December 2024 Doings!

Hello, all! Yes, we are doing two posts in one week, but I didn't want to drag out 2024 wrapup too long. So, next week will have my reading roundups for 2024, and this week, let's take a look at December's Doings!

Writing!

• Writing in December did not go as planned, by which I mean that it hardly went at all. The first half of the month, all my energy was consumed by my grad school class; the second half of the month, all my energy was consumed by work and Christmas.
• I did get a little writing done, but most of it was snippets of either Project Kingfisher character backstory or just-for-fun stuff. I managed a little bit more worldbuilding planning for Project Kingfisher, but not enough to start the book. I also started my DOSA Files story, but not in time to finish it before the deadline. (I do want to keep working on it, though, in hopes that Heidi does another anthology.)
• D&D writing has basically not happened at all; however, D&D sessions also haven't happened, so that's not a problem. Yet.
• I really should not plan on writing during the holidays, and I don't know why I deluded myself into thinking it would happen.

Reading!

• Reading, unlike writing, continued to go well in December and featured the usual mix of holiday-specific and non-holiday-specific reads. On the holiday side, we have three delightful rereads: A Superhero for Christmas, Christmas in Talesend, and my Christmas Eve treat, Twelve Days of Faerie Christmas. All of these were delightful, but Twelve Days was especially so.
• In non-holidays reads, I finished the Time Echoes trilogy by reading Fatal Convergence, which surprised me by having some substantial differences from the original version. To be honest, I'm not sure I love the changes — I can see why the Davis made those choices, and they still make for a good story, but I liked the way things originally happened too.
• On the other hand, two books I liked with no qualifications were What Comes of Attending the Commoners' Ball and Rescuing a Supervillain, both of which were absolutely delightful. Commoners' Ball was already on my to-read list, but it got bumped up in priority after multiple authors and the entirety of the W.R. Gingell Discord fan server raved about it. I'm so glad I read it; it's such a fun romp with two excellent, practical protagonists whose lives get upended by others' promises. Rescuing a Supervillain, on the other hand, is the latest of H.L. Burke's Superhero Romance Project series, featuring a cat-shifter thief on the run and a hero who's working through some trauma, and it's just such a sweet story of love and healing. I absolutely recommend it.
• My one other new read was Dogsbody, a Diana Wynne Jones book that had been on my to-read list for some time. That one was ok — it's a cool concept, and I liked the worldbuilding, but it's not my favorite DWJ by a long shot. I'm glad I finally read it, but I don't think I'll reread it particularly soon.

Watching & Playing!

• Amazingly, my friends and I managed to actually finish watching Yona of the Dawn before the end of 2024! I think that's the fastest I've gotten through any show since freshman year of college, honestly. (We haven't watched the untranslated extra episodes, but we're through the main show.)
• Overall, I really enjoyed watching Yona — the characters are excellent in terms of how they're portrayed, how they grow over the course of the story, and how their dynamics with one another play out. I'm particularly impressed with Yona's arc specifically and with the villain, who could so easily be a hero who I'd root for and even fangirl over were the story told from a different perspective.
• I do have to correct my prediction of last month, however, because Jaeha is absolutely, positively, without a doubt, my favorite of the dragons (and possibly also my favorite character in general). He appeared onscreen, and my immediate, out-loud reaction was "Oh, I like him." I don't think anyone should be surprised by that, though; he's very similar to some of my other favorite characters, and he's just fun in terms of personality. (And a little scandalous, yes. But that also describes some of my favorite characters.) Shin-Ah, the blue dragon, remains my second-favorite dragon, and I also still love Yun, Hak, and Yona herself . . . there's a lot of good characters; I'm going to have to read the manga so I don't have to say goodbye to them!
• I also watched some Christmas movies, but not as many as usual. Rewatches were A Christmas Carol, the original Grinch, and Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown; the one new Christmas movie I watched was We're No Angels, which was funny, but not a new favorite.
• Other than that, I have been playing some Star Rail and quite a bit of Genshin! That said, most of my Genshin time has been in service of building characters, as I finally got to pull on the limited banners (after saving for one in particular since I started the game), got some very good new characters (including the one I was specifically hoping for and several others I really wanted!), and then realized that I had virtually nothing with which to get them up to the level of the characters I already had (whoops). That's still been fun — I've done a lot of exploring, which has been nice — but I'm looking forward to getting back to story soon.

