Month: January 2025

February TBR

Posted January 29, 2025 / Book Lists, Features, TBR Lists / 0 Comments
February TBR

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. February TBR I definitely did a good job with reading in January despite the huge ONYX STORM taking over the final two weeks of the month. There are a few holdovers as usual. Hopefully I’ll get some good reading done this month despite it being shorter and me being in Disney at the end of it. Review Copies   I was going to read YIN YANG LOVE SONG in January but my balance of reading romance vs. fantasy vs. mystery across Kindle vs. audiobook vs. physical just didn’t align. This will be my first Kindle book of February and I’ll most likely have already started it. INTO THE WOODS and CAUGHT UP IN YOU are both upcoming releases I have review copies for. I’m also including the next FINLAY DONOVAN book because I got an audiobook review copy that I have a feeling I’ll get to before early March. Upcoming Releases I read all three “anticipated January releases” featured here last month so please lets cross our fingers this three books have the same fate! I preordered the latter two above and will probably try to preorder the first one because the […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #464: New-to-Me Authors

Top Ten Tuesdays #464: New-to-Me Authors

Favorite New-to-Me Authors from 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. Catherine Mack // Joseph Knox // Steve Cavanagh   Amy Tintera // Jessica Knoll // Kristy Greenwood // Stacy Willingham Mallory Marlowe // Liz Moore // Heather Gudenkauf

Recent Reads | Beg, Borrow, or Steal and The Favorites

Posted January 23, 2025 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments
Recent Reads | Beg, Borrow, or Steal and The Favorites

Sarah Adams doesn’t miss. She really doesn’t. I put her up there with Emily Henry and Abby Jimenez in terms of “guaranteed five-star read” for me. Her writing is similar with the banter and excellent characters, but her books feel so real – the banter never verges on “people don’t talk like this in real life” like other books can. I loved Emily and Jack so much; their dynamic was really fun. They both have complex histories and family relationships that just added to everything. Emily is very much the older sister in the family – she’s type A, organizes everyones lives, and keeps her siblings in line. Jack was once engaged and moved away, only to return to his job as a teacher with Emily in Rome… and single… and living next door. There was a lot of of bickering in this hate-to-love romance and I loved how well the two of them could read each other no matter what. There was a slow burn realization that they likely had feelings for each other and they started using those perception skills for good instead of evil. There’s something about these books that are simultaneously sweet without being cringy, sexy without a lot of spice scenes, and charming without being overbearing. I just love this little town and all of the people in it! As always, the cameos with the other couples and siblings were so good. I can’t wait for the final book – it better be Madison and […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #463: TBR Additions

Top Ten Tuesdays #463: TBR Additions

10 Recent Books Added to My TBR: Physical and Digital 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. This prompt is to share the 10 most recent additions to your TBR. I decided to split this out and share the five books I most recently added to my physical TBR, then the five books I added to read on Goodreads/Storygraph. Here we go! 5 New Physical Books Acquired I preordered BEG, BORROW, OR STEAL by buying tickets to the Sarah Adams discussion and book signing up in Portland, ME. I knew my sister would want to go since she lives in Maine and I try to go up there as often as humanly possible haha. It was a fun event! While at the Books-a-Million store, I decided to pick up a copy of HEARTLESS HUNTER kind of randomly. Everyone is reading this and loving it. I also realized that it’s on Kindle Unlimited, so I’m a little annoyed I bought it lol. I’m trying to be in my fantasy era this year so hopefully I’ll just read it using both formats. My January BOTM arrived recently so those are the other two books I recently acquired. I picked THE FAVORITES because everyone keeps […]

Fantasy Books I Really Should Read in 2025

Posted January 20, 2025 / Book Lists, Features, TBR Lists / 0 Comments
Fantasy Books I Really Should Read in 2025

I included an item in my 2025 goal post that I want to read more fantasy this year. I should definitely focus on doing it at the beginning of the year (and end, honestly) because I’m such a seasonal reader. There’s something about the winter and colder part of spring that makes me want to read heavy, long, fantastical books. I pretty much have no desire beyond like May haha. I broke this into two categories: the upcoming or recently published group (books that came out in the last few months of 2024 or will be coming in 2025) and the backlist books. Upcoming or Recently Published The books in this section go by release date. BRISTOL KEATS is just a gorgeous book I got in BOTM that I’m intrigued by. I’ve wanted to read a book by Pearson for a while and this seems like a good place to start. SONGBIRD came out late last year and I really thought I’d get to it before 2025 but alas. No time. And DRAGON CAFE comes out in January, so I hope to read it. Seems cute! ONYX STORM will definitely be read this week when it comes out. I’m truthfully hate-reading this series at this point because I don’t think it’s good, but they’re addicting and I enjoy being a part of things lol. The newest and last (ugh!) EMILY WILDE comes out in February so that’s preordered. The final two here are new-to-me authors but seem really intriguing – […]

