Bookish Posts and Books Read of Week of November 19th through November 25th
Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your loved ones. This week I got a long weekend, so I was able to spend it in Vernal with the family. I do apologize about lack of posts this week, but I was out of town and hadn’t realize they weren’t posting out so was unable to figure it out. Still not sure why, but will make sure we have a strong stream of posts this week. I had a wonderful weekend though, and still got some good books read even if I was pretty busy with the family. I also was able to get my decorations switched out and very thrilled to be back to Christmas decor and I can finally start reading some Christmas romance and listening to Christmas music. This weekend was kinda crazy football wise. We had some wild games happening. Love rivalry week. It was fun to watch though.
(All my books read and their reviews are on Goodreads, I have linked for you)
List and Link book reviews with ratings and descriptions of opinions via goodreads
Book Read-Crux Untamed-Rating 5 Stars—This book was incredible! I am so happy I was able to get this one downloaded in time. This is honestly I think so far my favorite of the series. This trio had a beautiful story and it was so well written with great depth here and tore my emotions apart.
Book Re-Read-Souls Unfractured by Tillie Cole—Rating 4.5 Stars—So this one was a reread and it was great getting back to Flame’s book, especially with planning on reading their upcoming book “My Maddie” in a few weeks. I loved reconnecting with their story.
Book Read-Rivalry by Nikki Sloane—Rating 4 Stars—I did this as a buddy read and this is a book I normally read every year. I love reading it during football rivalry week. It’s the perfect book, great laughs and the rivalry aspects of it is just perfect.
Book Read-The Rivalry Christmas by Nikki Sloane —Rating 5 Stars—This was a wonderful extended epilogue that I didn’t know existed until this year and it was so fun reading this one. Its a free book and loved seeing this couple celebrating Christmas together.
Book Read-Nash by Jay Crownover—Rating 4.25 Stars—This was such a delightful read. I really enjoyed the emotion that comes together within this one here. It was so so powerful and heartwrenching at times. But this is what I love about this author, she really digs deep on the human experience.
Book Read-Restrain Me by Michelle Heard–Rating 4.25 Stars–What a wonderful read this one was. Not a favorite of the series, but it was exciting and great bantering between these two. And enjoyed the connections to the previous books.
Book Read-Where We Started by Ashley Munoz—Rating 3.5 Stars–I wanted to love this one, but it didn’t quite execute. This was not a balanced story. There were plot holes, unlikeable characters and angst that just felt off in the story and the MC aspects that were written weren’t well done at all. I will stick with the series because I did like this one, but it wasn’t a strong start to wow me in any way.
Book Read-Coming Home by Sam Mariano—-Rating 4.25 Stars—This book was so interesting. This is where we see the trio Mateo, Mia and Meg really change. Its the book that alters everything in that dynamic. We get some truths revealed and some unlikeable actions from Vince.
Book Read-Last Words by Sam Mariano—Rating 3.5 Stars—There were different parts to this story here. Some aspects to it I enjoyed, but others were “meh” I wasn’t a fan of how Mia reacted to what Mateo does in the first 1/3 of the story. I was happy to see Vince find a happy ending, but wasn’t a fan that he doesn’t know the truth that Mateo set up his girl to spy on him and he never learns the truth, maybe he does in other connecting books, we shall see. But because of this I had to lower my rating. It just rubbed me the wrong way because eventually the truth always comes out. These books are wild y’all. They kept me up all night thinking about it, the way this author writes is so deliciously complex and this series has really pushed my buttons but love how she writes such stories that make me think deeper long after reading it.
Book Reread-Coyotes Mate by Lora Leigh—Rating 5 Stars—I absolutely had a blast getting back to this book, and for this read-along, this has been my favorite here. Its the best book in the series in my opinion.
Bookish Posts to Look Forward To
2024 Reader Tracking Spreadsheet
Book Release Post
Fast Five Friday
Recommend It Post
Current Reads
My Audio to start off the week is going to be Royals of Italy by Bella Di Corte. Even though I am tempted to physically read this one, I listened to a sample of this one and the narration sounds amazing, so I am going to try an audio and see how it is. My current ebook read is the Sara Ney with How to Lose at Love which has been pretty fun so far and has a interesting setup for sure. Then I will be picking up Dom by S.J. Tilly. I have really enjoyed this series so far. They aren’t five star reads or anything, but they are addicting and just give you that alpha male fix. I am finally returning to Catharina Maura. I really loved her current series and I have been curious about her backlist and really want to read this one here, its a marriage of convenience standalone with a cinderella twist. So very eager for Forever After All and then we have Beauty Found by Tillie Cole. I actually found this past week while browsing sites looking for this one. I found it on google books so I am eager to get to their book. And I know My Maddie is still in apple books. Going to search at some used bookstores this week see if I can locate book 7 of the series.
