Changing Reading Plans

And now, we enter my reading in 2022! I didn't realise that taking a longer Christmas/New Year blog break would push my write-ups back. And I hope to hit the ground running with a bunch of reading that will show you guys where I wish/hoped to take The Pewter Wolf Reads this year. 

Alas, my first planned book of 2022 - Peril at End House by Agatha Christie - ended in me quitting/DNFing it at around the 50%. I do plan to go back one day (maybe as an audiobook) and I do have other Agatha Christies that I want to read. Plus, I had plans. I made reading plans (vague plans, more like musings if we're being completely honest with each other, dear reader) what of I wanted to read this year. I want to try and read the whole Sookie Stackhouse series (which I am planning to do! I just need to get past the first chapter of Dead Until Dark). I, also, have an idea over a series or two that I've started but not finished and I would like to go for it and finish this year (keeping these under my hat as I need to plan...)

But after quitting Peril at End House, I wasn't exactly wanting to stick my reading ideas for the next few weeks. I left a little deflated and a little run down. The last few books/audiobooks I read in 2021 were very meh/three stars reads. And because I had plans to read several titles throughout the course of January and February 2022. I had plans to read The Maid by Nita Prose, a Dan Brown novel (either Angels and Demons or Digital Fortress) and a few other titles that I planned to keep hidden as I like the idea of mystery on here (though if you guys follow me on social media, they won't be that much of a surprise!).

So, I decided (as I felt a little rundown and close to a reading slump) to read some short stories/novellas and, as it happened, one of the MM romance authors I follow through socials said she had a short story up on Prolific Work's MM Romance Group's 2022 Giveaway, and I went "Oooh" and downloaded that as well as a few others to try out new authors or to get my rear in gear in a series or two I should start. 

Sometimes, you need a platter cleanser or a moment to recharge and reset your reading. Sometimes, it's taking time away from reading for a while. Sometimes it's reread a book you love and know inside and out. And sometimes, it's reading something that you know you are reading quickly and manage to finish in a short space of time. 

And the last opinion is what I did (normally it's reread or just having a reading break). 

Now, I'm not gonna talk too much of the short stories/novellas I read (The Real Deal by KM Neuhold, The Cubby Hole by Blade James, Pick One by May Archer and The Straight Friend by Raleigh Ruebin) as I will probably chat more about it on my Goodreads, but I thought I would write this to say that while I never do Monthly TBR lists, I do like to know what am reading next (even though I am a mood reader at heart) and while having these lists are great, sometimes throwing it out of the window and just going where the winds take you are just as helpful and kind. 

And with everything that's happened to us all in the past few years, I think we all need to be kinder to ourselves and make ourselves happy.