Need something to read this weekend?
A free steamy story, an embarrassing TBR confession, and spooky movie season.
First, the free thing!
If you’re looking for something quick and steamy to read this weekend, I’m making my short story “Movie Night” available for download for a limited time. This is the short story that I contributed to the Nightingale charity anthology, which is no longer available to purchase. (Thanks so much to those of you who purchased the anthology!)
This is the story that I was inspired to write after a rewatch of the movie Reality Bites. Fair warning: If you’ve only read my contemporary romances, this story is more in the ero rom zone. (There are three sets of feet on that cover, y’all, so this shouldn’t be a surprise, lol.)
*link expired*
If you’d like your own copy, click the button above and you can download it in the format that best works for your e-reader or device! (This link will come down in a week, so grab it while you can.)
A new podcast episode + a TBR confession
In this week’s episode of RAD Reading, we’re celebrating my birthday and our 1-year podcast anniversary!
Listen in your favorite podcast app:
Or add to your favorite podcast app with their “Add by URL” feature and paste this link there: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/rad-reading
But I also make an embarrassing TBR confession. I counted all the unread books on my shelves (physical books only) and the number is…more than I wanted to admit out loud, lol. If you'd like to know the exact number, take a listen to the episode (it’s early in the show), but I wanted to talk a little more about the looming specter of the towering TBR.
I have known for many years that I buy more books than I can read in a reasonable amount of time. After adding up all the costs last year for my taxes (books are tax deductible for writers because they’re market research), I tried to address the issue this year by really leaning on my library. And that has worked—in the financial sense. I have spent way less money on books this year so far.
However, saving money wasn’t the only goal. The other goal was to get that TBR down to a manageable size. But instead, I’ve just gotten new books from the library and the TBR has continued to languish. I also have added to it—at a much slower rate, but books have still been bought. So, here I am again, trying to figure out how to give my TBR some attention.
In order to come up with solutions, you usually have to define the problem. What causes me not to pick up the TBR books? Here’s what I’ve come up with.
I forget why I was excited about that book. - My memory is crap so I buy a book because I’m excited and then once it’s on my shelf, I promptly forget why I was so stoked to read it. So then it becomes an anonymous widget on my shelf.
I’m a hardcore mood reader. - I’m not the kind of reader who can select a stack of books and say, I’m going to read these in order. No. I’m completely guided by my mood and my reading mood shifts unpredictably (often depending on what I just finished.) So I may buy a book when I’m in the mood for it but, by the time it arrives, I’m in another mood.
We are a book culture of new, new, new! - I love hearing about books. I subscribe to book rec emails, listen to bookish podcasts, get lists of new releases, etc. The new thing always sounds the most exciting because there’s buzz and other people are reading and talking about it at the same time. (And I contribute to this culture because I certainly want people to buy my newest release.) But I think the side effect of that is that previous books begin to look “stale” very quickly. And they’re not! But to my dopamine-seeking brain, there’s no shine on them anymore.
Buying new books or checking books out from the library is fun - See previous mention of dopamine-seeking brain.
I often skim reviews before reading a book and I think that inevitably makes me want to read it less. - If I buy a new release, there usually aren’t many reviews up yet or they are mostly reviews from that author’s biggest fans so are overwhelmingly positive. But when I pick up an older book from my shelves, there’s more of a variety of reviews. And has anyone else noticed that reviews can really just dampen all excitement for a book? Even when there are a lot of good ones, there are always going to be bad ones and those stick out. Then it’s like, meh, maybe I don’t want to read this right now. (Even when I KNOW my tastes often don’t align with those negative reviews—or positive ones for that matter—depending on the book.)
I’m sure there are more reasons, but these are the main ones that seem to plague me. So, what is the solution? I’m not sure, but here are my initial thoughts.
For the memory issue - I’ve tried to keep a spreadsheet of book recommendations—where I heard about the book, why I wanted it, etc.—but I have found it cumbersome to keep up with. Plus, sometimes I just come across a book randomly so it wouldn’t actually be from a recommendation. Maybe I need to find a simpler format. (I’m open to ideas if you have any that work for you!)
