ANNUAL READING GOAL CHALLENGE for 2015!

[Soldier's*Sweeties]

#11
Because She Loves Me
Mark Edwards

A gripping tale of jealousy, obsession, and murder, from the #1 bestselling author of The Magpies.

When Andrew Sumner meets beautiful, edgy Charlie, he is certain his run of bad luck has finally come to an end.

But as the two of them embark on an intense affair, Andrew wonders if his grasp on reality is slipping. Items go missing in his apartment. Somebody appears to be following him. And as misfortune and tragedy strike his friends and loved ones, Andrew is forced to confront the frightening truth.…

Is Charlie really the girl of his dreams—or the woman of his nightmares

This book is by the same author of another book I read this year called The Magpies.

I enjoyed this one just as much. At first I was sure I would. I found most of the characters really unlikable, even the main character, the victim. But with that said, I couldn't put it down. I always had to see what kind of crazy was going to come next.

 

[Swimnoid]

34. Saint Odd by Dean Koontz
The 7th and final installment of the Odd Thomas series. If you are a fan of Odd Thomas you must finish the series. The story was better than the last couple of them but they all lead to this conclusion. The ending was not a surprise.

35. Days of Little Texas by RA Nelson
From Goodreads: A ghostly love story from the author of Teach Me.

Welcome, all ye faithful—and otherwise—to a ghost story, a romance, and a reckoning unlike anything you’ve read before. Acclaimed YA author R. A. Nelson delivers a tantalizing tale set in the environs of the evangelical revival circuit and centered around Ronald Earl, who at ten became the electrifying “boy wonder” preacher known as Little Texas. Now sixteen, though the faithful still come and roar with praise and devotion, Ronald Earl is beginning to have doubts that he is worthy of and can continue his calling. Doubts that only intensify when his faith and life are tested by a mysterious girl who he was supposed to have healed, but who is now showing up at the fringe of every stop on the circuit. Is she merely devoted, or is she haunting him? Fascinating and original, this is an unusual story whose reverb will be deeply felt.

I enjoyed this story.

36. The Witness Wore Red: The 19th Wife Who Brought Polygamous Cult Leaders to Justice by Rebecca Musser
From Goodreads: Rebecca Musser grew up in fear, concealing her family's polygamous lifestyle from the "dangerous" outside world. Covered head-to-toe in strict, modest clothing, she received a rigorous education at Alta Academy, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' school headed by Warren Jeffs. Always seeking to be an obedient Priesthood girl, in her teens she became the nineteenth wife of her people's prophet: 85-year-old Rulon Jeffs, Warren's father. Finally sickened by the abuse she suffered and saw around her, she pulled off a daring escape and sought to build a new life and family.

I had read the book written by Rebecca's sister, Elissa Walls, so I was interested to see the same story from a different viewpoint. This was a very thorough account of Rebecca's life in the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints. A lot of it centered on how she helped put WArren Jeffs in prison and the help she continued to give the women struggling to escape. At the same time horrifying and fascinating.

37. The Provence Cure for the Broken Hearted by Brigit Asher
From Goodreads: Brokenhearted and still mourning the loss of her husband, Heidi travels with Abbott, her obsessive-compulsive seven-year-old son, and Charlotte, her jaded sixteen-year-old niece, to the small village of Puyloubier in the south of France, where a crumbling stone house may be responsible for mending hearts since before World War II.

There, Charlotte confesses a shocking secret, and Heidi learns the truth about her mother’s “lost summer” when Heidi was a child. As three generations collide with one another, with the neighbor who seems to know all of their family skeletons, and with an enigmatic Frenchman, Heidi, Charlotte, and Abbot journey through love, loss, and healing amid the vineyards, warm winds and delicious food of Provence. Can the magic of the house heal Heidi’s heart, too?

I have been looking for some different genres than my usual suspense/thriller. This was a nice, easy, sweet love story. The characters are pleasant and the story interesting. Not a page turner but quite satisfying.

38. Feedback by Robison Wells
From Goodreads: Benson Fisher escaped from Maxfield Academy’s deadly rules and brutal gangs. Or so he thought. But now Benson is trapped in a different kind of prison: a town filled with hauntingly familiar faces. People from Maxfield he saw die. Friends he was afraid he had killed. They are all pawns in the school’s twisted experiment, held captive and controlled by an unseen force. As he searches for answers, Benson discovers that Maxfield Academy’s plans are more sinister than anything he imagined—and they may be impossible to stop.

This is the second book of the Variant series. You do need to read the first book. The story picked up right where the last book left off. The ending felt rushed but it was a good story.

39. Never Look Away by Linwood Barclay.
A previous poster very recently put up a synopsis. I liked this book and will read more by this author.

