Top 5 Wednesday - Series Endings (with a twist)

Top 5 Wednesday was created by Gingereadslainey on booktube and can also be found on goodreads.  The link is located HERE.  This week's topic is Top 5 Series Endings, but since I haven't finished a lot of series, I am twisting it a bit and mentioning 5 series I wish would end or are glad they finally did end...some for good reasons and some for reasons not so good.

1.  ANITA BLAKE SERIES by Laurell K. Hamilton.  This is the 23rd book in the series which is due out this summer.  I think I have read the first 8, they definitely get stranger as they go on. I would like to think I would be more encouraged to read them if I hadn't heard such bad things and if there seemed to be an end in sight.

2.  SOOKIE STACKHOUSE SERIES by Charlaine Harris.  The above book was the last one...I think,  It is 13.5 in the series.  I need to read the last 4 but to be honest, I lost interest in them.  The books sort of went "way out there" and I ended up getting them confused with the HBO series.  I will finish this some day on principle, and because a part of me wants to know how they end, but overall I am glad they are done.

3.  THE UNDEAD SERIES by Maryjanice Davidson.  So far I have read through #13 and this is #15 which is due out this summer.  These books, as well as the covers, have gotten worse as they progressed.

4.  THE DRESDEN FILES by Jim Butcher.  Wait!  Don't get me wrong.  I love this series and have only read the first 5,  This is number 15 which was released last year.  I seriously plan to continue with this series but it keeps going on and it has become a pretty daunting task.

5.  OTHERWORLD/SISTERS OF THE MOON SERIES by Yasmine Galenorn.  Another series I love,  I read the first 8 and then lost track.  It is one of my goals to catch up this year but since this is #17 and #18 is do out later this year, this is another overwhelming task.

So here you have it, my Top 5 with a Twist!  Hope you enjoyed.

Waiting on Wednesday (4)

"Waiting on" Wednesday is weekly meme hosted over at Breaking the Spine which spotlights upcoming anticipated releases.

This week I am featuring The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich.  This book releases on September 15, 2015 and sounds like one I need to get my hands on.  

FROM GOODREADS:
Over two decades have passed since the fire at Elmbridge High, an inferno that took the lives of three teenagers. Not much was known about the events leading up to the tragedy - only that one student, Carly Johnson, vanished without a trace...

...until a diary is found hidden in the ruins.

But the diary, badly scorched, does not belong to Carly Johnson. It belongs to Kaitlyn Johnson, a girl who shouldn't exist Who was Kaitlyn? Why did she come out only at night? What is her connection to Carly?

The case has been reopened. Police records are being reexamined: psychiatric reports, video footage, text messages, e-mails. And the diary.

The diary that paints a much more sinister version of events than was ever made publicly known.

What are you waiting for this week?

Top 10 Tuesday - Favorite Books with Characters with Four Legs!

The Top 10 weekly meme is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and can be found here.   Each week they focus on lists which cover various topics related to books and reading. This week we are looking at my favorite characters with 4 legs.  A strange topic I know, but if you know me at all, once that makes sense.  As usual. these are in no particular order.

  
1.  BITTEN: Kelley Armstrong .  Clay and Elena from The Women of the Otherworld series are definitely your wolf powerhouse couple.

2. WRITTEN IN RED (The Others #1): Anne Bishop.  I love Simon.  And his relationship with Meg, while slow to develop, kills me with the anticipation of what might happen someday.

3.  ELYSIAN FIELDS (Sentinels of New Orleans #3): Suzanne Johnson.  Jake Warin is a great side character who is fighting his loup-garou nature which makes for some interesting times in this great series. And as an added plus, the 4th book just came out last week!

4.  MOON CALLED (Mercy Thompson #1): Patricia Briggs.  Although Mercy is a coyote shifter, her mate is a werewolf so they both qualify as some of my most favorite 4 legged characters. 

5.  A TASTE FUR MURDER (Whiskey, Tango and Foxtrot Mystery #1): Dixie Lyle.  This book has the most awesome ghost dog and ghost cat which help Deirdre solve animal related shenanigans.  Even though Whiskey and Tango are ghosts, they still have 4 legs.

