2026 Bookish Books Reading Challenge (hosted by Yours Truly)
2026 Cover Lovers Reading Challenge (hosted by Yours Truly)
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2026 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge
Booklist Queen's 2026 Reading Challenge
2026 52 Club Reading Challenge
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2026 Medical Examiner Mystery Reading Challenge
2026 Mount TBR Reading Challenge
2026 Around the Year in 52 Books Reading Challenge
Shelf Reflection Candy Reading Challenge for Kids (and Adults)
2026 Countdown Reading Challenge
Dragon Rambles' Law of Fives Bingo
2026 Southern Literary Reading Challenge
2026 Reading Challenge (by Linz the Bookworm)
2026 Pioneer Book Reading Challenge
European Reading Challenge 2026
2017 Pick Your Poison Reading Challenge (retired challenge - doing old boards for fun)
2026 Reading Challenge Addict Reading Challenge
The 100 Most Common Last Names in the U.S. Reading Challenge
The Life Skills Reading Challenge
Showing posts with label Cynthia Hand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cynthia Hand. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 02, 2025
The Bookish Books Reading Challenge: December Book Ideas and Link-Up for Reviews
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I can't believe this is the last monthly post I'll do for the 2025 Bookish Books Reading Challenge. Crazy! I hope you've had fun with this laidback challenge and will join with me to do it again in 2026. I'll make a sign-up post for that soon.
November was a good month for me and bookish books. I read these four:
Everyone in This Bank is a Thief by Benjamin Stevenson (available March 17, 2026)—This is the fourth book in the highly entertaining Ernest Cunningham mystery series. In this outing, our hero is in a privately-owned bank to beg for a loan for the private detective agency he wants to start. Much to his astonishment, he finds himself in the middle of a robbery with a bank full of thieves. As the tension builds, someone is murdered, and time is running out for all of the hostages. It's up to Ernest to figure out what in the world is going on.
While the novel isn't overtly bookish, Ernest is a lover of classic mysteries as well as an author who writes about the crimes he solves. All the books in this series are clever, funny, and twisty. I love them all!
The Maid's Secret by Nita Prose—In this third volume of Prose's popular mystery series starring Molly the Maid, an Antiques Roadshow-type program is taping an episode at the Regency Grand Hotel. Molly brings some of her Gran's garage sale treasures for evaluation, never expecting that one of them will be almost priceless in value. Before she knows it, the item has been stolen. The event prompts Molly to learn more about her Gran's mysterious past, which reveals new information about both Molly and her beloved grandmother.
This installment is more about Gran than it is about Molly (one of the reasons I didn't like it as much as the previous books). We learn about her from diary entries. Since the diary is a book and both Gran and Molly love to read, I think this one counts as bookish, don't you?
The Forgotten Magic of Zoey Turner by Erin Stewart—This middle-grade novel is about a girl who's grieving the recent loss of her adored father, who knew how to make even the most mundane moments magical. In spite of the crippling anxiety that has kept her mostly at home since his death, she ventures out to an author signing for her very favorite book series. When Zoey receives a special pencil from her favorite writer, she's inspired to write her own stories, which magically start coming to life. With this tool, she can return her life to normal. Or can she?
The Afterlife of Holly Chase by Cynthia Hand—A Christmas Carol is one of my favorite all-time books, so I was excited to read this YA novel that's a spin-off of the classic story. Holly, a deceased teen, is a failed Scrooge who has been assigned to work for Project Scrooge as the Ghost of Christmas Past. She's burned out with the job when a hot new Scrooge candidate perks her interest way up. Before she knows it, she's falling in love with the young man she's supposed to be saving. Not only could she lose her job, but she may also lose the chance to move on in her afterlife. What's a ghost to do?
I wanted this book to be more like the original novel instead of just a teenage love story, so I was a little disappointed by it. It was just an average read for me.
How about you? What bookish books did you read in November?
I've already read one bookish book in December and am reading this middle-grade novel based on Grimm's fairy tales right now:
Grimmworld: The Big Bad Wolf by Michaelbrent Collings—Willow and Jake Grimm, descendants of the famous Grimm brothers, are Grimmwalkers, who are able to walk between the real world and the Grimmworld (where there are no happy endings). On the hunt for their missing father, they will encounter all sorts of fantastical creatures and challenges.
How about you? What bookish books do you plan to read before the end of the year?
If you are participating in the 2025 Bookish Books Reading Challenge, please use the widget below to link-up your December reviews. If you're not signed up for the challenge yet, what are you waiting for? Click here to join the party.
Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books On My Fall 2025 TBR List (or, Top Ten Books I Want to Read Before 2025 Ends, Part Three)
I love today's prompt—Top Ten Books On My Fall 2025 TBR List—so much that I started it two weeks ago! Scroll down on my blog to see Part One and Part Two of my list of 30 Books I Want to Read Before 2025 Ends. I'm proud to say that I've already read four of the twenty books mentioned in those previous lists. Go, me! With 156 books read so far this year, I'm on track to reach my goal of 200 by December 31, but it's very unlikely that I'll beat last year's record of 230. We'll see how the rest of the year goes.
As always, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the lovely Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl.
Top Ten Books On My Fall 2025 TBR List
or Top 30 Books I Want to Read Before 2025 Ends (Part Three)
1. Open and Shut by David Rosenfelt—The kind folks over at St. Martin's Press have been generously sending me all the books in the Andy Carpenter mystery series for years, and I have yet to even begin reading them. I'm determined to do so this year! Open and Shut, the first installment, introduces our hero, a New Jersey defense attorney who prefers the company of his beloved golden retriever over that of most people. When Andy's father—a well-known ex-D.A.—drops dead at Yankee stadium, Andy finds himself the recipient of a surprise $22 million inheritance as well as a cold case with explosive possibilities to solve. As the shocks keep coming, Andy works to get justice for the wronged party as he figures out what to do next with all the possibilities millions of dollars has just opened up for him.
2. A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson—I need to read a "travel" book to cross-off prompts in two different reading challenges, so this seems like a good time to finally give Bryson's books a go. Everyone seems to love this one. It's supposed to be very entertaining.
3. The Afterlife of Holly Chase by Cynthia Hand—A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is one of my favorite books of all time and one I reread every year. This YA novel, a contemporary reimagining of the classic tale, sounds like a fun read for the holidays. Our titular heroine was warned in life to change her selfish ways, but she didn't listen. Now, Holly's dead and experiencing an epically sucky afterlife. Stuck working as Christmas Past for the top-secret Project Scrooge, she doesn't expect her lot will be improving anytime soon. Until she meets the newest Scrooge, a Scrooge who just might change everything...
4. Last Gate of the Emperor by Kwame Mbalia and Prince Joel Makonnen—This middle-grade novel is outside of my usual reading interests, but it works for several reading challenge prompts I need to fulfill. Plus, it sounds like an exciting read. Billed as an Afrofuturist adventure, the novel takes place in Addis Prime, a dingy city with outdated tech, rigid rules, and nothing to do. Thrill-seeker Yared Heywat has become a star in an underground augmented reality game. When his real name is leaked in the game, his game life rockets into his actual life, leading to the disappearance of his uncle. Suddenly, Yared finds himself in the center of shocking events that seem to be coming straight out of his uncle's fantastical stories. It's up to him to find his uncle, beat an army of monsters, and save the world. What could possibly go wrong?
5. Take What You Can Carry by Gian Sardar—It's 1979 and Olivia Murray is determined to capture a money shot, the kind that will catapult her from her newspaper secretary's desk to the front lines of photojournalism. When her Kurdish boyfriend invites Olivia to accompany him to his hometown in northern Iraq, she jumps at the chance. Not only will she be able to gain more insight into her enigmatic partner, but the exotic locale should provide the perfect background for dramatic photography. When leaving Iraq proves more difficult than she thought, Olivia gets her money shot, but it's a capture that will upend the lives of her boyfriend's family and her own in ways she never could have imagined.
6. West With Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge—This historical novel has been a big-time hit with a lot of my IRL friends. It does sound excellent. Based on a true story, the tale is about a pair of giraffes who inspire hope in Depression-era America when they miraculously survive a hurricane at sea. As they travel across the country to their new home at the San Diego Zoo, they touch the lives of everyone they encounter.
7. Sandwich by Catherine Newman—Since I'm in my "sandwich" era like this novel's protagonist, I think I'm going to find this story very relatable! It revolves around Rocky and her family's annual summer trip to Cape Cod. With all the changes she's experiencing in her body (thanks a bunch, menopause!), her family, and life in general, it's inevitable that this year's trip makes her wax nostalgic. It also forces the secrets she's been hiding out into the open...
8. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson—I need to read a book with an angel on the cover for a reading challenge, so I thought it would be fun to reread this hilarious children's classic. This novel, which tells the story of a church's nativity play gone horribly wrong—and right—is funny, tender, and a perfect read for the holiday season.
9. Dead Tired by Kat Ailes—This is the second book in Ailes' comedic The Expectant Detectives mystery series. A year after Alice and her prenatal group accidentally become amateur sleuths and solve a murder, Alice is deep in the sleep-deprived mire that is new motherhood. Desperate for a vacation, she agrees to accompany her friends to an eco-protest. It's all healthy entertainment (for a good cause) until one of their fellow protestors ends up dead. With a new case to solve, Alice and the other moms get right to work.
