Madyn Rose

The year-end wrap-up of all the books, the good the bad and the meh from the Ladywood Readers Club.

It’s that time of year again to reflect on what we accomplished, what we missed and what we plan to do for next year. This year I had many ups and downs and I managed to just squeak in my last read for my Goodreads challenge of 25 books. I know, 25 books isn’t even a lot, but last year I only read 16!

90% of the books I read through my Kindle and the others I had physical copies.

For the record, I do not do not listen to audiobooks. I have nothing against the audiobooks or their listeners. I just don’t have the ability to focus on them. It’s not for a lack of trying, but after a few minutes I’m distracted. I start thinking about all the things I need to do for my own book(s), or more often than not, mom-life hits, and I start making shopping lists, wondering what chores still need to be done or about 100 other things rolling around in my head. Then all of a sudden, I’m like wait what just happened? What did I miss? Did they just say that? And my attention ends up floating in and out of the book. I commend and admit I’m jealous of the people who have the attention span and can solely focus on the book their listening to.

Alright, back to my best of 2024. If you follow my Goodreads you can take a glimpse of all of the books I read for the challenge, or any other past books that may be lost in my blog archives.

I found that I enjoyed the themed reads this year, which was surprising as I don’t normally tend to lean towards them, but I read more books Sept-Oct and Dec then I did the rest of the year and that says a lot, because they were all great reads.

Now to be fair, I read a few Novellas this year. Radio Romance by Ariella Monti, Resting Scrooge Face by Meghan Quinn, Only Santas In The Building by Alexis Daria and Cruel Winter With You by Ali Hazelwood. Which helped me reach my challenge of 25 books.

My top 5

The Guest List by Lucy Foley. This was a great whodunit that had some intrigue and the plot twist actually surprised me. The character building and location descriptions were so well done it pulled me into the story immediately.

The Devil Made Me Brew It by Sarah Piper. This book was not only filled with fantastic characters, but the spice level and the halloween theme just hit right. I’d read this anytime of year!

The Christmas Fix by Lucy Score. Again another themed read and let me say it had some of the best enemies to lovers banter I have ever read. I absolutely loved the FMC and her take-no-shit attitude. And the spice… perfect! The whole story was fantastic. I struggled to put it down.

Until It Was Love by Pippa Grant. This one I liked from the very first page. A rugby story, her brothers nemesis (a.k.a the revenge date) and a thick moustache! I laughed out loud to so many spots and my favourite line of the year was when our leading lady stated that, “he is so handsome he could make women within a four block radius spontaneously ovulate.” I died.

Holiday Romance by Catherine Walsh. The characters and the story line were so freaking heartwarming and fun. This was a perfect travel/holiday read with some spice and the friends to lovers trope won me over. I devoured this one.

My almost made the top 5

How My Neighbour Stole Christmas by Meghan Quinn- First of all the cover?! freaking fabulous! The downfall was really the FMC, as much as I liked her towards the end, I found her annoying and the banter between the two was somewhat lacking. Especially on her part. I would have liked her a tad bit if she was feistier.

Nine Month Contract by Amy Daws. This was a longer read and although I really liked the storyline there was just something that was meh about the book. It is very spicy and the mountain men thing was great, but the FMC was so beyond stubborn I really wanted to shake her, lol.

80s Ghosts by VS Lawrence. This had all the elements of great suspense mixed with ghost hunting. The storyline about the highschool being haunted was fantastic, but it dragged in spots and the transcript reads were lackluster. It also felt like the subplot romance was tossed in when it could have been a bit more thought out or left out all together. But I enjoyed how it all played out and can we talk about the cover! That was one of my favourites.

Southern Spirits by Angie Fox. Okay, this book took me two starts to get into, but the second time around I really loved it! This was a toss up for me to be in the top 5 or not. The thing was the low-spice and the huge cast of characters. It was hard to follow at first, which is what threw me off the first time around. It’s also a huge series with this being 1/14 so it’s going to take me a while to see what happens with our leading couple.

These are still great reads, they each just had a little something I felt was missing.

The Novellas

They get their own category because it’s different then reading a full-length novel. I like a good Novella. It short, quick, to-the-point and makes me feel like I’ve accomplished a book in 1-2 hours! They don’t make up a ton of my reading space but they do come in handy when I’m time crunched like in this challenge.

I felt that Radio Romance and Only Santas In The Building had the best complete storylines considering the length of the book. They had some spice and lovable characters for the top spots.

I was sadly disappointed in Resting Scrooge Face as you all know Meghan Quinn is my favourite author, but I felt like there really wasn’t anything “scrooge-y.” I expected more grumpiness and bah humbugging despite it being a short book. I did LOVE the reference to Port Snow (the Getting Lucky series) as they are the books that got me into her, and I really love that made up town! I also found this book similar to her book That Swoony Feeling so if you want something full-length with similar vibes from Port Snow check that out or the whole series!

For 2025

It’s always hard to set a reading challenge. I want to be able to achieve my goal without stressing if I don’t make it. At the beginning of the year I thought 25 books, no problem and then by September I was like- wait, what I’ve only read like 15 books? Uh-oh. And the frenzy began.

For next year, I think I am going to decrease my goal to 20. I have a book coming out in March and really need to work on the next one after that. With keeping up with the blog and working FT I want to make sure I can balance without drowning as I frequently tend to take on too much and then stress over what I haven’t achieved.

For 2025 I’m going to make my resolution to try to balance more and put less stress, because my goal of being more organized to help with all that balancing failed in 2024. LOL

Overall

All of these books were great and I didn’t DNF any of them! Not that I’m a huge believer in that, but sometimes a book is just not for you. If you’re looking to add new reads to the ever growing TBR then check out some of these and as always join the Ladywood Readers Club by subscribing to the blog for my recommendations!

** All of these opinions and recommendations are my own and I am not in any paid partnerships nor am I being paid for these reviews**

Cheers to a New Year!

Don’t be greedy, go on a share with me with some friends!

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