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Hi all,

Sorry for disappearing! Last year was a pretty rough year. I was getting diagnosed for ADHD, my cat's cancer came back, there was just a bunch going on with personal life, dealing with the general world...I just had no attention span and was having trouble keeping up with everything. I just couldn't keep up with all the various social medias and keeping track of books and I wasn't reading as much as usual. So sorry! Thank you to Susan and Shel for keeping this place going!

I'll try to be more active here this year!

I've gotten a nice little start on reading this year.

The Kamogawa Food Detectives - January books & brew read. I liked the idea of this book but i didn't love the execution. It felt a little repetitive. Most the action was just told, I 'd have liked to go with the detective on figuring out the food mysteries. Also the writing was a little stilted, although I don't know if that was a translation issue.

The Naturalist Society - i really liked this one. The magic system was interesting, based on classifying animals and plants and drawing power from understanding their traits. I also really liked Beth's determination to not be confined by society.

A Court of Sugar and Spice - read for felicia daye's vaginal fantasy book club. It was just ok for me. It couldn't really decide if it wanted to be a whimsical or dark fantasy and the juxtaposition was weird. but it did stay pretty consistent with plot and did what it set out to do. Things did get wrapped up pretty satisfactorily. Very spicy, lots of CWs, read with caution.

The Crescent Moon Tearoom - i got this from my book club's end of year book exchange. It was a nice january read. I love cozy magical tea books. This wasn't my FAVORITE one of the genre, but it was cute and cozy and low stakes.

I'm not sure where we are on questions, so I'll just borrow from popsugar this week: Are there any books you meant to read in 2024 that you didn't get to?

Not really. I was so scattered and having such a hard time reading last year, i quickly let any real goals or plans slide last year. So getting ANYTHING read was the goal. I wasn't really even paying attention to new books, or anything like that.

Glad to see you back, Sheri! I'm sorry last year was so rough for you. My best wishes that you have a better year.

I got busy the last few weeks of 2024 and can't remember when I last checked in, so I'm just going to more or less cover my last read of 2024 and my 2025 so far.

Finished:
Medici Heist by Caitlin Schneiderhan - 4 stars - no prompt. My final book of 2024 was a fun little historical heist novel set in 1500s Italy. Suspension of belief required but I had so much fun reading this. Michelangelo is a side character.

The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren - 3.5 stars - for Popsugar's book set at a luxury resort. Family drama, fake marriage, and rich people problems.

The Garden by Tomi Adeyemi - 2 stars - for Popsugar's book rated less than three stars on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ. If I'm going to read a low-rated book, I'm not going to waste my time on something long. So I read this Amazon original short. It was awful, but I'm glad to be done with this prompt.

How to Steal a Galaxy by Beth Revis - 4 stars - for Popsugar's book under 250 pages. I loved this and I can't wait for the third novella!

Lady Eve's Last Con by Rebecca Fraimow - 3.5 stars - for Popsugar's book centering LGBTQ+ characters that isn't about coming out. A fun little romp about a con woman trying to swindle the rich man who broke her sister's heart, in a sci-fi setting.

I am currently at 4/50 for Popsugar, which is the only challenge I'm doing officially this year.

Currently reading:
Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao - for Popsugar's book that features a character with chronic pain. In the first book, Iron Widow, the main character struggles to walk and is in frequent pain since her feet were bound when she was young. This could also fit the politician prompt, since she becomes Empress (not really a spoiler) in this book, but I think I will stick with it for the chronic pain prompt. Mild spoiler: (view spoiler)[early in the book, she undergoes surgery to try to fix the damage to her feet, but the surgery can't fix everything and she spends at least the first part of the book still in pain and having difficulty walking/in a wheelchair recovering from the surgery, so I will still count it (hide spoiler)].

Upcoming/Planned:
Swordcrossed by Freya Marske - for Popsugar's book I got for free, since it's a library book

QOTW:
A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher is the big one I meant to read when it came out, but I was too busy with other library books and challenge reading, and it just kind of slipped my mind. I'm going to prioritize it for this year, for sure. I would also like to get caught up on Seanan McGuire's October Daye series, and finally read the rest of the Wayward Children novellas.

Welcome back Sheri! We are happy to see you back and I'm happy to keep these check ins going as well. I have my own document where I have a couple links to a list of QOTW and I keep a list with the year/week when I use one. Back in 2022 I used one that was "Where can I find QOTW?"

I hope 2025 treats you very well after a rough 2024.

My first finish of 2025 is We Solve Murders. It is for next week's IRL neighborhood book club. I enjoyed it as much as The Thursday Murder Club series. I believe it is going to be a series of books as well. I think I often like his "later in the series" books more because I know many of the characters already. In the first books, there are a lot of new people to get to know. In the later books there are the familiars and then the new people.

After finishing that I'm back listening to The Frozen River. I didn't finish it in time for December's book club meeting. But I am enjoying it and do want to finish it. I think others would like it. It is a fiction book based on a midwife's diaries set in the late 1700s up in Maine.

On my kindle I am reading Happy After All which was an Amazon Prime First reads. It is a fluffy romance novel that is lightweight but actually enjoyable too.

QOTW:
I'll definitely put not finishing The Frozen River in this category. I started it but didn't finish it. I had also planned to read We Solve Murders in 2024.

Another change from 2024 to 2025 is that I hope to keep track on the Book Nerds challenge.

Welcome back, Sheri! I'm glad to hear things have settled a bit.

Three finishes for me this year so far.

War Master's Gate by Adrian Tchaikovsky - if you've been following my reads over the year you know I've been working through this series, this is book 9 of 10! I have loved everything I've read from this author and this series is no different. (Book nerds 3-5, to be continued)

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers - I know, I know, I can't believe I hadn't read this until now. I can see why everyone adores it and I loved it too. Cozy sci-fi! Definitely need to get to the rest of the series. (Book nerds 1-2, a new beginning)

Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War by Mary Roach - my favorite popular science writer. She's informative and funny at the same time. This is one of her older ones that I somehow hadn't gotten to before.

Next up is Time Travelers Never Die, for my other GR group, then I'll be finishing up Shadows of the Apt!

QotW: I have a bunch of books on hold that I was hoping to get to, but I'm still waiting on my loan! I'm especially eager to read Somewhere Beyond the Sea since I loved The House in the Cerulean Sea SO MUCH. Library says I'm tenth in line so hopefully not too much longer!

Hope everyone's doing OK with the various weather events occurring!

Death in Fancy Dress - This was my New Year mystery, although it's more of a thriller I guess. It follows various people/groups going to a big New Year's Eve event, and eventually their threads all merge around a sort of international intrigue situation. The plot was pretty out there but I enjoyed the writing. It was very evocative of the sort of unfulfilling abandon of the event.

How to Solve Your Own Murder - This one really walked the line between clued mystery and tropey cozy. It sort of subverted some tropes and did give some clues. It was reasonably fun but not great literature or anything.

QOTW: There's plenty of stuff on my TBR due to lack of library access, but not anything I specifically meant to read last year.

I enjoyed How to Solve Your Own Murder, it was one of my favorites last year.