As usual, NWI can’t decide whether to stay temperate or freeze the trees. It’s been back and forth and now coming out of warmish temps will plunge back into frigid. It’s the sun I miss most.
We enjoyed a quiet Christmas and will do so again New Year’s Eve, the CE and I celebrating the new year with a four-ounce lobster tail each and watching the ball drop. Getting harder and harder for us old birds to stay awake that long though. Hope you had a safe New Year’s Eve and aren’t holding a throbbing head and looking for aspirin this morning, though I certainly remember doing so more than once back when…
I am definitely burning out, always so overwhelmed with everything going on I can’t keep up with either the reviews, social media, or you, my readers. Contemplating, and can’t decide, whether to change the format I’m currently using from WordPress (bored with it! but scared of messing everything up). And/or perhaps dropping another day of reviews since even the three per week appear to be more than I can handle. Also looking for another graphics website (free, of course) that I could play with other than Canva. I see the trend now is toward AI generated graphics. Mercy! As with WordPress, a free subscription is fairly limiting. Perhaps you use a great graphics design website that offers free software? I’d love your suggestions!
Using Goodreads to mine the opportunity for good audiobooks, our reads are also sourced at NetGalley, author and publisher requests, as well as your reviews and recommendations.
Despite the crunch of the holidays and our son moving, we managed thirteen reviews between us that included five audiobooks. These links on titles are to our reviews that include purchase or source information.
Lost Souls by Theo Baxter
The Waiting by Michael Connelly (audiobook)
Hold Strong by Robert Dugoni (CE review)
Deep Freeze by Michael C Grumley (audiobook)
Random in Death by J D Robb (CE review)
Still Me by Jojo Moyes
The Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang (audiobook)
Crime Scene by Jonathan Kellerman (audiobook)
Nothing Left of Me by Alex Walters (CE review)
The Sideways Life of Denny Voss by Holly Kennedy
You Never Know by Tom Selleck (audiobook)
What Is Wrong with You? By Paul Rudnick (CE review)
I’ll Have What She’s Having by Chelsea Handler
How did you do in the Goodreads Choice Awards for 2024? Of the fifteen categories, I had four make the final list and was gratified that The Women by Kristin Hannah, who I voted for in two categories, won for Historical Fiction. In the meantime, Goodreads has come out with the stats for our reading year for 2024 and I hope to have a post on it shortly.
Once again, my vote goes to Kate Quinn and her co-author Janie Chang for their saga of strong women survivors of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, based on a number of historical tales including the real-life story of a woman still holding her place in the De Young Museum.
Favorite Book for December – The Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang
My Reading Challenges page…My Goodreads Challenge is at 134 making my goal of 130. I’m fairly sure I also made the Audiobook, Historical Fiction, and NetGalley Challenges, but until the dust settles around here, I can’t be certain. That will come later.
Welcome to my new subscribers. I hope all my readers, including you, are having a magical and love filled holiday season with family, food, and fun. Make it memorable!
Although a rather slow burn start, the plot line turns complex with fully-developed characters. This well-written story reveals that even Northern Scotland is not immune to greed and the violence rampant throughout our planet. Enjoy! 4.5 stars – CE Williams
Rosepoint Publishing 