Category: Features

Books I Can’t Believe I Didn’t Read This Year

Posted November 23, 2023 / Book Lists, Features / 2 Comments

There were so many books I was totally convinced I would get to in 2023 and even included them on multiple monthly TBRs. Eventually I got sick of seeing them and just knew it wouldn’t happen so they were removed in favor of other books I hopefully will read someday. I do plan on creating a “24 in 24” list of books I need to read next year, so many of these books will appear on that, but hopefully not all of them. I’m aware that I’m posting this in November so anything can happen but honestly… I could have added like 5 more books to this. I’m DETERMINED to read them instead of include them here lol.

2024 Review Copies

Posted November 16, 2023 / Book Lists, Features, TBR Lists / 1 Comment

I’ve gotten a few exciting review copies already for 2024 and thought I would do a little post to share what those are so far! Some of these have been waiting on my Kindle for a long time and I can’t believe I haven’t been tempted to dive in… Mystery/Thriller and Fantasy Contemporary and Literary

2023 Holiday TBR

Posted November 8, 2023 / Book Lists, Features, TBR Lists / 1 Comment

I decided to remove the holiday movie section of this post because I just have not been on my game this year! If I get my crap together, I may feature some holiday movies on my watch list in a different post. This year we’ll focus on the MANY holiday books I could pick from. I also will do my usual past holiday post roundup at the bottom. Here’s a roundup of ALL of the holiday books I may read, including review copies (both backlist and current year), new releases, and backlist titles that have intrigued me. I have five review copies this year. Last year I only managed to read two of the four I had! Yikes. This year my number one goal is to read all of these without exception. 2023 really goes hard for holiday book releases. I’ve never seen so many! I did a roundup of a bunch of them that were announced by July (in my Christmas in July post) but I added a lot more to my TBR after that. I know I won’t get to all of these (obviously) but I hope to read more than I did last year. I keep deleting older books on here that I lost interest in but there are some that I still can’t believe I haven’t read yet (PRINCE IN DISGUISE, hello??). I added 2022’s books I didn’t get to on here as well. I think I’m going to put all of these titles on […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | October 2023

Posted November 6, 2023 / 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 was hoping to read a little more in October but honestly 8 books is still great! I’m impressed that I stuck to my guns and binge-read TWO series in their entirety. That was my biggest goal for October. I managed to read those 7 books across two series, then read one standalone in between. I know November and December will be big reading months though! 8 books in October 8 read • 0 reread • 0 DNF Pages read: 3,360 • Average rating: 4 stars Genres: 4 mystery/thrillers, 3 fantasy, 1 science fiction Formats: 5 mixed, 3 paperback 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: 75% Romanceopoly: 23% Mystery/Thriller Reading Challenge: 92% Breakdown: 3 hardcovers | 3 egalleys | 3 ebooks All review copies were provided for free in exchange for an honest review. For Review From Penguin: Raiders of the Lost Heart […]

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 […]

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 […]

October TBR

Posted September 28, 2023 / 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. October TBR I was hoping to catch up on library books in September because I spent most of August reading my ARCs. I didn’t totally succeed at that but I was able to return some books I knew I wouldn’t read, as well as read two of them (KOA and DROWNING). I have a more manageable stack of books now. Series October As I mentioned, the past two months have been ~themed~ reading months for my TBR and the same is going to happen here. There are two major series I hope to read in October that I have been thinking about all year. Here they are: I absolutely loved the CARAVAL series but for some reason kept putting off her companion series, ONCE UPON A BROKEN HEART. The final book in the trilogy comes out in October, so I thought it would be the perfect time to binge read all three books in a row. I have the first two and preordered the final one, plus the audiobooks are on Scribd. The other series (this one has four books) I’m hoping to fully bang out in October is THE NATURALS. […]

Finishing Up Challenges

Posted September 21, 2023 / Book Challenges, Features / 0 Comments

It became too annoying to share challenge progress in my monthly wrap-ups, so I’ve stopped bothering (aside from basic percentages). I always like to check in around this time of year though to see how I’m doing on my challenges, figure out some books I can read to fill in the gaps, and plan an EOY TBR! Here’s where I am at the time of writing this post (mid-September). Must Read in 2023 Status: 67% complete, 4 prompts left I set up my own backlist reading challenge for the year and yes I’ve totally slacked on it! In fact, I read only new 2023 releases in August… what about my backlist books?! Here are the categories left and some ideas of what I may read, with all books having a 2022 pub date or earlier, unless otherwise noted: Backlist review copy – AMERICAN ROYALS: RIVALS Backlist BOTM selection – THINGS WE DO IN THE DARK Backlist book I preordered or just HAD to buy – FIVE SURVIVE Backlist holiday book – SO THIS IS IS CHRISTMAS Mystery/Thriller Challenge Status: 88% complete, 3 prompts left I definitely think I can finish this one off! I’ve found it very easy to tick them off the list as I read because I read so many within this genre. I didn’t pay attention to a ton of the prompts so I ended up finding a couple of others that I could add here while filling this out. Season is important to the plot – THE WRITING RETREAT Out […]

Ranking Books by Favorite Authors | Rachel Lynn Solomon

Posted September 11, 2023 / Book Lists, Features / 0 Comments

I thought this was going to be a more common series on my blog but I basically wrote one post and never tried it again! The idea came from the late Grace at Rebel Mommy Book Blog. I still miss her positivity in the book community and hope I can keep doing this post justice! The first volume was for Sandhya Menon. Today I’m here to rank Rachel Lynn Solomon’s books, because she’s quickly become a favorite… both for her YA and adult titles! These books will be listed in order from favorite to least favorite and grouped by rating. 5 Stars The Ex Talk // My review for this one is minimal for some reason but it was my first adult book by RLS after reading and loving TODAY TONIGHT TOMORROW, the first YA I read by her. I had high expectations but ended up loving this one. The MCs work at a public radio station and, because they bicker and dislike each other a lot, think they can pull of this radio show where two exes talk about what went wrong in their relationship. The only problem is that they’re not actually exes… and then they begin to fall for each other. Amazing banter in this one! Today Tonight Tomorrow // Again, my first book by her. I really loved this one too. It’s another enemies-to-lovers where the top two people in their graduating class slowly realize that maybe they aren’t actually enemies. They had so many cute heart-to-hearts and […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | August 2023

Posted September 6, 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. August was another good reading month and I met my Goodreads goal of 80 books in August! It’s really exciting to finish it early and read without pressure for the rest of the year… but let’s be honest: my good reading mood has continued so I’m sure I’ll still be reading a lot! I think the biggest difference is now I can read some of the longer fantasy/paranormal books that will take me longer this fall and not worry about quantity of books per month. 11 books in August 10 read • 0 reread • 1 DNF Pages read: 4,228 • Average rating: 4.05 stars Genres: 6 contemporary, 3 mystery/thriller, 1 fantasy, 1 paranormal Formats: 5 egalley, 4 mixed, 1 ebook, 1 audiobook Sources: 6 review, 2 library, 2 borrowed, 1 BOTM Age Target: 8 adult, 3 young adult Here are all the books I read this month with ratings and one-line thoughts! Popsugar Reading Challenge: 72% 52 Book Club: 71% Must Read in 2023: 58% Romanceopoly: 23% Mystery/Thriller Reading Challenge: 85% Breakdown: 4 hardcovers | 4 paperbacks | 4 egalleys […]