July Recap 2021

This month started in Aruba where the weather was perfect, the breeze was constant and I was reading books 6-8 hours a day while hanging out in or at a pool right on the water.

It ended in Boston where the weather has been for lack of a better term scattered-at-best: heat wave, a bunch of big thunderstorms, rain and under 60°F, foggy as hell, smoke clouds from the wildfires on the West Coast and Canada, I mean seriously!

No matter where I was, I read a lot of it. I mean sure the first 10 days were spent in a pool reading, but even since I got back I powered through quite a few more!

Books and Bookish Things
I very much enjoyed the time just reading and relaxing the first few weeks of vacation. And I’ve enjoyed the nonfiction books I’ve read this year and am somehow on track of a nonfiction book a month. AND I’ve made a huge dent in my TBR list compared to previous years.

In July, I finished 14 books; sure, six were MM Romances, five were young adult (mostly romances), but three of the other four were nonfiction or literary fiction and definitely took a lot more of my brain capacity than I’ve used in quite some time 😀

829. Out of Character (True Colors #2) – Annabeth Albert*
830. 10% Happier – Dan Harris
831. Center Court (Order of Play #1) – Brooke Edwards*
832. Jay’s Gay Agenda – Jason June
833. You’re My Home – Katie Moore*
834. Blackout – Marco Carocari*
835. Legendborn (Legendborn Cycle #1) – Tracy Deonn
836. Summer Kisses (Kiss Me #1) – Charlie Novak*
837. Fifty Words for Rain – Asha Lemmie*
838. Keeping Hope (Littleford Fowl #1) – Alexandria Redding*
839. Playing the Palace – Paul Rudnick
840. Saint-Exupéry – Stacy Schiff
841. The Sky Blues – Robbie Couch
842. One Man Guy – Michael Barakiva

I think the big win for the month was finally crossing Schiff’s Saint-Exupéry off my list. It’d been there for over a decade and was a fascinating read, but definitely not what I wanted to read at the time. I then immediately turned around and went overboard requesting/accepting about a billion (fact) galleys/ARCs. And these are the only ones I officially heard back from the author/publisher/publicist about:

• Up in Smoke (Hotshots #4) – Annabeth Albert
• Obie Is Man Enough – Schuyler Bailar*
• If This Gets Out – Sophie Gonzales & Cale Dietrich*
• An Unexpected Kind of Love – Stone Hayden*
• Before We Disappear – Shaun David Hutchinson*
• Under the Whispering Door – T.J. Klune*
• Mrs. Rochester’s Ghost – Lindsay Marcott
• Chasing Alexander – Christopher Martin*
• A Case for Christmas (The Lords of Bucknall #2) – J.A. Rock & Lisa Henry*
• The Midnight Lie (Forgotten Gods #1) – Marie Rutkoski*
• The Hollow Heart (Forgotten Gods #2) – Marie Rutkoski*
• Just Ash – Santana Sol*

And there are FOUR MORE I haven’t heard back about! Thankfully, many of the are published months in the future with the latest one so far approved not published until early-December.

Here are a few cool social media posts I found this month related to books. I love the sculptures, want to be the woman selling books, and will ALWAYS re-share the bookstore from thrown away books!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Colossal (@colossal)

https://t.co/vGTn9Hhmr7

— Sunny Skyz (@SunnySkyzOnline) July 21, 2021

What’s Next?
I’m mostly going to spend August enjoying no classes and a quiet time at work before things really kick off for the year. September is the start of quite a bit of domestic travel to see family we haven’t seen and classes start, and my work will pick up like usual.

As of the time this posts I have read books and scheduled reviews through the second week of August and have books planned out through the third week with many more lined up. That is one thing about all the ARC/galleys it that I have to read to/plan to publication dates. It’s kind of nice in that I’m just filling in the blanks, but that will mean I’m going to read a lot more MM Romance because they’re quick and easy and can be read in 24 hours or less.