My plan was to read Christmas in July… did I?

🫣🫣🫣

I got quite a bit of reading done so…

It was a great month of reading as usual and I’m excited to tell you all about these amazing finds!! It’s a long post so get your thumbs ready to scroll if you’re on mobile and buckle your figurative seatbelt.

I tried to read more Christmas-y reads because, ya know, Christmas in July, and all, but I did mix in other things because I couldn’t help myself.

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Single Dad Center by Latisha Sexton

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rating explained:

I was borderline 4/5 stars on this because I really enjoyed this book! I don’t know why I was iffy on the 5 star though.

This is about a single dad struggling to overcome his grief and moving on after two years. Archer knows Veronica and she steps in as temporary nanny and we know how it goesssssss.

Sweet story with side stories included so now I wanna know what happens in the next book. 🙃

Book four in the Dating a Denver Dragon multi-author series.

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Switch and Score by Dulcie Dameron

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rating explained:

Ah, the twin switch! I gave this 4 stars, but it’s close to a 5. This one was tough! Dulcie Dameron did a great job navigating the switch and all their complications ~ and man, were there many!!

Jude and Chantelle 😍 I meannnnn, the enemies to lovers vibes were great with this one. It was pretty hilarious when everyone thought Jude was Joel 😂 he got in so much trouble.

Book five in the multi-author Dating a Denver Dragon series.

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Never Mind the Mistletoe by MJ Padgett

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rating explained:

Super quick read. I would have read in one day had I not gotten so sleepy 🫣

I loved the romance at the second half. I don’t want to spoil it though… but oh well, you can probably guess anyway when you read the synopsis.

Owen was the sweetest and Georgina grew almost all in one night through talking about life’s greatest disappointment (to her).

Books like this keep me dreaming.

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Master What Matters by John C Maxwell

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rating explained:

Have yet to read a book by Maxwell I didn’t like. He has powerful, yet to the point topics he addresses. I love how faith impacts his writing as well. I highly recommend.

Winning at life is going to bed at night knowing you have done your best and given yourself to the things that matter the most.
~ John C Maxwell

Success isn’t something you achieve. Successful is something you are.

~ John C Maxwell

12 values he touches on:

• FOCUS ON TODAY
• SEE THE GLASS AS HALF-FULL
• VIEW EVERYONE AS A POTENTIAL FRIEND
• DO WHAT YOU SAY YOU’LL DO
• PUT IMPORTANT AHEAD OF URGENT
• GIVE YOUR FAMILY YOUR BEST
• MAKE YOURSELF BETTER EVERY DAY
• THINK YOUR WAY TO THE TOP
• NEVER PUT OFF YOUR HEALTH
• KEEP MONEY IN PERSPECTIVE
• MAKE ROOM FOR FAITH
• GIVE MORE THAN YOU TAKE

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Lucky Left Wing by MJ Padgett

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rating explained:

I really enjoyed this story!! I was intrigued by the story of a rekindled romance. Aiden Doyle is a hilarious Irish guy throughout this whole series and the name Finchley is actually really beautiful. I loved his nickname for her.

Formatting of one chapter was off. 🙃 Slightly shooketh.

The championship playoff game went into a shootout, but knowing hockey, typically in the pro leagues, a playoff game doesn’t go into a shootout. The game continues into overtime periods until someone scores.

Other than that. I loved that the epilogue was a bit longer and included a snapshot of where these guys are ten years later to round out the ending of this series.

Book six in the Dating a Denver Dragon series.

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Summer Ever After by Kortney Keisel

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rating explained:

I. Loved. This.

This book gave me all the feels. All. The. Feels.

Most of the book was HILARIOUS. I laughed and smiled the whole way through. I got teary a few times. Then the ending. Chef’s kiss.

Also, second golf related book I’ve read recently, and not mad about it at all. I love this trend just as much as the hockey romance trend.

