Only a few days (uh, almost two weeks) late! Not too shabby. And! This is officially my third blog post of the year, so truly I am a roaring success.

So let’s get into it! “It” being “how well did I do on any of my goals for February?”

The answer is: not too badly!

Writing: As usual, I set my writing goal to 15,000 words for the month (it should have been 14,000, given that February only has 28 days and I like to aim for an average of 500 words per day, but I decided to stay consistent). I ended up writing 18,502 words! Most of those words went toward a project for my writing group — we’re all writing our takes on “alien matchmaking romance” — but I also revised, expanded, and updated my 2ha fic, A Tear in the Vein.

Writing-wise, that’s the most successful month I’ve had in…months, if not a year or more. So, wildly drunk on the first glimpse of success I’ve had in forever, I decided to up my writing goal for March to 20,000 words (along with morning pages every day, that old standard). We’ll see if I’ve set myself up for failure, or if I’m finally getting a little writing oomph back.

Reading: I stayed on target for my 120 books goal for 2025, reading twelve books this month!

1. Mordew by Alex Pheby: Great concept, lackluster execution. Sometimes, a book’s worldbuilding is good enough to offset flat or outright frustrating characters, or a lack of plot. While promising, this book’s worldbuilding ended up falling apart around the one-third mark. I described it as Charles Dickens meets Gene Wolfe, but in the end, there was way too much Dickens, not enough Wolfe (and not even enough of the fun parts of Dickens). This really turned into a slog by the end.
2. Ensnared by Tiffany Roberts (book one of a trilogy)
3. Enthralled by Tiffany Roberts (book two of a trilogy)
4. Bound by Tiffany Roberts (book three of a trilogy): I am so weak for alien-human romances, so I was ready (especially after reading Mordew) to indulge in this trilogy. It was very sweet, as is most of Roberts’ writing, and I was surprised at how dark it got, as well. I have a feeling they’ve read The Last Hour of Gann, given certain plot turns, but in the end, this trilogy is just fun, horny candy for your brain. As long as you don’t mind spiders.
5. Saved by the Alien Crime Boss by Tiffany Roberts: The latest addition to the “Aliens Among Us” set of romances, but this one…was just a big pile of nothing. Most of the plot beats were the same as Stalked by the Alien Assassin, and the main characters had no actual character. It’s fine if you want mindless fun, but this just feels lazy.
6. The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett: A BANGER. A TRUE BANGER. It’s a murder mystery, set in a world where leviathans rise from the sea and invade the land, and humans have developed a system of bio-organic quasi-organic augmentations to help them keep society running, and to try to fight off the leviathans. Just…masterfully told, wildly creative, and full of vivid characters. I’ve only read two of his books, but Bennett is quickly approaching “instant pre-order in hard copy” status for me. SUCH a fun read, definitely going to be one of the best books of the year for me.
7. Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White: Benji, a trans teenage boy, tries to escape from the extreme Christian cult that not only started Armageddon, but that wants to force him to play the part of a sacrificial girl. He falls in with a group of queer teenagers who are fighting a guerrilla war against the cult AND the monsters it unleashed, just to have a chance at living to be queer adults. Great horror aspects, and thoughtful, poignant character work all over the place. I do think it was a bit long, but the writing is immersive and emotional. I don’t read a ton of YA, but I’m glad I picked this up!
8. The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohammed: Sumptuous, scary, and brutal — I’m honestly surprised at the depth of emotion and world that Mohammed injected into this novella (it’s just over 100 pages!), but I also want to peer inside her skull and see how she pulled it off. I love stories that explore bargaining with the fey/Fair Folk (not that this book ever names them as such), and this book does a great job of outlining how terrifying those interactions would be. You always lose something, when you make such a bargain…well. Maybe not you. But someone always loses.
9. Zone One by Colson Whitehead: I was a goofball and went into this expecting more of a genre approach, so the VERY literary style (non-linear, full of wordplay, very verbose) got on my nerves at first, but once I got over my expectations, this came together really beautifully. A rather morose meditation on modern consumption culture, and the alienation that comes with it, but if you’re tired of shoot-’em-up zombie novels/movies/shows, this is a great palate cleanser.
10. Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky: Have I told you guys about how I had the bright idea to read everything Adrian Tchaikovsky has ever written? Well, let me tell you what a mistake that was — not because he’s a bad writer, by any stretch, but because he publishes approximately seventy-four books a year and no matter how fast, I can’t keep up. It’s still fun to try! Alien Clay spoke to me, as someone both deeply troubled by what’s going on in my country, and as someone who works in higher education — it’s the story of an academic biologist who gets arrested for dissenting against an authoritarian government, and sent off to do hard labor on one of the few worlds discovered with alien life. Things…do not go as he expects. The cheeky first-person narrator is a departure from a lot of what I’ve read from Tchaikovsky, but it makes for a sly, winking experience — and the final reveal is a sweeping, fascinating one.
11. The Last Hour of Gann by R. Lee Smith: Reader, I reread it. I often see this marketed as a romance, though if you want to REALLY be accurate, it’s more of a “philosophical science fiction road trip with a complex love story” kind of book. It is definitely romantic, but the leads are difficult, stubborn people, and Smith was clearly just as interested in the philosophical underpinnings of her world as she was in her main couple falling in love. And this is a dark book — the only book I can think of with a similarly long list of content warnings is 2ha — that refuses to look away from every grim, hopeless moment. It’s incredibly satisfying, but not exactly a comfort read. Still…if dark is what you’re craving, give it a try, and trust the reveals to balance out some REALLY uncomfortable moments toward the beginning.
12. Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone: I realized I was three books behind on this series, so I’m doing a leisurely reread to get myself back up to speed. I love how these books explore the relationship between the mortal and the divine, and how, if the divine is taken out of the equation, something needs to keep its place to make sure the miracles keep running. And Tara! Tara Abernathy! The lawyer/necromancer of my heart! She’s such a wily, intelligent, driven woman, but her goals as a Craftwoman often bump up against that silly little wall of “acting like a good person”. It’s a rich, complex world, and I’m loving the dive back into its depths.
    

A very successful month, all told! And I’m keeping up (mostly) with blogging, so I think I’m going to allow myself a pat on the back before getting focused again.

Goals for March (now that we’re halfway through): write 20,000 words, do morning pages every day, finish the alien matchmaking romance, poke at the final chapter of my 2ha fic, maybe work on one of the short story ideas I have floating around in my head. Also: more consistent sleep!! When am I going to get it into my head that I need at least eight hours to be functional?

Maybe this is the month. I can at least try!