Here it is - the OFFICIAL 2014 READING GOAL CHALLENGE THREAD

[wilma-bride]

Book #53 - The Magpies by Mark Edwards

When Jamie and Kirsty move into their first home together, they are full of optimism. The future, in which they plan to get married and start a family, is bright. The other residents of their building seem friendly too, including the Newtons, a married couple who welcome them to the building with open arms.

But then strange things start to happen. Dead rats are left on their doorstep. They hear disturbing noises, and much worse, in the night. After Jamie's best friend is injured in a horrific accident, Jamie and Kirsty find themselves targeted by a campaign of terror.

As they are driven to the edge of despair, Jamie vows to fight back—but he has no idea what he is really up against . . .

The Magpies is a gripping psychological thriller in which the monsters are not vampires or demons but the people who live next door. It is a nightmare that could happen to anyone.

This was described as a "seriously creepy, fast-paced thriller". In actual fact, it was none of those things (in my opinion) but it was a perfectly enjoyable book and a fast read. I liked the writing style and I was keen to keep reading and find out what happened and how the story would end, so I guess it was a hit - but it wasn't creepy and it wasn't really a thriller - or maybe I just don't have a very good imagination Still a good book though and I will read more buy this author.

 

[zippitydoo]

Book #65 of 75

Taken by Sunny Wolfe

From Goodreads:
Do you have a celebrity crush? Everyone does… What would you give to be united with yours? For forty-one-year-old Beth Lowe, her crush was Roman Reed, the lead singer of the rock group Phantom. Unfortunately for Beth, her fantasy soon turns into horror the night she and her son attend a VIP backstage meeting with the band.

With the flash of a camera, a memento soon becomes a headline when an old rival from the past seeks revenge and decides to kidnap Roman. What should have been a misunderstanding soon turns into chaos, and Beth has to go along for the ride. Taken for ransom and held prisoner… Is this a dream come true, or a nightmare waiting to happen?

 

[willowsnn3]

Goal 72

#79 Exposed by Alex Kava

This is the 8th book in the Maggie O'Dell series. Loved it. Was a quick read and have book #9 ready to start.

 

[nemofans]

Finished book #87 - Take Me With You by Catherine Ryan Hyde

I liked this book. It's about a man who lost his son in an accident & decides to go on a road trip to spread his son's ashes in national parks. Then when his RV breaks down, he ends up at a mechanic shop where he is asked a huge favor. It is a little long, but I did enjoy the touching story & the characters.

August Shroeder, a burned-out teacher, has been sober since his nineteen-year-old son died. Every year he’s spent the summer on the road, but making it to Yellowstone this year means everything. The plan had been to travel there with his son, but now August is making the trip with Philip’s ashes instead. An unexpected twist of fate lands August with two extra passengers for his journey, two half-orphans with nowhere else to go.
What none of them could have known was how transformative both the trip—and the bonds that develop between them—would prove, driving each to create a new destiny together.

Next Book: The Bane Chronicles

 

[willowsnn3]

Goal 72

#79 Exposed by Alex Kava

This is the 8th book in the Maggie O'Dell series. Loved it. Was a quick read and have book #9 ready to start.

Oops, that was the 6th book in the series.

#80 Black Friday by Alex Kava

7th book in the Maggie O'Dell series. Another great book! Kinda makes you not want to go shopping on Black Friday, lol.

 

[CourtasanSatine]

Currently working through Olive Kitteridge (Elizabeth Strout) after watching the HBO miniseries.

 

[zippitydoo]

Book #66 of 75

Love and Decay, Episode 1 by Rachel Higginson

From Goodreads:
Zombies- as if that wasn’t enough to ruin any girl’s dream of a happily ever after.

Reagan said goodbye to love when she was forced to run her high school boyfriend over with her mom’s car just to keep him from eating her for dinner. Now, two years later, and in need of a serious shower, she’s just over the entire concept of a soul mate- or really, any kind of mate.

Well, mostly anyway. When she runs- literally- into a group of boys holed up in a relative utopia of peanut butter and bottled water, maybe all hope in the love department is not lost.

But at the end of the world, nothing can be simple. And with a horde of Zombies after her, Reagan is going to have to schedule falling in love between hunting and surviving. Hopefully she can last long enough find out if true love can still exist when everything else has started to fall apart.

