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 at The Book Date.

Jen Vincent, Teach Mentor Texts, and Kellee of Unleashing Readers decided to give It’s Monday! a kid-lit 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:

The town is all abuzz when a murder occurs in Jennie Marts’ debut cozy mystery, perfect for fans of Jenn McKinlay and Amanda Flower.

As a successful mystery author, Bailey Briggs writes about murder, but nothing prepares her for actually discovering the dead body of the founder of her hometown of Humble Hills, Colorado. Bailey grew up at Honeybuzz Mountain Ranch and was raised by her beekeeping grandmother, Blossom Briggs, aka Granny Bee, and her two eccentric sisters, Aster and Marigold—which is why she drops everything to come home and help Granny Bee after a bad fall.

A broken foot doesn’t stop her grandmother from ruling The Hive, her granny’s book club, or continuing to prepare and package her bee-inspired products. But when Bailey’s grandmother’s infamous “Honey I’m Home” hot spiced honey turns out to “bee” the murder weapon and her granny is now the prime suspect, Bailey has no choice but to use her fictional detective skills to help solve the murder and ‘smoke-out’ the real culprit.

With the help of Bailey’s witty bestie, a pair of meddling aunts, the feisty members of The Hive, and her computer-savvy daughter, this amateur sleuth is determined to solve the case. A malicious attack and an ominous threat reveal that someone wants Bailey to butt out of the investigation, but there’s no way she’s backing down. She must use her skills to uncover the truth and catch the clever culprit before her grandmother ends up bee-hind bars.

Books I plan on reading later this week:

A relatable and nerve-wracking, sympathetic and bone-chilling story — a fresh new twist on motherhood and murder in suburbia.

Isolated. Lonely. Tired. It’s hard being The New Mother. Sometimes it’s murder.

Nothing is simple about being a new mom alone in a new house, especially when your baby is collicky. Natalie Fanning loves her son unconditionally, but being a mother was not all she wanted to be.

Enter Paul, the neighbor.

Paul provides the lifeline she needs in what feels like the most desperate of times. When Paul is helping with Oliver, calmed by his reassuring, steady presence, Nat feels like she can finally rest.

But Paul wants something in return. It’s no coincidence that he has befriended Nat—she is the perfect pawn for his own plan. Will Nat wake up in time to see it?

The cold, stark but beautiful Si’Empra island is dying … Ellen doesn’t think she can help but others believe she’s their only hope.

Ellen’s trained to be the next ruler but her brother’s taken the throne. He’s fiercely determined to possess her body and soul … and she’s horrified. She runs away, aiming to lead a peaceful life far from the clutches of power. But the people or Si’Empra are struggling to survive, their unique societies pitched against one another. Cryptals are key to the land’s survival and subtly nudge Ellen towards healing Si’Empra’s wounds. Duty runs deep in Ellen’s veins. The question is whether reluctance or duty will triumph. In this first book of the Si’Empra series, Ellen tinkers at the margins with challenge, gaining unexpected allies and dangerous enemies.

Get your copy of Skyseeker’s Princess today and dive into the extraordinary world of Si’Empra.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. Now recognized as a timeless classic, this introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent. The text in this 372-page paperback edition is based on that first published in Great Britain by Collins Modern Classics (1998), and includes a note on the text by Douglas A. Anderson (2001).

“What is the most powerful force in the world?”

Beatrice Harrow was raised in seclusion, separated from the Read Kingdom and protected from the mysterious mechanisms of the other four races, but they are not as blind to her as she is to them. Even before she steps foot inside the Academy, they know her name and they know the truth about her birth. She is one of the Tainted: a mixed-breed creature with the blood of a monster, clinging to legitimacy by the genes of her human father. She is more beautiful, more powerful, and more despised than any other being in the Read Kingdom.
Her life was never going to be easy, but when fate throws her together with Cale, the troublemaking son of her father’s sworn enemy, and Hazen, the intimidating crown prince of the Read Kingdom, she quickly discovers that her problems haven’t even begun.

In a world built on status, there are lines that can never be crossed.

In a time of peace, it is inevitable that war will whisper on the wind once again.

In a land of mixed blood, a Tainted Creature can either be killed … or they can be recruited.

Horror is Odessa “Opie” Powys’s truth.
One with muddied memories and haunted dreams.
Finding and putting the pieces of her shattered life together is impossible.
Hiding herself and her truth is the only option.

Until the force that is Deo Dahl notices her from across a crowded bar.

Not one to back down from a challenge, Deo pulls the seemingly shy Opie out of her comfort zone, arousing courage inside her to not only face her abhorrent demons, but to also hunt them down.

However, Deo has horrors of his own, evil he’s fought to conquer his whole life. Just as they begin to reveal their truths, Opie’s past returns, turning Deo’s nightmare into a reality he might not survive.