I got the idea and the motivation to start doing Tackling The TBR from All The Book Blog Names Are Taken.
It has helped me to keep track of my reading shelf as far as current
events and I also started doing a post for Books From The Backlog,
from Carole’s Random Life in Books,
to tidy up my shelves. I feel better about my out of control TBR and
have even knocked off a couple of those old ones that had been
hanging around for years.
COME ON….JOIN IN.
Previous Total: 2427
Currently Reading
Books Read
I did a ton of reading from my TBR the past two weeks. Some were short stories and novellas, but I did read my share of full length novels too. I was determined to read 300 books for last year, because I doubt I will ever do that again. Covid and a bum arm left me with a LOT of reading time. 2021 is going to be much more active!!!!!!!
Book Title: MC Plays Hide and Seek: An Empowering Story for Healthy Children Who Care About a Person Living with Cancer by Eva Grayzel Category: Children’s Fiction (Ages 3-7), 64 pages Genre: Children’s Picture Book Publisher: Mascot Books Release date: Jan 5, 2021 Content Rating: G for everyone.
Book Description:
M.C.
is a cancer cell who shares just enough information about the nature of
the disease to promote dialogue and minimize fear. The scary part of
cancer is the unknown. Learn about doctors who look for cancer.
Understand feelings children experience and learn ways to cope. Empower
children with knowledge and how to make a difference. M.C. Plays Hide
& Seek strengthens communication and builds emotional health.
Eva
Grayzel is a motivational speaker, storyteller, and cancer survivor.
When her children were five and seven years old, she was diagnosed with
cancer. Their fear of losing her was deep, real, and suppressed. When
she got a second chance at life, she created the Talk4Hope book series
to help children understand cancer and make it less scary.
Books from the Backlog is a fun way to feature some of those
neglected books sitting on your bookshelf unread. If you are anything
like me, you might be surprised by some of the unread books hiding in
your stacks.
Maggie Mahoney wants justice for women at her law firm. The firm chairman wants to be Attorney General. Only one can win.
Sweeny,
Owens & Boyle sits at the top of Wall Street law firms. Brilliant
and beautiful, Maggie Mahoney became a partner and the trophy wife of
its managing attorney. Her husband’s death renders Maggie an outsider
with the firm’s male establishment and creates a power vacuum.
Obsessed
with his dream of becoming the next Attorney General, firm chairman,
Andy Anderson, chooses a surprising replacement: Jack Slattery, a
reputed sexist. Jack’s background hardly qualifies him for such a
prominent position. Maggie suspects Jack has something on Andy, but what
is it?
Andy’s ambition drives him to desperate measures. With
proof of misconduct in hand, Maggie demands justice, but it comes at a
high price.
I added Terminal Ambition by Kate McGuinness to my TBR on 10.31.12 but grabbed it from Amazon on 7.2.13. Guess it still sounded good and I do love an intriguing mystery filled with suspense and thrills. Sounds a bit like a Grisham noveland very realistic.
WOW…I mean…WOW. Each story in Michaelbrent Collings Stranger series keeps getting better and better, but seeing my rating system only goes to 5…I have a full page of notes and I think that means I’ll be doing some editing. Don’t want to give away too much…only want to teeeeease you. 🙂
Not everyone that Legion seeks out dies, but you better be on your best behavior. If he has any doubts….
Legion is one of those characters I fall in love with and never want to lose, never want his story to end, even though I wonder how it will. He reminds me of Dexter, meting out his own version of vigilante justice. How can his ending be a good one? I don’t see it, yet I want it. Like all people, he is neither all good or all bad. Where his journeys are taking him, I don’t think even he knows, but there is a destination he seeks.
Warning…Set aside some time. Once I began, I couldn’t stop. Listening to him talk to Fire, Water and The One had my head spinning, at times. Each individual voice has it’s own personality. But…something is changing. He doesn’t know what, but he feels it all the same.
There are discriminating, racist, sexist, gangs, white supremicist elements, but isn’t that like real life? A mother trying to save her and her son, a Wolf after revenge…and Legion. Even with all the danger and violence…no punches are pulled… in Michaelbrent Collings Stranger series, there are moments of levity.
Michaelbrent Collings Stranger series is at the top of its class. Love, love, love Legion. He is such a tortured, complex individual. I don’t know how Michael takes each story to a new level of breath taking suspense and so many book surprises, they even last until the last page. I am desperate for more!
