WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Wars. So here what I have read/are reading/will be reading.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Miss R: Doing great. Still a sassy 5-year-old. I am trying to grow her bangs out. Which she doesn’t appreciate. When I asked her why, she said: “Well, I don’t want to look like you“. Talk about a confidence killer…lol.

Miss B: The homework drama has been temporarily fixed. Everything has been made up (or in the process of being made up). Last Friday, she went to a dance…with her boyfriend. Yes, she has a boyfriend. It’s a school only relationship. He’s adorable. It’s adorable.

Mr. Z: He’s doing great too. We are on Week 2 of no electronics/TV before bed. He’s finally getting a good nights sleep. He is still a grumpy tween. He also is not looking forward to his overnight class trip in March. It will be the first time that he has ever been away from us.

Me: I am still listening to The Vanished. Some of those stories make my heart hurt. I also have been watching The Umbrella Academy. I cannot get enough of that show!! Also, I have discovered Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal on Amazon Prime. Love it!! I also went to the eye Dr for the first time in 4 years. I got new glasses!! They are pink wireframed. I can’t wait to wear them.

Reading/Reviews:

I decided to revamp my review list (note I didn’t say schedule…lol). I spent 2 hours on it. There was a whole process to it that I don’t want to get into. I am also still plugging along with revamping my past blog posts. I did 3 last week.

Reviewwise, I am pretty good. I have had an influx of invites to review by Indie authors in my inbox. I have some interesting books coming up to read. I have also toned down on my NetGalley requests. Until I catch up with what I have written there, I am only taking publisher emails. I just need to remind myself of that…lol.

What I am currently reading:

click on the picture for Amazon link

From the bestselling author of House of Shadows and The Phantom Tree comes a spellbinding tale of jealousy, greed, plotting and revenge—part history, part mystery—for fans of Kate Morton, Susanna Kearsley, and Barbara Erskine

London, 1765

Lady Isabella Gerard, a respectable member of Georgian society, orders her maid to take her new golden gown and destroy it, its shimmering beauty tainted by the actions of her brutal husband the night before.

Three months later, Lord Gerard stands at the shoreline of the lake, looking down at a woman wearing the golden gown. As the body slowly rolls over to reveal her face, it’s clear this was not his intended victim…

250 Years Later…

When a gown she stole from a historic home as a child is mysteriously returned to Fenella Brightwell, it begins to possess her in exactly the same way that it did as a girl. Soon the fragile new life Fen has created for herself away from her abusive ex-husband is threatened at its foundations by the gown’s power over her until she can’t tell what is real and what is imaginary.

As Fen uncovers more about the gown and Isabella’s story, she begins to see the parallels with her own life. When each piece of history is revealed, the gown—and its past—seems to possess her more and more, culminating in a dramatic revelation set to destroy her sanity.

I am 29% into this book and I am loving it. The author is doing a fantastic job of laying out the main characters backgrounds. I normally don’t like books with multiple POVs but in this book, it is needed. The Woman in the Lake is currently on preorder. Its publication date is February 26th, 2019.

I recently finished reading:

click on the picture for Amazon link

What if you could find the love of your life just by reading between the lines?

Single mom Fordham Price is juggling her job at a small publisher, her precocious ten-year-old daughter, and her feisty mother. She wants to find time for men, but after a series of dating disasters, her relationship status is still stuck at single. 

As if her macchiato lite wasn’t already overflowing, a co-worker gets pregnant, and Fordham is expected to step in and deliver the company’s latest reality read from the Flowers from the Heart series. She must now supplement her own romantic misadventures with tales of cynical cat-ladies, identical-twin husbands, spunky monks, and countless other web-crawlers.

As she wades through the submissions, she finds one from a widower whose story gives her tingles in all the places she forgot existed. His words draw her in until she finds herself daydreaming about him more than she’d care to admit. 

Could she have a love like that, or will her romantic fate be forever bound to her philandering ex-husband? 

This book was hilarious. I laughed so hard while reading it that BK thought I was loosing it. Love-Lines is currently on preorder. It’s expected publication date is February 26th, 2019.

What books I think I’ll read next? (click on the pictures for Amazon links)

He’s the hot-as-sin rocker hiding a secret that would devastate his fans. She’s the only girl he’s ever loved, but keeping her safe means he had to walk away… 

RYDER

My entire life is a lie, propelled by one wrong decision that altered my fate.

If fans knew the truth, they’d run away screaming. But all they see is Ryder Stone, moody guitarist and lead singer of Torment, and a potential notch on their bedpost.

Only two people know who I really am. My manager has a vested interest in keeping my secret, and the girl I was forced to leave behind doesn’t even know the true extent of my shame.

Losing Zeta is both my biggest regret and my proudest moment. But she was the glue keeping me together, and I’m struggling to survive without her. Especially when demons from my past continue to haunt me and the threat of disclosure is ever present.

When she reappears in my life, this time, I’m too weak to push her away.

Her love has the power to save me. 

Mine has the power to destroy her.

ZETA

I’ve worked hard to forget my past. To rise above my messed-up childhood and make something of myself; however, there’s no forgetting him.

