Halloween Bingo 2022 Update #2

I was so sure I'd have one more book completed by this next update, but alas, it was not to be.  Ah well...  I'm halfway through two books and about 30% into the third.  The Ice Princess started off quite interesting, but is proving to be a bit banal towards the middle, so I took my mind off of it for a while.

In the meantime, I had the sudden urge to throw an audiobook in there, and found that I owned Sourcery by Terry Pratchett as an Audible.  I've been listening to it for the past four days, but during my last two drives to and from work, I found myself drifting to a lot of work related matters that are currently occupying my thoughts, so ended up not paying attention, much to my own regret.  It's not that book isn't good--I found myself laughing out loud many times--it's just that work stuff has been a bit stressful lately, and I find myself unable to turn off my brain for even those thirty minute drives to and from work.

No worries, I'm going to back track about two hours to catch up on what I missed.  Though I must admit that the parts without Rincewind aren't as much fun, for some reason.

I'm still waiting patiently for my library to tell me that my interlibrary loan hold is ready for The Honjin Murders.  With my luck, though, it'll finally be ready by the end of October... too late to read for Halloween Bingo.  So crossing my fingers that I'll see the library hold available soon.

Otherwise, after I'm done with Sourcery and The Ice Princess, I'm going for either Seanan McGuire or maybe Mary Stewart...  At least that's what I'm feeling.  I'm also kind of wanting to re-listen to the full cast audio version of Dracula again, just for old times' sake--I loved that audiobook so much when I first listened to it!

Currently Reading:

Next Reads:

Books Read and Unallocated:

None yet!

Bingo Tracking:

Bingo Square	Date Called	Book / Author	Date Read
Row #1
Genre: Thriller	9/3/22
Black Cat
Amateur Sleuth
Darkest London
Arsenic & Old Lace
Row #2
Dark Academia
Ice Cold Fear
Murder & Mayhem by the Book		Copper Beach by Jayne Ann Krentz	9/9/22
Grave or Graveyard
Death Down Under
Row #3
Genre: Mystery
The Barrens
Poe Raven Free Space
Vintage Mystery
Psych	9/13/22
Row #4
Golden State Nightmares
Terror in the Tropics
Sword & Sorcery
*Romantic Suspense
Spellbound
Row #5
Locked Room Mysteries
Cozy Mystery
Terror in a Small Town
Urban Decay
A Grimm Tale	9/6/22

Wild Card Activities:

I have decided to use The Lottery Wild Card to swap out Home is Where the Hurt Is with Romantic Suspense.

Halloween Bingo 2022 Update #1

I have certainly not made a whole lot of progress, but I wanted to do at least a weekly update on what I'm up to pertaining to the book world and Halloween Bingo.  I've come across some books that I'd like to read for Halloween Bingo, so in spite of my determination not to overwhelm myself by making a list of books to read, I ended up doing so anyway.

There aren't really a whole lot, but more than what I started with.

What squares they will end up in, however, is still up in the air.

I haven't read Seanan McGuire in a long time, but I absolutely adore The Incryptids series, and her books just seem like they would fit into a lot of squares available.  Mainly I'm looking at Sparrow Hill Road for Urban Decay, and am interested enough to want to read it first of the three books above.  The other two books, I'm looking at for Golden State Nightmare, though I haven't decided which one yet.  More than likely, it'll be Chaos Choreography just because I'm wanting to catch up with The Incryptids books.

Meanwhile, I did happily finally finish one book with an idea of what square I will put it in, but I don't want to make any permanent decisions, so I decided to create a digital table to log my progress alongside my Happy Planner, decorated log.  But since I've hardly filled out my physical table, no photos just yet--sometimes photos can be a bit more work than I'm willing to put in at the moment.

The first book I finished was Copper Beach by Jayne Ann Krentz, which I'm looking at putting on Murder and Mayhem by the Book -- imagine my joy when I read the synopsis and found out that the entire book is centered around a female lead who is an old book dealer and the story centers around looking for an old, dangerous book laced with paranormal energy.  Score!

I am still reading A is For Arsenic by Kathryn Harkup, a nonfiction book detailing poisons used by Dame Agatha in her mysteries.  I'm making my way through this slowly, just because it's nonfiction and I've never really warmed to reading nonfiction.  This book will be for Arsenic and Old Lace -- a perfect fit, I'd say!

I just started reading The Ice Princess by Camilla Lackberg, about a murder that takes place in Fjallbacka in Sweden.  The setting seems to be either winter, or just very, very cold climes, so I'm hoping I can get it to fit into Ice Cold Fear.