What a fabulous TV series The Stranger stories would make!!!! I’m sure it would do fantastic as movies, but I am a TV addict. Is anyone listening? Who would you choose to play the lead? I’m going to have to think on that.
I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Stranger Danger by Michaelbrent Collings.
5 Stars
GOODREADS BLURB
He will teach you the lesson… … he knows you’re dying to learn.
Legion is a teacher. An avenging angel. A murderer.
A madman.
Raised
in the underground hideout of an insane father, he searches for those
who keep secrets and sins. Then he teaches them how to leave those
mistakes behind. Even if it means killing them to do it.
Because sometimes murder is the cost of a proper education.
That’s why, when he comes to a neighborhood in the grips of a vicious gang war, he knows the time has come to teach.
Soon
Legion – and his imaginary brothers, Water and Fire – are caught in the
middle of a vicious fight for control of the Downs, the worst part of a
city on the verge of anarchy.
Legion is facing enemies on all sides. Hundreds of men will stop at nothing to capture or kill him.
Legion will teach the lessons. And the students will never forget, no matter how long – or short – their lives may be.
The students are ready.
And the teacher will never stop.
ABOUT MICHAELBRENT COLLINGS
Michaelbrent Collings is an internationally-bestselling novelist,
multiple Bram Stoker Award nominee, produced screenwriter, and one of
the top indie horror writers in the United States.
He hopes someday to develop superpowers, or, if that is out of the question, then at least to get a cool robot arm.
Michaelbrent
has a wife and several kids, all of whom are much better looking than
he is (though he admits that’s a low bar to set), and also cooler than
he is.
Michaelbrent also has a Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/MichaelbrentC…
and can be followed on Twitter through his username @mbcollings.
Follow him for cool news, updates, and advance notice of sales. You
will also be kept safe when the Glorious Revolution begins!
As soon as I saw the cover, I thought of Planet of the Apes. Then, as I began reading, I thought of Clint Eastwood in Any Which Way of Loose…but so much more twisted.
Adam Howe does write some in your face, way out there stories and I love spending time in his dark, wacky, perverted worlds.
Shane Moxie is a despicable person, but he does have his moments.
At times, I couldn’t keep myself from laughing out loud.
For all you cinephobes out there, One Tough Bastard by Adam Howe is full of movie and actor references.
I always have difficulty describing Adam Howe’s work. The characters are unique, original, crass, and even seem totally off the wall, at times, but when the ‘chimps’ are down, they are there, dodging bullets and knives.
One Tough Bastard by Adam Howe was not one of my favorite stories by him, but I did enjoy my visit.
I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of One Tough Bastard by Adam Howe.
3 Stars
GOODREADS BLURB
Shane Moxie: A washed-up 80s action star who refuses to believe his best days are behind him…
Duke: A hyper-intelligent chimpanzee and arguably the greatest animal actor of his generation…
Reunited for an anniversary movie screening, when Moxie and Duke are targeted by assassins, the feuding co-stars reluctantly join forces to smash an organized crime syndicate headed by an iconic German action star dealing death from his movie-themed fast food franchise.
One’s a big dumb animal The other’s a chimpanzee Shit just got real
From Adam Howe, writer of Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet and Tijuana Donkey Showdown, and the winner of Stephen King’s On Writing contest, comes a ‘buddy’ comedy in the tradition of Lethal Weapon, 48 Hours, and Tango & Cash, and a love letter to the gory glory days of 80s/90s action cinema. One Tough Bastard will turn you into a goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus… just like its author.
ABOUT ADAM HOWE
Adam
Howe writes the twisted fiction your mother warned you about. A British
writer of fiction and screenplays, he lives in London with his partner,
their daughter, and a hellhound named Gino. Writing as Garrett Addams,
his short story Jumper was chosen by Stephen King as the winner of the
international On Writing contest, and published in the paperback/Kindle
editions of King’s memoir. His fiction has appeared in places like
Nightmare Magazine, Thuglit, Mythic Delirium, and Year’s Best Hardcore
Horror Volume 1. He is the author of Tijuana Donkey Showdown, and two
novella collections, Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet, and Black Cat Mojo. In
the pipeline: the occult thriller Scapegoat, co-written with James
Newman, a horror/crime collaboration with Adam Cesare, and 80s action
throwback, One Tough Bastard.