 Life!

• The dominant themes for December were, unsurprisingly, Christmas and my grad school class.
• Advent and Christmas materials — and the need to work ahead because I was taking time off around Christmas — kept me very busy at work. We had a few unexpected hiccups (including some communication problems and issues with deadlines, neither of which were my fault), but everything got done on time, and pretty much everything turned out quite well. I'm very pleased with the promo piece I made to hand out at the Christmas Eve services, and I also really like the overall Advent/Christmas visual theme I had this year!
• Wrapping up my grad school class also went fairly well; I was a bit stressed about whether or not my final project would actually fit what the professor was expecting, but thankfully, he liked my analysis. The final exam also went reasonably well . . . especially considering that some of the questions had to do with parts of the book that we were never assigned in class. (Thankfully, the exam was open-book, and I knew the rest of the material well enough that I had time to hastily find the info on the unfamiliar topics.)
• In the middle of all that, my D&D group started our new campaign! We've only had two sessions so far, but it's been fun. I think the new characters have some interesting dynamics, and I look forward to seeing where the storyline goes. I am happy with my character, Breena, a gnome warlock, so far — while I haven't gotten to test out many of her abilities, as a character I think she's fun.
  
• The payoff for all my stress earlier in the month was that I took the week of Christmas and most of the week of New Year's off from work, which was lovely, albeit busier than I intended it to be. I did quite a bit of baking and made two new recipes: pecan dainties, which are basically candied pecans in cookie form, and potato candy, which is a rolled candy made with peanut butter, a little bit of mashed potato, and quite a lot of powdered sugar. It is delicious, and I want to make it again (and try to do it better next time; I think I used too much peanut butter). I also tried a new sourdough roll recipe for Christmas day, one that allows for an overnight rise (which meant I could make the rolls Christmas Eve and bake them Christmas day).
• My sister came home for Christmas week, and getting to see her was lovely. We got to hang out, chat, and play plenty of board games, both on our own and with various friends (either over the internet or in person). We also visited my grandpa briefly the weekend after Christmas, which was nice — I haven't been up to see him in several months.
• As for Christmas itself, we had a very nice holiday. Our church had its Christmas Eve service on both Sunday and Christmas Eve proper, so we actually went to the church where I work on Christmas Eve. It was quite lovely to experience that service for myself and for my family to see where I work and some of what I've done and meet several of the people I work with. Then we had a fairly chill Christmas day in which we didn't get around to actually opening gifts until almost noon . . . which, to be honest, is pretty in character for us. People seemed to like what I gave them, which was good, and I got some gifts I'm pretty happy about. We ended up with an accidental theme of everyone but my dad receiving kitchen stuff in their stocking, which was funny.
• And, of course, we finished up the year by celebrating New Year's Eve with our Bible study. As always, that was a fun time; I loved getting to see some people who've left the area but are back for the holidays, and there was plenty of good food and conversation.
• Then we took the Christmas tree down on January 1, and the holidays are officially over. After all that, going back to work on January 2 was . . . rough. Hopefully next week will be better.

January Plans

• January should return us to the usual routine — work, grad school, and writing. I'm hoping that work will quiet down in the next couple months after the hecticness of Stewardship and holidays, but there have also been rumors of trying to change things with the livestream, so we'll see what happens.
• I have accidentally left grad school registration for this semester until the very last minute (in my defense, I thought I had another week), so I don't know for sure which class I'll be taking next — I have a required class that will probably be difficult and frustrating, though it may also be occasionally interesting, and I have an elective that should be pretty chill but I'm not especially excited about, and I'm not sure (as of writing this post) which one I'm doing first and which I'm doing second.
• As for writing: I plan to use most of January for continued planning on Project Kingfisher, additional work on my unfinished DOSA Files story (in hopes that I can have it ready and waiting if there's another opportunity), and D&D writing (since we will hopefully be getting back to regular sessions soon). If the timing works out, I'll also start drafting Project Kingfisher this month — though it might be the very end of the month. Additionally, as I mentioned in my last post, I will be wrapping things up on Dreams and Dragons so I can retire that blog.
• I talked about my reading goals in my 2024 recap/2025 goals post, and I hope to get a good start on those in January. I have a stack of Peter Wimsey library books that need to be read, so that might be a good place to start . . . Plus I intend to start reading the Yona manga where the anime left off.
• And, of course, I am very excited for the start of a new storyline in Star Rail! This one sounds like it's going to be absolutely epic. (It also sounds like it will potentially tear my heart out and rip it into pieces with feels, but y'know. Isn't that what a lot of great stories do?)

