Hello, friends! We finally close the books (literally) on 2024 with my End-of-Year Book Celebration, in which I round up notable reads of the last six months and see how I did on my reading goals. One last time, if you want the short-and-sweet best-of rundown, you can hop over to Light and Shadows to get that list — but if you want a more in-depth look, stay here and keep reading.

As a reminder, since this post wraps up 2024 for me, this will be my final official post on Dreams and Dragons. After this, I'll no longer be posting on this blog, though I will leave it up for anyone who wants to go back and look at past posts. However, we need to finish this book celebration first, so let's get going!

2024 End-of-Year Book Celebration

As always, of course, we start things off with statistics and a review of my reading goals! According to Goodreads, I read 95 books and 25,068 pages in 2024, which is about half of what I read in 2023, but not surprising given that I've been reading more slowly this year than I have in some past years. Most of what I've read has been in the range of 100–400 pages, with an average page length of 263 pages, but I have read some longer books as well. My average rating is the same as it was at my mid-year celebration: 4.3 stars. Not bad, honestly.

As for my specific goals . . . Well, I didn't exactly meet most of them, but I did work towards most of them.

• The one specific goal I did achieve was to read 12 books published (or written) before 1975 (at least nine of which were aimed at adults). I read fifteen books this year that were written or published before 1975, nine aimed at adults and six aimed at children. So, yes, I just barely squeaked past, but success is success. Most of these were rereads, but one of the notable exceptions that I read this half of the year was Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, an adventure story that was pretty exciting.
• On the other hand, my goal of reading 15 non-speculative fiction books . . . did not happen. In July, I had read six non-spec-fic books, and I only added two to that number: a reread of Furiously Happy (a memoir by a popular 2000s/2010s blogger) and Moby Dick, which I have technically been reading for a few years now but finally finished this year. Oh well.
• As for decreasing the number of physical books I own but haven't read, I have been reading a lot of ebooks, which . . . is not really helpful in this regard. Still, I did read another of Sanderson's Secret Projects, Bryan Davis's Time Echoes trilogy, and a few others, so I made progress! Just not quite as much as I intended.
• I did not catch up with the Cosmere and Sanderson's Secret Projects. I read Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, and that was it. At least I stayed caught up with the SVR-verse, so . . . there's that.

As always, if you want more statistics or the full list of everything I read in 2024, check out my Goodreads Year in Books or my tracking form results. But if you'd rather just hit the highlights, let's get going with some specific book categories!

Best book you've read in the second half of 2024:

Unsurprisingly, this spot goes to a W.R. Gingell book, specifically Splintered Mind, the first book in the new Shattered Worlds series. I loved getting a fresh perspective on Behind and Between, and I quite enjoyed meeting the new characters, particularly our lead, the caring, practical, and determinedly normal Viv. And, of course, the mystery element was fun!

 

The runner-up in this category is What Comes of Attending the Commoners Ball by Elisabeth Aimee Brown. This was a delightful romantic romp with fae and fairy tale vibes; it's funny and charming and marvelously clever in the end. It also gave me the vibes of Emily Wilde crossed with Dragon Slippers, so if that sounds like your cup of tea, definitely pick up this book.

Best sequel you've read in the second half of 2024:

This is an insanely difficult decision because the last six months included so many good sequels. However, I think this spot goes to H.S.J. Williams's Collusion, the second book in the Kings of Aselvia series. This book was worth every minute of the four-year wait; I loved the characters and their arcs, the way Hannah has developed the world, the existence of so many actually-married couples, the emphasis on family and community . . . it just has all the good things, y'know? And, like Moonscript, it also touches on some not-so-good things, on trauma and the evils of the world, but it does so in a way that keeps hope in sight.

We do have some very close runners-up, though! Valley of Dragons, the final book in Christina Baehr's Secrets of Ormdale series, very nearly took the top spot! I talked about this book when it first came out, but to recap, this book wraps up the story in a way that brings everything full circle but also spotlights the growth of the various characters. I loved the way everyone had a little time in the spotlight, the fact that the story has so much compassion for the antagonists — especially those who are themselves the victims of lies and cycles of hurt — and how Baehr worked out the relationship between Edith and Simon!

Speaking of relationships working out: A Stab in the Dark is the latest (but, it seems, not the last after all) in Suzannah Rowntree's Miss Dark series! In it, we find Molly and Vasily figuring out who they want to be, both individually and together, as well as some questionable progress for Nijam and Schmidt . . . while, of course, running a con and dealing with an opera house full of ghosts, murdered ballerinas, mysteries, and secrets. You know. As one does. It's the best yet in the series, and I had such fun reading it!

Best book you've reread in the second half of 2024:

I reread Moonscript in preparation for the release of Collusion, and it was so good. In some respects, it was better on the reread, as I could better appreciate some of the character arcs (and trauma). Besides that, though, it was just a delight to reacquaint myself with this world and these characters.

New release you haven't read yet but want to:

Wind and Truth has been out for a month now, and no, I have not read it yet. As mentioned previously, I am behind on all the Cosmere stuff. I want to fix that sooner than later, but I have been more invested in other stories (no pun intended).

Most anticipated release for the first half of 2025:

Dates are weird with Kickstarter books, but Splintered Life, the second Shattered Worlds book, is expected to reach backers and become available for general purchase sometime in the next few months, and I am very excited to find out what happens next with Viv, Luca, Jasper, and the rest. Based on snippets, I think it's going to be so good.

Biggest disappointment:

I read Artemis Fowl in September for the Silmaril Awards, and . . . look, I know a lot of people enjoy this series, and it does do some things well, but I am simply not impressed by book one. The concepts are cool, but the execution is hindered by the fact that I didn't actually like any of the characters. I did have hopes of enjoying the story, but it just didn't do it for me.

Biggest surprise:

I don't know if this really counts, given that I was pretty sure I would like it, but I was impressed by how good Aeronwy's Stolen Child, a newsletter freebie from Claire Trella Hill, is. This is a lovely twist on the classic changeling tale, focusing on the parents of the lost children, and it's probably my favorite of Hill's short fiction.

