109:120 How to Piss Off a Failed Super-Soldier by John Chu

Aitch was created to be a super soldier. From birth, he was treated more as an experiment than a person, tested on endlessly and trained to be the best.  When Aitch finally escapes, the government wants to cover up what they were doing so the attempts on his life never stop.  Now his brother, Jay, tells him there is a cure and he wants so much to believe but can he trust anyone, even Jay?

Mr. Chu is a master at creating intriguing characters in well-crafted worlds in such a short period of time. It's truly a treat to read his work. 


Page count: 35p/19,722p ytd/291,125p lifetime

108:120 Bright Thrones by Kate Elliot

The story of Bettany and what happened to her after her family's fall from grace and then after she runs into her twin, Jessamy.  Bettany was taken to the mines but managed to show that she could be more useful to Lord Agular as a scribe and assistant but she also realizes that he is not exactly what he appears to be either and that maybe they can help each other.

It was interesting to see more of what happened with Bettany since she was the only sister who was separated from the group and basically remained so for most of the trilogy. I wanted to like this and there were parts that I did but at the same time I was disappointed with the what felt like a forced romance.  Her falling for Lord Agular given her contempt and disgust with the upper classes made no sense at all and fell flat which then made much of what she did later in the story just not work for me either.  I just wish she had stayed more true to who she thought she was.


Page count: 98p/19,687p ytd/291,090p lifetime

107:120 Doctor Who: Revenge of the Judoon by Terrance Dicks

It's 1902 and the Doctor and Martha run into Captain Carruthers, a friend of King Edward VII, who invites them back to Balmoral Castle to meet him but when they arrive where the castle should be, it's not there.  The Doctor soon figures out that this is the work of the Judoon and he goes off in the TARDIS to try and find the King and castle while Martha heads to London with Captain Carruthers to try and figure out who is behind the disappearance. While in London, she is introduced to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and a mysterious society he is part of, a society that gave him a present for the King which he dutifully delivered not that long ago.  Meanwhile, the Doctor has found the castle in the desert surrounded by Judoon. Now he must try and figure out who is ordering them and why such a normally honorable and rule-bound race would be interfering with the human race in this manner.  Then he just needs to figure out how to fix it all and put things back the way he knows they should be.

I always like the 10th Doctor and Martha and this story definitely seemed to get their voices right. It's a QuickReads so there isn't a lot of depth or description, basically a bare bones story but it worked nicely. 


Page count: 102p/19,589p ytd/290,992p lifetime

106:120 White Trash Zombie Unchained by Diana Rowland

White Trash Zombie #6

Angel is finally back in one piece and it's not a moment too soon. Now she just wants to try and get the rest of her life back together as much as she can but things are just never that simple for her. The zombie shambler she made by accident before her dismemberment seems to have made friends and it's spreading by some vector that isn't just being bitten by other shamblers. Angel and the rest of the real zombie crew need to figure out what is going on and how they can not only stop it but if possible, reverse it's course on those who they have tied down and still 'alive'. For Angel, this is an absolute necessity now that Nick has been affected as well. 

I continue to really enjoy this series. Angel is easy to relate to in her earnestness and desires and how she beats herself up but then picks herself up and works hard to make amends. She continues to grow and learn and make mistakes and try again. My only wish is that it wasn't so long between books!

Page count: 354p/19,487p ytd/290,890p lifetime

105:120 Target Practice by Seanan McGuire

Alice has snuck out again and gone into the Woods. This time she managed to find a dire boar and only barely managed to run fast enough to end up at Thomas Price's back porch where he was able to wound it enough to scare it off. Unfortunately, her father was yet again not of a mind to listen to her when she got home from her latest adventures. Jonathan wants so much for his daughter to have a 'normal' childhood that he is blinded to who she really is, her mother's daughter above all else. Normal was never going to happen.  Now his parents must intervene if Alice is going to have a chance of surviving to adulthood.

I've really been enjoying these backstory pieces Ms. McGuire posts on her website for her fans. It's a generous thing that she does and it's fascinating seeing where the current crop of Price-Healy kids come from because these apples definitely didn't fall far from the tree.