 

[nemofans]

Finished book #27 - Before I Go by Colleen Oakley

Oh my. I just finished this book like 5 minutes ago and I am crying. This is a book about a 27 yr old woman with breast cancer. Her biggest fear about dying was her absentminded husband being left alone with no one to take care of him. Daisy, the main character, made me so mad and frustrated with her actions that I wanted to step into the book and shake her. So I will say I hate this book, but in a good way, if that makes any sense to you. One thing it does make me want to do is hug my husband as soon as he gets home and be thankful.

Twenty-seven-year-old Daisy already beat breast cancer four years ago. How can this be happening to her again?
On the eve of what was supposed to be a triumphant “Cancerversary” with her husband Jack to celebrate four years of being cancer-free, Daisy suffers a devastating blow: her doctor tells her that the cancer is back, but this time it’s an aggressive stage four diagnosis. She may have as few as four months left to live. Death is a frightening prospect—but not because she’s afraid for herself. She’s terrified of what will happen to her brilliant but otherwise charmingly helpless husband when she’s no longer there to take care of him. It’s this fear that keeps her up at night, until she stumbles on the solution: she has to find him another wife.
With a singular determination, Daisy scouts local parks and coffee shops and online dating sites looking for Jack’s perfect match. But the further she gets on her quest, the more she questions the sanity of her plan. As the thought of her husband with another woman becomes all too real, Daisy’s forced to decide what’s more important in the short amount of time she has left: her husband’s happiness—or her own?

Next book: House of Echoes

 

[threeboysmom]

I finished #41- Pines by Blake Crouch last night. I enjoyed it and look forward to the show coming out in May. I started the next one in the series Wayward Pines.

I finished the Wayward Pines trilogy this weekend, books 42 and 43 Wayward Pines and The Last Town by Blake Crouch. I really enjoyed this series and look forward to seeing the show next month.

I'm not sure what I'm going to read next. I've been working on reading The Diabetes Solution by Dr. Bernstein a chapter here and there so I might just focus on finishing that before I start something else"fun".

5/25
I just finished Pines as well. I will start Wayward Pines (6/25) later this week.

Gosh, I need to get cracking here! I read Pines a month or so ago, but still need to read #2 and #3 before the TV series starts next month! The Outlander books are so long that it's hard to fit anything else in..... and I feel like I'm missing out on so many good books, lol!!

7/25 - Gone Girl

I have to say that I absolutely hated it. It was bizarre, strange and a total let down. I do not understand how it became a best seller much less a movie. I kept thinking it had to get better. I had such good reviews. I guess just not my cup of tea. Yep, my worst book of 2015.

So funny. That book ended up being my BEST book of 2014! I actually read it twice because I loved it so much!

 

[tiggrbaby]

7/25 - Gone Girl

I have to say that I absolutely hated it. It was bizarre, strange and a total let down. I do not understand how it became a best seller much less a movie. I kept thinking it had to get better. I had such good reviews. I guess just not my cup of tea. Yep, my worst book of 2015.

I didn't care for it either! I couldn't find a character that I cared about.

 

[tiggrbaby]

I'm waaay behind in posting!

#11 & 12/45: Wayward and The Last Town by Blake Crouch

I enjoyed this entire trilogy! I just hope they don't mess the show up like they did with Under the Dome!

#13/45: The Pain Scale by Tyler Dilts

This is the second in the series about a CA homicide detective. It picks up about a year after the end of the first book. It was a very engaging read.

 

[xlsm]

Finished 15 and 16/46:

15. Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods by Suzanne Collins - Yes, the same Suzanne Collins of Hunger Games fame. I read the first two books of the series with my kids last year, and this is the third installment. Gregor is once again summoned to the Underlands to help fulfill another prophecy. This time his mother insists on coming along as well. The Underland is being ravaged by a plague. Many of Gregor's friends are affected, and after a freak incident, so is his mother. Gregor sets off on a quest to find the cure and fulfill the Prophecy of Blood.

This series is getting progressively darker, but my boys and I really enjoy it. We just started the 4th book last night. The main character is 11 (he turns 12 in this book), and he's dealing with a lot for a kid his age. The internal dialog is age appropriate and profound.

16. The Cutting by James Hayman - This is the first book in the Savage and McCabe series...I accidentally read the 3rd one first last year, and it follows McCabe's female partner. This book follows Mike McCabe, a homicide detective from New York who moved to Portland, ME for a change of pace. In this story he is searching for someone who kidnaps and kills his victims by cleanly removing their hearts. Kind of graphic in places, but I have really enjoyed both books even though I read them out of order. I've already started the next book.

