Book 7: The Shots You Take by Rachel Reid

Another vacation book! This one is a perfect post-retirement hockey romance by the author of the Game Changers series, but it's a standalone in a separate universe. Adam and Riley were a d-man pairing and best friends and roommates who were also more than all that, until Adam freaked out and married a woman and broke Riley's heart. So Riley requested a trade and then retired early from hockey, and they didn't see each other for over a decade until Riley's dad died and Adam showed up at the funeral in Riley's tiny Nova Scotian seaside village, where Riley spent five summers when they were young players together. 

I really enjoyed both the second chance romance and the fantasy of owning a small house right on the water with a garden and having a wonderful queer friends group. The conflict of when they were players together made perfect sense, and if some of the resolution felt a bit too easy, especially coming so fast after Riley losing his beloved father, the characterization and chemistry is strong enough for me to buy it. A lovely read on a rainy weekend away. 

Grade: A

Book 6: Fall Into You by Dylan Morrison

Time for some vacation reads at a house in the woods! The first one is this extremely classic gay romance about a guy named Will who fled his parents' farm when he was 18 and never looked back, until his father died and left him a farm. When he returns, he meets Casey, who had been taking care of the apple farm for the final 6 years of Will's dad's life, and sparks fly! Is selling the farm to the real estate developer the right move? Was Will ever really happy living in the big city? I bet you know the answers to those questions, and as always, the fun is in the telling of it. I would have liked a bit more development of the romance between Will and Casey, but overall I really liked this story of someone finding the right version of home for them. 

Grade: B

Book 5: Sheep Calm and Merry On by Ashlyn Kane

This is a perfectly adequate Christmas romance novella in which two retired hockey players end up in a bit of a Canadian shack situation and realize that maybe they're meant to be together! It's cute but doesn't do anything more than what's on the tin, and even at a novella length still had to invent a reason for a second location/is he going to call me bit of drama. It's fine!

Grade: B

2026 Master List

I am posting my 2026 Master List in May, which honestly feels pretty appropriate for this year! But it's sunny and warm out, so maybe this is the start I actually need for this project this year.  

I also didn't read a ton of books in the first third of the year, largely because all of my narrative brain space was taken up by two television shows I remain obsessed with, the writing I want to do for both of them, the Olympics, and two other ongoing sports leagues. To put it bluntly, my ability to focus on new books was pretty bad, but less because of everything going on in the world in 2026 and more because I had too much else to focus on. So! I'm not mad about that, even though I do want to read a lot more than I did in the first part of the year. 

Other things! Last year felt like an off year for me reading-wise, but I read 45 new books and 6 rereads, and that's almost one book a week! As is true most years, I read mostly in chunks, and about half of the books on my list were books that had already been on my list at the beginning of the year, and half of them were new additions. That doesn't bode well for the idea of me making a dent in my current list, but well that's the nature of this project. I am also getting better at not finishing books or even just taking a book off the list before even starting it if I feel like it's just not actually what I'm interested in anymore. 

Anyway, here is this year's list! I'm starting with 235 books, and while I do not expect to get to bookcase zero by the end of the year, I would like to end the year with closer to a hundred rather than two hundred.