Spring Clean Your TBR Pile for 2022

Happy New Year folks! Welcome to the January YA SFF Winter Blog Hop, where we’re talking fresh starts, new beginnings and setting goals for the year ahead. Plus, there’s another fabulous giveaway to enter and a whole bunch of new freebies and gifts to discover!

Keep reading to find out how I spring clean my TBR, grab your free novella, and enter our big giveaway…

January Blog Hop Stops

  1. New Young Adult Books: What’s Coming in 2022? 
  2. Resolutions and Reviews
  3. New Year’s in the Slytherin Common Room: Celebrating the Most Ruthless & Ambitious Characters in YA
  4. 2022 LGBT Books We Are Excited For
  5. New Beginnings No Matter the Season
  6. New Year, New Reading Goals!
  7. Bookish New Year Resolutions
  8. Non-Resolutions (Unless You Were Born in January)
  9. Eos: Goddess of New Beginnings
  10. Spring Clean Your TBR Pile (YOU ARE HERE)
  11. My 2022 Reading Journal
  12. The Best Fantasy & Sci-Fi Debut Books (YA & Adult)
  13. YA characters who made their dreams come true

How to Spring Clean Your To-Be-Read Pile

Christmas has come and gone and the decorations are down, it’s time to give your house a spring clean for the New Year. While you’re tidying your space and decluttering your belongings, don’t forget your most important possessions – your books!

Here are my tips for spring cleaning your bookshelves for 2022:

Physical Books – Read

Go through your collection of read books and divide them into three piles:

  • books you want to keep (to read again or just for display),
  • books you want to lend/gift to friends who’ll enjoy them,
  • books to donate.

Give your bookshelves a clean and re-shelve your keep pile, add some bookish scented candles, character art prints and figurines, or any other fun bits of book merch you own – maybe a string of fairy lights or a couple of potted plants (real or fake, no judgement here!) – and take a few photos for your bookstagram account, to commemorate the occasion.

Physical Books – To Be Read

Now, do the same with your unread books. Reread the blurbs and check out some reviews on Amazon or Goodreads to decide whether you’re still interested in reading them, then split them into three piles. You could even take photos of your donation pile and offer them to your social media followers for the cost of post and packaging. Or drop them off at your local charity shop or free library, whatever feels right.

Stack your new physical TBR pile on your bedside table, or buy one of those gorgeous three-tiered storage trolleys in a shade that you love and divide your TBR between the shelves. Dreamy AND organised!

Ebooks

Now the hard work begins! If you’re anything like me, your Kindle will be chock full of unread ebooks, either because you wanted to support the author and preorder their new release, or because the cover or blurb caught your eye but you never got around to starting them. Well, now’s the time to tidy up that cluttered device.

  • Go through and remove your read books from the device to save space.
  • Sort your unread books by length or alphabetically, whatever works for you, and take a chunk of 10 or so each day until you’ve filtered your whole library. (If you’re around the 1000 mark, then… I’m sorry. Hang in there.)
  • Read the blurbs and decide which books you still want to read and which you’re no longer interested in.
  • Grab a new notebook or reading planner (I have the perfect thing if you’re looking for one! Click here to buy the Once Upon a Name 2022 reading planner) and jot down the titles of all the books you’re still planning to read.
  • Choose a couple of physical books and a couple of ebooks to read each month (depending on your reading speed), or write the titles of all of your TBR on separate slips of paper and put them in a jar to choose from when you’re ready for your next read.
  • Or, if you’re a mood reader, add a couple of notes to each book (e.g. fantasy, enemies to lovers, futuristic, found family, etc.) to help you choose something to suit your mood each month.

Your Goodreads TBR

Now that you’ve decluttered your physical and digital TBRs and made notes in your reading planner, tidying up your Goodreads lists should be fairly simple. Add any books you’ve read to your Read list and update your Want To Read list with any new books you got for Christmas. Then go through your Want To Read list and untick any books you’ve decided you no longer want to read.

And that’s it, you’re all done! Well done on spring cleaning your TBR for the New Year.

Now treat yourself to a new book for all your hard work! In fact, I’ve got one here you could have…

Your January free gift!

Grab your free copy of my novella A Fair Deception here:

Fair Tales short stories from the Fair Realm

Enter our Mega Giveaway

Click here or on the image to enter and be in with a chance of winning a $30 Amazon gift card: https://kingsumo.com/g/wtnrzh/new-year-new-books-win-an-amazon-gift-card

May the odds be ever in your favour.

Lyndsey

x

Interview: time travel sci-fi author D.M. Taylor

I hope you’re having a relaxing, restorative and joyous festive break, friends! I scheduled this post before the big day, so right now I’m probably knee-deep in mince pies and Baileys. Or sneaking the batteries out of whichever annoying new toy the grandparents bought for my three-year-old…

As a little Twixmas treat (that’s the scientific name for the gap between Christmas and New Year where we only wear pajamas and have no idea what day it is), I’m sharing my interview with the lovely, talented and very down-to-earth D.M. Taylor, one of my Once Upon a Name co-authors.

Read on to find out what we chatted about.

Hi, thank you so much for chatting with me today! Tell us a little about yourself to begin with.

I’m from Michigan. I’ve lived here my whole life. My favorite part about living in Michigan is that we have the most spectacular summers surrounded by the Great Lakes. It’s never too far to get to a beach. 

