Hello Readers! As usual, January was a loooooong month, but I’m not complaining. I needed it! I’m still trying to catch up on reading and blogging from my hiatus in December. I only read 4 books and 1 short story in January (for a total of 1,487 pages), but 3 of them were advanced copies I needed to get to. I’m not sure I was in the right frame of mind for them yet, but there’s nothing like a deadline to keep you from sinking into a reading slump. 😃

I also picked up several eARCs of my most-anticipated books for 2024, so that was a lovely surprise. Now if I could just get caught up on my ARC schedule so I can read ahead… 🤔

Let’s see what I read and what I added to my TBR!

Be sure to check out The Monthly Wrap-Up Round-Up hosted by Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction!

(Link to synopsis on Goodreads through the book title.)

January Wrap-Up

I started the month reading A Fragile Enchantment by Allison Saft, a young adult fantasy. I enjoyed the unique premise, characters, and magic, but I did guess all the twists or mysteries before they happened, which made this one a little too predictable for me. But it was a cozy one to start the year with.

➤My Rating: ★★★★
➤My Review
➤Published on January 2, 2024
➤Popsugar Reading Challenge Prompt – A cozy fantasy book

Next I picked up my next ARC for the month, The Getaway List by Emma Lord. My second book by the author (I previously read Tweet Cute), I thought this was a sweet coming-of-age story about a recent high school graduate moving to New York City and discovering who she wants to be. BUT, it involved a little too much miscommunication for me.

➤My Rating: ★★★★
➤My Review
➤Published on January 23, 2024
➤Popsugar Reading Challenge Prompt – A book that came out in a year that ends in “24”.

While I was reading The Getaway List on my Kindle, I read my physical copy of The Fury by Alex Michaelides, kindly sent to me by the publisher, Celadon Books. I was enthralled with this thriller told by a very unreliable narrator.

➤My Rating: ★★★★
➤My Review
➤Published January 16, 2024
➤Popsugar Reading Challenge Prompt – A book with an unreliable narrator

When Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood became available on my Libby waitlist, I decided to pick it up next. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about a Hazelwood young adult book, but I enjoyed this one! I should have known she would make chess super cool and sexy. Great characters, backstories, and a satisfying ending.

➤My Rating: ★★★★

Lastly, I picked up Christina Lauren’s latest Amazon short story, The Exception to the Rule. I enjoyed this sweet romance centered around an email sent to the wrong person on Valentine’s Day that starts a years-long exchange. It’s a slow-burn in short story form.

➤My Rating: ★★★★
➤Published January 23, 2024

January Book Haul

I added some very exciting eARCs this month! And technically my physical haul is from December, but I wanted to include them here since I didn’t do a wrap-up in December. Two books arrived in My Book HookUp subscription box from The Strand Bookstore: Didn’t See That Coming by Jesse Q. Sutanto and Bright Red Fruit by Safia Elhillo. (More on those below.) And my sweet family got me the Brontë Sisters Penguin Clothbound Classics boxed set for Christmas to add to my collection. The set includes:

• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
• Villette by Charlotte Brontë

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My eARCs

I was over the moon when an invite for Lia Louis’ next book arrived in my inbox! I’ve loved everything I’ve read by her, so I’m excited to pick up Better Left Unsent.

Synopsis:

So many ways to torpedo your career and your love life…So little time.

A woman accidentally reveals all her secrets in this witty and charming novel from the author of Eight Perfect Hours.

Two years ago, thirty-year-old receptionist Millie Chandler had her heart spectacularly broken in public. Ever since, she has been a closed book, vowing to keep everything to herself—her feelings, her truths, even her dreams—in an effort to protect herself from getting hurt again.

But Millie does write emails—sarcastic replies to her rude boss, hard truths to her friends, and of course, that one-thousand-word love declaration to her ex who is now engaged to someone else. The emails live safely in her drafts, but after a server outage at work, Millie wakes up to discover that all her emails have been sent. Every. Single. One.

As every truth, lie, and secret she’s worked so hard to keep only to herself are catapulted out into the open, Millie must fix the chaos her words have caused, and face everything she’s ever swept under the carpet.

Expected May 21, 2024

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I thought I’d missed the boat on getting this ARC after seeing several of you had already gotten it, but it finally arrived in my inbox! Super excited to pick up The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center.

Synopsis:

She’s rewriting his love story. But can she rewrite her own?