Finally, my next reads are kind of tentative.  The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo is a book I saw on someone else's list (though I don't recall who's), and became interested in reading it for Locked Room Mysteries.  Dream Eyes by Jayne Ann Krentz, is the next book in the Dark Legacy duology, following Copper Beach and I do want to read it -- I just don't know here I'd put it, quite just yet.

And as I'd mentioned, Sparrow Hill Road, I would like to read for Urban Decay.

And well... that's pretty much it!

Currently Reading:

Next Reads:

Books Read and Unallocated:

None.

Bingo Tracking:

Bingo Square	Date Called	Book / Author	Date Read
Row #1
Genre: Thriller	9/3/22
Black Cat
Amateur Sleuth
Darkest London
Arsenic & Old Lace
Row #2
Dark Academia
Ice Cold Fear
Murder & Mayhem by the Book		Copper Beach by Jayne Ann Krentz	9/9/22
Grave or Graveyard
Death Down Under
Row #3
Genre: Mystery
The Barrens
Poe Raven Free Space
Vintage Mystery
Psych
Row #4
Golden State Nightmares
Terror in the Tropics
Sword & Sorcery
*Romantic Suspense
Spellbound
Row #5
Locked Room Mysteries
Cozy Mystery
Terror in a Small Town
Urban Decay
A Grimm Tale	9/6/22

Wild Card Activities:

I have decided to use The Lottery Wild Card to swap out Home is Where the Hurt Is with Romantic Suspense.

Series Thoughts: D.C. Detectives

D.C. Detectives

by Nora Roberts
Book 1: Sacred Sins | Goodreads | Rating: 3.0 Stars
Book 2: Brazen Virtue | Goodreads | Rating: 2.0 Stars

Average Series Rating:  2.5 Stars

I read these two books back in 2019, wrote up a brief draft of a review, and then it sat here in my unpublished blog dashboard for two years.  I don't know why I never went back to publish this, but it was probably just one of those things that drifts away from you in light of all the chaos that started ensuing during that time.

So here it is...

I enjoyed Sacred Sins in a rather, rainy-day-read kind of way.  Brazen Virtue, on the other had, actually made me a bit uncomfortable, and I'm not sure if it was because of the subject matter or the identity of the killer.  Truth be told, both books actually had instances that had made me uncomfortable, as well as bringing up conflicts that I was a bit surprised to find in a pair of books written in 1987 and 1988, both involving a child.

Don't get me wrong--if I were honest, these books both showcased Nora Roberts' penchant for the gritty and the realistic, as well as a darkness in human nature that can't be ignored.

It was really my own personal preference that I couldn't get past, and so these two books, while written well, didn't quite work for me.

Meanwhile, the romances in both books really showed their age.  In both instances, I couldn't quite make myself like either of the romances.

In the lazy days of summer, a merciless heat wave is the biggest story in Washington, D.C.  But the weather is knocked off the front pages when a young woman is found strangled to death.  A note left behind reads: Her sins are forgiven her.

Two more victims soon follow, and suddenly every headline is devoted to the killer the press has dubbed "the Priest."  When the police ask top-notch psychiatrist Dr. Tess Court to help with their investigation, she comes up with a disturbing portrait of a twisted soul.

Detective Ben Paris doesn't give a damn about the killer's psyche.  What he can't easily dismiss is Tess.  Tall, dark, and good-looking, Ben has a legendary reputation with women, but the coolly elegant Tess doesn't react to him like other women he's known and he finds the challenge enticing.

Tess and Ben in Sacred Sins had clever dialogue and some of their interactions were done well.  But I could never get past Ben's rude, neanderthal-ish, asshole attitude towards Tess throughout the book, simply based on her profession.  It didn't matter that he was attracted to her or that he was friendly enough outside of work, but his continued hostility towards the psychiatric field, as well as towards Tess whenever she slipped into shrink-mode was deplorable.  He never even tried to get along with Tess, the psychiatrist, even while he wanted to get into her pants.

I'm not entirely certain that I, personally, could have been able to stand being in a relationship with someone who not only couldn't take my profession seriously, but who was constantly making insulting, snide, and degrading remarks about what I did for a living.  It's disrespectful and unfair.  But I guess what really bugged me was how easily Tess let Ben get away with being a jackass for 90% of the book.

Nonetheless, the rest of the book was dark, gritty, and entertaining enough to keep me hooked.

Halloween Bingo 2019

After a demanding book tour, superstar mystery novelist Grace McCabe decides to visit her sister, Kathleen, who’s embroiled in a custody battle after a bitter divorce.  Arriving in D.C., Grace is shocked to find Kathleen living in a run-down neighborhood and, hoping to afford a hotshot lawyer, supplementing her meager teacher’s salary by moonlighting as a phone sex operator.