Page count: 17p/19,133p ytd/290,536p lifetime

104:120 Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman

Mom has left to go to a conference and let everything all ready for the family except for one thing, she told dad on her way out that he needed to get milk before breakfast the next morning.

Dad forgot.

So now there is no milk for cereal and the kids are complaining so Dad goes to the store but geez he's gone for a loooooooong time. And when he finally does make it back home, with the milk, he has quite the story to tell of why it took him so long which includes a time-traveling stegosaurus, a volcano god, and pirates.

A fun tale about what happens when you run to the store for milk.  I totally believe every word of it because I've had similar things happen to me.  Just ask my kids.



Page count: 113p/19,116p ytd/290,519p lifetime

103:120 Face Your Fears by Stefon Mears

Harold has always been scared of the dark but it got worse after a camping trip with his parents to Crater Lake. Now he is a grown man and this fear still haunts him but tonight, after attending a seminar on success and being told to face his fears, he has decided to go for a walk at night. He sets his timer and sets off. It goes well until it's almost time to turn back and then the regular night noises stop and Harold really does have to face down his fears...

A delightful horror short story. I was reading it just before bed and decided that when Harold was going to go for a walk, it might just be better for my getting sleep that night to put it down until the morning. Now that I've read it, I'm not 100% sure that wasn't such a bad idea.  Definitely spooky and very riveting.


Page count: 23p/19,003p ytd/290,406p lifetime

102:120 Murder, She Meowed by Rita Mae Brown & Sneaky Pie Brown

It's the day of the annual steeplechase and Mary 'Harry' Haristeen is enjoying helping down at the track with her dog, Tucker. It's a day that the entire town looks forward to and the races this day are good, except for an altercation between two of the jockeys during one race where Linda whips at Nigel and he retaliates.  Harry dutifully reports it but no one thinks anything further about it, until Nigel is found dead later that night, stabbed through the heart with the Queen of Clubs stuck to him.  Unfortunately, within a few days he is joined by another jockey, this time with the Queen of Spades pinned to him. Now Harry's cat, Mrs. Murphy, puts her nose to the case but even once they find several clues, it's so hard to get the dang humans to pay attention to them.  Can the animals point them in the right direction before it's too late to save another one?

This is the 5th book in the series but the first one I read because this is the one my friend loaned me and my 11yr old is really getting into mysteries so I'm checking things out for him. Even though I hadn't read the previous books, I didn't feel like I was really missing anything in terms of backstory or understanding the characters relationships.  This was cute, if fairly predictable but I doubt I'll read any more. I've read enough of this type to know that they tend to be pretty formulaic and get tedious after a while and there are just too many other more interesting books out there to read.


Page count: 302p/18,980p ytd/290,383p lifetime

101:120 Bound by Word by Faye Larson

Morgan's allies have turned on him and he can't use his magic to escape since it would simply send-up a big sign pointing out his exact location to his enemies so finding passage on a boat is the best he can do. However, due to his swift departure he is very short on funds. No surprise when the captain is not super tempted by the promise of payment on the other side of the voyage so he makes a different proposition for Morgan to earn his keep onboard, in the captain's bed.

There is some interesting back story and world building going on that would have been interesting to explore but the main point of this was the romance and that happens but for no reason other than Morgan's need. I much prefer the stories where the characters either have a previous relationship that turns deeper or are spending time to get to know each other. This one was more about exploitation than romance and that is not for me.  For the record, I know the author and was given a copy of this with no expectations.


Page count: 25p/18,678p ytd/290,081p lifetime

100:120 Hold-Time Violations by John Chu

Ellie lives in a world where she is what is known as a builder, one who can work within the skunkworks that create all the known universes. There are pipes and machines underneath that control the physics of each universe but sometimes things go out of whack and a builder is sent in to fix things. Today Ellie is just going to visit her mom until her sister sends her to fix the physics of the skunkworks instead (and instead of sending someone to kill her which is actually much more normal for their relationship). Now Ellie is trying to find the problem before the Isolationists show up, a group who thinks that whatever happens was meant to be and the skunkworks should be left alone. The only problem is that when Ellie discovers the problem, it's much more than just a simple fix.

