Hello!

In my third ever month of making a tbr, I’ve made it nearly two weeks into the month and only finished one book (that wasn’t technically on the list!) so I thought writing out a plan of how I very much will definitely be able to read the remaining eight books in under three weeks will absolutely happen (positive energy and all that).

Whilst I thoroughly enjoyed Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, here are the actual books on my tbr that I ‘need’ (I say ‘need’ – is there any real consequence if I don’t?) to read this month:

• Wind In The Willows – Kenneth Grahame
• A Game of Fate – Scarlett St Clair (Hades x Persephone 1.5)
• A Game of Retribution – Scarlett St Clair (Hades x Persephone 2.5)
• The Last Devil To Die – Richard Osman (Thursday Murder Club #4)
• Legendborn – Tracey Deonn
• Wildfire – Hannah Grace
• A Study In Drowning – Ava Reid
• Cleat Cute – Meryl Wilsner

So, as of writing this, I have approximately 40 pages left of Wind In The Willows and I’m hoping to finish that tonight (future Sophie update: I didn’t, I fell asleep but finished it the following morning! One down, seven to go). Tomorrow night, my husband is away with work so there is a real chance I will end up snuggled in bed at 8pm and stay up too late reading so I’m hoping to get a good chunk of A Game of Fate read (future Sophie update: I was meant to go to the theatre but the show was cancelled, but I drove an hour to Milton Keynes anyway cos I’d reserved a book for collection at Waterstones, so I got over two hours of audiobook listening in and was home by 7.45pm – win-win really!).

Then this weekend, I don’t want to jinx it but I currently have no plans, so I’m hoping to power through my to do list with enthusiasm and spend a long cosy afternoon finishing off A Game of Fate (remember: we’re going for optimism here). On Sunday I may be taking a last-minute trip to see some of my family who live two hours away, so that’s a solid 4 hours of audiobook time which should take me to approximately the 70% mark on The Last Devil To Die.

Whilst my brain is telling me I should follow A Game of Fate with A Game of Retribution (and depending on how it ends, I might really want to), my gut wants a bit of light, contemporary romance and I’m not sure whether I want to read Wildfire or Cleat Cute. So let’s just say hypothetically I pick one and finish it by the end of the week.

Then next weekend, my husband is away on another work job (he works in live sports so he goes away most weekends) so I think I will treat myself to a few days of listening to and reading Legendborn in bed as I have both the audiobook and a physical copy. Is this book nearly 19 hours long? Yes, but over three nights I’ll probably be able to finish it… at 1.5 speed it’s only 12 hours and 36 minutes so that’s only 4 hours and 12 minutes if I listen to it over three sessions… without falling asleep… optimism…

Which leaves A Game of Retribution, a bit of The Last Devil To Die, the other contemporary romance I didn’t pick and A Study In Drowning in the last week of October…

In that week I have another trip to go to Bournemouth to cat sit for my sibling, so I will almost certainly be able to finish The Last Devil To Die on that drive if not before. After my contemporary romance and Legendborn I’ll be ready for A Game of Retribution, so let’s say I speed through that in the first half of the last week of the month. Then I can definitely read a contemporary romance in two days… right? They’re designed to be binge-able and when I get back from Bournemouth I have another empty weekend (hopefully it stays that way) so I can probably finish A Study In Drowning by the time Halloween rolls round on the Tuesday.

So there it is – my very realistic plan on how I will finish my tbr by the end of the month, considering in the first 12 days of the month I have finished precisely one (1) book.

Having reading as a hobby is entirely about delusion anyway – we kid ourselves daily about finishing our physical tbrs, staying on a book buying ban and promising to read everyone’s recommendations, yet here we are!

Thank you for taking time out of your tbr to read my ramblings,

Sophie xx