Monthly Wrap-Up — April 2026

Books Read – April 2026

Books

1. The Quiet Light (Casey Blair)
2. The Liar (Nora Roberts) – reread; reviewed 9/26/19
3. The Ship Who Dared (Mercedes Lackey and Veronica Giguere)
4. Sea of Charms (Sarah Beth Durst) – ARC

Audiobooks

• The Shadowy Horses (Susanna Kearsley) – relisten; audiobook reviewed 7/26/2018
• Straight (Dick Francis) – reread but first time in audio; book reviewed 8/07/2017

Summary: I read or listened to 6 books in April, including 3 first-time reads and 3 rereads. However, I didn’t post a single review. Of the books I reread in April, all three had been reviewed previously reviewed on the blog.

This is one of the worst reading months I have had in years—in terms of quantity, at least. All the work on the house has left me with little time or focus for reading. And I’ve been having a hard time settling into a new book. I started several books and audiobooks, both new books and rereads, only to set them aside within the first few chapters because they just didn’t grab me at the moment.

On the other hand, I’ve read or reread some really good books, so I can’t complain too much. Sea of Charms was *chef’s kiss!* The Shadowy Horses, The Liar, and Straight are solid favorites for a reason. The Quiet Light and The Ship Who Dared weren’t fantastic, but I enjoyed them (although The Ship Who Dared doesn’t live up to the first book about the same characters, The Ship Who Searched, which is a long-time favorite of mine.) And I am really enjoying Ilona Andrews’ This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me, which I started mid-month; it’s just taking me a while to get through it because I can’t concentrate on an unfamiliar audiobook while I’m pruning, sorting, and packing our stuff for our upcoming move.

Challenges

Here’s the breakdown of my reading challenges this year so far:

• Goodreads Challenge: 32/125. I am 9 books behind schedule. That’s not insurmountable yet, but if this slow pace continues (which is likely, given our current situation), I won’t be able to catch up by the end of the year.
• Audiobook challenge: Listened to 9/15; reviewed 1/15 (not counting rereads reviewed before 2026)
• COYER Out to Lunch Again challenge: Read 25/20; reviewed 2/20. (My personal challenge includes actually writing the review.)
• Library Love Challenge: Read 3/12; reviewed 0/12
• NetGalley & Edelweiss Challenge: Read 6/10; reviewed 1/10
• Robin’s Recs: Read 1/6; reviewed 0/6

Click here to see a detailed (but not entirely up-to-date) list of my challenge reading.

Other Goals and Resolutions

Unpack and reorganize Prune and pack my book collection: Rather than unpacking and reorganizing my books, I have been focusing instead on pruning, cataloging, and packing them for our move later this year. I took several more boxes to the used bookstore and library booksale in April. At this point, I have pruned all the categories once, but I still need to prune them further. Some of that may have to wait until we see how much space we have for shelves in whatever house we end up buying.

Catalog my books: This is going really well, but still slower than I would like. I’m afraid I won’t be able to finish them before I have to have everything packed up. Physical books catalogued so far (since I started in 2025): 932, up from 351 at the end of March.

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