#WWWednesday No. XV | Jorie Returns, after a long hard Summer and only a faint echo of Wyrd And Wonder now that it’s August.

Posted Wednesday, 24 August, 2022 by jorielov 0 Comments

#WWWednesdays graphic created by Jorie in Canva.

I ♥ the premise of this meme {WWW Wednesdays} due to the dexterity it gives the reader! Smiles. Clearly subject to change on a weekly rotation, which may or may not lead to your ‘next’ read providing a bit of a paradoxical mystery to your readers!! Smiles. ♥ the brilliance of it’s concept!

This weekly meme was originally hosted by Should Be Reading who became A Daily Rhythm. Lovingly restored and continued by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words. Each week you participate, your keen to answer the following questions:

  • What are you currently reading!?
  • What did you recently finish reading!?
  • What do you think you’ll read next!?

After which, your meant to click over to THIS WEEK’s WWWWednesday to share your post’s link so that the rest of the bloggers who are participating can check out your lovely answers! Score! Perhaps even, find other bloggers who dig the same books as you do! I thought it would serve as a great self-check to know where I am and the progress I am hoping to have over the next week!

Join the Convo via: #WWWWednesday

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August is nearly consumed,

Summer’s fiery wrath is unrelentingly brutal

but Jorie is returning to reading after an unplanned sabbatical!

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I hadn’t intended to be GONE for such a long time — in regards to updating Jorie Loves A Story, engaging on Twitter and being an active reader. Nearly 90 days since Wyrd And Wonder and I’ve had one heck of a Summer this year. In fact, it is a bit ironic that this year rather than 2020 or 2021 was the year where I felt the months fell forward and into each other without a lot of downtime to read, blog or engage with the bookish community.

To be honest, I’ve been working more hours and picking up more shifts whenever I could and dealing with a lot of personal and professional stress throughout June, July and now, August. Just to login to my blog has felt wonderful despite the fact everything goes back to Wyrd And Wonder with only a few posts between then and now to sustain my followers (and myself!). Not exactly as I had envisioned my Summer to go but at the same time, considering everything that has happened, I’m just thankful to recapture the joy of reading and blogging again.

I am sure I’m not the first book blogger whose found herself in this kind of a pickle – where IRL priorities supersede the joys of reading and the hours needed to blog and/or engage. However, it has been personally frustrating because I haven’t had any time to just do something outside of WORK. And, for good reasons – as by early June, my car’s air conditioner died and I spent a month and a half commuting in HIGH HUMIDITY and extremely high temperatures – as Summer’s fiery wrath was in full swing. It’s at least 90 but over 100+ with the heat index and humidity. I swear I live on the volcanic edge of sanity. The fact I could qualify for a new to me used car was an unexpected and much needed blessing which turnt the tides a bit by mid to late July.

However, as much as May was a bit marred by unexpected woes and stress at the start of Wyrd And Wonder and which nearly upset my plans a bit — this Summer has been a brutal one personally. I usually have to deal with lightning storms and intense thunderstorms – as Summer brings heavier rains and can knock connectivity into oblivion. That’s been a bit diminished compared to years past, especially considering it used to be so bad I could barely log onto my blog or even compose my notes for a review! Nowadays, we’re dealing with less storms in early Summer and more of them are collectively accumulating towards the end rather than having them as a steady presence throughout the season. Compared to other places, we’ve been blessed but evenso, there are some storms you just know are going to have deadly lightning within their clouds.

