Falling down the rabbit hole…

A May 2023 wrap-up

May had delighted me with progress – not quite where I want to be, but progress nonetheless. My greatest obstacle has been dealing with the after-effects of COVID-19 (#LongCOVID.) I spent nearly a week resting up after some lung complications as a result of trying to up my exercise routine, and during that downtime fell down the rabbit hole of catching up on more episodes of ‘Grey’s Anatomy.’ I should have been writing, or reading in this period, but couldn’t resist the call of the medical drama. Oi Vey! Luckily I snapped out of it and started to get back to the regularly scheduled program 🙂

READING

Photographing the Dead (#2 Season 1 Nameless), Anomaly (0.5 The Blood Race), The Praying Mantis Bride (#3 Season 1 Nameless), Flight 3430 (#1 Flight 3430), Red Rain (#4 Season 1 Nameless), The King of Fu, Grounded (#2 Flight 3430), The Mercy of Snakes (#5 Season 1 Nameless), and Tormenting Lila (#2.5 Lila).

May wasn’t the month I wanted it to be for reading – damn ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ for being so addictive – but I did complete 9 novels/novellas. I was also not quite hitting my stride reading ‘Blitz’ by Daniel O’Malley… the pacing is really slow and the book feels overwritten – but it is all so deliciously interesting. I’m loving the book but am needing to take frequent breaks. It’s taken me all of May to get to the halfway mark. I was hoping reading ebooks in between would buy time until the pacing picks up, but that hasn’t happened yet. I’m determined to return to form in June and get my library of physical books (TBR) down. I’m not technically buying any new ebooks because they are borrowed for free through Amazon Prime, but it’s not helping my task to reduce the number of unread books sitting on my shelves. Still on that self-imposed book buying ban, now 5 months strong!

I managed to finish off 3 book series this month. All of my reads were ebooks, but only 1 contributed to my #BeatTheBacklist goal – the third book in a trilogy wasn’t available in a physical copy. It felt great to finally get back into reading ebooks again – I tend to prefer physical copies, only because of the weight of my tablet, and the life of the battery because it’s so old. Maybe I’d enjoy it more if I get a proper kindle or a new tablet in the future.

Do you have a preference on what you like to read? Hardback, paperback or ebook?

My TBR remains at 303

WRITING

I had big dreams for writing in May… but reality came to bite me in the ass – literally. Because of being sick and bedridden for months, and then the effects of Long COVID, meaning symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, hair loss, chest pain, headaches, muscle aches and pains, and other regular cold and flu-like symptoms pop up when you push yourself too hard. Consequently I couldn’t exercise as much as I need to and my bursitis and sciatica flared up. Which is a constant pain in your lower back and stabbing pains that shoot down the back of your legs. So I was getting broken sleep because I was waking up in pain. And sitting at a desk is the worst thing you can do with this injury, it exacerbates the condition. So, that’s a long-winded overshare to say that not a lot of writing happened.

I tried to rig up a standing desk to let me get more work done, but it just added to the fatigue. I really felt like I was in a battle with my body this month. Especially with the copywriting and ghost writing work to fixed deadlines that helps pay the bills. But in the last week of May I noticed the flare-up leave and I was able to get in a proper work-out again. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it remains that way for June and beyond. I’d forgotten what the pain was like and was just about to make an appointment with my doctor for some heavy duty painkillers (yuck) before I turned the corner.

May just made me feel old and like my body was falling apart.

On the up-side I got to schedule my book reviews for June and July in advance (because they are fairly quick to write-up.) So that left me feeling proud of some productivity.

So my writing goals for June are the same and May – finish off that queer contemporary novel I’m over half way through. And if I still have time start on the science fiction novel I’m 2 chapters into. Plus I have a couple of large editing jobs contracted for that month. But it’s my favourite thing to do in the writing process, so it won’t feel like a task at all.

WATCHING

There have been some great new shows to indulge in for April, but after a huge viewing month in March, I wanted to pull back a little and make sure I’m keeping my time productive.

Grease : Rise of the Pink Ladies, Up Here, Sweet Tooth (Season 2), Citadel,  9-1-1 (Season 6), and 9-1-1 Lone Star (Season 4).

