Dewey's Read-a-thon October 21, 2017

Intro Meme:
1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
New Jersey in the United States. Specifically, South Central New Jersey.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
I really want to finish THE WAY OF KINGS so I can move on to BLACK PANTHER: YOUNG PRINCE.

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
Wait we're supposed to eat while we read?!

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
I'm the worst at remembering things until those things are here and then I remember everything I needed to remember about those things. Also, tea.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?
I didn't...well I've participated in a number of them, but its been a little while since life got hectic and then oh man WORK. Being an ADULT is the WORST.

Book Currently Reading:


Books Read:



Books to Read:


Challenges Done:

• 10 Years, 10 Books 
• Hour 5:
• Decades of Reading 
•  

Who's else is reading?

Challenge Parameters: Submit one book recommendation published in each year of the Readathon (2007-2017).

2007: Magic Bites  (Kate Daniels #1) by Ilona Andrews (Goodreads review)



2008: Cry Wolf (Alpha and Omega #1) by Patricia Briggs (Goodreads Review)


2009: Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/73468334Goodreads Review)


2010: Unholy Ghosts (Downside Ghosts #1) by Stacia Kane (Goodreads Review)


2011: The Touchstone Trilogy (Stray, Lab Rat One and Caszandra) (Goodreads Link)


2012: The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson (Goodreads Review)


2013: A Long, Long Sleep (UniCorp #1) by Anna Sheehan (Goodreads Review)


2014: Lock In (Lock In #1) by John Scalzi (Goodreads Link)


2015: A Silent Voice vol 1 by Yoshitoki Oima (Goodreads Review)


2016: The Queen of Blood (Queens of Renthia #1) by Sarah Beth Durst (Goodreads Review)


2017: Slouch Witch (Lazy Girl's Guide to Magic #1) by Helen Harper (Goodreads Review)

Book Date Blog

Jen Vincent, Teach Mentor Texts, and Kellee of Unleashing Readers decided to give It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? a kidlit focus. If you read and review books in children’s literature – picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels, anything in the world of kidlit – join them!

Links lead to my Goodreads review unless otherwise noted

• Real Account vols 1-3: The series did a complete 180 for main characters starting in Vol 3 after a pretty big cliffhanger at the end of Vol 2. I'm not sure how this'll play out, but I hope for the best. 
• NEPHILIM FALLING (Trenton Investigations Prequel) by Felicia Beasley: I originally wanted to read this because the first book was due out this month, but due to Amazon glitching its not out til June now I think. 
• The Wendy Project by Melissa Jane Osborne (writer) and Veronica Fish (illustrator): Such a beautiful and thoughtful examination of grief with the Peter Pan tale as a backdrop.
• HER MAJESTY'S SCOUNDRELS by various: Not quite what I had hoped for, but I ended up liking many of the stories in it, so it worked out.
• Empowered vol 10 by Adam Warren: A CLIFFHANGER IT ENDED IN A CLIFFHANGER. Where is volume 11...???
• WANT by Cindy Pon: This was a buddy read with my Sestra Samantha, and boy howdy was it a ride. A bit slow at first, but once Zhou finds his footing it takes off.

 

Reenu-You (ebook) - new Book Smugglers Novella Initiative title! Bit of an out there concept, but I'm interested to see where it goes!

Burn For Me - with Book 2 (White Hot) and Book 3 (Wildfire) due out in the next couple of months, its time to get re-acquainted with this series.

Before She Ignites - dude. Dragons and an MC with anxiety and its Jodi. Despite the controversy over the cover (which I agree/disagree with it, but its not my place to put my opinion there as its not my lane) I'm jazzed for this. That being said, I have no idea how the MC is portrayed currently (I haven't read any other reviews), but am cautiously hopeful that the fact she is black will be depicted well.

That's what I'm reading...how about you?

On My Blog

• Monday - #BroodyBFF Post: How Did I Meet BroodingYAHero?
• Tuesday - 10% Reading Test: STORM by Ednah Walters
• Friday - 5 for Friday: 5 Books That Made Me Cry

BookExpo/BookCon Related

• Publisher Weekly:  
• Publisher Weekly: Children's Galleys to Grab

Are you attending / and want to reserve a signed ARC of ? Sign up here:

— Sherry Ficklin (@AuthorSherry)

Starting to plot your schedule? Drop by booth #1903 and pick up one of these adorable totes!