Walker Collins is just… he was such a flirt, but man. He really goes after what he wants. Jane’s optimism and the fact that she wasn’t easily embarrassed in putting herself out there over and over and over… x12 again… Admirable in my book.

I also fell in love with the island town of Sunset Harbor. I’m so looking forward to the rest of the books!! We got to meet so many of the characters in this book that will be MCs coming up which was a great way to start off the series!! I have books two and three already at the time of reading this one, but the others are releasing and you know my wallet loves me lately. 🫶🏻

The only thing I didn’t like of this story was this random moment where it’s like they slept together but you’re not sure? It just didn’t seem to fit and I wasn’t a fan. Maybe a few times the flirting was a bit much, the kissing really passionate… Did this impact my rating? Obviously not.

This is book one of the multi-author Falling for Summer series.

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Reflections on the Psalms by C.S. Lewis

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rating explained:

Another great read by C.S. Lewis! When I seen this book, I thought it would be like going through the psalms and talking about them. Then I opened up the book a bit and it was describing the psalms and logically talking about them. I loved his commentary. I’ve included quotes below.

A man can’t be always defending the truth; there must be a time to feed on it.

C.S. Lewis

We are all in the same boat. We must all pin our hopes on the mercy of God and the work of Christ, not on our own goodness.

C.S. Lewis

For then those who love God will desire not only to enjoy Him but ‘to enjoy Him forever’, and will fear to lose Him. And it is by that door that a truly religious hope of Heaven and fear of Hell can enter; as corollaries to a faith already centred upon God, not as things of any independent or intrinsic weight. It is even arguable that the moment ‘Heaven’ ceases to mean union with God and ‘Hell’ to mean separation from Him, the belief in either is a mischievous superstition; for then we have, on the one hand, a merely ‘compensatory’ belief (a ‘sequel’ to life’s sad story, in which everything will come all right) and, on the other, a nightmare which drives men into asylums or makes them persecutors.

~C.S. Lewis

Century after century, by blows which seem to us merciless, by defeat, deportation, and massacre, it was hammered into the Jews that earthly prosperity is not in fact the certain, or even the probable, reward of seeing God.

~C.S. Lewis

These poe knew far less reason than we for loving God. They dit not know that He offered them eternal joy; still less that He would die to win it for them. Yet they express a longing for Him, for His mere presence, which comes only to the best Christians or to Christians in their best moments.

~C.S. Lewis

He enjoins what is good because it is good, because He is good. Hence His laws have emeth ‘truth’, intrinsic valid-ity, rock-bottom reality, being rooted in His own nature, and are therefore as solid as that Nature which He has created. But the Psalmists themselves can say it best; thy righteousness standeth like the strong mountains; thy judgements are like the great deep’ (36:6).

~C.S. Lewis

In the Nature chapter, Lewis provides a good argument against pagan ideas of nature and creation. They cannot explain what God can through His very word. They do not explain a god at all, because their gods are created, not the Creator.

In his section titled “A Word About Praising,” he talks about how our worship today is not anywhere close to what praising will be like in Heaven, where we will be worshipping God eternally and perpetually. We can’t compare that worship to our modern day worship services. He also writes:

Meanwhile of course we are merely, as Donne says, riming our instruments. The tuning up of the orchestra can be itself delightful, but only to those who can in some measure, however little, anticipate the symphony. The Jewish sacrifices, and even our own most sacred rites, as they actually occur in human experience, are, like the tun-ing, promise, not performance. Hence, like the tuning, they may have in them much duty and little delight; or none. But the duty exists for the delight. When we carry out our ‘religious duties’ we are like people digging channels in a waterless land, in order that when at last the water comes, it may find them ready. I mean, for the most part. There are happy moments, even now, when a trickle creeps along the dry beds; and happy souls to whom this happens often.

I never regard any narrative as unhistorical simply on the ground that it includes the miraculous. Some people find the miraculous so hard to believe that they cannot imagine any reason for my acceptance of it other than a prior belief that every sentence of the Old Testament has historical or scientific truth.

