Happy New Year, Bookish Peeps!
I absolutely love the holidays. From Halloween through New Years Eve, my family and I always have such an amazing time. Parties, gifts, birthdays, and celebrations galore! I will admit though, once I’ve made it thru the last two months of the year I am ready for the downtime the start of the year gives us. There is some peace in just being at home and surrounded by your little family, dogs, and books.
I see a year of book releases ahead! It seems like there is at least one book a month releasing this year for my TBRs – or more accurately my Waiting list.
- Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarrows
- Jan 21
- The Fox and The Falcon by Piper C.J.
- Feb 18
- Enchantra by Kaylie Smith
- April 8
- Isles of Emberdark by Brandon Sanders
- May 1
- Accomplice to the Villian by Hannah Nichole Maehrer
- Aug 5
- Brigands and Breadknives by Travis Baldree
- Nov 11
- Book 2 to Quicksilver by Callie Hart
- Nov 18
So many books! I know I have missed a few, but these are the ones that I feel like I’ve waited forever to get ahold of. The one I am the most excited about is, of course, at the END of the stinken year – Callie Hart’s book 2 for Quicksilver (Title not yet picked). I can already hear you guys saying “Not Onyx Storm“? Nope. I am reading the next one because I’ve made it thru 2 thick books and my siblings have asked me to give the series 1 more book. The way book 2 ended was just aggravating. The choices the author made to keep the story interesting, seemed like it was a convenience choice rather than thinking about the other possible characters that could have also landed in the situation. Oh the things I could say and rant on Ha! I hope there will be a change in Onyx Storm, but we’ll see.
Last year was my first year listing a Reading Theme for each of the months and I really enjoyed that challenge. So 2025 is going to keep it going, but along with a theme, I’m going to include a challenge for myself and for all of you. Treat the challenge as the hard level for the month while the themes are the Storybook levels – for those gamers out there.
I wish you all a fantastic start to the new year. Let’s find some great new reads for January. And I hope you all get a chance to have some quiet, relaxing downtime to read or do whatever you would like. Thank you all for starting 2025 with me!
Chat with you all next month!
Reading Theme: New Beginnings
I always love finding new authors to add to my shelves, so let’s have some new reading beginnings this months. Try to go out and find a few new authors to read to keep off your 2025 reading year. I’ve got a few down below that are new to me and might be new to your own lists. I hope that you find someone new that you really like!
Reading Challenge: If finding a new author seems too easy or you want to change something up, how about trying out not only a new author, but dip into a genre that you typically avoid.
Happy Reading Everyone!
My Reading List for January 2025:
On What Grounds By Cleo Coyle
Clare arrives at work to discover the assistant manager dead in the back of the store, coffee grounds strewn everywhere. Two detectives investigate. But when they find no sign of forced entry or foul play, they deem it an accident. Still, Clare is not convinced. And after the police leave, Clare can’t help wondering…If this was an act of murder, is she in danger?
Kingdom of Blood and Salt By Alexis Calder
After spending years training to defend my people from our enemies, I never expected that my enemy would be the one keeping me alive.
Athos is the last human city. A treaty with the Fae keeps the fae, the vampires, and the wolf shifters at bay, while we fight against the dragons at our border. Being a human in this world is dangerous and we all make sacrifices to survive.
When the delegation sent by the Fae King arrives to claim the human tributes required by our treaty, I never expected to forge a connection with their leader.
Ryvin is as dangerous as he is handsome. I know he’s my enemy, and I know I’m supposed to hate him, but with each passing day, he’s more difficult to resist.
But things are changing in Athos. Humans no longer want to bend to the Fae King. Alliances blur and centuries of lies begin to unravel. And I’m faced with a choice. No matter how much I hate him, Ryvin might be the key to preventing war.
But it may mean sacrificing everything…
Clean Sweep By Ilone Andrews
On the outside, Dina Demille is the epitome of normal. She runs a quaint Victorian Bed and Breakfast in a small Texas town, owns a Shih Tzu named Beast, and is a perfect neighbor, whose biggest problem should be what to serve her guests for breakfast. But Dina is…different: Her broom is a deadly weapon; her Inn is magic and thinks for itself. Meant to be a lodging for otherworldly visitors, the only permanent guest is a retired Galactic aristocrat who can’t leave the grounds because she’s responsible for the deaths of millions and someone might shoot her on sight. Under the circumstances, “normal” is a bit of a stretch for Dina.
And now, something with wicked claws and deepwater teeth has begun to hunt at night….Feeling responsible for her neighbors, Dina decides to get involved. Before long, she has to juggle dealing with the annoyingly attractive, ex-military, new neighbor, Sean Evans—an alpha-strain werewolf—and the equally arresting cosmic vampire soldier, Arland, while trying to keep her inn and its guests safe. But the enemy she’s facing is unlike anything she’s ever encountered. It’s smart, vicious, and lethal, and putting herself between this creature and her neighbors might just cost her everything.
A Study in Drowning By Ava Reid
Effy has always believed in fairy tales. She’s had no choice. Since childhood, she’s been haunted by visions of the Fairy King. She’s found solace only in the pages of Angharad – a beloved epic about a mortal girl who falls in love with the Fairy King, and then destroys him.
Effy’s tattered copy is all that’s keeping her afloat through her stifling first term her prestigious architecture college. So when the late author’s family announces a contest to design his house, Effy fells certain this is her destiny.
But Hiraeth Manor is an impossible task: a musty, decrepit estate on the brink of crumbling into a hungry sea. And when Effy arrives, she finds she isn’t the only one who’s made a temporary home there. Preston Héloury, a stodgy young literature scholar, is studying Myrddin’s papers and is determined to prove her favourite author is a fraud.
As the two rival students investigate the reclusive author’s legacy, piecing together clues through his letters, books, and diaries, they discover that the house’s foundation isn’t the only thing that can’t be trusted. There are dark forces, both mortal and magical, conspiring against them – and the truth may bring them both to ruin.
Grimstone By Sophie Lark
Remi Hayes is beginning to think she’s cursed —her fiancé cheated on her, her brother Jude is a major pain in her ass, and the moldering mansion she inherited from her uncle might just be haunted.
Flipping Blackleaf Manor already feels impossible, even before Remi is blackmailed by Dane Covett, the dangerously hot doctor-next-door, and Grimstone’s most eligible bachelor—if you can ignore the fact that everyone in town thinks he murdered his wife.
Remi doesn’t want to believe it, especially after Dane sews up a gash in her thigh and steals a kiss in payment—a kiss that makes it hard to walk for reasons that have nothing to do with an injured leg.
But as the renovation takes a strange and violent turn, Remi must decide if Dane is the one haunting her nights, or if he’s trying to protect her from something much worse…
