Can’t believe January is already over! This year January seemed to fly by and I can’t tell whether that is a good thing or not! I managed to read more in January than this time last year but still not enough to satisfy my needs. However, January was also a stressful month for work and lots of things came up unexpectedly leading me to overthink situations instead of wind down with a good book.

I read 8 reads in January. 1 complete series and 2 books continuing 2 series.

January was dominated by ‘The Bonds that Tie’ series by J Bree.

This was a stellar series that ended well despite my disappointments. It almost got a full 30 stars but just missed out due to my opinions of the finale of book 6.

I also read 2 crime books, both respectively, part of different series.

Their Burning Graves by Helen Phifer (Detective Morgan Brookes Book 6)

Local Girl Missing by Lisa Regan (Josie Quinn Book 15)

Both these books got 5 stars. I feel like I was gate keeping 5 star reviews in January but really I’ve read so much now that I tend to stay away from books that would become DNF or 1 star reviews. A book has to be particularly lacking or disappointing to rate low in my eyes.

I generally review like this:

5 Stars – Everything was fantastic / I got what I wanted and more / I didn’t guess the killer

4 Stars – The ending didn’t match / I guessed the killer / characters were ooc / in-depth character povs

3 Stars – Little character development / smut over plot / killers that aren’t introduced to the reader

2 Stars – Love triangles / stereotypical genre plots / dystopian worlds / over-descriptive language

1 Stars – DNF / abysmal / no character development or evolving / crime without structure / ‘seen’ plot / predictability / and many more.

I’m already behind schedule writing this in February! Which is turning out to be a hectic month with not a lot of reading time! I hope that as the year moves forward, this monthly wrap up will become a longer post.