 As I mentioned in my first blog earlier this month, I joined an in-person romance book club. In truth, it’s really my first one. I tried to join one online two years ago, but it continued to be rescheduled, and I have a very lovely and nontraditional book group chat running with two of my closest friends where we talk about what we’re reading. Sometimes, we even read what one of us highly recommends. I have a few other friends who I talk about books with, individually, which is just as fulfilling. Truly, I cherish each of them, especially since most of them live out of state. It was important to me to find an activity to do in-person this year - for either my reading or my writing - so you can imagine how thrilled I was to discover a local, more established book club at one of my libraries. Quick shout-out to all the libraries and librarians out there - please go support your own! I’d love to hear about the classes, programs, or books you find!
If anything, the story and characters resonated in this book. I choked up (okay: cried) more than once. Truth be told, when I read a certain plot point toward the end, I remembered why I wrote the book I did in 2015. How much of myself I wrote into that unpublished piece. Unexpectedly, I walked away from Lunar Love feeling raw and inspired again. Renewed, even. While I revealed Olivia’s career above, I won’t speak on Bennett’s role in the story to avoid spoilers… But trust me when I say, this leading couple venn-diagrams beautifully. Where they intersect, where they diverge. It’s a delicious friction, sometimes fraught and other times flirty. As characters, they were 3D from the very beginning. More than that, the circumstances of their interactions marries cultural tradition with modern progress in a way that invites readers to engage each, both individually and as one. For me, this thematically worked for the romantic nature of the book. The blend of their unique character worldviews, their careers and aspirations, their familial backgrounds, their astrological signs… These characters are complex, and because of that, I still think of them weeks after my book club discussed it. As a book club, we were pleased by how the characters met, how even that initial rom-com meet-cute convention defied our expectations for their roles in the story, the insertion of a plot twist in the first third of the novel that resolved a classic (albeit sometimes frustrating) plot device in romance books, and unanimously adored the ending - plot twists and all. Some of my fellow book clubbers expressed dislike for Olivia’s initial character behavior, but we ended up having a wonderful conversation about how that set up the perfect foundation for her growth through the last third of the book. Even moments we didn’t necessarily want to happen had to happen so that happily-ever-after was earned. And what an emotional payoff it was.
Lauren has two other books: Red String Theory, published last January, and Yin Yang Love Song, which publishes tomorrow! If any of her three books pique your interest, I recommend grabbing a copy. Her writing is lovely. I hope to read more of her work this year.
Well, that’s it for now. I’ve received the librarian’s book assignments for the next few months. February features A Heart of Blood and Ashes by Milla Vane, so expect a review on that sometime next month. I’ve never heard of it - or any of the other books planned this spring - so I'm uncertain what to expect based on the description. I've read plenty of fantasy romances and/or romantic fantasies these last few years, but you never really know what you're in for until you crack the book open. But what's not to love about the prospect of another inked adventure? Until next time!
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 In my previous blog post, I shared my 2024 reading list, categorized by genre. I’m just as happy as I was then when looking through them. But out of the 74 books I read, which 10 would I read again or recommend? 1. Your Coffin or Mine by Jacklyn Hyde (Fantasy Romance)
2. I Hope This Finds You Well by Kate Baer (Hybrid Poetry Collection)
3. Nervous: Essays on Heritage and Healing by Jen Soriano (Nonfiction)
4. Gentle Writing Advice by Chuck Wendig (Writing / Craft)
5. The Winter Princess by Keira Dominguez (Contemporary Romance, Book 2)
6. The Boy Who Killed Demons by Dave Zeltserman (Horror / Thriller)
7. Writing on Empty by Natalie Goldberg (Writing / Craft Memoir)
8. The Teacher by Frieda McFadden (Thriller)
9. Assistant to the Villain & 10. Apprentice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer (Fantasy Romance)
Some of you may recognize this series from the hype--on or off--TikTok. Hannah earnestly took BookTok by storm with her videos about the leading couple, who were first realized in print in 2023. For me, spots #9 and #10 belong to both books of this in-progress series. Yes, Hannah captured our hearts online, but she does so on the page as well. Like with Your Coffin or Mine, I found myself laughing early on at the beloved main character, Evie. I don’t think I’ve laughed so much because of books this year. But… I also found myself crying for Evie, too. As readers, Hannah gave us what we needed to know while still surprising us. I find myself eager to read the third installment of the series, Accomplice to the Villian, which is expected to publish August 5, 2025. Well, that’s 10! While in no particular order, each found their way into my heart. It’s my sincerest hope at least one finds its way into yours.
