Month: December 2025

January TBR

Posted December 31, 2025 / Book Lists, Features, TBR Lists / 1 Comment

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. January TBR There is truly nothing like the beginning of a new reading year! I’ve already decided which book will be my first of the year, which is a critically important selection to kick off the year right. Like many other years, I want to keep up with my review copies and really lock in on reading them before or during the release month. Seriously. Please, Lauren. Review Copies I have a couple January review copies here – my hope is/was to read THE LUST CRUSADE as my last book of the year but as of writing this, I haven’t started yet… and don’t think I’ll get to it. I also have THE STORM and THE FUTURE SAINTS, from two of my auto-read authors. Owned/Physical Copies I preordered IN YOUR DREAMS months and months ago and it will be arriving this week. I plan to have this be my first book of the year so fingers crossed it comes by the 1st! I also grabbed HAVEN’T KILLED IN YEARS from Aardvark (I think) so hopefully that’s a good mystery in the new year. New Releases I usually listen to the new Wayward […]

Recent Reads | Alchemy of Secrets and All of Us Murderers

Posted December 29, 2025 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 1 Comment

Apparently I just have unpopular opinions about Stephanie Garber’s books, and in this case I’m happy about that! I loved the Caraval trilogy and preferred it overall to Once Upon a Broken Heart, unlike most people. I was a little nervous going into this book because so many Garber stans thought it was generally kind of mid or gave it 3-3.5 stars. I’m happy to report that I actually loved this one. The story is set in our world (urban fantasy vibes) but super magical. The main character, Holland, took a folklore class by a mysterious professor where she learned about urban myths and local legends. She’s always been convinced that magic is real while many others in the class think it’s just fiction. Holland soon realizes that her instincts were right and the myths are real. She needs to find the mythical Alchemical Heart by the end of the following day or she dies. It was really fun to get pulled into the magic of Los Angeles with Holland and her companions. The story is INCREDIBLY fast-past for a fantasy book and I loved that. My attention was rapt the entire time, with the characters uncovering more as they traveled around the city. The reason this isn’t five stars is because the fast pace did lead to a lack of character development (or development in general in some places). The book is short at 324 pages and could have benefited from 25-50 more to flesh out a few more […]

2026 Releases I Can’t Wait For

Posted December 24, 2025 / Book Lists, Features / 1 Comment

I noticed throughout 2025 that I wasn’t doing a good job of keeping up with unreleased books. I love adding books coming out in the future so I always have books to look forward to. I found Goodreads feature section called New Releases recently where it shows all the books coming out in future months from authors on your Goodreads shelves and it’s been a game-changer. I used that tool along with my Netgalley/review copy TBR and this TTT with my Winter TBR. I always love sharing my most anticipated releases for the upcoming year so I can track how well I did at reading them. January Releases NOTE: The first book comes out 12/30 but I’m including it here to advertise my fave romance series February Releases March Releases April Releases May Releases June Releases July Releases s August Releases September and October Releases

Holiday Reviews | Good Spirits and A Little Holiday Fling

Posted December 22, 2025 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

Story I’ve read one other holiday book from BK Borison and thought it was pretty good. I knew this one would be a must-read this Christmas season because it contains one of my favorite premises – A Christmas Carol retelling or reimagining. This one follows a good girl named Harriet getting visited by Nolan, the Ghost of Christmas Past. As the two go into her memories, they struggle to understand why she’s being visited in the first place. She’s not a bad person and doesn’t seem to need to atone for anything. When their visits to the past start changing, they wonder if there’s something else going on. This ended up being super cute! Quite a few elements worked for me, especially the depth of emotion from the characters as they experienced each other’s loneliness. There were some heartbreaking moments without being overtly sad like some other Christmas books I’ve read this year lol. I wish there was less instalove though. Wintery Setting & Holiday Feels The premise obviously surrounds Christmas due to the whole Ghost of Christmas Past thing. The main character is a big fan of Christmas as well. I really expected there to be more Christmas feels but there really wasn’t a lot more than what I just mentioned. Overall I’m intrigued to see what the second book in this series looks like or is about because there’s a whole world of “magical creatures” (for lack of a better word) like reapers who were referenced during the […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #481: Winter TBR

Posted December 16, 2025 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 1 Comment

Winter TBR 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 like to go month-by-month with upcoming releases when I look ahead at my TBRs so you’ll see that, along with my early 2026 review copies. I plan to include another section of the books I didn’t get to this year but really hope to read in the first months of next year. Leftovers from 2025 There’s a mix of books here: preorders from the end of the year, egalleys I hope to read soon, library books I currently have out, and other physical books I’ve acquired. These are the six books I hopefully get to in the first few months of the year that are “leftovers” from 2025. Jan-Feb Egalleys I shared these on my recent TTT but these six books are the January and February releases I have on deck as egalleys. I definitely will read THE LUST CRUSADE to finish off this year but I thought I’d keep it here among the similar release dates. January Releases I need to get going on some preorders for next year now that I look at a couple of these! I bet they will also be in January book boxes so […]

