After a push in December I managed, barely, to meet my personal reading goals again for 2019. It’s not the books’ fault, I hit a “slump” for much of the summer and autumn. Well, not really a slump as I
wanted to read, I just often didn’t have enough mental energy.
I had picked Carla Neggers as my auto-buy author I was woefully behind on. So I read all 24 of the books of hers from her backlist I hadn’t yet read as well as the two new releases she had. The main reason I’d picked her is that I thought I would be able to accomplish the big goal of
completely finishing up my print TBR pile.
Alas, I forgot I had already shelved the big stack of old Jayne Castle/Jayne Ann Krentz/Stephanie James category romances back when I first moved here. They are in the “back row” behind some other books and I had them listed in a special section of my TBR in Word…and well, honestly they slipped my mind. So my goal this year is to truly make it through my print TBR. I have 27 of her books to go. I should note that I still won’t have read everything by her as there are 7 of her rare books, including the titles she wrote as Jayne Bentley, that I do not own. Plus she has two new books coming out this year as well.
I went "shopping" again in Calibre (via cover view) and picked ten “must read” books for 2020. I’ve done this the past few years and it’s a fun way to get to some books which I was eager to read when purchased but have languished on Mount TBR.
I picked a mix of other books from my TBR for various reading challenges I made up. I like setting goals in conjunction with these challenges because it offers me a wide variety of books to suit whatever mood I'm in and I can easily switch out a book if I decide to DNF something. Having goal books/authors and loosely “scheduling” books to read has helped me to read more from my TBR. And since I don't add nearly as much it these days I'm actually seeing some progress
I did well with only buying books I planned to read right away this past year unless they were on sale. I really missed being able to use the free codes to get Harlequin and Carina books directly from Harlequin. I’m still waiting on them to apply the books I sent a receipt for in October to my account there (even if I haven’t been able to use any of my points I am still accumulating them). They’ve been really slow about applying points this year and it won’t surprise me at all if they discontinue their reader rewards program in the near furture.
I dropped several more of my autobuy authors. For Christine Feehan I am going to wait to get her next GhostWalker book from the library. I haven’t read her Leopard series since book #4 IIRC (though I have them all in Mount TBR) and have zero interest in the motorcycle club spin-off of the Drake Sisters. She was one of the first paranormal authors I ever read, so the “breakup” with her has taken longer than it would have for many other authors. I was excited to see Cindy Gerard will finally have a new release after nearly four years. Sadly, It’s a KU book so I will wait until when (and if) it gets a wide release before I buy it.
My most eagerly anticipated books for 2020 are
- The Fate of the Tala by Jeffe Kennedy (Uncharted Realms #5)
- Forever Strong by Piper J Drake (True Heroes #6)
- Chaos Reigning by Jessie Mihalik (The Consortium Rebellion #3)
- Deal with the Devil by Kit Rocha (Mercenary Librarians #1)
- More Than Neighbors by Shannon Stacey (Blackberry Bay #1)
Plus the usual JD Robb In Death and Nalini Singh Psy/Changeling Trinity books. I’m also hoping Reese Ryan will have a new Bourbon Brothers book out this year or the start of her Holly Grove Island series, but couldn’t find any info.
What are you all looking forward to this year?