Reader's Review: "Hemlock" by Jesse Teller

Synopsis from Amazon:

The busiest pirate bay in Perilisc is newly infested with vampires. These monsters will soon overrun the world, but the Manhunters must try to stop them in secret. Agents of the king are hunting Rayph's vigilante crew. With one false step, they could all end up at a royal execution.

>>>>>>>>>

My Review:

A little over three years ago, I started this trilogy after having my introduction to grimdark fantasy well in hand, and enjoying the gratuitous use of Avengers-like superpowers in addition to all the violence and grittiness of your typical grimdark.

Then last fall I started reading the second book--and realized I'd forgotten a lot about where the story was at and what the characters were up to. I've even fallen out of reading grimdark in recent months... it just hasn't been something I've read in a while.

I think that was my first problem when approaching this book. Second, where Song was introductory, more flashy and action-oriented, bringing the readers into a world they hadn't encountered before, genre-blending in a way that few have tried... Hemlock just gets DARK. VERY QUICKLY. Perhaps even more horror-leaning with its subject matter. Last time it was sorcerers and thugs and dark alleyways. Now it's vampires and ruthless pirates and seedy brothels.

The world-building is still on-point, and the descriptions are absolutely gut-wrenching. One thing I found a little disappointing, and probably the reason it took me so long to get through it, is that it didn't do as good a job of referring back to the first book as a sequel ought to do. There was just so much going on in this book with characters that I may or may not have remembered (if indeed I was supposed to remember) from the first book, I could see how there might not have been time to rehash previous events, especially if what happened before would not necessarily be relevant to what is now current. But that just meant that only a few characters had any sort of context attached to them, and the rest, well... it was like walking into a conversation between friends that you'd only known in passing--they're carrying on like they've known each other for years, but you're stuck trying to get yourself oriented and acquainted with them. The battle scenes were suitably action-packed and there were some emotional moments in the plot that I found very touching. The torture scenes I didn't entirely appreciate. The new side character, Aaron the Marked, was a highlight of this book, and I enjoyed his arc very much.

Suffice to say, Hemlock does what it sets out to do, and for that I can rate it ****4 STARS****. I might be falling out of my initial taste for it--the glamour of the first book has worn off, it seems, and now that the story seems to be sliding down a slippery slope of increasingly savage imagery and nightmare fuel, and fewer characters I am drawn to in the main cast, I am less inclined to finish off the story--maybe things might have developed differently if I had read the whole trilogy all at once, rather than splitting it up like this.

If you're an avid fan of horror and grimdark, and things like intense gore and violence described in vivid detail don't scare you, then you might pick up the Manhunters Trilogy for a new world to explore.

Further Reading: (Epic World-Building/Vampires/Sword-And-Sorcery/Dark Fantasy)

The Chronicles of Lorrek--Kelly Blanchard
        -Someday I'll Be Redeemed 
        -I Still Have A Soul 
        -I'm Still Alive 
        -Do You Trust Me? 
        -You Left Me No Choice 
        -They Must Be Stopped 
        -Find Me If You Can 

-Herald of Autumn--J. M. Guillen

-Road Brothers--Mark Lawrence

-Diamond Stained--J. M. D. Reid

-A Change in Crime--D. R. Perry

-Immortal Codex: Petra--Cheri Lasota

-Oblivion's Forge--Simon Williams 

The Firebird Fairy Tales--Amy Kuivalainen
       -The Cry of the Firebird 
       -Ashes of the Firebird 
       -Rise of the Firebird

Tales of the Fallen--Katika Schneider
       -Devotion
       -Deception 

-Notna--J. D. Cunegan

The Upstream Reader: Ranked Reads From 2023!

Reading in 2023, all things considered, was abysmal, if I do say so myself. According to Goodreads, I only read 17 books in total, and of those 17, only 7 of them were Reader’s Reviews books. That is why I chose to divide up my usual “complete Upstream Update” post into two parts, instead of talking about all of everything on one long post. So, without further ado, here’s a ranked list of all 17 books I read in 2023!

