The Book Blogger Hop was originally created by Jennifer @ Crazy-For-Books in March 2010 and ended on December 31, 2012. With Jennifer’s permission, Coffee Addicted Writer relaunched the hop on February 15, 2013. Each week the hop will start on a Friday and end the following Thursday. There will be a weekly prompt featuring a book related question. The hop’s purpose is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, befriend other bloggers, and receive new followers to your own blog.
The Book Blogger Hop post images were created by Coffee Addicted Writer.
This Week’s Question
What inspired you to start book blogging? (Julie @ Stepping Stone Book Reviews)
Simply, I wanted to have access to a community of readers with whom to connect over recent reads.
Early in 2021 I opened my Kindle for the first time in several years and found the A Court of Thorns and Roses series on sale that day. I hadn’t read much in about a decade and felt the cold fingers of winter seeping into my mood. So, I thought, let’s read. Little did I know this would reawaken my desire to read. The second book in the series, A Court of Mist and Fury, left me with such a book hangover. I really wanted to talk about it with someone, but at the time no one I knew had read it. As a result, I decided to start this book blog!
Thanks to loads of advice from Carolin at Solo Travel Story to help me decide on a blog name, I launched A Literary Escape in March 2021. The book blogger community on Twitter has been so welcoming. There is such a vast number of amazing people out there who excitedly exclaim about books. It always puts a smile on my face. After nearly a year of blogging, I think I’m finally starting to get the hang of it.
Another reason I started book blogging was to improve my ability to summarize. While I feel I can synthesize well in my head, I find that I have a harder time expressing it verbally or in written format. So I use my book reviews as a practice ground for summarizing and communicating the main themes and my main opinions/thoughts of a book. In a similar vein, it helps me explore the English language better in that I try to 1) utilize synonyms to avoid repetitiveness and 2) be succinct. We are our own worst critics, but I think it’s helping.
Currently Reading: I’m still working my way through Culture Warlords by Talia Lavin. It’s a heavy read and I can only get through one chapter at a time before needing to switch to something lighter. I’m also reading Blood of the Lost Kingdom by Kristin Ward as part of a Write Reads blog tour. It’s the next book after 
Recently Finished: I recently finished reading A Dance With the Fae Prince by Elise Kova. It’s a stand-alone novel that’s part of the Married to Magic collection, which is based in the world of Midscape. I wrote my review for it a few days ago. I’m not sure when I’ll post it since I still need to post my review of the first book, A Deal With the Elf King. Yes, I am a little behind on posting reviews, but that’s honestly how I prefer it. It means I have a handful of reviews to pull from and post if I find myself overly-committed one week.
Reading Next: I decided that in March I need/want to get back to making progress on my NetGalley shelf. So I will finish The Cicada Tree by Robert Gwaltney. I also plan to read, perhaps simultaneously, The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna, which I checked out from the library.
Recently Finished: I recently finished reading Octavia Bloom and the Missing Key by Estelle Grace Tudor. I read it as part of a BBNYA blog tour hosted by The Write Reads. Check out my 
Recently Finished: The last book I finished was The Broken Heart of Arelium by Alex Robins. I mentioned in my last