Ryder’s gorgeous face and drool-worthy body are plastered over tabloids and TV screens, reminding me I’m still in love with the boy who captured my heart in juvie.

When he failed me, I thought I’d never again experience such heart-crushing pain. But watching him fall out of clubs with a succession of different girls renews the agony, resurrecting countless unanswered questions.

Now my boss has sent me to interview him. It’s a massive scoop for the magazine, and turning it down would kill my career. So, I delude myself into thinking I can handle this.

Perhaps this is the closure I need to finally move on.

Except I’m terrified nothing has changed and one look into those soulful eyes will suck me in again.

Ryder almost destroyed me last time. This time, he could ruin me forever.

Only Ever You is currently on preorder. Expected publication date is February 28th, 2019.

When a young woman is found dead in a wilderness area of the North Carolina mountains, the county sheriff says suicide. Della Kincaid disagrees. As a former reporter in Washington, D.C., she knows how to hunt down the real story. But she’s living in Laurel Falls, N.C., trying to revive a struggling general store and create a new life for herself. Without her usual sources, she turns to an unlikely cast of characters—friends, customers, ex-husband, and forger. With their help, she uncovers how unbridled greed has spawned an interwoven series of crimes and sorrows. Along the way, Kincaid discovers how much the Appalachian landscape and its people mean to her.

Lynda McDaniel, an award-winning author of 15 books, has woven together true events from her early years living “back to the land” in Appalachia with an intriguing mystery story.

“A Life for a Life,” an autobiographical mystery novel, shares funny, moving, and surprising stories from those years. You’ll meet a cantankerous laundromat owner who was just as weird as Lynda portrayed her, and a gentle giant of a beekeeper whose love for his family was as big as he was. And Cleva, who’s based on a lovely woman who taught Lynda how to can tomatoes and make the best blackberry jam you’ve ever tasted. Many of the other characters are fashioned after real people who opened their hearts to this deer-in-the-headlights city slicker. Lynda had moved to the mountains of North Carolina to see what rural life was all about. Over the years, she realized that everything that is important to her today—she learned in her Appalachian home.

A Life for a Life is currently available for purchase.

“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.”

— Aldous Huxley

Aubrey has done it. She has teleported herself to “the hidden domain” and have managed to bring along her dream boy, Nathan, and nemesis/ex-besty Adelaide. But how could this be? They were all just at a party. No one knew getting into the backyard shed and saying the “magic words” would work. And the three are absolutely stunned. But the world Aubrey thought would be a wonderful paradise is actually a nightmare. As beautiful and enchanting as it is, Wisteria is like jumping down the rabbit hole with the Devil waiting on the sidelines. 

The people are different in this world. They are monsters, and not just physically. The Moss Wall is supposed to serve as a protection, separating the demons from the non-demons, but that doesn’t mean Aubrey and her friends are safe. Non-demon Aristocrats are nasty and cruel, indulging in their favorite daily past-time: the torture of the red maidens. 

And as for the handsome demon boy who wants Aubrey’s soul? “You’ll never escape,” warned fairies swooping down on her.

But Aubrey, Nathan, and Adelaide won’t go down without a fight. They simply must make it to the safe house and find their way out of the realm. Thankfully The Underground Annual is on its way. It is the biggest party, an explosive rave that happens once a year. And now it is their only window of opportunity. But will their plan succeed?

Within the Darkness is currently available for purchase

Elves never use magic or leave the forest.

They aren’t supposed to get sick either, but Drynn’s mother just died from a mysterious illness, which has targeted the elven queens for generations. With no female heir left, the symbol of the curse—a green stone called the Queen’s Opal—passes to Drynn. Unwilling to lose another family member, Drynn’s impulsive and overprotective brother drags him out of the forest to search for a cure. And the oft-diseased humans seem the most likely place to start.

But the opal isn’t all that it seems. Once outside the forest, it shows Drynn visions of the first queen—a time when the mortal avatars of the lost gods walked the earth and the humans and elves lived in peace. Much has changed in the human lands since then. It’s a darker world, ruled by power-hungry wizards who covet any kind of magic. Magic like the opal. Magic like the natural energy the wizards can see inside the elves.

More than healing one illness, Drynn’s visions call for him to restore the world’s former peace, but if the wrong wizard learns about the elves’ innate gifts, even the forest will no longer be safe. 

Family bonds will be tested. Friends will become foes. With two kingdoms spiraling into chaos, can a shy bookworm conquer his fears to bring peace to the realm?

The Queen’s Opal is book one in a new high fantasy adventure series set in the same magical and exotic world as The Stone Bearers (2016).

This coming of age story will appeal to teen and young adult fans of the TV show Avatar: The Last Airbender, Cinda Willams Chima (The Demon King), Christopher Paolini (Eragon), and other works of epic sword and sorcery.

Clean Read. Fantasy violence and a few darker themes. Recommended for young adults and teens twelve and up.

The Queen’s Opal is currently available for purchase

So that’s it. Be on the lookout for the reviews of all these books in the near future.

Have you read any of these books?

Let me know what you thought of them!!