6.  THE PATRON SAINT OF LOST DOGS (Cyrus Mills #1): Nick Trout.  The two books in this series are so great I recommend them any chance I get.  I really loved Freida Fuzzypaws who plays a wonderful role helping Cyrus adjust to small town life and realize that he really wants to spend his time saving animals.

7.  SURVIVING HENRY- ADVENTURES IN LOVING A CANINE CATASTROPHE: Erin Taylor Young.  Henry is a young boxer who manages to get into all kinds of trouble.  This true story by Young tells of the lengths a family will go to to try to keep a handful of dog in their home.  Of course, it doesn't hurt that Henry is a boxer.

8. LOST DOGS AND LONELY HEARTS: Lucy Dillon.  I absolutely loved how Bertie the Bassett helped mend broken hearts in this book by one of my favorite authors.  If you love dogs and enjoy books about their relationships and healing capabilities with humans, definitely pick up Dillon's books.

9.  THE MIDNIGHT PLAN OF THE REPO MAN: W. Bruce Cameron.  Ruddy saves Jake the Bassett early on in this series and Jake is the epitome of a often lazy, sometimes hungry, and always loyal best friend.

10.  DEFINITELY DEAD (Sookie Stackhouse #6): Charlaine Harris.  This book came out when the series was still on the most-anticipated release list for me.  I adore Quinn the shifter tiger and felt he and Sookie had a chemistry together which should have been explored further.

So I guess this is a pretty strange list but please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas.  Also leave a link for your lists!  Thanks for visiting,

Elvis and the Dearly Departed

TITLE: Elvis and the Dearly Departed (A Southern Cousins Mystery #1):         
AUTHOR: Peggy Webb
PUBLISHER: Kensington
PUBLISHING DATE: October 1, 2008

FROM GOODREADS: Fried Green Tomatoes meets Stephanie Plum, in this sassy, Southern series starring the lovable and eccentric Valentines and Callie Valentine's failed show dog, a basset hound named Elvis.

MY THOUGHTS:  Ok. Let me first explain my rating a tad. Overall, I probably would have given this book 3 stars based on plot and characters. However, it has a dog...a funny dog...a dog who thinks he is (and may be) Elvis reincarnated. And in between some chapters, Elvis has his own chapters in which he is funny, endearing and snarky. Therefore, Elvis earned this book an additional star.

This is basically like a lot of other cozy mysteries and while there is no paranormal aspect, like I usually enjoy, there are some pretty hilarious characters. I love Callie and her cousin Lovie and some of the predicaments they find themselves in. The Valentine family definitely put the "fun" in dysfunctional and I believe they think anything can be fixed with family ties, humor, and booze. 

The family owns a funeral home and although Callie is a hairdresser, she works for the home on the side and runs a boarding house for any family members who visit the small town for the proceedings. Lovie is a sex-crazed, curvaceous caterer who has a way for landing into trouble and "working" her way out of it. In this first book, one corpse turns up missing and another suddenly appears and Callie and Lovie take it upon themselves to find out what is going on. 

The plot is fast paced and interesting enough and in general, this book was a quick read. I will definitely continue on with the series because I know my library has all of them available. I would recommend this for anyone who likes cozy mysteries or dogs - really cute dogs. It also wouldn't hurt to have an appreciation for Elvis, which I do not, but it didn't hamper my opinion of the book in any way.

RATING: 4 PAWS

BOOKER T'S RATING: 4 PAWS

I want to stand proud and give Elvis a 4 paw rating.  I think the cover did him justice and you might notice he is the only character that has a face.  I believe Elvis would be fun to hang around with.  He is always looking out for his owners, he is trying to get his mom and dad back together again, and he likes to eat and sleep.  I had a little trouble understanding the whole "I am the King...thank ya very much" thing, but Mom explained it has something to do with some guy who was famous way before our times.  The only issue I had with Elvis is he kept running away to be with a French Poodle.  Poodles just aren't my thing, although Cassie used to have a crush on the Giant Poodle who lived across the street named Lexie.  I think all dog lovers need to give Elvis a chance and give this book a try.  He is a lot of fun and I can't wait to get to know him better in future installments!

Stacking the Shelves (13)

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!  The original meme was started over at Tynga's Reviews. This week I am only featuring library books since I just visited. Sorry for the crappy pictures.  I wanted to take quick shots and used my ipod.

Locke and Key Vol 3 and Locke and Key Vol 4: Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodroguez.

Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant: Tony Cliff

Spell Booked (Retired Witches Mystery #1): Joyce and Jim Lavene

The Shambing Guide to New York City: Mur Lafferty

Eterna Files: Leanna Renee Hieber

Amulet Vol 1: The Stonekeeper: Kazu Kibuishi

Lost & Found: Brooke Davis

I also checked out 2 digital library books:

  The Secret Zoo (Secret Zoo #1): Bryan Chick

The Alex Crow: Andrew Smith

And on a side note.  When I went to the library today, I think the director checked me out,  He doesn't usually work the desk but there was a long line.  When he saw the Locke & Key books, he mentioned that he had been thinking of giving them a go and that Joe Hill is one scary writer.  I mentioned that considering who his father is, would you expect anything else?  Can you believe he didn't know Joe Hill was Stephen King's son?  Now I can understand if he had no clue about Joe Hill at all but he clearly did.  I think he is in the wrong profession, or else he needs to do his homework.


What did you guys snag this week? Leave me a link so I can check out your stack,

When We Were Animals

TITLE: When We Were Animals
AUTHOR: Joshua Gaylord
PUBLISHER: Mulholland Books
PUBLISHING DATE: April 21, 2015

FROM GOODREADS: A small, quiet Midwestern town, which is unremarkable save for one fact: when the teenagers reach a certain age, they run wild.

When Lumen Fowler looks back on her childhood, she wouldn't have guessed she would become a kind suburban wife, a devoted mother. In fact, she never thought she would escape her small and peculiar hometown. When We Were Animals is Lumen's confessional: as a well-behaved and over-achieving teenager, she fell beneath the sway of her community's darkest, strangest secret. For one year, beginning at puberty, every resident "breaches" during the full moon. On these nights, adolescents run wild, destroying everything in their path.

Lumen resists. Promising her father she will never breach, she investigates the mystery of her community's traditions and the stories erased from the town record. But the more we learn about the town's past, the more we realize that Lumen's memories are harboring secrets of their own.
A gothic coming-of-age tale for modern times, When We Were Animals is a dark, provocative journey into the American heartland.

MY THOUGHTS: First let me say I received a copy of this in exchange for an honest review. I have seen this book hyped on several blogs and various sites and basically couldn't wait to get to it. Having said that, that thought quickly turned in to I couldn't wait to get through with it. This book is a coming-of-age novel about Lumen. Lumen lives in a town where when teenagers reach puberty, they start a process called "breeching" which involves running around naked, hurting people and themselves, and having random sex for a year or so. This happens during the Moon cycles and last about 3 days a month. During this time, after dark, the rest of town basically locks themselves away at night. Lumen doesn't want to breech. She believes her mother, who is dead, never did and she wants to be just like her. In the end, the reader finds out how much they really are alike.

Now I am all for weird books. Every once in a while I want to read one here or there. But even though it should have, this book never really grabbed my attention. I was never really invested in any of the characters and spent half of the book wondering what Gaylord was thinking when he wrote this. However, I do believe the book deserves at least a 3 star rating even though I did not enjoy reading it. It was well written, and for some reason, even though I wanted to quit it, I cared enough to see where the story was headed. I would have enjoyed learning more about Lumen's adult life once she got out of this crazy town, but the reader only gets a glimpse of that world.

I don't really know who to recommend this book to so basically I will saw read at your own risk. I didn't absolutely hate it, but I would never read it again or purchase my own copy. 

RATING: 3 PAWS

Waiting on Wednesday (3)

"Waiting on" Wednesday is weekly meme hosted over at Breaking the Spine which spotlights upcoming anticipated releases.  

This week I am featuring The Mannequins by Elyse Salpeter.  It comes out October 23, 2015 and sounds like a great, creepy Halloween read!


In the deep woods of California, there’s an old decaying mansion with a terrible secret. When any enter its doors, the house claims them, propelling them to a land in a different reality, run by a man who calls himself, the Preacher. If you play by his rules, you live a life of luxury, but if you displease him? With a flick of his wrist, you are transformed into a living doll, a mannequin, and there is no escape… until the madman is done playing with you.




What are you waiting for???

