Next up is my summary of my worst reading month of the year so far. July found me struggling to find the time to read, and my focus for listening to audiobooks also faltered. Yet I did still manage to finish one book. This doesn’t tell my full July reading story, because I did read most of another lengthy book. However, I didn’t finish that one until August, so I can’t count it yet.
If you’d like to pick up any of these books and support my blog at the same time you can click on any of the book links in this post.
Books I read in July (384 pages):
Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki was a book club selection and is a tale of music, aliens and donuts – ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Winged Game by Sophie Kim was this month’s selection from Fairy Loot.
The Best of All Possible Planets by Alex Shvartsman is a new novel by a friend and sounds like a lot of fun. I had audiobook credits to use up.
I went over my book allowance by two this month and I know I’m going to fail at this again for August. If I can get back on track with my reading then I should be able to do better with this for the rest of the year. I did recently pull some books off my shelves to donate to help thin out the collection. I don’t often re-read books, but there are favorites that I do like to hold on to, as well as all those still waiting to be read.
Since this is a shorter post than usual, I also wanted to include a few words here about my Bookshop.org shop. This site lets you purchase books through a designated local independent book store. If you follow this link to my shop, I have created a few lists to help you find your next favorite read! Here is one example of my lists:
Are you making progress on your summer reading list? If you could finish only one more book for the summer, which one would it be? Let me know in the comments.
Wow, I have fallen so behind on my book blogging and reviews here, but it’s not too late to look back at what I read in the past few months (is it?). I was excited to get to a classic science fiction book that has been on my shelves for several years. I had one book (novella) to read for a book club, and if I had to pick an inadvertent theme for May, it would have been detectives in science fiction and fantasy.
My problems began in June and I’m not sure what happened, other than travel plans and escalating summer chaos at work. I still made progress for June with another book club read and then a new book courtesy of Net Galley.
If you’d like to pick up any of these books and support my blog at the same time you can click on any of the book links in this post.
Books I read in May (1,450 pages):
Cocktails at Seven, Apocalypse at Eight by Don Bassingthwaite was received as a gift and is a short story collection of detective-esque fiction all involving fantasy and horror tropes – ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury is that classic science fiction book I mentioned above – ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Normally I’d follow this section with a list of the books I’m currently reading. However, since I’m writing this in August, I have already finished those books and will have those in my next post.
Other books I had hoped to get to recently:
Quicksilver by Callie Hart keeps popping up on my list of books-to-read. I carried it around on a trip (in case my Kindle died), but didn’t start it.
Steelborn by Taylor J. LaRue sounds like something I should love, but I didn’t have enough time to get to it.
Alchemised by SenLinYu will keep recurring on my list until I have time one month. This one is really long, but some friends have loved it.
Infinite Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver is the much-needed sequel to Artifical Wisdom which I reviewed here. This one was also given to me by Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
Deathbringer by Sonia Tagliareni (Fairy Loot) – I’ve heard mixed reviews about this one.
The Tapestry of Fate by Shannon Chakraborty – As noted already, I had to order a special edition from Waterstones to get the cover I preferred.
New books acquired in June (3 allowed):
The Unicorn Hunters by Katherine Arden (Fairy Loot) looks like a fascinating book and I’ve wanted to read something by this author for a while. I added it to an upcoming book club discussion.
The Strength of the Few by James Islington is the sequel to The Will of the Many which I read earlier this year and loved. Spoiler – this second book was also amazing! The final book is due out in about six months.
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh is a stand-alone fantasy academia novel told from the perspective of the teachers and I loved the other book I read by this author (Some Desperate Glory).
Ooops, I went out of my allowance! I blame this on my travel to Portland, Oregon where I had to visit Powell’s Books. How could I not buy more books at this amazing place? This is where I picked up A Drop of Corruption and The Incandescent.
That wraps up this update and I hope to be more consistent with posts here as the summer wraps up.