17–A Tree of Bone and Mist by Melissa E. Beckwith

Starting off fairly strong with this one! Just your garden-variety portal fantasy with a female MC with a chip on her shoulder thrust from her mundane Montana ranch life with her domesticated pet wolf (which was never explained how she ended up with an actual wolf, not a “wolf-like dog” or even a “wolfdog”, just a straight-up wolf!) into a fantasy world where she’s somehow connected to the lost royal family and possessing special powers and hence all the evil forces that would like to have said power for themselves are all gunning for her and she has to find her footing and get to safety even though nothing in this new world is remotely safe because she has no idea where things are or what she’s supposed to be doing… it was a trip, the world-building was awesome, but it just didn’t hit me in the fantasy feels. To read my full review, follow >this linked text<

16–What The Chat Dragged In by Cyn Mackley

With as much as I really enjoyed the Goode-Grace Mysteries, I was hoping to put this a little higher on the list… but with all things considered, and how few books are on this list in the first place, this isn’t half bad! It carries Mackley’s signature charm in her main characters and the pages of tantalizing food that’s introduced throughout the adventure–but I think the thing that sort of downgraded it for me was the subject matter.

FMC is a federal forensic investigator, so she sees (and thus the reader “sees”) a lot of really sick and twisted stuff… and MMC turns out to be a survivor of abuse and trauma himself, so while on the one hand it makes for a really sweet story of being vulnerable and trusting one another… on the other, it’s a lot of secondhand trauma for the reader to experience, albeit in a fictional book with fictional characters! To read my full review, click on >this linked text<

15–A Change in Crime by D. R. Perry

Not my first vampire novel, but my first time reading this indie author! Don’t get the wrong idea about its placement on this list… yes, it’s not a “top 10”, but the 4.5-star rating should speak for itself.

In fact, if you want a more in-depth review of this book, follow >this linked text< for my full Reader’s Review.

14–The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum

I was a little excited to find the whole Bourne trilogy at a book sale a couple years ago, thinking of how much I enjoyed the movies and wanting to see how the books compared.
Imagine my surprise to learn that the film trilogy had very little to do with the book trilogy at all! Movie Bourne is innocent, instinctual, young, with an altruistic streak. Book Bourne feels much older, is more jaded, more traumatized, and seems to just react to things with little thought except for how it might benefit him. Movie Bourne goes on the run because he wants to find out the truth of himself and he wants out of the life he finds attached to his name; Book Bourne is on the run because he wants to escape the truth of himself, but he cannot escape all the trauma and baggage attached to his current identity. Almost as if Movie Bourne finds his aim to seek out and establish a new iteration of “Bourne”, the independent citizen, while Book Bourne is obsessed with finding any sense of “Identity”, and that becomes his driving motivation, whatever rises against him. 
Still rather interesting though, and I’d keep reading the trilogy, now that I know it is completely separate from the film trilogy’s arc. 

13–Saturday The Rabbi Went Hungry by Harry Kemmelman

The second book in the delightful Jewish-centric cozy mysteries my grandma recommended and gifted to me! I’m quite enjoying this series, Rabbi David Small is just the right mix of Poirot and Father Tim from the Mitford series: more American than European Poirot, but also heavily integrated into the relatively small community like Father Tim. He leads his synagogue with studious grace, and yet he’s not so steeped in the religious traditions like some of the other synagogue leaders that he misses important details and changes among the people. 

This time, it’s the middle of a Yom Kippur fast, and a man is found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in his garage–but the Rabbi happens to notice that the car wasn’t on by the time the police arrived, which means someone had to have turned it off before the man was dead… and what does this stranger have to do with an ailing wealthy Jew and a pharmaceutical testing lab where the man supposedly used to work? Can Rabbi Small put the pieces together before the members of the temple board find grounds to fire him as their Rabbi?
It’s quaint, it’s fun, and it lays out all the clues beautifully before matching them to their respective part of the solution as a whole.

12–The Woman In Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

I’ll say it, I’m a fan of Ruth Ware. While this wasn’t her best work, there’s just something poignant about reading a book about a travel writer embarking on a North Sea cruise where nothing is as it seems, while sitting on a beach in Hawaii. Yes, I brought this one along with me on our beach vacation–and it was well worth it. What started out as an innocent moment of “I forgot which cabin door was mine” turned dark very quickly when the titular Woman of Cabin 10 disappears on the same night the travel writer is convinced she saw someone toss a body overboard… but when all the guests are accounted for, and no evidence of the woman she’d seen the night before, how can she prove what she saw? There were some parts I was easily able to predict, and probably a savvy reader will pick up on the clues much quicker than I did–but if you’re looking for a beach-read or a titillating mystery to entertain you while on vacation–this is definitely a good one!

