I did it. I set a reading goal of reading at least 52 books this year, and I met that goal before June. Then I set a new goal of 100 books and met that goal in October. As of today, I have read 119 books, and will probably read and finish one more before December 31. I started The Teller of Small Fortunes earlier this month but have not finished it.

In some ways, this was a slow month; I finished seven books. It was also a busy crafting month to get ready for Christmas as well as the other busy-ness that comes with the holiday season. I have to admit that I started a few and put them away or they are still in progress.

Five of the books I read this month fall into the category of historical novels, some with more romance than others. I read the latest installment of the Tabitha and Wolf novels, An Intrepid Woman, and enjoyed it. It is an easy read with a story that is more plot driven than character driven. Actually, the same can be said for the first five books. Of those books, I especially liked the Victorian mystery An Exhibition of Malice by Emily L. Finch, which is set against the background of the Industrial Revolution and the Great Exhibition of 1862, ten or so years after the exhibition sponsored by Prince Albert in the middle of the 19th century. If we think industrial espionage is only a modern thing, this novel suggests that stealing plans for inventions has been around for a whole lot longer.

The two contemporary novels, The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year and The Last Love Note were both good reads. The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year was a lot of fun. It is light-hearted and funny as well as a good mystery. It makes use of the “enemies to lovers” trope even though the enemy part is one-sided. And, of course, there is the happily ever after ending. This novel makes use of the Agatha Christie country-house mystery and a locked-room disappearance. Ally Carter also uses Agatha Christie’s own mysterious disappearance for inspiration in this novel.

When I began The Last Love Note, I thought I was going to read a rom-com. The first couple of chapters made me laugh out loud; however, the novel started getting pretty heavy as it developed into the story of a forty-year-old widow’s coming to terms with the death of her husband from early onset and rapid Alzheimer’s and single-parenthood. Yet, in spite of the heaviness of these plot threads, there is a lightness and at times some comic relief as she slowly learns that she can have a new life (and love) and a second chance at happiness. I admit that I did the ugly cry through the last ten chapters of the book.

As I finished this book, I thought back over the books I have read this year and looked at my list of best books of each month:

January–The Fury

• January–The Fury
• February–The First Ladies
• March–The Lost Apothecary
• April–Touch Not the Cat
• May–Shakespeare: The Man Who Paid the Rent
• June–The Women
• July–The Lost Story
• August–The Cliffs
• September–Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries
• October–Lady Macbeth
• November–Before the Coffee Gets Cold
• December–The Last Love Note

All of these books were such good ones, and it is hard to pick my favorite. I am going to go with The First Ladies, though. It is a novel about the friendship between Mary McLeod Bethune and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. These two women are often footnotes in the history books, and their roles in the civil rights movement are overshadowed by likes of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and other men. Yet this novel showed how important their work was. Moreover, it also showed how difficult interracial friendships can be, even today, when we are supposedly more enlightened. I often learn more history from the historical novels I read than from the history books, and this one certainly played into my interest in history.

I tried to read more nonfiction this year and actually finished three really wonderful books: Judi Dench’s autobiographical Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent, Killers of the Flower Moon, and The Boys in the Boat about the 1936 US Olympic eight-man rowing team. It would be hard to choose which is the better book, but I will admit that Shakespeare:The Man Who Pays the Rent is my favorite. Dame Judi Dench gave me such insight into the characters from the plays she performed, and I almost wished I were teaching again so I could share those insights with my students. I listened to both of the books on Audible and realized that I loved listening to nonfiction more than fiction. Killers of the Flower Moon is a difficult book to read and listen to because of its subject, the exploitation of Native Americans out of greed. I highly recommend this last book.

I am already lining up my books for the coming year. I can’t wait to see what selections will be offered in the Book of the Month and the Aardvark Book clubs. My book group that meets monthly at the local coffee shop will be reading Wuthering Heights as our first book of the year. I am looking forward to reading that one again. I wonder how much it has changed since I read it as a sixteen year old, a twenty-six year old, a thirty-something, and now as a sixty-six year old. And I wonder how my reading will compare to our high school senior’s reading. (Imagine a book club with three sixty-something women and one seventeen-year-old! We do love our girl, though. She has been a wonderful addition to our group!)