I saw this meme on It’s All About Booksand thought, I like this!! So, I decided to do it once a month also. Many thanks to Yvonne for initially posting this!!
This post is what it says: Places I travel to in books each month. Books are lovely and take you to places you would never get to. That includes places of fantasy too!!
Bon Voyage!!
Please let me know if you have read these books or traveled to these areas.
Oremanta
Tanemba, Millory, Castle
United States
Connecticut (just outside Hartford)
New York (New York City, Long Island)
New York (New York City, Brooklyn), Pennsylvania (the Poconos), Indiana(Terre Haute, Indianapolis), Missouri (St. Louis, Kansas City), Oklahoma (Tulsa, Oklahoma City), Texas (Amarillo), Arizona (Bisbee, Tucson), New Mexico (Socorro, Las Cruces)
2023 Sami Parker Reads Title Challenge (book with direction in title)— Southern Rocker Boy—Finished 2-20-2023
2023 Sami Parker Reads Title Challenge (book with a season in title)—Summer’s Deadly Kiss—Finished 2-18-2023
Cover Scavenger Hunt (A Door)—Kurtain Motel—Finished 1-31-2023
The StoryGraph’s Onboarding Reading Challenge 2023 (Read a book you discovered via the community page)—Fine or Punishment—Finished 2-14-2023
The StoryGraph Reads the World 2023 (Columbia)—Lightlark—Finished 2-15-2023
The StoryGraph’s Genre Challenge 2023 (a nonfiction book about startups)—Lost and Founder by Rand Fishkin—Finished 2-2-2023
Beat the Backlist 2023 (cozy read or cover)—Her Long Walk Home—2-16-2023
Scavenger Hunt TBR Book Challenge (What color was on the previous prompt’s book’s cover? Read a book with the complimentary color on the cover)—The Demon Deception—Finished 2-3-2023
Scavenger Hunt (book written by a man using a woman’s perspective)—When They Came—Finished 2-9-2023
Popsugar Reading Challenge 2023 (A book you bought from an independent bookstore)—The Happy Chip—Finished 2-3-2023
2023 TBR Toppler (The newest book you own)—A Duke for All Seasons—Finished 2-8-2023
What are you currently reading? What did you recently finish reading? What do you think you’ll read next?
Personal:
I hope you all had a wonderful week last week.
My week after Wednesday was pretty good. My drama from earlier in the week went away, and I got an apology from a higher-up.
Miss R had horseback riding, and she did pretty well. I had a long talk with her trainer, and we are revising a plan to work on her nervousness about jumping.
I spent the weekend just chilling at home. Saturday, we returned to the shelter to look at what they had for dogs and cats. One stood out to me. Her name is Dolly, and she is a 1-year-old pit mix. She was so sweet!! Both Miss R and I want her. But she is still on medical hold (weaning eight puppies, and she had just been spayed) and will be on hold until she is healed and the babies are weaned.
Monday, BK came into the living room and swore he saw a tiny kitten on our back porch. I called BS until I checked our Ring. Yup, there was a kitten, and I saw it on Tuesday, eating the food we set out for the two ferals we feed. It looks to be between 6-8 weeks old, and it appears to be at least half Lynx-Point Siamese. There is no way that a young kitten would wander away from its home. I am thinking it was dumped. We’re going to bring it in, clean it up (and sex it), and then take it from there—which means it will join our family.
Shows I Watched:Secrets of the Zoo: Tampa (it was on NatGeo), OPLive (on Reelz), and The Last of Us (on HBO Max). This week’s The Last of Us episode had me in tears. I’m not going to give spoilers, but that was a great storyline and the acting (chef’s kiss).
What I Cooked/Baked:Miss R and I made Pizza LollipopsMonday night. I wasn’t too sure how they were going to turn out. But 2 out of the three kids liked them. If you are going to make these, I recommend 450 for 10-15 mins (check after 10). 450 at 25-30 mins would have burned them. And a big shout out to Hobby Lobby for having popsicle sticks!!
Reading:
I am getting a lot of reading done these days. Sitting in the car rider line for an hour helps with that.
The longest book I read this week:Jackal. I had difficulty concentrating while reading this book, and it took me longer than usual to read.
The shortest book I read this week:The Healing. It was a short book, and I finished it within a couple of hours.
