Night Play, Ascendant Sun, The Dickens With Love

Yesterday I finished Night Play by Sherrilyn Kenyon. Great book! Fast moving and loved the ending. Looking forward to the next in the series, which I hope to read next month.

I just finished Ascendant Sun by Catherine Asaro. I was reluctant to finish it after I had started, because things were not looking good for Kelric, not at all. However I am happy to say that he persevered and by the end of the book he was in a much better place than he'd been for over 18 years. I look forward to reading the next installment about the Skolian family, Spherical Harmonic.

I also finished The Dickens with Love by Josh Lanyon, about 2 men who find love. It was a wonderful story, and My. Lanyon is a very good writer. I just wish the story had been a little bit longer. What would happen next? I don't really want a sequel, though. I have read other m/m sequels by other authors and usually don't care for them.

Yesterday I started Cold as Ice by Anne Stuart. So far, I love it. It is romantic suspense, a good fast read. 2nd in a series. I have no doubt I can finish it before the end of the year. Oh, that's tomorrow! I guess that will be my last book of the year!

Good Shifter book

Over the weekend I read a really good shifter book, The B*E*A*S*T* Within (B*E*A*S*T Book 1) by Rebecca Goings. I rate it 3.5 to 4 stars. I liked it so much, I picked up the next three stories in the series. (They were on sale at fictionwise.com). The story reminds me of other books, but it was different enough to be enjoyable.

I also read half (2 stories) from the book Night Stalker by Angelina Evans. I'm sure if a reader is looking for lots of sex and minimal substance, this one will do the trick. I ended up skimming and didn't bother to read the remaining two stories in the book.

Finding myself without any reading commitments, I was excited to start a book that's been on my TBR pile all year, Night Play (Dark-Hunter, Bk 6) by Sherrilyn Kenyon. Its off to a good start, I love shifter stories and this one is cool because the man really is more beast than man. Can't wait to see what's going to happen!

Continuing to read Ascendant Sun by Catherine Asaro, but have to take it in small doses.

A couple reviews

Just finished In Enemy Hands by Michelle Perry. My first book by her. Romantic suspense. I really enjoyed it. The two main characters were really good together, and I liked how they dealt with the situations and the finale.

Also just finished They Call Me Death by Missy Jane. I really liked it, though I wish there was about 100 pages between the prologue and chapter 1, instead of just glossing over those catastrophic events and referring back to them later in the text! I would definitely read another if this becomes a series.

Finished Firehouse Heat by Carol Lynne, book 16 in the Cattle Valley serial. Not quite as good as the preceding story, but still liked it. The next two hint at more angst, which means I will like them better.

What will I read today? More of Ascendant Sun by Catherine Asaro, and will start a new ebook. Must go shape rolls now.

December reading...

Read Lord of Thunder by Andre Norton. Published in 1962, it perhaps reflects a predominantly male readership of the time. There is not a single female character in the book, or even a reference to one. This fact alone makes me hesitant to read any more in the series. Upon researching them, however, there are females in the remaining volumes, and they do seem to have a more romance theme to them. I will probably read them at a later date. It was a good story, thankfully brief. I really favor strong female characters in most books.

My cumulative reading for this month has been much lower than normal. I am spending too much time fiddling with my new Kindle! Currently reading 2 booksfree.com books: Gaymes anthology, and The Radiant Seas by Catherine Asaro. My head has been hurting too much lately to give her book justice so I had to set it aside for the past few days. Also reading Fierce Radiance by Tymber Dalton on the Kindle. There are 4 or 5 other ebooks that I started but haven't been motivated to finish, if I ever do. I've got one game book to read that sounds interesting, They Call Me Death by Missy Jane.

Hopefully I can get some reading done today!

A Season of Seduction by Jennifer Haymore

A Season of Seduction by Jennifer Haymore is the third book in a trilogy, but can be read as a stand alone. It is a historical romance. Becky was in both of the previous books. This is her HEA book.

I liked the previous two books better than this one. There are a lot of good points to this book, it just didn't wrench me emotionally as much as the other two did. I didn't really like Jack too much. He seemed weak. I didn't like his motivations. A man of honor would not have set the events in motion, he would have left the country. So, he was not very honorable at all. Yes, he did change throughout the story. Still, overall I found him weak.

There was a lot of good action, and some emotionally satisfying scenes. Overall, a good book. 3.5 stars out of 5.

Reactivation sequence now in progress.

So I've decided to reactivate this blog. I was using the blog at myspace for this type of thing. But they made some changes and now trying to edit the blogs to update my current reading list doesn't work well. I have pretty much abandoned myspace now. So I'll make an effort to make this one viable again.

I plan to join the SFR (Science Fiction Romance) challenge for 2011, so I'll use this blog to track my progress.

I have for 2011 decided to reread some old favorites. I already started....I'll be reading the entire Darkover series by Marion Zimmer Bradley in chronological order. I read this series a long time ago (in the 80's I think) and have held onto them. So I dug them out and read the first one, Darkover Landfall. It was good. Some are better than others. I have them all stacked up in chronological order, ready to go!

Also just reread The Beast Master by Andre Norton. I have discovered there are several more books, some co-written, so I plan to read them all. I was shocked to discover the Beast Master was written in 1959! I have some of her other books in my attic too, some Witch World books and more. I don't know if I'll reread those. (I like to read about psychic powers, but witches, not so much).

I am also midway through reading Catherine Asaro's Saga of the Skolian Empire. Those books are fantastic!!! I am reading them in chronological order, though I didn't realize they had been written out of order when I started, so I have already read the last one, darn it. Here is the list in approximate chronological order:

1. Skyfall

2. Schism

3. The Final Key

4. The Last Hawk

5. Primary Inversion

6. The Radiant Seas

7. Ascendant Sun

8. The Quantum Rose

9. Spherical Harmonica

10. The Moon's Shadow

11. Diamond Star

12. The Ruby Dice

13. Catch the Lightning

There are also numerous short stories which I have not included in the list. Some of them are rather hard to track down.

Some other author series I plan to read for the challenge: S.L. Viehl, Linnea Sinclair, Lois Bujold, Susan Grant, Susan Kearney, Jayne Castle, Lauren Dane, Marie Harte, Linda Mooney, Elizabeth Vaughan, Catherine Spangler, Colby Hodge, Michelle Pillow, Patti O'Shea, Ann Aguirre, Rowena Cherry, Angela Knight, Robin Owens. I have books by all of these authors on hand!

I love reading about strong females. As seen in my list above, I also prefer to read them as written by female authors. I also need the happy endings that usually occur in SFR, but not in SF. I am looking forward to reading all of those and more this coming year.