Book Releases I am Excited For
He’s Not My Type by Meghan Quinn
Born to Be Badger by Shelly Laurenston
Broken Dreams by Corinne Michael
Surrender by Terri Anne Browning
My Weekly TBR
These are books that I have for what I term a flexible TBR shelf for the week. As some of you know, I have been working on switching from being a mood reader to a TBR reader where I just work around a flexible weekly TBR. This week I am focusing on series or authors I am working my way through. Starting next week I will have more focus on Christmas/Winter reads.
Favorite Book of the Week
New Additions to AR Library
This week was a good one for adding books to my library. So the CL Wilson books I have in print. And if you get these in print now, they have the floppy pages which is great, makes it easier to read and less chance of breaking the spine so I am really happy to see Avon switching to this style of mass market paperback. Then I got this Carolyn Brown from my library and very eager for it.
I’m glad you were able to spend some time with family. That’s always nice.
Yes. Family time is the best right?
I never traveled for this holiday (just a little ways in NJ), but UGGHHHH! It’s annoying when scheduled posts don’t happen. I had that issue when I had my self-hosted WP blog. I tried everything to fix it too. I gave up. Hope you find some great holiday romances to enjoy. They always hit the spot.
oh wow really? haha Yeah I hate it especially this time of year. Yeah normally it works fine for me so not sure why it suddenly wouldn’t work and I didn’t bring my laptop. Yeah there are some novella’s for Christmas I have lined up.
It’s a bummer having blogger issues, especially when you can’t do anything about it. Glad you had a nice Thanksgiving, though! I read that Jay Crownover series a while back. The audio for Nash and two others are on sale on Chirp right now.
Yeah I saw the sales but my library has those so not sure I will buy those. But I like them physically too. Hope you had a great thanksgiving!
Yay for time spent with family, good reading, and getting your holiday decor up. Hopefully, you’ll figure out the snafu with the blog posts. Ooh a Carolyn Brown Christmas book I haven’t read yet. I’ll look forward to seeing what you think.
Have a good week, Renee!
Yes it was a week packed with some great happenings! I still haven’t figured it out haha oh well. Very curious about the Carolyn Brown for sure. She writes some solid Christmas books.
Rivalry week is big here with the Apple Cup (UW vs. WSU). It’s always fun to watch. I loved He’s Not My Type. I hope you do as well.
Rivalry Week is the BEST. We have the holy war here in Utah. Which now with the Big 12, will be every year again so it should be fun. If you haven’t read Rivalry, then you definitely should. The rivalry aspects were spot on! haha I related to it so well. Very excited for the Meghan Quinn for sure.
I don’t know where WSU will end up next year with the PAC-12 folding, but UW will be Big 10. They’ve agreed to continue the Apple Cup thankfully.
It will be very curious to see where the teams on the Pac 12 end up going. I did hear that Wash was going to the Big 10, not surprised by that. There have been a lot of teams moving around other conferences which I think will be good for the NCAA. Love rivalry games though so I am sure that will keep going. Most conferences want those to still happen. We have our rivalry back on now though which should be fun. Its kinda been sporadic in the past decade because BYU was independent until we joined the Big 12 this year.
USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington are joining the Big 10, Stanford and Cal are going to the ACC. Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State and Utah will join the Big 12. WSU and OSU are stuck as the last 2 Pac-12 teams trying to figure it out. Here in the PNW, we aren’t loving the fall of the Pac-12. It’s bittersweet.
Yeah I was curious about who would join ACC. It will be interesting being in the same conference as Utah again, its been at least a decade lol Yeah I was so shocked to learn about the fall of Pac 12. Its kinda crazy.
I heard last night that WSU and OSU are going Mountain West.
oooh that will be very interesting! It will definitely add more to the Mountain West conference and I think add some interesting dynamics to football conferences as a whole with the fall of Pac 12 and how they are shifting from just being territory to being more expansive than they used to be.