According to Kathleen, Fantasy, Inc., guarantees its employees ironclad anonymity.  But Grace has her doubts—which are confirmed one horrifying cherry-blossom-scented night when one of Fantasy, Inc.’s operators is murdered.  As Grace is drawn to help solve the crime, her life turns into a scene from one of her own books.  Yet as one of her biggest fans, investigator Ed Jackson, warns her: This isn’t fiction.  Real people die—and Grace could be next.  For she’s hoping to trap a killer more twisted than anything she could imagine.  And not even Ed may be able to protect her from a rendezvous with lust and death.

On the other hand, the romance in Brazen Virtue was just plain boring with no chemistry.  The insta-love was so obvious between Grace and Ed that I didn't even really bother to care.  I liked Ed in the first book as the nice guy, understanding and respectful of Tess enough not to treat her like the enemy.  His easy banter with Ben was welcome.

But his behavior around Grace bordered on caveman, treating her like she was a fragile child at every turn, whether it was something as little as making coffee in the morning, or something as big as details of her sister's murder.  He wouldn't let her do anything for herself or by herself, and insisted on taking care of everything for her as if she weren't capable of doing things by herself.

While this might seem sweet and caring to a lot of people, there's a fine line between the sweetness of wanting to take care of someone you love, and treating said person like an ignorant, incompetent, fragile doll whom you don't trust to survive without your existence.

Anyway, as I'd stated earlier, the entire investigation, and premise of Brazen Virtue sort of made me uncomfortable, which made it hard to really enjoy it.  Add onto it Grace's bad decisions that were leading into TSTL as well as obstruction of justice territory and I just started having more issues.

Halloween Bingo 2019

Ani's Halloween Bingo Tracking

I have spent the most of my day working on a manual tracking format for Halloween Bingo 2022.  But after I was done, I realized that everything turned out a bit messy, so it's entirely possible I'll end up just going back to my excel spreadsheet trackers.

I had a lot of stickers to work with and am always looking for a reason to use them, so the day wasn't a complete waste.

As far as books go, I haven't really given my squares a whole lot of thought.  I may or may not sit down at some point and do some planning, though there are a few books I'm kind of looking at reading, based off of my first glance of my card.

In no particular order, here are just a few of my thoughts based on what I have in my Kindle:

A is for Arsenic: the Poisons of Agatha Christie by Kathryn Harkup -- This is a non-fiction book I've had in my Kindle for a long time, and I figured that now would be a good time to read it.  I'm considering reading it for Arsenic and Old Lace.

An Unexpected Peril by Deanna Raybourn -- I'm ready to start back into one of my favorite series once more, and this book will fit into at least two or three squares I have, including Amateur Sleuth, Genre: Mystery, or maybe Darkest London.

I've also got a bunch of books by Mary Stewart that I want to read, though I'm not sure which squares I can get them to fit.  And I've also got my trusty large collection of Edgar Allan Poe short stories that I'm sure I can get to fit some squares.

I'm already considering using a wild card on Home Is Where the Hurt Is--the description doesn't quite appeal to me, and also I want to swap it out for Romantic Suspense.  Somehow, I feel like my Halloween Bingo doesn't feel quite right without Romantic Suspense since it's my go to genre.  Hehe  =)

Anyway, these are my thoughts so far.  I kind of want to plan some books so I know what options I have, but I also don't want to feel like I've locked myself down, so my strategy (or lack thereof, really), is to just read books and see where I can get them to fit into my Bingo card.

I have no delusion that I'll get a Bingo or a Blackout this year.  I'm really just in this to help motivate myself to read and blog again, so it's a plus no matter what.

Monthly Wrap Up - October 2019

Well...  I've been severely absent from the blogosphere for at least two or three weeks now, and I think I'm feeling up to blogging again.  The past couple weeks have just been a muddle of me not wanting to do anything but be lazy, read occasionally, and mindlessly watching YouTube videos about bullet journaling and cake decorating.

Sometimes you just need a hiatus, and unfortunately my hiatus came right at the end of Halloween Bingo 2019.  I think I just kind of lost steam and gave up on trying to read Halloween Bingo books altogether, which is probably the first time this has happened since the game's conception in 2016.  Even last year when I was going through on and off reading slumps, I managed to get myself a last moment burst and finished all the books I'd chosen for Halloween Bingo 2018--though that last book I'd finished after the bingo game duration.