10. Final Girls by Riley Sager—I love Sager's unsettling books, and this one—his first—is the only one I haven't read. I've been hesitating on it because I've seen such mixed reviews, but it's Sager, so I want to read it. The story revolves around Quincy Carpenter, who becomes a "final girl" when she is the only survivor of a horrific massacre in which five of her friends were killed. After some time, she's finally doing okay. Then, one of Quincy's fellow final girls is found dead, after which another one appears on her doorstep. As Sam pushes Quincy to relive the terrors of her past, she begins to feel exceedingly unnerved. The answers to finding peace in her present seem to be hiding in memories of the worst event in her life, memories she does not want to revisit. Ever.
There you go, ten more books I want to read before the end of the year. Have you read any of them? What did you think? What titles are on your Fall TBR list? I'd truly love to know. Leave me a comment on this post and I will gladly return the favor on your blog.
Happy TTT!
Friday, July 04, 2025
Mid Year Freak Out Book Tag
I'm not sure how, but we have managed to reach the middle of 2025. The year has whizzed by in some ways; in other ways, it feels like its been going on for forever. The Mid-Year Freak Out Book Tag is a fun way to mark the occasion. Created by Ely @Earl Grey Books and Chami, it offers a chance to look at what we've accomplished in our reading in the first six months of the year. It is a tag, but I wasn't tagged by anyone and I'm not going to tag anyone. If you want to do it, consider yourself tagged! (I used the same version of the tag that Leslie @Books Are the New Black did. I've seen slight variations in the questions on other blogs.)
Every year, I try to read more than I did the year before. To this end, I set my Goodreads goal at 215 for 2025. I'm almost halfway there:
I've taken on a bunch of reading challenges this year. Some of them are short term, some of them last all year, and others are open-ended ones. I'm over 50% done with the majority of them. You can see where I'm at by checking out the left sidebar of my blog or by clicking the "Reading Challenges" tab at the top of my homepage.
Good question. The two books that stand out the most for being well-written, gripping, and memorable are both rereads:
The Secret Room by Jane Casey—Even though it's disturbing, this book—#12 in the Maeve Kerrigan mystery series—kept me totally engrossed with its many twists and turns. Casey jerked ALL my emotions around in this one, but the ending is perfection.
Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
Evil Bones by Kathy Reichs (available November 18, 2025)
It Happened on the Lake by Lisa Jackson—This book is way too long, too melodramatic, too predictable, too far-fetched, too everything. I read all 592 pages, but man, it was a slog!
Murder Runs in the Family by Tamara Berry—I love a good cozy mystery and Tamara Berry is one of my favorite cozy authors. This book has a fun premise, too. All of these things should have equaled a real hit for me, but this one was a pretty meh read for me. The main characters were annoying and the plot dragged. I wanted to love the book, but I just...didn't.
A Dream of Death by Connie Berry—I read this book, the first installment in Berry's Kate Hamilton mystery series, in January and really enjoyed it. I've since read the next three books and will likely finished the next two—a holiday novella and a full-length book—by the end of the year. It's a light, clean, entertaining mystery series that has provided some great comfort reading.
I've discovered lots of great new characters this year, but I'm really not the "book boyfriend" type.
Vera Wong is the character who came immediately to mind for this question. She makes me laugh! Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto is the first book in the series. I still need to read the second.
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness—I loved this book when I first read it back in 2011, but it had been so long that I had forgotten that my favorite character dies. It's such a pitiful scene, too, that it ripped my heart out all over again.
My Salty Mary by Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand, and Jodi Meadows—The whole Lady Janies/Mary series makes me happy. All the books are lighthearted, funny, and totally entertaining. I've especially enjoyed listening to them all on audio.
Costco has this gorgeous 10th Anniversary Edition of The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah right now and I couldn't resist. It's beautiful.
Last year, I read a total of 230 books. I'd love to beat that number in 2025. Even if I can't quite make that happen, I'd at least like to hit 200 and complete most of my reading challenges. I have a list of 150 possibilities that will help me achieve these goals. We'll see how I do.
How has YOUR reading year been going so far?
Tuesday, November 26, 2024
Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Children's Books of 2024
Here in the U.S., we will be celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday. Although I realize the holiday's history is problematic, I love that we set aside a day to focus on gratitude. We celebrate our blessings, the big and the small, and we do it while eating yummy food, gathering with family and friends, and just enjoying time together. It's a day to reflect on all the good in our lives, to give thanks for what we have, in spite of whatever nastiness may be going on around us. Gratitude is good for the soul. Counting my blessings always gives me perspective, soothes my anxieties, and fills my heart with gladness.