As I shift back into reading, I’ve decided to shift back into writing posts betwixt and between the reviews and/or author showcases, if I can schedule them as I’m a bit out of the loop all round and felt it best to just start reading again and then, hopefully other kinds of posts and engagements will follow suit thereafter. I’m also trying to chase down an Indie Fantasy event I remember happening September ahead of October’s #SpooktasticReads and Novembers duo: #Norsevember and #SciFiMonth. It would focus on Indie Fantasy authors and publishers but for the life of me at the moment, I am forgetting the name of the event and who hosts it! (oyyy vie)

Alas, right as I was writing this — I was able to connect to some of my bookish friends via Twitter and learnt it’s called: Self Pub Fantasy Month hosted this year by Tyra @SelfPubFanMonth!! I am wicked happy to announce now that I am participating this year and I’ll be joining the rotation of reviewers who will be featured during #SelfPubFantasyMonth as well! Eek. I can’t wait to sort out a plan of action on Jorie Loves A Story, too! As comparatively whether SpecFic is independently or self-published – those authors and their stories tend to be my wheelhouse of choice to read! As I tend to read a more limited number of traditionally published SpecFic! I’ve been wanting to join this event for ages now – so very thankful how connective we all are and how even after a lapse of connection you can reach out to people you know in this bookish community and find an event you accidently forgot the name of!

This begins my return, and I am thankful if you’ve been hovering in the background awaiting me to resume my blog and my life in the twitterverse. I appreciate everyone who visits with me and converses either on my blog or on Twitter, too. Let me know how your Summer has fared and if it went off the rails like mine did, too! Also, curious what your drawn to be reading right now – as you’ll note, my return involves an audiobook and it’s not the only one, too.

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What Jorie is currently reading:

Search for the Holy Grail MJL Evans and GM O' ConnorbyDeath on the Boardwalk by Caleb Wygal

Search for the Holy Grail by MJL Evans & GM O’ Connor (*audiobook)

Death on the Boardwalk by Caleb Wygal

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I decided to dip my toes back into reading this week – I had heard a sampler of an audiobook whose narrator truly caught my ears and I was thankful to find I was on the audio blog tour for this story called: Search for the Holy Grail. I’ve started listening to the story, as I didn’t get the notification I was on the tour until today, as I was knocked offline this past week due to all the fierce lightning storms – per usual for this time of year, but just as maddening all the same! I am enjoying the new format for listening to audio reads via Authors’ Direct as previously I wasn’t finding that particular app to be my favourite in regards to audiobook apps as it was harder to use when I first installed it. Now, it apparently has been updated and the format is a lot easier to navigate – at least for me. The only key issue I’m finding is that despite my love of the narrator’s voice and her wicked delight at narrating with accents for the characters is that the story itself is a bit hard to follow and/or a bit of a miss for me as a listener.

I am very early-on in the story, which is why I’m giving it a bit more time to see if it’s a wash-out or if somewhere past the opening bridge, I might find my way with it. The opening arc though wasn’t my cuppa tea – which I’ll explain on my stop on the tour this Saturday but if you’re looking for a new narrator to keep your eyes on, I highly recommend Ann Marie Lewis! She’s a narrator I’m going to be seeking out to listen to more titles of – including hopefully re-listening and finishing Winterdream before the close of the year.

Meanwhile, a bit of a back-story about Death on the Boardwalk – as this was a review request which came into my blog directly via my Review Request page. I was fascinated and charmed by the description of the series whilst I was also curious about a Cosy Mystery series set in South Carolina along the coast. I used to read a lot of Southern Lit and especially Women’s Fiction and/or Cosies set in the South but over the years, I’ve explored other routes of stories and different genres and I’ve sort of lost my way with Southern Lit as those stories fell by the wayside for a period of time. Now, I feel like I can return to those stories and potentially find a new voice in Cosy Mysteries — which is why when I learnt about the lead character in the Myrtle Beach Mystery series, I felt this was just the kind of quirky character I could get behind!

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What Jorie recently finished:
a la #WyrdAndWonder

Considering that the last time I was regularly reading was during our blessedly 5th Year of Wyrd And Wonder, I have already planned to go forward with my ‘end of the event’ posts – even though, I am a bit excessively delayed to have them arrive on Jorie Loves A Story as it is nearly the end of Summer rather than the start of June; you’ll have to forgive the time lapses as this was one wickedly difficult Summer for me personally and professionally. Lots of fires to work through and loads of stress to shift through as well. To be honest, I am thankful I had Wyrd And Wonder as it was the last month where I could honestly say I had better balance all round – between work, life and the joys of being an engaged book blogger in a community she’s loved since 2013.