A book that made you cry/A book that made you happy:

These categories are being combined because the same book fits both of them. Rescuing a Supervillain is super sweet, and I loved the dynamic between Bea and Sam and, of course, all the cats . . . but there's also one specific scene involving a kitten that made me actually tear up (if I recall correctly) because of how sweet and lovely and sad it is.

Also, shoutout to Collusion again. I don't remember if I actually cried or not, but it definitely gave me all the emotions, both the happy ones and the sad ones.

Favorite post you've done this half of the year:

Definitely I've Heard This One Before: A Study in Church Music Repetition, in which I went over what I learned from a year of recording and analyzing weekly music choices at a selection of churches! My goal was to figure out if less traditional churches repeated songs more (partially because I was grumpy about how often we sang particular songs at my home church); as to what I learned . . . well, go back, read the post, and you'll find out.

There's my wrapup — now, tell me about your second half of 2024! What are the best books you've read or reread in the last six months? What should I add to my TBR for 2025? Tell me in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

Hi all! My brain has been mostly drowned in Christmas preparations (and the bit that's staying afloat is clinging to my and my friend's writing projects for dear life), but winter is here, or will be tomorrow, and that means it's time for a new season of reads.

 

Winter 2024–2025 Reads

1. Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson (December 6). In other years, this might've been my most-anticipated read of the season, and I quite possibly would've already read it (or would be ravenously watching the library listing in hopes that it would come in sooner rather than later). Because I'm kind of behind on Sanderson books, I'm less hyped at the moment, but I am still excited to read this once I'm properly caught up! I have heard mostly good things from the friends who have read it, and I'm looking forward to finding out where the rest of the story goes.

2. Rescuing a Supervillain by H.L. Burke (December 23). In contrast to Wind and Truth, I already have read this one, since I got an early copy from H.L. Burke's recent Kickstarter. This is such a sweet, fun story; I absolutely loved it. Sam (a temporarily-benched superhero) and Bea (a cat-shifter thief trying to escape her former team) are such good characters, and I like their arcs both individually and together. Also! There are cats! Who doesn't love cats?

3. Captive Dance by Kendra E. Ardnek (January 10). This is the sequel to Pumpkin War, but I am much more excited about Captive Dance than I was about its predecessor. Why? Because it's a Twelve Dancing Princesses retelling with what sounds suspiciously like an antagonists-to-lovers romance, and I think it's going to be so fun. After all, the Twelve Dancing Princesses is one of my favorite fairy tales, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing what Kendra does with it!

4. The Shapeshifter Drives a Bargain by Claire Trella Hill (February 3). This is another Tales of Karneesia story, a short romantasy from the world of The Erlking's Daughters. This series is a little hit-or-miss for me — some I really enjoy; some I'm a bit meh on. That said, this combination of Beauty and the Beast with Rumplestiltskin sounds interesting; I'm interested to see what Claire has planned for that. Hopefully it'll be good!

5. Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett (February 11). Confession, I still need to read book two in this series . . . but I very much liked book one, and I'm looking forward to seeing our prickly, nerdy scholar friend navigate the challenges of Faerie. Hopefully I'll be caught up with the series by the time this comes out!

What book releases are you excited for this winter? Am I missing any? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

 

October 2024 Doings!

Hello, friends! October was a weird month — the first half was honestly fairly chill aside from work stress, and then we hit the weekend of the 19th and everything happened at once. As of a result, I have been very tired. But the blog must go on, so let's review this month's Doings!

Writing!

• I intended for my writing time this month to go towards two short stories and the next Bastian Dennel book. That . . . did not go as planned. I was still very productive! Just not on the projects I intended to write!
• I spent the first week and a half of the month sorting through ideas for the two short stories, even going so far as to outline one fairly extensively and start a different one. Then I was reminded of another project that I had semi-committed to in the past and needed to make up my mind about, so I started poking at ideas for that . . .
• And, thanks to a comment from a friend, I stumbled upon a particular concept, fell in love, and decided to chase the plot rabbit until it stopped running, as I had to write the thing eventually, and the more I do now, the less I had to do later.
• The plot rabbit is still running, and it's produced several more bunnies . . . one of which did turn into a short story for the writing challenge I was doing this month, so there's that. I haven't started writing the book yet, but I've been doing a lot of brainstorming and planning of character, worldbuilding, and plot stuff. It's a Chinese-inspired setting, but not ancient China, and I think it's going to be a lot of fun.
• Otherwise, I continued writing my just-for-fun side project in my spare time, and I wrote a bit more of my D&D tournament arc. It's still not finished, but I've managed to stay a couple sessions' worth of material ahead of the game, so I count that as a win.
• The other big writing news of the month was that I once more had a table at Eat Local, Read Local, an author event held by one of the libraries in the area. That was tiring, but fun. I enjoyed meeting readers and potential readers, and I particularly loved that a few people who bought Song of the Selkies previously came back for Illusion's Reign. That was a definite win!

Reading!

• This month has been both a light and heavy reading month — light because I only finished three books; heavy because all those books were pretty hefty.
• Collusion by H.S.J. Williams was definitely my favorite read of the month. I started reading it literally the day it arrived at my house, setting aside Yumi and the Nightmare Painter to do so (the correct choice, for the record). I posted a couple weeks ago raving about it, so I won't repeat myself too much, but I absolutely loved this book. Getting to see Errance, Tryss, Coren, Tellie, the Daisha, and the rest again was so much fun, the new characters were interesting, the plot was amazing, and the themes of hope, healing, and the dangers of isolating yourself were all so, so good. I look forward to whenever I get to read this one; I know it's going to be just as amazing the second time around.
• Yumi and the Nightmare Painter was also good, though I'm not as in love with it as some of my friends seem to be. I liked the narrative and the themes, and Sanderson did an astonishing job of putting together a life-swap/bodyswap story that didn't give me constant secondhand embarrassment, and of course the worldbuilding was very cool. On the other hand, it took me a good third of the book to really connect with the protagonists, and I didn't always love the narrative voice? Both of those are really just me things, though.
• From there, we transition into spooky season reads with a reread of Black and Deep Desires and a new book that I'm currently reading, The Death of Clara Willenheim. Black and Deep Desires was just as delicious on the reread as it was the first time around, I'm happy to say. Clara Willenheim is a ghostly gothic murder mystery; I'm about halfway through and enjoying it so far, though it recently took a turn that was rather darker than I expected.
• And, of course, I continue to enjoy Dracula Daily, though I kind of dropped listening to Re: Dracula. One form of the story is enough for me this year, and with my head so full of brainstorming, I've been more in the mood for music than podcasts of late.

