Mid-Year Freak Out Tag

Happy Sunday! 

I'm caught up with my reviews, so I wanted to do something a little different today. Lately a lot of the booktubers I follow have been doing the Mid-Year Freak Out Tag. While I'm just a booktube viewer, I figured I'd still join in, but with a blog post. Back in college I actually had a blog that was doing questionnaires and fun quiz things, so this certainly feels nostalgic. Without further ramblings from me, lets get into it!

1. Best book you've read so far this year?

Well, this is a really hard choice for me. So first off, I'm going to leave re-reads out of my options and just look at new to me books. It's still really hard to choose, so I'm going to go with my favorites for the main sub-genres I've read so far.

📘Contemporary Romance: Trouble with the Guy Next Door by Holly Renee
📘Dark Romance: A Bullet Between Us by K. Dosal
📘Fantasy Romance: Radiance by Grace Draven
📘Historical Romance: Return of the Rogue by Donna Fletcher
📘Novella: Medusa by Alessa Thorn
📘Paranormal Romance: A Kiss for Solstice by Elizabeth Allyn-Dean
📘Sci-Fi Romance: Saving Verakko by Victoria Aveline

2. Best sequel you've read so far this year?

Since a lot of what I read are series, I'm not just look at the second books. Once again I'm not looking at re-reads. The way I narrowed it down was if I enjoyed a later book better than the first (few) in the series. (I did read several sequels, that I absolutely loved, this year, but they are on par with the previous books.) I still have a couple options that's hard to choose between.

📘Savage Lover by Sophie Lark - book 3 in Brutal Birthright - Even though I enjoyed the first two books, Savage Lover really hit me just right and made me firmly on the Sophie Lark Bandwagon.
📘The Highlander by Kerrigan Byrne - book 3 in Victorian Rebels - The same kind of thing as before. I enjoyed the first two books, but they didn't live up to the hype for me. The Highlander really hit all the notes I was wanting (and kept hearing about) and really entrenched me in keeping up with the read-a-long.
📘Aubin by Annabelle Rex - book 5 in Intergalactic Soulmates - Once again I enjoyed the first few books, but they didn't quite hit all the notes for a 5-star read for me. Annabelle returning to the series and branching out in the universe was such a great choice and I love this epistolary alien romance!

3. New release you haven't read yet but want to?

For these I narrowed my options down to books released since February of earlier this year that I marked as want to read on goodreads. I narrowed down my list even more for books that I knew were going to come out before they did. (For example, Sophie Lark's Kingmakers series started releasing in April but it wasn't on my tbr until earlier this month.)

📘The Rakehell of Roth by Amalie Howard - Released 2/9/2021 - The second book in Amalie's Everleigh sisters duology. I had this preordered and keep planning to read it, but it just hasn't happened. Maybe I'll squeeze it in to the Historical Romance Readathon next week?
📘Scoundrel of My Heart by Lorraine Heath - Released 3/30/2021 - The start of a new series by Lorraine. I had seen great reviews of the arc by several booktubers I trust and bought it on release day. Still haven't gotten to it yet. Maybe during the readathon as well?
📘Yes & I Love You by Roni Loren - Released 3/2/2021 - This is a contemporary romance and the start to a new series. I didn't see very much of this on booktube or bookstagram, but I did a see one of my favorite bookstagrammers read an arc and love it. The premise also really intrigues me and I love the cover. Roni has been on my tbr for a while, I just don't read too much contemporary and tend to stick to my favorite authors (or sports romance) when I do.

4. Most anticipated release for the second half of the year?

There are quite a few releases I'm really looking forward to this year. I'm going to go by date and list the books I have preordered. I'm sure there are more that I haven't realized are set to be released or there are books in a series I haven't started yet. Also, goodreads doesn't go as far as December yet, but I do have one December release since I receive Stacy Reid's newsletter!

📘6/29/2021: An Extraordinary Lord by Anna Harrington, The Wrong Marquess by Vivienne Lorret & The Princess Stakes by Amalie Howard
📘6/30/2021: Carnal Urges by JT Geissinger
📘7/9/2021: Tempting Auzed by Victoria Aveline
📘7/20/2021: Witches Get Stitches by Juliette Cross
📘7/27/2021: Devil in Disguise by Lisa Kleypas
📘9/14/2021: The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
📘10/26/2021: Donut Fall in Love by Jackie Lau & Rules for Heiresses by Amalie Howard
📘10/29/2021: Savage Hearts by JT Geissinger
📘11/16/2021: Homecoming King by Penny Reid
📘12/28/2021: A Scoundrel of Her Own by Stacy Reid
📘Bonus: 1/25/2022: A Dance of Smoke and Steel by Milla Vane - This was originally set to release 10/26/2021, but I actually received an update for my preorder on Thursday that the release date has changed. I'm a little sad to wait a few more months, but it'll also come out right before February, which is also FaRoFeb!

