Monthly Reading Wrap Up -- April 2016

April was a month strewn with more reads than I have had so far this year, and mostly because I had a lot of enjoyable reads despite some disappointing pre-hyped notions. April was a month about my first foray into reading an entire series of historical fiction and finding it quite charming in spite of all the things I didn't like about it. April was also a month of great books read: The Forbidden Wish, Heather Wells, The Raven King!!!.

April has also been quite a productive month for me in terms of lots of things. And then maybe not so much other things.

And April also revived the mini-book-club-buddy-read that my BFF in real life and I had tried to attempt two years ago--it had been short lived even if it had been quite fun and exciting. And now we're starting once again.

April has been a pretty good month to me.

April Reads

Books Dropped/Put On Hold

None this month! Yay!

Currently Reading

Size 12 and Ready to Rock by Meg Cabot

Written In Red by Anne Bishop

April Reading Stats

Total works read: 16

13 full length novels
3 novellas

Average rating: 3.5 Stars

Highest Rated: The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater // 5.0 Stars
Lowest Rated: 2 works // 2.5 Stars
- (1) Dark Road to Darjeeling by Deanna Raybourn
- (2) Silent Night (novella) by Deanna Raybourn

Series I started reading:

Quincy & Rainie by Lisa Gardner
Harmony (a.k.a. Ghost Hunters) by Jayne Castle
Haunted Home Renovation by Juliet Blackwell

Series I completed:

Mann Family by Kate Brady
Lady Julia Grey by Deanna Raybourn
The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater

Series I have made progress on:

Heather Wells by Meg Cabot

Favorite reads: This is a no-brainer, right? The Raven King is KING!

Oh yes, and I also enjoyed The Forbidden Wish as well--it was an exceptionally written retelling of Aladdin with a lovely twist and a sweet romantic story that didn't feel tedious and a very likable and kickass main female character! Cheers!

Disappointing reads: I'm not entirely certain if there was an evident disappointing read for the month of April To be totally honest, I could say that the Lady Julia Grey series was a bit of a disappointment, but at the same time, it wasn't as if I didn't enjoy them. In fact, aside from one (or maybe three) ongoing frustration(s), I actually DID enjoy the books and all of the characters started to grow on me--so much so that I sought out the accompanying series novellas to round off my reading experience.

Reviews & Notable Posts

Reviews Written

Memes

Coming Up In May

Tentative TBR

Other Stuff

In the month of May, I'm hoping for a little more productivity. For instance, I'm planning on participating in May's Bout of Books Read-a-thon--in which case, it will be a fun week. I have the urge to rush to the library to pick up more books, particularly in line with the series I'm trying to finish reading, or catch up to the most recently published book available.

My BFF and I are starting in on Juliet Blackwell's cozy mystery series (Haunted Home Renovation Mystery and Wiitchcraft Mystery) as part of our May monthly book club reads, but as we don't exactly have a schedule or a structure for our buddy read, we're going to just go with the flow and see where reading these books take us. Mainly, we're interested in reading cozy mysteries, a genre that is new to her, a genre that I'm vaguely familiar with.

Following, I decided to start picking up Jayne Ann Krentz's large, interwoven Harmony and Arcane Society series--I recently discovered that, as I have Second Sight on my Reading Assignment TBR, it would be a good idea to also follow along with the related series by JAK, written as Jayne Castle and Amanda Quick. I've already started in with the Harmony (also known as Ghost Hunters) series, as the publication timeline starts with it first. Because I'm a little strangely OCD about reading books in specific ways. So I'm hoping that I'll be able to pick up After Dark and After Glow (the first two books in the Harmony series) before I get to Second Sight... even though I could probably read all of these books in stand-alone fashion... at least until later books in the crossover worlds.

On a more personal front, I wish could make more plans for may, but as it is the beginning of summer, everyone and their neighbors are going to start planning vacations and taking weeks off. I'm no exception, obviously, but I just know that this is going to be the beginning of a very busy summer.