Ergo, I am planning a special series of posts to focus on my journey with Wyrd And Wonder this past May and that includes the stories I read, the characters I met and the memories I curated along the journey of co-hosting for the first time with all four of my co-hosts as we’re now a Power of Five behind the Wyrd And Wonder team of book bloggers and readers. For now, if your curious and don’t want to wait for those posts to arrive – kindly click on this link to reach my Wyrd And Wonder archives for 2022.

Some of those posts will run in September, but I am hoping to post something on the 28th to anchour where I am now with my readings and where I was in May during The Sunday Post.

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What Jorie is reading next:

After Math by Emily Barth IslerOut Mouse by Valerie L. Egar

After Math by Emily Barth Isler (*audiobook)

Out Mouse! by Valerie L. Egar (*audiobook)

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As you can see, I’m dipping my toes back into reading a bit slower than usual. I knew I wanted to dive back into reading the Blackwell series by my beloved Harlequin Heartwarming authors as equally as I wanted to dive back into Butterfly Harbour writ by Anna J. Stewart, however, as those series are quite involved, I decided to push those readings forward into September and for the remaining short days of August, to start reading either shorter audiobooks or a mixed bag of either Mysteries or other works of Fiction I haven’t been able to pick up this Summer.

Both of these lovelies were requests via NetGalley, whilst I was trying to resume my listenings to audiobooks via NG as sometimes I have found over the past few years, I’ve been a member of NG, that the time I think I have to give to listening to audiobooks and the time I actually have in reality are not exactly an even match! Therefore, like others who use NG, I have a smallish backlogue of listens which I am slowly moving through and getting myself to be ‘current’ whilst sometimes at different intervals, I am also trying to pick ‘listen now’ titles to not only find new stories to listen too but also to increase my percentage on NG as well.

I am hoping I can listen and review both of these before September and then, as September is now a month I can focus on #SelfPubFantasyMonth whilst reading Butterfly Harbour & the Blackwells series. I have a few other NG audiobooks I might queue as well before sorting out which Self-Published works of Fantasy I want to focus on in September, too.

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Before you leave —

If you are listening to audiobooks this August, let me know which stories you’re selecting to read and if any of the stories I am reading are ones that you would enjoy seeking out!? Also, what styles of stories do you prefer in audio and what kinds of genres do you enjoy reading overall? Have you found yourself reading less this year, as I have myself or have you’ve had a more productive year this 2022 rather than the past two years?

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{Sources: Audiobook cover for “Search for the Holy Grail” provided by Audiobook Empire and is used with permission. Book cover for “Death on the Boardwalk” provided by Caleb Wygal and is used with permission. Book covers for “Out Mouse!” and “After Math” provided by NetGalley and are used with permission. Post dividers badge by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: #WWWWednesdays and the Comment Box banner.}

Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2022.

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About jorielov

I am self-educated through local libraries and alternative education opportunities. I am a writer by trade and I cured a ten-year writer’s block by the discovery of Nanowrimo in November 2008. The event changed my life by re-establishing my muse and solidifying my path. Five years later whilst exploring the bookish blogosphere I decided to become a book blogger. I am a champion of wordsmiths who evoke a visceral experience in narrative. I write comprehensive book showcases electing to get into the heart of my reading observations. I dance through genres seeking literary enlightenment and enchantment. Starting in Autumn 2013 I became a blog book tour hostess featuring books and authors. I joined The Classics Club in January 2014 to seek out appreciators of the timeless works of literature whose breadth of scope and voice resonate with us all.

"I write my heart out and own my writing after it has spilt out of the pen." - self quote (Jorie of Jorie Loves A Story)

read more >> | Visit my Story Vault of Book Reviews | Policies & Review Requests | Contact Jorie

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Posted Wednesday, 24 August, 2022 by jorielov in Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blogosphere Events & Happenings, Bookish Memes, JLAS Update Post, Jorie Loves A Story, WWW Wednesdays




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