This is the second short story that I've read by this author and I'm amazed again at his world building skills. This one was a bit harder to get into and I had to really slow down to fully get all the relationships and how the world worked but it was well worth it. 



Page count: 22p/18,653p ytd/290,056p lifetime

99:120 Choke by Lisa Towles

Kerry is trying to get her life back on track after her divorce. She is doing her training as a CNA when a patient's chart goes missing and she is being blamed. When she gets home from that day at work, her apartment looks like someone has been there and when in the bath she hears a key in the lock. Thus begins her finding out that everything she thinks she knows about her life has been a lie. Now she is being chased by a group of people that want something from her past, something that she doesn't remember, and they are willing to kill to get it.

Adrian (on the other side of the country) has discovered a way to make a cigarette that actually cures lung cancer. Word has gotten out and big pharma will stop at nothing to get it.

There were 2 main story arcs going on in this book and either one could have been interesting but they didn't really have anything to do with each other except where they were obviously forced together to try and make a coherent plot. It failed spectacularly. It was heavy handed and easy to see coming from very early on in the story. The constant shifting of perspectives was disjointed and annoying. Maybe if this had been two different books, one for each story arc, it would have been better but as written it was just a boring, predictable, mishmash of ideas.  It's only saving grace was that the word choice was simplistic so it was a fast read.


Page count: 262p/18,631p ytd/290,034p lifetime

98:120 Last Call at the Last Chance by Seanan McGuire

Emma has been dead and running the Last Dance Diner for a long time. She generally keeps her cool and helps those who are ready to move on their way but tonight there is a customer who deserves no hospitality. Bobby Cross kidnapped her the last time she saw him and she is not the forgiving type. Tonight Bobby swears he won't do anything like that but when he pulls a gun out to make her and some of her guests play cards with him, the stakes are there anyway.

I think Ms. McGuire's ghost universe is so well done with the different types of ghosts and I look forward to reading more about them.

Page count: 17p/18,369p ytd/289,722p lifetime

97:120 Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

David Balfour had led a fairly sheltered life so it was surprising to him when his parents died that his uncle instead of taking him in as family should rightfully do instead sold him off to a ship bound for another land. When the ship takes on another passenger, Alan, and David hears of plans to kill that passenger for his money, he decides to take a stand with Alan and together they are able to defeat the leaders but then end up shipwrecked on the rocks in a part of Scotland that David is unfamiliar with and where Alan is a wanted man. David must follow the clues to find Alan and a way home through Scotland with his head still intact. Much easier said than done.

Read this for a high school English class with my 16yr old as part of his Hero's Journey studies. The story was fairly simple but I will admit that a bit more knowledge of the revolution that was going on in Scotland and England at the time would have helped me understand more of the characters interactions better I think.  Reading the Scottish brogue was not my son's favorite part and I'm thankful to have enough of an acquaintance with it that I didn't find it distracting from the story. 


Page count: 217p/18,352p ytd/289,705p lifetime

96:120 Practically Married by Faye Larson

Many single people put their best friends down as their emergency contacts so Martin thought nothing of having Sawyer down as his. What he didn't expect was to wake up in the hospital with Sawyer in the room talking to the nurse about the fact that Martin was now missing his appendix and they are engaged. Apparently that was easier for the hospital to understand when Sawyer showed up after being called so now Martin is living at Sawyer's home while he mends and is trying to figure out how he is going to pay off this new medical bill. What he didn't expect was just how nice it would be and how much he didn't actually know about his best friend.

A cute little tale about how we don't always see what's right in front of our faces. Character development is pretty much on par with what you would expect for a short story and there is a little much reliance on repetitious internal dialog for my taste but overall, it was enjoyable way to spend 30min.  My usual disclaimer, I know the author and was given a copy of this book for free with no expectations


Page count: 89p/18,135p ytd/289,488p lifetime

95:120 The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Expurey

A pilot is stranded in the desert when he wakes one morning to find this strange little fellow who asks the most extraordinary questions and has the most amazing tale to tell of his little planet with it's three volcanoes (although one is extinct) where he can see the sun set so many times in one day and he has one perfect little flower with four thorns. He asks the pilot to draw him a sheep even though the pilot says he can only draw boa constrictors digesting an elephant. But the little fellow thinks the drawing is perfect and then starts telling all about his journey to Earth and all the other planets he visited and how they all had adults doing adult things who didn't listen or understand. Slowly, understanding dawns on the pilot and he starts realizing there is more to this little fellow (and life) than he originally thought.

