UPDATE – October Reading Challenge: Booktober Reading Bookish Bingo!!

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I unfortunately did not get bingo this month. I still had a ton of fun reading – I especially loved the bingo board for this month (see below). I wish I had been able to devote more time to reading – then I’m sure I would’ve been able to get bingo! Maybe next year.

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2019 Book #78 – Twice in a Blue Moon by Christina Lauren

51Dy0VzNVYLTitle: Twice in a Blue Moon
Author: Christina Lauren
Date finished: 10/15/19
Genre: Contemporary romance
Publisher: Gallery books
Publication Date: October 22, 2019
Pages in book: 366
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: NetGalley
NOTE: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Unhoneymooners and the “delectable, moving” (Entertainment WeeklyMy Favorite Half-Night Stand comes a modern love story about what happens when your first love reenters your life when you least expect it…

Sam Brandis was Tate Jones’s first: Her first love. Her first everything. Including her first heartbreak.

During a whirlwind two-week vacation abroad, Sam and Tate fell for each other in only the way that first loves do: sharing all of their hopes, dreams, and deepest secrets along the way. Sam was the first, and only, person that Tate—the long-lost daughter of one of the world’s biggest film stars—ever revealed her identity to. So when it became clear her trust was misplaced, her world shattered for good.

Fourteen years later, Tate, now an up-and-coming actress, only thinks about her first love every once in a blue moon. When she steps onto the set of her first big break, he’s the last person she expects to see. Yet here Sam is, the same charming, confident man she knew, but even more alluring than she remembered. Forced to confront the man who betrayed her, Tate must ask herself if it’s possible to do the wrong thing for the right reason… and whether “once in a lifetime” can come around twice.

With Christina Lauren’s signature “beautifully written and remarkably compelling” (Sarah J. Maas, New York Times bestselling author) prose and perfect for fans of Emily Giffin and Jennifer Weiner, Twice in a Blue Moon is an unforgettable and moving novel of young love and second chances.

My rating:  3.5 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. Also I’m reading this book as part of my October Bookish Bingo Reading Challenge, checking of the “a book that kept you up all night” box because I was up until 3am reading this book – I didn’t want to put it down until I found out what happened.

I just love Christina Lauren and their novels. There are a number of them that I was absolutely crazy for, including Love and Other Words and Josh & Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating. They write so seamlessly together that it’s hard to tell that it is two authors composing a novel together. While this novel was still a great read, it was not my favorite of their novels. I just didn’t get as emotionally attached to these characters as I usually do. I think part of my problem was that the whole book was in Tate’s point of view. And while that was relevant to many pieces of the book, it didn’t really allow us to see enough of Sam’s inner thoughts and how wrecked (I’m hoping) he was when he saw her again as an adult. I can understand why he ended up making the decision he did in London but it still was just awful. Only hearing her point of view made it a little harder to forgive Sam later on. And I also had a little trouble with their later life romance since it wasn’t as well developed as their first relationship. I didn’t feel like I knew Sam enough as an adult. When they did come together the chemistry exploded off the page and just set everything on fire but there wasn’t as much of an emotionally connection. I still really enjoyed it and I didn’t want to put it down, it just wasn’t one of my favorites of theirs. I’d still definitely recommend it!

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

October Reading Challenge: Booktober Reading Bookish Bingo!!

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Ahhhhh I love book bingo reading challenges! And combined with my OVERARCHING love for the Halloween Holiday and all things (lightly) spooky, I am so excited about this reading challenge this month. Work will be busy for sure but I’m hoping to get a lot of reading done still. Anyways here is the Bingo sheet for this month, courtesy of Bookish:

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Can’t wait to dig in and get reading! I’ll check back in at the end of the month on how my bingo sheet turned out. Happy October everyone!

