Weekly Reading Wrap Up

   Welcome to my brand new reading wrap up, now on Fridays.  I have decided to move my reading wrap up from Mondays to make room for Mystery Monday and also because it is easier for me to wrap up the week while I am still in the office instead of trying to post it first thing Monday morning. 

Reviews Posted Last Week:

Links will take you to my review

Arrowed by Avery Daniels (Mystery Monday)

7 x 9 =Trouble! by Claudia Mills (Middle Grade)

 Books Finished Last Week:

Reviews will be posted at a later date

Arrowed

Shadow and Bone

Brave Like That

The Wild Robot Escapes

Hunter's Choice

The Sea in Winter

Currently Reading:

Return to Shanhasson by Joely Sue Burkhart - Print- on page 78 of 380

Pages Read/ Time Listened
216:05 Hours Listened This Year(23:55 listened this week)
6,114 Pages Read This Year (439 Read this week)

Books Added to Shelves Recently: TBR

The Dating Plan (BOTM)

Death Bee Comes Her (Jan. Pre-Order)

Stormbreak (Feb. Pre-Order)

Lovebug (Feb. Pre-Order) - READ

A Court of Silver Flames (Feb. Pre-Order)
In a Book Club Far Away (BOTM)

Sunset on Moonlight Beach (ARC)

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So while it doesn't seem like I have gotten a lot of reading done this week, I really actually have I just haven't gotten posts up. I should have known the office would explode once I announced I would be leaving at the end of the month. I also had to get our own taxes done over the weekend, so I did get the opportunity to do a lot of listening to audio books! 

Middle Grade March has been awesome so far, I have read some really fantastic books that anyone can enjoy! I hope to read a few more over the weekend too.   

Next week starts Tome Topple too, granted I love this readathon but this time it is kind of throwing off my TBR. Not many Middle Grade books fit into Tome Topple, though I do have one. I will have to try to budget for some other big books too. Hurray for more audio books because that is the only way I will get all my work done and read all the books!

Review of 7 x 9 = Trouble! by Claudia Mills

 

Read for: Borrowed Book/ Middle Grade March

Synopsis: "Wilson has a hard time with math, especially with Mrs. Porter's timed multiplication tests. If only he were as quick as Laura Vicks, the smartest kid in third grade, or as quick as his brother, Kipper -- a kindergartner. Wilson's mother and father try to help, but Wilson doesn't appreciate having to do practice tests on a play date. Fortunately, his friend Josh Hernandez is a comfort, as is Squiggles, the class hamster. Wilson is sure that with his own little animal squeaking and cuddling beside him, he could learn anything. But his mom doesn't like pets. So Wilson bravely struggles on, hoping that one day in the not-too-distant future he'll pass all his times-table tests. Then, surprisingly, Kipper comes to the rescue.

With sensitivity and gentle humor, Claudia Mills examines a common childhood fear and a common family experience. G. Brian Karas provides tender, funny pictures."

My Review: I happened to stumble across this book at the library while searching for books for Middle Grade March. I decided it would be a fun book to read with Munchkin since he is currently learning his times tables. He opted not to listen to it but I still listened. This would be a great book for a kid with might be intimidated by the times tables or be struggling a bit. It was a great confidence booster, the way the difficulty was handled by various characters, no one teased, no one yelled, just supported and gave tips and helped the best they could. This was such a great book and I hope many young readers discover it.

My Rating: This is a book that a lot of young readers will be able to relate to, both with family situations (siblings), class pets and the dreaded times tables tests.  I really love the themes in this book and will be recommending it to so many parents and kids.  I give it a rating of Four Paws!

Top Ten Tuesday: Series I Want to Finish

 

 

 

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish.  It is now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, and you can find the list of topics on her page HERE.

This week is a Spring Cleaning Freebie topic, and boy am I in spring cleaning mode! I have been pitching stuff left and right, purging, organizing.  So why not apply that to my bookshelves as well. I recently went through and did a full purge of my shelves so instead of looking at books I want to get rid of, I decided to focus on series I want to finish up and clear them off my TBR.  So here are the series that I only have a couple books left to read. 

 

I have held off reading King of Scars until the second book in the Duology came out but now with it coming out later this month, I only have these 2 books left to read in the Grishaverse. I started a re-read of the original trilogy in anticipation of these books and the Netflix series, hopefully I can finish them before mid April!!

  

I only have 2 novellas and 1 full length novel left to read in the whole Chronicles of Ixia. When Dawn Study first came out I wasn't mentally prepared to say goodbye to Yelena & Valek but after not reading the series for so long, I think I can finally manage (but a full re-read may be in order).

I have yet to finish pick up Darkdawn, with all the hype surrounding it, I felt like I needed to let that die down a bit for me. Now it has been so long that I feel like I need to re-read the other books because I think some details from those may be very important in this book. 

 

I only have these 2 books left in the Chronicles of the Warlands series, I am sure they will be pretty engrossing books and won't take long to read but I just haven't picked them up yet. 

 

The Queen of Blood was one of my top books a couple of years ago, can someone please explain to me why I haven't finished the series?! I really, really need to get on these books!

This series seems to have been abandoned, so really I only have this one book to finish. I think I am a bit concerned about an open ending because there is another book listed on Goodreads but a released date of 2030 seems unlikely.

Another book I have been highly anticipating, but I don't want it to end, so once again I have held off on reading it. Again this will require a re-read of the previous books because they are all so intertwined with even the tiniest of details being important. 

