On the Shelf: December 2024

I'm sliding in the December reading list a day late. Since I did two other year-end posts, I think a little tardiness is acceptable. My count this past month is eligible to vote. Eighteen books! That brings my total for 2024 to 261. I kept making jokes throughout the year that reading this much was an unhealthy coping mechanism and that I might need an intervention, but it's actually the exact opposite. Joyfully consuming this many books meant my brain was open—that I had actual energy to read. There's been a steady climb as my mental health has improved due to the right combo of meds and therapy. I ended 2023 with 187 books. The year before that was 155. And 2021 was the absolute mental health pits, so I celebrated somehow getting to 100. I say it a lot—books save lives. But more than that, they keep us living.

To that end, I will cop to rereading Exit, Pursued by a Baron on Dec. 31 because I needed a mega-dose of comfort-via-angst. I'd read the book for the first time earlier in the year. I reached for it again because I needed it. Aydra Richards' fourth book in the series, A Deal With a Notorious Devil also hit the spot for me—as unerrringly as Chris's aim. How can you resist a book where the ne'er-do-well male lead chucks oranges at the heroine's unwanted suitors? I gobbled up two incredibly charming historical romances by new-to-me author Kat Sterling, too. You know how you buy more than one of a cute outfit in different colors? That's how I feel about finding a good author. I immediately want to read more of the same. I cannot wait to see what Richards and Sterling have in store for readers in 2025!

The Reading Rundown
The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter (contemporary romance, mystery)
Return to Wyldcliffe Heights by Carol Goodman (gothic, mystery)
Make Room For Love by Darcy Liao (contemporary queer romance, f/f romance)
A Deal With a Notorious Devil by Aydra Richards (historical romance)
Exit, Pursued By a Baron by Aydra Richards (historical romance)
Tiny Threads by Lilliam Rivera (horror)
His by Opening Day by Kat Sterling (historical romance)
Snowed in With the Scoundrel by Kat Sterling (historical romance)

Backlist titles & rereads: I started December off with an old favorite—A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant and ended up circling back to Grant's A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong a few weeks later. I was in the mood for something dark and bonkers, which meant a revisiting of Ritual Sins by Anne Stuart. I then climbed into my Kindle library to refresh my memories of Evernight, Soulbound, and Forevermore by Kristen Callihan. Soon enough, I returned to new-to-me titles—like The Viscount's Inconvenient Temptation and The Earl's Holiday Wager by Theresa Romain (which were previously published as Season for Temptation and Season for Surrender) and The Werewolf of Whitechapel by Suzannah Rowntree. I wrapped up my year in backlist books with something that wasn't romance—gasp!—Red Widow by Alma Katsu.

Currently reading: If I Told You, I'd Have to Kiss You by Mae Marvel and The Perils of Pleasure by Julie Anne Long.

On the TBR/ wish list
No Ordinary Love by Myah Ariel
Ready to Score by Jodie Slaughter
The Lotus Empire by Tasha Suri