As you may have noticed, I lost my blogging energy for several months. I became Director of a public library, signed on to an ALA awards committee and hey, my home country is in crisis. No promises going forward, but here are some overdue reviews of FIVE Red Tower romantasy series-starters I read in the last few months.

Below I talk about Games Gods Play, Bloodguard, The Last One, The Never List and The Half King. A couple of duds and three I enjoyed! I didn't make content notes as I read, but most do have darker themes or scenes.

Ratings are based on whether or not I recommend them to fellow readers -  DNF (Did Not Finish), Pass, YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary), Read It, Read It Soon.

Happy September! Let's eat some apple pie and read some books.

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It's August! There are new books!

I'll be honest, everything feels like a lot right now. School is starting, my partner is starting a new job, my workplace is going through some big change, plus I'm still reeling from the latest floods.

There's a lot to be worried and angry and sad about in our personal lives and in our communities (local, national, global). If you're here in the dread and doom pool with me, I urge you to take some action. It's proven to make you feel better, which is pretty cool. I've been reading the book Bowling Alone in prep for a library event I'm running and it's got me motivated to fight this "epidemic of loneliness." The Surgeon General's report linked in that article is worth reading. This fall I'm postcarding for the Environmental Voter Project and continuing to write for Postcards to Voters, volunteering in my city, etc. Little steps.

In other news, yesterday was my wedding anniversary and we went camping with the kids. If this post doesn't make sense, it's because I managed about 3 hours of sleep and I'm in a post-s'mores energy crash. It was quite lovely to hang out with my favorite people in the woods.

Happy end of summer, friends! Enjoy the new books.

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Look, I'm sharing the July list in July! Turns out I'm capable of making links while I have COVID and can't do much else. It finally got me after 4.5 years. I resent it immensely.

Here's a list of promising-to-me books releasing in July 2024 and a couple short reviews of books I read a bit early.

Happy reading!

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Continuing our new tradition of publishing the month's TBR way after the month is over, here are some June picks that I've already read and more I'm looking forward to!

July's list should be coming soon. Hope you've been reading something great.

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Let's go ahead and pretend I didn't entirely miss the month of May and instead celebrate the fact that I now have a whole bunch of reviews for you? IDK, all I can say is that I finally finished this thing and here it is.

Enjoy.

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I've been sharing these recaps over on Instagram for a couple of years now and they're a great way for me to reflect on my overall reading patterns and monthly favorites. I'm going to do something of a repost here for folks who don't use Insta. We'll see if I keep going :) Summary first, then the graphics.

These TBR posts are apparently replacing my mini-reviews? In this post I talk a lot about some of the April books I've read and then give a list of a bunch I'm looking forward to checking out.

Top on my list of not-yet-reads are Hannah Whitten's Hemlock Queen, Fine Print Vol. 2, by Stjepan Šejić and When I Think of You, by Myah Ariel.

Hope you find something great!

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March is here with many new books!

A couple of changes to these posts for the next several months. I'm serving on an American Library Association committee this year and reading widely across eight genres rather than spending all my time in romance-land. This means I won't have as much time for the blog/these mega-posts and I won't be reading as many early copies. This is a welcome change for me but I wanted to let everyone know because the contents of these TBR posts will change a bit. They'll be shorter and more focused on my personal interests and not the broader landscape.

On to the books.

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