 

[zippitydoo]

Book #28 of 50: All The Pretty Girls by J.T. Ellison

From Goodreads:
Some secrets should stay buried.

When a local girl falls prey to a sadistic serial killer, Nashville Homicide Lieutenant Taylor Jackson and her lover, FBI profiler Dr. John Baldwin, find themselves in a joint investigation pursuing a vicious murderer. The Southern Strangler is slaughtering his way through the Southeast, leaving a gruesome memento at each crime scene -- the prior victim's severed hand.

Ambitious TV reporter Whitney Connolly is certain the Southern Strangler is her ticket out of Nashville; she's got a scoop that could break the case. She has no idea how close this story really is -- or what it will cost her.

As the killer spirals out of control, everyone involved must face a horrible truth -- that the purest evil is born of private lies.

 

[wvjules]

threeboysmom, did you see this? (I think it was you said Me Before You was one of your favorites last year.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TY3ZKG8/ref=docs-os-doi_0

As for me, I'm still reading "The Last Letter from Your Lover". Reading has been slow going for me the past couple of months. *sigh* No reason why. I like the books I'm reading. I'm just reading super slow.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

I've been distracted with volunteer work and overworking myself this month, but I hope to get book 5 done before the end of April. At least I'll still be ahead of myself.

And if I could count comic books, I'd be passed 12 already

I've already got my next two books picked out: Bunny Suits of Death, a non-fiction account of a CSI and NCIS agent, and Tarkin, the first book in the new official canon Star Wars books.

 

[CajunMomof3]

18/35
Tall, Dark, & Deadly- Heather Graham
A murder mystery romance that was interesting, but I felt that there were too many characters that were shady and possible suspects to be be a good whodunit. I was taking a Game of Thrones break; now back to it....

 

[mumloveseeyore]

40 How to be a victorian by ruth Goodman
from Amazon
Step into the skin of your ancestors . . .
We know what life was like for Victoria and Albert. But what was it like for a commoner like you or me? How did it feel to cook with coal and wash with tea leaves? Drink beer for breakfast and clean your teeth with cuttlefish? Dress in whalebone and feed opium to the baby? Catch the omnibus to work and do the laundry in your corset?
Surviving everyday life came down to the gritty details, the small necessities and tricks of living . . .
How To Be A Victorian by Ruth Goodman is a radical new approach to history; a journey back in time more intimate, personal and physical than anything before. It is one told from the inside out - how our forebears interacted with the practicalities of their world - and it is a history of those things that make up the day-to-day reality of life, matters so small and seemingly mundane that people scarcely mention them in their diaries or letters. Moving through the rhythm of the day, from waking up to the sound of a knocker-upper man poking a stick at your window, to retiring for nocturnal activities, when the door finally closes on twenty four hours of life, this astonishing guide illuminates the overlapping worlds of health, sex, fashion, food, school, work and play.

41 part of the furniture by Mary Wesley

Seventeen-year-old Juno Marlowe has just waved off to war the two young men she has loved for the best part of her life when the air raid sirens begin to wail out across London. She is rescued from this nightmare by a gaunt stranger called Evelyn, frail and older than his years, who offers her the protection of his house and his family before dying suddenly in the night.

Determined to avoid being sent to Canada to join her mother and new step-father, and still grieving for her lost lovers, Juno instead finds herself on a train to Cornwall in search of Evelyn's family. There she discovers the blossoming of an English spring into which the war only occasionally intrudes and finds at last a peace for herlself and a world in which she is more than simply part of the furniture.

I really enjoyed this. a romance set in wartime cornwall

 

[xlsm]

Book 17 - In the Chill of Night by James Hayman

Second in the McCabe and Savage series (read the first a couple days ago, accidentally read the third last year). Another entertaining story. I'm not sure why I enjoy these books so much. The stories are always pretty intense, which is good, but the writing isn't always awesome. I mean, they're usually pretty straight forward, but in the two that McCabe is the main character (the first and second; Maggie Savage anchors the third), there's a lot of scattered "inside-his-head" thoughts that seem extraneous.
The "bad guys" are usually easy to figure out, too, but there's just something compelling about the books. So I'll keep reading, and when he puts out the new on in August, I'll get it!
Anyway, I digress. The plot of this one: a young, beautiful lawyer is found frozen solid and stuffed into the trunk of the car. In the search for the killer, we have to wonder, who do we really know, and who can we really trust?

 

[willowsnn3]

Goal 72

#25 Blood Red Road by Moira Young

from Goodreads:

"Saba lives in Silverlake, a wasteland ravaged by constant sandstorms where her family scavenge from landfills left by the long-gone Wrecker civilization. After four cloaked horsemen kidnap her beloved twin brother Lugh, she teams up with daredevil Jack and the Free Hawks, a girl gang of Revolutionaries.

