Whatcha Reading? September Edition

Open book with field and tree on the pages against a blue skyIT'S TIIIIIME! Time for The Most Expensive Thread where each month we talk about what we're reading and then we all buy a pile of books. Ready?

Whatcha reading?

Book Chalice Me, I just finished Chalice by Robin McKinley ( A | BN | K ).

After I mentioned that I was reading The Blue Sword in last week's podcast with Ilona Andrews, all the lovely fantasy romance readers who know much more than I do about this genre came at me with recommendations, and my library was all, Dude. Slow your roll.

Ha. No. I have ALL THE FANTASY to read now. 

Chalice was… well, I finished it and kinda went like this: 
 

Three ladies passing out at a table

 

It's light on the romance but the otherworldy, fairy-tale aspect of the setting and the heroine, who is a beekeeper, were…oh, Good Book Sigh®. I can understand why that book is a comfort read for so many of you. I was already reading The Blue Sword and I dislike when I buffet books because my brain gets all mixed up, but the first line: 

Because she was Chalice she stood at the front door with the Grand Seneschal, the Overlord's agent and the Prelate, all of whom were carefully ignoring her.

And Sluuuuuurp! Off I went. I started the book while standing in the hall outside my son's classroom, waiting for an appointment, and didn't want to put my phone down. 

I'm currently still working on reading The Blue Sword ( A | BN | WorldCat ), because it's a hardback library book and not easy to bring with me all the time. Chalice I found digitally so I could read it on my phone, but The Blue Sword is, as a hardcover, about as practical as carrying an actual sword around with me.  But it's as evocative as Chalice, and I understand why so many readers adore Robin McKinley's books. (And thank you to everyone who wrote to me and commented with recommendations!) 

RedHeadedGirl: I just finished Never Judge a Lady by her Cover by Sarah MacLean and I have so many feels. 

I am about done with His Saving Grace by Sharon Cullen (brain damaged hero) ( A | K ), and enjoying it. 

Once I'm done with that…  Prisoner of My Desire by Joanna Lindsay ( A | BN | K ), which should be fun for EVERYONE.

 

Amanda: I was craving some sports romances (if you didn't catch my belly-aching on twitter), so I'm rereading the Play by Play series by Jaci Burton to catch up to the newer ones, though I know they could be read as standalones. I would definitely say her writing got me interested in the whole sports romance thing, so I'm happy to reread and revisit.

I'm also reading The Apartment by Amanda Black ( A | BN | K). Not too far into it just yet, but the whole “What happens in this room, stays in this room” premise (I think) is really neat.

 

Book Hints to Lady Travellers

Carrie: Just finished Un-Bridaled by Eileen Rendahl and three issues of Wonder Woman by Gail Simone – loving the new “Sensation Comics” Wonder Woman. 

Also reading Hints for Lady Traveller, by Lillias Campbell Davidson, written in the Victorian Age.  Love it.  Her tips are still practical, except that I don't need an ivory glove stretcher. This book is hella expensive but I found a copy thanks to Interlibrary Loan, the best resource on the planet.

 

RedHeadedGirl: Carrie, everyone needs an ivory glove stretcher.

Carrie: What everyone needs is a foot warmer and a hot water bottle.  She's very clear on that.

Amanda: Seconding that.

 

Elyse: I'm reading The King by Tiffany Reisz ( A | BN | K) (Nov. 2014) and The Duke of Dark Desires ( A | BN | K) (Dec. 2014) by Miranda Neville.

 

What about you? What books are you reading this weekend? Anything you recommend or want to tell people about? Share, share!

Categorized:

Random Musings

Comments are Closed

  1. Miranda says:

    Currently reading The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. It’s good, but epic in its epicness.

    Shout out to Indexing by Seanan McGuire, which is currently occupying the ‘favorite book of the year’ spot.

  2. TheoLibrarian says:

    This week I read The Bollywood Affair by Sonali Dev and thought it was pretty fantastic.  There were some problems but it did such a great job of immersing me in Indian culture that I really didn’t care.

