YAY!!!!!! I’ve reached 100+ WordPress followers!!! 🙂 🙂 Thank you to all of you who follow my blog, reading it, and many of you are commenting now. I appreciate it! When I started, it was a way to have all of my book reviews and author interviews in one place. I had no idea if anyone other than close friends and family would follow, but here we are at 100+ followers just on WordPress alone!
Since I’ve started training for my new job, I haven’t had as much time to write blog posts as I’d like. I’m still trying to work on my room on the weekends, so that only leaves the little bit of time on the desk in the evening (depending on how busy it is) and the small amount of time between when I get home and when I go to bed.
I’m still reading up a storm, I’m just not getting as much time to post. I have two review posts started that will hopefully go up in the next day or so. I have a couple of blog tour posts coming up, so I’ll be making sure to get those up on time.
Bare with me during these next 2-3 weeks, as I’ll be quieter with less posts than usual. Once I’m all trained, I should be back to my normal posting schedule. 🙂
Greetings! Here we are at the end of another month! Where does all the time go?!?! I can tell that it’s summer though because I didn’t read nearly as many books as I have in the previous months of this year, which I knew would happen. During the summer I’m often working in my water garden or taking nature walks/nature photography, all kinds of things that take me away from reading as much. Consequently, I didn’t get anything on my backlist read this month. I did get one extra book from NetGalley done and two books that I read just for fun done on top of the blog tours and other reviews I had commitments for.
Let’s take a look at this month’s statistics! I’m excited about them because they’re moving up and up and that makes me happy!
Site Statistics
I’m excited about this month’s statistics. I’m up to 90WordPress followers, 8email followers, and over 1000followers on social media, thanks to an ad I placed on Facebook promoting my blog! The blog itself had over 500views this month, over a hundred more from May! More people visited my blog last month than before as well, with over 200people from 21countries visiting! I also had almost double the comments in June than I did in May!
I’m excited by all this because it means I’m doing something right and really have hit my rhythm and that makes me happy. Of course, I’m always looking for ways to improve my writing and my blog, the aesthetics and style as well as content.
What I Read/Posted This Month
As I mentioned above, I didn’t read nearly as many books this month, finishing only 10 books. However, those that I finished, I really enjoyed. 🙂 Here’s a run down on what I read and each book’s rating. Each cover image is linked to the book’s review.
4.5 to 5 star books
Once Upon A Spine by Kate Carlisle is the 11th book in the Bibliophile Mystery series. It’s the only truly 5-star book this month (sometimes I’ll mark 4.5 books up to 5 on Amazon and Goodreads).
The Frog Princess Returns by E.D. Baker is a wonderful addition to the Tales of the Frog Princess series.
Treble at the Jam Fest is the 4th book in the Food Lover’s Village Mystery series by Leslie Budewitz. I was thrilled to see this series make a come back with another publisher and it didn’t disappoint!
All Signs Point to Murder is the 2nd book in the Zodiac Mystery series by Connie di Marco. This was just a delightful, fun read. 🙂
The Witch & the Dead is the 7th book in the Wishcraft Mystery series by Heather Blake. This is one of my favorite cozy series and this one didn’t disappoint!
Stuck: The Penningtons Investigate is the 2nd in the series by C.T. Collier. I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to more in the series!
4 star books
The rest of these books were given 4-stars each! They were still fun reads and I still recommend them.
Other Posts
This month I did more than just book review posts. I had one author interview post, a book tag, something I reblogged from a fellow blogger’s site, and several posts on things that are happening in my life.
Looking Forward to July
July’s looking pretty busy. Here are some of the books I plan on reviewing this month.
This is a trio of middle grade books about each girl exploring either her own city or a city she’s visiting and learning about herself at the same time. I’ve finished the first two and am working on reading the third now. When I’m finished with the third, I’ll review all three at once.
These five books are books that I have committed to reviewing on specific days as part of blog tours or other review crew commitments. I’m looking forward to all of them!
These six (6) books are ones from my backlist that I hope to review this coming month. Four (4) of them are picture books and I’ve already started on “The Other Einstein” so I think it’ll be easily do-able to get them all done.
Finally, this book has been on my to-read list for a while now. Earlier today, Jay over at this-is-my-truth-now, stated that he was going to read it this month and was looking for someone to do a buddy read with him. I volunteered so we’re going to work out when to start and all that.
This is just a quick note to say that all of my review and spotlight posts should now have the Amazon Affiliate purchase link. I’ve been working hard on bring all of the reviews and spotlights up-to-date with that over the last few weeks.
All reviews should also have a similar format. When I started writing reviews, I never included a synopsis because I figured you can read that on Goodreads or Amazon. As I went on, I realized that I have some people who read my blog who may not be familiar with the books I was reviewing/spotlighting. I started including a synopsis here on my blog. When I post my reviews on Goodreads/Amazon/Barnes & Noble and other sites, I don’t include the synopsis, but here on my blog I do.
While I was updating the Amazon purchases links, I also put in the synopsis for the books. So now, all formatting should be the same.
I debated about this post for a few days. The first item on the agenda I definitely needed & wanted to let you know about. The second item, I wasn’t so sure about at first, but I decided to err on the side of caution. Part of me is saddened about having to include the second item, but part of me also believes in being honest with people in regards to things they may not like/be offended by/etc.
I have decided to join Amazon Associates. What that means is that if you really like a book you see on my blog and you click on the Amazon purchase link, I will get a small amount of money from the sale (avg of about 4% of the price). I am NOT planning on having a lot of Amazon ads on my page. There will not be a bunch of “in your face” ads that we all find absolutely annoying. Â But, if you click the Amazon link under “Purchase Links” and purchase the item from there, then I will receive the “commission”. Â Currently all new posts have this type of link. Older posts are being updated as I can get to them.
I have been branching out with my reading material. I know that I have several followers who have conservative beliefs. I’m not here to change your mind about things or ridicule you for your beliefs (nor will I tolerate comments from others that are hateful, ridiculing, or otherwise unkind). I am, however, going to be reviewing books that you may not wish to read about so please be aware of that.
I recently discovered a series of ebooks that are romance, but are not “traditional” romance. These are romance novels focusing on gay men and their search for their true love.
I also recently discovered a series of cozy mysteries where the main characters are a lesbian couple. I’m barely into the first book but I’m enjoying it so far.
I’ve also started reading more “banned & challenged books” which can have more controversial subject matter in them; that’s why they’re challenged and/or banned in the first place.
I’m happy to have a diverse crowd of followers and I’m willing to tolerate friendly debate on issues, but I will not stand for hatred or unkind comments and will delete them. If someone continues posting them, I will ban that person. I’m not a social commentary blogger. I’m a book blogger.