44 and 45

44. Brimstone Kiss / Carole Nelson Douglas
    This is the second in a new series for Ms. Nelson. She's better known for her Midnight Louie mysteries (of which I am not a huge fan, I prefer her Irene Adler mysteries, but anyhoo...). This series features Delilah Street, a paranormal investigator in Vegas where vamps, weres and other things that go bump in the night are common.
    
    This has been an odd read for me. Normally when I like a book I don't want to put it down, but this one I've read in fits and starts. And I do like the book. Maybe it's that the pace of the story itself is slow, so I am taking it slow to read it? I don't know, maybe it's that I just kept getting tempted away by other reads!



45. Casting Spells / Barbara Bretton
    I highly enjoyed this book, starting it yesterday and reading well into the night to finish it, lol. I truly hope we see more of this town. it's was a good, light, romantic mystery. And for all you knitters out there, the main character owns a wool shop, the kind we all wish truly existed, where the wool never tangles and stitches are never dropped ;) There really isn't a huge amount of knitting going on though, so non-knitters should be fine (although Barbara Bretton really does knit along with several other authors. See the blog.

Books 39 - 43

39. Fed Up / Jessica Conant-Park & Susan Conant.
    Not my favorite in this series. I had trouble actually getting into it this time around, which was too bad, because I liked the previous 3 novels.


40. Immortal Bad Boys / Rebecca York, Rosemary Laurey, Linda Thomas-Sundstrom
    All I can say about this book is WOW. And not in a good way. The first story did in the rest of them for me. It was a total, "Oh no you didn't!" moment. Vampires on Viagra? No, no, no! And the third "light romance"? It was complicated and dull and not very romantic at all.


41. The Snow Queen / Mercedes Lackey.
    This one was slow to get moving and then ran right up to the very end. I like this series and its twists on common fairy tales.


42. Fish Out of Water / MaryJanice Davidson
    This, in my opinion, is the best Fred book so far. Too bad it's also the last Fred book :(


43. A Veiled Deception / Annette Blair.
    A good first to the series for me, it left me wanting more. Now! Lol. I didn't want to put it down while I was reading it, which is always a good sign.

Perennial Favorites

The Anne of Green Gables series. I've literally just begun reading Anne to my 8 year old. I hope she loves Anne as much as I do.

Terry Pratchett. I especially love the Witches sub-series. I've read each and every one more than once. Well, not The Truth. I just never could get into that one, and never actually finished it. How sad.

Nora Roberts/ J.D. Robb. I've read all of them, lol. And most of the J.D. Robb books I've read more than once.

Charlaine Harris. Everything but Lily Bard (sorry, just can't get into those). I'm very sad that she's stopped the Aurora Teagarden series due to lack of time. I love Sookie. I like Harper.

MaryJanice Davidson. Queen Betsy cracks me up. And the last Fred the Mermaid book is likely the best.

Dean Koontz. I love the Odd Thomas series. I'm jonesing for more, lol.

I still read every one of Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake series even though I think they lost their way several books ago. I read out of hope, lol.

I've read all of Annette Blair's witch stories, Madelyn Alt's Bewitching mysteries, Victoria Laurie's Ghost Hunter mysteries, Carrie Vaughn's Kitty stories, and Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld series.

And there's so many more that I can't keep up, lol.

More books

I've been reading several of these at a time, lol. Several contain novellas, which make them good reads for work and just plain quick. Most of my choices this week were just okay. Nothing special, which is likely why I switched around a lot on them this week. Anyhoo, here's my list:

29. Never Been Witched / Annette Blair
    I love Annette Blair's witches, but this is my least favorite of the Triplets trilogy. I honestly didn't like the characters much. But the book had a very open ending, so perhaps we will see more of all the sisters?


30. Furies of Calderon / Jim Butcher.
    I didn't like this as much as I like the Dresden books, but an interesting read none the less. I've picked up the next several books in the series.


