The Emilie Adventures by Martha Wells: A Delight!

Ooh, she's back at it again, reading Martha Wells' reissues as ARCs. She's crazy!

Rating: 4/5 stars

Read: January 9th - January 13th

Because I'm Martha Wells #1 True Fan, I knew that she had written a YA duology, and I suspected even before it was announced that said YA duology would be republished as part of her six-book deal with Tor. But that being said, I do feel like the Emilie Adventures are bit obscure even to readers of Martha Wells' fantasy (which is obviously a bit obscure to people who have only read the Murderbot Diaries). But if you like Martha Wells' fantasy, I think you'll find a lot to like here. And actually, I also think these books will be really enjoyable for fans of T. Kingfisher, Frances Hardinge, Diana Wynne Jones, and Studio Ghibli (specifically, Castle in the Sky was the movie I thought about the most while reading. I think it was the airships).

Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman

I read somewhere* that one of the original titles that Rachel Hartman was considering for this book was Drachomachia, and I'm honestly a little sad that we didn't get that title. It would have been so cool! I've read this book and I still don't know what the actual title is meant to be referencing!

Anyway. I haven't written a review of Seraphina yet (it was one of the books I read in December; if we're lucky maybe I'll do some kind of wrap-up but I'm considering kind of abandoning wrap-ups since they're not the most fun for me to write? I already haven't written one in yay these many moons) but I finished Shadow Scale a few days ago and I've been thinking about it ever since. So here we go: my first review of the year shall be the first book I read in 2025.

The Kerensa 2025 Reading Spreadsheet

Happy New Year! 

At the end of the year, one of the things I start doing is preparing my reading tracker spreadsheet for the new year. I have become a spreadsheet fiend over the last few years, mostly because of reading tracking (but have I also found excuses to work more spreadsheets into my job? Well, yes, yes I have). 

Near the end of 2023, one of my friends asked if she could use my reading tracking spreadsheet to start tracking her books as well, and I said, "Of course!" and then frantically began checking over the new spreadsheet I was making for 2024 to make sure it wasn't too esoteric and tailored to me specifically.

Now it's a new year, so I made a new spreadsheet, and now that someone else has used my spreadsheet for a year with no major mishaps I thought it could be fun to share it more broadly. So if you're in the market for a reading tracker spreadsheet, please feel free to try this one!