Month: December 2024

Top Ten Tuesdays #460: Best of 2024

Posted December 31, 2024 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments
Top Ten Tuesdays #460: Best of 2024

Favorite Books of 2024 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 recently filled out a little survey for Instagram based on my favorite old blogging survey so I thought it would be easiest to share a couple of those graphics here!

2025 Challenges

Posted December 30, 2024 / Book Challenges, Features / 0 Comments
2025 Challenges

I don’t think I announced my 2024 challenges like I have in year’s past, but I’m doing something a little different this year. I’ve abandoned the Popsugar Reading Challenge because it’s similar to the 52 Book Club and I think one challenge of that type is good enough. I preferred the prompts for 52BC this year. Anyways, here are my plans for 2025 reading challenges! Buzzword Challenges Booksandlala, my favorite booktube channel, always hosts these challenges and this is my first time joining in! She’s doing two this year – one book titles and one for book covers. You need to read a book with a certain word in its title or a certain item/theme on the cover. Kayla breaks this into monthly challenges but some people just try to read the 12 books throughout the year without intentionally reading them during that month. I haven’t decided yet how I want to work on this challenge. I had a few ideas. I never completed my 24 in 24 but thought this could be a fun way to use the same idea for 2025 and try to figure out which books I “have” to read this year and make a set TBR to read one per month that applies to the prompts. I’m REALLY bad at challenges with set TBRs though… any time I’ve done a “must read” thing, it’s failed. In a perfect world that’s semi-realistic, I would like to read each book during the set month. In a more […]

Holiday Reviews: The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year and A Winter Wish

Posted December 25, 2024 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments
Holiday Reviews: The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year and A Winter Wish

Story I’ve been an Ally Carter stan since I was a preteen so you know I’m going to be here for anything she puts out. I didn’t love her previous adult mystery/romance and was really hoping this one would be better for me. I’m thrilled to report that it was! Maggie and Ethan are rival mystery book authors (according to Maggie at least). They’re both heading out on a mysterious Christmas trip, no clue that they were invited by the Agatha Christie of their time (Eleanor Ashley). They, along with members of Eleanor’s family, were brought to her huge mansion/castle in the English countryside for some reason. When Eleanor goes missing a few days before Christmas, Maggie and Ethan use their crime, poison, and general mystery trope knowledge to try to figure out what happened and where she is. I really enjoyed the romance between these two and the setting was incredible. Only one bed, enemies-to-lovers, he-fell-first… all the good tropes! The fact that there was also a mystery in the backdrop made this book even better. Carter did a great job balancing both genres IMO but I do wish there was a liiiittle more of the mystery. I think the Knives Out plus holiday rom-com comparison was perfect for this book, which also means additional puzzles, riddles, and time with other characters would have been welcome. Wintery Setting & Holiday Feels The book is set at a snowy castle on 20,000 acres in England with no phone signal, plus […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #458: Santa

Posted December 24, 2024 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 1 Comment
Top Ten Tuesdays #458: Santa

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. 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! On My Christmas List I put these five single books on my Christmas list and in the process of checking Amazon, I may have spoiled which ones were purchased lol. Oh well. I also added the TOG boxed set because I only read these from the library and I don’t even think I own them on my Kindle. What I’ll Buy/Preorder with Gift Cards   All of these except the Nita Prose would be preorders that I’m excited to own next year! I’m hoping to get a B&N gift card because I don’t buy books from Amazon as a general rule but we’ll see what people do for me lol. I own the first Molly the Maid book as cute little paperback and want to collect […]

Ranking the Amazon Short Stories Read in 2024

Posted December 23, 2024 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments
Ranking the Amazon Short Stories Read in 2024

Amazon has been releasing some exclusive short stories lately that come free with Prime/Kindle Unlimited… including audiobooks! I decided to read three of these collections in 2024: Improbable Meet-Cute (romance stories with meet cutes), Busybodies (quick mysteries), and Under the Mistletoe (spicy holiday romances). I thought it would be fun to rank all of the stories as well as the collections in general. Which overall collection had the highest rating? Which novellas did? Let’s go! Story Ranking The Exception to the Rule – Christina Lauren Worst Wingman Ever – Abby Jimenez Rosie and the Dreambout – Sally Thorne Staged – Elle Cosimano Cruel Winter with You – Ali Hazelwood A Classic Case – Alicia Thompson With Any Luck – Ashley Poston Drop, Cover, and Hold On – Jasmine Guillory The Reunion Dinner – Jesse Q. Sutanto All by My Elf – Olivia Dade Crime of Fashion – Emma Rosenblum Merriment and Mayhem – Alexandria Bellefleur   Only Santas in the Building – Alexis Daria The Nosy Neighbor – Nita Prose Royal Valentine – Sariah Wilson Merry Ever After – Tessa Bailey One Lucky Subscriber – Kellye Garrett Collection Ranking Average rating: 3.91 stars This was very easily my favorite collection – I enjoyed the majority of the books (really all of them but one) and they only got slightly worse as they went on. But there were actual 5 and 4.5 star reads in here! What a treat. Average rating: 3.08 stars While this was a fun and worthwhile collection overall, […]

Holiday Review: Christmas Crimes at the Mysterious Bookshop

Posted December 18, 2024 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 1 Comment
Holiday Review: Christmas Crimes at the Mysterious Bookshop

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
Top Ten Tuesdays #457: Winter TBR

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

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
Bookmark Lit Bulletin | November 2024

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 […]