11–"V" is for Vengeance by Sue Grafton

I can’t believe I’m almost finished with this series! While yes, there are 4 more letters of the alphabet, unfortunately the author passed away shortly after releasing the book for “X”, and so the final book is letter “Y”--which means I have only 3 books to go and I’ve finished this series that I started literally 10 years ago. 

This one had a lot of flashbacks, as Kinsey starts out investigating a potential shoplifter she busts who might be part of an organized ring connected to the Mob, and gets embroiled in the death of a woman who ostensibly jumped–or was thrown–off a bridge. A lot of the story is told through flashbacks of the woman’s point of view of the circumstances that led to her ending up on that bridge, and also the Mob family’s point of view, so Kinsey is more of an additional or backup player in the whole narrative, but it’s interesting, the latest in a long line of plots that manage to be distinct and intriguing enough to keep one guessing all the way through!

10–The Seven Towers by Patricia C. Wrede

This was one I found at the same book sale I bought the Bourne trilogy at, and I was excited because it looked really intriguing and I remembered how much I’d enjoyed Wrede’s take on Snow White and Rose Red. 
The ensuing adventure was entertaining enough in the moment, but even now as I write this I’m struggling to remember any stand-out parts. The magic system was pretty cool, and the conflicts were suitably devious, if I recall… but that’s about it. A nice, fun sword-and-sorcery novel that I can recommend to friends if they’re interested in that sort of thing. (Although really, if they’re into sword-and-sorcery, there is a whole indie series I think I’d rather recommend over this one!)

9–Moonblood by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

Now that we’re solidly in the top ten, I’m feeling many more memories of the individual stories coming back! Like this one, a tale in which a goblin princess is trying to remain in exile from her manipulative father, while there’s conflict with the human kingdom brewing that may yet give the Goblin King power over that kingdom while he waits for his daughter to inevitably fall within his clutches again…

There’s just something so ethereal and enchanting about the way Stengl writes that never fails to drag me in and captivate me, no matter how long it’s been since I’ve read the previous book in the series!

8–Undying Light by Aurora Wildey

This one was quite fun! A random contact through my author page netted me an advance copy of this new release, and I quite enjoyed it more than anticipated! I'm not usually a fan of PNR (paranormal romance) because it’s always the angsty immortal that can’t keep himself in check around the innocent, naive mortal… but come to find out, she’s got secrets of her own!

For a full review of this book, click on >this linked text<.

7–Sahara by Clive Cussler

Yet another book I picked up because of how much I enjoyed the movie adaptation–but unlike The Bourne Identity, this adaptation at least managed to hit the highlights of the original plot!

Most of the main cast is still there, and although the book descriptions differed greatly from the actors’ appearances a lot of the time, I had no trouble inserting the actor into my “headcanon” anyhow! Yes, I did roll my eyes at the over-campy descriptions of Dirk Pitt (small wonder McConaughey was drawn to the role!) and I found myself giggling at Cussler’s own self-insert scene… but it was a pretty well-told story itself, and I enjoyed going even deeper into the lore and the technical aspects that the movie could only gloss over!

6–The Ask and The Answer by Patrick Ness

Two books down, one more to go and I’ve completed the trilogy! (Whereupon I will be ready to watch the film! Although I have little hope that it will be anything like what I’ve been reading) Ness is a fantastic author and I kind of like the unorthodox, nearly-stream-of-consciousness style he’s adopted for this series. The plot development is fascinating, I wish Prentiss would die in a hole and never come back, and I’m really invested in the survival of both Olivia and Todd at this point!

5–King of Hearts by Patricia Loofbourrow

You’d think I’d be a little bored with a book that deals in courtroom trial scenes almost the whole time, in the midst of a series with such phenomenal world-building, superb characters, and an intriguing plot that keeps me on my toes the whole time. But no, this book caught me in a time when I was watching a lot of random scenes and episodes of Law & Order: SVU. Didn’t bore me a bit! For my full review, follow >this linked text here<.