I don't know quite why I never read this book when I was younger but this was my first time reading it and it was just lovely.  A simple tale that isn't really simple at all when you come back to reality after reading it, realizing that it has changed you as well as the pilot who told it.


Page count: 85p/18,046p ytd/289,399p lifetime

94:120 All the Pretty Little Horses by Mira Grant

Set in the time before Feed, the zombie outbreak is finally being contained and areas are being reclaimed. Stacy and Michael Mason are known as the heroes who kept on the blogs and the airwaves, giving survival guidance and letting people know they were not alone. Now, however, Stacy is diving deep into depression with the knowledge that she shot her only child during the outbreak and that while the courts have declared her innocent, she has judged herself much more harshly and branded herself a murderer.  Michael can only watch in despair as the woman he loves sinks further and further away from him. Then one day he comes up with the idea to start documenting the recovery efforts. He pulls every string he has to get them permission to tagalong with an army group in Santa Cruz and everything changes when Stacy gets a camera in her hand. She comes alive but never more than when they find the group of children who have been hiding out all this time. Maybe Michael has found a way to bring his wife all the way back to him.

I absolutely love this universe and the heartache that went into telling Stacy's story was so real. I cannot imagine having to make the decision she did or how I would climb back out of a very dark place if I did but it feels like a very real situation someone could find themselves in. That realness to her writing is what makes these books so very powerful and this did not disappoint.



Page count: 84p/17,961p ytd/289,314p lifetime

93:120 History of US vol 8: An Age of Extremes by Joy Hakim

Review from 2013:
Middle-School History covering 1880-1917.   This book focused first on the power houses of their day: Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Morgan.  It also talked about the inventions and innovations of the Gilded Age but also focused a lot on the extremes between the rich and poor and the politics behind it like the city bosses but also how the progressives came into being trying to deal with the injustices they saw all around and the reforms that came about such as the child labor laws, juvenile courts, the 40hr work week, and unions.  The book leaves off at the start of WWI during Woodrow Wilson's presidency.

I liked this one probably the best of all so far.  Things seemed to flow better from one chapter to the next and I didn't feel like we were bopping around all over the place completely out of order.


Page count: 215p/17,877p ytd/289,230 lifetime

92:120 The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis

My review from 2012:
An enjoyable romp through other areas in the Narnia universe that eventually lead into Narnia itself, but only briefly.  King Edmund, Queen Lucy, and Queen Susan make small appearances but are not integral to the story rather it's an adventure tale of two children running away from Tashbaan towards Narnia with two talking horses but who find out about a plot to destroy Narnia and must do the near impossible to get the news into the right hands.  You can definitely see the Aslan/God connection very heavily in this one as he orchestrates things for the greater good of the land he loves.



Page count: 224p/17,662p ytd/289,015p lifetime

91:120 The Pumpkin Pact by Faye Larson

It's been 8mos of wedded bliss for Keith and Preston. Or, well, mostly. Preston is still haunted by his previous relationship and there are days when he can barely stand to be touch but Keith is supportive and tender during these times, never pushing him. Now it's October, the month of pumpkin everything, and Keith is shocked to learn that Preston has never been to a pumpkin patch. This is a treasured memory for Keith, going every year to the patch with his parents and sister, and he is determined to bring Preston into this tradition. For a work-aholic like Keith to volunteer to take a day off tells Preston just how special this is to him. Now if only work would be so accommodating to Keith's plans.

It was nice revisiting these two and seeing how their relationship has been progressing. Being married to someone who isn't a work-aholic but whose job can never seem to manage without him, I completely felt for Preston (and for Keith as well who kept trying to get away). Unfortunately this situation was all too common in Silicon Valley. I hope Ms. Larson continues to do stories about this couples and we get to see Preston through his healing process.  Usual disclaimer, I know the author and was given a free copy with no expectations.


Page count: 47p/17,662p ytd/288,791p lifetime