31. Before I Wake/ Kathryn Smith.
    A first in the series book again. It was ok. I'm hoping things get better as she goes


32. Ultra Violet / Nancy Bush.
    Again, an ok book. Nothing special.


33. Free-range knitter / Stephanie Pearl-McPhee.
    It's the Harlot. She makes me laugh. What else do I need to say?


34. I'm Your Santa / Karen Kelley, Dianne Castell
    Very light and fluffy short romances.


35. Murder on the Rocks / Karen MacInerney.
    A good first outing for the series. I am waiting impatiently for the arrival of book 2 from our loan program at the library.


36. Irish Magic / Roberta Gellis et al.
    Light and fluffy and short romances again. Nothing stood out.


37. The Reinvented Miss Bluebeard / Minda Webber.
    This book made me laugh. I like Ms. Webber's take on the old fairy tale world, lol. I'd previously read The Daughter's Grimm and laughed out loud.


38. Accessory to Murder / Elaine Viets.
    I think it must be my mood this week, because this book just didn't do a lot for me. I wanted to smack the main character's best friend for constantly parroting her husband and for generally being a fool. Really, the one character was enough to make me lose interest.

Popular reads

I don't read them. I've yet to find one that lived up to all the hoopla.

It started with the copy of The Bridges of Madison County that my mom gave me. She and my sister raved about it and insisted I read it. I barely made it through. I just didn't get it.

I've read The Nanny Diaries. It was ok. Not spectacular. Just ok. And Wicked. I tried to like it, really I did. I even read Son of a Witch, but just found it too boring, lol. I've not read another in the series.

The same thing with The DaVinci Code and every book on Oprah's list, lol.

This is the reason I've never read the Stephenie Meyer's books. I will normally grab any vamp book, but I just can't find the enthusiasm for these(That and from what I've heard of the bossy Edward character and the wimpy Bella, it would probably end up really annoying me anyway).

So what book have you read lately that was a huge disappointment?

Bookstores

What makes a good bookstore? We have the big box stores around here, Barnes and Noble and Borders. I definitely prefer B and N over Borders. I really have a hard time finding things in Borders, and for some reason I find it awkward to browse there. And Seattle's Best Coffee is so bad that I don't even want to sit down in their cafe and browse. Very bitter. Because of this I tend to grab a book and go (Book 29, Never Been Witched / Annette Blair, this time).

At B and N we will normally browse a bit and then head to the cafe and get coffee and maybe a nibble whilst we read a chapter of the latest book to catch our eyes or page through magazines. Although I must admit, since the cafe stopped offering all of the Starbuck's menu I've not been nearly as fond of them. They don't stock the syrup flavors I like so I get grumpy, lol. (And I'm not sure what they do when they make their espresso, but the quality is never consistent, which is what makes me crazy about most coffee shops. Say what you will about Starbucks, but they are consistent. I like that I can get a mocha in Denver and a mocha in Podunk, Wherever and they will taste the same).

My favorite bookstore though, has to be The Tattered Cover. The feel of the place is unique. It feels like a cozy little bookstore but it's HUGE. I can't even put my finger on what it is exactly that I like about it, I just like it. Lol.

Anyhoo. What do you think makes a good bookstore?

I know

I posted this one before, but I've actually finished

27. Men of the Otherworld.
    I really liked it, because it answered questions I didn't even know I had, lol. It's a collection of shorter stories and very much a prequel to Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld series. I find myself wanting to go back and reread the series, specifically Bitten and Stolen.
    
    I'm thinking that now that I have more of the back story they will appeal to me more. See, I didn't actually like Elena and Clay all that much. I enjoyed the series much more from book 3 on, when other characters took the lead roles and Clay and Elena were there as background figures.
    
    So Bitten and Stolen go back onto my reading list.


