lady_ragnell (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lady_ragnell) wrote2026-01-01 01:23 pm
lady_ragnell) wrote2026-01-01 01:23 pm
2025 Books, Post 14 + Reading Wrap-Up
I've read five books since my last post, not quite as many as I wanted but more than I expected given how socially busy the end of the year has been (and given I reread two of my own books prepping for an edit I started at midnight last night and I don't count my own books to my total). I'll do quick reviews of those, and then I'll do my top ten and reading statistics for the year!
The Best Parts of Him by Amy Aislin
Forgettable m/m hockey romance that I read for the "sports or leisure activity" card to finish off my book bingo card for the year. I keep forgetting what this book is when I just see the title and author in my book list even though I just read it within the past few weeks. It's not like it's bad! It just didn't have enough substance for me to bite into.
Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell
People have told me I ought to read this for years and they were right! It was a fun and frothy mystery, delightfully voicy, and I definitely want to return to Hilary Tamar at some point. I'd say it's the mystery genre equivalent to one of Georgette Heyer's better outings (though with more modern sensibilities than Heyer, thank goodness) for levels of depth and enjoyment, which I very much say as a compliment. Do I remember a blessed thing about the solution to the murder? I do not. Do I want to hang out with these dipshit lawyers forever? I do.
Christmas at the Women's Hotel by Daniel M. Lavery
I got this one at the same time as I got the book proper, and it's a slight little novella that I liked more than the book proper because it was at least slightly more focused. Still didn't really have a plot, per se, but I'll take it! Anyway, it was short and it wasn't bad, if you liked the book proper you'll probably like this check-in with the characters, and if you didn't, it's not really worthy picking up on its own. I really want to like Lavery's fiction, after I've enjoyed so much of his internet commentary over the years, but it might not be for me!
Always Remember by Mary Balogh
I've been rationing this series hard, because I know Balogh's getting older, so there's another one in it already out and another one coming out next week. Tragically it's not her best series ever (the family setup isn't quite as contrived as the Westcotts, her last outing, but it still required a full chapter of summarizing the series events to date, which did not start me in charity with the book), things just feel a bit tired out and recycled, but it's still Balogh, so it's not like it's bad. I really appreciate that she's willing to have main characters with disabilities. That doesn't mean she's always able to handle them in the most graceful or politic ways, but nonetheless it's something she makes a point of doing, and has done for a long time, and there was a lot of focus on the heroine's disability in this one! As well as on issues of class, which Balogh also likes periodically poking at. Also, for followers of the Mary Balogh Cinematic Universe, she's recycling two characters from the Westcott series as love interests in two of the books in this one, but they're two characters who I had rather hoped would get together as a supplementary book to the Westcott series, so I'm a bit sad about that, alas!
Keep You Both by Kathryn Nolan
A little New Year's Eve themed poly romance that I finished off the year with. There's not much to it in length or depth, just some poly pining and then declarations halfway through so everyone can fuck their way into the new year! Still, it was a sweet little story, and I'm a sucker for poly pining, so none of that is said to the story's detriment, it's just that I don't have a ton that's interesting to say about it!
And now the top ten! I feel like I said much the same last year (I did, I just checked), but while there were a good amount of books I liked this year, there were not a ton that I loved. I'd say the first six on this list were solid, would have made the top ten in most reading years that weren't exceptional, and the last four were ones I liked plenty but were kind of "the best of the rest."
Interesting to me how many of those were novellas! Plus the one play, which is rather like a novella, I think, the point is "lots of short things in my top ten."
Statistics! I read 135 books this year, 13 more than last year, which isn't bad given I have still been reading rather ridiculous amounts of firefighters fic on the AO3. Of those books:
I met a few reading goals this year! I read all of L. Frank Baum's Oz books, which was one of my major goals, and I got a blackout on my town library's book bingo card (only one bingo on another library's harder book bingo, though I didn't focus much on that one since I'm not eligible for the prizes). I also wanted this to be a year of reading epistolary fiction, and, well ... I had 22 rereads, and a lot of that was epistolary fiction. Overall, I just did a quick count, and I read 11 books I would term epistolary (one more featured some letters but was primarily narrative, and another contained lots of non-fictional letters but didn't get the correspondence vibe right), and I think four of them were new? I keep looking for lists of proper epistolary books and not finding what I want, and I'm not sure if that's because people are bad at writing lists or because there aren't as many epitolary books as I want there to be.
I'm not sure of my reading goals for this year! I think I only have two preorders on my list, which is pretty dire, and I do have a bunch of books on my shelves right now that I'm excited about, but I keep getting my hopes up and having them dashed, so I am really just going to hope that this year has some books that really sweep me away.
The Best Parts of Him by Amy Aislin
Forgettable m/m hockey romance that I read for the "sports or leisure activity" card to finish off my book bingo card for the year. I keep forgetting what this book is when I just see the title and author in my book list even though I just read it within the past few weeks. It's not like it's bad! It just didn't have enough substance for me to bite into.
Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell
People have told me I ought to read this for years and they were right! It was a fun and frothy mystery, delightfully voicy, and I definitely want to return to Hilary Tamar at some point. I'd say it's the mystery genre equivalent to one of Georgette Heyer's better outings (though with more modern sensibilities than Heyer, thank goodness) for levels of depth and enjoyment, which I very much say as a compliment. Do I remember a blessed thing about the solution to the murder? I do not. Do I want to hang out with these dipshit lawyers forever? I do.