Watching & Playing!

• Wonder of wonders, I actually watched stuff this month!
• My friends who got me into Star Rail and Genshin convinced me that I needed to watch Yona of the Dawn with them, mostly by promising excellent character development and also the presence of certain archetypes that I absolutely adore. (They are excellent influences, obviously.) Scheduling that has been tricky, as we have three people in two different time zones, but we've managed five episodes, and I'm very much enjoying the show. Hak is my favorite character by a long shot, though we'll see if that changes once the dragons show up. I also like how the show is handling the development of Yona herself, how she's dealing with her grief and finding her strength in a way that seems very natural. Hopefully I'll get to watch the rest soon!
• I also rewatched True Grit with my family, which I didn't enjoy quite as much this time around . . . I feel like the sadness of the ending hit a lot harder this time? Though I also just might not have been in the mood for the story; it was a very spur-of-the-moment decision.
• As for what I'm playing, I'm two thirds of the way through the Liyue region main story in Genshin! This is one of the two regions I was most looking forward to when I got into the game, and I've enjoyed it so far. I am attempting to figure out what Zhongli's deal is, piecing together what the story tells me with bits of information gained from the fandom and my friends' conversations . . . I like him quite a lot (thankfully, as he's the character who my friends mainly used to convince me to start the game), but I am getting conflicting information about who or what he really is. Hopefully I'll find out in the next couple weeks, though.
• (I will also note that, while Genshin definitely has a steeper learning curve on combat than Star Rail did, I am less bad at that than I used to be! And I am getting better! I'm still not good by any means, but I die a lot less than I used to, and I remember to shield a lot more often.)
• The other fun thing about Genshin is the co-op mode, which currently mostly involves me running around after my more-experienced friends, picking up treasures and whatnot while they utterly destroy any enemies that show up (something that is satisfying for ALL of us, for the record). Exploring together is a lot more fun than exploring alone would be — especially since they can show me cool stuff that I wouldn't have found on my own for ages. Probably my favorite two co-op experiences so far were making it to the very top of a particularly dangerous mountain in the first region of the game and making the trek to the second region of the game together, but it's all been a lot of fun.
• This past week, though, I've mostly been playing Star Rail, specifically the version 2.6 story update, which was been a wild ride. I might be mildly traumatized by monkeys and bananas at this point, y'all, and I have definitely been fighting for my life against a particularly catchy earworm of a song. That's said, I enjoyed it — some of my favorite characters are very heavily involved in it, and we have the main Trailblaze trio together again for a lot of the story! The new characters were also cool, and one of my favorite couples in the game had some really nice interactions! I am also inordinately pleased that I was able to get one of my favorite characters (Dan Heng Lunae, for those who play) during his rerun; he has been very fun to play. (And he's narratively appropriate! At least somewhat! That makes me very happy.)

 Life!

• October started off pretty quiet and chill, for which I was grateful — for several weeks, the most exciting thing that happened was that I made some rather excellent basil sourdough bread. It was my first time trying those mix-ins, and I'm quite pleased with how the loaf turned out.
• Then we hit the weekend of the 19th and everything became Very Busy.
• I've already talked about the 19th and Eat Local, Read Local. Again, that went well . . . but I was very tired the next few days, which wasn't ideal, as the following Monday was the first day back at online grad school classes. The class I'm currently taking is Advanced English Grammar, which I chose because I thought it would be mildly interesting and not too difficult. And it has indeed not been too difficult, mostly . . . but it is a lot more technical than I expected.
  • Fun fact: there is an official grammar term ("lexical phrases") for structures like "see you later" and "by the way" where the same words are regularly used for specific functions without being an idiom.
  • Another fun fact: when you start describing grammar rules in the abstract, you end up with formulas, and those formulas look way more like upper-level calculus than they do algebra.
• Anyway. That's happening. It's better than the last class, and therefore we will get through it.
• On a happier note, last weekend a friend and I went to the Renaissance Festival! The one we normally go to was sold out, so we ended up visiting a different one instead that's a little further away, requiring a full weekend trip. That was also tiring, but a lot of fun! I love wandering around the Faire, seeing everyone's costumes and outfits, visiting the shops, and, of course, watching the jousts! This Faire's joust still wasn't as realistic as the Ohio Ren Fest's joust, but it had the best story of any Faire I've gone to so far, and it concluded in a resounding triumph of good over evil. I was truly impressed!
• That brings us up to this past week, which has mostly consisted of grad school, story prep, gaming, work, and recovering from all the driving I did over the weekend. So, pretty quiet.
• Other than that . . . I'm still working on crafting Christmas presents; that's going fairly well (though I am starting to feel the pressure of Looming Deadlines). I also started work on a new fleece capelet, this one a lovely green-and-black plaid with a properly deep hood! It's going to be so cozy when it's done. That said, I'm hand-sewing a lot of it because I didn't feel like arguing with the sewing machine, so it's going to take a bit.
• And on the D&D front, we're still playing through the mini-campaign; I think we're probably about halfway through at this point. That continues to be fun, and I'm starting to get the hang of my character's mechanics. I didn't get much done on finishing up my character for the next campaign, but I still have time. (She's playable. I just need to figure out some extra backstory stuff.)
• I think that about covers it! Again, October was mostly a quiet month; it just got very exciting at the end there.