    Yesterday, I read The Lesson Plan and Hot Under the Collar by Jackie Barbosa. I especially enjoyed the latter.  A vicar hero and former courtesan heroine!!

    Carrie, I’m glad you are enjoying the Wonder Woman Sensation titles.  I read the first volume of Wonder Woman New 52 this week and thought it was being gruesome for the sake of being gruesome. Not very fun at all.

    RHG, thanks for the tip on His Saving Grace. I dashed over to NetGalley to request it.

  3. You should read Beauty by Robin McKinley. It’s a lovely retelling of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale.

    Lots of stuff waiting in my TBR pile, including The Shadow Throne by Jennifer Nielsen and Assassin’s Gambit by Amy Raby.

  4. jimthered says:

    Right now, the books I’m reading are *rule*books.  I’m learning SHADOWRUN: CROSSFIRE, I’ll have to re-learn the DOOMTOWN rules for DOOMTOWN: RELOADED (which has a kick-ass woman with a rifle on the cover; so much for the stereotypical barely-clothed top-heavy fantasy images of women in gaming), and I finished the rules for CARDS AGAINST HUMANITY (so evil, so fun) in about a minute.  Someday I’ll finish rereading, and finally understand, CHAMPIONS COMPLETE.

  5. Carly says:

    I’ve been treading the Kate Shugak series by Dana Stabenow (on the recommendation of Diana Gabaldon) and I LOVE IT.  It’s a murder mystery series set in Alaska where the heroine is particularly badass, recently retired from the force, and owns a female possibly half-wolf dog named Mutt.  The novels are pretty fast reads but no less enjoyable.

    I’ve also been picking my way through Deanna Raybourn’s Lady Julia Gray series – but I just found out the other day that the next e-novella she’s releasing in November is going to be the last in the series!  Sadface. 

    Other than those, I finally got into Saga and DEVOURED the first three volumes in one day.  And the fourth volume is coming out in December, huzzah!

  6. Glinda says:

    Just got sucked into buying “Priceless, by Raine Miller.” It sounded like my kind of romantic fiction, but was actually a screwfest headed for bondageville. For a plot there was sex. Silly dialogue about sex. Mammary worship. Cringe-worthy characters:

    “I’m good looking and rich with a title and huge privates, but emotionally wounded because women only want stuff from me, they don’t really want me as I really am (all possessive, controlling and dominant—as men are), so hiring escorts to bang is totally understandable.”

    “I’m beautiful and sensitive and educated and love art but I don’t have a romantic relationship right now and that makes me totally vulnerable to assault, kidnapping and orgasms.”

    Arrrggghh. Then, with the last sentence of this short novel, the big reveal: “I want you submissive when we fuck, Gabrielle. I want so badly to have that . . . with you.” THE END, BOOK 1

    I deleted this from my Kindle content. The end.

  7. Tabs says:

    Oh man, I love Prisoner Of My Desire so so much. And it’s not nostalgia either since I was a newbie Lindsey reader until last year or so. It’s also the book that got me called a “rape apologist” when I tried explaining what I liked about it in a non-romance forum. I may need to read it again.

    And actually, I am reading another Lindsey, “A Heart So Wild” right now. I’m trying to finish up her Westerns so that I can move onto another of her subsets. The Mallorys are probably up next.

  8. CarrieS says:

    @Jimthered – I love reading gaming rule books!  Gotta pick up a rule book for Numenorea, apparently since I may be in a Numenorea game soon. Haven’t actually played an RPG gamed in years, glad to be back to it.

  9. Kelly S. says:

    Just finished “It’s in His Kiss” by Jill Shalvis.  Loved it!  Next up, thanks to her publisher and Netgally will be “He’s So Fine.”  These are books 10 and 11 in the Lucky Harbor series.  While past characters make appearances, it wasn’t necessary to have read books 1-9 to have enjoyed #10.

