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Ashley IN MEDIAS RES

• Pillars of Wealth: How to Make, Save, and Invest Your Money to Achieve Financial Freedom by David Greene
• The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk*
• Think and Grow Rich for Women: Using Your Power to Create Success and Significance by Sharon L. Lechter * 

*Ashley’s still waiting for these two titles to come back off hold at the library…struggle bus.

Nikki IN MEDIAS RES

• Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass #5) by Sarah J. Maas
• Life Lessons from Psalms by Max Lucado

Ashley FIN

• The Naughty List by Jade West
• Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass #4) by Sarah J. Maas
• A Court of Sugar and Spice (Wicked Darlings #1) by Rebecca F. Kenney 
• How the Grump Saved Christmas by Claire Kingsley
• The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
• Ethan: A Billionaire’s Game Novel (Billionaire’s Game #3) by Samantha Whiskey
• A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell #4) by Deanna Raybourn
• The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory
• Pucking Ever After: Volume 1 by Emily Rath
• Pucking Ever After: Volume 2 by Emily Rath
• Pucking Wild (Jacksonville Rays #2) by Emily Rath

Nikki FIN

• Lady Brazen (Notorious Ladies of London #6) by Scarlett Scott
• The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Ordinary Days by Kate Bowler
• Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass #4) by Sarah J. Maas
• Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope by Esau McCaulley
• The Silent Struggle: Taking Charge of ADHD in Adults by L. William Ross-Child M.L.C.
• How the Grump Saved Christmas by Claire Kingsley
• Lady Lawless (Notorious Ladies of London #5) by Scarlett Scott
• The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
• Lady Wicked (Notorious Ladies of London #4) by Scarlett Scott
• A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell #4) by Deanna Raybourn
• Runaway Love (Cherry Tree Harbor #1) by Melanie Harlow
• The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels (Dangerous Damsels #1) by India Holton

Technically we’ve waited for December’s Reading Life Review to occur when January 2024 is officially started and we here at Heart.Wants.Books. know exactly what our reading life looked like for the entire year. I’m over here taking 3 titles I started months ago and rolling them over on the In Medias Res section of my life because I’m struggling to get some of them off hold at the library, and another that I pre-order purchased is a collection of lessons that I have read multiple times from different authors repeated in another book. Sometimes reading the same thing in a new way is really helpful, but this time it’s just kinda boring. I’m hoping for a little more pizazz when I finally get to another section of the book.

During the holiday break I leaned-in to the Kindle Unlimited subscription that we signed up for during Black Friday deals week. I read some absolutely amazing and filthy smut and some pretty filthy smut. And some comfortable romance reads that some people would consider filthy smut. I wish I could have leaned-in to the holiday romance a little more as Nikki and I have done in years past, but, alas, it was not to be as we have the continuation of Maas-Distraction happening this season. I’m tickled pink that we were able to buddy read Claire Kingsley’s How the Grump Saved Christmas. It’s set in Tilikum, the same town as her Bailey Brothers series and upcoming Haven Brothers series and can be read either before or after book six in the Bailey series, Rewriting the Stars, just note that there are a few concurrent plot points. They’re romance novels, folks, we know how the books are going to end!

December was the third month in 2023 that I did not finish reading a nonfiction book. I’d like to state that I am constantly going between fiction and nonfiction but that sometimes it takes me a little longer to read the nonfiction because, and I can not state this enough, fiction is my stress release from the real world.

How are you going to focus on reading for pleasure in 2024?

~Ashley

Generally, I don’t mind rolling books from one month to another, but I 100% wrapped up three books on purpose the last week of December because I wanted them to be finished and to start the new year with a bit of a more concise in progress list.  I wasn’t letting them hang out for any particular reason other than fiction is just more comfortable than nonfiction, generally, which also helps Ashley and I distract / support each other’s coping mechanisms.  

I don’t have anything earth shattering to say about my titles this month, and that’s just fine.  They were all comfortable and that was my goal, so I ACHIEVED MY GOAL, GO ME!  Please darling readers, do not underestimate the value of a good enough, comfortable-to-you read during a stressful season or a season of refilling your cup (like the week between Christmas and New Year’s hopefully was for you).  There was a lot of that on my list this month, and likely will be again in January.  For anyone wondering, the Throne of Glass series (or anything by Sarah J. Maas) is likely not a comfort read the first time through, but 100% can be as a reread, and I forgot how fun the story in Queen of Shadows is and appreciate the reminder!  

I don’t want to sign off without mentioning The Lives We Actually Have.  I was heavily influenced to purchase this title and got a great deal on kindle, and I regret nothing.  This is literally a book of blessings for ordinary days, hard days, seasons of grief, and so much more.  I loved the weekly Advent blessings and definitely was looking at the table of content almost daily to see which blessing felt the most right for me to read over myself that day.  It’s almost up there with Matt Haig’s The Comfort Book, although I do appreciate the secular nature of that title more for some, and I might one day need dead tree copies of both!

What did you read and adore during this season of comfort reads?

~Nikki 

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