ANNUAL READING GOAL CHALLENGE for 2015!

[kmb584]

15/100: The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen. It's been a while since I last read Tess Gerritsen and I honestly don't know why as I love her novels. This one though not only tops her works, but it's one of the most enthralling novels I've ever read. If you like historical fiction and mysteries, read this! From Goodreads:

Present day: Julia Hamill has made a horrifying discovery on the grounds of her new home in rural Massachusetts: a skull buried in the rocky soil–human, female, and, according to the trained eye of Boston medical examiner Maura Isles, scarred with the unmistakable marks of murder. But whoever this nameless woman was, and whatever befell her, is knowledge lost to another time...

Boston, 1830: In order to pay for his education, Norris Marshall, a talented but penniless student at Boston Medical College, has joined the ranks of local “resurrectionists” – those who plunder graveyards and harvest the dead for sale on the black market. Yet even this ghoulish commerce pales beside the shocking murder of a nurse found mutilated on the university hospital grounds. And when a distinguished doctor meets the same grisly fate, Norris finds that trafficking in the illicit cadaver trade has made him a prime suspect.

To prove his innocence, Norris must track down the only witness to have glimpsed the killer: Rose Connolly, a beautiful seamstress from the Boston slums who fears she may be the next victim. Joined by a sardonic, keenly intelligent young man named Oliver Wendell Holmes, Norris and Rose comb the city–from its grim cemeteries and autopsy suites to its glittering mansions and centers of Brahmin power – on the trail of a maniacal fiend who lurks where least expected.. . and who waits for his next lethal opportunity.

 

[E&Cmom]

Sorry double post.....why can't I find a delete button. Lol.

 

[E&Cmom]

Book 12/65

The Raven ( Florentine series book 1) by Sylvian Reynaud

Good reads:

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Gabriel Series comes a dark, sensual tale of romance in a city shrouded in mystery…

Raven Wood spends her days at Florence’s Uffizi Gallery restoring fine works of Renaissance art. But an innocent walk home after an evening with friends changes her life forever. When she intervenes in the senseless beating of a homeless man, his attackers turn on her, dragging her into an alley. Raven is only semi-conscious when their assault is interrupted by a cacophony of growls followed by her attacker’s screams. Mercifully, she blacks out, but not before catching a glimpse of a shadowy figure who whispers to her…

Cassita vulneratus.

When Raven awakes, she is inexplicably changed. She returns to the Uffizi, but no one recognizes her and more disturbingly, she discovers that she’s been absent an entire week. With no recollection of the events leading up to her disappearance, Raven also learns that her absence coincides with one of the largest robberies in Uffizi history – the theft of a set of priceless Botticelli illustrations. When the baffled police force identifies her as its prime suspect, Raven is desperate to clear her name. She seeks out one of Florence’s wealthiest and elusive men in an attempt to uncover the truth about her disappearance. Their encounter leads Raven to a dark underworld whose inhabitants kill to keep their secrets…

------------------

Enjoyable read.The paranormal/ vampire theme surprised me since this was not a part of his last series even though some of the old characters make appearences in the book. I will read the next one when it comes out. 4/5.

I also started " Looking for Alaska" by John Green.

 

[kt_mom]

I finshed book 23 Grave Robber by Mark Batterson and really enjoyed it. Its a study of the miracles of Jesus in the book of John. I read the Circle Maker last year by Mark Batterson and really enjoyed it and this one also did not not disappoint.

I also finished book 24 Breathe by Priscilla Shirer for my Bible Study group. She is one of my favorite Christian women's writers and this study has been great.

I was going to read All the Light We Cannot See next but DD just finished The Selection by Kiera Cass and wanted me to read it so I started it last night. So far its an easy read and okay but not my favorite since its kind of like a version of the Bachelor which I am not a fan of.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Finished books 5, 6, & 7 from CJ Box's Joe Pickett series, plus Darkly Dreaming Dexter. All good so far

 

[KiKi Mouse]

I'm still chugging along...at a crawl with Foxcatcher.
All the wrestling terminology was boring me.

 

[zippitydoo]

Book #17 of 50: The Dead Key by D.M. Pulley

From Goodreads:
It’s 1998, and for years the old First Bank of Cleveland has sat abandoned, perfectly preserved, its secrets only speculated on by the outside world.

Twenty years before, amid strange staff disappearances and allegations of fraud, panicked investors sold Cleveland’s largest bank in the middle of the night, locking out customers and employees, and thwarting a looming federal investigation. In the confusion that followed, the keys to the vault’s safe-deposit boxes were lost.

In the years since, Cleveland’s wealthy businessmen kept the truth buried in the abandoned high-rise. The ransacked offices and forgotten safe-deposit boxes remain locked in time, until young engineer Iris Latch stumbles upon them during a renovation survey. What begins as a welcome break from her cubicle becomes an obsession as Iris unravels the bank’s sordid past. With each haunting revelation, Iris follows the looming shadow of the past deeper into the vault—and soon realizes that the key to the mystery comes at an astonishing price.

