And just like that January 2022 is over. Done. Finished. On to the next month of the year. Sometimes it feels like time passes by so quickly. Which reminds me of a recent episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation I recently watched. In it Data times how long it takes for a kettle of water to boil in an effort to understand why his human crew mates feel that time moves slowly or fast. But I digress…on to the monthly recap!
Book Reviews
I posted our book reviews in January. From earliest to latest I reviewed:
- Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan
- A Land of Never After by R.L. Davennor
- The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa
- Skin of the Sea by Natasha Bowen
Book Memes and Other Posts
I posted five book-related memes:
- WWW Wednesday: January 12, 2022
- First Lines Fridays: January 14, 2022
- WWW Wednesday: January 19, 2022
- First Lines Fridays: January 21, 2022
- WWW Wednesday: January 26, 2022
I also posted a variety of other bookish posts including:
- Top 6 Reads of 2021
- Bookish Year in Review: 2021
- Bookish Goals for 2022
- 2022 Support Book Bloggers Challenge: 10 Shout Outs
That’s a total of 13 blog posts, which ties January 2022 with December 2021. There must be something about the cold weather that makes me more productive than usual…oh wait, yes, the cold. Which keeps me inside. So far it’s been a cold winter with multiple nights in the teens, sometimes as low as 12 Fahrenheit!
Other Book-ish Progress
I set some lofty goals for myself this month considering I’m not a fast reader. I’m motivated to get through my backlog of NetGalley approvals. I’m happy to say I met all of my goals, which included reading and writing reviews for all of the books listed above. I also set a goal to finally write my review of Half Sick of Shadows by Laura Sebastian and finished that on Sunday night.
Unexpectedly, I read and wrote three extra reviews for Field Notes on Love by Jennifer E. Smith; To Bleed a Crystal Bloom by Sarah A. Parker; and Castles in their Bones by Laura Sebastian. That brought my total reads in January to six, which is fantastic for me.
I also started reading two books this past weekend. The first is The Broken Heart of Arelium by Alex Robins. This read is for a blog tour I signed up for with The Write Reads. The second book I started is The North Wind by Alexandra Warwick. I looked through my NG account and realized I totally forgot to download this approval before the archive date. This means I missed my opportunity to read and review it on NG. I’m not sure why I missed it, but it is what it is. I felt bad, so I decided to read it on Kindle Unlimited and at least post a review here.
And that’s a wrap!
Currently Reading: Right now I’m reading an ARC via NetGalley of Castle in their Bones by Laura Sebastian. Apparently this has been sitting in my NG queue for a little while. I didn’t realize it’s by the same author who wrote Half Sick of Shadows, which I loved. This hits bookstores on February 1. I’ll probably finish it by then, but I don’t think I’ll be able to write my review and post it on the blog by that date. 
Recently Finished: The last book I finished is To Bleed A Crystal Bloom by Sarah A. Parker. It’s not the first “dark fantasy” I’ve read, but it’s certainly the darkest. I loved it. Right before that I finished Field Notes on Love by Jennifer E. Smith, which is a YA “meet cute” type romance. I wrote my reviews for both of these books, but just need to decide when to put them in the blog queue.
Reading Next: I’m either going to keep reading The Cicada Tree by Robert Gwaltney, or start The Broken Heart of Arelium by Alex Robins. The latter is for a blog tour with The Write Reads, so keep an eye out for my review next month.