That sounds wonderful, we’re not too far from the Lake District in England, and we’re right on the edge of the Peak District, so I definitely appreciate a good natural backdrop! When did you start writing and what inspired you?

I’ve been a writer my whole life. In grade school, always writing stories and entering the Young Author’s contests. I have stacks and stacks of diaries, poetry notebooks, story starters that I’ve written in throughout my life. 

I made the move to become a published author a few years ago after writing a story that was inspired by the loss of my mom. Once the first draft of that story was on paper, a fire ignited to see it to publication. 

I’m so sorry for your loss. What a beautiful tribute to write a story inspired by your mother, and for that story to have been the catalyst for your publishing career. What are some of your favourite books?

I am all over the place with what I like to read. In a nutshell, I love a story that I can totally lose myself in. Some favorites include; Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Dracula by Bram Stoker, Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Good choices! And quite a mix there, you obviously have an eclectic taste. I think it’s great when you can enjoy a wide range of genres and look for the story elements you love that link them together. Tell us about your first published book.

My debut book is titled, The Reckoning: A Time Travel Thriller.

It’s about a young woman who is facing the grief of losing her mother to cancer. She goes on to become a renowned physicist who is driven to discover time travel and get back to her mom. But, what she thought would undo years of turmoil, might have triggered the downfall of society and put those she loves in peril danger. 

That sounds so fascinating, and grief is such a strong motivator, your protagonist sounds incredibly courageous. Where do you find inspiration for your characters or settings? 

I am a people watcher! Most of what I write comes from people I know, I’ve watched, or experiences I’ve read about. The stories of real people that impress on me the most, stick around and take up space in my brain until I get them onto paper as a character in the world I make up for them. 

I love that, reality is such a rich source of inspiration. And creating a fantastical world to set the story in just adds another layer of possibility to let your creativity go wild, while keeping the story grounded in truth. Are you a plotter, pantser or plantser? 

I’ve evolved from a straight pantser to a plantster. I am unable to tap into creativity in straight out plotting but I do a rough outline to keep my timelines straight. Time travel is tricky business. 

I can imagine! I’m a plantser too, I need some structure, but not so much that it stifles my creativity. What are you working on right now?

I’m in editing for my third book in The Reckoning Series and the short story I am contributing for Once Upon a Name: The Sultana of the Deathly Stars.

Editing is my least favourite stage of the writing process, so I’m sending you lots of coffee and good vibes! What one piece of advice would you give aspiring authors? 

Write the book. Everything else can be figured out afterward. 

Thank you so much for joining me today, D.M.! Before you go, how can we find out more about you and your books? 

D.M. Taylor’s Website:  https://www.subscribepage.com/dmtaylorthereckoning

Follow her on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/authordmtaylor

Like her Facebook page:   http://www.facebook.com/authordmtaylor

Or find her on TikTok: @authordmtaylor

Book 3 in The Reckoning Series is coming soon! 

I hope you had fun getting to know D.M. Taylor and learning more about her books and upcoming releases. I’m so excited to be working together on Once Upon a Name! Have you heard about our new 2022 reading planner? It’s a gorgeous book filled with weekly, monthly and annual calendars, reading trackers, review pages and illustrations and quotes from our stories in the upcoming anthology. If you order yours now, you can start using it in January and keep track of your reading in a beautiful, mindful way all year long.

Get the Once Upon a Name 2022 reading planner from Amazon

Happy reading!

Lyndsey

x

Once Upon a Name 2022 planner and reading tracker + giveaway!

Happy holidays bookish friends! I hope you’re enjoying the festive season and looking forward to lots of extra reading time over the holidays.

If you like to write in a planner or bullet journal to keep track of your TBR and make notes on your current reads so you can write up your reviews later, then you’re going to LOVE what I’ve got to show you today!

Some of my very clever and talented co-authors of Once Upon a Name, Susan and Jo, have created an absolutely gorgeous reading planner for 2022, complete with weekly and monthly calendars, reading habit trackers, review pages, a year-end wrap up and lots of beautiful illustrations and quotes from the upcoming anthology.

You can take a peek inside on Amazon and see the illustration and quote from my story, Baroness of Blood and Bone. Some of my co-authors have even made Instagram reels showing off their copies, take a look here:

All of the profits from the sale of the planner will go to Book Aid International, just like the anthology itself, so however you choose to support us you’ll be helping underprivileged children to learn to read and get access to libraries all over the world. Whether you buy one for your best bookish friend (or BBF) or you treat yourself as a little well done for getting through the last couple of years, it’s completely guilt-free spending!

If you order now, you can get it in time for January 1st and start 2022 as you mean to go on. At 176 pages and just less than A4 size, she’s a big beauty and well worth the $10, but if your budget doesn’t stretch to that at this time of year then you can still preorder the anthology for just 99c/77p and in April 2022 you’ll get twenty short fantasy stories for your reading pleasure!

Giveaway

Fancy being in with a chance of winning one of four copies of our gorgeous new planner? Click the link below to enter our big release giveaway!

https://bit.ly/OUANPlannerGiveAway

Happy reading friends, and have a wonderful Christmas, Hanukkah, Solstice, Kwanzaa and New Year!

Lyndsey

x