 

[kmb584]

Book 16/100: The Uninvited by Heather Graham. It was the typical Krewe of Hunters novel: ghost, historical ghost, two people who just met going from 0 to 60 in a relationship. From Goodreads:

1777: In the throes of the Revolutionary War, Landon Mansion is commandeered by British Lord "Butcher" Bedford.

He stabs Lucy Tarleton - who spurned his king and his love - leaving her to die in her father's arms.

NOW: After the day's final tour, docent Allison Leigh makes her rounds while locking up... and finds a colleague slumped over Bedford's desk, impaled on his own replica bayonet.

Resident ghosts may be the stock-in-trade of stately Philadelphia homes, but Allison - a noted historian - is indignant at the prospect of "ghost hunters" investigating this apparent murder.

Agent Tyler Montague knows his hauntings and his history. But while Allison is skeptical of the newcomer, a second mysterious murder occurs.

Has "Butcher" Bedford resurfaced? Or is there another malevolent force at work in Landon Mansion? Wary, yet deeply attracted, Allison has to trust in Tyler and work with him to discover just what uninvited guest — dead or alive — has taken over the house.

Or their lives could become history!

 

[E&Cmom]

Book 13/65

Looking for Alaska by John Green

From goodreads:


Before. Miles "Pudge" Halter's whole existence has been one big nonevent, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave the "Great Perhaps" (François Rabelais, poet) even more. He heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed-up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young, who is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart.

-------------------

YA book. Definitely not As good as " The Fault in our Stars". This one was just OK to me. I found the character development a bit flat. I gave it a 3/5.

 

[CajunMomof3]

10/35
Game of Thrones by George R R Martin
I've never seen this show, but I found two of the books in the series at Goodwill so I thought I'd check it out to see what all the hype is about. It is a very detailed story that takes some brainpower to keep up with (this isn't an easy beach read). It is very violent, and there are many sex scenes (many of them violent as well). Even with all of that, I couldn't put it down. I couldn't wait to find out what happened next. I'm going to read something lighter next, but I will definitely be reading the next book in the series soon. Not sure I'll be able to watch the show, though...

 

[PigletsPal2]

Goal: 30 books this year.

#10 - B****es on a Budget by Roslyn Hoffman. This is billed as "sage advice for surviving tough times in style" and I suppose if you've never had any experience living through tight times, this might be more helpful to you than I found it. Most everything she advocates, I've tried it or at least heard of it and decided it wasn't for me. It's amusingly written and not hard to read and probably someone will get some good ideas from it, just not I.

Queen Colleen

 

[Simba's Mom]

I just finished #10 of 60, Silver Girl by Elin Hildebrand. It was definitely the best so far. For me, it was a 4 1/2 of 5.

 

[xlsm]

10/35
Game of Thrones by George R R Martin
I've never seen this show, but I found two of the books in the series at Goodwill so I thought I'd check it out to see what all the hype is about. It is a very detailed story that takes some brainpower to keep up with (this isn't an easy beach read). It is very violent, and there are many sex scenes (many of them violent as well). Even with all of that, I couldn't put it down. I couldn't wait to find out what happened next. I'm going to read something lighter next, but I will definitely be reading the next book in the series soon. Not sure I'll be able to watch the show, though...

I love these books! I'm currently about 200 pages into A Dance with Dragons and I'm getting slogged down. I've spent the last few months with these characters and I need a little break! I do not enjoy the show, I think it's boring and the characters aren't the way I want them to be, LOL!

 

[xlsm]

Just finished book 6 of 46...I'm off to a slow start this year!

Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli. I read this in school as a child, it's a Newberry Award winner and for good reason! It touches on racism in a small town, East Side vs. West Side, but it's more than that. Short, easy to read chapters that move along at a fast pace. I read this with my boys, 9 and 11, and I think that's a good age to start this book with, 4th grade and up.

 

[Sgt Mickey]

#1 American Sniper
#2 Shades of Grey

 

[Christine]

Nothing to report. I had to give up my #7 book, The Bone Clocks. I just can't get through it. I hardly EVER give up a book but this is just too confusing and disjointed for me. It generally gets good reviews but I did see some reviews where some readers felt the same way. I have a few ebooks in queue but not are ready yet so I'm just reading magazines and watching TV!!

 

[nemofans]

Finished book #13 - The Forgotten Girl by David Bell

This book is okay, not great. If you want something quick with a little bit of mystery, then pick this.

The past has arrived uninvited at Jason Danvers’s door…
…and it’s his younger sister, Hayden, a former addict who severed all contact with her family as her life spiraled out of control. Now she’s clean and sober but in need of a desperate favor—she asks Jason and his wife to take care of her teenage daughter for forty-eight hours while she handles some business in town.
But Hayden never returns.
And her disappearance brings up more unresolved problems from Jason’s past, including the abrupt departure of his best friend on their high school graduation night twenty-seven years earlier. When a body is discovered in the woods, the mysteries of his sister’s life—and possible death—deepen. And one by one these events will shatter every expectation Jason has ever had about families, about the awful truths that bind them and the secrets that should be taken to the grave.