2019 Monthly Status Update: February

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February was a fun month for the most part but also involved a lot of work time. I tried to read as much as I could, and I really enjoyed being able to participate in the bookish bingo challenge this month! So anyways, here are some highlights from February for me:

Monthly Stats:
# books read this month: 9
# pages read this month: 3,059
# books read year-to-date: 16
# pages read year-to-date: 5,176

Favorite Books I Read this Month:

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Was a re-read but this is one of my all-time faves! Now You See Her by Linda Howard 4.75 stars

Other Posts this month:

Romance Novel Bookish Bingo
The Duke of Distraction BLOG TOUR!!
It’s Getting Scot In Here BLOG TOUR!!

Next Month TBR List:

-It’s Getting Scot in Here by Suzanne Enoch
-The Time Traveler’s Guide to Modern Romance by Madeline J. Reynolds
-This Scot of Mine by Sophie Jordan
-Kingdom Cold by Brittni Chenelle
-Beautiful Bad by Annie Ward

February Reading Challenge – Romance Novel Bookish Bingo – Wrap Up Post!

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Here’s how I did on my February Bookish Bingo Reading Challenge! I can’t post the titles of all the books since some of them were ones I’m judging for the New England Readers’ Choice Awards and I can’t talk about them until after the finalists are announced. I was still trying to stick with my reading schedule and tried to fit them into the bingo card where I could, so I didn’t end up getting bingo unfortunately. If I’d had a little more time for reading I might have been able to manage but it’s a busy time at work right now! I still had fun participating in the reading challenge though, I can’t wait for the next one!

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2019 Book #11 & #12 – Romantic Re-reads!

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As part of my Bookish Bingo reading challenge for February – I decided to go back and re-read a couple of my all time favorites. 

51MIUFVflXL._SX294_BO1,204,203,200_My Nerdy Valentine by Vicki Lewis Thompson

Finished 2/12/19, 3.0 stars out of 5 stars, Romance Novel Bingo “Geeky Lead” box

This book was published back in 2007 and I’ve had it in my library since about then. VLT has been one of my favorite authors since I discovered her back when I was in high school. She wrote a number of books in her “Nerd Series” and while this one wasn’t one of my favorites, it was a good re-read for Valentine’s Day. I struggled a lot in high school with being a “nerd” and this book was one of the first to really help me understand that there is someone out there for everyone, whether you’re cool or a nerd. This is definitely a steamy series, though this read in particular is probably one of the more “tame” of the set. With an underlying mystery, it was a great read to get into the Valentine’s spirit. My main issue with the book is that I honestly just can’t stand Gloria (Amanda’s boss), she is WAY too aggressive for me. Overall though this is a cute read, I’d recommend it – though there are others in the series that I’d recommend first I think!

51pbplI+NrL._SX314_BO1,204,203,200_Now You See Her by Linda Howard

Finished 2/16/19, 4.75 stars out of 5 stars, Romance Novel Bingo “Your Fave Romance Author” box

Linda Howard is one of, if not my top, favorite author. I can re-read her books time and again and continually get the same thrill from reading them. This book has always been one of my all-time favorites of hers, and I’m super glad I got a chance to re-read it for Valentine’s Day this year. This was one of the first books I read by LH and probably one of my first forays into romantic suspense. And even though this book was written 20 years ago, it is still as great today as it was then. Some books that I read from the 90’s or before can be outdated, with heavy handed alpha characters and wilting heroines. This book definitely has an alpha hero – Richard is just about as alpha as they get – but he also respects and listens to his heroine. I think I probably read this book in high school too, and it created a love of alpha heroes for me, but more than that it instilled the idea in me that alphas don’t necessarily have to overpower their heroines but instead can work as a team. This is a great read and I’d highly recommend it!

February Reading Challenge – Romance Novel Bookish Bingo

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So as part of my 2019 Goals I wanted to participate in some Bookish Bingo reading challenges for certain months, one of which was February! And (exciting news!) I just checked and Bookish is doing a Romance novel book bingo in addition to their regular reading bingo for this month. Which is great for me since I end up reading a lot of romance, and also I’d love to focus on romance novels during the most romantic month of the year (allegedly)! PLUS I’m still helping to judge novels for a Romance Reader’s Choice Awards, so those will all count towards my bingo! My biggest challenge I think is going to be finding time to read outside of work – February is going to be (excuse my French) a shit-tastic month for my work schedule this year and I may have to enact my “sleep budget” schedule in order to get my reading done. I’m really looking forward to participating in this month’s reading bingo though!

