This past month has been extremely stressful work-wise. It slowed down a bit towards Thanksgiving. Thank goodness. But I expect things will get hectic again very soon. The good news is I'm reading again because I'm not as stressed out as I was at the beginning of November. I have a whole list of books I want to get to. It's just making it to the weekend so I can actually read them.
In this wrap-up,
I’ll list the books I read, the books I reviewed, the books I bought/received,
and my TBR for next month. Now, let’s get this bookish party started!
Books Read in November
I only read three books in November. This is like the third month that that's happened. It sucks. I need to get back into reading. The books I own sound so good, but for some reason, reading has been giving me such anxiety lately. I think it's that relaxing when I could be doing something else like cleaning or exercising is messing with my head. I need to stop that. Reading is joy, and joy is health. The other tasks will be completed in due time. But anyway, two of the three books I read were physical copies. Kind of. And both of them were 2024 releases, so I didn't read any books from my pre-2024 TBR. Lame. Legend of the White Snake by Sher Lee was my first read of November. It was fun, but I think I'm going to get rid of the book. It wasn't what I'd hoped for. Bloodguard by Cecy Robson also wasn't what I hoped for, but it was still a good time with decent worldbuilding, so I'm keeping it. Now, technically, I ended up finishing Bloodguard as an ebook because I visited my parents' house and didn't bring my physical copy with me, but I read most of it via the hardback. And lastly, I have a Kindle Unlimited ebook, A Sword of Shadow and Deceit by Lucinda Dark, an ApollyCon author. I just finished book two today and started book three, so that should tell you if I like the series or not.
Books Bought/Received in November
Well, this is just disastrous. I spent more money in November than I ever have before on books. And it wasn't by a small margin. Now, there is a pretty good place to lay the blame, so I'll explain that in a bit, but just know that this is insane... In total, I bought 48 books in November and received 22 that I didn't pay for in the month, which basically means they were preorders/books ordered in prior months. Altogether, 41 of the books actually made their way to me in November, and 29 were just preorders.
The 22 books I received, were primarily subscription box orders and B&N orders from the end of October that arrived in early November. I guess FairyLoot, Bookish Box, and Arcane conspired to send all of my preorders/sub books at once, because whew. It's a lot. From FairyLoot, my October subs arrived, The Coven by Harper L. Woods and Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy, along with the Crowns of Nyaxia duology by Carissa Broadbent and the last three books in the Vampire Academy trilogy by Richelle Mead. From Bookish Box, my Daevabad trilogy preorder arrived, and from Arcane, the first two books in Melissa Roerich's Lady of Darkness series arrived. In October, I'd also ordered a copy of A Light in the Flame from Pango and the first five books in the Blood & Ash series from Mercari to use for my extra dustjacket sets. From B&N, I had two A Shadow in the Ember B&N exclusive copies arrive as well as Rachel Gillig's One Dark Window and Two Twisted Crowns B&N exclusive editions.
This is where it gets ugly again. I bought sooooo much. However, the major bill won't come until we get to the preorders. My regular orders that were bought in November and arrived in the month of November include six books from B&N: Scorched and Onyx by JLA, The Traitor Queen by Danielle L. Jensen, The Relentless Legion by J.S. Dewes, Blood of Hercules by Jasmin Mas, and The Songbird and the Heart of Stone by Carissa Broadbent. It also includes the November FairyLoot Romantasy book, A Fire in the Sky by Sophie Jordan; the Wicked trilogy and the last two books in the Titan series from the JLA Shop; the last two books in the Pendragon series by D.J. MacHale from a Friends of the Library sale; a copy of A Light in the Flame from Pango; a FairyLoot edition of A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire from Mercari; and two books in Meg Cabot's Mediator series and one from her 1-800-Where-R-You series from Amazon. I might end up returning the 1-800 book due to it being regular paperback size and not mass market size. That's why it's not pictured.
My preorders for the month/books that haven't arrived yet include 29 titles. That's right, this is the part that destroyed my bank account. And the main culprit is the Zodiac Academy Luxe edition set that the authors, Susanne Valenti and Caroline Peckham were selling. It's all 14 books in the series, but the entire cost for the set was almost $800. Yikes! If those hadn't been included, my book total would not have been nearly as bad. However, there were a few other special edition preorders that contributed to the high budget. Those 12 other special edition preorders include FairyLoot's edition of Serpent Sea by Maya Ibrahim, Books for Days Crate's Covenant set for books 1-5, Arcane Society's Bridge Kingdom set for books 1-4, and LitHaven's Spark of the Everflame set for books 1-2. I also have one Amazon regular book and one JLA Shop order for two books that should arrive in the coming days. Oh, and technically, I'm on a payment plan for the Arcane and Books for Days editions, but I never know how to really count those, so I usually just put them in the month I ordered them.
That's right. I'm still on my Law & Order: Special Victims Unit binge. I usually only watch it when I'm eating or when I have it on in the background as I'm typing. But I also managed to watch a couple of other things. Those include Hidden Figures, the 1960's Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the two Christmas Chronicles Netflix films, and the Hot Frosty Netflix movie about the snowman that turns into a real guy. I watched the Christmas movies with my parents, well, really my mom. My dad was asleep or doing other things while they were playing. Most of the films were rewatches except Hidden Figures and Hot Frosty. I'd never seen those before.
December TBR
The TBR has changed very little, so I'm going to use the same picture from last month, even though I've already read Bloodguard. Overall, I need to finish The Prince's Poisoned Vow by Hailey Turner and Salt in the Wound by Sierra Simone. I started these a couple of months ago and never picked them back up even though I want to finish them. I also need to read and review The Bound Worlds by Megan E. O'Keefe and Dragon Rider by Taran Matharu, which has been on my to-review list for months now. Oops. And then Fear the Flames is a mood read that can be replaced by whatever else I throw in to try to reach 50 books read in December. I'm at 42 right now, so I think I can make it.
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Okay, well, that's the month of November, plus some December sneak peeks, all wrapped up into one post. Do you have a wrap-up post for last month? If so, share in the comments!
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