The Questions for the 2020 End of the Year Survey are posted by Jaime @ the Perpetual Page Turner, who created this survey as a personal reflection of her year of bookish wanderings and readings, and never thought it would turn into a book blogosphere yearly event! I am thankful she encourages us all to participate even though over the past five years I haven’t had the best track record of joining in on the community in which she’s curated to share a summation of our readerly lives.

*Please be Advised:*

This *End of the Year Survey* first landed on Jorie Loves A Story in [2016] whilst celebrating the previous year of [2015] and I made a determined effort to bring it back in [2017] except those plans are still in my Drafts folder for #JLASblog! Smiles. I have decided to create #timecapsule posts this Happy New Year 2021 to re-explore what my top favourites were as a book blogger for the *missing years!* of the Survey itself! Stay tuned for some bookish revelations,… whilst I have decided this year to bring back the Survey in its rightful place of cheerfully championing a signal of #booklove as one year exchanges itself for a new one – rather than withhold my responses til my next blogoversary as I had done in year’s past on the 31st of March.

As you already realise if you’re a ready reader + follower of Jorie Loves A Story – these posts become EPIC and MASSIVELY descriptive as I reveal my final thoughts, ruminations and musings about the STORIES which truly left the impressions this survey attempts to reveal about our past twelvemonths as a reader and inquistive book blogger.

This being said – this post is a full balance OF all the stories I’ve read and discovered giving a fuller scope of how I ended my 2020 as a reader who happily is blogging her life as a book blogger. As well bringing myself back to centre with my ruminations – allowing me the chance to re-think about the stories I’ve read and to put to rest the final thoughts I’ve had on behalf of the stories themselves.

Be sure to brew yourself a cuppa joy as you sit, read and ponder which of my #BestOf2020Reads need to seriously become added to your own #TBR!

If you’ve filled something out like this survey (OR this actual one!) – be sure to share your link to your post(s) in the *threads below this post so I can take a gander at which stories | authors | series | genres joyfully intrigued you throughout 2020! As I would like expand my own TBR with the stories you’ve read yourself which could be a wicked good fit for me.

REMEMBER: if a story wasn’t my cuppa it could be one better suited for you and vice versa if you had a story which you felt fell short of your own expectations and might resontate with me better. Reading is subjective to our individual experiences within the stories themselves and all our reactions are valid and important as they are markers of our readerly lives.

Let’s break this down a bit, shall we?

You can use this as a ‘preview guide’ of how to use my Story Vault. <— fully updated!

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The Questions for the 2016 End of the Year Survey are posted by Jaime @ the Perpetual Page Turner, who created this survey as a personal reflection of her year of bookish wanderings and readings, and never thought it would turn into a book blogosphere yearly event! I am thankful she encourages us all to participate as I would have last year but felt I hadn’t yet sprouted my bookish wings as I have this year!

2015 Reading & Posting Stats:

Number of Re-Reads: 0 | definitely something I should work on resolving!

Number of Classical Fiction: 0 | #epicfail | lest I say more?

Number of Novellas and/or Short Story Collections: 3

2015 was a definitive year where I fell head over heels in love with *shorts!* So much so, one of the collections wasn’t able to be read/reviewed by year’s end (‘Scarecrow’) and it’s closely followed by two more from World Weaver Presses *awesome!* releases: ‘Frozen Fairy Tales’ and ‘Far Orbit’!! I was unexpectedly delayed from posting the rest of my reviews for this beautiful publisher. They resume this Spring, starting in April 2016.

Number of Books Read of a Publisher (Top 5):

{ full listing of publishers I review as I read }

(1)  Small Trade | Indie Pub/Press | Self-Pub or Hybrid = 54 Books (mix of fiction & non-fiction)

I elected to combine every which way to Sunday an author can be an ‘Indie Author’

(2) Cedar Fort Publishing & Media = 35 Books (mix of fiction, non-fiction & cookery)

I reviewed quite a few non-fiction and cookbooks in 2015 ontop of the fiction releases

(3) HarperCollins Publishers = 16 Books

William Morrow and the P.S. Editions still remain my most read choices

(4) ChocLitUK = 6 Books (of multiple sub-genres within Romance)

My reading queue was lower this year due to health & those lightning storms!

(5)  Penguin Random House = 6 (should have been 7 with The Little Paris Bookshop)

I find the break-downs per year the most interesting; especially as my inclinations to read Indie Authors increases each year. Mind you, I love Major Trade and I think if I could reach the point where I read 50% of both Indie and Major Trade markets per year, I’ll be quite happy indeed! I’m a hardcore Indie girl / reader, but I cannot dismiss the fact I still *love!* Major Trade!

The publishers where I read less than five were as follows:

Simon and Schuster | Hachette | Kensington | MacMillian | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Number of Blog Tours Hosted: 83
(individual blog tours – some had multiple posts spilt between reviews & author guest features)

Novels: 88

Short Stories: 20

Inside “Corvidae” (review)

• Whistles and Thrills by Kat Otis
• The Rookery of Sainte-Mère-Église by Tim Deal
  
• Raven No More by Adria Laycraft
• The Tell-Tale Heart of Existence by Michael M. Rader
• Sanctuary by Laura VanArendonk Baugh
• Flight by Angela Slatter
• The Valravn by Angela Slatter
• Visiting Hours by Michael S. Pack
• A Murder of Crows (a poem) by Jane Yolen

Inside “Rift in the Sky” | blogged on 1st Trade Pact (review)

Stonerim III

Inside “A Thousand Words for Stranger” (review)

Brothers Bound

Inside “FAE” (review)

• Rosie Red Jacket by Christine Morgan
• Antlers by Amanda Block
• Only Make Believe by Lauren Liebowitz
• The Cartography of Shattered Trees by Beth Cato

Inside “Darkness with a Chance of Whimsy” (review)

• The Assurance Salesman
• Fade
• Do Better
• Inner Strength
• Starter Kit

Non-Fiction: 13

Cookery: 9

Pages read: 34,073

(+1) Alaina Claiborne | I only was able to read the opening chapters

(+1) Devil in the White City | listened to the audiobook and read the hardback (a quarter of the book)

(+1) The Barter  | read the opening chapters (in-progress late December)

Let’s break this down a bit further, shall we?

You can use this as a ‘preview guide’ of how to use my Story Vault.

Read More