Really enjoyed all of these shows, I’m always up for a musical show like ‘Grease : Rise of the Pink Ladies’ and ‘Up There,’ they are stand out in the comedy, acting and singing. ‘Citadel’ is jam packed full of action and is laced with humour here and there which tickled my chicken! And the ‘9-1-1’ franchise is an old favourite and love the familiar characters and their stories. ‘Sweet Tooth’ just had this heart-warming undertone that kept me cozy on these cold Aussie winter nights.

Finally got myself all up to date on ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ now my OCD can let me get invested into some new shows 🙂

Movies: Upgrade, The Mother, Simulant, Renfield, Dungeons and Dragons : Honor Among Thieves, and Mafia Mamma.

Some fun sci-fi, and brilliant action movie starring Jennifer Lopez (‘The Mother’) and Toni Collette is hilarious – as always – in ‘Mafia Mamma.’ Honourable mention to Dungeons and Dragons : Honor Among Thieves’ and ‘Renfield’ – a fantasy laugh riot. A good month for movies!

BLOGGING

I’ve found some great online content in the form of blogs and Instagram this month, so there’s been a flurry of activity in social media for me. Which is great, in previous months I commented that I wasn’t finding all those people I was subscribed to had either stopped posting or switched to a completely unrelated field from reading and writing. So I have been in search of fun new content creators, and it’s starting to pay off. I’m enjoying my scroll feed again.

If you can recommend a social media account, shout them out in the comments below.

© Casey Carlisle 2023. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Casey Carlisle with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

#bookporn #coverlove

Have you heard that ‘Mikey 7’ is getting a film adaptation starring Robert Paterson yet? I’ve had this book on my wishlist for ages – better hop to it and get it read before the movie comes out.

#bookporn #coverlove

Who has been loving the ‘Shadow and Bone’ television series? I’ve yet to read this duology, and have to get to it before season three comes out… just in case there are spoilers. Plus, King Nikolai is my favourite character from the franchise.

Most Anticipated June 2023 Releases

I waded through over a whopping 200 new releases for June to find the top picks I’m interested in. This list is dominated by mystery/thrillers and romance. There’s definitely three titles I’m looking to add to my shopping list… the rest I’m still undecided about. I wonder what will tip my opinion either way?

The Only One Left – Riley Sager (Thriller/Mystery)

At seventeen, Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope

Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.

Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother’s happy life

It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer—I want to tell you everything.

“It wasn’t me,” Lenora said
But she’s the only one not dead

As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know. But when new details about her predecessor’s departure come to light, Kit starts to suspect Lenora might not be telling the complete truth—and that the seemingly harmless woman in her care could be far more dangerous than she first thought.

The Silent Bride – Shalini Boland (Thriller)

It’s the wedding day of Alice’s dreams. Until it becomes a nightmare…

Alice and Seth are a perfect love story: the handsome doctor and his beautiful fiancée. They’re wealthy, well liked and made for each other—the envy of all their friends. Alice can’t wait for the day of their dream wedding. But when she arrives at the altar, she doesn’t recognise the man waiting to marry her.

When this stranger insists he’s Seth, her husband-to-be, the entire congregation seems to agree. Even her parents try to persuade Alice to go through with the wedding.

As panic sets in, Alice’s world comes apart. Where is the real Seth, and why have all traces of him disappeared from her life? Fearing she’s losing her mind, she sets out to uncover the truth and escape the nightmare she’s living in. But with everyone around her convinced by the fake Seth, how can she ever hope to find the man she loves?

Borrow My Heart – Kasie West (YA, Contemporary, Romance)

When a girl overhears a guy getting verbally destroyed by his friends for being catfished, she jumps in to save the day—and pretends to be his online crush. A young adult romance from the critically acclaimed author of Places We’ve Never Been.

Wren is used to being called a control freak. She doesn’t care; sticking to the list of rules she created for herself helps her navigate life. But when a cute guy named Asher walks through the door of her neighborhood coffee shop, the rulebook goes out the window.

Asher is cute, charming . . . and being catfished by his online crush. So Wren makes an uncharacteristically impulsive decision—she pretends to be the girl he’s waiting for to save him from embarrassment. Suddenly she’s fake-dating a boy she knows nothing about. And it’s . . . amazing.

It’s not long before Asher has her breaking even more of her own rules. But will he forgive her when he finds out she’s not who she says she is? Wren’s not so sure. . . . After all, rules exist for a reason.