I don’t think there’s a solution to the mood-reading thing. It is what it is.
The new, new, new thing - I need to remind myself that if I’m only reading new books, I’m going to be talking about the same books as everyone else. For our podcast, that’s a negative. I want to be able to bring book recommendations that maybe people haven’t heard about recently on every other podcast or blog.
Book acquiring as a fun activity - I need to figure out how to make shopping my own shelves a fun activity. Sometimes rearranging my shelves is fun and helps me rediscover books that have blended into the scenery of my office, so maybe I need to do that more. Or, I should “shop” the shelves and make a possibilities stack to sample a number of books to see which opening pages catch my interest. I also can slow down on my library browsing.
For the reading reviews issue - This is an obvious one. I need to stop reading reviews and form my own opinion first. I’ve acquired the book for a reason, so I wanted to read it at some point. That should be review enough.
This is just me brainstorming, so if you have any great solutions that have worked for you, I’d love to hear them! All I know is that it makes me sad that all these books are languishing on my shelves. They need to fulfill their destiny and be read! :)
Do you have any tips that have helped with your TBR?
Spooky movie season
I know I’ve been doing a bad job at the Romantic Movie Marathon lately. Honestly, since school has started along with my kiddo’s intense marching band schedule that has me up at 5:30am every day, I haven’t had the brain capacity for movies lately. That’s why I’ve been rewatching Buffy.
However, it’s almost October and the start of spooky movie season—one of my favorite times of the year for movies! So, I’m adding things to my To Be Watched list to get me in the mood.
First up is a movie that premieres tonight on Amazon Prime. I read Grady Hendrix’s My Best Friend’s Exorcism 5 years ago and thought it was both fun and scary, and now it’s going to be a movie! I don’t know if they’ll lean hard into the comedy aspects or the horror aspects or both. The book is definitely horror with humor but still very much horror. I was also excited to see it’s produced by the same team that did Happy Death Day, another horror with humor (and a time loop!) that I loved.
Here’s the back cover of the book if you want an idea of what it’s about:
1988. Charleston, South Carolina. High school sophomores Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fourth grade. . But after an evening of skinny-dipping goes disastrously wrong, Gretchen begins to act… different. She’s moody. She’s irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she’s nearby.
Abby’s investigation leads her to some startling discoveries - and by the time their story reaches its terrifying conclusion, the fate of Abby and Gretchen will be determined by a single question: Is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?
Like an unholy hybrid of Beaches and The Exorcist, My best Friend's Exorcism blends teen angst, adolescent drama, unspeakable horrors, and a mix of '80s pop songs into a pulse-pounding supernatural thriller.
I don’t know how closely the movie will stick to the book, but it’s been long enough since I’ve read the book that I probably won’t notice the differences lol.
Is anyone else going to watch this one?
Well, that’s all I have for you today! I hope you have a fantastic weekend.
And if you were/are in an area that is affected by the hurricane, I have you in my thoughts. I’ve seen my parents go through losing their home to a hurricane twice, so I know how devastating a loss that is. Sending love. <3
—Roni
The home page of The Storygraph shows 4 random options from your TBR pile whenever you log in, and I've been finding that actually makes older titles feel new and shiny again, like a grab bag of things I've already decided I wanted to read but may have forgotten about. I'm a mood reader too and sometimes something will pop out at me and it feels like the right time to read it.
If you don't use The Storygraph, you could randomly choose some books from your TBR (close your eyes and point! choose some random numbers and find which books fall at those points on your list!), or as Lyn suggested, I've gone back to the very beginning of my TBR to see if something jumps out at me (or even whether it's time to take it off the list). Looking forward to hearing others' suggestions!
Oh, how I identify with all 5 of your points. I don't think readers ever have enough or too many books. The shiny new covers get me every time and I find myself checking out book from Libby when I see books that sound interesting. I have more books checked out than I could read in a month. What a life!