So Many Books, So Little Time

  Stacking the Shelves is a weekly feature hosted by Tynga's Reviews.   Happy Sunday everyone!  I received one book this week and for the first time in a LONG time, I have no library books waiting for me.  I am actually kind of happy about that!   For Review:   The Lincoln Conspiracy by Timothy L. O' Brien   I have already started this book and it's pretty good so far!   What books did you get this week?     

From Goodreads:  Thea is a slave girl from Judaea, passionate, musical, and guarded. Purchased as a toy for the spiteful heiress Lepida Pollia, Thea will become her mistress's rival for the love of Arius the Barbarian, Rome's newest and most savage gladiator. His love brings Thea the first happiness of her life-that is quickly ended when a jealous Lepida tears them apart. As Lepida goes on to wreak havoc in the life of a new husband and his family, Thea remakes herself as a polished singer for Rome's aristocrats. Unwittingly, she attracts another admirer in the charismatic Emperor of Rome. But Domitian's games have a darker side, and Thea finds herself fighting for both soul and sanity. Many have tried to destroy the Emperor: a vengeful gladiator, an upright senator, a tormented soldier, a Vestal Virgin. But in the end, the life of the brilliant and paranoid Domitian lies in the hands of one woman: the Emperor's mistress. My Thoughts:  This is another one of thos

 Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish . This week's topic: Top Ten Books To Get in the Halloween Spirit  I love Halloween but I had a hard time with this topic.I did a Top Ten Tuesday post similar to this last year and it can be found here.   Today's list contains books that I either forgot to include or have read since then. 1.) Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist 2.) Bag of Bones by Stephen King 3.) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 4.) Christine by Stephen King 5.) The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi 6.) Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi 7.) In Cold Blood by Truman Capote That's all I have.  What books did I miss?  Leave a link to your post so I can check it out!

  Ugh.  I must say that I didn't enjoy the second part of Les Miserables as much as I did the first.  I read from pg 300-600 this month and it just was kind of painful.  There were like 20 pages that gave the history of a fictional convent.  It took a LONG time to get through this section because it was pretty boring at times.  The first 150 pages were pretty good.  I got to see more about Jean Valjean and Cosette and these sections were very interesting and kept me wanting more.  However, the story left these two characters and introduced Marius Pontmercy.  I am not sure what role he is going to play as the story continues but I didn' t like him much.  He seemed like the typical spoiled rich boy who wants to rebel against his strict upbringing.  I am hoping I will eventually like him but right now he is kind of a brat. I mentioned it in my last post but this book reminds me of War and Peace a lot.  They both have a multitude of characters and both of the stories contain

  Stacking the Shelves is a weekly feature hosted by Tynga's Reviews .   This week I received two books and I am super excited to read them both!!     Giveaway win (Thanks Historical Tapestry !): The Mirrored World by Debra Dean   Received from Online Book Club Exchange: A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin (I just finished watching Season 1 of Game of Thrones and can't wait to read this!)   What books did you get this week?  Leave me a link in the comments so I can check out your haul!    

  From Goodreads:  1660. King Charles II has returned from exile, but memories of the English Civil War still rankle. There are old scores to settle, and religious differences threaten to overturn a fragile peace. When Alice Ibbetson discovers a rare orchid, the Lady’s Slipper, growing in a wood belonging to Richard Wheeler, she is captivated by its beauty— though Wheeler, a Quaker, is determined to keep the flower where God intended it to grow. Knowing that the orchid is the last of its kind, she steals the flower, little dreaming that her seemingly simple act will set off a chain of events that will lead to murder and exile, and change her life forever… My Thoughts:  The Lady's Slipper was not at all what I expected it to be but it wound up being a decent read.  The story took me a while to get into.  It started very abruptly and I couldn't understand what was going on and why Alice decided to steal the flower.  It was only after I had read a bit that I began to see whe