…and the following 5 novels I’m still undecided about:

Always Isn’t Forever – J.C. Cervantes (YA, Paranormal, Romance)

From New York Times bestselling author J.C. Cervantes comes a sparkling, unforgettable YA romance, perfect for fans of You’ve Reached Sam.

Best friends and soul mates since they were kids, Hart Augusto and Ruby Armenta were poised to take on senior year together when Hart tragically drowns in a boating accident. Absolutely shattered, Ruby struggles to move on from the person she knows was her forever love.

Hart can’t let go of Ruby either…. Due to some divine intervention, he’s offered a second chance. Only it won’t be as simple as bringing him back to life–instead, Hart’s soul is transferred to the body of local bad boy.

When Hart returns to town as Jameson, he realizes that winning Ruby back will be more challenging than he’d imagined. For one, he’s forbidden from telling Ruby the truth. And with each day he spends as Jameson, memories of his life as Hart begin to fade away.

Though Ruby still mourns Hart, she can’t deny that something is drawing her to Jameson. As much as she doesn’t understand the sudden pull, it can’t be ignored. And why does he remind her so much of Hart? Desperate to see if the connection she feels is real, Ruby begins to open her heart to Jameson–but will their love be enough to bridge the distance between them?

The Seven Year Slip – Ashley Poston (Contemporary, Romance, Magical Realism)

An overworked book publicist with a perfectly planned future hits a snag when she falls in love with her temporary roommate…only to discover he lives seven years in the past, in this witty and wise new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Dead Romantics.

Sometimes, the worst day of your life happens, and you have to figure out how to live after it.

So Clementine forms a plan to keep her heart work hard, find someone decent to love, and try to remember to chase the moon. The last one is silly and obviously metaphorical, but her aunt always told her that you needed at least one big dream to keep going. And for the last year, that plan has gone off without a hitch. Mostly. The love part is hard because she doesn’t want to get too close to anyone—she isn’t sure her heart can take it.

And then she finds a strange man standing in the kitchen of her late aunt’s apartment. A man with kind eyes and a Southern drawl and a taste for lemon pies. The kind of man that, before it all, she would’ve fallen head-over-heels for. And she might again.

Except, he exists in the past. Seven years ago, to be exact. And she, quite literally, lives seven years in his future.

Her aunt always said the apartment was a pinch in time, a place where moments blended together like watercolors. And Clementine knows that if she lets her heart fall, she’ll be doomed.

After all, love is never a matter of time—but a matter of timing.

Zero Days – Ruth Ware (Mystery/Thriller)

The New York Times bestselling “new Agatha Christie” (Air Mail) Ruth Ware returns with this adrenaline-fueled thriller that combines Mr. and Mrs. Smith with The Fugitive about a woman in a race against time to clear her name and find her husband’s murderer.

Hired by companies to break into buildings and hack security systems, Jack and her husband, Gabe, are the best penetration specialists in the business. But after a routine assignment goes horribly wrong, Jack arrives home to find her husband dead. To add to her horror, the police are closing in on their suspect—her.

Suddenly on the run and quickly running out of options, Jack must decide who she can trust as she circles closer to the real killer in this unputdownable and heart-pounding mystery from an author whose “propulsive prose keeps readers on the hook and refuses to let anyone off until all has been revealed” (Shelf Awareness).

Have You Seen Her – Catherine McKenzie (Mystery/Thriller)

A thrilling and timely novel about three women with dark secrets whose lives intersect in the picturesque and perilous Yosemite National Park from the USA TODAY bestselling author of Please Join Us.

Equipped with a burner phone and a new job, Cassie Peters has left her hectic and secretive life in New York City for the refuge of her hometown of Mammoth Lakes, California. There, she begins working again with Yosemite Search and Rescue, where a case she worked a decade ago continues to haunt her.

She quickly falls into old patterns, joining a group of fellow seasonal workers and young adventurers who have made Yosemite their home during the summer. There, she meets Petal, a young woman living in a trailer with her much older wife, keeping a detailed diary of the goings on of the park, and Jada, a recent college graduate on a cross-country road trip with her boyfriend, documenting their journey on Instagram.

When these three women cross paths, Cassie’s past catches up with her, and the shocking consequences ripple out far beyond what any could have imagined in this unputdownable thriller.

