💬📚📝 “The core, ethical concepts in which you most passionately believe are the language in which you are writing.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Finished reading: Dark Lover by J.R. Ward 📚

Listened to the audiobook. This one is very much of its time (2005).

Finished reading: How to Tame a Beast in Seven Days by Kerrelyn Sparks 📚

The pacing in this is wild, and by wild I mean slow. But it was interesting enough to keep me reading.

Finished reading: Captive Prince by C. S. Pacat 📚

This book is well-written and compelling. It’s also intense and full of potentially triggering moments. I recommend perusing the full Does the Dog Die? page for it before reading.

Finished reading: The Serpent and the Wolf by Rebecca Robinson 📚

I loved this! A woman who has to learn to let love in, a man who is patient enough to wait for her to do so, a coven of friends, political machinations, and magic. Chef kiss! 🔥🔥🔥

💬📚 “A new notebook is not about starting over—it’s about leveling up.” - Ryder Carroll, The Bullet Journal Method

FEBRUARY

• 4 A Tropical Rebel Gets the Duke by Adriana Herrera

MARCH

• 4 Shadow’s Heart by Kresley Cole, Oathbound by Tracy Deonn

APRIL

• 15 Love in 280 Characters or Less by Ravynn K. Stringfield

• 29 Once Upon You & Me by Timothy Janovsky

MAY

• 13 A Curse Carved in Bone by Danielle L. Jensen

JULY

• 8 These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean

• 15 A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna

SEPTEMBER

• 2 By the Horns by Ruby Dixon

• 30 A Mannequin for Christmas by Timothy Janovsky

In anticipation of my reading this year, I want to articulate one main goal and a few stretch goals.

My main reading goal is to read one more book than I already have. This means the total for the year is a moving target

Here are some stretch goals, meaning I want to remember to do them but I want them to be low pressure:

• Read one nonfiction book a month.
• Stop requesting books from NetGalley that I don’t know anything about except what is on NetGalley.
• Stop requesting books from NetGalley based on marketing emails they send me.
• Keep up with new releases from authors I love.
• Any time I’m in a city with a romance-only bookstore, visit it.

Finished reading: Trial of the Sun Queen by Nisha J. Tuli 📚

Like last year, I’m going to share some notes on my reading before popping the full list of all the books I read this year in here.

I read 106 books this year, including 4 picture books/easy readers. As with last year, I overwhelmingly read romance. This is about twice as much as I normally read, which can be attributed to two things: how propulsive so many romance books are, and the fact that I was freelancing and only doing that minimally from January through July. This left a LOT of time for reading. I read two or three books a week in that period. I’ve slowed down to my usual one a week since beginning my part-time school librarian job in August.

I did deep dives into the backlist of Kresley Cole and Sarah MacLean, thanks to the podcast Fated Mates. This podcast has been the greatest influence on my choice of what to read this year. I read a lot of old X-Men comics reading along with the book The Best There Is at What He Does: Examining Chris Claremont’s X-Men. I’m still in the middle of that project, which I started after watching X-Men ‘97. I think I’m going to pick it back up soon.

In just the past couple of months, I have really found my way into fantasy romance. My favorite and the series that really got me here is Milla Vane’s barbarian fantasy romance series, A Gathering of Dragons. It answers the question, “What if grimdark, but romance?” which is not something I thought I would want when I first started this tear of romance reading but actually is exactly the thing I want right now.

Here are all the books I read this year: