State of the ARC is a meme hosted by Avalinah’s Books in which we round up our ARCs and attempt to wrangle them into something approaching order. Sometimes it’s like herding cats.

My current list is fairly short. Most of my end of the year ARCs were for books coming out at the beginning of January- the eighth, to be specific, and I spent December catching up on my ARCs in order to finish them up and polish off the reviews for the publishers.

I finished off three of my four remaining January ARCs in December:

• The Winter of the Witch (Winternight trilogy, #3) by Katherine Arden
• The Monster Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade #2) by Seth Dickinson
• Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him by Tracy Borman

I have one remaining January ARC to review. I finished it up on New Year’s Day, and the review will be coming out soon, probably the day it’s due out:

• The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye

I currently have one more ARC left to read, and it’s not due out until March 12th. I’m looking forward to reading it, as it’s the next installment in one of my favorite mystery series:

• A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell #4) by Deanna Raybourn

Thanks to the fact that I didn’t go nuts requesting books in my first six months with NetGalley, I’ve been able to keep up with the ARCs I requested. It didn’t make sense to get a bunch of books that I wouldn’t have time for or would lose interest in, and then end up failing in my obligation to the publishers. Thanks to my early pickiness, I’ve managed to get my feedback ratio to 82% (soon to be 91%). I’m going to continue requesting books from them. It’s been fun to browse upcoming releases and is ridiculously exciting when I’m approved for a series I’m already in love with. Who doesn’t want to find out what happens to beloved characters before everyone else does? I also like being able spread the word about authors whose works I adore so other readers might find them and fall in love, too!