I’m a sucker for a reading challenge, as you’ve come to know over the years, but I’m an even bigger sucker for a summer-themed one. Anything to bring me back to the school days! lol. I’ve now written multiple summer bookish posts for 2025: bucket list and TBR, summery reads, and upcoming 2025 summer releases I’m excited about. I think another TTT will be coming in a few weeks too! In any case, I’m signing myself up for two summer reading challenges this year and thought I’d share them for those interested! The Book Clurb 2025 Summer Reading Challenge is hosted by some friends from high school! They have an in-person book club that they’ve extended online with a fun reading challenge for others to join. I did so on the Storygraph challenges page. I did a lot of scientific analysis to perfectly match books already on my summer TBR to various prompts and make sure I check them all off.   Set during summer: I just finished DEAD OF SUMMER this week and it certainly meets the prompt in a few ways. Really enjoyed it overall. Less than 250 pages: Pretty easy choice here is to read SAGA vol. 12 since it came out recently and is a graphic novel in the 200 page range. I like to keep up with these every time a new one comes out. Sports romance: I wasn’t sure what book I was going to do for this since I’m kind of out of my hockey romance […]

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. June TBR We’re back in business, folks! I killed it in May, reading way more books than usual with 12. I don’t know what it was but I was just in the mood to read a lot more and actually dedicated some time to it. I got through a few review copies and managed to read ahead a little too. Here’s what’s cooking for June! Review Copies      I did an okay job on egalleys in May and also prioritized reading a later-summer book or two to get ahead. I have MAINE CHARACTERS, THE THRASHERS, and IT’S A LOVE STORY carrying over from May. As for June and beyond, I plan to read LOVE AT FIRST SIGHTING for a future blog tour, NIGHT WATCHER, and ALL’S FAIR IN LOVE AND PICKLEBALL. Preorders & New Releases   I was really thinking I’d read NO ONE WAS SUPPOSED TO DIE AT THIS WEDDING immediately when it released but I got sidetracked trying to plan for all the format/genre balancing I was doing in May. I plan to read it immediately as my physical read for June, I think. There are some exciting new […]

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. May TBR Reading my summary here from the April TBR post was depressing. I wanted to get back to reading more than 8-9 books a month and instead I read half of that. Genuinely so sad. My reading slump continues. I know my life is going to get crazier over the next few months so I should be nice to be myself but I hope I can get back to reading more. Review Copies      A couple of holdovers from last month that I didn’t get to thanks to my slump – THE SEVEN O’CLOCK CLUB and A PROPOSAL TO DIE FOR. The rest of these come out in the month of May so I really hope to get on track with my egalleys. I’ve honestly done better in 2025 than other years but April/May being huge release months combined with me not reading much… not a recipe for success. Preorders & New Releases   I’ve preordered THE MISSING HALF and ONE GOLDEN SUMMER and those arrive within the next week or two. I plan to buy NO ONE WAS SUPPOSED TO DIE AT THIS WEDDING on or near release day […]

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. April TBR March wasn’t bad but I really need to get back into reading 8+ books per month instead of the 6-7 I’ve been reading. I just keep scrolling on my phone instead! I’m hoping with college basketball coming to an end and there being a lull with sports for a few more months, maybe Chris will play video games while I read in the evenings. Review Copies   I started SWEPT AWAY this week and am hopeful it’ll go better for me compared to O’Leary’s last release! I’ve also had THE SEVEN O’CLOCK CLUB on my Kindle for months – I’ve been tempted multiple times to read this super early and now release month is actually here. I think it will be a refreshing genre to read in the midst of the others I’ve been reading. And finally, I was recently approved for A PROPOSAL TO DIE FOR and think it’ll be a fun cozy mystery. Library Books & New Releases Believe it or not, I’ve put off both the new Emily Wilde book (it’s the last in the series so I’m sad) and the new book by Libba Bray (it’s […]

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. March TBR February was a weird month but I did mostly read books from my TBR! They just took forever to read. March should be good with a cookbook or two mixed in so I can get ahead and finally work on fantasy books. Review Copies   I’m a little late on CAUGHT UP IN YOU and the new FINLAY DONOVAN came out this week, so I’m hoping to get to both of them so soon. At the time of writing this post, I’m currently reading THIS BOOK WILL BURY ME and really enjoying it so far. And finally, SWEPT AWAY comes out early next month so hopefully I can get ahead. Library Books I have all three of these out from Libby at the moment and have really been excited for them! I’ve been waiting for THE LODGE for soooo long and it finally came in as a Kindle book. I have TELL ME WHAT YOU DID and CLOSE YOUR EYES as audiobooks (the latter also as an ebook). Owned and/or Recent Books I’m honestly shook I haven’t read these first two yet – the final Emily Wilde and a new […]

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 […]

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 – […]

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 I skipped my December TBR due to the uncertainty of holiday reads…I also did a terrible job of predicting my EOY reads as well. Lots of novellas, but oh well. I love the beginning of a year where I can wipe the slate clean and I’m super excited for the books on deck! Review Copies I already decided my first book of the year will be SAY YOU’LL REMEMBER ME, even though it comes out in April. I know I’ll love it and need that kind of energy for the start of the year. The other January review copy I want to get to is YIN YANG LOVE SONG because Lauren Kung Jessen is an auto-read now. Upcoming Releases   January has a few key new releases on my radar that I’m 95% sure I’ll get to in the month. The newest Wayward Children book comes out in the beginning of the month and I always listen to the audiobook right away once its released. They’re short and easy to get off on the right foot for my reading challenge. BEG, BORROW, OR STEAL is a hiiiiighlyyy anticipated read for […]