How was your December? Any plans for January? Did you make any resolutions or goals for the new year? If you did Christmas baking/sweet-making, what was your favorite thing you made? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

 

Hey'a, friends! How's the first week of the New Year treating you? I have one last post to wrap up my 2023 recaps: my 2023 End-of-Year Book Celebration! I always do these a little into the new year, just in case I read something amazing (or at least noteworthy) the last week of the old year. I want to make sure I celebrate all the books deserving of celebration! Also, as a reminder, this post covers books I read in the six months since my Mid-Year Book Celebration back in July — so anything I read in the first half of the year isn't included here. Doing two book celebrations lets me spotlight twice as many books, and it also saves me from going out of my mind trying to fit a whole year's reading into one post. (I know other people do it, but this is more fun for me.)

As usual, if you want the short-and-sweet top five, you can go check out my Best of 2023 (Part the Second) list on Light and Shadows. But if you want all the categories, keep reading!

2023 End-of-Year Book Celebration

As always, we start with the statistics! According to Goodreads, I read 158 books, well past my goal of 101, and 42,818 pages, which neatly doubles where I was at my Mid-Year Book Celebration. That's also twice as many pages as I read in 2022 and almost twice as many books. My average book length is 271, about the same as last year, and I actually only read five books longer than 500 pages this year — I'm out of practice with epics, it seems. To be fair, I've reread a lot of series of short books, and I also read a good bit of manga. And, once again, my average book rating is 4.4 stars.

So, my overall statistics show a good reading year. Hopefully that makes up for the fact that my specific reading goals had somewhat . . . mixed results.

• For my goal 12 books published (or written) before 1975, I've actually read 18 books in this category, which is great! However, the second half of my goal was that at least nine of them (or 75% of them, depending) not be aimed at children. In that respect, I did . . . less well. I finished six books and one short story that were written before 1975 and aren't considered children's literature. (I did read Dracula twice, sort of, but I'm only counting it once for purposes of this goal.) Granted, I'm still in the process of reading Moby Dick, Kidnapped, and Dante's Inferno, so if you include those, I have nine books and one short story . . . but the eleven children's books I read still dominate pretty heavily.
• As for my goal of reading 15 non-speculative fiction books, I again came close but didn't succeed. I read 11 non-speculative-fiction books, though two of them are sort of in a grey area (in that they could kind of go either way). Of those, three were poetry, three were general nonfiction, two were somehow about cooking, and three were children's classics. So, I had a good variety here, at least.
• And when it comes to my recommended reads list . . . despite some very good intentions on my part, I only managed to read one book on it, and that was all the way back in April. Ah well. It was a good thought, but it was all too quickly forgotten (I say in passive voice, as if I wasn't the one doing the forgetting).

For more statistics or the full list of everything I read in 2023, check out my Goodreads Year in Books or my tracking form results. Or read on for some specific books I want to highlight!

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

The fact that I read a lot of sequels and rereads in the last six months makes this question a little easier than usual — but even if that weren't the case, Wormwood Abbey by Christina Baehr and Black and Deep Desires by Claire Trella Hill would probably still be at the top. I loved both of these Gothic fantasies — one a cozy tale of dragons and mysteries and family, one full of vampires, monsters, haunting dreams, and lovely romance — and expect to reread both many times. If I had to pick just one, Wormwood Abbey might come out a smidge on top (because I will always pick dragons over vampires), but they're both so good.

As a runner up, I have to mention Steal the Morrow by Jenelle Leanne Schmidt, which is a lovely gaslamp fantasy retelling of Oliver Twist. It takes the essential bits of the original and gives them new life and a new look . . . but it's also distinct enough that even if you aren't a fan of Dickens, you'll probably like this.