Top 10 Tuesday - Favorite Authors

The Top 10 weekly meme is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and can be found here.   Each week they focus on lists which cover various topics related to books and reading. This week we are looking at my Top 10 Favorite Authors.  This week should be a lot of fun although my list is in no particular order.

1.  Joe Hill.  I absolutely love Joe Hill and have recently fallen in love with the Locke and Key graphic novel series.  I have yet to read NOS4A2 which is sad because I pre ordered it from Amazon and it has sat on my shelf ever since.

2.  Yasmine Galenorn.  I have read at least the first 7or 8 of the Otherworld/Sisters of the Moon series and love her writing.  I have vowed to get caught up on the series this year.  The covers to her books rock and she writes great urban fantasy.

3.  Patricia Briggs.  Another wonderful urban fantasy writer.  I always love catching the newest installments of her Mercy Thompson series as well as her Alpha & Omega series. Another book for beautiful covers.

4.  Karen Marie Moning.  I love, love, love the Fever series.  I stumbled upon these books one day at the library, devoured the first 4 in the series, and never looked back.  I have never tried her Highlander series but have heard good things about it as well.  Her urban fantasy is just more my thing.

5.  Michael Koryta.  I have read several of his books and consider them great supernatural/thrilled reads.  Whenever he has a new book out, I am always interested.

6.  Anne Rice.  Although I never much got into the Vampire Lestat series, as a teen/young adult I was taken in by the Mayfair Witch series.  In fact, I now think I would like to reread them next year as it has been years since I last did.  I also really enjoy her Wolf Gift Chronicles.

7.  W. Bruce Cameron.  Cameron has such a unique take on dogs and the place they hold in many lives.  I own quite a few of his books, but have yet to read many.  I did love this one earlier this year and am eagerly looking forward to the next installment.

8.  Christopher Moore.  I have read tons of his books and love his style, humor and unique look at things.  A Dirty Job is one of my favorites although I also love Practical Demonkeeping and The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove.

9.  Kelley Armstrong.  Her Women of the Underworld series help fuel my lust for reading years ago and I pretty much devour whatever she writes within a month upon its release.  In my opinion, this is urban fantasy at its best.

10.  Stephen King.  I saved the best for last and for anyone who knows me, is this really a surprise?  King is king and I love almost everything he produces.









Who made your list?  Leave a comment so I can make sure to check out your blog. 

Stacking the Shelves (12)

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!  The original meme was started over at Tynga's Reviews.  This week was pretty much another digital week with picking up a few books for my Kindle and then getting approved for a few eARCs from Netgalley.  I am in a reading slump right now so I am hoping to remedy that this weekend.


First up from Amazon:



Growl: Ashley Fontaine, A Taste of Fear: Jeremy Bates and Zombies Don't Ride Motorcycles: ML Pahl  I picked up for free.  All three are basically horror/suspense novels.  Not sure about A Taste of Fear but figured at least I wasn't out anything if I never read it.
Dark Alchemy: Laura Bickle, Gideon: Alex Gordon and Suicide Forest: Jeremy Bates are all books I picked up for $3.99 or less last weekend.


From Netgalley I managed to snag:


Dead Men (Libros De Inferno #1): John C. Foster - About a man on a road trip back from hell.  This one releases on July 28, 2015.  Thanks to Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing for providing this one to me.
Rememberers: C. Edward Baldwin - Claims to take urban fantasy to a whole new level.  Count me in!  Releases on June 1, 2015.  Thank you Ink & Stone Publishing.
Sweet Desire, Wicked Fate: Wray Ardan -  This book is already out and is set in Louisiana - enough said.  That is one of my book buzzwords.  Thank you Ulu Productions for my copy.
Stones and Finger Bones (A Black Tower Novel): Jessica Minyard - This one was released in February and I want to thank Jessica Minyard for my copy.
The Call of the Wild Werewolf: Jack London and Carl Waters - I couldn't resist seeing what this one is like.  It is already out and my appreciation to Carl Waters for providing me a copy via netgalley.
Myth and Magic: Mae Clair - This one comes out June 9, 2015 and states "One day the monsters became real."  Sounds intriguing.  Thank you Kensington Books and Lyrical Press. 

What did you guys get this week?  Have you read any of these and if so, what should I start with?  Leave me  link so I can check out your stack.  Until later!