— Laurence King (@LaurenceKingPub)

Forthcoming Awesome Book Announcements

My heart is floating! So excited to welcome and so many talented writers to the FSG family with this bad*ss collection!!! ❤️🎉🌺

— Grace Kendall (@GraceKendallLit)

words cannot express how excited i am for the next three years in Book World 💜 💜 💜

— Claire Legrand ☀️ (@clairelegrand)

Instafreebie (instafreebie is a way to get free ebooks just for signing up for author newsletters)

• Intergalactic Romance (ends May 15th) - I 100% recommend PICO'S CRUSH by Carol Van Natta.
• Urban Fantasy (ends May 31st) - I haven't read any of these, but RETURN OF THE DRAGONBORN by NM Howell looks interesting.
• CLAIMED by Alisha Klapheke - the Uncommon World series in general is one I am enjoying and look forward to. This stands as a good introduction.
• BETRAYAL'S PRICE by Lisa Blackwood - first in the In Deception's Shadow series, the premise intrigues me.
• EXILE by Mikaela Lind - I love portal universe stories, so this short prequel seems right up my alley.
• SILENT QUEEN by Carrie Summers - a prequel to a book I just picked up (NIGHTFORGED) set about 300 years before.

Links

• Ava at Bookishness and Tea has her Thursday Diversity Spotlight post featuring "Books With Asian Muslim Protagonists"
• @ellyberries that is E2Gaming and the release of Taisho x Alice (vol 1), an otome game that many of us in the community were looking forward to seeing localized
• AudioBookSync's latest offerings for the summer include BRONX MASQUERADE by Nikki Grimes and TEENAGE DIARIES: THEN AND NOW (link here)

Query letter discount! $15 editing (that's $10 off!) until 5/16! Visit my website or email me at for more info!

— Laura Silverman (@LJSilverman1)

Open Giveaways

•  L.E. DeLano is hosting a special giveaway for forthcoming TRAVELER (link here), closes 5/15
•  Queership has a giveaway for the TREMONTAINE Season 1 omnibus (link here), closes 5/17
• HarperVoyager has a giveaway for Beth Cato's BREATH OF EARTH and advanced reader's copy of CALL OF FIRE (link here), closes 6/1

so I reached 1000 followers today, which means it's giveaway time!🌟 RT+Follow for a chance to win a preorder of one of the books below 😚

— Christine L. Herman (@christineexists)

Preorder Swag

DIVIDING EDEN pre-order swag! Send your receipt to (my mom). Order from a tour stop & you might win a bonus t-shirt!

— Joelle Charbonneau (@jcharbonneau)

Don't miss your last chance to preorder 's THE NAMES THEY GAVE US for this exclusive button set!

— BloomsburyUS Kids/YA (@bloomsburykids)

And in case you need some encouragement, here's a great tweet:

fight like a girl. read and think and learn like a girl. resist fascism and defeat dark lords and topple tyrannical regimes like a girl.

— the library haunter (@SketchesbyBoze)

I'm well know in my family and friendship circle that I cry over fictional stuff A LOT. While real life I can usually bury stuff until it overflows (a bit like in Highlander), fictional stuff makes me cry so easily.

These 5 books though manage to make me cry so much that I get blotchy and red-faced and hiccup. Spoilers for all the books because its usually a spoiler offense that makes me want to cry.

I try to avoid reading or finishing books which don't interest me. In all this world there's so many books published and soon to be published that reading something that just causes my eye to twitch seems like a loss opportunity. So I implemented the 10% reading test on all new to me authors/books.

Its as simple as it sounds - if after 10% I'm still not feeling it I stop reading, it gets DNF'ed, and I move on. If the book is 500 pages, I give it until the 50th page (or end of the nearest chapter to the 50th page) to grab me.

Goodreads Link // Author Link

Pirates no longer roam the seas.
Phantom Islands don’t exist

Nanny to a wealthy family, eighteen-year old Alexandria “Lexi” Greendale sends most of what she earns home to support her disabled brother. She is determined to help him get the surgery he needs to walk again. Her dreams come to an abrupt halt when she rescues a man from drowning.

How does he repay her? Captain Storm Orath abducts her, claims her as his chosen mate, and takes her to a magical island that is centuries behind times with barbaric customs.
For Lexi to make it home to her family, she must fight the lure of the man and the island he controls, and escape, or stay trapped forever.

This is Part I of a 3-Part New Adult UF Serial about a woman and her journey of discovery, adventure, and unforgettable love.