What are you currently reading? Have you had more or less time to read over the summer than you would have liked? Let me know in the comments.
Somehow April got away from me and I didn’t have a chance to do my monthly summary post for March sooner. That means that I’m going to lump the two months together for one giant post. In total I did fairly well in my reading, with four books read in March and five for April. While I’m not meeting my goal of six books per month, I am making steady progress through my pile of books.
Also – if you’d like to pick up any of these books and support my blog at the same time you can click on any of the book links in this post.
Read in March (1,375 pages):
Grievar’s Blood by Alexander Darwin is the second book in The Combat Codes series and I listened to this as an audiobook – ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow is a stand-alone fantasy novel I had been looking forward to – ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Faraway Inn by Sarah Beth Durst is a YA cozy fantasy novel that I received courtesy of Net Galley for review – ⭐⭐⭐
The Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkien is a short novel that I started for Tolkien Reading Day this year – ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Read in April (1,957+ pages):
An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon is the sixth book in the Outlander series and was a solid installment – ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett is a book I didn’t get to in time for a book club discussion but still wanted to read – ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis was a fun stand-alone fantasy tale that I read for a book club discussion – ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi – I just finished this one last night for an upcoming book club discussion. This book had been on my list for quite a while. It is a book that required careful reading, but I enjoyed it a lot – ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Reading now:
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson – I’m having a hard time getting through this one with a lot of technological descriptions that don’t add a lot for me. I’m undecided if I’ll finish it. I’m almost halfway through a massive 872 pages.
Written in My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon – This is book #8 in the series and I just started it within the past few days.
Another reading event that happened in the last two months was that I got a new Kindle! My old one went missing for a couple of weeks, and while it did eventually turn up, I was convinced that I had lost it. My husband picked the new one out for me because he saw that the Kindle Paperwhite was available in my favorite color – red! While I can’t find a link to that color to show you right now, there are some other pretty colors available (paid link).
Other books I had hoped to get to in April:
A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas – I expect this to be a fast read, but I just couldn’t get to it this month.
The Path of Daggers by Robert Jordan – This is book 8 in The Wheel of Time series, and at 685 pages, I couldn’t make myself start this until I finish Seveneves.
Uh oh – I ended up with six new books when my new rule for the year said that I can only acquire four! I suppose that the first one on here shouldn’t count because it was the delayed February order from Fairy Loot which I didn’t make up for with another book at that ime. I had forgotten that I backed UFO 10 on Kickstarter, and then when I clicked on Steelborn for the giveaway, I had thought that only gave me a chance to win the book rather than gifting me the book immediately. At least two of these are e-books and won’t take up room on my shelves.
Overall I think that my reading for the year is going well. I made some changes to my cell phone that limit how much time I can spend on social media and gaming apps, and I think that has really helped me to focus on more important things. Do you have tips or strategies that help you to read more? Let me know in the comments.
I haven’t been doing as well on my reading recently. I’d like to think my struggle in February had something to do with it being a short month, but actually the month simply slipped by and I wasn’t able to focus as much on my reading as I may have liked. As I sit here in mid-March I’m still struggling to get through books, but that will be an update for a future post.
These are the two books that I read in February. Both were for book club discussions, but I hadn’t finished The Will of the Many in time to make that talk. I actually didn’t finish Pilgrimage: The Book of the People, but gave up on it about halfway through (paid links). I’ll work on getting reviews of these up soon, but here are my star ratings for them:
The Will of the Many by James Islington – ★★★★★
Pilgrimage: The Book of the People by Zenna Henderson – ★★
I did make more progress on the books I had wanted to read for February, but just didn’t finish them. I’m more than halfway through The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow. I decided to take a break from the Outlander saga audiobooks and listened to Grievar’s Blood by Alexander Darwin. This is book 2 in The Combat Codes series and I have finished it now, just not in February. I have already returned to book 7 of the Outlander series – I’m sitting at roughly the halfway point in An Echo in the Bone, with a little over 18 hours left to go (paid links).
