Reading – Katie L. Carroll

A person in a hammock, holding the book When the World Tips Over by Jandy Nelson. A yard of trees in the background. — The hammock is one of my favorite summer reading spots!

How’s your summer reading going? I’m usually a mood reader, meaning I don’t really plan my reading lists ahead, rather I read whatever I’m in the mood for. This summer, however, I’ve decided to make a list and see if I stick to it. No promises!

The month of July is my birthday month, so I’ve decided to celebrate by putting all my novels on sale! ONLY DARK EDGES, my modern-day Hamlet retelling is $1.99 all month long on all ebook platforms, including directly from me on the Purchase Books page. If you’ve been watching the TV show adaptation of We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, ONLY DARK EDGES will devastate you in all the same ways.

A graphic with the book cover of ONLY DARK EDGES by Katie L. Carroll with a background of a stormy sky and sea. The book cover shows a girl with auburn hair flying around her face in the wind, a stormy sky and sea behind her. Text reads, "Beware the Storm! We Were Liars meets You've Reached Sam in this modern-day Hamlet retelling. Sale $1.99"

My five other novels are 50% (that’s $2.49 each) on Smashwords for the month of July! Choose from My YA fantasies ELIXIR BOUND and ELIXIR SAVED, the YA dystopian thriller BLACK BUTTERFLY, and the middle grade books PIRATE ISLAND and WITCH TEST.

After finally having conquered the ability to read audiobooks (see “Long-Awaited Update on Training My Brain to Read Audiobooks”), I’m right on track with my reading goals for the year. I’ll be doing a bit of traveling in July, which should give me some time to conquer my summer reading. I’ll also be working on revising my first ever adult novel, a cozy dystopian that I plan on releasing this fall, so keep an eye out for more about that. If you subscribe to my newsletter, you’ve already gotten a sneak peek at the cover. Busy, busy as always over here!

I’d love to hear what’s on your summer reading list this year, so please feel free to share in the comments.

If you’ve been around here for awhile, you may remember my post “Training My Brain to Read Audiobooks,” written way back in 2019. It’s been a long time, but I’ve finally cracked the code on successfully reading audiobooks! For my brain, at least. No guarantees my strategies will help you if you struggle with audiobooks, but maybe it’ll give you some ideas to try.

Why did it take so long for me to figure out how to read an audiobook? I had to figure out what worked for my brain, and that was hard to do. I tried all kinds of things–like changing playback speeds and listening to shorter form works and podcasts–to try to and get used to listening to stories. But when it came to novels, I just couldn’t pay attention. I would get about 5 minutes into a listening session and then my mind would start to wander.

Enter last Memorial Day weekend! My oldest son and I had a long car ride to a soccer tournament. In an effort to keep him from playing on his phone to entire time, we decided to pass the time with an audiobook. He had recently read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, which is one of my favorite books, so we decided to try it out as an audiobook. We didn’t have enough time to listen to the whole thing, but I decided to try and finish it when we got home. And I was finally able to read an entire novel-length audiobook!

@katielcarrollauthor
Really enjoying walking and reading audiobooks during my kids’ soccer practices. Today, I was listening to Starling House by Alix E. Harrow. #audiobooks #walking #momswhoread #soccermom
♬ Dreaming of Mountains – Placidity

Turns out, driving engaged my brain just the right amount to also allow it to pay attention to an audiobook. This keyed me into the fact that I can’t try and be totally engaged in the audiobook; I have to engage my brain/body just enough to keep my mind from wandering. Now I read audiobooks while walking, cooking, doing dishes, gardening, and folding laundry.

It also helped that it was a book I knew well. That way if my mind did wander for a minute, I didn’t have to stop and relisten to what I missed. I could just keep moving forward because there was nothing new for me to miss.

I stuck with rereads for awhile, finishing up the Hunger Games series and moving on to other favorite books. Eventually, I felt comfortable moving into books that were 100% new to me. Now, a year later, I’m pretty much always in the middle of an audiobook. And it’s made cooking dinner each night a lot less tedious, sometimes even to the point where I’m looking forward to my cooking/reading time!

@katielcarrollauthor
My picture book The Bedtime Knight makes for a great bedtime story. It’s about facing fears and turning them into not-so-scary things. Available in paperback, ebook, and now as an audiobook! #picturebook #thebedtimeknight #bedtimestory #readaloud #audiobook #kidsaudiobooks
♬ original sound – Katie L. Carroll Author Shop

If you have children that love audiobooks, my picture book The Bedtime Knight, illustrated by Erika Baird, is part of an Audiobooks for Children promotion. Here’s the time if reached #1 and earned an orange banner on Amazon! It’s available on all different audiobooks platforms, including many libraries via Hoopla.