Original Interest: Well, her nickname is Lexi. I have a long history of wanting to read books that involve either my nickname or my full name. Call it ego. Also I like pirates and folk seem to enjoy Walters "Runes" series so I figured why? Isn't the cover very pretty as well?

Where it started to fail for me: Her best friend, in the beginning grated on my nerves almost from the second Lexi picked up her phone call. Their entire conversation consisted of the friend complaining because Lexi can't pick up her phone during work (which is reasonable), egging Lexi on to hook up with either her boss or her charges' bodyguard, complaining that she was tired of being a virgin, her plans to lose that viriginity as quickly as possible so she can "par-tay" during college properly and then complaining that Lexi can't have her boss fly her out on his private jet. I wanted to slap her so hard. I moved past it though because I wanted to see where this was going.

Why I stopped: Lexi was just unbelievable to me. Maybe because I have experience as a nanny for wealthy families, her life seemed...unrealistic. I couldn't get past the fact that she was twelve when she began nannying (though it was really more like paid companion/helper to the mother for a while), that for all the fact the family was willing to house/feed/accommodate her schooling needs they didn't once question how terrible her home life was, the utter repulsiveness of her stepmother and the niggling sensation that something wasn't right with her half-brother's condition.

Eventually I grew too annoyed. So to the DNF pile this went.

Did you have a different experience? Let me know!

art credit: , char credit: https://creativelycarrie.com/

Once upon a time there was a girl. This girl was of more thanaverage good looks, way aboveaverage intelligence and not even close toaverage interests. She sighed a lot, feeling as if maybe it was her averageness that was keeping her from greatness. Or at the least keeping her from attracting the attention of one of the ten guys she knew the name of in her school of hundreds.

She despaired of ever being asked to the Homecoming Dance, or maybe it was Prom, wait was she even able to go to Prom? Did she even want to go to whatever ritual of Young Adulthood her peers, that she in no way felt a kinship with ever, were constantly talking about? She couldn't remember but the fact remained that she was in despair.

Then one warm, but not too warm, fall day a new kid arrived. Well he could have started before then - who starts a semester halfway through? - but our gal, let's call her MC, just noticed he existed and let's face it does anything else matter? Its not like the world existed before she saw him. And boy did she see him. He was tall, but not towering with fluffy, but well styled hair that looked short, but could have been longer. His green eyes sparkled like emeralds except when she looked at him for three minutes too long, then they were stormy orbs of ocean blue. Unless it was Tuesday, then they were as hazel as the trees she thinks she may be allergic to.

His loosely fitted Henley could barely cover the fact he was built like Chris Hemsworth or Chris Pine or was it Evans...? One of those heroic chiseled dudes with the first name of Chris. His skin shone a healthy shade of bronze that surely didn't mean he was likely descended from aliens or deities or definitely somewhere way more North then Canada.

They shared a moment in the hallway between classes, or maybe it was after classes between the clubs MC loathed, but felt obligated to join because one of her friends urged her to join up. She didn't know his name, he probably didn't know hers (unless he was telepathic, or his creeper skills were through the roof), but she absently found herself doodling what she thought his name probably was in her notebook while he irritably told anyone who would listen that he cared not at all for that mousy girl but NO YOU CAN NOT GO NEAR HER SHE IS MINE.

Eventually, since she lived such an abysmally not even close toaverage life, she has a run in that involves her being injured and the mysterious new kid saves her and whisks her away and refuses to tell her anything except he's definitely telegraphing he's not at all normal. He tells her to forget him, to find someone normal and average like she wants to be. Unfortunately for them both due to his inability to lie worth an iota, and her inability to get a clue, the mysterious new kid's enemies find out about her and his sudden feelings for her.

Fearing for her life, he decides to hide her, but tell everyone where he hid her, so that he can protect her, but leave at a well timed moment so she's defenseless when the enemies find her. Enraged he rescues her, but in the process she is frightened by his show of not averageness (how can she compare? she is just so average). Ashamed of frightening her by being so not cool he decides to move far away and when he disappears she falls into the deepest of despairs again. Only this time its because she found love and lost it and oh how will she go on?

Look I'm the MC's older sister who basically tracked down Brooding YA Hero to wring his neck for making me put up with these melodramatic shenanigans. Except he smiled at me and now ugh I think I'm falling for him. Those blasted stormy ocean emerald hazel green blue eyes get me every time!

But I refuse to despair do you hear me? None of that!