Monthly Wrap-Up: January 2025

Finally January is over! For some reason it seemed like it took forever to get through 31 days! I don’t know what it was, the dark cold nights or maybe the almost two weeks of sunshine and very cold days towards the end. But the month seemed endless to me.

I have tried to use Storgraph a bit more this month, mostly because I do like their graphics. I do still find the site incredibly clunky and hard to use though. But because I use them to keep track of my challenge books I thought I would try to be better about using them to track all of my books. I have been posting some of my reviews there as well as on Goodreads.

Reading wise it was a pretty good month. I read 15 books total and for the most part they were pretty good. My ARCs this month were also really excellent, so much so that I had a hard time choosing among them to highlight in this post. I also did a pretty good job of writing reviews for most of the books I read this month.

My challenges are all going well, especially my 52 book club one. I have around 12 of those done. But I used a couple of books twice, as I’m not sure this early in the game which category they best fit into. I think I might do a separate post at some point about my progress there. For the purposes of this post I just picked one book from that challenge to highlight.

I did not do super well on my January TBR. I had only six books on that list, but only managed to finish four of them. I’m in the middle of the fifth one right now, so that’s good. The sixth one wasn’t totally my fault, it just took a long time for the library book to actually make it into my hands. It will be my next read though and I am really looking forward to it.

Favorite ARCs

Finlay Donovan Digs Her Own Grave was my favorite ARC this month. I just had such a good time reading it and spending time with Finlay and her friends.

The Fourth Consort was also a really good read. I am really hoping that this one is turned into a series or maybe one that connects to his Mickey Seven books.

All Better Now was also excellent. I am pretty sure it is a standalone, but certainly has the potential to be the start of at least a duology.

A Long Time Gone was my first read of the year and it was a great one to start the year off with. I loved this series and hope it continues.

Reading Challenge Books

The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love (Buzzword Cover Challenge) was such a fun audiobook to listen to. I really enjoyed it and the cover fit this prompt beautifully.

The Seventh Bride (52 Book CLub Challenge) was also a good story, although not one of my favorites by this author. But it did fit this prompt and it was all good.

Lighthouses at the End of the World (Nonfiction Challenge) was an excellent nonfiction book that I really enjoyed. I loved learning about the different lighthouses and the illustrations were wonderful.

Favorite Reads

Rogue Community College was such a fun read. I just loved the characters and the story and the romance was so sweet. I am really looking forward to a sequel.

A Language of Dragons was also really good, although I didn’t much care for the main characters. The Dragons were awesome though.

An Argumentation of Historians was a really nice addition to this very long series. I am getting closer to the end of the series and so far continue to really enjoy it.

Favorite Audiobooks

One Perfect Couple was a great suspense survival story and the audiobook was excellent. I really liked the narrator and thought they did an excellent job with the characters.

Death Under a Little Sky was a very sedate murder mystery that I really enjoyed. I liked the narrator as well and though he did a good job.

The Queen of Fives was an audiobook ARC that I got towards the end of the month. It was a really good story that had lots of twists and turns and surprises. I should have a review up tomorrow for it.

I have eight books on my February TBR that I am looking forward to reading, plus a few more that I have set my eyes on. Hopefully it will be just as good of a reading month as January was. I hope you had an excellent reading month and I look forward to reading your posts.

Until next time…