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

This one is not actually a difficult question because Dark and Stormy by Suzannah Rowntree was so good in every possible way. The crew's schemes, the machinations of Vasily's family (all of whom are utterly mad), the dynamics between the characters, the growing feelings between Molly and Vasily, the various characters all figuring themselves and each other out . . . and the ending! I'm still not over it.

Oh, and speaking of things I'm still not over: W.R. Gingell released two new Worlds Behind books that could challenge Dark and Stormy, but Behind the Curtain is my favorite of the two and my new favorite in the series as a whole. It's so good. And I can't even say half of why because spoilers, but suffice it to say that I will never not love it when people who think they're only for causing pain find they can, in fact, do other things and do them well, and also I have never been so happy about someone non-villainous getting stabbed. Just go read the series and you'll see what I mean. (But make sure you read City Between first.)

3. Best book you've reread in the second half of 2023:

The Illuminae Files by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff are just as good the second or third time around as they were the first — they're better in some respects, since you can appreciate what the author is doing more when you're not panicking about whether or not your favorite characters will survive.

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

Despite being thoroughly hyped for The Olympian Affair, I still have yet to read it, and the release date rather snuck past me without my noticing. I shall have to remedy that soon! Though I need to reread The Aeronaut's Windlass first . . .

5. Most anticipated release for 2024:

You'd think my answer would be the new Stormlight Archive novel — but actually it's Dark & Dawn by Suzannah Rowntree. We all know I'm a sucker for these gaslamp fantasy heists . . . but I'm especially looking forward to this installment. After all the everything in Dark & Stormy, I desperately need to know what happens next! Goodreads and Amazon currently have this coming out in September, but Rowntree has said there's a chance it'll be sooner, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for that.

Additionally, Christina Baehr has said that we can potentially look for all four of the remaining Secrets of Ormdale novels in 2024! Drake Hall comes out in a little over a week, and Castle of the Winds, book 3, is on Amazon and Goodreads with an April 14 release date. The other two don't have official listings yet, but are slated for July and October. I am thoroughly excited, and I don't know if I'll stop screaming all this year.

Besides these, I'm looking forward to No Man Left Behind, the conclusion of W.R. Gingell's Worlds Behind series. I'll be very sad to say goodbye to Athelas (again), Harrow, Camellia, YeoWoo, and the rest . . . but I also can't wait to see how Gingell wraps up their stories! Also, that cover is giving me Suspicions, and I will be delighted if I'm right.

Last but not least, we have more Turrim Archive novels from Jenelle Leanne Schmidt! Mantles of Oak and Iron releases next week (and I'm very belatedly reading my Kickstarter ebook copy right now), and according to the Kickstarter, we can look forward to Book 3 sometime later this year. After all the excitement of The Orb and the Airship, I'm looking forward to seeing where the rest of the story takes us — and seeing more of Captain Marik!

 

6. Biggest disappointment:

This is a reread, not a new read, but I was disappointed that Magyk didn't hold up as well as I hoped. I've spent a lot of this year rereading old favorites, and they've all still been so good on the reread, but Magyk just . . . wasn't quite doing it for me. To be clear, it's still a good book and a fun read, but it didn't enchant me the same way it did in the past.

7. Biggest surprise:

I think this is probably Second Chance Superhero by H.L. Burke. I was fairly certain I'd like it going in — after all, I have yet to encounter an SVR-verse novel that I don't like. What's more surprising is that Second Chance Superhero is solidly a romance first and a superhero story second (as opposed to equal parts of each), but it might be one of my favorite SVR books anyway.

I also have to mention Black and Deep Desires again here — not because I didn't expect to love it (W.R. Gingell and Suzannah Rowntree both endorsed it, and I met the author at the June book signing, so I was pretty sure it would be a four-star read at minimum) but because teenage me would be utterly scandalized that adult me is not only reading but recommending (and fangirling over) a novel about vampires. I'm not sure if this counts as character development or not, but it's something.

8. A book that made you cry:

No actual tears, but I do get emotional at several points in the Illuminae Files.

9. A book that made you happy:

I read Twelve Days of (Faerie) Christmas by C.J. Brightly just before Christmas, and it's such a fun, clever, sweet story with a lovely romance, a cool twist on the Twelve Days of Christmas song, and characters I quickly fell in love with.