Book #67 of 75
Darkhouse by Karina Halle

From Goodreads:
There’s always been something a bit off about Perry Palomino. Though she’s been dealing with a quarter-life crisis and post-college syndrome like any other twentysomething, she’s still not what you would call “ordinary.” For one thing, there’s her past which she likes to pretend never happened, and then there’s the fact that she sees ghosts. Luckily for her, that all comes in handy when she stumbles across Dex Foray, an eccentric producer for an upcoming webcast on ghost hunters. Even though the show’s budget is non-existent and Dex himself is a maddening enigma, Perry is instantly drawn into a world that both threatens her life and seduces her with a sense of importance. Her uncle’s haunted lighthouse provides the perfect catalyst and backdrop for a horrific mystery that unravels the threads of Perry’s fragile sanity and causes her to fall for a man, who, like the most dangerous of ghosts, may not be all that he seems.

 

[allenfane]

Finished book #8 The Count of Chanteleine. It was pretty good, but I haven't read any other books about the French Revolution so I felt I missed some of the cultural/historical significance. Verne loves to name-drop, and I know some of the people mentioned were real and a part of the Revolution, but if I googled every name listed I would have never finished the book!

Continuing on with 20,000 Leagues under the Seas, the full, unabridged version. This may take a while.

Allenfane

Wow, I can't believe I haven't updated since March. My reading plans fell by the wayside over the summer, and I am nowhere near my original goal of 50 books.
Oh well, I have started reading again, and am now reading The Hobbit, and am going to try to finish it before the last movie comes out.

Allenfane

 

[zippitydoo]

Book #68 of 75

Invisible(Ivy Malone Mysteries #1) by Lorena McCourtney

 

[nemofans]

Finished book #88 - The Bane Chronicles by Cassandra Clare

If you read & enjoyed The Mortal Instruments series, then you will like this. Magnus Bane was my favorite character in that series & this book is a bunch of short stories through his life. They give you insight into the events from The Mortal Instruments from his point of view as well as how he became connected to so many characters throughout the series including the prequels. Reading this makes me want to read the series again.

Fans of The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices can get to know warlock Magnus Bane like never before in this collection of New York Times bestselling tales, in print for the first time with an exclusive new story and illustrated material.
This collection of eleven short stories illuminates the life of the enigmatic Magnus Bane, whose alluring personality, flamboyant style, and sharp wit populate the pages of the #1 New York Times bestselling series, The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices.
Originally released one-by-one as e-only short stories by Cassandra Clare, Maureen Johnson, and Sarah Rees Brennan, this compilation presents all ten together in print for the first time and includes a never-before-seen eleventh tale, as well as new illustrated material.

 

[WowLookAtThat]

Book #90 The Forgotten Sister by Jennifer Paytner

Book #91 Shopaholic takes Manhatten by Sophie Kinsella

Book #92 Shopaholic Ties the Knot By Sophie Sinsella

Book #93 Shopaholic and Sister by Sophie Kinsella

Book #94 Shopaholic and Baby by Sophie Kinsella

Book #95 Mini-Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella

Book #96 Shopaholic to the Stars by Sophie Kinsella

Review: Its so bad. Not so bad its good. Just bad.

Book #97 Christ the Lord:Out of Egypt by Anne Rice

 

[wilma-bride]

Book #96 Shopaholic to the Stars by Sophie Kinsella

Review: Its so bad. Not so bad its good. Just bad.

Completely agree

 

[wilma-bride]

Book #54 - The Silent Sister by Diane Chamberlain

Riley MacPherson is returning to her childhood home in North Carolina, a place that holds cherished memories. While clearing out the house she finds a box of old newspaper articles - and a shocking family secret begins to unravel.

Riley has spent her whole life believing that her older sister Lisa died tragically as a teenager. But now she's starting to uncover the truth. Her life has been built on a foundation of lies, told by everyone she loved.

Lisa is alive. Alive and living under a new identity. But why exactly was she on the run all those years ago, and what secrets are being kept now?

As Riley tries to separate reality from fiction, her discoveries call into question everything she thought she knew about her family. Can she find the strength inside herself to decide her future?

I had been waiting patiently to get hold of this on my Kindle and it was well worth the wait. Loved the book, loved the characters, loved the writing (Diane Chamberlain is one of my favourite authors), loved the story. I was a little sad when it was over and slightly more sad that I didn't save this to read over Christmas while munching on chocolates and drinking wine.

 

[tinkerbellfan6880]

I changed my goal from 100 books down to 50 books. Only because I have not been reading that much this year. Have so far only read 42 books. Didn't think I would make it to 100 because of the fact the year is almost over. Just have not been in a mood to read this year at all.