And on I go to the next book:

28. Devil May Ride / Wendy Roberts.
    This was book 2 in the Ghost Dusters series about a crime scene cleaner who also happens to be able to see and hear the dead. It was quite a bit darker than the first book. And early on in the book I thought I had it all figured out. Which pissed me off actually, and I nearly put the book down because of it. Turns out I was way off base and I'm sure Roberts meant for that to happen.
    
    But in my not so humble opinion, she hooked us on that line way too quickly, 'cause I would bet I'm not the only reader who put the book down in disgust over the seemingly easy solution. The question is, how many people picked it back up and finished anyway?
    
    Anyhoo. Once I got over my fit of pique and just decided to let the author tell the story her way I was drawn back into the storyline, especially the second part of the plot.
    
    I did enjoy the story, though it never fails to make me shake my head a bit when seemingly unrelated things so very conveniently become intertwined.
    
    I know, I sound rather oblique, but I really am trying not to give anything away! My biggest complaint is that book 3 won't be out until December, lol.

Reading...

Moving right along...

24. Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand / Carrie Vaughn
    Yes, I finally finished this one. Not my fave Kitty book. Maybe I subconsciously deliberately left it in the daughter's loo?


25. Electric Blue / Nancy Bush
    Book 2 in this series. Better than book 1, need to get my hands on book 3 soon.


26. Irish Magic II / Multiple Authors
    Mostly short, simple and enjoyable stories.

Tomorrow I want to finish Men of the Underworld. I'm liking this book a lot because it fills in a lot of the holes in the back story about Jeremy and Clay, but I've had to read it in bits and pieces. It explains A LOT about Clay, lol.

The week in which the only book I've finished

is one with three novellas. So I give you the revised

23. These Boots Were Made For Strutting / Lisa Cach, Gemma Halliday & Melanie Jackson

It's not that I didn't enjoy Men of the Otherworld. Or Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand. Men is hard cover and large so I don't take it to work. Kitty got put down... somewhere. It was easier to grab a book that I'd just picked up from the library than to search before work yesterday. And honestly, the three stories inside of Boots were light and fluffy and undemanding, much easier to read in short break chunks.

Besides, as the year goes on I think that you will find that it's not unusual for me to have three books on the go at once ;)

So anyhoo: Boots. The theme of the book is shoes actually, not a single pair of boots in any of the stories, but that's ok. Each story is about a magic pair of shoes ordered from a special online shoe store (which actually exists and is shamefully plugged throughout the book. Only to seriously disappoint when you go to the site and find nice shoes but nothing magical about the web design at all, but I digress...)

Each pair of shoes brings each wearer out of their shell so to speak and into situations that they normally wouldn't dream of being in. In so doing each woman learns things about herself. Quite honestly, I read the entire first story by Cach, and found myself skipping around the next two stories. Light, fluffy and well, boring.

Regular readers of Gemma Halliday's High Heels mystery series will likely enjoy her novella, though it's not the same characters. I myself could never actually read a high heel mystery all the way through, so no big surprise that I couldn't get through this shorter story.

By the time I got to Melanie Jackson's ballroom dancing inspired story I had completely lost interest in the whole book and read only to finish. That may have had something to do with having actually looked at the website oft mentioned in each story and decided that crass commercialism was alive and well even in short fiction, lol.

If I were grading this book I'd have to give it a C- as I only really got through one story, and immediately upon finishing canceled my library hold on the previous book, These Boots Were Made For Stomping.

23. and 24.

23. Men of the Otherworld / Kelley Armstrong


24. Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand / Carrie Vaughn

Actually a bit of a cheat, since I am still reading the first and contemplating starting the second before I finish Men of the Otherworld, lol.

22.

22. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society / Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows

I picked this book up at the library after seeing the title. See, hubby and I spent our honeymoon on Guernsey. In fact we got stranded on Guernsey when it snowed and the entire island shut down. But that's another story.