Ah well, the reading still goes on.  I had originally planned to finish reading all of my chosen Halloween Bingo books for 2019... but after making no more progress in the past three weeks, I think I'm ready to just move on.  Of course, I'll still be pushing out a wrap up for Halloween Bingo 2019, if only just to put a proper closing on our previous reading game... maybe.  Don't be surprised if that doesn't actually happen though.  I'm still in lazy mode.

Meanwhile, I'm just going move onto the next reading game, The 24 Tasks of the Festive Season for 2019.  Of course, at the pace that I'm going, and with my sporadic absences from the blogging world this year, I have no doubt that I'll disappear randomly throughout these next two months.  But I'd like to do my part in collecting points for 24 Festive Tasks to add to the charitable donations.

I've already started with listening to the audio book version of The Lost World by Michael Crichton to fill in the book task for the first opened door, Dia de los Muertos--rereading a favorite from a now deceased author.

I'm also seeing a couple food tasks that I'd be more than happy to complete sometime these next two months.  Yay, food!  And then there's a crane folding task that I can totally do easily.

October Reads

Books Dropped/Put On Hold

None this month!  Yay!

Currently Reading

October Reading Stats

Total works read: 7

• 6 print/e-book novels
• 1 audio book / short story

Average rating: 3.50 Stars

• Highest Rated:  4 books // 4.0 Stars
• (1) Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire
• (2) The Visitor by Amanda Stevens
• (3) A Scandal in Bohemia by Arthur Conan Doyle
• (4) Curtsies & Conspiracies by Gail Carriger
• Lowest Rated:  Brazen Virtue by Nora Roberts // 2.0 Stars

Series I started reading:

• Blackthorn & Grim by Juliet Marillier

Series I completed:

• D.C. Detectives by Nora Roberts

Series I have made progress on:

• InCryptids by Seanan McGuire
• The Graveyard Queen by Amanda Stevens
• Finishing School by Gail Carriger

Reviews & Notable Posts

Reviews Written

• Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson
• Firelight by Kristen Callihan
• Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire
• Dreamer's Pool by Juliet Marillier
• The Visitor by Amanda Stevens

Memes

• Did not meme this month.

Other Posts

• Halloween Bingo 2019 | Update #3 and Mid-game Book Rambles
• New York Weekend!

Coming Up In November

Tentative TBR

Other Stuff

So it looks like I'm going to be winding down on progress for the last two months of the year.  I've already kind of lost interest in anything blogging or reading (gasp! blasphemy!), but I'm not going to force myself to do anything I'm not interested in.

But if I DO read anything, it'll be to finish some of the series I'm interested in finishing.  I'd like to put a well-rounded close to the Finishing School series by Gail Carriger and the Blackthorn & Grim series by Juliet Marillier.  These books can all easily fit into the 24 Festive Tasks games, so I'll at least be participating, too. Meanwhile, Pamela Clare will have a third Cobra Elite book coming out in December and I've yet to read her previous one, so I'm going to try to insert that one as well.

Meanwhile, I'll work on update posts for the 24 Festive Tasks as I think of them, so random updates may happen.

Otherwise, I'm not going to stick to any other really strict schedule or anything.  We'll just see how live plays out these next two months.

2019 Wrap-Ups 

Past Monthly Reading Wrap Ups (2016 / 2017 / 2018)
See Also: 2015 Reading Wrap-Up posts (scroll to bottom of page)

(updated as year progresses by month)
January | February | March | April | May | June
July | August | September | October | November | December

Brief Thoughts: The Visitor

The Visitor

by Amanda Stevens
Book 4 of Graveyard Queen

~ Goodreads ~

Rating:  4.0 Stars

My name is Amelia Gray.  I'm the Graveyard Queen.

Restoring lost and abandoned cemeteries is my profession, but I'm starting to believe that my true calling is deciphering the riddles of the dead.  Legend has it that Kroll Cemetery is a puzzle no one has ever been able to solve.  For over half a century, the answer has remained hidden within the strange headstone inscriptions and intricate engravings.  Because uncovering the mystery of that tiny, remote graveyard may come at a terrible price.

Years after their mass death, Ezra Kroll's disciples lie unquiet, their tormented souls trapped within the walls of Kroll Cemetery, waiting to be released by someone strong and clever enough to solve the puzzle.  For whatever reason, I'm being summoned to that graveyard by both the living and the dead.  Every lead I follow, every clue I unravel brings me closer to an unlikely killer and to a destiny that will threaten my sanity, and a future with my love, John Devlin.

