Happy New Year to all of our readers, family and friends. I hope that you had a relaxing and restful festive season.

This wrap up is going to cover both December and my wrap-up for the year… that’s going to be interesting.
December was quite a slow month for me but that does not come as a surprise. I think in the end I did better than I thought I would but still not as well as I would have liked. It also means that I didn’t quite make my Goodreads Challenge total for the year, but I did smash my Australian Women Writer’s Challenge 2016 total so I’ll take that as a victory.

Total Books I read in December: 5
4 Female authors/ 1 Male author
0  Children’s books
5 Fiction novels
5 print/ 0 digital
Books in a series: 1 – technically only 1 but The Diabolic has since been picked up for an extra 2 books and Crazy Busy Guilty is a follow on.
5 stars on Goodreads: 2
4 stars on Goodreads: 3
Books that qualify for AWW2016: 3

December saw me read only 5 books, time got away from me with graduations, end of school year, Gift Guide, Christmas and social functions so in the end 5 books is pretty good; and they were pretty hefty reads some of them.

All of my reads were 4 and 5 stars so it is hard to pick a favourite. I think my favourite would be Daintree for it’s Australian setting and environmental awareness building, but Crazy Busy Guilty is also a fantastic look at life.

Least favourite is one I won’t choose considering there was nothing under 4 stars.

I managed to get through all that I had to for the month and that’s about the best I could hope for. Two books were blog tour reads and two were book club which means only one that I picked up because it came across my desk and grabbed my attention. Hopefully I have time for a few more of them in the upcoming months. There are already some reviews up for The German Girl and I look forward to hearing what our readers think of Crazy Busy Guilty.

2016 Wrap-Up

This one is going to be difficult because I have never looked at this before…

Total Books I read in 2016: 96 (according to Goodreads – this doesn’t include ones that aren’t on the site or my Advent Calendar books with the kids.)
90 Female authors/ 6 Male author
5 Children’s books
69 print/ 27 digital
Books in a series: 31
5 stars on Goodreads: 40
4 stars on Goodreads: 52
Books that qualify for AWW2016: 65

Well that was difficult to keep track of, I think one of my reading resolutions this year will need to be keeping better records for the wrap-ups.

The 5 children’s books aren’t an accurate reflection because it only includes the ones I read for review, not the ones I read with my children for pleasure.

I have seen a lot of Top Ten posts today and I know that Anna wants me to try and incorporate that here but it’s SUCH a difficult decision….

But here they are in no particular order, with their review links.

The Dry – Jane Harper
Outback Sisters – Rachael Johns
Walk The Edge – Katie McGarry
It Ends With Us – Colleen Hoover
A Torch Against The Night – Sabaa Tahir
All Is Not Forgotten – Wendy Walker
The Three Miss Allens – Victoria Purman
The Art of Keeping Secrets – Rachael Johns
Blame – Nicole Trope
The Other Side of the Season – Jenn J McLeod

The next thing is to start thinking about goals for 2017, and I don’t know that I’m ready for that yet. We have a huge year approaching so I’m not sure what effect that is going to have on my reading routines.

I would like to be a little more organised, keep on top of what’s coming in and what’s due and what I have to get read and reviewed.

I think I’ll drop my Goodreads Challenge total to 90 so that I don’t feel so much pressure but I will keep my #AWW2017 total at 50 because Australian Women Writer’s are a large percentage of my reading these days.

The other goal I have is to make some time for the pile of books I bought that I really wanted to read…. and are all still sitting in a pile waiting for me to get to them. I think some of them are pre-last Christmas and the most recent is the new Anne Rice that I picked up with a Christmas voucher yesterday. I’m sure there are others that are sitting in separate little piles as well but those I have grouped and in sight so I can’t forget them.

Perhaps I can try to read one of these a month, that would get me there. But it will depend on what wonderful titles come across my desk.

We would love to offer fantastic and diverse book clubs each and every month along with interesting blog tours and author interviews.

What are your reading goals for 2017?

And more importantly did you find any exciting books underneath your tree this Christmas?

Happy New Year and all the best for a fabulous year of words.