We Could Be So Good – Cat Sebastian (Historical Fiction, Romance, Queer)

Colleen Hoover meets The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo in this mid-century romdram about a scrappy reporter and a newspaper mogul’s son–perfect for Newsies shippers.

Nick Russo has worked his way from a rough Brooklyn neighborhood to a reporting job at one of the city’s biggest newspapers. But the late 1950s are a hostile time for gay men, and Nick knows that he can’t let anyone into his life. He just never counted on meeting someone as impossible to say no to as Andy.

Andy Fleming’s newspaper-tycoon father wants him to take over the family business. Andy, though, has no intention of running the paper. He’s barely able to run his life–he’s never paid a bill on time, routinely gets lost on the way to work, and would rather gouge out his own eyes than deal with office politics. Andy agrees to work for a year in the newsroom, knowing he’ll make an ass of himself and hate every second of it.

Except, Nick Russo keeps rescuing Andy: showing him the ropes, tracking down his keys, freeing his tie when it gets stuck in the ancient filing cabinets. Their unlikely friendship soon sharpens into feelings they can’t deny. But what feels possible in secret–this fragile, tender thing between them–seems doomed in the light of day. Now Nick and Andy have to decide if, for the first time, they’re willing to fight.

There were some other titles that could have made this list, but I was trying to be brutal because the number of books that piqued my interest was enormous – and I’m trying to limit my book buying. Any titles that you think should be on this list let me know in the comments.

© Casey Carlisle 2023. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Casey Carlisle with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

#bookquotes

My fist novel from Jennifer L. Armentrout under the J. Lynn moniker… I think it turned into a bit of a hate-read. The about quote just about sums up the tone and humour of the book.

There are six books in this franchise, so I’m hoping things will improve the further in the the series I get. Has anyone else read these books?

#bookporn #coverlove

A queer contemporary set in the ’80’s… I’m there just for the hypercolour t-shirts, high-top sneakers, and acid wash jeans!

#bookporn #coverlove

I have been waiting for what feels like forever for the next instalment to find out what challenges Myfawny faces. And big ups for fellow Aussie author Daniel O’Malley for being able to mash paranormal mystery with a MI6 organisation together with a loveable protagonist.

Hitting my stride

An April 2023 wrap up

Where March was a start in establishing routines again, April left me feeling like I was starting to make some progress. I found myself also doing a lot of planning and scheduling and I would hit days where I was productive in one thing, then take a time to break to rest and get back at it. I’m still not back at the pace and productivity I was pre- cancer and COVID-19, but I’ve achieved more for April than any other month for the last few years. And it’s only going to get better as my health improves and my routines become more familiar.

Once you’re in the habit of writing regularly some great things happen! J

It Starts With Us (#2 It Ends With Us), Rebel (#4 Legend), The Glory of the Empress (#2 Admiral), Trust in Me (#1.5 Wait for You), The Taking of Jake Livingston, Finding Perfect (#2.6 Hopeless), Fault Tolerance (#3 Chilling Effect), Stolen (#0.5 Taken), Neon Zero (#0.5 Neon), In the Heart of the Fire (#1 Nameless), Feast of the Swamp Goblin

This month I managed to read 11 books and I was aiming for higher, but I hit a mini-slump while reading ‘Fault Tolerance’ (#3 Chilling Effect,) and getting sucked into my re-watch of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ from season 1. I think the number of books is artificially bolstered by 5 novellas.

I managed to finish off 4 (possibly 5, depending if the ‘Chilling Effect’ franchise is going to venture past a trilogy) book series this month. Most of my reads were new purchases to complete series I’d already started, so there were only 5 off my #BeatTheBacklist goals. I even read e-books – which is not common for me. I tend to favour physical copies.

My book buying ban is still in place with no new purchases in this month – all the new books are still from the Christmas presents I obtained with gift cards, or free from Amazon Prime when I signed up years ago and have never gotten around to reading. I’m trying to make an effort to get through some more e-books each month.

My TBR has come down to 296 from 303

I am giving myself a huge pat on the back – I completed the first draft of my Aussie outback romance novella. It turned out longer than I anticipated and was way more fun to write. All of this repressed knowledge from growing up in Alice Springs (around where the novella is set) and desert survival skills came into play. And I felt like my humour was popping up in all the right places. I’ll sit this aside for a few months before my next pass to give it some fresh eyes.