Christmas at the Women's Hotel by Daniel M. Lavery
I got this one at the same time as I got the book proper, and it's a slight little novella that I liked more than the book proper because it was at least slightly more focused. Still didn't really have a plot, per se, but I'll take it! Anyway, it was short and it wasn't bad, if you liked the book proper you'll probably like this check-in with the characters, and if you didn't, it's not really worthy picking up on its own. I really want to like Lavery's fiction, after I've enjoyed so much of his internet commentary over the years, but it might not be for me!
Always Remember by Mary Balogh
I've been rationing this series hard, because I know Balogh's getting older, so there's another one in it already out and another one coming out next week. Tragically it's not her best series ever (the family setup isn't quite as contrived as the Westcotts, her last outing, but it still required a full chapter of summarizing the series events to date, which did not start me in charity with the book), things just feel a bit tired out and recycled, but it's still Balogh, so it's not like it's bad. I really appreciate that she's willing to have main characters with disabilities. That doesn't mean she's always able to handle them in the most graceful or politic ways, but nonetheless it's something she makes a point of doing, and has done for a long time, and there was a lot of focus on the heroine's disability in this one! As well as on issues of class, which Balogh also likes periodically poking at. Also, for followers of the Mary Balogh Cinematic Universe, she's recycling two characters from the Westcott series as love interests in two of the books in this one, but they're two characters who I had rather hoped would get together as a supplementary book to the Westcott series, so I'm a bit sad about that, alas!
Keep You Both by Kathryn Nolan
A little New Year's Eve themed poly romance that I finished off the year with. There's not much to it in length or depth, just some poly pining and then declarations halfway through so everyone can fuck their way into the new year! Still, it was a sweet little story, and I'm a sucker for poly pining, so none of that is said to the story's detriment, it's just that I don't have a ton that's interesting to say about it!
And now the top ten! I feel like I said much the same last year (I did, I just checked), but while there were a good amount of books I liked this year, there were not a ton that I loved. I'd say the first six on this list were solid, would have made the top ten in most reading years that weren't exceptional, and the last four were ones I liked plenty but were kind of "the best of the rest."
- Cinder House by Freya Marske
- The West Passage by Jared Pechacek
- The Touchstone Series by Andrea K. Höst
- Murder By Memory by Olivia Waite
- Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
- Half-Witch by John Schoffstall
- The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
- The Orb of Cairado by Katherine Addison
- Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher
- The Marquis Who Mustn't by Courtney Milan
Interesting to me how many of those were novellas! Plus the one play, which is rather like a novella, I think, the point is "lots of short things in my top ten."
Statistics! I read 135 books this year, 13 more than last year, which isn't bad given I have still been reading rather ridiculous amounts of firefighters fic on the AO3. Of those books:
- 22 were rereads (more on that in a moment)
- 9 were nonfiction
- 1 was a graphic novel
- 85 were SFF (though 3 are better termed horror)
- 56 were romances or romance-focused
- Either 2 or 5 were mysteries depending on whether you count Addison's Thara Celehar books as mysteries or not
- 32 were for younger readers
I met a few reading goals this year! I read all of L. Frank Baum's Oz books, which was one of my major goals, and I got a blackout on my town library's book bingo card (only one bingo on another library's harder book bingo, though I didn't focus much on that one since I'm not eligible for the prizes). I also wanted this to be a year of reading epistolary fiction, and, well ... I had 22 rereads, and a lot of that was epistolary fiction. Overall, I just did a quick count, and I read 11 books I would term epistolary (one more featured some letters but was primarily narrative, and another contained lots of non-fictional letters but didn't get the correspondence vibe right), and I think four of them were new? I keep looking for lists of proper epistolary books and not finding what I want, and I'm not sure if that's because people are bad at writing lists or because there aren't as many epitolary books as I want there to be.
I'm not sure of my reading goals for this year! I think I only have two preorders on my list, which is pretty dire, and I do have a bunch of books on my shelves right now that I'm excited about, but I keep getting my hopes up and having them dashed, so I am really just going to hope that this year has some books that really sweep me away.
Thoughts
Go you!
>> Interesting to me how many of those were novellas! <<
It's an interesting length, and much more available online than it ever was in print. Few magazines accepted them, although I saw a handful of fanzines that specialized in novellas and/or novelettes. There's a Reading Challenges post up on
>>I got a blackout on my town library's book bingo card<<
Woohoo! A lot of places are doing those now. It's fun to see all the different themes. Some are pretty far-out.
>>I keep looking for lists of proper epistolary books and not finding what I want, and I'm not sure if that's because people are bad at writing lists or because there aren't as many epitolary books as I want there to be.<<
Here's what I found...
https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/best-epistolary-novels/
https://reedsy.com/discovery/blog/epistolary-novels
https://postalmuseum.si.edu/research-article/epistolary-fiction/epistolary-novels-list
https://www.goodreads.com/list/tag/epistolary
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/34259.Epistolary_Novels
https://www.goodreads.com/genres/epistolary
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/155973.52_Book_Club_2021_42_An_Epistolary
https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/epistolary
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/304.Epistolary_Fiction
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/12154.Epistolary_Young_Adult_Novels
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Epistolary_novels
Also,
>>I'm not sure of my reading goals for this year!<<
Check the Reading Challenges post, or run a search online. Just reading the lists is good for a smile, whether you pick any or not.
>>I am really just going to hope that this year has some books that really sweep me away.<<
Ooo! Double hit!
https://modernmrsdarcy.com/epistolary-novels/
https://blog.appewa.com/books-like-the-alchemist/
https://www.buzzfeed.com/bendzialdowski/books-to-get-lost-in
https://booklisti.com/booklist/60-best-romance-novels-sweep-you-off-your-feet-reedsy/lx3vzyn
https://www.booklistqueen.com/books-you-cant-put-down/
I hope you find some good ones.