Looking back at the books I had planned to read for February, the only ones I didn’t get to were A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge, The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett, and The Faraway Inn by Sarah Beth Durst. I’ve moved two of these onto my to-be-read list for March, but if I don’t get to them then, they’ll have to be pushed further down in my never-ending pile.
Next up are my reading plans for March where I get to pick six books!
By the time I get this post published I expect that I will have started The Faraway Inn by Sarah Beth Durst. This is an ARC from Net Galley, so I need to read and review this one soon. Probably next up will be Seveneves by Neal Stephenson because it is long (872 pages), and it is for a book club discussion mid-April. If I am making good progress on that one, then I’ll probably start either Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis (another book club choice) or The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. If my reading goes spectacularly well then maybe I’ll get to the last two on this list: Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab and Written in My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon (paid links).
I’m doing well with sticking to my new book acquisition rule. Since I read five books in January, that meant that I could pick up four new ones in February. My Fairy Loot subscription book went missing (but still may turn up). I had left a spot open for it on my list and then the other three books that I acquired were:
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
Sea of Charms by Sarah Beth Durst
The publisher (Bramble) was kind enough to approve an ARC of Sea of Charms for me. I enjoyed the first book in this series – The Spellshop – by Sarah Beth Durst, but haven’t reviewed it here yet so that will be one of the next reviews that I write (paid links).
Unfortunately my new book acquisition rule means that I can only pick up one new book in March. I’ll have to choose carefully!
The beginning of January gave me pneumonia, so while I didn’t feel well and missed work, I DID have more time to read. The second half of the month left me busier though, so I didn’t quite meet my goal of finishing 6 books for the month. These are the books I finished in January:
Since it takes me so long to get to reviews lately, I thought I’d give you a preview of what I thought by listing how many stars I gave my recent reads. Here are my ratings for what I read in January with purchase links:
When I set my reading goals for 2025, I estimated that I could read 6 books a month (72 for the year). Of course, being unrealistic about my reading goals, I then put 9 books on my to-be-read list for January. Even with that, I feel like I did well with my reading, having started 2 additional books from that list, and leaving only 2 that I haven’t started yet.
I’m currently enjoying the trade paperback edition of The Will of the Many by James Islington. I’m about 200 pages into this one. Then my audiobook journey through the Outlander saga continues with #7 – An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon (paid links). I have 26 hours left of 46, putting me around 43% of the way through the book. If I add my progress for these two books up, I think that should count as a sixth book for January.
The two from my unrealistic list that I didn’t get to were Quicksilver by Callie Hart and Alchemised by SenLinYu (paid links). I still want to read these books, so I’ll have to figure out where to squeeze them in.
I’m going to limit my list for February to only 6 books, and half of them are under 400 pages, so maybe I’ll manage to read them all? Of course I have to finish those I’m currently reading too. Here are the books I’m planning to read in February:
A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge – 613 pages, e-book – This is a classic science fiction novel that I received from Net Galley quite a while ago. I’m slowly catching up on my review reading.
The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow – 320 pages, hardcover – I have read a ton of stellar reviews for this book and am very excited to start it.
Grievar’s Blood by Alexander Darwin – 13 hr, 31 min, audiobook – This is the second novel in a series I started a while ago that was a mashup of fantasy and MMA.
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett – 410 pages, e-book – This novel won both the 2025 Hugo and World Fantasy Awards for Best Novel. It is a selection for an upcoming book club discussion.
Pilgrimage: The Book of the People by Zenna Henderson – 255 pages, paperback – This is a selection for an upcoming book club discussion and is a classic published in 1961.
The Faraway Inn by Sarah Beth Durst – 384 pages, e-book – This is a cozy fantasy novel by the author of The Spellshop and was given to me for review by Net Galley. It will be published on March 31.