 

[zippitydoo]

Book #69 of 75

Not What She Seems by Victorine E. Lieske

From Goodreads:
Steven Ashton, a billionaire from New York, and Emily Grant, on the run from the law... and when they meet he can't help falling for her. What he doesn't know is that interfering in her life will put his own life in danger. Not What She Seems holds you in suspense from the moment you begin down the path of murder and romance.

When billionaire Steven Ashton couldn't stand his high society social life anymore, he left the stress of New York on a vacation for his soul. The need to meet real down to earth people lead him to a small Nebraska town he remembered visiting as a child. He didn't want to lie about who he was, but he couldn't exactly tell them the truth. Emily could have easily fallen in love with Steven, under different circumstances, but her past was catching up with her and she needed a new life. If the authorities found out about her, she could lose the one thing that meant everything, her four year old son.

 

[Glynis]

Goal - 70 books

Book # 53 "The Light Between Oceans" by M.L. Stedman

From Goodreads: After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.

Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.

My review: I really liked this book. I had a hard time getting into it, but once I did, I finished the book in one sitting! I had to find out what was going to happen. I just couldn't see how the book could end in a way that would make me happy! I really felt for all the characters involved in the story. This is a story about a hard decision that had to be made, and the consequences that resulted. I would have a hard time saying that anyone made a "wrong" decision. Really recommend this book!

Next up: The 7th book in the Kingdom Keepers series. Don't have it by me, so I don't have the whole title!

 

[nemofans]

I started reading Some Luck by Jane Smiley & only made it to chapter 5. I skimmed ahead to see if it gets better, but nope, so I stopped reading it. I will not count this towards my goal. It's the story of a farming family through a generation. It didn't hold my interest at all, quite boring. Then there are chapters told from the baby's point of view, YES I said BABY'S pov! It was just ridiculous. It reads like a diary recounting events day after day for years.

A powerful, engrossing new novel—the life and times of a remarkable family over three transformative decades in America.
On their farm in Denby, Iowa, Rosanna and Walter Langdon abide by time-honored values that they pass on to their five wildly different children: from Frank, the handsome, willful first born, and Joe, whose love of animals and the land sustains him, to Claire, who earns a special place in her father’s heart.
Each chapter in Some Luck covers a single year, beginning in 1920, as American soldiers like Walter return home from World War I, and going up through the early 1950s, with the country on the cusp of enormous social and economic change. As the Langdons branch out from Iowa to both coasts of America, the personal and the historical merge seamlessly: one moment electricity is just beginning to power the farm, and the next a son is volunteering to fight the Nazis; later still, a girl you’d seen growing up now has a little girl of her own, and you discover that your laughter and your admiration for all these lives are mixing with tears.
Some Luck delivers on everything we look for in a work of fiction. Taking us through cycles of births and deaths, passions and betrayals, among characters we come to know inside and out, it is a tour de force that stands wholly on its own. But it is also the first part of a dazzling epic trilogy—a literary adventure that will span a century in America: an astonishing feat of storytelling by a beloved writer at the height of her powers.

 

[threeboysmom]

How's everyone doing?

Hard to believe another year is almost finished.

Just want to stress that it doesn't really matter whether you made your goal or not. The whole point of this thread is to get you reading more than what you would have read without a goal in mind to shoot for.

So.... if that's true, then you have already "won" in my book! (yes, pun intended, lol)

Time to start thinking about your favorite book for 2014! I'm reading the Outlander series through a 2nd time so those books are right up there in my favorite books of all time, not just the year.

But for 2014 alone, I'll have to go with Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. I still ponder that book even though I finished it months ago.

 

[tiggrbaby]

How's everyone doing?

Hard to believe another year is almost finished.

Just want to stress that it doesn't really matter whether you made your goal or not. The whole point of this thread is to get you reading more than what you would have read without a goal in mind to shoot for.

So.... if that's true, then you have already "won" in my book! (yes, pun intended, lol)

Time to start thinking about your favorite book for 2014! I'm reading the Outlander series through a 2nd time so those books are right up there in my favorite books of all time, not just the year.

But for 2014 alone, I'll have to go with Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. I still ponder that book even though I finished it months ago.

That's the sign of a really good book!

 

[penguin1102]

I haven't posted since the beginning of the year but I have been following along and getting tons of suggestions. My goal next year is to try to participate in the board more. Thank you everyone for some awesome suggestions!!