4:100 The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

Today is the day the world ends, maybe for everyone, maybe just for Essun and those in the Sanze empire.  Essun doesn't really care. Her entire world ended, shattered, when she came home and found her young son brutally murdered by his father who has taken off with their daughter. To get her daughter back safely, to get revenge on her husband who murdered their son, Essun will do anything including shedding her guise as a normal human and start embracing her status as orogene, one who can wield the power of the Earth as a weapon.

On this same day, a madman has unleashed destruction on the empire of Sanze, an destructive force that has not been seen for centuries. A great rift has opened up at the heart of the continent. A Fifth Season, a season of destruction and desolation, has begun and no one knows how long it will last this time.

As Essun starts her journey, she meets with others who are unique as well. Their journeys merge and blend as they must figure out how to survive in this Season, how to find others who will not seek to destroy them for their differences but embrace them. How to help Essun find her way back to herself because she might just hold the secrets that can save or destroy them all.

This was an amazing book that deftly weaves it's story across time and lives into an incredibly deep and intricate universe.  It was so easy to read, to get lost in, to lose time in..and then you blink and realize it's been hours and you aren't sure where they went. But when you do surface, you are gasping for air to reconnect with this world because the other is so rich and alive it's hard to pull back from.  I'm very thankful that I discovered this amazing author and even more so that this trilogy is done so as soon as I can find more time to read for me, I can dive back into this universe. I have to find out the rest of Essun's story.



Page count: 498p/585p ytd/292,606p lifetime

3:100 Write in Water by Seanan McGuire

Patrick just wants to be left alone to tinker and dream of Dianda and what can never be when Sylvester shows up to drag him to Court for a party. Unfortunately, it's not just any party but the party celebrating Dianda's engagement.  Patrick is broken and disappears into the kitchens as quickly as he can to find some peace. Dianda, remembering his custom ends up there as well and boy is she pissed.

I'm really loving the Patrick and Dianda stories and seeing how they finally get together was just perfect.  I hope even though they are now together, we continue to get occasional stories about them as they are one of the more fascinating couples.  Unfortunately, their stories always come with a side of Simon and that is just sad seeing how he was and what could have been had he chosen other paths.  

Page count: 10p/87p ytd/292,108p lifetime

2:100 In Deepest Consequence by Seanan McGuire

Cailin needs a teacher and Tybalt will always go to the ends of the Earth and Faerie to do what is best for his niece. In this case, it means handing her over to September Tourqueville and hope that the girl he knew and loved growing up is still wanting to be outside the politics of the Courts and can be trusted to keep Cailin's secret safe.

I always love the Tybalt stories but I keep wishing I could like Cailin more. I get why she's so spoiled but still, it's getting annoying.


Page count: 14p/77p ytd/292,098p lifetime

1:100 The Groom's Ex by Faye Larson

Brice is Gary's ex so no one really expected him to be at Gary and Caleb's engagement party but Brice still considers Gary his friend and knows that the reason their relationship ended was because he was always putting work ahead of Gary and their relationship.  Definitely not Gary's fault. He is just going over to wish the happy couple the best when someone else storms in and starts making a scene. To have someone else take over the villain role in this scenario by barging in and being super rude to both Gary and Caleb was too much.  That is was Caleb's brother is not going to stop drinks from being thrown. What no one could have expected was how when Addison came to apologize and talk with Brice things would get heated in a much different way. 

I enjoyed this one especially because there was getting to know one another, there were doubts, there were lines in the sand.  I'm still not sure two workaholics would be able to go very far together but stranger things have happened and this is fiction. In all, a cute romance.


Page count: 63p/63p ytd/292,084p lifetime

2017 Recap and 2018 Goals

So 2017 was a weird year for me and reading. I have started reading a lot more news and becoming more active in my community about issues that I care about but that has meant reading a lot more about those issues so I can educate myself and try to figure out how I feel I can help address them so that has taken a lot of my recreational reading time. Add in, this was a stressful year on many fronts and that stress was making it hard for me to concentrate on books at all.  There is still a lot of stress going into 2018 but it's different kinds now. My husband is working long hours and also going to school so more of the housestuff is falling on me which I'm getting used to but I'm also starting a part-time work from home job which I'm very excited about but I'm not fooling myself thinking that it won't require a lot of adjustments on how things get done around here and it's going to take time (and a lot of effort on my part) to get everyone on board to keep things running smoothly.

So with all that, I think it was a miracle I finished any of my reading goals for 2017 but I did read 120 books by my count (Goodreads and I are having a difference of opinion about what counts so our numbers are off LOL) and I read 40 new authors (actually ended up backing off a few books towards the end there so I wouldn't go over and make 2018's goals harder) but I got nowhere near my page count since I ended up going with a lot of short stories to try and make the 120 books read (well, that and I had a lot from one of my author friends and I wanted to try and get those caught up).  That meant I read less than 23,000 out of the 40,000 page goal.

Since I knew that I was reading less, I was also trying to buy less but I was also learning about lots of new authors that looked really interesting in all my research so my To Read pile grew rather significantly over the year rather than shrinking or remaining fairly steady.  I was at 1351 to read at the start of 2017 and this year I'm at 1393.  Whoops!  LOL  I do think this may finally be the year that I see my Read list overtake my To Read list which is pretty exciting. *crossing my fingers it happens*.

So looking at everything going on in my life and knowing that I'd like to not have to depend on so many short stories to get me to my reading goals, I'm going to cut things down a bit to try and make it more realistic for me and see how it goes. I'm still going to try for 40 new authors as I'm continuing to try and branch out but I'm only going to try for 100 books and 25,000 pages and I'll just see how it goes.