    I also just finished “Lean In” by Sheryl Sandburg and really liked it and was frustrated by it because I believe what she said as far as how women are treated and the stupid expectations of us.  So my frustration was with her or the book, but really with society.  I highly recommend it to all people, men and women.

    Finally, I’m listening to “How to Make People Do Stuff” and kinda of reading “100 Things Every Presenter Needs to Know About People” both by Susan Weinshenk.  Both very interesting.

  10. LML says:

    Not fair, RedHeadedGirl, dangling a book that isn’t available until mid-November in front of we hoi polloi. 

  11. Anne says:

    This week, I read Scandal and the Duchess by Jennifer Ashley.  It is a novella and part of the Mackenzie series.  (I wonder if these Mackenzies are related to Colum and Dougal?)  This series is an autobuy for me, even though Ian and Beth remain my favorite couple.  The next full-length novel gets released in October.

    Also read Breaking His Rules by Alison Packard, which has a romance between a personal trainer and a non-sample size heroine, which I enjoyed.  We also check in with other characters from past books, so this was an enjoyable read.

    Currently reading I Shall Not Want by Julia Spencer-Fleming.  I love the Adirondack setting (familiar from my childhood) and the characters in this mystery series.  Thanks to Sarah for the recomendation of this series.  Next up, One Was a Soldier by Spencer-Fleming.

    @Carly—I also found the Shugak books because they were on Gabaldon’s Methadone list and enjoyed them very much.  If you like them, you should also read her Liam Campbell novels, which are also Alaska based mysteries.  I think that Kate and Liam actually meet up in around book 17 or 18 of the Shugak series.

  12. Carly says:

    @Anne – I’ve read some of the Julia Spencer-Fleming books too!  Need to pick up where I’ve left off on that series… It’s got some of my favorite romance.

    And I’ll check out the other Stabenow series for sure.

  13. Amy Raby says:

    I’m on a nonfiction kick right now and just picked up—but haven’t started reading yet—“The Amazons: Lives & Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World” by Adrienne Mayor. I’m super excited about this one, partly because of the subject and partly because this author is one of my nonfiction faves.

    And I’m in the middle of “A History of the World in 6 Glasses,” which has turned out to be a little fluffy but still interesting.

  14. Kate says:

    Sunshine by Robin McKinley is one of my favorites, and whenever I mention it NO ONE seems to have heard of it. It pre-dates the True Blood, “regular small-town girl in a world of magic” thing by a bunch of years and does it in such a crazy cool way… and the sex (there isn’t any) is the most heartbreaking, thrilling, real, adult, sexy non-sex I’ve ever read. Ooomph. It’s just so good.

    I just finished The Virtuoso (Grace Burrowes) because that whole series was available on the new Kindle Unlimited thing I’m trying, and… eh… I skipped around a lot and don’t even remember staying awake long enough to read the conclusion. I’m getting seriously tired of the virgin (or at least might-as-well-be-virgin widow) theme, and the men constantly jacking off on themselves and others (?!), and the “horrible, dark secrets” that you see coming a mile away and turn out to be totally ridiculous. I think I need to take a Grace Burrowes break and try some good contemporaries, where the lasses are unlikely to be virgins and the men are more likely to not come all over the place because, condoms.

    I didn’t JUST read this so it may not count, but I plowed through the Nightfall/Midnight/Daybreak series by Ellen Connors and I’d love to read more like that—gritty, exciting plot, great characters, hot romance. They were the last books I truly could not put down.

  15. Frida says:

    Ooh – I hadn’t heard about the Kate Shugak series! My library has the first book so I’ll definitely give it a try.

    I just finished an Agatha Christie I hadn’t read before – The Man in the Brown Suit. While I could handle the casual sexism (because the female main character had considerable agency and there was another female character who was beautiful and brilliant and they teamed up and became friends! loved that!) the casual colonialism was way too gross to try to overlook.

