Books and Looks-December 2025

The month started with flight delays and getting moved to a later flight where I was completely surrounded by members of the Vienna Boy’s Choir in uniform. This meant I was surrounded by 9-12 year olds on their phones, playing music, games and tiktok at full volume without headphones. It was a VERY long flight to Boston. Later in the month, there was travel for the holidays and a number of work projects. I am frankly a bit exhausted.

The Books

The Bodyguard-I’ve previously read the Rom-commers and I enjoyed it so much. When i posted about that book, multiple people reached out recommending The Bodyguard. I totally get why. It was so good and so cozy.

The Last Devil to Die- When my library hold finally came in for the fourth book in the Thursday Murder Club Series I was nearly jumping for joy. I was so excited to dive back into this series with these characters. I find myself speeding through these murder mysteries and laughing out loud at Joyce's diary entries. I cannot recommend this cozy murder mystery enough.

Arrow of Fortune- The third book in The Raiders of the Arcana series came out in November. I have really enjoyed this series. It is one part romance and one part female Indiana Jones. I've particularly appreciated that each entry in the series has been a different historic mythology.

The Mimicking of Known Successes- This is a sci-fi, sherlockian style novella. It came out in 2023 and was nominated for all kinds of sci-fi awards and I totally get why. It was such a fantastic mystery and the setting was so fun (Jupiter). Two more in the series have been released and I have placed some library holds in order to dig in.

Book of Night- This was a re-read for me. I read this all the way back in 2022 when it was initially released. The second in the duology was released in September and I quickly realized I needed to refresh my recollection. It was like I had never read the story before. I forgot how fun this one was. Holly Black created such a cool magical system. It is also just such a great wintertime read.

Good Spirits-I attend a monthly "Cinnamon Bun Bookclub" at Tiny Bird Books in Versailles, KY. It is a romance book club where we receive a book and a cinnamon bun from a local bakery. This month's book was Good Spirits and it was my last book of 2025. This cozy romcom was so fun. I loved the characters—an Irish grump and a bubbly blonde. The Irish grump is the ghost of Christmas past and as he tries to figure out why the bubbly blonde is his latest assignment, they slowly but surely fall in love. It was just the lighthearted read I needed to wrap up the year.

The looks

This month involved a bit of travel including multiple road trips. This means some nice looks for meetings and such, but cozy leggings and sweatshirts for the flights or car rides. I bought a few new pairs of pants for travel that would have limited wrinkling as I never trust a hotel iron. It had also been almost 6 months since my last haircut so I took a much needed couple of hours to visit my hair stylist. She is absolutely amazing and I’m excited for the shorter bob.