There was hope I would get to complete a contemporary novel that I was over half-way through before I started chemotherapy and had to stop, but because my word count on the novella was much higher than I was aiming – and the amount of time spent ran over, I had a less number of days to tackle this novel. But I managed to get a little done and will carry it over into May. I’m hoping the first draft will be completed next month.

I spent a chunk of April organising and scheduling my writing and blogging time – drafting out articles and daily wordcounts. As a result I have the entire rest of 2023 blogs planned and am aiming for at least another 5-6 first drafts of novels/novella for the year. After years of little or no productivity, my health and enthusiasm returned, I’m aiming for as many first drafts to be completed this year (so I can feel like I’m actually getting some work done) and then complete 2^nd and final drafts and put them out for submission near the end of the year, or in the first half of 2024.

There have been some great new shows to indulge in for April, but after a huge viewing month in March, I wanted to pull back a little and make sure I’m keeping my time productive.

Grease : Rise of the Pink Ladies, Not Dead Yet, Schmigadoon (Season 2), Shadow and Bone (Season 2), Star Trek : Picard (Season 3), Star Wars : The Mandalorian (Season 3), Outer Banks (Season 3), and Gotham Knights.

Loved Season 2 of ‘Shadow and Bone’ – though I can see how they are trying to stretch out the ‘crows’ storyline for another season and connect those characters to Mal and Alina… it wasn’t as smooth as I’d like. But I’m really excited for the musical series ‘Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies’ tackling surprisingly current social political issues in something set in the 50’s. Plus the singing is absolutely fantastic with numerous powerhouse performances. Totally lives up to the legacy of the original film.

Re-watching Seasons of ‘Grey’s Anatomy.’ I stopped watching this over ten years ago because of a housemate that hated the show, and I really miss it. So I’m starting from the beginning and plan to get up to date in the coming months. The drama! The blood and guts! I have to be careful not to lose a day indulging.

Movies: Murder Mystery 2, Shazam : Fury of the Gods, 65, Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Ghosted, and re-watched Edge of Tomorrow.

I have to say the stand out was ‘Ghosted’ – the cameos, the humour, I loved it! And still a fan of the Marvel movies and enjoyed how ‘Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ kicked off Phase 5 of the MCU. I really hope we get more Ant-man and the Wasp in the future, they are one of my favourites in the franchise.

This month the initiative to reconnect with friends is going great. It gives me warm fuzzies inside to catch up on our lives and share experiences again. There is so much going on in our lives and I’m thankful to still be able to share with them like we are sitting around the lounge with a cup of tea or glass of wine. There’s even preliminary talk of arranging a reunion towards the end of the year given we are all scattered across the continent.

I’m trying to build relationships with fellow bloggers, but they don’t tend to engage after a quick response to a comment or question. I might have to shift to a different medium if I want to be a part of, and build a community. Bloggers either seem to be time-poor or only interested in their statistics… maybe that’s a presumptuous blanket statement, but it’s been my experience so far.

Or if you want to recommend any great blogs that centre around reading and writing comment below!

© Casey Carlisle 2023. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Casey Carlisle with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

#bookporn #coverlove

I’ve loved the books I’ve read from Blake Crouch in the past so I had to add another to my collection. I think he is going to be another auto-buy author!

Where do you get your reading recommendations from?

Discussion post: What’s the best source to find great books to read – and how does that compare to the most popular ways to market a novel?

I did a poll over on Twitter last week because I was thinking about where I get my reading recommendations from (out of the popular spaces.)

I have never done a poll on twitter, but have participated in many and I thought it would be a great resource to get large numbers of participants to vote and get some balanced results. But I guess I grossly underrated my reach and willingness for people to simply click on a choice. (Girl, you thought you were popular!) Because it shows I only reached 52 people and only 2 voted. I did get a written response which was also book blogs so I think this twitter poll experiment was a massive fail. Maybe I should save face and blame it on the algorithm? A pox on you interwebs!!

In truth, my personal book recommendations most likely come from everywhere. I never use just one source, but the majority of recommendations come from book bloggers. Then, it’s depending on where I’m spending my time…

It could be catching up with friends. It could be chatting in book club. It could be attending a Con or writerly event. Or just browsing an online bookstore.