5. Biggest disappointment?

This was fairly easier to choose. I looked at my lower ratings and then judged my expectations for the book. If I went in blind and didn't expect too much and it had a lower rating, I don't see that as much of a disappointment. There were two that immediately came to mind, Glacier by Miranda Bridges & Krya Snow and Seized by Love by Susan Johnson.

6. Biggest surprise?

Instead of going with specific books, I think I would just have to say my enjoyment of dark romance and mafia romances in particular. I've heard it mentioned a couple of times that there's a lot of parallel between historical romance and mafia romance. It's certainly true, and looking back after the fact I feel like I shouldn't be surprised I like it as much as I do. I've never really been interested in mafia romance or dark romance, despite being heavy into romantic suspense previously, but I really enjoy it. It could just also be my age now and life experiences are changing my reading tastes.

7. Favorite new author?

I've read quite a few new authors this year and have really been trying to expand my reading. I'm going to pick someone that I've read several books from and can firmly say is now a favorite. That means as much as I loved Ruthless Creatures and A Bullet Between Us, I can't quite call JT Geissinger and K. Dosal favorite authors... yet.

Alessa Thorn, CL Wilson, Donna Fletcher, Grace Draven, Holly Renee, Joanna Shupe, Kerrigan Byrne, Sophie Lark & Teresa Medeiros

8. Newest fictional crush?

Nino from Savage Lover, Ilias from A Bullet Between Us, Cavan from Return of the Rogue, Griffin from Notorious Pleasures, & Brishen from Radiance.

9. Newest favorite character?

Well, since before I did my favorite heroes, I'm going to focus on heroines!

Natalie from Ruthless Creatures, Jane from My Kind of Earl, Ildiko from Radiance, Sadie from Off the Record & Mala from The Beast of Blackmoor.

10. Book that made you cry?

Honestly, most of them that I gave 5-stars did. I'm really easy to affect emotionally and very easily cry/tear up. Both for sad and happy reasons. Just give me all the books and facial tissue.

11. Book that made you happy?

Same as above. Just look at my 5-stars.

12. Most beautiful book you've bought or were given this year?

Well, if I'm going off of what I've read and ended up buying paper copies of it would have to be any of the Grace Draven books. I also won signed copies of the first two books of Juliette Cross's Stay a Spell series. I did already have copies, but now I have signed ones as well and they are some of my favorite covers ever. I also recently bought (with my birthday gift card) paperback copies of Victoria Aveline's Clecanian series I can't tell you how many times I've pulled them out just to look at them. Then I have all my historicals that have beautiful stepbacks and covers, but there are too many to list. Overall I would say look at Melody Thomas's and Donna Fletcher's covers. So gorgeous. I also bought Ella Maise's To Love Jason Thorn and To Hate Adam Connor. I usually go for the darker or bright colored covers, but the white/cream just looks so gorgeous and the lighting effects on the letters are great. I just had to have them on my shelf (despite haven't even reading them yet).

13. Books that you need to read by the end of the year?

So outside of the releases that I listed above that come out this year, there are a couple author's backlists I'd like to get through as well as finish some series I've started. The ones that are at the top of my list are Sophie Lark, Juliette Cross, Alessa Thorn, Donna Fletcher & Vivienne Lorret. I'd also like to read some more in the Immortals After Dark series by Kresley Cole. There are also quite a few series I've started this year that I'd like to either finish or get caught up on. It's also been a plan of mine to go through my goodreads and look at what I've started (since I started using goodreads) and make a list of series I need to finish. Not sure when I'll have the extra time to do that. I'm sure once I do I'll make a post about "Series I Need to Finish."

I hope you enjoyed learning more about me and my reads this year. I had a lot of fun thinking back on the year so far and narrowing down my lists. It's been a while since I've done a quiz like this and really enjoyed it. Maybe I'll keep my eye open for other tags for (romance) readers and filter one in every once in a while. If you are on any of the platforms and haven't been tagged, consider yourself tagged!

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