Recent Reads | Only If You’re Lucky and Lost Man’s Lane

Posted January 16, 2025 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments
Recent Reads | Only If You’re Lucky and Lost Man’s Lane

I’ve been meaning to read this author forever and I’m pleased that I think I’ll enjoy her other books – maybe even more than this one based on reviews! This story follows Margot at the end of her freshman year of college – she lost her best friend Eliza before school and is just trying to get through the year. When enigmatic Lucy randomly invites Margot to live with her and her two friends, she jumps at the chance to forge some real friendships again. The book flashes “before” and “after” – in the after, Lucy is missing and a frat boy from Margot’s hometown is dead. How is everything connected? The author did a great job of making me wonder that the entire story, but my biggest complaint is around pacing. The story starts and builds pretty slow. There’s a lot of “privileged kids getting drunk and doing drugs” to build up the friendship dynamics, which made sense, but it didn’t feel like a mystery/thriller for the bulk of it. Don’t get me wrong: the college setting was super fun and I want more books there… but the beginning felt like a YA contemporary. However! Once the twists started, I was enthralled. There were a number of reveals I absolutely didn’t see coming, though there were a couple I had predicted. The ending was really surprising and enjoyable. I feel like some pieces were unbelievable but I didn’t really care – it was well-plotted in many ways. Willingham will […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #462: Goals

Top Ten Tuesdays #462: Goals

Bookish Goals for 2025 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 usually write a bookish goals and resolutions post but I didn’t this year. I feel like I never actually pay attention to these things throughout the year! I thought I would keep it simple and go over my basic goals and thoughts for my reading in 2025. Reading Goal = 75 Books Last year I squeaked out the 100 books I had set for my Goodreads goal. I ended up reading a lot of books under/around 200 pages like graphic novels and novellas in order to stay on pace. It was kind of a weird reading year where I didn’t love a lot of books and everything felt very mid. Knowing that I could easily read 6 books a month instead of 8-9, I decided to set my goal at 75 books. My secret back-of-mind goal is to actually read 100 books but we’ll see. Challenges Simplified I have historically signed up for a number of challenges and even tried to do the same thing again for 2025. Right before my challenge post went live, I decided to bow out of one and keep it even simpler. I’m doing the […]

Authors I Must Read for the First Time in 2025

Posted January 13, 2025 / Discussions, Features / 2 Comments
Authors I Must Read for the First Time in 2025

I’ve written in the past about books and authors I’m a little scared of reading for various reasons, but I don’t have many excuses for the authors on this list. I was watching some end of year wrap-ups on booktube and thinking about how I should really read a Brandon Sanderson book at some point. I started to then think about all the authors where I keep adding their books to my TBR or shelves on Goodreads just to never actually read from them. Stacy Willingham was a perfect example until I finally read one of her books this winter for book club. All that being said, here are some authors I really need to get to for the first time in 2025, as well as the books by them I think I’ll start with.   Kate Alice Marshall / Lisa Under / Alex Finlay Here begins the list of five mystery/thriller authors that I’m shocked I haven’t read a book from yet. They’re all well-established and popular authors who release a book each year and have fairly extensive backlists of three or more books. I own a number of Kate Alice Marshall’s books but I think A KILLING COLD, her 2025 release, may be the first I get to. The same could be said for Lisa Unger and Alex Finlay. Both books shown here are their releases coming out this year that sound really interesting to me.   Shari Lapena / Richard Osman / Ali Brady Shari Lapena and Richard […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | December 2024

Posted January 8, 2025 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 0 Comments
Bookmark Lit Bulletin | December 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. I wanted to finish the year strong and managed to include five novellas to help me reach my reading goal with about a week to spare. I finished the year with 103 books, which is not a pretty number, but it’s fine. I feel like the past couple of months have had a LOT of mid books so I’m hoping to start the year in a better spot with the books on my TBR.      11 books in December 11 read  •  0 reread  •  0 DNF Pages read: 2,288  •  Average rating: 3.36 stars Genres: 8 contemporary, 2 mystery/thriller, 1 nonfiction Formats: 5 ebook, 3 mixed format, 2 hardcover, 1 egalley Sources: 5 Kindle Unlimited, 3 library, 2 review, 1 preordered Age Target: 11 adult      Here are all the books I read this month with ratings and one-line thoughts! Least Favorite Short Story Collection // // // // //      Popsugar Reading Challenge: 44% 52 Book Club: 71% Book Cover Bingo: 84% 24 in 24: 33%      Breakdown: 4 hardcovers | 1 paperback | 1 egalley | 0 ebooks | 0 audiobooks All review […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #461: Most Anticipated

Posted January 7, 2025 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 6 Comments
Top Ten Tuesdays #461: Most Anticipated

Most Anticipated Books of 2025 – First Half 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 really love the start of a new year to look at things like this and feel refreshed. I’ll try to not go crazy here but I like to track what’s coming so I can reflect on it later and see what I actually read. Based on the books below, May is my most anticipated reading month – there are so many good ones scheduled! January   February March April May June