What Deanna Read #108: July 2025

I am starting to prep this post for my July reads early in the month of August. You never know what life is going to throw at me, the month is young, so fingers crossed it's a boring month. When they say "may you live in interesting times," it's really a curse. Don't fall for it. My life has been very interesting of late. Zero stars. Do not recommend.

I'm gonna be honest and confess that I don't know how much I read. July was a big catch up month for me because not much got done in June. A two week vacation, plus germs from Hubby for ten days equals me falling behind on a lot. I think I did some reading, but I won't know until I get stuck into looking at my read books list. I'm sure there were a couple of audiobooks in there too. I think. Don't quote me on it.

Here's what I read in the last month.

Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism

Theft of Swords (full cast dramatized version) 🎧Graphic Audio 📘Kindle eBook

Avempartha (full cast dramatized version) 🎧Graphic Audio 📘Kindle eBook

Wild Skies

Cold Blooded 🎧Audiobook 📘Kindle eBook

Born of Darkness 🎧Audiobook 📘Kindle eBook

Sinner's Salvation

Royal Mate

Huh, only eight books. Not gonna lie, this is going to go down as one of the most dismal months of reading for me in a long, long time. I want to think back to what happened in July and mostly, the month ran away with me. Work, deadlines, crises, and a short long-weekend break away with friends. Not much reading was done, it appears and most of the reading was in audio. Thank goodness for audiobooks.

Okay, Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams was a great book and a terrible book all at once. It's not my normal read, but I picked it up for a reading challenge and oh boy! It was eye-opening, horrifying, and then more horrifying. Yes, some might say, "But Deanna, this was written by a disgruntled employee!" True, but it was also written by someone who had been there from the beginning and seen the company and the management team (and Zuck) change and grow. So, first hand experience, horrifying, and maybe some dramatics thrown in so it will be a sensation(al) read. Hey, I'm in the book business, I know all about dramatics and how it drums up book sales. But here's the thing. Aside from the behind-the-scenes stuff, pretty much everything is public and you can Google it. It's all there for you to read. Ms Wynn-WIlliams just put it all into a book. After finishing the book, it made me want to delete my account. The irony of it is that in the last week, their bots did the job for me and my account got nixed anyway.

Other than that, Cold Blooded by Toni Anderson and Born of Darkness by Lara Adrian were both awesome as audiobooks. I want to read more from Lara Adrian's Hunter Legacy series, but in audiobook because it's just one of those books that I prefer to listen. And it goes without saying that since I'm obsessed with Eric G Dove's voice, I will continue to glom Toni Anderson's Cold Justice books. Cold Blooded is the last in the original Cold Justice series and I'm debating going back to the beginning or starting the next book in the new spin-off series. Decisions, decisions.

And finally, Sinner's Salvation by Julie Rowe is my favorite book in her Sinners Never Die series. I'm very in love with Evan and he's my favorite of all her heroes in this series so far. You'll know why if you read the books. He's my kind of hero.

So, what did you read for the last month? Tell me below.

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