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

A lot of my posts this year have been either Doings!, reviews, or seasonal reads, so there's less to choose from than usual. But I enjoyed writing Five Years Published for the five-year book birthday of Blood in the Snow (and the start of my author career).

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

 

This is a two-way tie again. Yumi and the Nightmare Painter is the most beautiful in terms of pure aesthetics — I love the blue and pink and the art style, and I think it might be the prettiest of the Secret Projects. But the Dracula Daily hardcover is also beautiful — maybe a little less so aesthetically than Yumi (though I do think it's very nice-looking), but because of what it represents, because of the community and collaboration that sprang up around this 200-year-old book.

That wraps things up for me — but what about for you? What are the best books you've read in the second half of 2023? Also, what's the best book or series you've reread? Tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

December 2023 Doings!

Hello, all! I hope everyone had a merry Christmas, both the season and the day. I can definitely say that my Christmas season didn't go quite how I expected it . . . but that seems to have been the theme of 2023, so I can't say I'm entirely surprised either. We'll get to that in a bit, but first, writing! In which I have some good news!

Writing!

• I finally finished drafting Bastian Dennel, PI #4! Last month's assessment of being within a chapter or two of finishing wasn't quite correct; I actually had more like three and a half chapters left before I could call the draft done.
• But those three and a half chapters have been written! And I don't think they turned out half bad. I'm quite pleased with the last two, actually. The others will need some tweaking, but so do large swathes of the rest of the book, all for the same reason. And the point is that the draft is done, so now I can do that tweaking . . .
• Except not literally now because I have other projects that I need to work on first. And I'm also very likely going to make this book Bastian Dennel, PI #5 instead and write a new (much shorter) book as #4. But that's neither here nor there. The point is, the book is drafted! Huzzah!
• I actually finished the final chapter on Christmas Eve — I'd intended to write maybe 500 words and then go to bed early while the rest of my family watched A Christmas Carol. But then I realized that another few hundred words would wrap things up, and then I could have a proper, guilt-free break for the rest of my sister's visit . . . so I did not go to bed early, but I think it was worth it.
• That's all the writing I've done so far this month (I say "all;" it was a very respectable 8,700-odd words), but I will be writing my New Year's Eve short story in the next few days. Or, possibly, I've already drafted it by the time you read this post, depending on how things go and how much of it I feel like writing on my phone.

Reading!

• My reading this month can be pretty neatly divided into "Christmas" and "not Christmas."
• On the not-Christmas side, I finished my reread of the Illuminae Files with Gemina (just as good as I remembered, and I also realized there's kind of a Die Hard reference or two in there — besides the whole situation being very Die Hard-ish) and Obsidio (better than I remembered, though my memory was still very good — it's one of those books that's more enjoyable on the reread, because you know it'll come out all right and you can appreciate all the twists and turns instead of just being stressed). I also read To Destroy an Illusion (not as good as the Austen Fairy Tale, but still a very interesting twist on some obscure fairy tales) for review purposes. Also, it's not pictured because of a Goodreads issue, but I reread DragonSpell as part of a readalong some friends of mine are doing, and that was lovely. I forget how good those books are.
• The non-Christmas highlight of my month was, of course, Behind the Curtain, the latest — and, arguably, best — in W.R. Gingell's Worlds Behind series. I loved pretty much everything about this book, but the best bits were getting to know more about Camellia's past and seeing Athelas connect more with both her and Harrow. I especially loved the growing bond between Athelas and Harrow, and there's one particular scene — but that's a spoiler, so you'll all have to read it to know what I'm talking about.
• On the Christmas side, we had several rereads: Christmas in Talesend (which nicely filled the one-night gap between finishing Illusion and the release of Behind the Curtain), Hogfather (one of my favorite Discworld novels, and certainly the book I've read most in the series), and A Christmas Carol (read via the Dickens December Substack). Also in this category is my current read, A Superhero for Christmas . . . which I really should have read before Christmas, but I was busy.
• Finally, we have two new-to-me reads: Greenglass House and Twelve Days of (Faerie) Christmas. Greenglass House is a middle-grade novel, good but not amazing. I liked the mystery and the setting, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if I'd read it first when I was closer to the target audience's age.
• Twelve Days of Faerie Christmas, on the other hand, was an absolute delight. It's a sweet, fun Christmas romance involving lots of fae magic and schemes and a very clever take on the gifts of the Twelve Days of Christmas song. Every bit of it is a delight, but the ending most of all. I will absolutely be rereading this one next year, though I may do so after Christmas instead of before so the timing lines up properly. (I could have done that this year . . . but I was really excited and didn't want to wait.)