4–The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz

Booyah! I found this on a library shelf when I was least expecting it! This series is turning out much longer than I expected–but I am not at all mad! Yes, I’m talking about the Gratuitously Self-Insertionist Inspector Hawthorne series. This time, “Tony” is invited to the performance of a play he himself wrote, and not long after, one of the actors is found murdered, and the only prints on the murder weapon belong to Horowitz himself! He’s got to find Hawthorne (they’d parted on bad terms after the last adventure) and beg the inspector to exonerate him, before Scotland Yard puts him behind bars for “finally committing that perfect crime he’s always writing about in his books.” It’s hilarious, there are so many Princess Bride references, and there’s hints at the end of more to come, so I’m here for it!

3–The Burning Page by Genevieve Cogman

This series continues to surprise and delight me! It was very fun getting back into it after it being a while since I read The Masked City. Irene and Kai are still dealing with shifty Fae and overly-scrupulous Dragons–and this one is probably my fastest-read of 2023 (from what I can tell… it’s hard to know sometimes on Goodreads when you’re inconsistent with your “Currently Reading” status, as I am!). Irene has to find answers and stop Alberich from destroying the Library from within–all while not knowing who she can trust, and who has been turned against their own organization, threatening the stability of all worlds in the Library’s network. It was very enjoyable!

2–The Wendy by Erin Michelle Sky

And here we are at the Best Featured Indie Read of 2023! I love a good retelling–and this one had a unique take on Peter Pan lore that I really enjoyed! To read the complete review, click on >this linked text<.

1–Supernova by Marissa Meyer

And finally, the Best Read of 2023! This trilogy was absolutely masterful. I loved the uniqueness of the powers, both their strengths and the limitations presented with each. The character development was excellent, and the build up matched with the payoff every time! I am immensely satisfied with how this series turned out, and I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a YA superhero-themed series!

So there you have it, my Ranked Reading List of 2023. Here’s hoping I’ll be able to finish even more books in 2024! What was your favorite (or Top 3!) from 2023? What are you looking forward to reading in 2024? Let me know in the comments!

The Upstream Writer Birthday Update 2024: A Look Back, And A Look Ahead

Wow! It's been a while since I've given an update... Pretty much all of 2023 was pretty hectic, so let me get you caught up!
 

Life Stuff

First of all, this year hasn’t quite gone as expected, in good ways and bad.

It started in February, during a family vacation in Hawaii. With seven people (Mom, Dad, Me, Sister, Brother-in-law, and their two kids) in a 2-bedroom condo, I ended up sleeping in the main area on an air mattress. Hence, everybody could hear me snore. That had never really bothered me before, since I sleep alone. I had always struggled with fatigue, thinking that it was just a byproduct of my hypothyroidism when that was diagnosed, but even with the proper medication to bring my thyroid levels into balance, the snoring habit and the fatigue were still there. I had long accepted it as just “my normal”, and thought that it was just something I would always have to deal with. I could be “rested” without experiencing actual “deep sleep.” Or so I thought.
Who am I kidding? I’m not normal. 
Well, finally one day on the vacation my Mom informs me that she’d heard me snoring very loudly the night before, and even a couple times it sounded like I stopped breathing very briefly! I of course had no idea that my body was even doing that. This prompted me to start seriously considering consulting with a sleep doctor, something I didn’t want to do until school was out for the summer, just in case there was a barrage of tests or something. I had no idea what to expect. I managed to survive the end of the school year (nodding off if I was sitting inactive for more than ten minutes, struggling to get enough rest at night, and still snoring, in spite of trying things like the mouth-taping method and a silicone nose insert to hold my nostrils open at night; I’d usually end up taking the tape off or pulling the insert out of my nose in my sleep, and then waking up in the middle of the night with the tape around my fingers and whatnot) and scheduled an appointment at a nearby sleep center. 
Even during that appointment, after weeks of summer and not having to get up early for work, I was struggling to stay awake and alert for my consultation. The doctor set me up for an at-home sleep test, just a silicone ring that I would wear, equipped with a microchip that would transmit data wirelessly to track my oxygen saturation, my respiratory levels, and track movement or activity while I slept.
The results scared me badly.
For perspective, someone with mild sleep apnea will experience up to five “sleep disruptions” per hour. Ten to fifteen disruptions is considered average sleep apnea, and 30 or more disruptions would be severe apnea.