I did really well in keeping with my new rule to only buy the number of books I read in the previous month minus one. In December I read 5 books, and then for January I only acquired 4 new ones:
Exit Strategy by Martha Wells
The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow
Pilgrimage: The Book of the People by Zenna Henderson
Graceless Heart by Isabel Ibanez (Fairy Loot)
You can see that there is significant overlap in my recent reading and the books I needed to obtain. I might have requested a book on Net Galley, but it hasn’t been approved, so it doesn’t count yet!
Coming up later this month on this blog are reviews of Slow Gods by Claire North, Katabasis by R.F. Kuang, and Detour by Jeff Rake and Rob Hart.
What are you reading this week? Are there any new books that you’re looking forward to reading? Let me know in the comments.
It’s the final day of 2025, and that means it’s time to look back on this year’s reading. I didn’t do too badly, finishing 47 books this year. I never seem to quite be able to hit 50, and despite my competitive nature, I’m not going to try to read 3 books today to hit that mark.
I also wanted to end the year by thanking all of you who read this blog! My audience here has been slowly growing, and 2025 marked the best year yet since starting this blog in 2012, with over 5,000 visitors and 7,000 views. December has been the busiest month of 2025, so I’m hoping that momentum will carry over into the new year as I post my backlog of book reviews.
Say what you will about Amazon, but I do always enjoy the statistics that Goodreads puts together with their Year in Books. From that, I discovered that the shortest book I read was The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal at 33 pages, while the longest was The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon at 1,443 pages (paid links).
Goodreads also tells me that the average book length that I read was 413 pages. This is a little shorter than last year’s average of 481 pages, but I did read more this year than in 2024. You can find my 2024 Reading Year in Review post here.
Books read in previous years:
2024 = 36
2023 = 48
2022 = 39
2021 = 43
2020 = 39
2019 = 43
I also looked back at my Books to Read in 2025 post to see how my reading for the year compared to what I had said I planned to read. Spoiler – it never matches up very well. Of the unrealistic list of 94 books, I read 22 of those. The remaining 25 books I finished in 2025 were added as the year went on. This happens because I have book club picks that come up, new releases I hadn’t thought about, Net Galley review ARCs, and plenty of spur of the moment reading decisions.
Without further rambling, here is a graphic of all the books I read in 2025 (in reverse chronological order):
Here are some additional statistics about what I read in 2025:
Science fiction or fantasy genre = 42
Historical fiction = 3
Mainstream = 2
Romantasy = 11
Cozy fantasy = 3
Non-fiction = 1
Classics = 0
Audiobooks = 9
Graphic novels = 0
Part of a series = 24*
Stand-alones (or could be read as one) = 23
Completed reading of a series OR kept up with the series as each book was published = 8*
* I counted individual books here.
What were the BEST books I read in 2025?
Here are my top three:
Two of these were very recent reads and I don’t know if that has left them at the forefront of my mind when I made these picks or not. They’re each different genres, with two being stand-alones and one the first book in a series.
The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong – COZY FANTASY / review here / purchase link here
Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh – SCIENCE FICTION / review coming soon / purchase link here
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab – FANTASY / review coming soon / purchase link here
It’s always so hard to pick my favorites, but here are all of my other 5 star reads from 2025 (in a random order):
The Book That Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrence – FANTASY / review here / purchase link here
Daughter of Redwinter by Ed McDonald – FANTASY / review here / purchase link here
Recursion by Blake Crouch – SCIENCE FICTION / review here / purchase link here
Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros – ROMANTASY / review here / purchase link here
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead – HISTORICAL FICTION / review here / purchase link here
Grimm Curiosities by Sharon Lynn Fisher – ROMANTASY / review here / purchase link here
A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas – ROMANTASY / review coming soon / purchase link here
Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher – FANTASY / review coming soon / purchase link here
The Book That Broke the World by Mark Lawrence – FANTASY / review coming soon / purchase link here
Orbital by Samantha Harvey – MAINSTREAM / review coming soon / purchase link here
The Feeding by Anthony Ryan – HORROR / review here / purchase link here
The Nightshade God by Hannah Whitten – ROMANTASY / review here / purchase link here
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab – FANTASY / review here / purchase link here
That’s it for 2025! Coming up in my next post, I’ll be looking ahead at my reading plans for 2026.
