WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words.
The Three Ws are:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?
Personal:
After a week of no school (but they did have virtual learning Thursday and Friday), my kids went back to school on Monday. I can’t tell you how excited I was for them to go back…lol. I love them but they were getting on each other’s nerves and mine.
We’re slated to get hit with another snowstorm on Saturday. Like I mentioned last week, any snow that we get, the city shuts down. My prediction….no school Monday and maybe a 2-3 hour delay on Tuesday. Of course, Miss R is thrilled. She loves snow and days off from school.
I don’t know if I mentioned it but Miss B got on her JROTC air rifle team. She got the email the week of January 10th and she is so excited!! She is also doing JROTC events and going up in rank.
I have nothing really to say about Mr. Z. He’s my low-key, no-maintenance kid. He has discovered a love for zombie books. We had gotten him books 1-3 of The Extinction Cycle series by Nicholas Sansbury Smith for Christmas and he devoured them. BK ordered books 4-6 around New Year and Mr. Z finished them. He’s asking for other books in that genre.
As I mentioned above, Miss R is loving the snow. She has spent hours outside, playing in it. I am liking it because she’s outside and not sitting around with her face glued to a screen. In other news (with her), I got her 3-week progress report for Quarter 3 (they get two progress reports a quarter). Her reading level blew me away. She went from an 80L (Lexile Range)-230L to a 665L-815L. Depending on the site, that puts her at a middle/late 3rd grade/early 4th-grade reading level. I am very proud of her!!
Reading:
I barely did any reading last week. I was very stressed out (with the kids being virtual). That also led to me developing my first ocular migraine. That lasted for a little over 4 days (Weds, Thurs, Fri, and Saturday) and I am still not feeling 100%. I am also behind on my indie author reviews. Thankfully, they are understanding (stupid migraine)
Review-wise, I am still behind. Because of my migraine, I wasn’t able to write anything (it hurt to look at the screen). I am hoping to catch up with Random House/SMP reviews by Friday and to have the indie author reviews written by Sunday. I hate being behind!!
Watching:
BK and I started watching Foundation on Apple Plus but we stopped after the first episode. It was because of my migraine and not feeling well. We also started watching Ted Lasso.
Making:
I made the unstuffed shells yesterday. It was a pretty easy dish to make and the kids loved it. Next week, I am making Chile Lime pulled pork. I am not holding my breath with them liking it (they are all very picky) but miracles have happened.
So, that the catch up with me. As always, let me know if you have read any of these books and what you have thought about them. Just a warning, it will basically be the same as last week.
What I Recently Finished Reading:
When Lux McAllister and her boyfriend, Nico, are hired to sail two women to a remote island in the South Pacific, it seems like the opportunity of a lifetime. Stuck in a dead-end job in Hawaii, and longing to travel the world after a family tragedy, Lux is eager to climb on board The Susannah and set out on an adventure. She’s also quick to bond with their passengers, college best friends Brittany and Amma. The two women say they want to travel off the beaten path. But like Lux, they may have other reasons to be seeking an escape.
Shimmering on the horizon after days at sea, Meroe Island is every bit the paradise the foursome expects, despite a mysterious history of shipwrecks, cannibalism, and even rumors of murder. But what they don’t expect is to discover another boat already anchored off Meroe’s sandy beaches. The owners of the Azure Sky, Jake and Eliza, are a true golden couple: gorgeous, laidback, and if their sleek catamaran and well-stocked bar are any indication, rich. Now a party of six, the new friends settle in to experience life on an exotic island, and the serenity of being completely off the grid. Lux hasn’t felt like she truly belonged anywhere in years, yet here on Meroe, with these fellow free spirits, she finally has a sense of peace.
But with the arrival of a skeevy stranger sailing alone in pursuit of a darker kind of good time, the balance of the group is disrupted. Soon, cracks begin to emerge: it seems that Brittany and Amma haven’t been completely honest with Lux about their pasts––and perhaps not even with each other. And though Jake and Eliza seem like the perfect pair, the rocky history of their relationship begins to resurface, and their reasons for sailing to Meroe might not be as innocent as they first appeared.
When it becomes clear that the group is even more cut off from civilization than they initially thought, it starts to feel like the island itself is closing in on them. And when one person goes missing, and another turns up dead, Lux begins to wonder if any of them are going to make it off the island alive.
What I am currently reading:
This story is ultimately about the battle between faith and disbelief, as well as how hope and cynicism clash against one another in the human spirit.
Can the ultimate basis of truth be found? In Pall’s quest for meaning, can virtue be used to combat and overcome evil?
