A good reading year

Retrospectives are more traditional at the end of the year than at the beginning, but here’s one anyway. I had a very good reading year last year—both numbers and contents wise. After publishing my first book in 2012, my reading dwindled, as I felt vaguely guilty if I wasn’t constantly writing. Reading twenty books a year was an achievement. But in 2015, I managed to read 58 books, a return to normal.

Goodreads Reading Challenge helpfully keeps track of everything I read, provided that I remember to add each book in the list when I start and finish them. I pledged to read fifty books last year, which I surpassed by eight books. According to their statistics, I read 22,954 pages, 396 on average. The shortest book I read was Brighter than the Sun by Darynda Jones in 115 pages, and the longest was Fool’s Quest by Robin Hobb in 768 pages. Of the books I read, the most popular among the Goodreads’ readers was Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier, which was read by over 70,000 readers, and the least popular was The Warlock’s Shadow by Stephen Deas, read only by 522 readers, which I find somewhat surprising, as it was a good book.

Not surprising, I read mostly fantasy. Only four books were something else, and those were mainly historical romances. I read books by my favourite authors like Nalini Singh, Trudy Canavan, J.R. Ward, and Janet Evanovitch, but I found many new names too. I finally had time for Ben Aaronovitch’s Peter Grant series. I read it all back to back and enjoyed it immensely. I can’t wait for the next book, The Hanging Tree, which will be published this summer. Another new name for me was Karina Sumner-Smith. I read the first book in her Towers trilogy, Radiant, and will read the rest this year. And I really liked Sally Green’s Half Bad, and Half Wild. The last book in the series is published this year too, so there’s that to look forward to.

The book I liked most was probably Fool’s Quest, although Rivers of London comes close too. The most disappointing read was Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher. I’ve loved everything he writes so far, but this one was clichéd and dull. The writer I’ll miss most is of course Terry Pratchett, whose last book The Shepherd’s Crown crowned my Christmas. The series that ended I’ll miss most is Finishing School by Gail Carriger.

Despite all this reading, I had a good writing year too. I published three books, The Croaking Raven, To Catch a Billionaire Dragon, and A Warrior for a Wolf. I also wrote a fourth book, Magic under the Witching Moon, that comes out this January. You can preorder it now.

Magic under the Witching Moon by Susanna Shore

Encouraged by my success last year, I pledged to read 55 books in 2016. I’ve had a good start already; two books read, although one of them is technically a no-finish—after two thirds I skipped to the end to see how it ends and decided it wasn’t worth bothering to read the rest. There are quite a few books coming up from my favourite authors, three already in January, so there’s a lot to look forward to. If you want to follow how I do and what I read, you can do it here.

The reading did cut into my blogging, so I didn’t post very often here. I’ll try to mend my ways, so keep an eye on this space. In the meanwhile, Happy New Year to you all!