From Goodreads:  When Mae-June July Augustine hightailed it out of Sultry Springs, Texas, with her heart in pieces, she swore she'd never return. But nine years later, one thing stands between June and her dream of opening an upscale martini bar: a month of community service under the supervision of the devilishly sexy Luke Gallagher, her first love and ex-best friend. As lust turns to love, June must decide where she belongs: in the glorious anonymity of Austin or back in Sultry Springs with the man who intoxicates her like no other. My Thoughts:  I don't usually read a lot of romance novels but this one sounded so good that I had to pick it up.  It did not disappoint!  It pulled me in from the very beginning and there were enough turns to keep me reading.  I actually read it all in a few hours, it moved that fast. I loved the characters and the romance between June and Luke was so adorable.  June is stubborn, feisty and kind of accident prone and Luke is the sweetest g

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish . This week's topic is:  Top Ten Favorite Authors of Historical Fiction 1.) Diana Gabaldon- I know I say it all the time but I LOVE the Outlander series and I think Diana Gabaldon does an amazing job of writing and researching historical events. 2.) Paullina Simons- Paullina Simons is the author of the The Bronze Horseman trilogy.  It is one of the most emotional series I have ever read and she really made World War II Leningrad come to life (the good and the bad). 3.) Anne Easter Smith- I love her books about the the Wars of the Roses.  They are wonderful! 4.) Alison Weir- Alison Weir is one of my favorite authors.  I will read just about anything she writes (fiction or non-fiction). 5.) C.W. Gortner- Gortner's books are beautifully written and are about famous historical women who tend to get ignored in the historical fiction genre. 6.) Susan Higginbotham- Higginbotham is my go-to author

From Goodreads:  Told in Kvothe's own voice, this is the tale of the magically gifted young man who grows to be the most notorious wizard his world has ever seen.The intimate narrative of his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, his years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-ridden city, his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a legendary school of magic, and his life as a fugitive after the murder of a king form a gripping coming-of-age story unrivaled in recent literature. A high-action story written with a poet's hand, The Name of the Wind is a masterpiece that will transport readers into the body and mind of a wizard. My Thoughts:  I have heard nothing but good things about this book so I had some really high hopes.  However, for me, it did not live up to the hype.  I kept waiting for something to happen that would make me fall in love with the story and/or Kvothe and it just never happened.  I liked the story and most of the characters but it moved sl

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly feature hosted by Tynga's Reviews .   This week I only picked up one book.  This is completely fine with me because even after the Readathon, I am still feeling a little behind with my reading.   From the Library:   The Dark Highlander by Karen Marie Moning   I loved Kiss of the Highlander  and can't wait to read this one!   What books did you pick up this week?  

Today is Dewey's 24 hour Read-A-Thon !!  It's my first time and it's a little bittersweet.  I thought I wouldn't be able to participate because I was supposed to run a 1/2 marathon today.  Due to my knee injury, I won't be able to run but I will be able to spend the day reading.  YAY!  I am definitely not going to be super hardcore and read the entire 24 hours but I am hoping to get more reading in then usual. We'll see.  I planned to get a ton of stuff done last night and it just didn't happen so I will have to take some breaks to clean and do laundry and go to a family dinner. I don't have a huge stack of books to read today.  I have a about 150 pages left to read in The Name of the Wind so I am definitely going to finish that today because I am sick of reading it.  I really need a brain break after TNOTW so I am thinking I might pick up Sultry with a Twist first.  Intro Survey!! 1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

  From Goodreads:  Indiana , 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother's bedside. She's been stricken with something the old-timers call "Milk Sickness." "My baby boy..." she whispers before dying. Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother's fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire. When the truth becomes known to young Lincoln, he writes in his journal, " henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose ..." Gifted with his legendary height, strength, and skill with an ax, Abe sets out on a path of vengeance that will lead him all the way to the White House. While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in

        From Goodreads:  Swept up in the maelstrom of Stalin’s Great Terror of 1937-1938, nearly a million people died. Most were ordinary citizens who left no records and as a result have been completely forgotten. This book is the first to attempt to retrieve their stories and reconstruct their lives, drawing upon recently declassified archives of the former Soviet Secret Police in Kiev. Hiroaki Kuromiya uncovers in the archives the hushed voices of the condemned, and he chronicles the lives of dozens of individuals who shared the same dehumanizing fate: all were falsely arrested, executed, and dumped in mass graves.  Kuromiya investigates the truth behind the fabricated records, filling in at least some of the details of the lives and deaths of ballerinas, priests, beggars, teachers, peasants, workers, soldiers, pensioners, homemakers, fugitives, peddlers, ethnic Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Germans, Koreans, Jews, and others. In recounting the extraordinary stories gleane