Happy Monday everyone and welcome back to Music Monday! Let’s share
some songs we’ve been enjoying lately! If you would like to play,
and I really hope you do, please see the rules and link up below HERE
I was watching the Twilight series for the umpteenth time and this is the first time I realized Bruno Mars had a song on the track.
“It Will Rain”
If you ever leave me, baby,
Leave some morphine at my door
‘Cause it would take a whole lot of medication
To realize what we used to have,
We don’t have it anymore.
There’s no religion that could save me
No matter how long my knees are on the floor (Ooh)
So keep in mind all the sacrifices I’m makin’
To keep you by my side
To keep you from walkin’ out the door.
‘Cause there’ll be no sunlight
If I lose you, baby
There’ll be no clear skies
If I lose you, baby
Just like the clouds
My eyes will do the same, if you walk away
Everyday it’ll rain, rain, ra-a-a-ain
I’ll never be your mother’s favorite
Your daddy can’t even look me in the eye
Ooh, if I was in their shoes, I’d be doing the same thing
Sayin’ “There goes my little girl
Walkin’ with that troublesome guy”
But they’re just afraid of something they can’t understand
Ooh, but little darlin’ watch me change their minds
Yeah for you I’ll try, I’ll try, I’ll try, I’ll try
I’ll pick up these broken pieces ’til I’m bleeding
If that’ll make you mine
‘Cause there’ll be no sunlight
If I lose you, baby
There’ll be no clear skies
If I lose you, baby
Just like the clouds
My eyes will do the same, if you walk away
Everyday it’ll rain, rain, ra-a-a-ain
Oh, don’t you say (don’t you say) goodbye (goodbye),
Don’t you say (don’t you say) goodbye (goodbye)
I’ll pick up these broken pieces ’til I’m bleeding
If that’ll make it right
‘Cause there’ll be no sunlight
If I lose you, baby
There’ll be no clear skies
If I lose you, baby
And just like the clouds
My eyes will do the same, if you walk away
Everyday it’ll rain, rain, ra-a-a-ain
**images are linked to Amazon (I am an affiliate)**
Hello fellow bloggers. It was a quiet New Year and that’s all right. I hope the holidays were good for you and I think 2021 is going to be better. I signed up for the Covid vaccine through the county and have my fingers crossed that it won’t be months before I am able to get it. Gives me hope, seeing I haven’t been to the hardware store (my favorite shopping destination) in almost a year. I haven’t done a lot of blogging, but I sure have been reading a lot, especially from my TBR.
I am still trying to figure out a blogging schedule, now that Mr Wonderful is home all the time. May have to buy another laptop. I am blogging, almost, day by day and I don’t like that. I haven’t been commenting around the blogosphere a lot and I hope to create some kind of schedule for myself that will enable me to fit everything in.
After a house fire hospitalizes his partner and forces him onto medical leave, Pittsburgh Bureau of Police detective Vic Lenoski starts a desperate search for the woman who set the blaze. She is the one person who knows what happened to his missing teenage daughter, but as a fugitive, she’s disappeared so thoroughly no one can find her.
Risking his job and the wrath of the district attorney, Vic resorts to bargaining with criminal suspects for new leads, many of which point to North Dakota. He flies there, only to discover he is far from everything he knows, and his long-cherished definitions of good and bad are fading as quickly as his leads. His only chance is one last audacious roll of the dice. Can he stay alive long enough to discover the whereabouts of his daughter and rebuild his life? Or is everything from his past lost forever?
“The mystery plot itself is riveting…a captivating and emotionally intelligent crime drama.” — Kirkus Reviews
Book Details:
Genre: Mystery: Police Procedural Published by: Level Best Books Publication Date: August 1, 2020 Number of Pages: 294 ISBN: 978-1-947915-56-5 Series: A Vic Lenoski Mystery; Pittsburgh Trilogy #3 || Each is a Stand Alone Mystery Purchase Links:Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
Read an excerpt:
Chapter 1
Sometimes you walk into a room and what’s inside changes your life forever. That sense stopped Vic just inside the doorway. A woman with skin the color of dark amber lay on the only bed, her bandaged arms shockingly white among the shadows. She was reflected in a large window in the far wall, the outside sky as black and still as the inside of a tomb. He smelled disinfectant and blood. Numbers and graph lines flared on grey-eyed medical monitors. Somewhere in the vast empty spaces of the hospital a voice echoed.
He’d never visited a burn ward.
