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We’re almost ready for a new year and a new set of plans for Heart.Wants.Books. Virtual Book Club!  We have some ideas and we still welcome yours as the plans aren’t yet finalized.  If you’ve ever been to our Virtual Book Club, or wanted to come but couldn’t, we welcome your input in the comments below or our DMs.  Time, days, frequency, and titles are all up for discussion.  

Ashley IN MEDIAS RES

• Emma by Jane Austen
• Limitless: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, and Unlock Your Exceptional Life by Jim Kwik
• 30-Day Stay: A Real Estate Investor’s Guide to Mastering the Medium-Term Rental by Zeona McIntyre and Sarah Weaver
• A Year of Positive Thinking: Daily Inspiration, Wisdom, and Courage by Cyndie Spiegel

Nikki IN MEDIAS RES

• Emma by Jane Austen
• What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing by Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey
• Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table with Recipes by Shauna Niequist

Ashley FIN

• The Midwinter Mail-Order Bride (The Dead Lands #1; Mail-Order Brides #4) by Kati Wilde
• Three Nights Before Christmas: A Holiday Romance Collection by Kati Wilde
• Eight Cozy Nights (The Sublime #5) by Julia Wolf
• A Very Bossy Christmas (Very Holiday #1) by Kayley Loring
• Ice Planet Holiday (Ice Planet Barbarians #4.75) by Ruby Dixon
• Harry’s Trees by Jon Cohen
• Walking in a Witchy Wonderland (Stay a Spell #3.5) by Juliette Cross
• The Bookwoman’s Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson
• The Path Between Us: An Enneagram Journey to Healthy Relationships by Suzanne Stabile
• The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self Discovery by Ian Morgan Cron and Susanne Stabile
• A Treacherous Curse (Veronica Speedwell #3) by Deanna Raybourn 
• Resting Witch Face (Stay a Spell #5) by Juliette Cross
• Rich in Your Love (Tickled Pink #2) by Pippa Grant
• Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion by Gabrielle Stanley Blair
• The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters by Balli Kaur Jaswal*

Nikki FIN

• The Midwinter Mail-Order Bride (The Dead Lands #1; Mail-Order Brides #4) by Kati Wilde
• Three Nights Before Christmas: A Holiday Romance Collection by Kati Wilde
• Eight Cozy Nights (The Sublime #5) by Julia Wolf
• A Very Bossy Christmas (Very Holiday #1) by Kayley Loring
• Harry’s Trees by Jon Cohen
• Ice Planet Holiday (Ice Planet Barbarians #4.75) by Ruby Dixon
• Her Virtuous Viscount (Wicked Husbands #6) by Scarlett Scott
• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• The Bookwoman’s Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson
• A Merry Wicked Winter (The Wicked Winters #14) by Scarlett Scott
• A Treacherous Curse (Veronica Speedwell #3) by Deanna Raybourn 
• Rich in Your Love (Tickled Pink #2) by Pippa Grant
• The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin
• The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters by Balli Kaur Jaswal*

*FINI IN NOVEMBER

Darling readers, we’ve been very clear here at Heart.Wants.Books., December is for comfort reads.  We definitely respect that each reader defines comfort differently, and we’ve shared a bit in the past few weeks about what that means to us, and there is even more in the lists above.  Shocking no one, we find romance novels comforting.  Yes, there is a formula, yes we know how it’s going to end, more or less, and while some of you may not enjoy that, we do, and we don’t yuck on the yum of other readers.  

This month, I finished my year long adventure of The Happiness Project and I’m glad I finally did, having purchased this paperback way back in 2012.  It was definitely inspirational, but also really ambitious (the project, not my reading about it).  I think my favorite part was how all the little changes added up in the end.  A happiness project isn’t something I’m planning to undertake, but especially looking towards the new year in a few short days, I think there is potential for some start small energy a la The Lazy Genius Way.  We’ll see what comes up in the next few weeks, as I’m holding the start of the year very loosely with respect to all potential goals that aren’t reading related.  