November Plans

• Grad school continues to exist and will also continue to dominate however much of my brainspace and free time I allow it to. Given what happened last winter and spring when I let myself stress over it a lot, I'm going to try to keep it to a more reasonable resource allocation this time around. We'll see if that works.
• Otherwise, I plan to start drafting the new story I mentioned up in the writing section (with a low daily wordcount goal), and I'll continue working on D&D writing and brainstorming a story for the DOSA Files (which I really need to figure out sooner rather than later).
• I also need to either speed up work on some of the Christmas presents I'm making or decide that some of those gifts will be slightly smaller than originally planned. We'll see which one wins.
• I don't have any author events planned; I was hoping to go to Doxacon, but they're meeting in DC this year, and I do not want to deal with that. Alas.
• Work will probably be busy for the next two months as we prepare for Advent and Christmas. Still, I'm hoping to do enough in advance that it won't be terribly stressful — and holidays do have the advantage of being very similar year to year, so I have a good idea what to expect.
• And, of course, I will continue to have D&D, reading (maybe delving into some mysteries this month), and gaming to help me relax and get my stress levels down. All in all, it should be a good month.

How was your October? Any plans for November? Do you prefer to watch shows and movies by yourself or with others? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

 

Hello, friends! 2024 is halfway gone, and the time has come for my Mid-Year Book Celebration, in which I check in on my reading goals and round up my favorite reads of the first six months of 2024, along with assorted other notable books and other stories that I enjoyed (or didn't enjoy) in that time. If you just want the short-and-sweet best-of rundown, you can hop over to Light and Shadows to get that list — but if you want that list and more, stay right here and read on!

2024 Mid-Year Book Celebration

There is, of course, no book celebration without statistics and a look at how my goals are going. As of July 1, I've read 58 books and 14,610 pages (or so says Goodreads), which is notably lower than what I'd read around this time last year — but I think I've been reading more slowly, so that makes a difference. I'm still on track for my goal of reading 93 books in 2024. Most of what I've read has been in the 200–400 page range, as per usual, and my average rating is 4.3 stars. Apparently, I've liked my reads a tiny bit less on average this year than I did last year.

Happily, though, some of my specific goals are going well!

• I'm actually doing quite well on my goal of 12 books published (or written) before 1975 (at least nine of which were aimed at adults); I've read ten books in this category, and only four of those were originally aimed at children. As in past years, subscribing to novels via Substack newsletter helps a lot. Notable books I've read towards this goal include the two Sherlock Holmes novels, Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped, Ann McCaffrey's Dragonsong, and Rosalind Goforth's How I Know God Answers Prayer. Of the three more books I need to read to complete this goal, I'm already in the process of reading two — Dracula via Dracula Daily and Moby Dick via Whale Weekly, which I'll finish in September. I have a few ideas of what I might read for a third, but we'll see what ends up catching my interest.
• My goal of reading 15 non-speculative fiction books is going . . . not as well, but not terribly. I've read six books so far towards this goal, so I'm rather behind, but I have ideas of what I could read in order to catch up. I just need to find them at the library when I'm in the mood to read them.
• I have somewhat decreased the number of physical books I own but haven't read — which I mostly accomplished by deciding to part with my Wheel of Time books (I'll get them out from the library if I decide to give the series another try), but progress is progress. I have been making an effort to pick up unread books from my shelves, but I've also been trying to do the Kindle reading challenges on and off, and those two things are kind of mutually exclusive.
• I did catch up with H.L. Burke's SVR-verse, which also helped. I've only read one book towards catching up on the Cosmere and Sanderson Secret Project novels, but I still have several months left, so hopefully I can fix that.

For more statistics or the full list of everything I read in 2024, check out my Goodreads Year in Books or my tracking form results. For now, though, let's get on to the specific categories of books I want to highlight!

1. Best book you've read in the first half of 2024:

This is a slightly easier choice than normal — my favorite new-to-me non-sequel of 2024 so far is absolutely The Erlking's Daughters by Claire Trella Hill! It's epic fantasy with a deep, lore-rich world, a beautiful balance of light and dark, an excellent take on fae, a lovely slowburn romance, and, most importantly, a strong focus on family, especially sibling relationships. With all that together, there's no chance I wouldn't love it.

Of course, just because it was an easy choice doesn't mean there aren't some really good runners-up. Tress of the Emerald Sea is a Princess Bride-esque pirate adventure with fabulous characters and a really cool magic system, and it probably would've tied with The Erlking's Daughter if I hadn't gotten annoyed with the story voice in some sections. Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries features a pair of scholar protagonists (with Howl and Sophie vibes), a very other take on the fae, and themes bound up in stories and how we use them to understand the world. Finally, Game On is a stellar example of how to do next-generation stories right, besides the fact that it's a really fun superhero story in and of itself.

2. Best sequel you've read in the first half of 2024:

Another easy choice here — Dark & Dawn is Book 4 in Suzannah Rowntree's Miss Dark's Apparitions series, and it's the best installment yet. I loved delving into Molly's family history and watching the crew's schemes unfold . . . but what I loved more was seeing Molly learn to trust, seeing Vasily figuring out how to be human, and seeing them both have some difficult, wonderful conversations. And, of course, the ending was absolutely magnificent.

That said, we had some thoroughly delightful runners-up for best sequel. Castle of the Winds continues the Secrets of Ormdale with a cozy adventure through secrets, chases, and twists and some absolutely magnificent dragons. No Man Left Behind wraps up the Worlds Behind series with as twisty and thrilling — and satisfying — a conclusion as you'd expect from one of Gingell's urban fantasies. And Mantles of Oak and Iron is an exciting follow-up to The Orb and the Airship that shows more of the broad scope of the story and world and gives us more of a look into our favorite characters pasts and capabilities.

3. Best book you've reread in the first half of 2024:

Fact: rereading The Goblin Emperor is never a bad idea. I don't know if there's such a thing as cozy political intrigue epics, but if there is, this definitely qualifies. It's just delightful to enjoy a story about someone who's been given a great deal of power, who's been pushed into the schemes that dominate any fantasy court, but who chooses to be kind at pretty much every step of the way and who succeeds because of it, y'know?

 4. New release you haven't read yet but want to:

This is a pretty recent release, but technically I've had access to Hearts of Stone and Steel by Jenelle Leanne Schmidt for a bit and not yet gotten around to reading it. (In my defense, I got the ebook from the Kickstarter and then lost the file . . . which isn't a very good defense, but oh well.) I'm excited to see more of Captain Marik, Beren, and the rest and to find out what happens next in this epic series!