What books I think I’ll read next:
Time is running out in the empire of Rheinvelt.
The sudden appearance of a strange and frightening statue foretells darkness. The Hierophants—magic users of the highest order—have fled the land. And the shadowy beasts of the nearby Hinterlands are gathering near the borders, preparing for an attack.
Young Prince Alphonsus is sent by his mother, the Empress Sabine, to reassure the people while she works to quell the threat of war. But Alphonsus has other problems on his mind, including a great secret: He has a clock in his chest where his heart should be—and it’s begun to run backwards, counting down to his unknown fate.
Searching for answers about the clock, Alphonsus meets Esme, a Hierophant girl who has returned to the empire in search of a sorceress known as the Nachtfrau. When riddles from their shared past threaten the future of the empire, Alphonsus and Esme must learn to trust each other and work together to save it—or see the destruction of everything they both love.
Hunted by both the military and her own personal stalker, Dani conceals her psychic abilities and hides in plain sight. Within her mind is the ability to change the landscape of nations. For that, a branch of the government would lock her away—to ensure her safety.
Marc Crofton left his black-ops unit to join his brothers’ private investigative after discharge. A chance meeting with the quiet, unassuming spitfire in his veterinarian’s office sends his world in a tail spin involving spies, both domestic and international.
Each must rely on the other to survive a world where betrayal and deception, desire and trust, weave a fabric that transcends time.
Marian has risked everything to bring King Richard the Lionheart to England.
But as the king’s heart turns toward vengeance who will be left to stand in his wake?
If you like inspirational heroines, unique love stories, and non-stop twists and turns, this action-packed fantasy retelling is for you!
There’s something out there that’s killing. Known only as The Cur, he leaves no traces, save for the torn bodies of girls, on the verge of becoming women, who are known as trouble-makers; those who refuse to conform, to know their place. Girls who don’t know when to shut up.
2019: Thirteen-year-old Lila Sawyer has secrets she can’t share with anyone. Not the school psychologist she’s seeing. Not her father, who has a new wife, and a new baby. And not her mother—the infamous Caroline Sawyer, a unique artist whose eerie sculptures, made from bent twigs and crimped leaves, have made her a local celebrity. But soon Lila feels haunted from within, terrorized by a delicious evil that shows her how to find her voice—until she is punished for using it.
2004: Caroline Sawyer hears dogs everywhere. Snarling, barking, teeth snapping that no one else seems to notice. At first, she blames the phantom sounds on her insomnia and her acute stress in caring for her ailing father. But then the delusions begin to take shape—both in her waking hours, and in the violent, visceral sculptures she creates while in a trance-like state. Her fiancé is convinced she needs help. Her new psychiatrist waves her “problem” away with pills. But Caroline’s past is a dark cellar, filled with repressed memories and a lurking horror that the men around her can’t understand.
As past demons become a present threat, both Caroline and Lila must chase the source of this unrelenting, oppressive power to its malignant core. Brilliantly paced, unsettling to the bone, and unapologetically fierce, Such a Pretty Smile is a powerful allegory for what it can mean to be a woman, and an untamed rallying cry for anyone ever told to sit down, shut up, and smile pretty.
Sexy, grumpy neighbor who is going to get in the way of your plans? Check. Unfortunately.
Grace Travis has it all figured out. In between finishing school and working a million odd jobs, she’ll get her degree and her dream job. Most importantly, she’ll have a place to belong, something her harsh mother could never make. When an opportunity to fix up—and live in—a little house on the beach comes along, Grace is all in. Until her biggest roadblock moves in next door.
Noah Jansen knows how to make a deal. As a real estate developer, he knows when he’s found something special. Something he could even call home. Provided he can expand by taking over the house next door–the house with the combative and beautiful woman living in it.
With the rules for being neighborly going out the window, Grace and Noah are in an all-out feud. But sometimes, your nemesis can show you that home is always where the heart is.
Chelsea Martin appears to be the perfect housewife: married to her high school sweetheart, the mother of two daughters, keeper of an immaculate home.
But Chelsea’s husband has turned their home into a prison; he has been abusing her for years, cutting off her independence, autonomy, and support. She has nowhere to turn, not even to her narcissistic mother, Patricia, who is more concerned with maintaining the appearance of an ideal family than she is with her daughter’s actual well-being. And Chelsea is worried that her daughters will be trapped just as she is–until a mysterious illness sweeps the nation.
Known as The Violence, this illness causes the infected to experience sudden, explosive bouts of animalistic rage and attack anyone in their path. But for Chelsea, the chaos and confusion the virus causes is an opportunity–and inspires a plan to liberate herself from her abuser.