I kind of disappeared mid-year, eh? Let’s wrap things up in a literary sense.

First an foremost, a brief run down of my year in books:

I fell short of my 25 books goal.
I read 22- and I am more than halfway through 3 others. Oh well- ya win some, ya lose some.

**2025 reading stats**

Number Of Books You Read: 22
Genre You Read The Most From: Romance

1. Best Book You Read In 2025? Under the Whispering Door [Klune]

2. Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t? Typhoid Mary: An Urban Historical [Bourdain]

3. Most surprising (good or bad) book you read? Eden Undone: A True Story of Sex, Murder, and Utopia at the Dawn of WWII [Kahler]. I thought it’d be interesting, but I really loved it!

4. Book You “Pushed” The Most People To Read? I haven’t yet, but I will be recommending The Rebel Blue Ranch series [Sage] to every romance reader I know 🥰

5. Best series you started in 2025? Sequel? Best Series Ender of 2025? I read the final 2 Electra McDonnell books (Weaver) and started the Rebel Blue Ranch series [Sage]- I recommend both!

6. Favorite new author you discovered in 2025? Lyla Sage & Julia Kelly

7. Best book from a genre you don’t typically read/was out of your comfort zone? I love mysteries, but You Are Fatally Invited [Pliego] was a thriller, too. I enjoyed it regardless.

8. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2025?

9. Shortest & Longest Book You Read In 2025? 437 pages (First Time Caller) and 55 pages (All By My Elf)

10. OTP OF THE YEAR: This is hard because all the couples in the Rebel Blue series are fantastic… but I think Gus and Teddy might be my fav?

Alright, time for some graphs…

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Next up, here are my choices for Erin’s 24.0 book challenge, which began 01/01/2026.

Book Challenge by Erin 24.0

5 points | Freebie: Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here by Jonathan Blitzer
10 points | A title that begins with A, B, or C: The Book of Longing by Sue Monk Kidd
10 points| An epistolary book: Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
15 points | A book with a picture of a clock or the word “clock” in the title: The Brothers Hawthorne by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
20 points | A book with a strong father figure: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
20 points | A book from “Countdown #1 to #100 – Radio National’s Top 100 Books – ABC Radio National”: Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling
25 points | A book with an occupation in the title: The Intern by Michele Campbell
30 points | A book set in a school/academic setting: The Arcane Arts by S.D. Coverly
30 points | A book you added to your tbr because of this group: Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab
35 points | A biography/memoir/etc. about a person you know little about: Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman’s Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue by Sonia Purnell

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That’s all I’ve got for now. Next time I will post some reviews from 2025 that I never shared. Maybe. Hopefully. Probably…

-Aud