Other Interesting Bookish News: I am still reordering my Goodreads Shelves. It’s time-consuming, but it needs to be done. I bought The Joy of Cooking (the 2019 edition). I figured it is a must-have for the house.
How was your week? Read anything good? Did you do anything exciting? Watch anything new? Cook anything good?
As always, let me know if you have read or are planning to read any of these
What I Recently Finished Reading:
Bought free from Kindle/Read for the Cover Scavenger Hunt Challenge
“Confess!” Patrick Lahm is down on his luck. Late for his book signing, out of gas and stuck in a storm. He hitches a ride to the Kurtain Motel where he is forced to spend the night. The small motel seems harmless enough at first, but as the night drags on, Patrick and the other guests slowly begin to realize there is a lot more to their temporary lodging than meets the eye.
Something evil is at work at the Kurtain Motel; something that creeps into the deepest, darkest corners of your mind and tugs at the chords of sanity until they finally break. On the longest night of his life, Patrick soon finds out that there is a reason why skeletons are kept in closets. He realizes that your sins always find a way to catch up with you, no matter how hard you try to run.
Welcome to the Kurtain Motel, where all your nightmares come true.
From author and bought through KU/Review set for 2-6
When the past collides with the present…
It was an ordinary day in Friar’s Ridge when Jess took a wrong turn on the way home and, on the spur of the moment, acquired a book at the local market. When she discovers a photograph of a woman within, an indomitable spirit in the form of a small boy enters the life Jess shares with her seven-year-old son, Jonas.
A friendship develops between Jonas and the ghost boy, but something darker is lurking beneath the boy’s friendly demeanour. Meanwhile, Jess oscillates between reality and that of another dimension, her protective nature compromised by a dark and mysterious realm.
She begins to search for the lady in the photograph, who she believes is the ghost boy’s mother. Little did Jess realise that this would lead her to the heart of an undiscovered abhorrent crime, but who was responsible?
And what really happened that fateful hot summer’s day by the park lake?
What I am currently reading:
ARC from NetGalley/Review coming 2-7
Three ordinary people risk everything for a chance at redemption in this audacious, utterly gripping novel of catastrophe and survival at the end of the world, from the acclaimed author of The Chalk Man
Hannah awakens to carnage, all mangled metal and shattered glass. During a hasty escape from a secluded boarding school, her coach careened over a hillside road during one of the year’s heaviest snowstorms, trapping her inside with a handful of survivors, a brewing virus, and no way to call for help. If she and the remaining few want to make it out alive, with their sanity–and secrets–intact, they’ll need to work together or they’ll be buried alive with the rest of the dead.
A former detective, Meg awakens to a gentle rocking. She is in a cable car suspended far above a snowstorm and surrounded by strangers in the same uniform as her, with no memory of how they got there. They are heading to a mysterious place known to them only as “The Retreat,” but when they discover a dead man among their ranks and Meg spies a familiar face, she realizes that there is something far more insidious going on.
Carter is gazing out the window of the abandoned ski chalet that he and his ragtag compatriots call home. Together, they manage a precarious survival, manufacturing vaccines against a deadly virus in exchange for life’s essentials. But as their generator begins to waver, the threat of something lurking in the chalet’s depths looms larger, and their fragile bonds will be tested when the power finally fails–for good.
The imminent dangers faced by Hannah, Meg, and Carter are each one part of the puzzle. Lurking in their shadows is an even greater threat–one that threatens to consume all of humanity.
What books I think I’ll read next:
ARC from NetGalley/Review set for 2-9
In April Asher’s next Supernatural Singles novel, Not Your Ex’s Hexes, a one-night-stand between a willful witch and a broody half-demon conjures an adventure that wouldn’t be complete without several magical mishaps.
For her entire life, Rose Maxwell trained to become the next Prima on the Supernatural Council. Now that she’s stepped down, it’s time for this witch to focus on herself. And not think about her impulsive one-night stand with Damian Adams, a half-Demon Veterinarian who she can’t get out of her head. Neither of them is looking for a relationship. But when Rose is sentenced to community service at Damian’s animal sanctuary it becomes impossible for them to ignore their sparking attraction. A friends-with-benefits, no feelings, no strings arrangement works perfectly for them both.
After a sequence of dead-end jobs, it’s not until Rose tangos with two snarly demons that she thinks she’s finally found her path. However, this puts Damian back on the periphery of a world he thought he left behind. He doesn’t approve of Rose becoming a Hunter, but if there’s one thing he’s learned about the stubborn witch, it was telling her not to do something was one sure-fire way to make sure she did.