Folks, yours truly clocked in almost one hundred disruptions per hour in a single night. The oxygen saturation graph registered as low as 70% oxygen saturation, and I bottomed that right out multiple times over the course of the night. The diagnosis was severe obstructive sleep apnea. The way one technician described it was that as my muscles relaxed in sleep, some part of my respiratory system would relax too much and close off, prompting my brain to think that I’m drowning, and so my brain would “wake up” my body to breathe, disrupting my sleep and flooding my system with cortisol. I was basically in “fight or flight” mode all night, every night. No wonder I wasn’t ever getting good rest, no matter how long I slept! I wasn’t truly resting at all!

Luckily, the diagnosis opened up the potential for a CPAP machine. I’d seen my mom use one, and my late brother whose multiple health crises and a partially-paralyzed diaphragm necessitated the use of a Bi-PAP machine, but I never imagined having to use one myself. The doctor administered an in-lab sleep test where they could hook me up to a bunch of sensors and put me on a CPAP machine to see if that resolved the issue. I had to report to the sleep center at night, and the test would last until early the next morning.

It took a bit of finessing to get the mask to fit right, and I admit, I was a bit paranoid at being closely monitored while sleeping… but it was the best sleep I’d had in my life to that point.
The administering tech roused me after about seven and a half hours–during which time I’d experienced all 4 stages of sleep, including two and a half hours of REM sleep, and twenty whole minutes’ worth of deep sleep! It was early in the morning, which I usually hated those early hours, but I felt amazing! 
The euphoria of a great night’s sleep lasted for about two days, and then the fatigue started to set in again, but I felt that relief was in my grasp! Wearing a mask while sleeping wasn’t nearly as disruptive as I thought it was going to be, and I liked how I felt afterwards, too! I had to wait about a month to get my own machine, but as soon as I started using it, I felt the difference.

I stopped feeling “in a fog” and I no longer struggled against nodding off so much. I felt residual energy even after a full day of work, enough that I could engage and participate in things instead of just withdrawing to doze and drowse alone. Nowadays, I’m getting anywhere from half an hour to an hour of deep sleep on average nights, and on “short” nights (when I’m getting six hours or less of sleep) I’m still averaging ten to thirty minutes of deep sleep. That’s going from never getting deep sleep to deep sleep every night, and what a difference it’s made!
I’m especially glad to get this sleep thing figured out because this school year, the administration has shifted elementary start times back half an hour, so instead of needing to get to the school before 8 AM in the morning, which meant I had to get up at 6 AM to be able to get everything ready and go, now I have to be there at 7:30 AM, which means I have to get up at 5:30 every morning! I dislike it very much, but at least I can still get decent sleep, using my CPAP at night! 

Going into 2024, I resolved to channel the newfound energy toward more accountability and productivity. I have attempted to utilize a planner every year since like 2018, and I’ll generally do okay for a couple months and then something happens and I get distracted and fall out of place, and the planner ends up blank for several months. 
This year, I kind of looked back over the previous year and saw myself being overly ambitious, setting goals for myself without any sort of habits in place to back them up. In light of that, I chose targets for myself that I know I could accomplish, and am looking more into breaking those targets down into achievable parts that contribute to the overall goals. The first week of 2024, while not completely according to plan, didn’t end up too badly, so I’m optimistic that ensuing weeks will enable me to build up the habits I need to reach my goals!

WRITING

The last picture I have of
him, on his 29th birthday
a month before he passed

Anyway, writing has not been going as well as I’d hoped over the last year. I’d been dealing gently with myself since my brother’s passing in summer of 2022 (which was a large part of the reason I haven't really given an update since about that time, honestly...), and I’d started the year with more of a resolve, wanting to get the series finished up at long last, so that I could actually call it a series and not just one book. But then the whole thing with the sleeping habits happened and I didn’t get much writing done over the spring… or summer… I will say, I was able to get "over the hump" as it were during NaNoWriMo, and do much better than I had been the year before, so that’s a plus!

Fugitive Of Crossway

Ta-daa!! Story map--
the whole thing contained
on about 30 cards!

Speaking of Fugitive, I’d hoped to perhaps finish it, or at least get close to finishing it before November, but that didn’t happen. During NaNoWriMo this year, though, I managed to get past the really difficult part, the part of the story where a lot of things were happening simultaneously and I had gotten stymied for at least a month the first time around… This time I managed to get beyond it in just over a week, so I’ve got that going for me! This was due in part to a new strategy I’ve been implementing since starting this new draft, a story map! Getting all the moving parts visually synched up and organized has really helped me discern where things could be moved around so I’m (hopefully) not spending too much time on one character over another, and keeping things chronologically in order so it flows a lot better. I must inform you all that I’ve abandoned making it as short as Princess of Undersea, it’s definitely going to be a longer book, I just hope I don’t have to make it too long!

