It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? a place to meet up and share what you have been, and are about to be reading over the week. It’s a great post to organize yourself. It’s an opportunity to visit and comment and er… add to your groaning TBR pile! So welcome in everyone. This meme started on J Kaye’s blog and then was hosted by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn here at The Book Date.
Jen Vincent, Teach Mentor Texts, and Kellee of Unleashing Readers decided to give It’s Monday! a kidlit focus. If you read and review books in children’s literature – picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels or anything in those genres – join them.
What I am Reading Now:

Will this fact set Sienna free or plunge her into an even bigger lie?
Sienna Lewis lives in a world constantly threatened by a hacktivist group known as SWARM. After SWARM executes its deadliest attack yet, Sienna and her three college friends learn they have been chosen for the ELIXIR Project–a master plan designed to overthrow SWARM–and participation is mandatory.
As she faces the deadly challenges of the Project, Sienna confronts layers of conspiracies that force her to question everyone she trusts and everything she believes about her friends, her parents’ untimely deaths, and herself–all while staying one step ahead of SWARM. In this fast-paced, near-future thriller, will love and loyalty have time to catch up with Sienna? Or will she crack under the pressure of a future already chosen for her?
I started reading Elixir Project shortly before Christmas break. I ended up stopping because I got 3 library books off hold. Now that I have finished them, I can continue with this book.
What I Plan on Reading This Week:
If this list looks familiar, it is. Like I mentioned above, I had 3 library books come off hold with 2 of them being very slow paced. I am hoping to burn through this list, barring any library books coming off hold (doesn’t look like it).

In the near future, a government experiment out of control opens gateways to other worlds and dimensions all over planet Earth, plunging everyday people into a nightmare of grim survival against the horrific and bizarre…
Portal Zero. The beginning of the end.
– In Colorado Springs, CO, young family-man Arthur can’t find his wife and young sons when all electronics and vehicles in the city are disabled. But the EMP is the least of his worries. When the city quickly turns to looting and anarchy, he sees much darker dangers in the shadows with glowing blue eyes…
– In Geneva, Switzerland, Chad is a naive cameraman working for a news network filming the opening of Portal Zero, mankind’s first experiment with ‘Dimension Drive’–an attempt at inter-space travel. Barely out of his internship, Chad is forced to survive the terrifying creatures that emerge from the gateway when everything goes wrong. When the slaughter in the deep-underground lab begins, how will he survive, trapped and isolated from the surface?
– Meanwhile, in Zion National Park, UT, Megan is a fit and self-made woman on vacation with her boyfriend when a mysterious thunderclap kills all of the electronics in the park. When a strange, golden obelisk appears in the middle of the park, a mysterious and unseen force begins transforming the tourists around her.
– Harvey is an alcoholic, disgraced police officer in Las Vegas, NV, recently imprisoned after failing at his spree of vigilante justice on the unpunished. But when the city’s power fails and the precinct over his cell is breached by an army of nightmares, it seems that Hell itself is invading the city of sin, and the Strip is burning.
– Kayleen is a young college student and art major at PSU in Portland, OR. She doesn’t really care about much more than Veganism and the boy she secretly has a crush on. But when a weird, alien environment follows an EMP-induced city-wide blackout one night while she’s at an off-campus party, what will Kayleen find out about her values when everyone’s focus turns to survival?
– Tommy and Jody are two young children in Flagstaff, AZ, living with their mom and dad and enjoying a stable childhood, when a town-wide power outage becomes a call for concern when it’s not fixed by the next morning. When the family hears the police fighting against invading monsters in the business district nearby, and they are all forced to evacuate their home because of a spreading wildfire, the children have no idea that their lives are about to change forever…
In a year much sooner than you think, while scientists and politicians argue about global warming and lack of resources, the United Nations has reorganized itself into the UEA, the first serious attempt at a world government. “Dimension Drive” is being developed for wormhole-based space travel in Europe by the UEA to expand human civilization into the stars. But the UEA development team responsible for Dim Drive has no idea that they’re about to lose control of the portal they’re trying to harness because of a massive, unforeseen EMP, ushering in the end of the world as we know it.
In America, one of the last superpowers holding out against joining the United Earth Alliance, several individuals across the country are going about their lives, unaware that UEA scientists are quietly conducting the first real test of their new Dimension Drive technology that will change everything…
Do you love guns, tactical realism, and monsters? Are you a fan of cosmic horror and dark fantasy / sci-fi? Love the Mist and Cabin in the Woods? Lovecraft? Doom? Stranger Things? EMP and Prepper Survival? This story is full of terror, suspense, and bad language. If you can dig it, strap in for a ride to Hell!
Read Portal Zero, Book One of the Apocalypse Gate Series now!

Rie is only human. The high elves have made that very clear. Even training as an elite fighter isn’t enough to earn the respect she craves. Her only allies are the fierce carnivorous pixies who travel by her side, yet still she clings to the hope of one day earning her place in the Upper Realm.
When she’s attacked by assassins from the enemy Shadow Realm, Rie’s martial prowess keeps her alive…and frames her as a traitor. Facing execution at the hand of a merciless king, Rie must forsake her oaths and flee into enemy lands to prove her innocence. What she uncovers may threaten more than her honor or even her life…for war is looming in the nine faerie realms.

Reid Holliston defends guilty people for a living and it’s slowly killing him. He’s certain there is no such thing as a truly blameless client anymore. When his phone rings with a voice from his childhood his jaded views make him certain Tara is just one more criminal claiming innocence. But even his skepticism isn’t enough to keep him away.
Best friends from a lifetime ago, the two must find a way to trust each other again in spite of how the years apart have changed them. Can a promise made in childhood be enough to save them both
The same thing happened to me Jolie. I got a bunch of audiobooks all at once, so now am trying to listen to them as well as what I had hoped to read. Oh well, we will never run out of things to read and enjoy. I hope these books are exactly what you are hoping for.
Well said, Carla!! So far, the library books have been what I wanted. Hopefully yours are what you were hoping for too!!
They sure are. So many wonderful recommendations that I had put requests in for.