Holiday Reviews | Grace & Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon and The Christmas Keepsake

Posted December 15, 2025 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Story I was not expecting a five-star Christmas book because unfortunately it’s very rare for me, but I just adored this. The story follows Grace and Henry, two widows (widowers?) who are still freshly grieving losing their spouses but their moms push them together for a little meet cute. They become friends first and bond over holiday movies. Grace has two kids, owns a bar, and recently adopted a crazy puppy. Henry is alone, avoiding the house he owned with his late wife, and on hiatus from work. Wintery Setting & Holiday Feels Grace and Henry have various conversations by phone or in-person watching holiday movies and analyzing them. There are different sections in the books with Christmas movie names so the reader has an idea of what they’ll be discussing or what references will be made, but that was really the most Christmassy part of the movie. It was technically a part of the plot but I certainly wanted more from it. The other “issue” with the holiday feels is that this is a book heavily focused on grief – both the expected deaths from illness and the unexpected deaths from an accident/tragedy. It made for a VERY heavy read at times, which you all know is not my preference… especially for a festive book. Overall As you can tell, I adored this book. I loved Grace and Henry so much – their banter and slow-burn relationship as they realized it was okay to move forward with their lives […]

December TBR

Posted December 9, 2025 / 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. December TBR Yet again I’m generally referencing this post to finish off the year. I think I did a generally good job of sticking to my TBR (I think only one book read was off-TBR) for November. December will be really making sure I squeeze in the final eight books I hope to read. This TBR will be very tight to these exact books! Review Copies I love reading holiday books so I was sure to keep a few around for December after enjoying a couple in November as well. A LITTLE HOLIDAY FLING and THE CHRISTMAS KEEPSAKE are my picks/review copies to get done this month. THE LUST CRUSADE is a January release I hope to read this month to get ahead, as well as count it for my 52 Book Club Challenge (pun in the title). Recent Releases & Owned Books I was hoping to read a couple of these last month but honestly they were a little daunting! ALCHEMY OF SECRETS has gotten generally positive reviews but somewhat mixed compared to her other books. I do need to sneak in another fantasy this year so hopefully […]

Recent Reads | The Thursday Murder Club and Long Bright River

Posted December 8, 2025 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

I’ve been meaning to read this book for years and the new movie adaptation is what finally spurred me to pick it up. I know this series is an absolute favorite of many people so unfortunately my expectations were probably too high. This was kind of exactly what I expected but I was thinking I’d like it more! People warned me it was slow and that wasn’t really an issue for me; I liked the main characters and would be curious to see what they get up to in future books. I think there were overall too many characters for me to keep track of so when reveals were happening, I was kind of lost. I generally liked the audiobook but I’ll admit that it didn’t keep my attention sometimes. I like that there is a little mystery or two around some of the characters and their backgrounds so I hope to continue to grow more connected to all of them, especially because I know the series gets emotional. With elderly main characters, I don’t love the booktubers crying in future books, because I have some guesses about what may happen… All in all, a promising start to a new series for me! Hopefully I’ll continue next year. THE GOD OF THE WOODS was one of my favorite books last year. I didn’t even realize when my friend recommended LONG BRIGHT RIVER that it was by the same author, but that’s what sold me on borrowing her copy! The premise […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #480: Freebie – ’26 ARCs

Posted December 2, 2025 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments

December Freebie: 2026 ARCs 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 have 11 review copies locked and loaded for 2026 already. I tried to behave myself and really only request books from favorite authors and/or ones I KNEW I would read for sure. I did go a little crazy with a couple random ones but they just sounded so good! Here they all are, in order of pub date. January February March and April

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | November 2025

Posted December 1, 2025 / 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. Finally! A good reading month! It’s amazing what a deadline can do to a girl. I was determined to read enough books to catch up and I am now only one book behind instead of 3-4! On top of that, I should be able to finish another one or two really quickly this week and continue along with 8 books in December to hit 75. 8 books in November 8 read • 0 reread • 0 DNF Formats: 5 mixed, 2 ebook, 1 egalley Status/source: 3 library, 2 purchased, 1 review, 1 owned, 1 borrowed Age Target: 8 adult Here are all the books I read this month with ratings! 25 in 25: 65% 52 Book Club: 83% Buzzword Reading Challenge: 67% Buzzword Cover Challenge: 100% Breakdown: 2 hardcovers | 1 paperbacks | 0 ARC | 5 egalleys | 2 ebooks | 0 audiobooks All review copies were provided for free in exchange for an honest review. Purchased or Free Ebooks Kindle ebooks: The Taken Ones by Lourey, The Kill Clause by Unger Review Copies For review from Macmillan: Stranger Things […]