    The last book I read and loved was The Year We Fell Down by Sarina Bowen. The book I would LIKE to read right now is the next book in that series – The Understatement of the Year. I went from not knowing who this author is to eagerly awaiting her next book in like three days.

    Right now I’m reading two books that are both in my “okay let’s see what all the fuss is about” category. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters and the first Kate Daniels book by Ilona Andrews. I just started these so I really can’t say how I feel about them yet.

  16. Lostshadows says:

    Right now I’m in the middle of an ARC of a ss collection called Cthulhu Lives! and I’m enjoying it.

    I’ve never heard of any of the authors, but so far all the stories have been of the “don’t show everything” type, which I prefer over gory horror and definitely works better for Lovecraftian stuff.

    I also finished Festive in Death recently, which I did enjoy, but I was kind of disappointed she made the decision she did on who the killer would be. (Me reasons are rather spoilery, so I won’t go into detail.)

  17. L. says:

    I’ll tell you what I won’t be reading this weekend. (Please excuse me while I have a mini book rant.) Recently a popular YA/PNR was offered for free on Kindle. I’m a book slut and will read anything for free so I downloaded it. It’s one of those Twilight knockoffs with a human heroine and a non-human hero.

    I only read a little over a quarter of it before I had to back away or else my Kindle was in danger of being thrown against the wall. In that 1/4 of a book I read, the “hero” did nothing but insult, belittle, menace, disrespect, disregard, and any other ‘dis’ word you can think of, the heroine. But because he was so “hot” she just kept putting up with it. I wanted to reach into my ereader and first twist his twig and berries until he cried for mama; then I wanted to shake the girl and scream, “Stop letting him treat you this way! It doesn’t matter that he has washboard abs – absolutely no one has any right to treat you like dirt.”

    I’m now seriously worried we’re going to have a whole generation of young girls growing up reading this stuff and thinking a guy normally shows his affections by constantly putting you down.

  18. LilyOfTheValley says:

    @Amanda Not sure if this is “***SPOILER ALERT***” or not for “The Apartment” by Amanda Black…
    But I just read the blurb on Amazon and the plot sounds like something i may have read a while back on FanFiction.net (Twilight fanfic called “Last Tango in Forks” so I guess it’s based on “Last Tango in Paris?”)
    I had skimmed through most of it and just recently got emails alerting me that the chapters had been pulled for publishing.
    Is it just me, or does it seem like a lot of fanfics are being recycled into “published” works? Just from my dabbling in the Twilight fanfics alone, I’ve come across a lot of similar storylines, some with just a different name or hair/eye color…

  19. DonnaMarie says:

    Believe it or not, I just finished The Half-Stiched Quilting Club. Yes, the book of the hugely silly yet wholesome cover Sarah posted a while back. They quilt, how could I resist? The writing is jr. high level at best. Not a lot of substance. Disparate people with disparate problems – none of them really that problematic – get their lives together with the help of their Amish instructor’s sage advise, prayer and quilting. I pray a lot when I’m quilting:

    Please make these seams line up. Please don’t make me rip this out again. Please let me have enough fabric left to recut this piece.

    The biker dude is actually the most with it character in the bunch. And the woman has a back list of books that rivals la Nora!

    Then I got back to my regular reading which included:
    The Book of Life  the last book in the All Soul’s Trilogy which no one seemed to like as much as me.
    The Best Kind of Trouble by Lauren Dane wherein she moves the action to Oregon and therefore no Top Pot references, but she did have the H turn up with a box of Fran’s Chocolates. Bitch. Do you know how much that stuff costs to have shipped?
    Without a Summer by Mary Robinette Kowal which had Luddites and possibly the most evil father ever.
    And this morning I finished Baiting the Maid of Honor by Tessa Bailey which, like the Mary Robinette Kowal books, I picked after a rec here. You all never steer me wrong.