I have a feeling this one is going to be painful but I want to finish this series!

I really enjoyed the first book in this duology, but I really need to pick this one up and finish the series out. Especially since I have had this since the day it was released!

 

So Tiger's Daughter is right up there as one of my top 5 all time favorite books, but I have struggled to pick up these next two books in the series. I have heard they don't hold up to the first book. I got about half way through the Phoenix Empress during a readathon but put it down in favor of other books once the readathon was over.  I do still want to read these but I have to admit they aren't real high up on the list.

Clearly there is a trend of me not finishing fantasy series LOL! While I definitely won't be able to get to all of these books during my spring cleaning this year, I do hope to at least knock a few off my TBR in the near future! What books do you want to clean out for spring? Are you freshening your shelves with an unhaul or are you looking to dust off a few on the TBR pile?

Mystery Monday: Arrowed by Avery Daniels (Blog Tour and Review)

 

 It all began when a dying man with an arrow in his chest grabs her ankle…

By Avery Daniels

Synopsis: "It all began when a dying man with an arrow in his chest grabs her ankle.
During a heat wave at a Santa Fe resort, Julienne has the resort owner pressuring her to solve the murder.
The victim is a high-profile businessman who made enemies rather than friends, leaving Julienne with a roster of suspects. She was supposed to be training the staff and spending quality time with Mason rather than investigating a murder. The heat turns up when an old girlfriend of Mason’s checks in and is determined to get back together.
Arrowed is the fourth book in Avery Daniel’s Resort to Murder series and is a contemporary cozy mystery.  If you like Cleo Coyle, Maddy Hunter, Duffy Brown, Lynn Cahoon, and Annette Dashofy, then you’ll love this series with a strong intelligent sleuth, lavish settings, and tantalizing mysteries.
Buy this spunky clean cozy mystery and start enjoying Julienne’s adventures today!"

My Review:  I am still relatively new to the Cozy Mystery genre and am always looking for new authors and series to try so took a chance on this book. Even though I haven't read the previous books in this series, I was able to jump right into the book. While a couple of the characters are repeat characters in the series, for the most part it was a new setting and a mostly new cast of characters so it was easy to get into without any backstory. Normally I really struggle with books written in first person narration but this one was so easy to read that I didn't get hung up on that aspect of the book. I absolutely loved the setting of this story, the New Mexico feel is so evident (and the food descriptions made me so hungry). The mystery was intriguing with a lot of clues and players; I did figure it out quite a bit before Julienne but there was the question of motive that kept me reading and finding out how they were caught. I really enjoyed this book, it was easy to settle into and a pretty quick read. I am very intrigued with this series and I think I am going to go back and pick up the previous books in this series.

My Rating: This was a fun and engrossing mystery to read. I enjoyed the characters, setting and story and am looking forward picking up the rest of the books in the series.  I give this one a rating of Three Paws and a Stump Wag!

I received a complimentary copy of this book via Pump Up Your Book, the above is my honest review and opinion.

Amazon → https://amzn.to/39diFTN

After several songs had passed with us oblivious to any other living being, just wrapped up in each other, we stepped outside to stroll in the golden glow of a nearly full moon before heading to our room.  We walked hand-in-hand until we were surrounded by the landscaping around us and the shimmering moonlight through the trees.  Mason stopped and wrapped his muscular arms around me.

     “I am so grateful for you in my life.  I hope I never take you for granted or forget to tell you how important you are to me.”  He kissed me, sweet and slow.  He drew me closer, and the kiss deepened.  I slid my hands up his chest and around his neck.  My head and heart were spinning.  

     Then I felt something brush my foot.  Don’t spoil the moment LaMere, focus on the kiss.  I succumbed to the kiss again.  It had probably been a rabbit startled out of its hiding spot, right?  

     After another moment of blissful necking, my foot was brushed again before a hand - yes, a hand - grasped my left ankle.  I let out a yelp and jumped.  Mason pulled back and looked into my eyes.

     “A hand just latched onto my ankle!”  I don’t know why I was whispering, whoever owned the hand knew they had me in their grasp.

     We shifted and looked down to see an arm in a soiled white blazer reaching out from the bushes along the pathway.  The hand at the end of the arm was attached to my ankle.  I shook my foot, and the hand slipped away.  Mason released me, took a hold of the arm, and dragged Merritt, face up, out from the foliage.  He had an ancient looking arrow of wood protruding from his chest and blood drenched his shirt.   Mason bent down and placed two fingers to his throat.

p>     Merritt’s head twitched, and he breathed out a few words, “It’s the curse.  I didn’t believe it.  The curse got me.”  And he seemed to deflate like a balloon leaking air until he went flat, like the animating force had left him.  What curse is he talking about?  Oh my, I may never kiss again.

NAILED

ICED

SPIKED

Avery Daniels was born and raised in Colorado, graduated from college with a degree in business administration and has worked in fortune 500 companies and Department of Defense her entire life. Her most eventful job was apartment management for 352 units. She still resides in Colorado with two brother black cats as her spirited companions. She volunteers for a cat shelter, enjoys scrapbooking and card making, photography, and painting in watercolor and acrylic. She inherited a love for reading from her mother and grandmother and grew up talking about books at the dinner table.

Website:  http://avery-daniels.com/

Blog: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16863152.Avery_Daniels/blog

Twitter Address:  https://twitter.com/my_averydaniels

Facebook Address:  https://www.facebook.com/AveryDanielsAuthor/

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