Watching!

• Surprisingly, this month didn't involve watching as many movies and shows as it usually does. Most Decembers, we watch a lot of movies as a family, and I also watch a lot of shows on my own because I'm trying to finish Christmas gifts. This year, I only had one gift I could work on while watching something else, and we also had less opportunity to watch things together until Christmas weekend and the following week.
• That meant we didn't rewatch as many Christmas movies as usual, but we did get a few in: A Charlie Brown Christmas, White Christmas, and The Man Who Invented Christmas. I also rewatched 'Twas the Night Before Critmas, the Critical Role Christmas oneshot because . . . well, it's fun, and I haven't watched any Critical Role in a long while.
• We also watched Holiday Inn, which I hadn't see before this year. I don't think I'm going to rewatch that one — I'd rather just watch White Christmas, where I like all the characters, most of the scheming is funny and benevolent (even if it does have an angle of self-benefit) and someone at least tries to have a civil, mature conversation about what's going on instead of just being possessive and manipulative. No, I don't have strong feelings about this at all; whatever gave you that idea?
• The one notable non-Christmas movie I watched was Across the Spider-Verse on the day after Christmas. My sister watched it a few months ago, loved it, and told me I needed to watch it . . . but I have a really hard time watching movies by myself (because if I have three straight hours all to myself, then I have other things that I need to be doing with those hours), so we planned to watch it together while she was here for the holiday. I really enjoyed that! Though I think Miguel is a drama queen with bad logic who doesn't deserve half the hype he gets, either in-universe or from the fandom, and I want to know why more people aren't talking about The Spot, because yes, he had a rather cliche motivation, but otherwise he's such a cool villain, with an excellent progression from being played for laughs to being a genuine threat.
• (I know why he gets the hype both places, for the record. To the fandom, he's an anti-hero with an excellent sense of drama. In-universe, it's because his explanation of things makes all the sadness and tragedy in the spider-peoples' lives make sense and absolves them of any guilt or regret. Of course it happened this way. It had to happen this way. It always happens this way. There was nothing they could've done otherwise, and trying just would have doomed everything. Or so he claims. So, yeah, I get it. I just don't think he deserves the hype.)
• Seeing all the spider-people was cool, though. And Gwen and Miles both had great character arcs, plus I liked how the movie showed the mingled love and tension in their relationships with their respective families. So, good movie.

Life!