    The Amazon fairies coughed up quite a box last week, so I think Kristen Callihan’s Evernight will be up next. But then I worry, what if its not as good as Shadowdance? How will I get over it? Maybe I should wait…

    Amanda, if you’re going to start doing the sports romances, you definitely need to get you some Rachel Gibson. Her books with the Seattle Chinook hockey team are edible.

    RHG, thanks for resisting the spoiler by not telling us the color of your feels.

  20. Alexandra says:

    At first I read Prisoner of My Desire as Captive of My Desires, which was my first Lindsey (and one of the first romances I ever read). I listened to yesterday’s podcast with John Jacobson and what are the odds Sarah mentioned Silver Angel? That’s the one Lindsey I always wanted to read but my library didn’t have. It’s so elusive in my mind I call it Silver Unicorn instead.

    I’m on a historical romance kick lately so Uncertain Magic from today’s daily deals looks good and I have The Unidentified Redhead waiting on my Kindle.

    Someone recommended Georgette Heyer’s The Convenient Marriage to me earlier this week. I saw it’s included in Kindle Unlimited so that will kick off my month of finding hidden gems in KU.

  21. I’m reading Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple. First non-romance I’ve read in a while. Recently finished Sugar Daddy by Lisa Kleypas, which I loved.

  22. Darlynne says:

    Read and loved Courtney Milan’s THE SUFFRAGETTE SCANDAL, thanks to CarrieS and RHG.

    Both ALL OUR YESTERDAYS by Cristin Terrill and THE STORY OF OWEN: DRAGON SLAYER OF TRONDHEIM by E. K. Johnston were great books, but they are YA and my ennui with that genre (and my overwhelming TBR public library pile) meant I didn’t finish either. That makes me sad, but there just isn’t enough time to keep up.

    Does anyone else have the same problem: Library books you put on hold that have a huge number of holds ahead of you, but they all become available at the same time?

    So I’m sticking with what I love that grabs me from the first lines: Rob Thurman’s DOWNFALL, Ilona Andrews’ MAGIC BREAKS, Rachel Bach’s FORTUNE’S PAWN, David John Mark’s THE DARK WINTER, Kate Locke’s LONG LIVE THE QUEEN.

    WORLD OF TROUBLE by Ben H. Winters, the end of the Last Policeman series, was all I could have hoped for. Good book noise.

  23. Maureen says:

    @Carly and @Anne-I LOVE Dana Stabenow and the Kate Shugak mysteries! A funny story-I saw Dana in the bathroom of the Costco in Anchorage, we were washing our hands, and I went total fangirl on her! I could feel my face get all red, and said “are you Dana Stabenow?”, she looked kind of surprised and said “Yeessss” and I started to gush about how much I loved her books and her writing.

    She couldn’t have been more gracious at being accosted in the bathroom (!), and was as nice as could be. This was years ago, and I have been to several of her book signings since-and she is so down to earth, funny and nice-everything you hope a favorite author will be!

    I just finished re-reading Airs Above the Ground by Mary Stewart-I’ve read all her novels numerous times, but haven’t read most of them in years. I am working on adding all her books to my home library-and they are such a comfort read for me.

    I have the new Alison Weir on my shelf-The Marriage Game-so that is next on my list.

  24. StarOpal says:

    I try not to read an author back to back, I’m easily bothered by repetitive ticks once I notice them. So, after a couple books in between, I finally started the second Iron Seas book, Heart of Steel by Meljean Brook.

    I’m head over heels. So far I’m liking it considerably more than Iron Duke (which is saying something). I already know I’m going to have a book hangover from it.

  25. Amanda says:

    @Kate: I have Sunshine on my shelf right now! A friend’s mom heavily recommended as the best paranormal romance she’s every read and she bought me a copy.

    @LilyOfTheValley: How funny because it’s based on that exact same fanfiction. Good catch!

  26. Teev says:

    Bitch in a Bonnet 2 finally came out on Kindle so I read that and that made me start Northanger Abbey, the one Austen I’ve never read. It’s more sarcastic than her other books, and I am enjoying it.

