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:
For the 4th week in a row, we are expecting snow here in Western NC. Our local weather people are going insane over this because it never happens. I am OK with it as long as the kids don’t miss school.
Miss R is having a sleep study done. She has been waking up gasping and isn’t getting a good night’s sleep. Her Dr said to do a sleep study to rule out sleep apnea and then onto an ENT. Was not expecting that but it needs to be looked at. Keeping my fingers crossed that the sleep test rules out stuff and that the ENT doesn’t need to do surgery.
Mr. Z has officially applied to the high school of his choice. In my area of NC, the city has 4 different high schools. There is the local high school, the magnate high school, and two charter high schools. His choice (drum roll please): the magnate high school that his sister attends. While she attends the criminal justice academy, he will be attending the computer programming academy. That is if he gets in (but I have it on good authority that he will).
Miss B had to drop out of the air rifle team. Their practices were after school (for the local high school) but during her last period. So she couldn’t attend and she was very upset. She was looking forward to it. I have pushed her into joining the Gay/Straight Student Alliance but she is not really feeling it. In her words: “I don’t need to announce to everyone that I’m gay.” She is debating on trying out for the play (I think it’s called Zombie Prom??) but she hasn’t made up her mind.
Reading
January sucked for me with reading. My start into February has been great and I am hoping to keep my reading streak up. I am a little behind with my indie author reading. I have a paperback that an author sent me that I haven’t picked up and the review was due two weeks ago…sigh. I am also severely behind with my NetGalley ARCs. I am not sweating it, though. A lot of those ARCs have archive dates way in the future and I am getting to them when I get to them. The indie authors are more important.
I am just about caught up with my indie author reviews (I have to buckle down and finish one for tomorrow and one over the weekend). I am caught up with my NetGalley reviews (for once).
Watching:
Honestly, I haven’t been watching much of anything. I have been either too tired to watch TV or I have lost interest in anything that I was watching (except ER). So, any suggestions would be nice.
Making:
I made a chile-lime pulled beef (not pork like I said in last week’s post) on Monday. I served it over white rice. It was alright. The kids liked it but they all said it wouldn’t be something that they asked for again. Next week, I plan on making a beef bourguignon in the crockpot. On paper it looks good, we’ll see about how it tastes. The author of the recipe says to serve it with mashed potatoes but since it has potatoes in the recipe, I’ll be skipping that.
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:
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.
I enjoyed reading this book. But, I wouldn’t go as far as to recommend it to younger kids. This is a higher middle-grade book (think over 13). There are a lot of very dark undertones in the book. There are also some scenes where younger kids would be scared.
What I am currently reading:
In the city-state of Devovea, behind the walls of the Castle, Scylla Delevan waits for a chance to prove herself. When a Magistrate is murdered and her father stands accused of the crime, she eagerly sets out to prove his innocence. As she races to find the real killer before it is too late, she begins to unearth dangerous secrets that could throw the fragile balance of her city into chaos. In too deep to turn back, Scylla is forced to question all she has ever known and choose between what is expected of her and what is right.
Family loyalty and personal beliefs collide as Scylla navigates a dystopian world divided by race and gender. Heir of Blood and Secrets will challenge you to consider how far you are willing to go—and what you are willing to sacrifice—to forge a better world.
What books I think I’ll read next:
I am listing these in the order that I expect to read them. Barring an act of God (or my kids not having school), I do plan on reading at least the first 4 by next week.
There’s something off about Lord Rupert Lacy, but Caz’s hippy mother and dreamy younger sister don’t see it. In fact, they’re so taken with the guy that within a week of meeting him, they accept his invitation to move in. Though it’s a step up from living in a trailer, Lacy’s dilapidated mansion scares Caz. Haunted by strange noises and bizarre dreams, Caz becomes convinced that Lacy’s missing daughter is trying to tell her something.
Fast Forward to:
America, Present. Fourteen year old Jeremy McKee attends a fantasy workshop which is run by a young woman named Ariella. One afternoon, an old vagrant on the street offers Jeremy a small crystal which produces visions of a young woman resurrected from death hundreds of years ago. Slowly, the truth begins to reveal itself. The woman in the vision and the one running the workshop are one in the same. The vagrant is the sorcerer, Armand. He explains that Jeremy’s ancestor, D’Arcy, offered his soul for the life of his betrothed but reneged at the last minute. Now the demon has returned for payment and is prepared to unleash the Black Plague if he doesn’t get what he he is owed.
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!
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.
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.
But when Jasper Jupiter’s Circus of Wonders arrives in the village, Nell is kidnapped. Her father has sold her, promising Jasper Jupiter his very own leopard girl. It is the greatest betrayal of Nell’s life, but as her fame grows, and she finds friendship with the other performers and Jasper’s gentle brother Toby, she begins to wonder if joining the show is the best thing that has ever happened to her.
In London, newspapers describe Nell as the eighth wonder of the world. Figurines are cast in her image, and crowds rush to watch her soar through the air. But who gets to tell Nell’s story? What happens when her fame threatens to eclipse that of the showman who bought her? And as she falls in love with Toby, can he detach himself from his past and the terrible secret that binds him to his brother?
Moving from the pleasure gardens of Victorian London to the battle-scarred plains of the Crimea, Circus of Wonders is an astonishing story about power and ownership, fame and the threat of invisibility.
Los Angeles is a city of sunlight, celebrity, and possibility. The L.A. often experienced by Homicide Lt. Detective Milo Sturgis and psychologist Alex Delaware, is a city of the dead.
Early one morning, the two of them find themselves in a neighborhood of pretty houses, pretty cars, and pretty people. The scene they encounter is anything but. A naked young man lies dead in the street, the apparent victim of a collision with a moving van hurtling through suburbia in the darkness. But any thoughts of accidental death vanish when a blood trail leads to a nearby home.
Inside, a young woman lies butchered. The identity of the male victim and his role in the horror remain elusive, but that of the woman creates additional questions. And adding to the shock, Alex has met her while working a convoluted child custody case. Cordelia Gannett was a self-styled internet influencer who’d gotten into legal troubles by palming herself off as a psychologist. Even after promising to desist, she’s found a loophole and has continued her online career, aiming to amass clicks and ads by cyber-coaching and cyber-counseling people plagued with relationship issues.
But upon closer examination, Alex and Milo discover that her own relationships are troublesome, including a tortured family history and a dubious personal past. Has that come back to haunt her in the worst way? Is the mystery man out in the street collateral damage or will he turn out to be the key to solving a grisly double homicide? As the psychologist and the detective explore L.A.’s meanest streets, they peel back layer after layer of secrets and encounter a savage, psychologically twisted, almost unthinkable motive for violence and bloodshed.
This is classic Delaware: Alex, a man Milo has come to see as irreplaceable, at his most insightful and brilliant.