Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!
You might be dearly curious about my #blogmas rollout this year – as I admit, I originally had ideas of a more *predictaable hour* of revelation for these lovelies! My blog apparently has had a more unique approach to how these spotlighted posts with featured extracts arrived into my blog’s archive and for that, I hope you’ve at least enjoyed them once they blinked onto your feeds via email and/or WP Reader!
→ And, for those of you who are hitting the like button to alert me of your presence on my blog – bless you!! I cherish those clicks as I do not always receive notes under my posts. It is lovely to see a wink and a nod from my regular readers,.. likewise I hope to be doing more of that kind of activity myself in the New Year.
I presume most of you are enjoying my posts by those sources as much as being routed here on Jorie Loves A Story courtesy of my updates in the twitterverse! As this is what I’ve been surmising throughout December as I watch which way my blog posts are being clicked upon out in the wider scheme of the net. I find those stats a bit interesting to gain a small insight into how people find my blog – especially during my Decembers wherein I turn a bit more showcasey in what I present rather than full-on reviews filtering through the month.
Though to be frank, my reviews have been a bit delayed this year from alighting as I’ve had readerly fatigue for most of 2020 and almost complete readerly burnt out for the rest of it. It wasn’t even any one specific moment though I know it began in the hours waning out of 2019 & into 2020 – as the close of the former year into the new one last New Year’s week was a muddling nightmare for world events (ie. wildfires, wildlife loss, earthquakes and other disasters and all of *that!* predated the pandemic,..) which was soul wrecking in of its own right. Ergo, my yearly reads were built on a shaky start to 2020.
As the months stacked onto each other, I found myself withdrawing from reading – from my backlogue of reviews and from the blog tour reads I desired to be focusing on most. Not to mention how clogged I am in non-completed reads for @SatBookChat featured guests! :O It is quite shocking and I have had to deal with that guilt as well though part of me gives me credit for hosting the chats & organising the discussions for those authors without cancelling the chats themselves. Save one or two due to health and/or a no show for an author whom I still hope to reschedule in Winter 2021.
With all of *that!* weighing on a girl’s mind, I happily dove into an abridged schedule for the #FantasyForChristmas blog tour whilst trying to keep on schedule for the showcases I wanted to feature for the secondary blog tour this December which is the Sweet Romance for Christmas. During which I concluded my abridged foray into #SciFiMonth is going to remain shelved and blogged right where it was the first week of December. Again, readerly fatigue is real. I’ll update about those final reads for #SciFiMonth in a forthcoming yearly recap post lateron this December right before 2021 winks into starsight.
These final showcases for Prism Book Tours tucking me into featuring lovely #newtomeauthors alongside newly discovered authors has been a delight of joy as it gave me a further chance to blog some Christmassy themed journalling – you’ll have to backtrack through the Fantasy & Romance blog tours to see everything in all its glory this year – as each post was left with a different mind map of thoughts which spilt into the top anchour of those featured posts in both events! Some were more Christmas minded than others, some were happily referencing IRL binge watches of tv series or Christmas films and others, were notes from yours truly about the story, the author or what I hoped to reveal in connection to the featured book of the hour. In essence, I tried to remain mindful of the spirit of #blogmas whilst hosting both tours back to back on Jorie Loves A Story.
For those of you who were (or still are) in final preps for Christmas and Christmas weekend – this recapturing of the posts themselves will give you a keen overview of the stories I most desire to read throughout 2021 as much as a snapshot of why these stories caught my readerly eye this #blogmas 2020! You can easily click-over to my posts and/or you can happily search for these authors and their stories on your ownsome if one (or more hopefully!) winks its nod of curiosity into your own readerly heart.
And, without further adieu, let’s see which stories on this lovely romantic tour gave me a boost of bookish joy to host during the Sweet Romance for Christmas blog tour of 2020: