In 2023, my Goodreads reading challenge was set pretty low. I set a goal of just five books for the year because I knew I was going to be spending a lot of time working on my own books, and also reading (and rereading) my critique partners’ WIPs. These WIPs are fabulous books, but they couldn’t officially count toward my reading challenge since unfinished works don’t have pages on Goodreads.
In the end, I only completed one full book to count toward that reading goal: Skylark in the Fog. And what a great book it was! Also very thicc hehe. I’m also 60-some% of the way through The Lost King, which is by Margaret Weis and is the first book in my favorite book series of all time, Star of the Guardians. I probably won’t be able to complete it before the 31st but we’ll see.
I’ll be setting a similar reading goal for 2024, but let’s assume for a moment that I’ll have loads of reading time. What do I hope to read in the coming year?
Once I’ve started a series, I have to see it through, though with Star of the Guardians I know the story well enough that I don’t have to read the books back-to-back anymore. So, at the very least, I hope to (re)read King’s Test.
In 2023 I had also started reading Newsletter Ninja: How to Become an Author Mailing List Expert but put it down partway through. I have a love-hate relationship with newsletters and don’t really know what to do with them, so I had hoped this book would provide some guidance. I didn’t really feel like it had done that in the portion I read, but in 2024 I plan to pick it back up and finish it. Hopefully the unread portion will hold the guidance I’m looking for.
I also have an unread book lingering from 2022. It’s an anthology called Chosen by an Alien, and I was reading stories from it at random rather than trying to plow through the entire anthology all at once. I don’t expect to finish this book in 2024 but it would be nice to read more of it and put up reviews of the story(ies) I do read.
What else do I hope to read in 2024?
As of this writing, there are 139 books on my Goodreads TBR. Of those, my most anticipated read is Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao, which comes out on April 30. Iron Widow was a wild, fantastic ride and I’m really looking forward to seeing how the story progresses.
I’m also looking forward to The Maleficent Faerie by Rebecca F. Kenney. This is a “spicy fae Sleeping Beauty retelling” where Maleficent is male. Sleeping Beauty is one of my favorite fairy tales (Beauty and the Beast beats them all though) so I’m excited to see what the reimagining looks like and what fun twists Rebecca has put in. And just check out that cover!
After that? There are so many books to choose from! I will let the Random Thing Picker choose for me, if I get that far.
What did you read in 2023? What books are you hoping to read in 2024? Let me know in the comments!
Update:
It’s Christmas Eve, and other than laundry I actually had nothing to do today, so I spent the day reading. Imagine my surprise when it turned out I had enough time to actually finish The Lost King as well as Newsletter Ninja! When I picked Newsletter Ninja up again I discovered I had only six pages to go (so why I never finished at the time, I’m not sure, but here we are). So, woohoo! I’ve completed 60% of my challenge, and this is much more pleasing than the paltry 20% I was at when I wrote this post this morning. Heh.
So what to read next? It’s time to let Random Thing Picker have its say! I have a text document with my entire TBR listed in it for this exact purpose!
And the winner is…
Star Nomad by Lindsay Buroker!
The blurb for this book is as follows:
The Alliance has toppled the tyrannical empire. It should be a time for celebration, but not for fighter pilot Captain Alisa Marchenko. After barely surviving a crash in the final battle for freedom, she’s stranded on a dustball of a planet, billions of miles from her young daughter. She has no money or resources, and there are no transports heading to Perun, her former home and the last imperial stronghold.
But she has a plan.
Steal a dilapidated and malfunctioning freighter from a junkyard full of lawless savages. Slightly suicidal, but she believes she can do it. Her plan, however, does not account for the elite cyborg soldier squatting in the freighter, intending to use it for his own purposes. As an imperial soldier, he has no love for Alliance pilots. In fact, he’s quite fond of killing them.
Alisa has more problems than she can count, but she can’t let cyborgs, savages, or ancient malfunctioning ships stand in her way. If she does, she’ll never see her daughter again.
Fans of Firefly and Star Wars should enjoy this fun, fast-paced new series from USA Today best-selling author, Lindsay Buroker.
This one sounds like a fun romp, though I’ve just discovered this book is part of a massive series. We’ll see if I get hooked enough to want to read it all!
I don’t read as much as I used to–as much as I really wish I could. I did finish a couple non-fiction books this year mostly dealing with the Hittites (as they’re loosely a base for the society in my current WIP). I read the first book of the Winternight Trilogy then accidently spoiled the second and I really didn’t like what was coming so it’s been relegated to the space where reading material is only when I forget my cell phone ^^; I read “Road to Neverwinter” (a novel that takes place before the Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” movie). Other than that I don’t think I read anything else…
I bought several books this year though–does that count?
I’m hoping once I get the final first draft written for current WIP I’ll maybe settle down and read a few of the books I’ve been planning to for the past several years–I really want to make myself sit down with Bone Ships (RJ Barker), City of Brass (S.A. Chakraborty), and Legends and Lattes (Travis Baldree) this year. Also on the list of hope to read is Star Bringer (Tracy Wolff).
We can always hope that 2024 is a better reading year!
Legends & Lattes is on my TBR! I’ve heard a lot of good things about it.
The nonfiction books you did read still count! I got a load of books this year, mostly from sales and free promotions. Will I ever have time to read them all? Who knows!
‘Legends & Lattes’ and its prequel ‘Bookshops and Bonedust’ are two of my all-time favourite books. Doesn’t hurt that the author is a really nice guy.