My 2025 reading challenge: progress and what to read next
Last year I set myself a reading challenge of twelve books. In the end, I read sixteen. Encouraged by my 2024 success, this year’s reading challenge is to finish, and possibly review, twenty books in 2025.
Last year, I got into the habit of taking myself to bed a little bit earlier to read a chapter before I nodded off and I’ve been reading e-books on my phone when I go out for appointments too. Besides helping other authors by buying their books and leaving reviews, I’ve found that my sleep has improved over the last year. My focus is much better too as I concentrate on one thing (and only one thing) instead of multi-tasking like I normally do.
To date, I’ve finished:
- Blackbirch The Dark Half by K M Allan
- Nicotine, Liquor, & Blasphemy by Richard Wall
- Five Percent Alien by Suzanna Williams
- River Witch by Cheryl Burman
- Something Borrowed Something Brew by Bella Colby
That’s five books down and fifteen to go.
My current read is Minstrel’s Bargain by Richard Ayre. Here’s the blurb:
An ordinary man. An age old evil. A blood-soaked nightmare with no escape.
When reporter Phil Sturgess hears of a new rock band called Minstrel’s Bargain, his life descends into horror. As the city he lives in succumbs to ever more violent and macabre episodes of shocking murders and barbarous acts of self-destruction, Sturgess begins to understand that there is something very wrong with Minstrel’s Bargain. Something very wrong indeed.
With time running out for humanity, Sturgess is threatened with an ancient malevolence. And to stop it, he is forced to confront the terrifying stranger who has been dogging his footsteps for months. The only question is, will Sturgess do what needs to be done? If not, the souls of millions will be destroyed.
After I’ve finished reading Minstrel’s Bargain, the remaining fourteen should be:
- Caraval by Stephanie Garber
- The Golden Torc series by Julian May (four books)
- A Deadly Inheritance by Jane McParkes
- The Bone Roots by Gabriela Houston
- The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings
- Fairytale by Stephen King
- Narrow Mountain by Alex Evans
- The Hiding by Alethea Lyons
- The Old Ways by Robert MacFarlane
- Crow Moon by Suzy Aspley
- Small Angels by Lauren Owen
That’ll be my twenty. I’m a quarter of the way there already so who knows, I might even read more than my target. Happy reading.