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Bookish Bingo: Holiday 2015 Reading Challenge – Recap

The last few months literally flew by. I definitely wasn’t able to focus as much on this challenge as I might have liked to but hey, life gets in the way. I had done another of the Bookish Bingo reading challenges during January-March 2015 and had such a blast that I wanted to do it again. Unfortunately this time around I was trying to make my already scheduled ARC’s fit into the necessary categories instead of picking books specifically for the reason that they fit into the categories, I think this is where I went wrong.

Anyways, Bookish Bingo is hosted by Pretty Deadly Reviews and there is already a Spring 2016 card up so if this interests you definitely go sign up! Its lots of fun! And here was my original post when I signed up for the Holiday 2015 bingo. Below is my filled out Bingo card and a list of all the books I read for this challenge!

Capture

RomanceA Match For Marcus Cynster by Stephanie Laurens
Multi POVTiny Little Thing by Beatriz Williams
FantasyBefore the Claiming by Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia
2015 Realease You MissedToo Close to Home by Susan Lewis
Time TravelReturn of the Witch by Paula Brackston
Free SpaceThe Restaurant Critic’s Wife by Elizabeth LaBan
ThrillerThe Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
One-Word TitleNookietown by V.C. Chickering
White CoverThe Things We Keep by Sally Hepworth
RetellingMirror Mirror by Gregory Maguire
2016 DebutTry Not to Breathe by Holly Seddon
Start a New SeriesDown the Wormhole by Ana Franco
Blue CoverIn Real Life by Jessica Love

 

Bookish Bingo – Holiday edition!

I have singed up to participate in the Bookish Bingo reading challenge! This challenge is hosted by the Pretty Deadly Reviews blog and will run from December 1st, 2015 through the end of February (of 2016). I participated in a Bookish Bingo earlier this year and had so much fun with it I wanted to do it again! I though that this is such a creative idea, combining reading with a game! I am very excited to do this reading challenge again, especially since it helps me to complete one of my goals for 2015 (one reading challenge per quarter)!

So here is the bingo card:

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I’ve been working a lot and with the holidays coming up I’m not sure I’ll be able to read as many as I did last time I did the challenge but we’ll see how it goes! The host site has some great recommendations for each of the categories if any of my readers are also interested in participating!

Happy reading everyone!

Bookish Bingo reading challenge – Wrap up

 Bookish Bingo

Well this wasn’t the neatest arrangement (below) but I am still learning! So above is my bingo card, completed as much as possible. I’m really pleased with how well I did! I think that if the contest hadn’t been during tax season I would have had a very good chance of completing the whole card! I was able to check off all but five of the squares. Below is each of the books I read, which square they checked off, and if you click on the cover it will bring you to my review on the book. I had a lot of fun with this reading challenge, and I would definitely like to play a game of book bingo again. The three month reading challenge is a little tougher for me since there are so many other challenges and goals I’m trying to reach this year that I decided to set aside to work on the bingo challenge for this quarter. Definitely a lot of fun though and I tried a lot of books I probably never would have read otherwise. There are many different sites that have some form of book bingo, and I would definitely encourage everyone to try it!

2014 Release You Missed

2014 Release You Missed

Free Space!

Free Space!

Pink Cover

Pink Cover

Blue Cover

Blue Cover

Graphic Novel

Graphic Novel

Middle Grade

Middle Grade

Over 400 Pages

Over 400 Pages

Forgotten Fridays Pick

Forgotten Fridays Pick

Mystery or Thriller

Mystery or Thriller

Fairy Tale Retelling

Fairy Tale Retelling

Romance

Romance

Based on Mythology

Based on Mythology

Start a Series

Start a Series

Epistolary

Epistolary

Magical Realism

Magical Realism

Pretty Dress Cover

Pretty Dress Cover

2015 Debut

2015 Debut

Gold Lettering

Gold Lettering

Mental Illness

Mental Illness

POC MC

POC MC