Books
📚 My Reading Year, 2024
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:
Finished reading: A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle L. Jensen 📚
Viking fantasy romance/romantasy. Not exactly a cliffhanger but not NOT a cliffhanger, either. Highly recommend. 🔥🔥🔥🔥
💬📚📝 “…in order to be a writer, you have to be reverent.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
💬📚📝 “Writing is about communicating what’s going on. Now, if you ask me, what’s going on is that we’re all up to here in it, and probably the most important thing is that we not yell at one another.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Timeless.
Finished reading: Bull Moon Rising by Ruby Dixon 📚
I really enjoyed this, mostly for the fantasy and emotional stuff. Love a nerdy heroine and a bull-headed hero (literally, in this case). The uniquely minotaurish monster romance bits were not the main source of its appeal for me. Definitely a very hot 🔥🔥🔥🔥. Not for the faint of heart.
💬📚📝 “All you can give us is what life is about from your point of view. You are not going to be able to give us the plans to the submarine. Life is not a submarine. There are no plans.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
💬📚📝 “The development of relationship creates plot.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Finished reading: Swordcrossed by Freya Marske 📚
Lovely! 🔥🔥🔥🔥
📺📚📓 Read The Great Experiment: race and authorship in Shonda Rhimes’s Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story by Claudia Calhoun (Adaptation).
This is an eminently readable and beautifully argued journal article.
Finished reading: A Touch of Stone and Snow by Milla Vane 📚
I might love this even more than A Heart of Blood and Ashes. A mild 🔥🔥🔥🔥.
💬📚 “When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you control all the laws. This is your utopia.” Derek Sivers, Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur
💬📚 “I’m a student, not a guru.” Derek Sivers, Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur
Finished reading: A Heart of Blood and Ashes by Milla Vane 📚
So, so good. I’m so happy to have found my fantasy romance sweet spot. 🔥🔥🔥🔥
I love my job and my family, and yet I find myself resenting that I have to do anything today besides sit around reading A Heart of Blood and Ashes. 📚
Finished reading: The Beast of Blackmoor by Milla Vane 📚
Milla Vane asks, “What if grimdark, but romance?” and I answer, “Yes please!” So great. 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Finished reading: Killer Underwear Invasion! How to Spot Fake News, Disinformation, and Conspiracy Theories by Elise Gravel 📚
This is a great book, aimed at kids. I’m definitely going to order it for our library. I might try to write a full review later.
Finished reading: Nobody’s Baby But Mine by Susan Elizabeth Phillips 📚
Most of this book is set in the Smoky Mountains near Asheville and I just kept thinking about all the aftermath of Hurricane Helene up there. This book was published in 1997.
Finished reading: A Caribbean Heiress in Paris by Adriana Herrera 📚
I love Adriana Herrera’s Las Leonas series so much. This is a very hot 🔥🔥🔥🔥. Paris, Scotland, an awesome woman running a business and taking care of her sister. Top notch. Highly recommend.
Finished reading: Some Writer! The Story of E. B. White by Melissa Sweet 📚
White wrote the first novels I remember reading: Stuart Little, Charlotte’s Web, and The Trumpet of the Swan. This children’s biography had me tearing up several times. Highly recommend.
💬📚 “Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.” E. B. White quoted in Some Writer! The Story of E. B. White
💬📚 “Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers on earth…. Children are game for anything. I throw them hard words, and they backhand them over the net.” E. B. White, quotes in Some Writer! The Story of E. B. White by Melissa Sweet
Currently reading: Memento Mori: The Art of Contemplating Death to Live a Better Life by Joanna Ebenstein 📚
📚💬 “By learning to live with our fear of death, we also learn to live with our fear of that which we cannot control, to sit with the mystery at the heart of life and still appreciate, and with great joy, the life we have been given.” Joanna Ebenstein, Memento Mori: The Art of Contemplating Death to Live a Better Life
Finished reading: Heaven, Texas by Susan Elizabeth Phillips 📚