Saba learns that she is a fierce fighter, an unbeatable survivor, and a cunning opponent. And she has the power to take down a corrupt society from the inside. Saba and her new friends stage a showdown that change the course of her civilization."

First of the Dust Lands Trilogy. Pretty good page turner.

 

[Swimnoid]

Gosh, I need to get cracking here! I read Pines a month or so ago, but still need to read #2 and #3 before the TV series starts next month!

I'm waaay behind in posting!

#11 & 12/45: Wayward and The Last Town by Blake Crouch

I enjoyed this entire trilogy! I just hope they don't mess the show up like they did with Under the Dome!

If you have HULU Plus they have the first episode as a preview! So far they are following the book well. I like it.

 

[nemofans]

Finished book #28 - House Of Echoes by Brendan Duffy

This was an okay mystery. Story was creepy at times.

Ben and Caroline Tierney and their two young boys are hoping to start over. Ben has hit a dead end with his new novel, Caroline has lost her banking job, and eight-year-old Charlie is being bullied at his Manhattan school.
When Ben inherits land in the village of Swannhaven, in a remote corner of upstate New York, the Tierneys believe it’s just the break they need, and they leave behind all they know to restore a sprawling estate. But as Ben uncovers Swannhaven’s chilling secrets and Charlie ventures deeper into the surrounding forest, strange things begin to happen. The Tierneys realize that their new home isn’t the fresh start they needed . . . and that the village’s haunting saga is far from over.

Next book: Same Sky

 

[zippitydoo]

Book #29 of 50: Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire

From Goodreads:
The new Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn’t drink or swear, and she has the appropriate number of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance from the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college with her best friend, her path to a new beginning is quickly challenged by Eastern University's Walking One-Night Stand.

Travis Maddox, lean, cut, and covered in tattoos, is exactly what Abby needs—and wants—to avoid. He spends his nights winning money in a floating fight ring, and his days as the ultimate college campus charmer. Intrigued by Abby’s resistance to his appeal, Travis tricks her into his daily life with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain abstinent for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in Travis’s apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match.

 

[kt_mom]

Gosh, I need to get cracking here! I read Pines a month or so ago, but still need to read #2 and #3 before the TV series starts next month! The Outlander books are so long that it's hard to fit anything else in..... and I feel like I'm missing out on so many good books, lol!!

The Outlander books do take up a lot of time but they really are worth it. I reread Outlander last summer before the series started and it took me about a week or so where they probably took me 2-3 weeks sometimes almost a month per book the first time through. I'd like to reread the whole series but I have so many other things I want to read to. I'll just have to fit one in here and there. I just started the Game of Thrones series and I think they are going to take me awile.

threeboysmom, did you see this? (I think it was you said Me Before You was one of your favorites last year.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TY3ZKG8/ref=docs-os-doi_0

As for me, I'm still reading "The Last Letter from Your Lover". Reading has been slow going for me the past couple of months. *sigh* No reason why. I like the books I'm reading. I'm just reading super slow.

I added that to my wishlist, I hope its as good as Me before You. I read the Last letter a few weeks ago and enjoyed it.

 

[threeboysmom]

threeboysmom, did you see this? (I think it was you said Me Before You was one of your favorites last year.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TY3ZKG8/ref=docs-os-doi_0

As for me, I'm still reading "The Last Letter from Your Lover". Reading has been slow going for me the past couple of months. *sigh* No reason why. I like the books I'm reading. I'm just reading super slow.

Ooooooh! That's awesome!! I had no idea there was a sequel!! (and yes, it WAS me that said Me Before You was a 2014 favorite!)

 

[queenofthehive]

8/25 - Dollbaby by Laura Lane McNeal

4 out 5 -entertaining book. Here is a summary from Good Reads:
When Ibby Bell’s father dies unexpectedly in the summer of 1964, her mother unceremoniously deposits Ibby with her eccentric grandmother Fannie and throws in her father’s urn for good measure. Fannie’s New Orleans house is like no place Ibby has ever been — and Fannie, who has a tendency to end up in the local asylum — is like no one she has ever met. Fortunately, Fannie’s black cook, Queenie, and her smart-mouthed daughter, Dollbaby, take it upon themselves to initiate Ibby into the ways of the South, both its grand traditions and its darkest secret.

For Fannie’s own family history is fraught with tragedy, hidden behind the closed rooms in her ornate Uptown mansion. It will take Ibby’s arrival to begin to unlock the mysteries there. And it will take Queenie and Dollbaby’s hard-won wisdom to show Ibby that family can sometimes be found in the least expected places.