It's Monday! What Are You Reading? and Mailbox Monday - Jan 1

Welcome to It's Monday! What Are You Reading? and Mailbox Monday.   

 

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a place to meet up and share what you have been, are and about to be reading over the week. It's a great post to organize yourself. It's an opportunity to visit and comment, and er... add to that ever growing TBR pile! So welcome in everyone. This meme started with J Kaye's Blog and then was taken up by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn at the Book Date.   

Happy New Year, everyone! Welcome to the first Monday of 2024. How long do you think it will be before you stop writing 2023 on everything?

I worked a limited schedule between Christmas and today, but by tomorrow I will be back focused on real estate. Spent some time getting organized for 2024 and need to finalize my business plan. 

During the break, I edited my NaNoWriMo project and sent it out to a couple of beta readers. Market research and query letter are next, so that once all the edits are done, I will have a plan for submissions. I also wrote my latest Love Comes Softly fanfiction story. That makes three. You can find them at Fanfiction.net if you're interested.

In my reading world, I finished this one, so my January 17th review will be on time. It is already posted on Goodreads if you want to read the review earlier. 

I finished the following middle grade book on Saturday. My review appears here. That will be my last read of the year. I read 70 of the planned 60 books. Not bad considering how busy work and life were in 2023. 

I need to add this one into my reading schedule. 

As usual this time of year, I do my best to organize my reading. I created my 2024 TBR spreadsheet. That list has 314 titles on it; some I owe reviews on, but most are books I've bought or won and want to read. 

My free Kindle book spreadsheet sits at 692 books. Some have been featured at Shelf Control (when I participated) or First Chapter Review. I also started eliminating books from my list that are no longer of interest or not available. I'll continue to whittle down the list this year, including my Goodreads list. My "Want to Read" list sits at 801. We both know that isn't happening. 

The Christmas Year Round blog got a slow start in 2023. While I posted a lot and promoted it, the traffic isn't outstanding. Book giveaways seem to be the most popular. That blog was on a break between Christmas and today, but tomorrow will feature a Christmas movie review.  

Upcoming virtual book tours:

• A Yellow House in the Mountains by Glenn Hileman - January 17 (review)
• Civil Twilight by Anique Taylor - January 23 (guest post)
• The Location Shoot by Patricia Leavy - January 31 (interview)  

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

An author contacted me about a new release coming in January. I downloaded the NetGalley copy of this one.

I reached out to the author of this next book and requested to read it. 

I'm sure we will talk more about 2024 in the days ahead and all our plans. Please feel free to share if you have already settled what you're doing. And if you're wondering what others are reading for their first book of 2024, you can check out Sheila at Book Journey's post here.

Wishing you all a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year!