Working—and sleeping—together awakens feelings Damian never knew he had…and shouldn’t have. Because thanks to his ex’s hex, if he falls in love, he’ll not only lose his heart—but his humanity.
ARC from author/Review set for 2-10
Speak of pain, and I’ll tell you of the Time who stole it away…
Besieged by war, ravaged by monsters, and crawling with the undead, the land of Okarria is dying. Seventeen-year-old Emara survives by using her modest healing gift to save as many as she can while eluding the invaders who thirst for her enchanted blood.
So when a cursed cat saves her life and reveals Emara is the legendary Time Heir the necromancer king’s been searching for, she agrees to act as bait in a plot to destroy him. But when the plan goes horrifically awry, Emara must discover how deep her powers go, what she can change…
And what she cannot.
Unfortunately, Time Heirs have a history of getting killed, and with Okarria’s future on the line, Emara may have no choice but to follow in her ancestors’ footsteps.
Free Kindle Purchase/Reading for the Scavenger Hunt TBR Book Challenge
Eli likes uncomplicated. Kill the Vampire Coven Master, save the little girl, simple and uncomplicated. That changes with a phone call. Life gets complicated quickly when Eli finds out that he has to work with his most dangerous foe, a beautiful demon succubus. When Good and Evil have to work together against a common enemy, Eli has to wonder, who’s going to put the knife in his back, his enemies, or his allies.
Free Kindle Purchase/Reading for the Popsugar Reading Challenge 2023
You feel ecstatic! Until you kill yourself.
The Happy Chip is the latest nanoengineering wonder from the high-flying tech company, NeoHappy, Inc.
Hundreds of millions of people have had the revolutionary nanochip injected into their bodies, to monitor their hormonal happiness and guide them to life choices, from foods to sex partners. Given the nanochip’s stunning success, struggling science writer Brad Davis is thrilled when he is hired to co-author the biography of its inventor, billionaire tech genius Marty Fallon.
That is, until Davis learns that rogue company scientists are secretly testing horrifying new control chips with “side effects”—suicidal depression, uncontrollable lust, murderous rage, remote-controlled death, and ultimately, global subjugation.
His discovery threatens not only his life, but that of his wife Annie and their children. Only with the help of Russian master hacker Gregor Kalinsky and his gang can they hope to survive the perilous adventure that takes them from Boston to Beijing.
An edge-of your-seat thriller, The Happy Chip spins a cautionary tale of unchecked nanotechnology spawning insidious devices that could enslave us. It dramatically portrays how we must control our “nanofuture” before it’s too late.
What are you currently reading? What did you recently finish reading? What do you think you’ll read next?
Personal:
I hope you all had a wonderful week last week.
I haven’t had the best week. There is too much to put here. The Reader’s Digest version of everything is that people suck and need to learn patience. Oh, and not to talk to me like I’m an idiot. While I might be laid back and quiet, it doesn’t mean that I put up with that. And that person got an earful yesterday…sigh.
I was so stressed and upset yesterday that I didn’t write the review for a Guide to Being Just Friends or write this post and schedule it. But it’s in the past, and things can only get better (and they have….karma came for that person I mentioned above).
Shows I Watched: Game of Thrones (we’re on Season 7) and The Last of Us.
What I Cooked/Baked:Miss R and I have been cooking together. This week, we made a kid-friendly Greek Lemon Chicken-Orzo Soup. Miss R enjoyed making this. I had her cut the lemons, squeeze the juice out of them (which she didn’t like), whisk all the ingredients together, crack one of the eggs, and add the orzo. BK had pre-shredded the chicken, and I separated two yolks from the eggs. It was OK. The kids said it was too lemony. I will not be keeping this recipe. Next week, we’re making pizza lollipops, cheesy pizza hot dogs (Miss B will be eating something else, she hates hot dogs), and grilled pizza roll-ups.
Reading:
I got a lot of reading done from Wednesday to last night. Being stressed out and not being able to sleep made me read. This contrasts with last week, when I couldn’t read because of what happened to Snickers.
The longest book I read this week: I didn’t get hung up or have long books this week. Everything was either short, a manga, or a novella.
The shortest book I read this week: The three I read last night. They’ll be mentioned below.
