What's Bea Reading?

I was having trouble coming up with an idea for a blog post and asked for help on Twitter. I got a bunch of good ideas and some I'll do at another time. A couple people suggested talking about what I'll be reading next and I will address that, but thought maybe talking about the many books I've read but not reviewed might, hopefully, be of interest.

So here's what I've been reading and what's coming up next.

At the moment, I'm catching up on a series so I can review the new book. That review was supposed to go up this week, on Tuesday, but I still have the preceding book to read. That's also a belated review. I'll probably just post a review on Goodreads for that one. The series is Tracy Crosswhite by Robert Dugoni  and the delinquent books are A Steep Price and A Cold Trail. The series is an intense police procedural set in Seattle, Washington with a female police detective as the lead. I read the first four books as they came out but then got behind. One of my goals last year and this year is to catch up on series I've started.

Which brings me to what else I've been reading. I'm working, slowly, on a Kindle Unlimited book about changing your habits for the better. It's okay so far. :D In fiction, I decided last year to catch up on the In Death series by JD Robb, starting from the beginning. I'd read most but never in order; I started out of order and bounced around. Since early 2019, I've been reading in order. Some I owned, many I got from the library, and a few I purchased as they went on sale. I'm getting close to the end. Book 50! releases this week and I pre-ordered it. I'm at book 40, Obsession in Death; I should be starting that one soon. So last year I read 39 books in that one series. Not too shabby!

I've also been binging on an historical mystery series, Brother Cadfael by the late Ellis Peters. I started that one back in the fall, around October I think. I just finished book 20, the last one, last week. That was another one where I had read some, out of order, and after seeing the first book advertised on sale, I decided to read it from the beginning. As luck would have it, it's in Kindle Unlimited on Amazon. Reading all 20 books via KU was well worth the monthly fee. The ebooks are 8.99 to 11.99 each versus the 9.99 monthly fee. Well worth it!

Another KU series I've been reading is The Vampire Knitting Club by Nancy Warren. A new book comes out every few months and I gobble it up. It's a blend of cozy mystery, romance, and urban fantasy. It's light, fluffy, and funny, and the next book is out next week. Yay!

The Phryne Fisher series by Kerry Greenwood, is another series I've been playing catch up on, but I took a short break. I hope to get back to it next month. I've got a few of the books but have mostly been reading via the library. These books inspired the late, great Australian TV show, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. It's also historical mystery, and with fantastic female representation.

I've read a few review books, some of which I've reviewed here on the blog. Bitter Falls by Rachel Caine was another fantastic entry in the Stillhouse Lake thriller series. Another fantastic thriller was When You See Me by Lisa Gardner. Both authors are amazing, writing convoluted but tight plots and complex characters. I just finished, over the weekend, the next Mercy Thompson book by Patricia Briggs, Smoke Bitten. It's urban fantasy and one of the few UF series I still read. That review will go up in early March.

You may have noticed that I didn't mention any romance. I've been moving away from that genre with the exception of romantic suspense. I did read three romances last month but I was judging them for a contest and can't talk about them. I do have one more to judge for that contest, I should get to that this week. Other than, I haven't been reading much romance. I'll get back to romance eventually; this is a cyclical event for me. Unfortunately, a lot of my review backlog is romance so I will need to make an effort to read some as I try to catch up.

What's next? Well, as I mentioned, I still have 10 books left in the In Death series and I have a mystery, The Last Sister by Kendra Elliot, that I need to read for a tour next week. At the end of March, I have another mystery for a tour, No Stone Unturned by Andrea Kane. Oh, I did buy a new romantic suspense, Whiteout, by Adriana Anders, that looks promising. Other than those, who knows? It will depend on my mood, what time I have to read, and what review books I accept. I've cut back on review books I take/request, but I still download too many freebies. :D And there's a HUGE backlog of non-review books in my TBR for me to choose from. I don't lack for choices. :)

Now tell me, what are YOU reading?