5. Most anticipated release for the second half of 2024:

The Splintered Mind Kickstarter wrapped up a couple weeks ago, and backers will likely start receiving their copies in late July and August, and I believe the book will be available for wide purchase sometime after that. I'm so excited to discover a new aspect of the worlds Behind and Between and to meet a new set of characters!

I'm also very much looking forward to the final two Secrets of Ormdale novles, City of Serpents (releasing July 14; technically I just finished my ARC of this, but I'm looking forward to getting to talk about it with other people) and Valley of Dragons (coming in October). I've loved the first three books, and they've regularly made my best-of lists, so I have high hopes for the back half of the series as well.

And, of course, I'm looking forward to Wind and Truth, the fifth Stormlight Archive novel, releasing this December . . . though I really need to catch up on the Cosmere before I can be properly hyped. Hopefully, by the time it arrives, I'll be back in the habit of reading really long books more regularly.

6. Biggest disappointment:

I decided to give the Detective Conan manga series a try because I have a friend who really enjoys them. Unfortunately, I did not love the first book — while the concept is cool, some of the characters annoy me, and there's a fair bit of cartoony violence that bugs me as well (more because of who it's directed at than because of the violence itself). I still may try to forge on with more of the series, just so I can give it a fair chance, but the start, at least, did not wow me.

7. Biggest surprise:

I wasn't really surprised by any books this year, in the sense of liking them more than I expected — there were plenty that surprised me with twists, but of course I can't list those here, as that would be a spoiler. Apparently, most of my reads this year have met my expectations, and if they surpassed them, I was already expecting to really like them.

8. A book that made you cry:

Tears is a stretch, but Power Up and Engaged to a Supervillain both gave me all the feels, so I think that sort of counts?

9. A book that made you happy:

Wishing on a Supervillain and Accidentally a Supervillain were both super fun reads, pun very much intended. I enjoy all of H.L. Burke's SVR-verse books, but these two were especially fun.

10. Favorite post you've done this half of the year:

My favorite post this year was actually a guest post on Jenelle Leanne Schmidt's blog: Stories Behind the Scenes: How to Research for Worldbuilding! In this post, I broke down my approach for how I figure out what to research when I'm building a world and where to do that research.

On my own blog, I had a lot of fun with my Favorite Fantasy Subgenres and Favorite Romance Tropes posts that I did for February is Fantasy Month, in which I both shared the titular favorites and provided book recommendations for each subgenre or trope.

11. Most beautiful book you've bought/received this half of the year:

I mean, Hearts of Stone and Steel is very cool-looking, so probably that.

That wraps things up for me — but what about for you? What are the best books you've read in the first half of 2024? Also, what's the best book or series you've reread? Tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

May 2024 Doings!

Hello, everyone! I'm happy to say that May has been a better month than April (and far superior to May 2023), though it did start out with a certain amount of drama. I am very relieved that it's effectively summer now and I can have some time to not stress about grad school. But I'm getting ahead of myself; before I talk about general life stuff, let's see how my writing is going.

Writing!

• First of all, an update on the DOSA Files anthology. The Kickstarter was successfully backed to the second stretch goal, so paperbacks will be shipping sometime mid-June, and the audiobook is officially in the works! If you missed the Kickstarter but still want a copy, no worries — you can preorder the ebook on Amazon, and the paperback will be available for purchase June 27. We'll be doing a blog tour to celebrate the wide release of the anthology, so if you want to help spread the word, please click here and sign up.
• As for Daughters of Atirse #2, I am still not quite finished, despite my best intentions, but I am closing in on the climax and the end of the book! Just a few chapters left! My wordcounts weren't quite where I wanted them to be — I was hitting somewhere around a thousand most days, but not much higher, and there were more than a few days with counts in the 400–600-word range. Still, I made very good progress, and I'm trying to focus on that rather than berating myself for not having been done with this a month ago.
• In more exciting news, as you might have heard earlier in the month, Song of the Selkies is a Realm Awards finalist! I'm very excited to have made it to the top five (especially considering what other books SotS was competing against — there were some big names and amazing stories on the Long List!), and I look forward to finding out who the ultimate winner will be at Realm Makers in July.
• Finally, an update on my spare-time projects — which, to be clear, I work on when I either can't work on Daughters of Atirse or I'm already done with my Atirse writing for the day. I finished the Travel Interlude for my D&D group, but I have not gotten back to working on the next adventure. I'll be honest; the fact that this group hasn't met at all in May kind of tanked my motivation for doing D&D writing.
• I'm also poking at another project that's still in the fun planning/ideating/worldbuilding stage, referenced in my Taleweaver's Desk update as the Secret Star Book. Normally, I wouldn't be doing even this much on a new project when I still have Onora's story and D&D writing to focus on, but I'm allowing myself to work on it here and there as I have time as a reward for surviving my most recent grad school class. I don't know exactly where that's going to go, so I won't say more about it for now, but I am having fun with it, as it's very different from most of my other projects.

Reading!