  Stacking the Shelves is a weekly feature hosted by Tynga's Reviews .   This week I only picked up one book but it is one that I have been waiting for! I can't wait to dive in!   Ebook:   Sultry with a Twist by Macy Beckett   What books did you pick up this week?  

From Goodreads:  1959 England. Laurel Nicolson is sixteen years old, dreaming alone in her childhood tree house during a family celebration at their home, Green Acres Farm. She spies a stranger coming up the long road to the farm and then observes her mother, Dorothy, speaking to him. And then she witnesses a crime. Fifty years later, Laurel is a successful and well-regarded actress, living in London. She returns to Green Acres for Dorothy’s ninetieth birthday and finds herself overwhelmed by memories and questions she has not thought about for decades. She decides to find out the truth about the events of that summer day and lay to rest her own feelings of guilt. One photograph, of her mother and a woman Laurel has never met, called Vivian, is her first clue. The Secret Keeper explores longings and dreams, the lengths some people go to fulfill them, and the strange consequences they sometimes have. It is a story of lovers, friends, dreamers and schemers, play-acting and deception to

Synopsis:  C a mbridge, England, 1905. Jane Porter is hardly a typical woman of her time. The only female student in Cambridge University’s medical program, she is far more comfortable in a lab coat dissecting corpses than she is in a corset and gown sipping afternoon tea. A budding paleoanthropologist, Jane dreams of traveling the globe in search of fossils that will prove the evolutionary theories of her scientific hero, Charles Darwin. When dashing American explorer Ral Conrath invites Jane and her father to join an expedition deep into West Africa, she can hardly believe her luck. Africa is every bit as exotic and fascinating as she has always imagined, but Jane quickly learns that the lush jungle is full of secrets—and so is Ral Conrath. When danger strikes, Jane finds her hero, the key to humanity’s past, and an all-consuming love in one extraordinary man: Tarzan of the Apes. Jane is the first version of the Tarzan story written by a woman and authorized by the Edgar Rice

Please welcome Robin Maxwell to So Many Books, So Little Time!  Her newest novel, Jane:  The Woman Who Loved Tarzan was released on September 18 from Tor Books and she is here today with a guest post.   “Tarzan:   Why I Loved Him Then.   Why I Love Him Now”   My first heartthrob was Tarzan.   There I was, a pre-pubescent girl with hormones raging, when I caught sight of the next-to-naked ape-man swinging through the vines with a pretty brunette in an equally skimpy outfit.   They’d swim nude together in an elegiac underwater ballet, and ride on the back of elephants.   He’d fight alligators and lions, to save her neck. They were friends with exotic African tribes and enemies of some pretty scary cannibals.   This wild couple lived in a cozy little “nest” high up in a tree, bathed in paradisiacal waterfalls, had a chimp for a buddy, and best of all had nobody telling them to behave or act more civilized. This was a very rich brew. Now let me get back to the “next-t

I can't believe September is over already!!  It went by so fast but I am really excited for October and all of the upcoming fall holidays.  September was another slow reading month for me.  I read 7 books as well as the first 300 pages in Les Miserables .  This puts me at a total of 92 books read for the year which is approximately 50 less than I had finished at this point last year.  I am definitely not reading as much this year as I was last year but I still feel pretty good about where I stand.  I only have 3 challenge books left to finish in addition to finishing Les Mis so I will definitely complete all of my challenges this year. I set a bunch of goals for myself at the beginning of this month and I'll be honest, I didn't meet very many of them.  A lot of unexpected things happened in September, some good and some bad, and it was hard to make time for everything I wanted to do.  The hubs started a fantastic new job (YAY) and I hurt my knee to the point where I had