Crazy to think that a quarter of the year is over already!

I’ve been absolutely loving blogging so far this year, I seem to have found a good rhythm and I don’t find it a chore, which has been an issue for me in the past. I think a big reason for that is being able to have a good outline as to what I’m going to be posting each quarter and those posts not being on a very strict timeline. One of the big reasons for that is participating in The Romanceopoly 2025 Challenge, it gives me an outline for content every quarter and is making me pick lots of different or new to me books. I think I’ve been in a bit of a reading rut the last couple of years, I became way too dependent on rereading. This challenge is really shaking things up for me and I’m so glad I decided to participate.

One thing I’ve not been great at so far this year is blogging about more than just books. I have managed to post my monthly photo journals but not much else. With the way things are going with a lot of the major players in social media I want to start moving away from sharing things there. I really would love to stop using social media altogether but I dunno, I may need some kind of mental health professionals to help with that. 😀 It’s so unhealthy, and the misinformation people share, and lap up, is so gross. I know ignoring it won’t help fix all the things these social media empires have broken but I hate being part of the problem!

So going forward I hope to post a bit more about everyday life, travel, recipes, musings, tv shows, podcasts! A bit of whatever strikes my fancy I guess, and things that bring me joy in these dark time, I would just like to mix it up a bit! We shall see how it goes, I don’t want to upset my current momentum either!

Speaking of books, lets look at my quarter one book blogging:

Book numbers:

I always set my yearly reading challenge to 52, I don’t like to set it too high because my personality is such that I know focusing on numbers would take the fun out of reading for me, this has happened in the past. Now, my personality is also such that I enjoy completing challenges, so I pick a number that I want to read no matter what and it’s a number I know won’t take me too long, and then I feel extra accomplished when I get there. Reaching the goal before the end of March has a symmetry to it that makes my Virgo heart happy. Now I’m going into quarter two with 56 books in the bag and only a handful of those were rereads. I mean this makes 2025 a successful reading year already! 😀

Moving forward, we are coming into a busy social time in quarter two so I’d be happy with reaching 80 books read by the end of June. Anything more than that would be the cherry on top.

Romanceopoly update and what’s to come:

As I’ve mentioned already, I’ve been loving this challenge, it’s helping with keeping things fresh, knocking some books off the tbr, and provides content for the blog. Details of the challenge can be found on my pinned blog post: Romanceopoly — 2025 Reading Challenge.

The posts for quarter one, Frostwood Village are:

Winter (Frostwood Village): January 1 – March 31

Holi Dates (optional prompts)

Honestly love creating my collages for these reviews (just to note, all the photo’s, aside from the covers, are sourced from free stock photo sites such as Unsplash) and I love having actual reviews on the blog.

Next up in Romanceopoly we move into Blossom Falls for the Spring season, I have some really fun books lined up for this quarters prompts and I can’t wait to get stuck in.

The prompts for Blossom Falls are:

Spring (Blossom Falls): April 1 – June 30

(10) The Book Nook – read a book with a bookish main character (librarian, bookworm, etc)
(11) Butterfly Garden – read a book featuring a villain or morally gray character getting a happy ending (redemption arc)
(12) Farmers’ Market – read a book that involves food or a foodie romance
(13) Festival Barn – read a book about a musician or a rock star romance
(14) Blooming Acres Farm – read a book featuring a farmer or cowboy

Holi Dates (optional prompts)

(15) Sunset Picnic – read a new to you author or debut novel
(16) Parent Trap – read a book featuring a strong parental figure, including single dad or single mom romance books
(17) Lotus & Lei – read a book by an Asian American or Pacific Islander author to celebrate AAPI Heritage Month
(18) Spring Fling Pride – read a romance featuring LGBTQ+ characters or a book written by an LGBTQ+ author

I’ve more or less got books assigned to every prompt, I’m struggling to commit to Spring Fling Pride though, I read a good amount of LGBTQ+ books so I’ve lots to choose from but I’d like something a little different than what I usually fall back on for this prompt. Maybe something with a main focus on Ace rep or Bi rep, I need to do some proper investigating, I’d just like to read something that wouldn’t be my usual go to!

Other Challenges:

Even though I’m not spending much time on Goodreads these days, I do like the in app challenges Amazon are doing. The Kindle has these fun reading achievements, they are a little stressful and don’t take audiobooks into account though, my audiobooks are in Audible so you would think that these things would be all linked up, but seeing some of the distain Amazon social media has had towards audiobooks lately I guess it’s not surprise they aren’t linked.

Goodreads also has it’s own reading challenge going on and I’ve found it really helpful for picking up books that I’ve had on my tbr but I tell myself I’m not ‘in the mood’ for. This challenge doesn’t run on the quarterly schedule, this first group is January to April. I’ve read four of the six prompts so far, I love that you have to read one of the suggested books to complete the prompt. So far I’ve read:

Buzzy Books – Icebreaker (Maple Hills #1) by Hannah Grace
Essential Reader – This Could Be Us (Skyland #2) by Kennedy Ryan
Sweet and Spicy – The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston
Her Story – I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

Next up is:

Epic Quest – to read: The World We Make (Great Cities #2) by N.K. Jemisin
Era Explorer – to read: The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

I’m participating in a challenge on Storygraph, the ✨TwentyOffMyShelf 2025✨challenge, I’ve read 16 out of the 20 so far. I may need to find something similar once I’ve completed this challenge as it’s another great challenge for tackling that tbr!

Also read three books from my own Non-fiction reading 2025 challenge, all three posts listed below. That challenge now has seven participants which I really was not expecting and I am so happy about.

I think this was a great first quarter and I’m looking forward to what’s to come.