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 90 WordPress followers, 8 email followers, and over 1000 followers on social media, thanks to an ad I placed on Facebook promoting my blog! The blog itself had over 500 views this month, over a hundred more from May! More people visited my blog last month than before as well, with over 200 people from 21 countries 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.
I’m looking forward to this month and seeing what it brings! Thanks for joining me on my journey!
Valerie's Musings 