What are your favorite books you read in 2025? Let me know in the comments!
I’m a bit late with this post, but I still wanted to write up my annual look back at what I read for the year. First off, here is a nice graphic from Goodreads to summarize:
A few other stats that Goodreads provided were that the shortest book I read was The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente at 155 pages, while the longest was Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time #6) by Robert Jordan at 1,011 pages.
The average book length that I read was 481 pages, although I think this is not a terribly accurate statistic, because I don’t always put the correct edition of what I’ve read into Goodreads.
My total number of books read in 2024 is down a little compared to recent years as you can see below:
2023 = 48
2022 = 39
2021 = 43
2020 = 39
2019 = 43
So what did I read in 2024? Here is a graphic of all 36 books (not quite in reverse chronological order that I read them):
Here are a few more interesting statistics about what I read in 2024:
Science fiction or fantasy genre = 28
Historical fiction = 4
Mainstream = 2
Genre fiction with some romance = 14
Non-fiction = 2
Classics = none
Audiobooks = 6
Graphic novels = 1
Part of a series = 25*
Stand-alones (or could be read as one) = 13
Completed reading of a series OR kept up with the series as each book was published = 5*
* I counted individual books here.
I’m counting The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo as fantasy and NOT historical fiction, because magic is a significant component of the story. The Outlander series fills out the historical fiction because although these books contain time travel, the plot mostly concerns other aspects.
I made a note that some of these books contained an element of romance, but none were pure romance novels. I often make an effort to read something considered a classic, but I think that the closest I came in 2024 was God Emperor of Dune, and that only fits under classic science fiction by its proximity to the original Dune novel.
What were the BEST books I read in 2024? Here are my top three:
You can find my reviews of each of these, as well as (paid) links if you want to pick up your own copy:
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang: review here, link to purchase here
The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune: review here, link to purchase here
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros: review here, link to purchase here
Some of my other favorites from the year are below, also with links where applicable:
Starter Villain by John Scalzi: review here, link to purchase here
I thought that I was over my reading slump from March, but then I only managed to read 3 more books in April. However, for this month I felt like I made more steady progress. When I looked at some of the details, it turns out that I read 2,409 pages for the month, making this my second highest page count per month so far in 2024!
I also read some of the shorter works nominated for the Nebula Awards, so that took more time. However, I’m glad that I did delve back into reading some short fiction, and I have more of that planned in the upcoming months.
For the upcoming month of May, I’m hoping to finish a couple of books that I started, but that were larger projects than I originally envisioned. These would be The Anatomy of Story and the Utopia Science Fiction Magazine Five Year Anthology. I need to find a day where I have few distractions so that I can focus more on these kinds of books.
What else is ahead in May? I’ve bumped a couple of the books I had planned for April into this next month, but pushed others back further. I’m still planning to read the 5th book in the Dune series, Heretics of Dune. I’m continuing with several series with The Sandman: Book 3 by Neil Gaiman, Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros, and Jud by Michael Breen (paid links).
I also picked up a new book by one of my recent favorite authors – The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo. Then I have Deep Freeze by Michael C. Grumley planned for a book club (paid links).
How is your reading going for the year? What book are you most excited to read next? Let me know in the comments (above).
The year has almost come to an end and it’s time to look back at my reading for the year. This is one of my favorite types of posts to write, so let’s get to it! Here is my graphic of all the books I have finished so far in 2023, for a total of 46!