Finished book #14 - Finding Jake by Bryan Reardon

This is a story about events that happen too often in our current time. There is a shooting a the local high school. A father receives a text from the school district about where to go. After reconciling most of the students to their parents, the father is left with 13 other parents still waiting. Is his son dead or was he the shooter? I liked how this story focuses on the media & the community and how they jump to conclusions. How they condemn his family without knowing the facts and sensationalize the murderers, something that is done in reality. I didn't care for the father though. He was too scattered. I understand the doubt that may go through a parent's head, but he reacted to everything like he was ADHD. And I kept yelling at the father through half the book the location of where the son probably was. Events like this is are parents' worst nightmare, finding out there was a shooting at your child's school, and this is worth reading.

A heart-wrenching yet ultimately uplifting story of psychological suspense in which a parent is forced to confront what he does—and does not—know about his teenage son, in the vein of Reconstructing Amelia, Defending Jacob, and We Need to Talk about Kevin.
While his successful wife goes off to her law office each day, Simon Connolly takes care of their kids, Jake and Laney. Now that they are in high school, the angst-ridden father should feel more relaxed, but he doesn’t. He’s seen the statistics, read the headlines. And now, his darkest fear is coming true. There has been a shooting at school.
Simon races to the rendezvous point, where he’s forced to wait. Do they know who did it? How many victims were there? Why did this happen? One by one, parents are led out of the room to reunite with their children. Their numbers dwindle, until Simon is alone.
As his worst nightmare unfolds, and Jake is the only child missing, Simon begins to obsess over the past, searching for answers, for hope, for the memory of the boy he raised, for mistakes he must have made, for the reason everything came to this. Where is Jake? What happened in those final moments? Is it possible he doesn’t really know his son? Or he knows him better than he thought?

Next book: Crash & Burn

 

[luvmarypoppins]

I need to keep better track of my books, but one of the last ones I read was Echo Lake by Carla Neggers. I liked it and thought it was funny when it was mentioned that one of the characters mom's lived in Orlando Florida and was a hostess at a Disney restaurant!

Another question - if anyone receives advanced reader copies of books from publishers or authors, what do you do with them after you read them? They say not for sale. I usually give all my books to people at church but the last 3 I read had some inappropriate content for them. I just put them in the donation bag for a charity pick up but I am wondering if they just throw those out. Any info? TIA.

 

[zippitydoo]

Book #18 of 50: The One That Got Away by Simon Wood

From Goodreads:
Graduate students Zoë and Holli only mean to blow off some steam on their road trip to Las Vegas. But something goes terribly wrong on their way home, and the last time Zoë sees her, Holli is in the clutches of a sadistic killer. Zoë flees with her life, changed forever.

A year later and still tortured with guilt, Zoë latches on to a police investigation where the crime eerily resembles her abduction. Along with a zealous detective, she retraces the steps of that fateful night in the desert, hoping that her memory will return and help them find justice for Holli. Her abductor—labeled the “Tally Man” by a fascinated media—lies in wait for Zoë. For him, she is not a survivor but simply the one that got away.

 

[SallySkelington]

#6: Here, There Be Dragons by James A. Owen

Excerpt from Goodreads:

"What is it?" John asked.
The little man blinked and arched an eyebrow.
"It is the world, my boy," he said. "All the world, in ink and blood, vellum and parchment, leather and hide. It is the world, and it is yours to save or lose."

An unusual murder brings together three strangers, John, Jack, and Charles, on a rainy night in London during the first World War. An eccentric little man called Bert tells them that they are now the caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica -- an atlas of all the lands that have ever existed in myth and legend, fable and fairy tale. These lands, Bert claims, can be traveled to in his ship the Indigo Dragon, one of only seven vessels that is able to cross the Frontier between worlds into the Archipelago of Dreams.

Pursued by strange and terrifying creatures, the companions flee London aboard the Dragonship. Traveling to the very realm of the imagination itself, they must learn to overcome their fears and trust in one another if they are to defeat the dark forces that threaten the destiny of two worlds.

An extraordinary journey of myth, magic, and mystery, Here, There Be Dragons introduces James A. Owen as a formidable new talent

The book is a super easy read and great for kids. For me however? It was irritating. Very irritating. I was excited upon reading reviews which said that it was like Tolkien and C.S. Lewis combined. I didn't think that they meant LITERALLY. I was hoping Owen would get creative with his ideas, because he has some amazing ideas, but most of it was just pieces of Tolkien and Lewis sloppily thrown together. I wasn't happy with the pace either.

I will say it's definitely an awesome book for kids, and if your kids like LotR or Narnia this would be perfect.