Emma Wheeler desperately longs to be a screenwriter. She’s spent her life studying, obsessing over, and writing romantic comedies—good ones! That win contests! But she’s also been the sole caretaker for her kind-hearted dad, who needs full-time care. Now, when she gets a chance to re-write a script for famous screenwriter Charlie Yates—The Charlie Yates! Her personal writing god!—it’s a break too big to pass up.

Emma’s younger sister steps in for caretaking duties, and Emma moves to L.A. for six weeks for the writing gig of a lifetime. But what is it they say? Don’t meet your heroes? Charlie Yates doesn’t want to write with anyone—much less “a failed, nobody screenwriter.” Worse, the romantic comedy he’s written is so terrible it might actually bring on the apocalypse. Plus! He doesn’t even care about the script—it’s just a means to get a different one green-lit. Oh, and he thinks love is an emotional Ponzi scheme.

But Emma’s not going down without a fight. She will stand up for herself, and for rom-coms, and for love itself. She will convince him that love stories matter—even if she has to kiss him senseless to do it. But . . . what if that kiss is accidentally amazing? What if real life turns out to be so much . . . more real than fiction? What if the love story they’re writing breaks all Emma’s rules—and comes true?

Expected June 11, 2024

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Aaaand I might have gotten misty-eyed when Right Where We Left Us by Jen Devon showed up in my inbox. Set in the same world as Bend Toward the Sun, which was my favorite read of 2022, I’ve been waiting very impatiently for this romance.

Synopsis:

Perfect for fans of Carly Fortune and Lucy Score, Right Where We Left Us is a searing and unforgettable romance

Temperance Jean Madigan and Duncan Brady have never gotten it right. After one radiant, secret summer together when they were eighteen, they’ve been on-again off-again ever since. Now, despite red-hot chemistry and TJ’s closeness with Duncan’s family, they’re virtually strangers, only capable of adversarial banter, awkward small talk―and the occasional messy hookup.

When a wedding at the Brady’s vineyard lands TJ there for the summer, their mutual avoidance strategies prove impossible. The last thing TJ wants is to be under those angsty, heated glances Duncan thinks he hides. And for Duncan, having fiery TJ constantly close is the ultimate distraction that he absolutely can’t afford. When forced proximity begins to chip away at their armor, buried tensions resurface, old wounds urge confrontation, and once-in-a-lifetime love demands one last chance to finally get it right.

Expected June 18, 2024

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I enjoyed Kaylor’s debut Long Story Short, so when I was invited to read her next novel, The Calculation of You and Me, I was happy to accept.

Synopsis:

A calculus nerd enlists her surly classmate’s help to win back her ex-boyfriend, but when sparks start to fly, she realizes there’s no algorithm for falling in love.

Marlowe Meadows understands a lot of things. She understands that calculus isn’t overwhelmingly beautiful to everyone, and that it typically kills the mood when you try to talk Python coding over beer pong. She understands people were surprised when golden boy Josh asked her out and she went from weird, math-obsessed Marlowe to half of their school’s couple goals. Unfortunately, Marlowe was surprised when Josh dumped her because he’d prefer a girlfriend who was more romantic. One with emotional depth.

But Marlowe has never failed anything in her life, and she isn’t about to start now. When she’s paired with Ashton Hayes for an English project, his black clothing and moody eyeliner cause a bit of a systems overload, and the dissonant sounds of his rock band make her brain itch. But when she discovers Ash’s hidden stash of love songs, Marlowe makes a desperate deal to unleash her inner romantic heroine: if Ash will agree to help her write some love letters, she’ll calculate the perfect data analytics formula to make Ash’s band go viral.

As the semester heats up with yearning love notes and late nights spent with a boy who escapes any box her brain tries to put him in, Marlowe starts to question if there’s really a set solution to love. Could a girl who has never met a problem she couldn’t solve have gotten the math so massively wrong?

Expected June 18, 2024

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Book HookUp Books

My winter Book HookUp subscription box from The Strand Bookstore also arrived in December. Both of the books I received were new to me, but sound like good ones! Included in my box were:

• Didn’t See That Coming by Jesse Q. Sutanto
• Bright Red Fruit by Safia Elhillo

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Amazon First Reads

In January, Amazon Prime members got to pick two books. I chose Mayluna by Kelley McNeil (published on Feb. 1, 2024)—which sounds very much in the vein of Daisy Jones and The Six by TJR. It has great reviews so far. I also chose a novel by Dean Koontz—an author I always enjoy reading—called The Bad Weather Friend (published on Jan. 23, 2024).

How was your reading month? Let me know in the comments!

Happy Wandering!