Monthly Wrap-Up – December 2025
Happy New Year friends and welcome to my last monthly wrap-up of 2025! In today’s post I take a look at reading progress in December 2025. In summary, I didn’t touch much of my December TBR. Once my reading obligations were over and I’d completed my Goodreads Reading Challenge, my brain kinda switched off.
Nevertheless, I have some progress to share and after a slow, steady festive period and end of the month I’m ready to get back into it!
Books Read
Death of a Billionaire
Early in December I had a blog tour obligation to review Death of a Billionaire by Tucker May. With a number of ongoing books from the end of November, I had to pick up and finish this one pretty quickly.
One light night and a review later, I safely ticked Death of a Billionaire off the list. It’s a fun, humorous murder mystery and I enjoyed the lighter tone. If you want to take a look at this for yourself, here’s a link to my review.
Empire of the Dawn
A book I made slow progress with in December was Empire of the Dawn. Unfortunately, this book wasn’t working for me as I had hoped. It’s a chunky book, and I think having the limitation of a heavy, hardback copy is the primary reason I struggled to pick this up.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t get an alternative copy of this book to carry on in another format without additional cost. After trying p persevere with it a little longer, I ultimately soft DNF’d it partway through the month. I love the series and where the story is going so far, so I WILL absolutely revisit this one in the near future!
A Crucible of Souls
I wrapped up listening to A Crucible of Souls mid-month after starting the book in November. Overall, I enjoyed this fantasy book and it was a decent recommendation I picked up as part of a ChatGPT recommendations challenge I started a few months ago.
However, I did finish this book a little disappointed. The book has a lot of detail and an engaging storyline. That said, the book is very light on explanation or backstory on Caldan so we finish the book with as many, if not more questions, than when we started.
No doubt the rest of the series would catch up with this intel later. I, however, have decided not to continue with it.
Beyond Redemption
The final book I have picked up towards my ChatGPT recommendations challenge is Beyond Redemption. Admittedly, progress on this book was also light in December.
In total, I made it 15% into the book. I initially started reading it on my phone at the hairdressers during my appointment mid-month. However, I prefer to read digital books on my kindle and don’t get it charged up till much later in the month. Also, I’d hit my lull by this point despite enjoying what I’ve read to date. With my Goodreads Challenge for 2025 exceeded, my brain switched off from reading and turned to craft projects and downtime instead.
So, Beyond Redemption will be carried forward into January. To get my reading mojo back I’ve started a short read today. Once that’s done though, I’m going to launch into Beyond Redemption full force. I’m excited to see where this grimdark fantasy takes us.
The Housemaid is Watching
Where progress with physical and digital books has been on the slow side this December, today’s monthly wrap-up features far better news on audiobook progress!
After listening to The Housemaid’s Secret last month, I added The Housemaid is Watching to my December TBR as a contribution to completing my 2025 resolution of finishing 10 series.
Thankfully, listening to The Housemaid is Watching proved as compulsive as its predecessor. I listened to the entirety of this audiobook in just a few days – a complete change from the lethargy that I have to hold my hands up to otherwise in this monthly wrap-up!
The Doors of Midnight
Another audiobook I made great progress with in December, but inevitably I’m carrying over into January, is The Doors of Midnight by R.R. Virdi.
I listened to around 10 hours worth of audio in December (at x1.15 speed for this one, so about 8 1/2 hours of actual listening time). However, as of today, 1st January, I still have 35hrs and 8mins (30hrs 30mins at x1.15 speed) to go! This book is over 800 pages long, so I didn’t really expect completion by the end of December. Still, it was an attempt towards my series completion 2025 resolution. I can’t knock myself given I gave it a good go!
Now that I’m immersed back into Ari’s life and escapades, I’m excited for this carryover to hopefully be one of my first highly-rated completions of 2026.
Summary
Audiobooks saved the day again! Whilst I expected this monthly wrap-up to be short (given a lack of reading progress in the second half of December), I haven’t got much to complain about. I picked up a good few, even if they didn’t result in a green, shiny tick before 31st December.
What was your final read of December? Did you meet your 2025 reading resolutions? I’ll be deep-diving into my progress on last year’s reading resolutions in the next day or two. I hope you can stick around for that! ☺️
Top 1% in Epic