• April may have been my month of highly-anticipated releases, but May was still a pretty good reading month. The highlights of the month were H.L. Burke's new release, Game On, Brandon Sanderson's Tress of the Emerald Sea, and my (terribly self-indulgent) reread of The Goblin Emperor. I already reviewed Game On, and my love for The Goblin Emperor is well-established (it's a cozy epic fantasy about a forgotten young man, barely out of boyhood, who gets put in the midst of court intrigue and politics and who chooses to not play the games and instead be kind and I love it, I love it, I love it), so I'll focus mostly on Tress. I am so behind on reading it, but I do see why people raved about it so much (far more than they seem to have raved about the other Secret Projects). I enjoyed the characters — Tress herself is a delight, and I really liked most of the supporting cast as well — and had fun spotting the various Cosmere connections. The magic system with the spore-seas and the abilities of the different spores was also fascinating and really cool both visually and conceptually. Oddly, though, the one thing I didn't love was the storytelling voice in some sections; even though I think it's cool that the story is narrated by Hoid, and while I liked most of his asides and flavor commentary, some sections just didn't hit right for me.
• The other highlight of the month, of course, is the return of Dracula Daily, a Substack newsletter allowing readers to read Dracula in real-time as a series of letters, diary entries, telegram entries, and other similar types of installments that land in your inbox on the appropriate day. This is the third time I've read the book this way, and I enjoy it every time.
• I also continue to enjoy my reread of the Chronicles of Prydain, especially since I read my two favorites in the series this month. The Black Cauldron features one of my top three favorite characters in the series (Adaon, the only one of the three who isn't part of the main band), while The Castle of Llyr is more generally a favorite because I like the story.
• Mistress of Wardwood is an anthology of stories related to The Erlking's Daughters, and it was also really fun. My favorite of the collection was "Inheritance," which focuses on Enzella and Micah, but all the books were really good. If you read The Erlking's Daughters and you want the anthology, you can get it by signing up for the author's newsletter! (That will also get you Aeronwy's Stolen Child, which is a reverse changeling story that I think sounds really fun and have pretty high on my TBR list.)
• As for the last two books pictured, The Song of the Rose and The King's Captive were both good stories, though they didn't wow me. To be clear, I can see other people really enjoying them, but neither was quite what I wanted from their respective concepts. I may still read some of the other installments in the two series, though, as there was enough I liked to get me curious.
• I'm wrapping up the month by being thoroughly self-indulgent once again and rereading Howl's Moving Castle (not pictured, because I'm in the middle of it just now), because it's May and I was tired and vaguely grumpy the last time I needed to pick a new book to read, and either of those on their own would normally be a good reason for me to reread this, and so both together managed to overpower all the should-reads. It is, as ever, delightful.

 Watching & Playing!

• In addition to being the start of Dracula Daily, May also features the return of Re: Dracula, a podcast audio drama form of Dracula following the same real-time format as Dracula Daily. This is my second year listening, and this time around, I'm doing a bit better at actually listening to the episodes as they release (though I still tend to get behind on weekends). We're still pretty early in the season, so if you're looking for a new podcast, I highly recommend checking it out!
• I'm also continuing to enjoy playing Honkai Star Rail; as I've said before, it's a pretty good motivation to buckle down and get my writing done earlier in the day or evening instead of getting distracted by YouTube videos. (I may have complained about lower-than-ideal wordcounts, but trust me, the fact that those counts still mostly average around 1K is thanks to Star Rail motivation, not in spite of the game.) I did finally start the third main quest line and met one of the characters I've been most looking forward to meeting (Jing Yuan, to be specific). I actually got into the game after two different friends both raved about him. As both friends tend to have excellent taste in favorite characters, I figured I needed to find out more about him for myself, and so far, my impression is that he is indeed the Actual Best.
• My sister and I also took advantage of Memorial Day weekend time off to play more of Portal 2 Co-Op. We've done everything now except the secret sixth stage and had a grand time of it . . . though it did take us forever to get through the last two levels, one because we kept dying and one because we couldn't get the stupid portal where we needed it. Still, we finished the main game, and it was fun to spend time with her that way!
• I did actually watch a few things this month — well, rewatched, anyway. We watched Romancing the Stone back around Mother's Day while my sister was here, as we haven't seen it in a while and my sister wanted an adventure-type movie. Then I watched Charade (aka probably my favorite non-fantasy movie in existence) with my parents on Memorial Day weekend. Both were fun; I don't have much to say about them that I haven't already said.

 Life!

• Praise God from whom all blessings flow, my editing and publishing grad school class is done. The last couple weeks of the class were more frustrating than I expected or than they needed to be (mostly due to communication issues and disagreements about how to interpret the final project instructions), but I got through them with a good grade, so I am grateful.
• And right after my class ended, my sister came down to visit over Mother's Day weekend! She arrived in time to meet us at Bible study, then stayed until Monday morning. Getting to see her was lovely, and we had a really nice time with her.
• Work was also generally quiet, as we're still in the lull between Easter and summer and people were out of the office a lot for either travel or training. The one exception was that our associate pastor had her last Sunday on May 19, so the week leading up to that date was pretty busy. We're all sad she's gone, but her role is being filled by another member of the programs staff, so I think the transition should at least go pretty smoothly. And we didn't have any tech issues on her last Sunday, despite a near miss with the livestream sound! (This might not seem significant, but our tech has a tendency to malfunction on or around significant Sundays, plus we had a substitute running slides and sound, so I was more than a little nervous and was praying very hard against any issues.)
• Work being chill and grad school being done has given me a little bit of extra free time and energy. Some of that has gone towards resting, and some of it has gone towards weeding and reorganizing my bookshelves. My scheme of having all my nonfiction and classics on one bookshelf and all my fantasy and speculative fiction on the other two was foiled by the fact that my textbooks are too tall for the shelf where I wanted to put them, but at least I won't have random stacks of books in front of other books. I'm not quite finished, but I'm nearly there, and I'm still holding out hope of having a free shelf where I can put owned-but-unread books so they're easier to find and prioritize.
• On the baking front, I made up for missing my Baking Yesteryear recipe in April by making two things this month. First, I made dream bars, which . . . well, people said they tasted good. The recipe didn't say to put parchment in the pan, but I should've done so anyway because I couldn't get my spatula under the crust to get the bars out in one piece, and I also think I chopped my nuts way too finely because my bars looked nothing like the picture. Then I made peanut butter styrofoams, essentially peanut butter meringues. These also didn't look like the picture, but they tasted good! And given that it was my first time making any cookie in that family, I'm counting them as a definite success!
• I've also been doing some fun stuff with crafting. Early in the month, I learned that one of the local librarians is into weaving and has a few small looms for weaving bands/straps. She was willing to bring them to the library so I could see them and try them to decide if I wanted to get into the hobby myself (and also for story research purposes). So, a few weeks after that, I got to try an inkle loom and a card loom! As I said, both are band looms, so they're making narrow straps rather than a full piece of cloth, but the inkle loom is larger, and you raise and lower the threads by hand, while the card loom is smaller and uses stiff cards with holes in them to raise and lower the threads. Neither is the kind of thing I could carry around and do wherever I happened to be, so I don't think this will turn into a major hobby, but I'm still toying with trying to make my own card loom so I can do that as an on-and-off thing . . .
• Aside from that, I crocheted my mom an African violet for Mother's Day, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I've since made the pieces for two or three more of them, but haven't gotten around to assembling them yet. Now I'm back to embroidery, working on a pin hoop for my Cosmere pins. (Fun fact: embroidering through a double layer of fabric is really hard on your hands, especially when one of those layers is felt! But I am managing.)

