May Reading Wrap-Up

I just realized I did a May Wrap-Up Instagram post but I never did a blog post and it's nearly the end of June.

I read 6 books total in May totalling just shy of 3,000 pages.  Two of them were ARCs and one was a re-read.  Overall it was a pretty good month, there was only one mediocre book.  

I started the month out with a very spicy, low stakes, contemporary, why choose The Ex-boyfriend Agreement by Krista Wolf.  It hit the spot.  

Next I participated in Mer-May with The Saltwater Curse by Avina St.Graves.  I loved that one and was not expecting what I got.  It had so much more depth than I anticipated getting from a contemporary monster Kraken-shifter romance.  It is a Hades and Persephone retelling and it was both absolutely hilarious and incredibly poignant.  It was by far one of my favorite reads this year.  

Hollow Huntress by Kathryn Breaux was next and that one was my mediocre read.  The concept was interesting; urban fantasy with Angels and Demons living among humans.  It was sort of a mafia romance with the crime families being made up of either Angels or Demons.  I did not become attached to either of the main characters.  I found the FMC particularly irritating.  The spice was exceptional and it was the only thing that got me to finish the book and it being an ARC.  While it wasn't my cup of tea, I can see how others would like it and it was well written so I still gave it 4 starts.  

Book four of last month was Accidentally in Motion by Aeva Vox.  It was an ARC and I went into it blind.  I loved it.  It was the first non-monster romance I've read of hers.  It was a contemporary, fake-relationship romance with some light BDSM, which I was not expecting, but found out I like.  The relationship that blooms between Whitney and Josh is lovely and I genuinely was rooting for them.  It was such a sweet book.  

Book five I read in anticipation of another ARC and I'm so glad I didn't realize I was signing up for a second book in the series ARC because I would have missed out on a truly amazing series of books.  A Requiem for Fallen Stars by Hazel S Wilkes was amazing in a rip-your-heart-out and stomp on it sort of way.  I sobbed like a child.  The characters have so much depth and trauma.  Watching the FMC work through her grief and become something so powerful was worth every tear.  It was a 6 star read for me.  I also bought signed physical copies of the whole series.

Last but not least, I re-read The Viridian Priestess by Katrina Calandra.  It's my favorite book of all time and Katrina was doing an anniversary read along of the book so I jumped on board.  I read it throughout the month in between the other books.  It's my third time through and I still love it.

I mentioned a few posts ago that I was looking into an app to keep track of ARCs.  I decided on ARC Library.  It's been working decently for what I want.  It is kind of clunky compared to say Storygraph but the developers are still working on it.  There are more features than what I'm using and all reads can be tracked with it, but it's not user friendly enough for me to entertain that idea.  Entering information for a book is much more tedious so I'll only be using it for ARCs for now.  I'm not opposed to finding something that suits me better in the future.  

May was a good reading month for me.  I found some new authors and very much enjoyed the journey, which is all I really want from these books.