What Deanna Read #121: September 2026

Happy (what was) September everyone. Can you believe that we are in September already? For me and my authors, we're at the pointy end of the year which means end of year releases, looking at next year, and planning 2027 releases which starts in October. That's only a month away. Aaaaahhh...

I'm starting this month's reading wrap up on the 5th of September. Let's see how I track for the month, shall we?

Here's what I read in the last month.

What Deanna Read #120: August 2026

Maybe it's a little cheaty, but I often use our team writing sprints to prep this post. It helps keep me on track though goodness knows the last few months have not been that way. I do try...

Cross your fingers that August will be better for me. Today is the fourth of the month, so we're starting strong.

Here's what I read in the last month.

What Deanna Read #119: July 2026

In the spirit of good intentions, I'm starting my July reads post in the third week of the month, shortly after June went live. June and July have both been horrendously challenging months for me, and you can read about it here, here, here and here. You may have already caught up on that, so feel free to ignore those if you wish.

There hasn't been much reading in July and I've mostly focused on audiobooks, and yes, that's also considered reading. Let's hope that I'm a little more organized and this post will go live in a much more timely manner.

Here's what I read in the last month.

What Deanna Read #118: June 2026

I am starting June early, but don't count on this going up too early or even remotely on time because the month of June completely derailed for me—you can read about it here. So I cut it close with May reads. At the time of typing this, it's three weeks into June and I'm finally getting to the point where life is no longer chaos. I did get a white paper finished on my publishing partner business model, so go me!!

At this point, June reading has been dismal—refer to said mention of chaos above, but we'll see how the rest of the month plays out. I appreciate your patience and sticking with me. Mwah!

Small update as I prep this to post: It's the start of the third week of July, and July has been INSANE. You can read about it here, here and here. Things are still insane, but I've snuck away to prep this during team writing sprints to inject a small bit of normalcy into my life.

Here's what I read in the last month.

What Deanna Read #117: May 2026

Look at me being proactive!! I'm using the time during our team writing sprints to write this, so I'm starting early. So far this month, the reading has been okay. Work has been busy but more importantly, I am gearing up for Hubby's second knee replacement surgery and there's a lot to get done before that. We shall see how the reading for fun lands because of that.

What Deanna Read #116: April 2026

I'm going to be honest and say that I do not know where I will land at the time I'm prepping this post since I'm being slightly organized and putting this together early. That said, it's been a slow month as I'm juggling work AND playing full time nurse to Hubby who is recovering from knee surgery. And he's much improved and doing very well, thank you for asking. But he better not get too used to me waiting on him hand and foot.

UPDATE: I am happy to report that prepping this early has meant that I am going to likely be the earliest I have ever posted a monthly What Deanna Read. Go me! I did read a few extra books by the time the end of April rocked around, so I'm pretty happy with where I landed overall.

Here's what I read in the last month.

What Deanna Read #115: March 2026

What is this? Two months of early What Deanna Read posts in a row? The reason? Today in Easter Sunday and I'm technically off work while Hubby recovers from knee surgery. It's been a lot of stress, wrapping up work deadlines, clearing the deck, etc., so I can focus on Hubby. Oddly, I thought I'd have a bit more downtime too, but nope. Lots of running around like a mad chook fetching and caring for Hubby. And Hubby has been wonderful. He's doing great and recovering well. It's still a slow-ish and long road, but his surgeon (if you ever need hip or knee work done, Dr Mac is your guy!) is AWESOME. Right, onto the books...

Here's what I read in the last month.

What Deanna Read #114: February 2026

This is rather unheard of... if recent posts are any indication, but I'm doing my February reads early. Why? Because I'm a crispy fried little critter and my brain is toast. I've taken today "off" which means I'm not working on deadlines and am, instead, catching up on small errands, admin, emailing my team, and maybe, just maybe, I'll even get round to invoicing my clients. That's important right? But first, books... and you'll see from my dismal reading efforts, this was not a good reading month.

Here's what I read in the last month.

What Deanna Read #113: January 2026

Y'all, I'm sooooo tired. January kicked off with a bang (very grateful) and February piled on top of it. I'm making an effort to get this post done before February runs out of days entirely. Go me! It's Saturday night and I'm supposed to be starting on the design of a cover for one of my author clients, but my brain is not cooperating. My brain can cope with putting this post together though.

Here's what I read in the last month.

Around the World 175 Times with Gill the Literary Nomad

I’ve always said that reading is my ultimate escape, but y’all, I think Reader Gill might have actually figured out how to fold time and space. I was looking over her 2025 reading logs (she sends them to me every month, for which I am very grateful) and I was very suitably impressed. 175 books in a single year!

What Deanna Read #112: November & December 2025

Today is December 30th and I'm just sneaking in with what I've read for November. And since I'm not likely to read and finish another book till next year (which is only two days away), I thought I'd include December's reading list here as well. And the reality is, since I was trying to get through a lot of end of year work, there wasn't a lot of pleasure reading for me. Plus I struggled to find books that were engaging enough to switch off my editor brain.