    Also I just read Untamed by Anna Cowan and I cannot recommend this book enough.  It has a duke who is in drag for much of the story and is good at it and enjoys it and the heroine is the one with the broken nose who is a wood chopping machine and the writing is bloody gorgeous. YMMV if you like your historicals super accurate, but I found it different and fun and just so beautifully written.

    And I needed some comfort so re-read The Last Hellion and To Sir Phillip, With Love.

  27. Teev says:

    Bitch in a Bonnet 2 finally came out on Kindle so I read that and that made me start Northanger Abbey, the one Austen I’ve never read. It’s more sarcastic than her other books, and I am enjoying it.

    Also I just read Untamed by Anna Cowan and I cannot recommend this book enough.  It has a duke who is in drag for much of the story and is good at it and enjoys it and the heroine is the one with the broken nose who is a wood chopping machine and the writing is bloody gorgeous. YMMV if you like your historicals super accurate, but I found it different and fun and just so beautifully written.

    And I needed some comfort so re-read The Last Hellion and To Sir Phillip, With Love.

  28. Teev says:

    Bitch in a Bonnet 2 finally came out on Kindle so I read that and that made me start Northanger Abbey, the one Austen I’ve never read. It’s more sarcastic than her other books, and I am enjoying it.

    Also I just read Untamed by Anna Cowan and I cannot recommend this book enough.  It has a duke who is in drag for much of the story and is good at it and enjoys it and the heroine is the one with the broken nose who is a wood chopping machine and the writing is bloody gorgeous. YMMV if you like your historicals super accurate, but I found it different and fun and just so beautifully written.

    And I needed some comfort so re-read The Last Hellion and To Sir Phillip, With Love.

  29. cleo says:

    @Frida – I just inhaled the entire Ivy Years series. It’s so good. You can buy The Understatement of the Year directly from her website now, if you don’t want to wait. http://www.sarinabowen.com/ebooksdirect

    I recently reread The Color Purple by Alice Walker and it held up well.

  30. LML says:

    Dana Stabenow’s first Kate Shugak book is available free for Kindle.  I do envy those of you beginning this wonderful series for the first time.  Fire and Ice, the first Liam Campbell book, is also available without charge.

  31. Judy W. says:

    @Kate and @Amanda.  Much Love for Sunshine here. Its on my keeper shelf and I recommended it in the comments to Sarah when she talked about reading “The Blue Sword”. The author will never write a sequel to it so there you go.  Enjoy the story Amanda your friends mom has great taste.

  32. Judy W. says:

    @Kate and @Amanda.  Much Love for Sunshine here. Its on my keeper shelf and I recommended it in the comments to Sarah when she talked about reading “The Blue Sword”. The author will never write a sequel to it so there you go.  Enjoy the story Amanda your friends mom has great taste!

  33. Vicki says:

    Just finished Dead, Without a Stone to Tell It by Jen J Danna and Ann Vanderlaan. It is a very well done procedural and, although, sometimes the relationship seems a little tacked on, mostly you did feel the heat starting between the hero (anthropologist ex-Marine) and the heroine (state trooper). It is the first in a series and I immediately downloaded the second book that I will soon begin.

    Before that, I read Cora’s Heart by Rachael Herron. It was nice because you could really understand the reason the heroine was making all those stupid decisions. And although the precipitating event for her re-evaluation of her life was a little god-in-a-box, it was a not-unrealistic act of god.

    I will probably use this thread to add to my already generous TBR pile. Thanks.

  34. Frida says:

    @cleo and @LML: This is awesome, thank you! I now have The Understatement of the Year and A Cold Day for Murder on my kindle.

  35. EC Spurlock says:

    I’m still powering my way through my Quinn collection as I wait for my biopsy results; about at the end of A Night Like This and since I don’t have The Sum of All Kisses yet I may skip genres and reread To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis which is also something of a comfort read for me.