While I had set an unrealistic goal to read 100 books for the year back in this post, 50 is a more reasonable amount for me. As I’m writing this post, I have a few more days remaining in the month, with two more books that I should definitely be able to finish. I may grab a couple of graphic novels or a shorter novel and binge read to see if I can hit 50 by the end of the year.
How did my 2023 reading break down in terms of genre and formats?
20 books were stand-alone fiction novels.
18 were audiobooks.
I had one DNF (did-not-finish) book that actually doesn’t appear on this list.
2 were non-fiction, and one of those I hope to finish in the next few days is as well.
2 novels were not in the sci-fi/fantasy genre, and 1 was on the border of genre.
I finished (or kept up with) the books in 8 different series.
I started to read 5 new series.
3 were graphic novels.
Here are my favorite books from the year with some comments and links to full reviews below:
Rule Of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo
Fairy Tale by Stephen King was a wonderful stand-alone fantasy novel (paid link). You can find my review here.
I finished listening to The Witcher series (audiobooks) this year with The Lady of the Lake (paid link). While I’ve read that the ending is controversial, I thought it was appropriate to the series. You can read my review here.
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip is an older book and was also a type of fairy tale story (paid link). You can find my review here.
In my ongoing read of Leigh Bardugo’s books, my favorites were the Six of Crows duology which I just reviewed here and here, as well as the next two books, Rule of Wolves and King of Scars, which I will be reviewing soon (paid links).
Babel was a long stand-alone novel but its themes have inspired conversations about real-world events since I read it (paid link). This is a tragic story but was very well-done, and I highly recommend reading it. You can find my review here.
Elder Race is a novella that combined science fiction and fantasy into one story and was a nice introduction to this author’s work (paid link). I haven’t had a chance to review it here yet.
The two non-genre novels that I read, Where the Crawdads Sing and Horse were both very good, so if you’re looking for a break from sci-fi/fantasy, these are solid reading choices (paid links). My reviews are here and here.
Shannon Chakraborty won my reading heart with her Daevabad trilogy which I reviewed here, here, and here (paid links). So when she released the first book in a new series, I had to pick it up immediately. The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi was such a fun adventure story, and I’ll be writing a full review soon. You could also read this as a stand-alone story.
The last book on this list is a dieselpunk adventure comic/graphic novel which I just finished this week. Skies of Fire (#1-4) was produced as a Kickstarter and I really enjoyed reading this. I’ll have a review up soon.
Lastly, did I read the books that I had planned to read on my post from the beginning of 2023? The answer to this is always, NO, but where did I go off track? Here are some thoughts on that:
I had meant to read more of the Sandman series of graphic novels, but only got through one more in 2023.
I also had meant to continue my read-through of The Wheel of Time, but only read book #4 in 2023.
I didn’t get to read any more of the Dune books, but there was also a natural end-point after Dune Messiah.
There were several series on my list that I’ve been meaning to finish for several years. I still didn’t make any progress on these.
I didn’t read any classics in 2023, even though I had a few on my list.
Here is a visual of some of those books that I didn’t get to, but still plan to read soon:
That’s my recap of my reading year for 2023! How did you do in your own goals? What were your favorite books for the year? Let me know in the comments (above).
I just realized that we are halfway through 2022, so I thought this might be a good time to stop and look back at how the year has been going.
First – reading goals! I had set an unrealistic goal to read 89 books this year, when I normally struggle to get through 50 in that time frame. As of today, I have finished 23 books, which puts me at 23% of that original goal, but not far off the mark for reaching 50 this year.
Here is a graphic of what I’ve read so far in 2022:
As always seems to happen, I have picked up books I didn’t originally have on my 2022 list, and then branched off into new series and authors. I think that for 2023 I will have to focus on finishing some series that I’ve started.
All of these are continuations in a series, except for The Water Dancer. I think I have a series problem!
Which should I read first? Let me know in the comments above. What other books and series have you read this year and enjoyed? Help me add to my ridiculous to-be-read list!
Salvage – a flash fiction science fiction story with a winter holiday theme