If I wanted to be honest, it was truly the writing and the mystery of Kroll Cemetary that drew me into this book.  Amelia's destiny and her hauntings as well as Devlin's mysterious secrets were really second string.

While I've liked Amelia in the past, I'm not entirely sure that I'm feeling a whole lot of character development in her, despite the new twists that her character is taking on in this book.  At the same time, I'm still not really all that enamored of John Devlin either.

The romance between them is even harder for me to relate with, if only because Amelia's obsession with Devlin, as well as their mutual attraction to each other seems to be the only thing linking them together.  They don't talk to each other, they keep secrets, they don't even trust each other.  Their relationship has always felt one-sided.

I enjoyed the moments that Amelia spent at Kroll cemetary with Dr. Shaw, or even discovering little clues left her by the blind ghost who looks like her.  In contrast, I didn't care much for the scenes whenever Devlin was around with her, save for a few moments when they seemed to be able to talk freely with each other.  I feel like the two of them could make a great team if they would just stop keeping secrets or learn to listen to each other.

But the writing is beautiful as usual, and the series' overall conflict continues to be intriguing, and you get drawn into Amelia's world readily.  Just for the writing style and the atmosphere of the book alone, I gave a higher rating.

Halloween Bingo 2019

Quick Thoughts: Dreamer's Pool

Dreamer's Pool

by Juliet Marillier
Book 1 of Blackthorn & Grim

~ Goodreads ~

Rating:  3.5 Stars

In exchange for help escaping her long and wrongful imprisonment, embittered magical healer Blackthorn has vowed to set aside her bid for vengeance against the man who destroyed all that she once held dear.  Followed by a former prison mate, a silent hulk of a man named Grim, she travels north to Dalriada.  There she’ll live on the fringe of a mysterious forest, duty bound for seven years to assist anyone who asks for her help.

Oran, crown prince of Dalriada, has waited anxiously for the arrival of his future bride, Lady Flidais.  He knows her only from a portrait and sweetly poetic correspondence that have convinced him Flidais is his destined true love.  But Oran discovers letters can lie.  For although his intended exactly resembles her portrait, her brutality upon arrival proves she is nothing like the sensitive woman of the letters.

With the strategic marriage imminent, Oran sees no way out of his dilemma.  Word has spread that Blackthorn possesses a remarkable gift for solving knotty problems, so the prince asks her for help.  To save Oran from his treacherous nuptials, Blackthorn and Grim will need all their resources: courage, ingenuity, leaps of deduction, and more than a little magic.

Dreamer's Pool, to be honest, while written well with Juliet Marillier's style of magic and lore, also sort of tended towards the predictable.  It's a usual plot device of Marillier's to give away the plot twist from one of the tales or stories told throughout the book.  And so it wasn't hard to figure out how everything would turn out in the end.

As has been quite typical of Marillier as well, this first book in the Blackthorn & Grim trilogy involved a lot of world building and set-up.  A lot of traveling happened, and I'm not entirely sure that things started picking up until about halfway through the book.  At least, for me, I didn't start getting really interested until halfway through the book.

So while I enjoyed the book, I still had a hard time with it, not only because of the slowness of the plotting, but also because of how hard it was to really relate with any of the characters.  Blackthorn tended towards more bitter than I felt like she needed to be, and I found I liked her more when she wasn't constantly thinking about how she could betray the new chance at life that Conmael gave her by going back to her need for revenge.  I didn't mind her being a cranky old wise woman (who was hardly old by biological age standards), and I liked her role as the local wise woman.

I'm much like Blackthorn in that I hate being crowded and I like my privacy.  But I think that, as much as Blackthorn and Grim seem to understand the way that the fey work their magic, they don't seem to understand that there might be a reason for the seven year restriction that Conmael has given her.  If Blackthorn went back for her revenge at this stage in her new chance at life, she'd probably just end up back in prison again.

Anyway, the only reason I even gave this book a higher rating anyway was because of the last half of the book.  It certainly did end up drawing me in all the way, and if only we could have stuck with Blackthorn's and Grim's POVs, I think I would have enjoyed the book in it's entirety a lot more.  I sincerely was more interested in their journey, and instead found Prince Oran kind of frustrating to follow.

I also found our "villian" more overpowered than was believable.  Lady Flidais's behavior was never acceptable nor was it normal, so I'm surprised that no one ever called her out on it, save for Oran in private.

Of course, without Oran's POV, there probably wouldn't be a whole lot of story.  Maybe if this book were written in third person, things might have been a bit different?

Nonetheless, the end of the book left me wanting more, and so I will definitely be jumping into the next book when I get the chance.

Halloween Bingo 2019