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:

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:

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.

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.

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:

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:

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?

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.

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.

“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.