Looking Back At My Bookish Goals For 2024 – Win Some, Lose Some

BlogMilestones_GoalsI like to set myself some book-related goals every year. Now the moment has come to look back to see how I did before I set some new ones for this year.

Goodreads Reading Challenge 2024 Final

  1. Achieve my Goodreads target of reading 104 books – I made it… just.
  2. Read at least 25 books that have been in my TBR pile for longer than two years – Failed. I only managed 16.
  3. Attend Henley Literary Festival and one other literary festival – Achieved. I went to three events at Henley Literary Festival and one at Falmouth Books Festival.
  4. Complete the When Are You Reading? Challenge 2024 – Achieved. My wrap-up post is here.
  5. Complete the What’s in a Name Challenge 2024 – Failed. I matched 5 of the 6 prompts but the final one – a book title involving footwear – eluded me.
  6. Complete the 20 Books of Summer 2024 reading challenge – By my strict rules I failed because I didn’t read all the books on my original list, but most others would say I succeeded because I read 20+ books during the period of the challenge.
  7. Complete the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024Achieved. I read 64 historical fiction books in 2024.
  8. Read all the books on The Walter Scott Prize 2024 shortlist before the winner is announced – Nearly. There was one I didn’t get to – The Upper Country by Kai Thomas
  9. Complete my Backlist Burrow challenge – Failed. I only managed to read one from my list  – All Day at the Movies by Fiona Kidman – so this challenge will have to roll over.
  10. Maintain a 95%+ feedback ratio on NetGalley – Achieved. My ratio is currently 97%.

If you set any book-related goals for 2024, how did you get on?

#WWWWednesday – 8th January 2025

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!


Book cover of The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and for ever.

Book cover of Homeseeking by Karissa Chen

Homeseeking by Karissa Chen (Sceptre via NetGalley)

There are moments when a single choice can define an entire life.

Haiwen and Suchi are teenage sweethearts in 1940s Shanghai; their childhood friendship has blossomed into young love, and they believe that they are soulmates. But when Haiwen secretly decides to enlist in the army to keep his brother from the draft, their shared future is shattered. Their paths take them far afield from each other, with the exception of one pivotal chance encounter on the Hong Kong ferry in 1966.

Sixty years later, Haiwen, now in his late seventies, is bagging bananas at a 99 Ranch in Los Angeles when he lifts his head to once more see Suchi. As they begin to rekindle their friendship, it feels like they might have a second chance to live the life they were supposed to have together. But the weight of the past lives with them at every moment, and only time will tell if they are able to forge something new.


Book cover of The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn

In the snowbound city of Kiev, aspiring historian Mila Pavlichenko’s life revolves around her young son – until Hitler’s invasion of Russia changes everything. Suddenly, she and her friends must take up arms to save their country from the Fuhrer’s destruction.

Handed a rifle, Mila discovers a gift – and months of blood, sweat and tears turn the young woman into a deadly sniper: the most lethal hunter of Nazis.

Yet success is bittersweet. Mila is torn from the battlefields of the eastern front and sent to America while the war still rages. There, she finds an unexpected ally in First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and an unexpected promise of a different future.

But when an old enemy from Mila’s past joins forces with a terrifying new foe, she finds herself in the deadliest duel of her life. (Review to follow)


Book cover of The Ghosts of Paris by Tara Moss

The Ghosts of Paris (Billie Walker Mystery #2) by Tara Moss (Verve Books) 

It’s 1947. The world continues to grapple with the fallout of the Second World War, and former war reporter Billie Walker is finding her feet as an investigator.

When a wealthy client hires Billie and her assistant Sam to track down her missing husband, the trail leads Billie back to London and Paris, where Billie’s own painful memories also lurk. Jack Rake, Billie’s wartime lover and, briefly, husband, is just one of the millions of people who went missing in Europe during the war. What was his fate after they left Paris together?

As Billie’s search for her client’s husband takes her to both the swanky bars at Paris’s famous Ritz hotel and to the dank basements of the infamous Paris morgue, she’ll need to keep her gun at the ready, because something even more terrible than a few painful memories might be following her around the City of Lights…