~C.S. Lewis

On the book of Ecclesiastes in Lewis’ “Scripture” section, he writes:

We get there a clear, cold picture of man’s life without God. That statement is itself part of God’s word. We need to have heard it. Even to have assimilated Ecclesiastes and no other book in the Bible would be to have advanced further towards truth than some men do.

But of course these conjectures as to why God does what He does are probably of no more value than my dog’s ideas of what I am up to when I sit and read. But though we can only guess the reasons, we can at least observe the consistency, of His ways.

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An Unexpected Boyfriend for Christmas by Janette Rallison

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rating explained:

Backstory: I think I mentioned many moons ago that Janette Rallison was the author of the first book that really got me into reading. It was Just One Wish and I don’t know what it was about it, but the romance and progression of the story for me as a teen trying to want to read pulled me in and hooked me to the point that I read a few other books by her before I discovered other authors like Sarah Dessen, for example. As I’ve grown my collection, occasionally I’ll look up Janette Rallison and I haven’t gotten copies of books by her other than the few I’ve had since high school and then a few years ago I ordered that very first book that hooked me just for nostalgia. In looking up Christmas books and maybe also looking up her books, I stumbled upon this and was intrigued by the synopsis. Here we are.

This is your typical fake dating trope that spirals and becomes to much more and longer than planned. Though the book is about Christmas time, the timeline starts the week of Christmas and stretches all the way into February. Although at the beginning Scarlet only need a boyfriend for Christmas week, a good portion of the book isn’t even about Christmas so I wouldn’t categorize this in my Christmas reading list for that reason, although it is still a quality read.

I really enjoyed the characters and the hilarious dynamics that popped up throughout. I enjoyed the steadiness of Liam and the growth of Scarlet among all of life’s trials in the story.

Here are a couple of quotes I noted:

What if Liam was her soulmate and she missed out because she was so afraid of making a mistake, she refused to take any action?

“And yet I’m still certain it’s right. I’m in love with you, Scarlet.”

Her head was making little shaking motions of its own accord. “It’s not love. It’s just infatuation. Because I’m pretty. My mother even said so.”

“Well, that’s one more thing your mother is wrong about.” He pulled her closer and his voice dropped to an urgent whisper. “Don’t you think I’ve dated other beautiful women? I never wanted any of them before. You’re like sunshine. I could live without it if I had to, but I really don’t want to.”

This is part of a multi-author series and each book is about each of the sisters I believe. I honestly don’t think I’ll read the others, but I might. I purely got this one for nostalgia of Janette Rallison and she delivered and it fulfilled me.

If you’re unfamiliar with Rallison, she writes clean fiction and I do recommend her as an author!

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Beachy Keen by Kasey Stockton

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rating explained:

This is a high 4, almost 5 really. It just felt long to me, but I really did love it and the tension of the boss/employee trope.

It was cool to see the overlap from book one!! I can’t wait to get to the other books because we get a glimpse of those too!! 👏🏻👏🏻

Noah was almost too perfect. Like even with his anxiety, he was just the perfect person 🥺 I felt for him the whole time. Cat was such a hospitable girl that she offered help just like Noah and their relationship that formed was just 😍😍😍

Stockton did a great job with all the family dynamics and there were so many differing ones to manage. Well done!

I’ve read a few of Kasey Stockton books now and I would recommend her books and definitely recommend this one!

This is book two in the multi-author Falling for Summer series ~ these can be read in any order as they span about the same timeline.

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Merry Takes Main Street by MJ Padgett

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rating explained:

I wasn’t sure about this one, but I really loved it. There was something about all the grief and seeking the characters went through that gripped me.

Brenner and Audrey were so complimentary for each other that, to me, they had instant chemistry once actually meeting.