Other Interesting Bookish News: I am reordering my Goodreads Shelves again. I decided I had too many NetGalley shelves, so I removed the shelf that held the books I put under Will Not Give Feedback. Those books went back into my Want To Read shelf. I added a new shelf called Series and have started going through the remaining shelves (Read, Want to Read, Downloaded to Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, Indie Authors, NetGalley, and The StoryGraph Reading Challenges). Any book that is a prologue or book 1 (and is not free)goes onto the Want to Read shelf. The book is part of a series; I go through and add the series (making sure they are on Amazon. If not, I remove them.). If there are free books on any of those shelves from Amazon, I download them, and they go on the Downloaded to Kindle shelf. The other books stay either on Want to Read or, if they are on KU, go on that shelf. It doesn’t sound very clear, but it makes sense to me.
How was your week? Read anything good? Did you do anything exciting? Watch anything new? Cook anything good?
As always, let me know if you have read or are planning to read any of these
What I Recently Finished Reading:
Bought from KU/Read for The StoryGraph’s Genre Challenge
From the award-winning author of Princess Princess Ever After comes The Tea Dragon Society, a charming all-ages book that follows the story of Greta, a blacksmith apprentice, and the people she meets as she becomes entwined in the enchanting world of tea dragons.
After discovering a lost tea dragon in the marketplace, Greta learns about the dying art form of tea dragon care-taking from the kind tea shop owners, Hesekiel and Erik. As she befriends them and their shy ward, Minette, Greta sees how the craft enriches their lives—and eventually her own.
Bought for free from Amazon/Read for Beat the Backlist 2023
Hunted, shot, and without her memory, eighteen-year-old Ann Baker wakes in shallow water on a deserted Pacific Northwest island. She is soon approached by two young men claiming to be her friends. Something isn’t right, but when gunshots sound, Ann is left with little choice but to allow Devon and Archer to help her escape. Soon she finds herself in their North Bend mountain compound, where the higher evolved humans claim to be mind-readers. While Ann heals, she realizes they believe her to be one of the last and most powerful of all – The Lost One.
She’s welcomed by most with opened arms, but not everyone is happy about her arrival. A jealous adversary has plans for Ann, which spirals the entire Reader community into chaos.
As lies, murder, and betrayal threaten to rip apart the once harmonious mountain dwellers, Ann is thrust into making a decision that could save or devastate not only The Readers, but all of mankind. But there’s just one glitch: by doing so it may require her to make the ultimate sacrifice.
Won in a Goodreads Giveaway/Read for pleasure
She wants a favor. He has ONE condition.
The honeymoon is over…
When Veronica said “I do” to Sebastian Sinclair, Duke of Edgefield, she thought all her dreams had come true. He was dashing and doting, and she absolutely adored him—until he betrayed her trust, shattering their marriage, and her heart, into a million tiny bits. She hasn’t seen her husband in the two years since, and she’d just as soon make it twenty. But when she learns that her beloved grandfather’s dying wish is for her and Sebastian to attend the family’s Christmastide celebration, she swallows her pride and asks him a favor: to pretend they’re the happy couple they once were.
But the passion still simmers.
Sebastian is shocked to find his lovely duchess on his doorstep, but he’s ready and willing to play the part of a devoted husband for the Christmas season…if Veronica will grant him a favor in return. All he asks is that she share his bed every night. All night. And maybe even give him the heir he needs.
Could their love be the real deal?
Veronica must be mad to agree—especially since Sebastian seems intent on using every weapon in his arsenal to charm and seduce her. She knows it’s just pretend and yet, she can’t help but wonder if the falling snow and Christmas cheer will work a little magic. Maybe she and Sebastian will end up with more than either of them bargained for…
What I am currently reading:
ARC from NetGalley/Review is set for 2-2
Cheerfully irreverent, bitingly funny, and filled with romantic charm, The Second You’re Single is all about navigating the most romantic month of the year, and how love always seems to arrive when you least expect it.
Freelance writer Sora Reid believes in inertia. She’s the odd one out in a close-knit family of go-getters, including her Japanese-American mom, who hints about her need to lose weight, and her soon-to-be married, overachieving younger sister, who needs her to have a date for the wedding, since a wedding party couples’ dance with their Scottish great uncle Bob simply won’t do. For Sora, minimal input, minimal expectations is the way to go. She’d rather stay at home with her insufferable neighbor and her adorable pitbull.
