Good morning! Not the best of reading weeks, what with all the DNFs, but not totally a bust.
I picked up a couple new ebooks this week - a paranormal mystery and a suspense. I still have two unread ebooks from before - a SF mystery and a cozy mystery.
Books Read:
21) The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (4/14/22) - Literature* - 5 stars. I'd never read this before, but it being what it is, it wasn't 'new' to me. And I've read other Dumas works. I picked this up from Amazon for free.
No review. I'd only add that the version of this I read was not the one the link goes to. The version I downloaded disappeared from Amazon - probably because half the 'book' was another copy of the book most likely thrown up there to scam the KU system out of page-read money. Shame on them. And it makes me glad I couldn't link to that version.
20) A Brazen Curiosity by Lynn Messina (4/10/22) - Historical Mystery* - 5 stars. New to me but plenty of reviews. Free off the Reading Deals newsletter.
Review: "What a delightful story and a fun mystery. I loved the interplay between Bea and the Duke. I thoroughly enjoyed the other characters, the setting, and the plot. It was great to see how Bea grew from a mousy, little nothing into a strong character. And I totally had no clue who the murderer was. Awesome."
DNFs:
4/13/22 - Romance - free. The premise seemed probably enough until the characters were introduced, and then nope. I didn't see how the hero and the heroine would ever mesh enough to make a believable love story. Even with 'opposites attract' there has to be something. Plus, I counted several other different tropes in the first few pages. All it needed was a secret baby thrown in to complete the set. It's romance... Pick a theme and stick with it. Two, maybe could work. More than that, the writing has to be excellent to pull it off and this wasn't. (And as you can probably guess, I was getting irritated by four DNFs in a row.)
4/13/22 - UF - free. Present tense. Gah. I tried. Really I did, because sometimes present tense can work in UF. But I rarely like present tense and it was beginning to irritate me. Life's too short.
4/13/22 - Romance - free. I got the immediate sense I was going to spend the book being preached to about environmental issues. Thus, I didn't find myself liking the main characters. C'est la vie.
4/13/22 - Mystery - free. Pretense tense. Not only no, but hell, no. To me, present tense just doesn't lend itself to the mystery genre.
Currently reading... an old political thriller by Alistair McLean.
What was on your reading list last week?
Ahahahaha! I LOVE the autocorrect typo "Pretense tense!" Is that used in mysteries, suspense, and thrillers? 😉 I had a good week, for once. I'm at 47 books of my 150 challenge, listening to 5 books this week, which puts me 4 ahead of schedule. Still in the marathon liston of Suzanne Wrights paranormal romance combines series of Phoenix Pack and Mercury Pack.
ReplyDelete47 - Echoes of Fire (Mercury Pack, #4) 5 stars: He's a wolf enforcer. She's a Pallas Cat. Pallas cat shifters for the win! I 💖 Pallas Cats! They look so fluffy and cutely grumpy and they are absolute terrors when challenged. In real life! Wright does a great job with all her breed characterizations.
46 - Wild Hunger (The Phoenix Pack, #7) 4 stars: Half wolf/half human raised by maternal grandparents after her father kills her mother. Or did he? *bwahaha* He's a...wolf enforcer! LOL This is the book that I mentioned in my blog yesterday.
45 - Lure of Oblivion (Mercury Pack, #3) 4 stars: Wolf enforcer, human B&B/waitress who stands up for shifters. Gwen has no "backdown" in her. She stands on her own two feet. Plus, haunted inn FTW.
44 - Fierce Obsessions (The Phoenix Pack, #6) 4 stars: She's a raven shifter, which is kinda cool, and a lone shifter living and working at a shelter. When the shelter is threatened by a crazy wolf Alpha, Riley "escapes" to Phoenix Pack territory in an earlier book, brinking two toddler orphans (a cheetah and a viper). Tao, the head enforcer apparently hates her. Until this book. *waggles eyebrows*. Lots of action and crazysauce.
43 - Force of Temptation (Mercury Pack, #2) 4 stars: Another Wolf enforcer, this time mated to a Margay cat shifter. She's also a violinist and I always picture Lindsey Stirling when I read this book. She's lived mostly in the human world due to circumstances. Also, Margays may be little but they are fierce! Great characters.
I should finish UNTAMED DELIGHTS, which is the last book in the Phoenix Pack, today, and then I'll start SHARDS OF FROST, which is the last book in the Mercury Pack series. After that, not sure where I'll go. There's a "spin-off" series centered on the Pallas Cat Pride that I really like but there's a new one out in digital but the audio isn't coming out until early July. 😞 Not sure if I'll listen to the first two now and then relisten in July or just wait. I need to look to see if anything else is releasing soon that's part of a series that'll need a relisten. Anyway, happy reading to all!