I feel the serenity and sacredness of it all, the silence that surrounded our Savior when he was born into a world filled with unnecessary noise. I appreciate the quiet… and perhaps Brenner does, too. And that’s okay because it’s in those quiet moments that we truly feel God’s presence.

I love the dashes of faith in MJ Padgett’s writing.

Though I don’t think we can do the healing in someone else, sometimes our being there and pushing someone to keep going and taking the next faithful step in being a part of a community can help someone heal. God uses each of us for others in little and mighty ways. MJ highlights that here.

I got this book on sale because I’m interested in her Thomas brothers series and this is like the prequel to all that, and now I see whyyyyy.

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Second Chance with the Hero by Liwen Y. Ho

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rating explained:

I loved this story of second chances! A divorced couple are given the opportunity to reconcile. I love how it all happened and the lessons they were able to learn.

It was set around Christmas, though Christmas took a backseat to the story most of the time.

I obviously loved this so much that I finished it within like 3 hours.

This is the 14th book in the Heroes of Freedom Ridge multi-author series.

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Inspired by the Hero by Elle E Kay

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rating explained:

I gave this 5 stars because I loved the faith element and how Gage and Casey relied on God and how at the end, they were led to a certain path.

This one was definitely suspenseful with the possibility of death and a criminal case in the past. It was pretty wild. At some points, the story felt choppy, but it was still good and enjoyable.

Book 15 of the multi-author, Heroes of Freedom Ridge series.

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Hope for the Hero by Mandi Blake

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rating explained:

Oh my goodness, another 5 star read by Mandi Blake! Convinced she can’t write a bad book.

I loved the grumpy sunshine trope here. 🥰 Adam was THE GRUMPIEST. Good grief, he was SO grumpy. Tessa was so funny and a great example of sunshine overcoming darkness.

Not to ruin it but….

I loved Adam’s growth in his faith throughout and how much he changed by the end.

Anyway, a great faith-filled, swoony read.

Book 16 in the Heroes of Freedom Ridge series.

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Running to the Hero by Hannah Jo Abbott

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rating explained:

I loved this one from first chapter. The doctor was so adorably cute!! Any man with glasses I’d probably consider cute, but a doctor who isn’t social outside of his job duties? I loved how Jude and Felicity met and how they were able to help each other, how the story highlighted God orchestrating the details of our lives and caring for us in all our circumstances. So good!!

This was such an encouraging read, too.

Book 17 of the Heroes of Freedom Ridge multi-author series.

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Blind Date with the Hero by Tara Grace Ericson

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rating explained:

Another great read by Tara 🫶🏻

I love a good friends to more book. 🥹 Jared and Alexis were so cute how they held feels for each other and their banter was so on point! I loved the town’s gift exchange! What a cool idea. A great Christmas read, for sure!

Book 18, the final book of the Heroes of Freedom Ridge series. I’m sure there will be more though tbh, like a spin off series. I’ve seen hints of it online of authors working on their books. We’ll see!!

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The Billionaire Love Match by Emma St Clair

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rating explained:

Okay, the ending was 5 stars. I only gave this 4 stars though because the overall concept of the series is this reality show like the Bachelor and that’s not my thing.

I did love how faith and their convictions played a major role in this so that was refreshing. A strong woman holding to her convictions in a show like this is admirable.

All that sad, it was mostly enjoyable. I’m just not a fan of the show itself.

This was an ebook for me so that’s why it took me so long 😂 nothing to do with the story itself.

Book one of the Sweet Billionaire Romance series.

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Books read this month: 16

Books read this year: 76

Book goal for the year: 75

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As you can see, I’ve officially past my goal for the year. You’d think I’d slow down, but I’ve learned not to hold my breath. At this rate, it’s a toss up whether I will reach the number of books I read last year (152).

I hope you stuck around and found some reads that interest you or were simply entertained by the post! Thanks for stopping by! ❤️ I look forward to sharing what gets read in the next month!