Given the upcoming holiday, it's no surprise that today's Top Ten Tuesday prompt is a Thankful/Thanksgiving Freebie. (TTT is hosted, as always, by the lovely Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl.) Despite what I just said about gratitude, I'm actually going to go rogue with my list today. Before I get to that, though, I want to say thank you to YOU for being a supporter of my blog. It's been such a joy to talk books with you over the years. I appreciate all your visits, your comments, your reading recommendations, and your kind words. Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate!
Last week, I posted Part One of my list of favorite reads from 2024. That list focused on books for adults; this one will feature children's titles.
Top Ten Favorite Children's Books of 2024
- in no particular order -
Side note: I only watched the first ten minutes or so of the Netflix version of My Plain Jane, but that's all it took to show me that the television show is much raunchier than the book, which is PG-rated (at least as far as I remember).
2. Myrtle, Means, and Opportunity by Elizabeth C. Bunce—This installment is the latest in another of my favorite children's series. It stars Myrtle Hardcastle, a brilliant young woman in Victorian England who has an "unnatural" obsession with murder and forensics. She solves crimes with the help of her governess and assorted others. This particular book is set on a Scottish island, where Myrtle's governess has just inherited a crumbling castle. It doesn't take long for our heroine to find herself on the hunt for a missing brooch and a murderer.
3. Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson—Even though I like Sanderson, I likely wouldn't have read this YA fantasy if it hadn't been for book club. That would have been a shame, too, because this novel is a gem. It's an action/adventure/pirate story about a young woman who sets sail in search of her missing best friend and finds herself along the way.
4. The First State of Being by Erin Entrada Kelly—This YA novel stars Michael, a 12-year-old boy with severe anxiety, especially with the threat of Y2K looming before him. When he meets Ridge, a confident teen who seems to have no worries at all, Michael is fascinated—and that's before Ridge announces that he's the world's first time traveler. Ridge even has a special book all about the future, a book that could assuage all of Michael's worries, if only he could get his hands on it.
The plot sounds kind of weird, I know, but this book features some warm, wonderful characters and imparts important lessons about being present in the now instead of obsessing over what the future might bring.
5. Artifice by Sharon Cameron—Isa de Smit was raised in her father's Amsterdam art gallery, a home filled with life, color, and vibrancy. Now that the Nazis have taken over the city, everything has changed. Isa's struggling to hold on to her beloved gallery while her best friend is risking his life by working with the Dutch resistance to smuggle Jewish babies out of the city. He needs money for his important work and Isa has a way to get it. By selling the Nazis the forgeries her father made of famous paintings, she can help the resistance and save her gallery. If she gets caught? She will lose everything, including her life.
If you like historical fiction, I also highly recommend Cameron's Bluebird. I liked it even better than Artifice.
6. One Big Open Sky by Lesa Cline-Ransome—This middle grade verse novel takes on a unique subject: the Black homesteader movement. It features three women pioneers headed for an unknown future in the Nebraska wilderness. The story is poignant and powerful.
7. Dust by Dusti Bowling—Another MG read, this one is about a girl with severe asthma who becomes obsessed with the mysterious new boy at her school. Adam is sullen and angry, with no desire to interact with anyone. Considering that dust devils seem to swarm around the kid, Avalyn really should stay away from him. But she can't. She's determined to get to the bottom of Adam's heavy emotions, whether he likes it or not—and whether it's safe for her or not.
8. The Last Kids on Earth by Max Brallier—When I volunteered at my daughter's elementary school library a few years back, this graphic novel series was wildly popular. I finally picked up this series opener and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a quick read that's chock full of action, humor, and heart. I can't wait to read the sequels.
9. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett—I don't remember if I read this classic as a child or not, but I loved it as an adult. It's a sweet, wholesome riches-to-rags story about the importance of kindness, humility, and fortitude.
10. Morning Sun in Wuhan by Ying Chang Compestine—Even though it deals with the still-raw subject of COVID, I enjoyed this hopeful MG novel about working together to get through hard times. The author grew up in Wuhan, so the setting feels especially authentic.
There you go, ten of my favorite children's books that I read in 2024. Have you read any of them? What did you think? What are you grateful for today? I'd truly love to know. Leave me a comment on this post and I will gladly return the favor on your blog.
Happy TTT!
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2026 Goodreads Reading Challenge
2024 - Elementary/Middle Grade Nonfiction
2023 - Middle Grade Fiction
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