Half-way through January and I’m just now making the time to get my January wrap-up, well, wrapped up. So without further ado….
Books & Book Reviews
I read a total of eight (8) books. This is a good number for me as my average is six books a month. I was off work for a little over two weeks so that allowed for plenty of extra reading time. Of those, one (1) was paperback and seven (7) were eBooks.
The links below are either to the review on the blog or Goodreads. You can also find most of the reviews on my Bookstagram account. If there is not a link the review is pending and hopefully I’ll get to it soon.
- The Rise and Fall of Miss Fannie’s Biscuits byWanda E. Brunstetter & Martha Bolton Amazon |Review
- My Grumpy Boss Valentine by Em Tate Amazon |Review
DNF
This is something I never thought I’d do, I shut a book in the first chapter and wrote the author an apology note but let her know I wasn’t going to read it. I’m choosing not to state the book or the author because what I did read was very well written and engaging. It was just not as clean as I like my books. She did advertise it as a fade to black book but I wasn’t expecting the amount of raciness in it from page one. It made me go back and update my Closed Door Romance Bookstagrammer Form to a clean and wholesome category of 1. Just my personal preference.
I also had a second DNF for a book that just wasn’t my cup of tea. Again, I don’t wish to post the author or the book just because it was not a book I found enjoyable. If there were something inherently wrong with either of these books, I would include that information but that was not the case with either of these.
Top Posts
I’m still not paying attention to SEO but each month my pageviews increase. January pageviews were 1,412. This brings the average monthly total to 737 pageviews per month. This is an important number when applying for book tours so I need to track it if I want all the best books.
The top five posts by page views are:
- Ambush on the Ranch by Tina Wheeler: Author Interview & Giveaway 230 views
- My Most Anticipated New Releases: January–June 2025 125 views
- Forget Me Not by Juliann Dove: Book Spotlight & Giveaway 125 views
- The Hunted Heir by Jayna Breigh: Book Review & Giveaway 98 views
- 2025 Bookish Goals 84 views
Bookstagram
I’m slowly losing interest in Bookstagram and just using it as a place for some book tours but to also highlight things here on the blog. It’s too much work to keep both the blog and Instagram going when I have a full-time job. I prefer blogging so I’m trying to put in more effort here. With that being said, Instagram continues to grow despite my dialing back the effort. We’ll see if that holds true in February as I continue to back-off Insta more and more.
- Views: 14,189
- Interactions: 2,199
- Total followers: 1,482
- Top posts: (views shown in black)
Instagram referrals to the blog increased to 11. Still slow-going for the referrals but better than Pinterest. Of course, I’m horrible at remembering to put my posts there.
Yarn Tales
I did not make any progress in knitting. I’m working on larger projects which is typical for me. I’ve also given up on crochet for the time-being. With two projects on my needles an all the reading I am doing, I’m feeling a little overwhelmed right now. I’m not sure when things will improve on this front but I’m trying to get to a point where all my hobbies (reading, blogging, fiber arts) are more balanced.
- Knit: 1 – just a typical wash cloth. We always need those.
- Crochet: 0
- Loom: 0
- Other: 0
Well, that’s a wrap on this wrap…up. Happy reading!
How was your January?
Carla's Book Crush 
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