• So, December started off well — quite well, even, as on the very first day of the month, I had the pleasure of attending a former coworker's very lovely wedding. Both the ceremony and the reception were beautiful, and the couple made a point of keeping Christ centered in all of it — it's the only wedding I've ever encountered that involved Communion for the whole congregation because the couple wanted to serve Communion together as their first action as husband and wife.
• The rest of the weekend, however, signaled the start of a downhill slide, as my dad came down with a very bad cold on Saturday. My mom and I did our best to avoid catching it, but by midweek, around the time he started feeling better, we were both down for the count, and I was home on sick leave. Thankfully, after several days of rest, we were both feeling better in time for me to go to work the following Monday . . . and then my dad caught the same cold again from a coworker. Thankfully, everyone was healthy again (or mostly so) in time for Christmas, but it was still stressful and frustrating, and it also made doing anything Christmas-y difficult.
• It also made finishing my grad school class difficult (or, you know, more difficult) and solidly shattered my plans of wrapping up my final project early. I ended up doing most of the work on said project on the last two days of the class. Thankfully, a lot of the prep had already been covered by previous assignments, so I was able to get the thing written and turned in on time. And now I am done with grant writing for hopefully a very long time.
• Still, I am grateful that one of the few gaps in the cycle of colds was the Friday of our Bible Study's Christmas party. We always do a baked potato bar and an ice cream bar, and usually the kids act out the Christmas story in a sort of semi-impromptu play. This year, however, we knew we wouldn't have many kids there, so we decided to switch to a dramatic reading of the Christmas story, interspersed with Christmas carols. I helped with a lot of the planning for that; it was the first time in years that I've been so excited for a Christmas play-adjacent thing. I think everyone enjoyed it, and I was certainly happy about how it worked out.
• Also that weekend, at least if I recall correctly, was my D&D group's last session of the year, in which we defeated one of our nemesis once and for all — he's a rakshasa, and we killed him once in the mortal plane, but he can come back . . . so we went to his plane and took him down a second time so he can't keep on with his schemes and tricks. I got the killing blow and cut him off mid-monologue, and it was very satisfying. (I did give the DM a chance to talk, for the record! But not a long chance, as it very quickly became clear that this guy had nothing useful to say and would just try to turn us off our purpose if we let him go on.)
• The fact that everyone spent so much of the month sick meant less attention was given to things like Christmas baking, but we did still make cookies. We just didn't try any new recipes for Christmas itself this year. All the same, my gingersnaps and peppermint pinwheels turned out well, and my mom made macaroons, peanut butter balls, biscotti, and Russian teacakes, so I'm happy. And I did make oatmeal-ginger cookies at the start of the month, which were also very tasty.
• Probably the best part of Christmas this year was that my sister came down from Ohio for the holiday! She arrived Saturday, just in time for us to go to the Christmas Eve-Eve service at our church — which, by the way, was lovely. It wasn't as much of a spectacular as some past years have been, but I think it was nicer overall, as we had more traditional songs, and I think the pastor's message was better than it has been some years. Then, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were both pretty chill, on the whole. I received some lovely gifts (including new planners and the Baking Yesteryear recipe book), and my family liked the gifts I gave them. There wasn't anything really out of the ordinary about either day, but they were still good days.
• My sister returned to Ohio on Wednesday, and we drove up with her as far as Pittsburgh to visit my grandpa for a little while. Getting to see him again was nice, and I'm happy to report that he's recovering pretty well from all the various medical stuff he's had to deal with over the course of this year. All in all, it was a good visit.
• There's a few days left yet in December, but I anticipate those being mostly quiet, with the exception of New Year's Eve afternoon and evening. My former roommate and I will do our gift exchange (over video call) that afternoon, and I look forward to that — she's in one of my D&D groups, but that group hasn't really met all month, so I haven't seen her in a while. And then our Bible study always has a party for New Year's Eve that should be lots of fun. It'll be a good way to end the year, that's for certain.

January Plans

• January means getting back to business as usual, with work, writing, and grad school.
• On the writing front, I'll be working on Daughters of Atirse #2. This is a prequel to Song of the Selkies focusing on Ceana's older sister, Onora, and it's also a retelling that blends The Goose Girl with Puss in Boots. I'll probably outline it over the next couple days (if I have time) and then start actually writing at the beginning of January. If I have time, I'll probably also try to squeeze in a draft of whatever I do for H.L. Burke's DOSA-verse anthology. (I have about 75% of an idea. I just have to work out some loose ends.)
• At work, I'm hoping for a fairly quiet month. January usually doesn't have a lot going on, so that hope has a reasonable chance of being fulfilled. That said, we're getting ready to launch some new grief ministries, so we'll see how busy that keeps me.
• As for grad school . . . confession time: I still need to register for the next set of classes. I should have done that a couple weeks ago, but I was too busy with Christmas stuff, and I also didn't even want to think about classes for a solid week after I finished my most recent one. I think the next thing I'm taking is technical writing, though, which should be pretty chill. Technical writing isn't my favorite type of writing ever, but I also don't dislike it, and I think I'm fairly good at it. So, we'll see how things go.
• When it comes to reading, I have some exciting ARCs waiting for me on my Kindle — the only reason I haven't read them yet is that I've been distracted by Christmas stories! But I'll fix that pretty soon. Otherwise, well, I'm trying not to plan too much.
• Lastly, on the crafting front, I have a crochet shawl that I'm hoping to make good progress on. I'm also toying with the idea of giving some new crafts a try . . . but we'll see if that actually goes anywhere or not.
• And, of course, I'll be setting my New Year's goals in the next couple days, so we'll see what comes of those.

How was your December? How was your Christmas? Any plans for January? 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!