June Plans

• First of all, a housekeeping note: I will be taking June and July as a semi-hiatus from blogging. I'll still do my main yearly/monthly posts like Doings, my summer releases list, and my Mid-Year Book Celebration, and I'll do some kind of post for the DOSA Files release, but I won't be posting regular Friday 5s. This is partially for practical reasons — July is going to be super busy for me — and partially because I want to take a bit of a break. If all goes well, I should return to my regular posting schedule in August, hopefully with a bit of a buffer built up.
• My primary project for the month is finishing up Daughters of Atirse #2 and getting it out to beta readers. I am optimistically hoping to have it drafted by sometime in the vicinity of June 8 or 9, then take a week off to rest before doing fairly light edits and sending it on to beta readers. Sending the story out at an earlier stage actually worked well for Song of the Selkies, and I'm hoping it'll work better still if I get the book out further in advance of when it needs to be release-ready. As far as other projects go, I should make progress on my next D&D adventure, and I hope to continue poking at the Secret Star Project when I have spare time for it.
• At work, we're starting summer programming, but we're also in a transition period between the previous associate pastor leaving and the new one moving into that position, so we're a little less busy than we normally would be around this time. Not that I'm complaining; after this winter and spring, I'm still appreciating any quiet seasons I can get.
• As for the rest of my month outside of what I've already said, my main plans involve seeing family, continuing with my crafting, baking, and reading goals, and finding opportunities to rest and recharge (and also attempting to hide from my allergies, which seem to be worse than normal this year).

How was your May? Any plans for June? Are you reading Dracula Daily or listening to Re: Dracula? Is this a busy season or a quiet one for you? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

 

Mid-Year Book Celebration 2023

Hey'a, all! We're halfway through the year, and that means it's time for my annual Mid-Year Book Celebration, a roundup of my favorite (and least favorite, and other most notable) reads from the first six months of 2023! This post mostly exists because, if it didn't, my End-of-Year Book Celebration would send me into an indecision-induced spiral of procrastination and panic. But also, it's fun to check in with my goals and review what I've been reading, and it means I get to spotlight twice as many books as I otherwise would! As usual, I'll post a short-and-sweet Best Books of 2023 (So Far) list over on Light and Shadows, but for the full rundown, read on!

2023 Mid-Year Book Celebration

But, of course, before we get to the specific books, I want to share some statistics. So far this year, I've read 74 books and 20,343 pages, which is roughly 20% more than what I'd read around this time last year. That also puts me well over 75% of my way to my goal of reading 101 books this year. Most of the books I've read have been in the 200-400 page range, with an average length of 274 pages, which isn't surprising — it's a nice, approachable length that I can get through in about three days. And, of course, I've been rereading several series this year, and all of them fall into that length category. And my average rating this year has been 4.4. stars, the same as last year, so I'm definitely enjoying most of what I read.

As for my specific reading goals:

• Out of the 12 books published (or written) before 1975 that I'm aiming for, I've read ten, which sounds great . . . except when you remember my stipulation that  only three should be children's books. Of the ten pre-1975 books I've read, only four (Frankenstein and the Lord of the Rings trilogy) were written for adults. The other six (two Oz books, The Wind in the Willows, The Secret Garden, The Last Battle, The 13 Clocks, and Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh) are all at least partially aimed at children. There is still hope, though, as I'm in the middle of several pre-1975 adult books that I'm reading via email subscription, so that will bolster the numbers some as the year goes on.
• How about my goal of reading 15 non-speculative fiction books? So far this year, I have read five books that are not some form of speculative fiction, which is a bit behind where I should be, but not as far behind as I worried I was. Entries in this category include an animal-focused memoir, a Donald Maass writing craft book, a book of poetry, and a couple classics. (Note: if you're looking at the results of my reading tracker, you may notice that the "Non Spec-Fic" graph shows six books in that category, but one of them was miscategorized.) I do need to focus a little more on this category — maybe via some Brother Cadfael mysteries — but for now, I'm not stressing about it.
• As for my recommended reads list . . . I have read one (1) book off of it, Miss Percy's Pocket Guide to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons. I am going to get to at least some of the others. I just . . . haven't yet. (I've also had a time and a half trying to find some of them, so I have that as my defense.)

If you want more statistics or you want to see the full list of everything I've read, you can check out my Goodreads Year in Books or my tracking form results. But right now, let's take a look at some specific books I'm highlighting . . .

1. Best book you've read in the first half of 2023:

This is such a tough choice, but I have to go with Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer. This retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon was absolutely incredible in every way, from the characters to the writing style to the storyline to the ending (oh, the ending!). It's hard to find an East of the Sun retelling I dislike, but this was one of the best I've ever read. (I only wish I'd picked it up sooner so I could have reread it a few times by now!)

That said, I read a lot of excellent books this year, so we have a couple runners-up:

The Orb and the Airship by Jenelle Leanne Schmidt is a magnificent adventure story that's one part steampunk shenanigans (featuring a crew of airship pirates) and one part epic fantasy quest story (featuring lovable farm boys venturing off into the unknown, accompanied by a mysterious stranger). I love pretty much everything about this book, but I'm especially fond of Captain Marik and his crew. This probably would've taken the first spot were it not for the fact that I love the style and ending of Echo North so very much.

The Lord of Dreams by C.J. Brightly is, like Echo North, a book I should have read ages ago, but didn't get to until just this year. While the beginning was rough, the rest of the book was utterly amazing in world and characters and the way in which the story is woven. Brightley does a wonderful job of showing the weirdness and wonder of her fairyland, complete with a mad and marvelous faery king, and I especially like how she decided to handle the idea of magic that runs partially on belief.

Finally, Wraithwood by Alyssa Roat gave me the same vibes as a lot of the portal-fantasy-adjacent, unwilling-kid-ends-in-weird-house-and-magical-shenanigans stories that made up much of my preteen and early teen book diet, but it's much better than most of those stories were. I enjoyed getting to know Brinnie and her uncle Merlin, and I also liked how the author handled the magical world — especially the way she sidestepped some of my least favorite tropes and instead used those spots as opportunities to do cool stuff.