With a few books read already for 2025, I’m eager to read even more—please feel free to comment or reach out with your own recommendations!  It’s been a few years since I’ve posted, but I can promise this year, I’m back! I’m locked in. My first returning blog is in reflection. This is the fourth year I have tracked my reading, so it feels like the best place to start. 2024 proved to be an eventful year, between months of home renovations and my first year teaching at the college level again. I’ve had the great opportunity to teach creative writing in particular, designing an introductory class nearly from scratch. It was tough, since I still worked my full time role, but fulfilling. I will teach that class again this upcoming spring—it’s third (but nowhere near final) iteration. I’m proud to say that everything my students are given, including the lists of additional examples in a variety of forms in our online course shell, has all been read by me beforehand. What did this mean for my reading this year, though? Because I had more than one job taking my time this year—one that required extensive course planning, reading, and grading—I intentionally lowered my reading goal from 100 books to 52 books. I also wanted to begin to intentionally diversify my reading list more, since I tend to mostly read romances at the book-level. Romance doesn’t always appear in the shorter pieces I read, or the shows/films I watch. While reading mostly romance was still the case in 2024, I think I began to read more beyond my genre. This list, of course, does not include the hundreds of poems, short stories, scripts (plays, shows, or film), and more that I read in preparation for teaching. The reading list I compiled throughout 2024 includes longer pieces or collections of work. Historically, reading 10,000 words has been my cut-off point, so I will also mention the books I did not finish (DNF). That’s right - DNF. This year, I finally gave myself the permission to stop reading pieces that I did not enjoy. A slow process of permission, yes, but it’s a new development that I feel good about for my personal reading. That time, after all, is ultimately mine. I’d like to spend it where my heart is, when I can. So after checking the final tally on December 29th, my total read came to a whopping 74 pieces. If you count the 7 books I DNF’d (between 25%-65% read), the total jumps to 81. As of that date, I also had 6 books in progress (between 33%-63% read based on physical page count or Kindle Unlimited percentages). But what did I end up ultimately reading?
My main takeaways:
I started tracking what I read in 2021, about a year after completing graduate school. I was burnt out, as many are at the end of graduate programs. I’m not sure how much COVID compounded the experience, but in hindsight, I’m glad to have been swept away by everyone’s renewed love of reading at that time. Because I was so intensely focused on school and my own writing for six years, I left little time for one of my most sincere passions. I’ve chosen to prioritize reading ever since. In 2021, I read 52 books. In 2022, my reading more than doubled to 109 books. I think that was the first full year I felt settled into a job after graduation and COVID, so I was able to sink into my passions more fully again. I remember writing again in earnest that year, and then again, in 2023. As for my reading in 2023, however, I read less, totalling 65 books. Reading 74 books in 2024 took me by surprise, in all honesty. I hadn’t realized I read so much with everything else going on! 2024 has also been a year of firsts. It’s the year I gave myself permission to begin not finishing books that didn’t resonate (only 7 total) rather than pushing through another 200-300+ pages. It’s also the first year I started listening to audiobooks in earnest. I enjoy conversational podcasts, and with commuting more, I’d like to maximize that time beyond music and French language learning. With audiobooks, I hit wall after wall, almost like I was programmed to. I would start an audiobook—always nonfiction—and the actual writing didn’t seem to like up with the hook-driven description. It was a strange experience, wondering if what I was listening to is what I really picked out. I stopped listening to a lot of books quickly that way. These partial reads weren’t counted in this list if I didn’t experience a certain amount of the piece first. For one of the books that didn’t make the overall count, I remember not being able to even get through the introduction. The book was what I expected, but it boiled down to the writing itself. In hindsight, it underscores one piece of advice I discuss in my creative writing course: the importance of reading what you write aloud, because of what you will realize or catch. All things considered, I’m happy to have read so many books this year. Some, I remember more clearly than others. The ones that clicked, and the ones that didn’t. Beyond reading being a passion, it’s also an activity that encourages gratitude in me. This long list recognizes how others have shown up on the page and in my life. It’s also a testament to how I have shown up for myself. Reading recharges and resets me in an essential way, like the oil needed for an engine to not only function but also succeed. Post-grad, COVID-conscious me from 2020 couldn’t have predicted that I would have read 300 books in the past 4 years. Exactly 300, it turns out. What a milestone I didn’t know I had reached. To paraphrase author and radio host Garrison Keillor: what a gift I have given myself, over and over again. As for 2025, my goal will be 50 books. It’s realistic for me between two jobs and anything else life might throw at me. I hope to choose better books as audiobooks (recommendations, anyone?) and continue to diversify the genres on my list even further. Perhaps in the coming year, I’ll begin to tally all of the shorter pieces I read, along with their genres. Diversifying my reading list overall will be a slow process, but one I fervently believe is worth the effort. With a lower reading goal, I also plan to increase my time writing. I will post or draft:
That’s the goal, and I’m sticking to it! Going forward, expect more blogs related to both my reading and my writing as I work on goals for both. My next blog will cover my top 10 recommendations from my 2024 reading list. This time next year, I hope the numbers speak for themselves! |
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