 1 borrowed Age Target: 4 adult, 2 young adult Here are all the books I read this month with ratings and one-line thoughts! Popsugar Reading Challenge: 74% 52 Book Club: 75% Must Read in 2023: 67% Romanceopoly: 23% Mystery/Thriller Reading Challenge: 92% Breakdown: 4 hardcovers | 3 paperbacks | 1 egalley | 2 ebooks All review copies were provided for free in exchange for an honest review. For Review / Ebooks From St. Martin’s Press: Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice by Cosimano Kindle Monthly Freebie: Woke Up Like This […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #426: Reading Goals

Posted October 3, 2023 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments

Reading Goal Progress Before EOY 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 always write a post discussing my reading goals for the year so it’s fun to reflect back on that list now that we’re heading into the final quarter of the year! I also wrote recently about how I hope to finish up my reading challenges in the end of the year and certain books or series I hope to read. 2023 Goal Check-In Stay on track or ahead of my Goodreads challenge Knocked this one out of the park. I finished my Goodreads challenge of 80 books in August. I’ve had a renewed sense of energy for reading this year! It’s been lovely. It also takes a little pressure off for the final months of the year. I’m reading some bigger books, fantasy books, and others that I would usually put off because they’d take me too long to read. Keep up Instagram stories about current and completed reads I’ve also kept up with my Instagram reviews! I love sharing monthly TBR plans, wrap-ups, reviews, midpoint check-ins, and more. I’m very pleased with this. Read 1-3 owned (physical) books per month Okay I had to track this down. 1-3 […]

TOG Review: Empire of Storms, Tower of Dawn, and Kingdom of Ash

Posted October 2, 2023 / Book Reviews / 1 Comment

I recently decided to reread the Throne of Glass series in order to finally finish it off and shared some thoughts on each of the first few books in the series. Now, we’re into the books I never got around to during my first read! I remember wanting to put off Empire of Storms for a few months after finishing Queen of Shadows just because I had read all of those initial books in such a short amount of time… but I just never got to it. Ever. Somehow??? I’m glad I decided to wait though because I was introduced to the concept of tandem reading for this book and Tower of Dawn. If you’re not familiar, someone realized that because Tower of Dawn and Empire of Storms take place at the same time but involve different characters in each book, you could read them at the same time and see what was happening with EVERYONE all at once. You basically read a few chapters in one book, switch and read some in the next, and keep going back and forth according to this schedule: I went through and bookmarked each section off so I knew when to switch back to the other book and its next set of chapters. I also kept this guide very handy just to be safe! I got both books in all formats (ebooks, hardcovers from the library, and audiobooks) so I could switch back and forth based on what I was doing. I had a weekend trip to Maine planned one weekend so I was […]