I don’t want to dive into my romance reads this month, but I will say all were three or four star titles.  As a reminder, three stars, to me, is “meets expectations,” and truly while I want to read stellar books that I adore or want to reread again and again, they can’t all be that, so I’m truly satisfied with a three star title, and do recommend them.  I do want to talk a bit about Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, which has been on my holds list long enough to be on page 9 (yes, I still have hundreds, and holds bankruptcy is on the table, but it’s not a problem for now).  This nonfiction work was quite interesting and also not what I expected.  Written by a Native American scientist, it blends ecology with the culture of Natives and discusses how nature has been affected since the colonists.  Kimmerer shares how she’s learned from other Natives, practices she inherited, and how the land has fed her family because of those practices.  This book was a great introduction to all of the above and has given me a new perspective on agriculture, shared lands, and how important the historic culture of the land we inhabit is for its future.  

Lastly, I want to discuss darling Veronica!  A Treacherous Curse (Veronica Speedwell #3) by Deanna Raybourn was everything I wanted it to be!  Having read the preceding books in the series, which I highly recommend, I can definitely say I’ll be getting around to the rest of them eventually and very much look forward to spending more time with Veronica, Stoker, and all of their acquaintances.  If you’re interested in spending time discussing these two, don’t forget to let us know so we can factor that into our Virtual Book Club plans!  I also want to mention, these books are a great introduction to historical mysteries.  They’re cozy, snarky, and have a modern feel because of the main characters, while being decidedly set in Victorian England.

What titles have brought you comfort this season?

~Nikki 

What do we love?! Books! When do we read?! All the TIME! then Ashley has no respect for tomorrow…And that’s the short story of how I read 128 books this year (and counting) with 14 of them this month and 3 more set to be finished before midnight on the 31st. Those 3 may or may not be the ones that are currently In Medias Res, BUT, at least one of them will be. Let’s talk about that one!

A Year of Positive Thinking: Daily Inspiration, Wisdom, and Courage by Cyndie Spiegel has not been as interesting as last year’s book, The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday. Yes, the affirmations and reminders to be kind to myself were great, but I didn’t feel as connected to reading the book daily as I had last year. There were several weeks, and one or two months, where I skipped the daily readings. I have played catch up but I will not be re-visiting this book anytime soon. I think had I had it in dead tree form instead of a kindle book I would have been more likely to read it consistently. (Which is weird to say since my copy of The Daily Stoic is digital and I didn’t have much struggle with that one!) I do think that my priorities shifted this year and I will not be renewing that type of daily reading goal in the future, but I’ll have that figured out by our goal setting post next month.

This month I went on a little enneagram journey of reading with The Road Back to You and The Path Between Us. They had both been on the TBR for a while and were great comforts as I learned more about the Enneagram personality typing system and what motivates my number and the number (and possible numbers) of my family and friends. My darling book buddy is a 6 and I am a 1, but I learned it is estimated that half of the world’s population is a 6! That’s really interesting to know and a really good way for the other numbers to go about relating to others in the real world. If you know that you’ve got a 50/50 chance of the person you’re talking to being intrinsically motivated to do what calms their fears, just knowing that communicating and educating about all the risks involved in a scenario is the right thing to do. As an Enneagram 1, I am motivated to do the right thing no matter what, so now I know how I’m going to try to communicate from now on!  If you’re even a little interested in personality typing and how your type navigates the world in relation to the others, I highly recommend The Path Between Us. I do recommend both, read them in order (meaning The Road Back to You first), and enjoy the 453 pages in total. You might enjoy it more if you can savor it, reading one chapter/type a day rather than having no respect for tomorrow like I did… Do as I say, not as I do, etc etc.

Nikki and I read some differing romance comfort reads this December, and the holiday ones we buddy read were definitely meets to exceeds expectations. Three and four stars all around from me. Our Kindle Unlimited subscription ends mid January and I’m not looking forward to having to get my spicy books from the library again. Those holds lists are brutal. Definitely ask us for recommendations for any book, as we prefer our books pretty high on the scoville scale.

I just can’t wait to start talking 2023 book goals, so stay tuned to our favorites from 2022 and then reading goals posts next month!

~Ashley

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