I knew some of the history of the island (one of the Nazi bunkers was turned into an aquarium that we visited) but it's hard to imagine what the islanders went through during World War II seeing the way things looked nearly twenty years ago, and imagine things have changed even more since then.

This book was wonderful. Sweet, laugh out loud funny in places, and sad as well. Bits of history interspersed with the fictional tale fascinated me.

(Added note: Hubby has now picked up the book and has read at least half just today. His opinion so far? Odd. But good. Lol.)

52 books in a year? Part II

12. how to Marry a Millionaire Vamp / Kerrelyn Sparks.
    I'm loving this vamp series, lol.


13. Vamps and the City / Kerrelyn Sparks.


14. Larceny and old lace / Tamar Myers.
    This is a nice mystery series. I pick them up where ever I can find them, so they are never in order but it doesn't seem to matter too much.


15. The Ming and I : a Den of Antiquity mystery / Tamar Myers.


16. Must love mistletoe / Christie Ridgway.
    One of the few Ridgeway romances I wasn't overly fond of :(


17. The tales of Beedle the Bard / J.K. Rowling.
    I expected a lot more from Rowling. Biggest upshot to this book is she's donating all royalties to a very worthy charity.


18. All I Want for Christmas is a vampire / Kerrelyn Sparks.


19. Santa clawed / Rita Mae Brown & Sneaky Pie Brown.
    Love Rita and Sneaky Pie!


20. Hearts divided / Debbie Macomber, Katherine Stone, Lois Faye Dyer.


21. Causing havoc / Lori Foster.
    I usually like Lori Foster, but I guess this series isn't for me (I tried another, Simon Says, and finally skipped to the end so I could take it back to the library and get something new).

52 books in a year?

You betcha! I'm a voracious reader. I will read anything from Sci-Fi to Mysteries and Romance to True Crime and other non-fiction. Last year I was on an Old West kick, especially women of the west.

Because of my unquenchable appetite for books, I have to get the majority of them from the library. Luckily we have an amazing library system in this state that allows me to borrow books from just about anywhere that has what I am looking for. This list below is actually only the books I've borrowed from my local library this year (in fact this list comes straight from them, poor capitalization and all, lol), not the ones I've gotten through our Prospector program. Scary that! Add in all the Prospectors and I'm guessing I am well over 52 books for the year already!

Edited to add notes about each book. I've decided to break this into two posts, otherwise it's verrry long, lol.

1. This can't be love / Kasey Michaels.
   Light, fluffy and fun.


2. Divorced, desperate and delicious / by Christie Craig.
   Again, a light romantic read, but I really enjoyed it.


3. Gone to the dogs / Emily Carmichael.
   One of an ok series that sucks you in to reading most of them lol.


4. Devil bones / Kathy Reichs.
   It took some getting used to this version of Bones, but I'm really liking this version now even though I lost interest in the TV series years ago.


5. High heels and holidays / Kasey Michaels.
   Mystery series by Michaels. An ok read as long as you are looking for a light mystery.


6. Candy apple red / Nancy Bush.
   An ok read. I've got the second of the series on my nightstand, I'll reserve final judgement on the series until I read it.


7. Finding Mr. Right / Emily Carmichael.


8. Diamond in the ruff / Emily Carmichael.


9. The cat's meow / Emily Carmichael.


10. The iron hunt / Marjorie M. Liu.
    Disliked this book, lol.


11. Cat sitter on a hot tin roof / Blaize Clement.
    Another mystery series. This one had more depth to it than previous books which I am liking. Keep it up Ms. Blaize!

Favorite authors include Nora Roberts (and her alter ego J.D. Robb), Charlaine Harris, Mary Janice Davidson, Terry Pratchett, Jim Butcher and a bunch more. I tend to favor series of books, as I like meeting old friends again and again. *Grin*

You can see what I am waiting to read by looking at my Amazon Wish List, it tends to be a reminder list for me to request them from my library, lol.