    Seconding Jennifer Estep on Beauty by Robin McKinley—OMG HOW could I have not remembered to recommend that to you? It’s my all time favorite B&B retelling and much better than her later retelling, Rose Daughter, which kind of gets too caught up in its own cleverness. It’s my second favorite of her books after Spindle’s End. Also try The Grey Horse and Tea With the Black Dragon by R A MacAvoy; the former deals with a romantic pukka who falls for a girl who is an Irish revolutionary around the time of the 1917 Troubles; the latter features an interracial (and interspecies) relationship between two mature characters, one of whom plays in a Celtic band.

  36. Kinsey says:

    I always read multiple books at a time (see: Adult ADD) – the three I’m reading now aren’t romance but they all have romantic elements to varying degrees and they’re all extremely well written, absorbing, suspenseful, fun, everything.

    The Magicians – Lev Grossman – 1st in a trilogy. A lot like Harry Potter but in university instead of middle/high school. Except it’s not, really, even those it references the Potter universe once in a while. It got a lot of attention from the snooty reviewers – perilously close to literary fiction, but far too imaginative. Grossman’s writing is so good that I enjoy the narrative as much as the dialog. I will be very pissed if, at the end of the trilogy, the couple I’m rooting for isn’t intact.

    The Bobby Dollar series by Tad Williams – a giant of fantasy – I’m on the third book. Bobby Dollar is an angel on Earth. Angels on Earth are tasked with arguing the case for the recently departed to go to Heaven – demons argue for the other side. Bobby attracts trouble. The love of his life is a simple country girl who died a countess and has spent the last six to seven hundred years in Hell.

    The Getaway God—book number I’ve lost count in the Sandman Slim series. The only guy to go to Hell while still alive, and manage to get out, is constantly saving the world from the forces of evil and chaos. He scares the bad guys in Hell. And he’s on a first name basis with God.

    Know what? I think those are all relatively decent blurbs (I’m drinking wine so YMMV.) I can’t write blurbs for my own stuff but apparently I can do it for others.

    SO glad to be reading these 3 books because I’ve been in a book dry spell – seems like every book I’ve bought lately bored the crap out of me by the second chapter. I need to cull my Kindle.

  37. roserita says:

      I just read Shifting shadows, the collection of all the Mercy Thompsonverse stories, plus a couple of deleted “outtakes.”  Especially good is the novella that tells how Samuel became a werewolf, and his romance with Ariana.
      Then there was Festive in death.  I always enjoy reading about how Eve Dallas deals with Christmas, since she has the whole Scrooge-in-self-defense thing going, and I’m always interested in what she comes up with to give Roarke for Christmas—what do you give the richest man in the world?  My gift list is easy in comparison.
      And since you brought it up in the Ilona Andrews podcast, I went back and re-read my Susan Napiers.  I think my favorites are The love conspiracy and No reprieve (librarian heroine!).

  38. laj says:

    Banned book week starts Sunday so my household is reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughter House Five.
    Vonnegut is a crazy genius.

    I’ve a DNF month. My attention span is nonexistent so I think it’s me rather than the books. I did read Festive in Death and was bored. It was another Rourke and Dallas Christmas Show with a murder to solve in between shopping for gifts. I didn’t care for whom the murderer turned out to be either, Lostshadows. I also tried to read To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis, but it was too chaotic…..my son swiped it from me and is loving it, so I’ll pick it up later. 

    On deck is Robin Mckinley….thank you Sarah

  39. Julie Brannagh says:

    I’m re-reading Julie Ann Long’s THE PERILS OF PLEASURE, which I’m sure will cause me to re-read the entire series. I read Anne Gracie’s THE AUTUMN BRIDE last week and enjoyed it!

  40. GatorPerson says:

    Love in Laverton by Peter H. Salus, $2.99 Kindle. A non-formulaic romance set in Australia. Hero is an entomologist; heroine is many things, including a bush nurse. A lovely, gentle romance. No angst.

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