It’s Time Travel Thursday! Hosted by Budget Tales Book Blog, this is where you get to relive all those bookish memories! Take a look back at what you were reading this time last year (or the year before or the year before that…) and compare it to what you are reading now!
2025 was a pretty sparse reading year for me as I was pursuing my Master’s Degree, so I’m going to jump back to 2024 for this series.
This time in 2024 I was reading:
Summary: If he had been with me, everything would have been different…
Autumn and Finn used to be inseparable. But then something changed. Or they changed. Now, they do their best to ignore each other.
Autumn has her boyfriend Jamie, and her close-knit group of friends. And Finn has become that boy at school, the one everyone wants to be around.
That still doesn’t stop the way Autumn feels every time she and Finn cross paths, and the growing, nagging thought that maybe things could have been different. Maybe they should be together.
But come August, things will change forever. And as time passes, Autumn will be forced to confront how else life might have been different if they had never parted ways…
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary Romance
Rating: 2 stars
Currently I am reading:
Summary: Daphne dreams of Mr. Darcy. Finn serves up pints and rock music. Can opposites attract when a tea shop princess meets her pub-owning rival?
In the charming mountain town of Wisteria, North Carolina, Daphne Austen clings to tradition like cream to a scone. She’s built her life–and her late grandmother’s tearoom, Tea Thyme–around all things delicate china, Jane Austen novels, and the comforting predictability of routine. The only thing threatening her perfectly ordered world? The loud, aggravatingly handsome Brit opening a pub next door.
After his ex-wife broke his heart and his business partner nearly destroyed his career, Finn Dashwood packed up his six-year-old daughter and left England behind. He’s looking for a fresh start, and the last thing he needs is a fussy, tea-obsessed neighbor criticizing his every pint and playlist. It doesn’t matter that she’s ridiculously kind (to everyone else) and that his daughter is utterly fascinated by her. Finn’s heart is not open to being broken again.
But disagreements turn into prank wars and then a competition when a high-profile wedding needs a last-minute caterer. The townsfolk are thrilled–Wisteria hasn’t seen this much excitement since the county fair lost a goat.
When the wedding demands both sweet and savory fare, Daphne and Finn are forced to put down their swords and pick up their serving trays. Between burnt pastries, brewing tempers, trending hashtags (#SipsAndSpats, anyone?), and one very adorable little girl, rivalry soon gives way to reluctant friendship–and maybe something that feels suspiciously like chemistry.
Can a tea shop princess and a pub owner with a past mix their lives as seamlessly as clotted cream and jam . . . or will their differences keep them steeped in rivalry forever?
Genre: Adult Contemporary Romance
Comparison:
I picked up If He Had Been With Me by Laura Nowlin from my library around this time because the collector’s edition of the book was coming out, and I wanted to see if it was something I wanted to snag because it was gorgeous. For me, this reeked of John Green vibes with an attempt at a quirky teen protagonist that really just didn’t work for me. I still sometimes think about how the FMC would wear a tiara to school every single day. Needless to say, this is not something I purchased a physical copy of, and I did not continue the series when the second book dropped.
This year I’m reading A Brewed Awakening by Pepper Basham. A Brewed Awakening is an adult contemporary romance with nods to Jane Austen and an enemies-to-lovers romance. I’m really enjoying this so far, especially the humor and banter between the MCs. I’ve really turned away from the Young Adult genre in the past year or so simply because my reading tastes have changed. I can still see myself reading upper-YA, but I can’t see myself ever picking up something like If He Had Been With Me in the near future.
Have you read any of these titles? What were you reading this time last year?
wings and fables 