Alt: a woman with pink and blue hair is reading a book and drinking from a cup

It’s time to sign up for the 13th Annual Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. This year’s event will take place on Wednesday, November 26th through Wednesday, December 17th, 2025.

It’s time to sign up for the 13th Annual Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. This year’s event will take place on Wednesday, November 26th through Wednesday, December 17th, 2025.

Tonight marks the first night of Hanukkah - which pretty much explains one of this week's reviews. The Holly Jolly Giveaway Hop ends TOMORROW NIGHT, just in time for the Dashing December Giveaway Hop to dash in on the very last day of the 2025 Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon. It's been fun being one of Caffeinated Reviewer's elves again this year, and I'm already looking forward to the next one!

Thirteenth Annual Ho-Ho-Ho Read-A-Thon It’s time to begin the 2025 HoHoHo Read-a-thon! It’s getting colder here in Southern Ontario and I’ve got my coffee and Bailey's ready to go as well as some Christmassy reads. Are you ready? Grab Your Winter & Holiday Reads…

Welcome to the Holiday Book Bingo Challenge portion of the 2025 Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon, hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer! The sign-up page for the #2025HoHoHoRAT can be found here – and you’ll definitely wa...

Thirteenth Annual Ho-Ho-Ho Read-A-Thon I love the Ho-Ho-Ho Read-A-Thon and once again, I had a great time. The thing I like is not just reading the holiday books, but participating in the various activities sponsored by the elves. This year I read or listened to 24 books (4 novellas or short stories) and participated in all the activities except the Instagram 12 Days of Christmas.

My Review: From a certain point of view, this is a bit of a forbidden fruit kind of romance. Once upon a time, Georgie was just the little girl who followed her older brother and his best friend around their small town - and Nash was that ‘big brother’s best friend’. She had a crush and he thought she was too young for him.

My Review: Last holiday season, I kicked off my participation in the #2024HoHoHoRat with The December Market by RaeAnne Thayne. It was my first readathon post EVER, but it was the SECOND book in the Shelter Springs series. So of course the first book in that series, THIS BOOK, had to appear somewhere in my readathon reads this year. It’s only fair.

My Review: After yesterday’s book, I realized that what I wanted to round out this week of holiday reads wasn’t a romantic book filled with the holiday spirit, it was a murder mystery to see if getting killed at the holidays would turn the victim INTO a holiday spirit. The haunting kind, that is. I was casting around for something that would fit that mood, and if possible something a bit like last week’s…

My Review: From a certain point of view, The Last Death of the Year is a fairly typical Poirot story - at least in his later years and certainly in this series continuation of the late and much lamented Agatha Christie’s most popular detective’s investigations. Poirot has dragged his current best friend and protegee away from England for the Christmas holidays in what is obviously a bit of a scam on Poirot’s part.

My Review:  Ricki James' - more formally Miracle James-Diaz' - life has certainly gotten a bit more complicated (and interesting) in the intervening books in this Vintage Cookbook Mystery series that occurred between Ricki's first adventure in Bayou Book Thief and this delightfully twisted Christmas murder. To the point where I really want to go back and find out all the deets even if I didn’t need them to enjoy this holiday mystery.

Clearly, the 2025 Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon is in full swing here at Reading Reality. So many holiday books, so little time, and so many mysteries! (I postponed a couple of reviews last week and this week because the books just were NOT in the spirit of things.) Also I had forgotten to check for this year's Amazon Originals holiday collection. I discovered last year that they were PERFECT for the Readathon, and so far this year that's been true as well.

🎶 Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful…… It’s time to kick off the 2025 HoHoHo Read-a-thon! I’ve got my hot cocoa and pile of reads. Are you ready?

On Writing, Running and Reviewing

Welcome to the Holiday Book Bingo Challenge portion of the 2025 Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon, hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer! The sign-up page for the #2025HoHoHoRAT can be found here – and you’ll definitely wa...

Welcome to my mini-challenge where you will find covers or blurbs for books with the items pictured below. This is my third year participating, and I thought I’d also be one of the Elves hosting an…

Thirteenth Annual Ho-Ho-Ho Read-A-Thon I love the Ho-Ho-Ho Read-A-Thon and once again, I had a great time. The thing I like is not just reading the holiday books, but participating in the various a…

Thirteenth Annual Ho-Ho-Ho Read-A-Thon It’s time to begin the 2025 HoHoHo Read-a-thon! It’s getting colder here in Southern Ontario and I’ve got my coffee and Bailey’s ready to go as well as …

13th Annual Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon Rules This year’s annual Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon began at 12:01 am on Wednesday, November 26th and will end Wednesday, December 17th at 11:59 pm in your time zone. Giving us twenty-two days to read or listen to as many holiday and winter reads as our hearts desire all while participating in fun games. Get your holiday & winter setting books and be prepared to have fun!

13th Annual Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon Rules This year’s annual Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon began at 12:01 am on Wednesday, November 26th and will end Wednesday, December 17th at 11:59 pm in you…

My Review: The thing about these holiday shorts series(es), both this year’s Home Sweet Holidays and last year’s Under the Mistletoe, is that the stories are supposed to be short in length - and they are - so they often take place over a rather short time period to make things work. But speaking of making things work, while ‘love at first sight’ is a fun idea, in real life and a romance where the happy ever after needs to feel earned, somehow a bit of time needs to be shoehorned into that short time period.

My Review: The Lane Winslow historical mystery series has been recommended to me any number of times. That’s not really a surprise as it strongly resembles the Maisie Dobbs series which I have enjoyed very much, but has come to an end with last year’s The Comfort of Ghosts, set at the end of Maisie’s war in 1945.