Here's what I read in the last month.

What Deanna Read #111: October 2025

I'm not sure if it's possible, but I think October might have been an even sadder effort than September. I haven't counted yet, but I think that's the case. I hope the count proved me wrong but the brain was not braining last month and I finally found out why. I hope this means the second half of November and December means I'll be reading more for fun despite work being bonkers.

Here's what I read in the last month.

What Deanna Read #110: September 2025

In an attempt at getting ahead and organized, I am starting my September What Deanna Read early-ish. It's not that early since there are only three days left of September, but the reality is I've not been reading as much as I like, my brain is mush, and my entertainment when I'm not reading for work has been watching cooking videos and audiobooks.

As reading months go, at a glance, I'd say this was a sad effort.

Here's what I read in the last month.

What Deanna Read #109: August 2025

August was a slightly better reading month but I think I can attribute it to a few rereads of favorite books, some duds which I skimmed very fast (we will not talk about those), and a few books that were on the shorter side. It was a very safe reading month. I did try to be slightly adventurous, but alas, that was not to be. I do explain below.

Work continues to be insane and I can only say that it went by in a blur. Somewhere in there, I got a new client and I'm thrilled to be working with her. I think we are in for some fun and exciting stuff.

In other news, if you haven't seen it, I've set up my very own Advance Readers team. For those of you who are in the know, that's an ARC (which stands for Advance Reader's Copy of an unpublished, but soon-to-be released book) team for anyone who is looking for some gems to read before release and for authors, it's a way to put your books in front of a new audience. Readers can join here. And I invite authors to check out submitting your books to review consideration.

Here's what I read in the last month.

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.

What Deanna Read #107: May & June 2025

I need to apologise for the delay putting my reading for the last two months together. I had originally started putting this together in June when I was away on holidays and had a moment of free time. But then my computer decided to shutdown unexpectedly and I lost the post that I had prepped to about 80% and I kinda lost the will to live... or rather, lost the will to redo it. Then one thing led to another, end of holidays, Hubby gave me the flu towards the end of our holidays and that knocked me out for another ten or so days and that was the end of June.

So, here we are, almost the end of July. I'm currently away at a friend's beach house and we're hanging out, drinking wine, eating charcuterie, and chilling. We're just chilling and I'm sitting at the kitchen counter putting this together, drinking tea and watching the wind blow through the trees.

Here's what I read in the last two months.

What Deanna Read #106: April 2025

How did no one notice that I forgot to update one of the book cover images a couple of months ago and didn't tell me? I only noticed cos I was in the process of migrating the newsletter over to Substack. You guys! It was a WHOLE PROCESS, but at least it's done. It also means you might get a few duplicate emails in the coming weeks. Apologies for that.

On the reading front, I do not know how I did. I guess I'll figure it out when I tally everything up, but it was a very audiobook heavy month. The brain was not braining.

Here's what I read in the last month.

What Deanna Read #105: March 2025

Well, March was a dismal month of reading. Some audiobooks which seems like the only way my brain could cope with reading because I was actually pretty burned out from a string of very intense book edits for a re-release. As I'm typing this, the proofs for the last book in the series are due back in a couple of days. I just need to apply those, and then it's just a matter of the book being uploaded and the series is complete (again!). It's actually very exciting.

Hope your reading for March has been a lot better than mine.

Here's what I read in the last month.

Red Havoc Rogue

Sealed With A Kiss

At Grave's End (full cast dramatized version) 🎧Graphic Audio 📘Kindle eBook

Little Sunshine

What Deanna Read #104: February 2025

You guys!!! I am SO TIRED. My day job is kicking my butt, so it's a good thing that I love it. I honestly don't know if I read much in February because I was away for a few days and didn't get much reading done, then there was a lot of work reading and when I'm doing a lot of work reading the brain doesn't cope well with fun reading. I'm currently about to start the 4th? 5th? read through of the book I'm editing. Oof!

Here's what I read in the last month.

One Dark Spark

Elusive Enforcer

The Coldest Case 🎧Audiobook

False Hope

What Deanna Read #103: January 2025

I'm in catch up mode here, so you guys are getting two "What Deanna Read" posts in one sitting. Yay!! Right?? The funny this is - I made a mistake when I was prepping December 2024's reads and actually did January 2025 first. Then I went, oh crap, I made a mistake. And then I ran out of steam and that was the end of that.

So here I am, the end of February, exhausted, sleep deprived, and trying very hard to catch it. It's also almost one in the morning (as in VERY LATE AT NIGHT) so I could be slightly delirious as well. Onwards...

Here's what I read in the last month.

Thawed Gladiator: Varro

A Curse in Darkness

The Serpent and the Wings of Night 🎧

Shadows of the Bottle