Better Late Than Never

I was on vacation for a week, and for the week before failed to get reviews posted. So, there will be a ridiculous flurry of posts over the next few days, because I have somewhere north of 10 books to review.

I will be posting reviews for Karen Monings entire Fever series, which I read on vacation, all three books of The Hunger Games series, Games of the Heart by Kristen Ashley, a couple Kresley Cole IAD books, and, as well, Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews, and a DNF self-published book called In The Blood by Steve Robinson. And any others that I think of.

Right now, I am reading this one:




Which I got as a cheap read ages ago.

Welcome to March!

As I mentioned in a prior post, I'm planning on doing a theme month this month, which means that I will be reading books in a specific genre. Since I've been reading so much romance, I'm going to deviate from that theme only a little bit, & will be reading UF & PNR. These two genres are quite similar. Typically, the UF genre has less romance, and each book does not necessarily have an HEA. PNR series tend to focus on different couples in each book, with an HEA for each book, and the series will be set in the same world.

I have a long list of books that I will be reading, and at some point in the next couple of days, I'll set up a widget on the right side of the blog to identify them. Right now I am reading:



This is the first in the series, and seems to lean UF over PNR.

I've also finished:




and



The Kresley Cole series, Immortals After Dark, is definitely PNR. I've read 5 of them, and have one more ready to read on my kindle. I'll probably do a separate IAD post to discuss all of them, with mini-reviews about the series as a whole.

DNF - Golden Trail and Boneshaker

So, at least for now, I'm calling these:




and




as DNF's (did not finish).

Golden Trail is just not very good. I really don't care about any of the characters in the book. I have much higher hopes for the next one in the 'burg series.

Boneshaker is good, but it just isn't what I am looking for in a read right now. I am about 38% done & I'll probably give it another go when I cycle back around to straight fantasy and/or speculative fiction.

What I'm reading

As I expected I would, I finished the Lorelei James Rough Riders series yesterday. I also finished Daughter of Smoke & Bone, which is reviewed below.

Reviewing the James series is going to take some time. I will probably work on it over my lunch hour tomorrow.

Other than those books, I am all caught up on my reviews, except for Agents of Innocence, by Ignatius. And, dang it, that book took me forever to read, & I delayed reviewing it from sheer laziness, which means I am going to have to do at least a quick recap before I write it up.

What I've been up to . . .

This is just a quick catch up post. In the last week, I've been reading:



A full review will follow.

I've also been reading the Lorelei James Rough Riders series, starting with book 1:



I am up to book 9, and I expect that I will finish the series sometime this weekend. I plan a single blog post to review the whole series. As a side note -- I totally love those covers. They are awesome -- perfectly representative of the series as a whole, and pretty good on a book-to-book basis. Way to go, Samhain Publishing.

Also, I've been organizing kindles and my Goodreads account, and I've read one more Kristen Ashley -- the recently released:



Which I loved & which is worthy of getting its absolute own blog post.

I also finished the Sarah McCarty Promises series, which will be getting a post. Covers:



and




Not to give too much away, but I didn't think they quite lived up to the "promise" of Promises Linger, but they were both still really entertaining reads. I don't know about those covers, though. Guy with bullwhip sort of freaks me out.

Oh, yeah. I'm also bogged down in:




because in spite of my vow that I was taking a break from Kristen Ashley, I utterly failed. I am just not feeling the love for "the 'Burgh" series, though. I liked, didn't love, At Peace. I am really psyched for the Mike Haines story, though, and I hope it doesn't involve yet another high school flame separated for decades. Just give the man a hot woman for his very own, for crying out loud.

Plus, I borrowed



from one of the amazonians, so that's pretty much going to be the next read, since I only get it for 14 days.

What I'm Reading Today

So, I am about 80% through with



which is the third in a series of Western historical romances that are extremely steamy, but not very historically accurate. There have been more than a few eye-rolling moments. High entertainment, though. And I'm certainly not struggling to finish the book.

I am also still bogged down in




and for some reason I have a really hard time DNF'ing a book. Although at this point, I am at 81%, and I've committed so much time to it that there is no way I'm not going to finish it. It's not like Agents of Innocence is a bad book. It is just not really what I want to be reading, and it drags. It started with a bang -- a bombing -- but since then, it has been lots of spycraft, but not the derring-do kind of spycraft. The recruiting agents, building relationships, long-term intelligence kind of spycraft. Jason Bourne is not in this book. So, I WILL finish it, and I WILL finish it this week, but dang, it is a bit of a slog.

I am also reading



and I am at 18%. I am sure hoping that it picks up speed. It is a YA dystopian book in a post-avian-flu-wiped-out-99%-of-humanity-world. I don't really understand the whole "climate change" aspect of the book, since the likelihood of a major health catastrophe coupled with a global catastrophe that puts much of the Eastern Seabord under water seems, well, farfetched. But then again, I suppose that the end of the world as we know it will seem farfetched if it happens.

Update on the TBR Collection

483 books.  The book hoarding really must stop.