Bookmark Lit Bulletin | February 2025

Posted March 6, 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. February was another weird month, and a short one at that. I hit a little bit of a reading slump – I ended up DNFing a book super unexpectedly and almost did the same with another book by a fave author. Luckily I pushed through for that one and ended up enjoying it. All in all…hoping March will be better. 7 books in February 6 read • 0 reread • 1 DNF Formats: 5 mixed, 1 egalley Status/source: 2 review, 2 BOTM, 1 preordered, 1 Kindle Unlimited Age Target: 5 adult, 1 young adult Here are all the books I read this month with ratings! 25 in 25: 15% 52 Book Club: 25% Buzzword Reading Challenge: 42% Buzzword Cover Challenge: 58% Breakdown: 4 hardcovers | 0 paperback | 5 egalleys | 1 ebook | 0 audiobooks All review copies were provided for free in exchange for an honest review. Physical Books Preordered: The Meadowbrook Murders by Goodman, Under the Same Stars by Bray, Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales by Fawcett BOTM: Famous Last Words by McCallister Review Copies From Penguin/Berkley: […]

Recent Reads | Into the Woods and The Meadowbrook Murders

Posted February 28, 2025 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

I put off reading CANADIAN BOYFRIEND for a while and now, with my review copy of INTO THE WOODS, I’ve spoiled a bit of that one. So I can generally recommend to not read this one first unless you have no interest in the first book in this shared universe lol. Moving on! This one follows Gretchen and Teddy as they work at an artsy summer camp. Gretchen is in the middle of buying a building to expand her dance studio but fills in for a pregnant friend, while Teddy is there reeling from his band’s breakup and hoping to work on a solo album. They have interesting and honestly sometimes off-putting personalities. I don’t know what it was but it took me a few chapters before I actually liked either one of them lol. The summer camp vibes are incredible here. I love the idea of adults at summer camp since I don’t read as much YA anymore. However, there was something about this story that just didn’t keep my interest. It took me SO long to read, which is not common for romance or books by Jenny Holiday for me. I was never in the mood to read this and think some of the story was a bit slow or repetitive through the middle. I feel like I could sum up the middle 50% of the book with a few sentences at most. Gretchen and Teddy were different than other romance book MCs – like I said, their […]

Recent Reads | A Killing Cold and The Five Year Lie

Posted February 19, 2025 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

I’ve been saying for years that I need to read a Kate Alice Marshall book and I’m glad I finally did! Apparently it just took me getting it in my BOTM. (By the way, I am getting much better at reading those…) The book follows Theo as she heads to her new fiance’s remote cabin in the woods to meet his family for the first time in their whirlwind romance. The mysterious, uber-wealthy family has spent years of summers and Christmases at their compound with cabins up in Vermont. When she finds a photo of herself in the abandoned cabin, memories of her childhood slowly come back. Is it possible she’s somehow been there before? I really loved this one and read the majority of it in a day. I found myself continually turning the pages to see what happened next. I was suspicious of the entire family at different points in the book and it really wasn’t what I expected to be honest. I think the majority of things I could discuss would be spoilery so I’ll just say that the atmosphere of this book was really well-done and perfect to read on a snowy weekend like I did! Some things were a little convenient (fate? IYKYK) and didn’t seem realistic at all. There were a couple of explanations for those things but do think the reader needs to suspend their disbelief to really buy into it. I ended up really liking the end of the book and the […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #466: Love Freebie

Posted February 11, 2025 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments

Love Freebie: Fave Recent & Upcoming Covers 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 always, you can count on me doing a book cover-related post when there’s a freebie! This “love freebie” will include book covers I love (recent releases and upcoming books).

Recent Reads | Onyx Storm and Beautiful Ugly

Posted February 6, 2025 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

If you thought IRON FLAME was a slog to get through with all of the filler and unnecessary fighting, allow me to introduce you to ONYX STORM! Also a slog with even more filler and (at least) less fighting. This book would be boring for 100 pages and then offer 50 pages of intrigue and then keep repeating until the end of the book. I’m starting to question the sanity of myself and others who continue to read the series – I genuinely don’t get it. FOURTH WING was a comparatively fun ride, especially for those nostalgic for old school YA fantasy, aged up into romantasy with sex scenes. I still didn’t really understand the five star reviews of that book because of the horrible, repetitive romance and writing style but at least I could understand why the experience was fun for folks. This book and its predecessor brought to the table a whole lot of nothing except for at the very end. And this one doesn’t have me itching to pick up the next book like IRON FLAME did. I’m wondering if this is where me and my FOMO part ways with this series… We’ll see how I feel when the next one comes out but as of now I’m mostly frustrated and confused. I’m gonna go read some theories because this book pretty much answered nothing that was brought up in the previous two books. If it’s true that this was originally a trilogy and got pushed to […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #465: 2024 Remaining TBR

Posted February 4, 2025 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 1 Comment

2024 Releases I Was Excited to Read but Still Haven’t Gotten To 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’m slowly moving my stuff over to Storygraph to avoid using Goodreads but I haven’t turned all of my “extra” shelves into “tags” yet on there. So, I went over to my “jazzed up for this” shelf on Goodreads to see what 2024 releases were on there that I’m shocked I haven’t read yet. Without further ado, here they are!

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | January 2025

Posted February 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. There’s nothing quite like a new reading year to rejuvenate me! 2024 was a weird year – I read way too many novellas and books under 200ish pages to meet my goal and really just don’t feel like I ENJOYED a lot of what I was reading. I decided to put less pressure on myself and make my reading goal 75 books so I don’t feel as stressed or pressured to read a random novella just to hit a quota. That said, January was a pretty great reading month but had some weird outliers. I’m going to start sharing some of the Storygraph monthly graphics here because they help illustrate what I’m talking about. 7 books in December 7 read • 0 reread • 0 DNF Formats: 4 mixed, 2 egalley, 1 audiobook Status/source: 2 borrowed, 2 review copies, 2 preordered, 1 BOTM Age Target: 6 adult, 1 young adult Here are all the books I read this month with ratings! 25 in 25: 5% 52 Book Club: 13% Buzzword Reading Challenge: 33% Buzzword Cover Challenge: 33% Breakdown: 5 hardcovers […]

February TBR

Posted January 29, 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. 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

Posted January 28, 2025 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments

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

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 […]