Never had a partner so close to death.
Never thought a room could seem as hollow as he felt inside.
The feeling was so disembodying that when he reached the bed and looked into the woman’s face, he half expected to see himself. But it was Liz, her forehead and knobby cheekbones smeared with ointment, eyebrows and eyelashes burned away. A bandage covered her left earlobe where her favorite earring, a small gold star, usually sat. It seemed like every breath she took pained her.
He wanted to take her hand but the bandages made it impossible. “Liz,” he said softly, her name almost lost among the beeps and clicks of the monitors. Liquid dripped into a tangle of IV tubes at the back of her fist.
Her eyelids fluttered.
“Liz. Doctor told me I could talk to you.”
Her eyes opened. He watched her pupils widen and narrow as they absorbed the distance to the ceiling and distinguished shadows from feeble light.
“Vic?” A hoarse whisper.
“I’m here.”
She turned her face to him. “You got me out.”
Relief rose in Vic’s throat. “Yeah. But the house didn’t make it.”
“Cora Stills?”
Vic squeezed his eyelids shut and rocked on his heels. He didn’t know where to start. Cora Stills. The one person who knew something—anything—about his missing teenage daughter. Liz on her way to arrest her. Instead, Liz, handcuffed to a radiator pipe as flames lathered and stormed through Cora’s house. Cora’s burned-out car found two days later on a crumbling stone dock next to a deserted warehouse, the Allegheny River emptying westward.
Cora, alive and moving through that tomb of darkness outside the window. Free.
“Vic…” Liz said something more but he couldn’t make it out.
He bent closer.
She forced her words from somewhere deep inside, and as she spoke, he knew this was what she saved through all the fear and pain to tell him. “Someone told Cora I was coming.”
***
Excerpt from The Things That Last Forever by Peter W. J. Hayes. Copyright 2020 by Peter W. J. Hayes. Reproduced with permission from Peter W. J. Hayes. All rights reserved.
Author Bio:
Peter W. J. Hayes worked as a journalist, advertising copywriter and marketing executive before turning to mystery and crime writing. He is the author of the Silver Falchion-nominated Pittsburgh trilogy, a police procedural series, and is a Derringer-nominated author of more than a dozen short stories. His work has appeared in Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Mystery Weekly, Pulp Modern and various anthologies, including two Malice Domestic collections and The Best New England Crime Stories. He is also a past nominee for the Crime Writers Association (CWA) Debut Dagger Award.
Visit these other great hosts on this tour for more great reviews, interviews, guest posts, and giveaways!
Giveaway!!:
This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours for Peter W.J. Hayes. There will be 4 winners for this giveaway. Two (2) winners will each receive one (1) Amazon.com Gift Card and two (2) winners will each receive one (1) physical copy of The Things That Last Forever by Peter W.J. Hayes (US Only). The giveaway begins on January 1, 2021 and runs through March 2, 2021. Void where prohibited.
Books from the Backlog is a fun way to feature some of those
neglected books sitting on your bookshelf unread. If you are anything
like me, you might be surprised by some of the unread books hiding in
your stacks.
Lila Carmichael, outrageous, bawdy comedienne, is a rich and powerful woman in television. But, it’s not enough she has everything she desires; for fifteen years she has been obsessively orchestrating payback to five unsuspecting, former schoolmates—“friends” who played a nasty trick on her, and now it’s her turn for revenge.
Under the flattering auspices of a cozy college reunion, these unsuspecting classmates arIe invited to Lila’s private island for a weekend from hell where Lila forces them to play a vicious parlor game—a psychological “Ten Little Indians,” where one by one Lila’s guests are figuratively killed-off. Yet, revenge turns bittersweet when the weekend is over and one guest is dead.
A psychological spinoff of Agatha Christie’s “Ten Little Indians” that Publisher’s Weekly calls “A page-turning thrill ride that will have readers holding their breaths the whole way through.”
I added Innocent Little Crimes by C S Lakin to my Goodreads TBR on 10.30.12. I must have won it and the author/publisher sent me an ebook. Amazon says the book is unavailable, but I see where she has a lot of books about writing, so she is still around. I will most likely read this because #1 the cover. Have to know….and I do love when a character takes care of a problem themselves. Psychological thrillers can have that little something extra we are all looking for. Ya know, a little bit of vigilante justice is sometimes in order. What do you think about taking the law into your own hands? Could you do it?