After the fail of the twitter poll I did the leg work myself hitting up people I’ve connected with on all of my socials. I asked colleagues and students, friends and family.

I guess this kind of information could be real handy for anyone wanting to market a novel – they’d know where to spend their marketing dollars. (For readers like me.) But this analysis, like reading tastes, is subjective. It’s through the lens of my demographic and those I’ve connected with over social media… so again the results are skewed.

The only reason I am discussing this topic is when I was thinking about how my reading habits have changed over the years in my last discussion post, and how much of it relies on having certain types of books available for me to purchase, the same goes for how I was recommended books.

It makes me cringe saying this, but in my teen years the internet was not a thing. The only way I’d get a book recommendation was either from a friend at school, or from browsing bookstores and libraries and spending the time to read book blurbs to see what interested me. Maybe I’d read an article in the newspaper or magazine (or occasional in-flight magazine,) but that was pretty much it.

In the last 10-15 years with the explosion of social media, online stores, and blogs, nearly all of my recommendations have come from online. I read reviews on sites like Amazon and Goodreads, I follow copious book bloggers, I peruse top 100 lists, New Release lists, I chat in online book clubs, connect with authors and other readers on social media. More so since I moved to a remote location from the city.

Juxtapose that with how authors and publishers market their books… I have never bought a book from an ad on social media at any time. Ever. I hear all this talk that authors must buy paid ads to help market their book, but my behaviour in getting book recommendations makes that argument moot. Word of mouth is still the biggest way I get my recommendations – from sources I trust and know have similar tastes to my own. I don’t get influenced by pretty Instagram pictures and I’m not on TikTok to understand all the BookTok craze. Plus, I like to research the books I’m purchasing so that they are genuinely something I’m interested in reading rather than follow a popular hyped craze.

Am I missing out on something – is BookTok any good? With all the governmental bans on that platform I’m unsure that it will last too much longer.

I was getting some great reviews from YouTube about ten years ago, but the number of book reviewers on that platform has decreased: and most of them tend to review popular new releases to make sure they get the clicks and views (it is a business for the majority of content creators at the end of the day) so I wasn’t really discovering many new books.

I get emailed directly often with authors and publishers offering a free ebook in return for a review – but pretty much all of those offers have been for books that don’t even match my interests. It’s like the sender truly didn’t read any of my previous reviews or glance at any part of my blog. It feels disingenuous. Like they are not really wanting to build a reader/reviewer relationship. If an author invested the time to do that properly, I’d shout their praises from the roof tops.

Going back to authors using paid ads, Instagram and such – although they don’t directly influence me to buy a book, if I later read a review about it, it does help with brand recognition. I’d seen the book about before, so will take the time to read the review to see if it is any good.  But again, it has to be from a trusted source.

Does anyone check out the ‘Recommendations’ tab on Goodreads, or scroll through recommended books on Amazon? I take a peek every now and then.

It’s becoming less available to me here, but when I get into the shopping centre in town and they have those pop-up stores with fire sales on books I will always wander through and hardly ever leave without purchasing something. It’s not necessarily a recommendation, again it’s picking things up and reading blurbs to see if the novel sounds interesting. Blurbs are by far the most important tool in recommending me a book.

So at the end of the day the place I get most of my recommendations from is other book bloggers, followed by reading blurbs while browsing bookstores (either physical stores or online.) All the other social media advertising only influences me with brand recognition – not in actually recommending me a novel. From canvasing the pool of participants that I reached out to, most said they get recommendations from reading my posts – they don’t know anyone who’s as obsessed with reading and reviewing as much as me. The other source was from emails sent out by Amazon, either from their followed authors or suggested reading on their e-reader device. And the reasons because of this was that they are time poor and tend to stick to reading similar types of novels. The third source was from magazine articles and reviews when certain book clubs of reading lists are showcased.

When I asked about things like recommendations from TikTok, YouTube, Instagram etc. most of those I approached did not realise there was a presence around literature on the platforms, or didn’t place much credence in those recommendations. Like it wasn’t anything serious. I did try to canvas a wide age and gender range and cover readers’ interests of a wide selection of genres. I only got a sample size of just under 500, so not so large.

What about you? What are the best sources for reading recommendations?

© Casey Carlisle 2023. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Casey Carlisle with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.