My goal for 2024 is to be able to finish Fugitive of Crossway before springtime, so that I can get the marketing launched for it to release in early springtime. The time is finally here, folks! Only three and a half years later… but I’m hoping that giving myself a deadline will encourage me to press through to the end!

UPCOMING OPPORTUNITIES

Well, the motivation to finish Fugitive as soon as possible is very high, because at this point I’ve had some new anthology opportunities coming up in 2024! 

The theme for the first anthology is “Genie In A Bottle”, and that happens to coincide with Book 3, Fury of Outwest, which is going to be a Steampunk/Western retelling of Aladdin, anyway! I already have the 3 “Tales from Outwest” that I’m going to include in the book itself, but I came up with a brand new idea that not only fits in with the narrative, but also does not spoil anything that I’ve already planned to happen in the book! I’m almost finished with it at this point, and then I’ll have a few months to edit it and polish it up before I submit it in April. The anthology will be released in June.

Imagine my surprise, when scrolling through the Facebook group posts to find the submission form for the Genie anthology, and finding two others that could fit with other stories I’ve already written! 

One is “Cracked Fairy Tales”, which of course reminded me of Cracks in The Tapestry–but since Tapestry is still in circulation I can’t necessarily use “Heartsong”... but what I do have is a certain “Cinderella” retelling with, I don’t know, DRAGONS, and set in 1920’s Italy, so I’d say that’s pretty “cracked”, wouldn’t you say? At any rate, I have till July to polish that one up for a September release. It’s a little over the word count limit, but hopefully I can get it down below, or the editor can allow me to stretch the limit a bit!

The other is called “Roses of Disgrace” and the guidelines specify that “a rose must be central to a conflict or resolution”, reminiscent of “Beauty and The Beast” and whatnot… which I’ve already cooked up a retelling with “The Prince and The Rose”, serialized on this blog. And bonus, I’m pretty sure it’s within the word count limit! I’m really excited to be able to share that story with a reader base I haven’t reached yet. That one is due in October for a December release.

So if I get everything together for all three anthologies, I’ll have short stories coming out in June, September, and December! Bring it on! Even better, if you’re curious at all and looking for a new batch of stories from authors you maybe haven’t read before, all three anthologies are already up for pre-order, so you can reserve your copy ahead of time and get it right when it releases!

BLOG SERIALS

To revive, or not to revive,
that is the question...

Meanwhile, in addition to the short story madness and the WIP deadlines, I haven’t forgotten about my beloved Serial Saturday tradition! I know there is always Fairies Under Glass I could return to, when I’m not running directly up against deadlines that are perilously close due to poor time management that I am trying to rectify… Also it might help if I knew if people were interested in seeing how that story resolves? I’m pretty proud of the way I reformed an old story in the first place, just with what I’ve written so far, anyway… but there was just something about it (and also some personal stuff I was dealing with at the time) that just drew me away from it. What do you all think? Let me know in the comments!

If something new is in order, then let me reassure you I have a fresh project waiting in the wings. I actually came up with it earlier last year, but I just had no way of breaking the idea down into actionable “episodes” for a serial… until pretty much the last bit of 2023. I have the first few episodes planned out by now, but just haven’t gotten around to turning those plans into an actual draft. That will come later, I assume, along with the rest of the plot! I figure once I have a few episodes written, in between the more serious writing projects, I can recommence the serial Saturdays, and then you’ll have something regular to look forward to on this blog!

Speaking of “something regular”, you can expect more blog tags out of me in the future. I’ve sourced a few from a couple other book bloggers, and I’m on the lookout for more. My plan is to be able to post at least twice per month, if not more, so I’m hoping to at least have enough blog tags to do one a month! I tried to start that last year, and it didn’t work out so much–here’s hoping I’ll do better this year!

So that’s it, that’s all the updates on my life and writing projects from 2023, and what to look forward to in 2024. Coming up on Monday, I made a post ranking all 17 books I read in 2023. Stay tuned for that! 

How about you? What are your goals for 2024? Share them in the comments, and let’s encourage one another to achieve success this year! As always...

Catch You Further Upstream!