Sara R. Cleveland

I’d like to start by wishing everyone a Happy New Year. I know 2021 was rough on so many of us. I hope that this year brings you peace, joy, or whatever it is you are needing.

I have some important announcements as we go into the first quarter of the new year. I have a short backlog of books for which I had previously committed to doing reviews. These books will be receiving the full-length blog-style review that I am known for between now and the end of the second quarter. I’m not sure what the order will be or exactly what the posting schedule will be like, but this is how I am going to meet that commitment.

Once those commitments have been met, I will be discontinuing book reviews on my blog for a time. I don’t intend this to be a permanent thing, but taking time off from it in November and December put sharp focus on how much energy it’s taking from me. To be quite frank, the pressure to read books by certain dates and write up full essays on them has sapped quite a bit of enjoyment out of reading for me. Even books I was really, really looking forward to have become difficult to finish.

For at least the second and third quarter of 2022 (and possibly beyond) I intend to read only the books I’m truly excited about. I will cross post smaller reviews to all the major platforms as I do today for the books that I enjoy. I may still take on the occasional ARC if it’s a book I’m very excited about. But I’m taking the pressure of the blog off of myself for the time being.

What I hope this will mean is that I have more time to focus on the books I want to produce for y’all this year. Currently, Cursed Magic is planned for the late spring/early summer and Finding the Dragon is planned for the early autumn to mid autumn. These are tentative plans contingent on my ability to finish them and may change based on the availability of my editor, cover artist, and narrators. It is my hope to have the audio editions out at roughly the same time as the ebooks this go around. I also have a lengthier winter holiday goodie planned for my newsletter subscribers. But I need time to write these things, and that means something has to go. That something, unfortunately, is my in-depth book reviews.

So what does that mean for the blog? I have a few ideas. First, I’m hoping to find a little more time to write more short fiction to share with you here for free. Second, while I won’t be doing essay reviews anymore, I may do quarterly round-ups of the best books I read over 90ish days. Otherwise I will do my best to share some bits of my writing process and thoughts as opportunities arise.

I thank you all for your understanding, and I hope you have a wonderful 2022.