2. Best sequel you've read in the first half of 2023:

The results of this category should surprise absolutely no one — these days, it's hard to find any best-of list of mine that doesn't include either W.R. Gingell or Suzannah Rowntree. While I've enjoyed both of Gingell's Worlds Behind books, Behind Closed Doors was especially good. The scheming, the character dynamics, the glimpses into various characters' backstories . . . it's all very good, as is the reappearance of a few characters from the City Between series. Equally as delightful is Rowntree's Dark Clouds, book two in Miss Dark's Apparitions. I hardly know where to start with all the things I love about this Leverage-esque heist story, save to say that the crew's dynamics, the daring schemes and escapades, the excellent villain, and the relationship between Molly and Vasily are all top-notch, and they combine to form a story that's so good, it's a wonder I managed to put it down long enough to get some sleep.

And, of course, we have a runner up for this category: Kendra E. Ardnek's Thornrose Estate. While it can't quite compete with any book involving either Athelas or Grand Duke Vasily, this blend of Northhanger Abbey with Beauty and the Beast (and a little bit of Sleeping Beauty) is still a delight. I loved Calla — she's definitely the most relatable of the Austen Fairy Tale protagonists, at least to me. Additionally, Hansel is an excellent love interest, and I loved that we finally got answers to so many of the questions that the last book left us with. I think it's safe to say that this is (and probably will remain) my favorite of the Austen Fairy Tale stories.

3. Best book you've reread first half of 2023:

I've had a lot of really great rereads this year, but the City Between series (unsurprisingly) takes the top spot. I would honestly categorize this series as one that, like much of Brandon Sanderson's, work, you have to reread to fully enjoy. You read it the first time around to discover the story — you read it the second time to discover all the little hints and clues that you missed the first time because they were so neatly woven in that they seemed insignificant. (You also read it the second time because you love the characters and want to go back and spend time with them again, but that should go without saying.)

Speaking of characters you want to spend time with: I also reread the Lockwood & Co series this year because so many people were talking about the show that it made me miss Lockwood, Lucy, George, and the rest. I'm happy to say that, while you don't have to reread this series, it certainly doesn't suffer on a second read-through, and some of the hard spots in the series are a lot easier to get through when you know what's coming in the end.

 4. New release you haven't read yet but want to:

I am so behind on Brandon Sanderson's secret projects that it has ceased to be funny. At this point, three of the books are out in some fashion, and I haven't read any of them. At first, I was holding off because I wanted to wait to read the Tress in physical — then I was waiting until I thought I'd have the time and energy to properly enjoy the books — and I suppose that last excuse is mostly what I've been using since, along with the fact that any time I have been in a place and time when I thought I could have started one of these, I've also been in the middle of reading through a series. Oh well. Maybe after Realm Makers . . .

5. Most anticipated release for the second half of 2023

I can't actually properly answer this question for, oh, eleven days or so (and I will leave you to speculate about why that might be), but The Olympian Affair by Jim Butcher might take the top spot anyway. This is the long-awaited sequel to The Aeronaut's Windlass, one of my favorite books and a steampunk adventure of epic proportions. I'm so excited to return to this world and these characters — Captain Grimm and his crew especially. And I do think this release will necessitate a reread of book 1, which I'm also looking forward to very much.

And, of course, we have to mention the next book from W.R. Gingell, Worlds Behind #3, Wet Behind the Ears. I am always excited for more of Athelas, especially given where the last book left off. (Gingell knows how to do endings that simultaneously satisfy and make you ravenous for the next book, I have to tell you!) And from what I've seen on the author's social media, I am very much looking forward to what we might discover in this installment . . .

6. Biggest disappointment:

I read the sci-fi/horror classic Frankenstein via email subscription from February to May, and I was . . . not impressed. I had very high hopes for it, having enjoyed Dracula so much, but the book just didn't do it for me. I recognize why it's a classic, but it is not fun to read — and to be clear, that's not because of old-fashioned writing style or because it's an old book or anything like that. It's entirely because the main character is an annoying little snot. Possibly that's the point, but in the end, I think that if I want a tale of hubris, I'd rather just read Greek mythology.

7. Biggest surprise:

I read Cruel Beauty exclusively because the author was going to be at a signing with W.R. Gingell and Suzannah Rowntree, and I didn't actually expect to particularly like it — after all, I'd had mixed feelings about Crimson Bound, and most people seemed to think that one was the better of the two. But Cruel Beauty turned out to be lovely indeed — dark and mysterious, with an ending that more than made up for the few flaws I'd encountered in the rest of the book.

8. A book that made you cry:

I didn't cry, but Into the Heartless Wood by Joanna Ruth Meyers does have the distinction of being a book with a decidedly bittersweet ending and a lot of sadness in the middle that I nonetheless liked enough to buy.

9. A book that made you happy:

While it's not quite making the best books of the year, Miss Percy's Pocket Guide to the Care & Feeding of British Dragons by Quenby Olson was an absolute delight — it's dragons and snark and humor and scheming in an Austen-esque Regency setting. I also appreciated that the romance was present and sweet without being overdone. I haven't gotten my hands on the sequel yet, but I hope to later this year.

10. Favorite post you've done this half of the year:

Most of my posts this year have been reviews, Doings!, or Taleweaver's Desk updates, but I did write a post back in January, "What Ideas Are Worth Writing," about how I decide what story ideas I'm going to pursue and prioritize. I really like how that one turned out, and I think it's a good read. I also wrote a post for my grad school program about how I research for worldbuilding . . . but that one isn't up on my blog yet, so I can't link it.

11. Most beautiful book you've bought/received this half of the year:

I may not have read them yet, but that does not stop me from appreciating just how pretty my Kickstarter copies of Tress of the Emerald Sea and The Frugal Wizard's Handbook are. (The downside of the prettiness is that I'm terrified to actually read them in physical form lest I mess them up . . .)

How's your reading been these last six months? What are the best books you've read so far? Any that surprised you with how much you enjoyed them? Also, have you ever had the experience of owning a book that you feel is too pretty to actually read? Tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!