The one thing that disrupts her inertia: an intense dislike for Valentine’s Day. What is it with the commercial love machine? Why do we pin our hopes on one romantic day, when staying home with a package of bacon and a bottle of tequila would be way better? Sora’s been betrayed and disappointed more than once and her heart is starting to feel like her Grandma Mitsuye’s antique Japanese ceramic bowl, with its many gold-filled cracks.
When her pledge to stay single in February inspires readers to #gosolo, Sora has a responsibility to empower her readers. But relationships aren’t built to last, so it shouldn’t be that hard. Right?
Enter Jack Mann. A muscle-bound baker who looks like he lifts logs on the weekends, Sora hasn’t thought of Jack since they were in elementary school together. When they see each other at the local grocery store and the attraction hits hard, Sora knows she has to shut it down, quick. She can’t #gosolo AND get the guy. She can’t let down her readers. And relationships always end, so why should Jack be any different–even though he’s confounding all her long-held expectations of love?
What books I think I’ll read next:
From author/review is set for 2-3
Bree Gordon looks nothing like a bodyguard. But the short, slender woman knows how to keep her principal safe. And one of her most potent weapons is her appearance. People see her and dismiss her. Their mistake.
Jameson Ford is a technical whiz who’s working on a program that’ll be a game changer. The military wants it. So does the CIA, along with some unsavory players. Someone close to him wants it, as well – one of the engineers in his lab.
When he reluctantly hires a bodyguard, he’s shocked when Bree shows up. But it doesn’t take long for him to appreciate her abilities. Will the attraction flaring between them be their salvation? Or will it be their downfall?
ARC from NetGalley/Review is set for 2-3
A young Black girl goes missing in the woods outside her white Rust Belt town. But she’s not the first—and she may not be the last. . . .
It’s watching.
Liz Rocher is coming home . . . reluctantly. As a Black woman, Liz doesn’t exactly have fond memories of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a predominantly white town. But her best friend is getting married, so she braces herself for a weekend of awkward and passive-aggressive reunions. Liz has grown, though; she can handle whatever awaits her. But on the day of the wedding, somewhere between dancing and dessert, the bride’s daughter, Caroline, goes missing—and the only thing left behind is a piece of white fabric covered in blood.
It’s taking.
As a frantic search begins, with the police combing the trees for Caroline, Liz is the only one who notices a pattern: a summer night. A missing girl. A party in the woods. She’s seen this before. Keisha Woodson, the only other Black girl in school, walked into the woods with a mysterious man and was later found with her chest cavity ripped open and her heart missing. Liz shudders at the thought that it could have been her, and now, with Caroline missing, it can’t be a coincidence. As Liz starts to dig through the town’s history, she uncovers a horrifying secret about the place she once called home. Children have been going missing in these woods for years. All of them Black. All of them girls.
It’s your turn.
With the evil in the forest creeping closer, Liz knows what she must do: find Caroline, or be entirely consumed by the darkness.
Bought for free from Amazon/Reading for 2023 Monthly Themes (Fantastical February)
What seventeen-year-old Leland finds in the abandoned basement of his house is something he will never forget.
Leland lost his father when he was seven. Since then, he has successfully adapted to the awful life of being a student, the man of the house, and a father figure to his two younger siblings. All of that changes when he and his best friends stumble upon a secret in his deserted basement, and fall into another dimension with three moons, foggy woods, and an ancient castle-Oremanta.
Learning who he really is, how he came to this remote planet, and the shocking, ugly mystery of Oremanta aren’t as bad as the quest he finds himself obligated to complete-killing someone he never thought he’d meet in Oremanta to save everyone.
Bought for free from Amazon/Reading for Cover Scavenger Hunt (a door)
“Confess!” Patrick Lahm is down on his luck. Late for his book signing, out of gas and stuck in a storm. He hitches a ride to the Kurtain Motel where he is forced to spend the night. The small motel seems harmless enough at first, but as the night drags on, Patrick and the other guests slowly begin to realize there is a lot more to their temporary lodging than meets the eye.
Something evil is at work at the Kurtain Motel; something that creeps into the deepest, darkest corners of your mind and tugs at the chords of sanity until they finally break. On the longest night of his life, Patrick soon finds out that there is a reason why skeletons are kept in closets. He realizes that your sins always find a way to catch up with you, no matter how hard you try to run.
Welcome to the Kurtain Motel, where all your nightmares come true.
