2018 Reading Challenges

This year, 2017, I only did 2 challenges, the Goodreads reading challenge and the Library Love Challenge. I had such a rough year in 2016 that I cut way back for this year. Now, though, I'm ready to take on more. So for 2018, I'm doing not only the Goodreads and Library Love challenges but also the Blogger Shame challenge and the Backlist Reader challenge.

Quote-Tastic & Review: In the Company of Wolves by Paige Tyler

Series: SWAT #3
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: December 1, 2015
Challenges: Finishing the Series |  NetGalley & Edelweiss Reading Challenge |  What An Animal |
Buying Links: Amazon* | Are* | Barnes & Noble | BAM | Book Depository* | Chapters | iBooks* |
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

He opened his mouth to order her to drop the MP5 she had aimed at him, but nothing would come out. It was like she’d robbed him of the ability to speak. Shooting her wasn’t an option, though. And the idea of arresting her didn’t make him feel any better.

There's a new gang of criminals in town who are organized and ruthless in the extreme. When Eric Becker, along with the rest of the Dallas SWAT team, ends up in the middle of a shootout, he immediately senses werewolves-a lot of them. Turns out, the new bad guys are a pack of wolf shifters.

In a spray of gunfire, Becker comes face-to-face with the most gorgeous woman he's ever seen. Becker does the logical thing. He hides her and leaves the scene with the rest of his team.

Jayna Winston has no idea why that SWAT guy helped her, but she's glad he did. Ever since she and her pack mates got mixed up with those Eastern European mobsters, everything had pretty much fallen apart.

So what's a street-savvy thief like Jayna going to do with a hot alpha-male wolf who's a police officer?

Quote-Tastic & Review: Hidden Impact by Piper J. Drake

Publisher: Carina Press
Series: Safeguard #1 
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: November 9, 2015
Challenges: NetGalley and Edelweiss ARCs
Buying Links: Amazon* | Kobo | iTunes | Barnes & Noble
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

He's not the hero she's looking for...

As part of the elite Centurion Corporation team, military-veteran-turned-mercenary Gabriel Diaz is a natural defender. He'll do anything to ensure a mission is successful. Anything but get emotionally invested—he learned the hard way that can be deadly. Easy bodyguard jobs in between the more challenging missions are all he's interested in now.

Maylin Cheng is desperate and running out of time. Her younger sister has gone missing but no one seems to take her concern seriously. Her last hope lies in asking an aloof bodyguard for help. He dismisses her outright, but all that changes when she is almost killed in a not-so-accidental hit-and-run right before his eyes.

As Maylin leans on Gabriel, she begins to rely on him for more than just her safety. But as their attraction grows, so does the danger surrounding them. When the elaborate web they're trapped in unravels, Gabriel will do anything to protect them. Even if that means putting his heart in the crosshairs.

Book one of the Safeguard series

Review & Quote-Tastic: Everything She Forgot by Lisa Ballantyne

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: October 6, 2015
Challenges: NetGalley & Edelweiss Reading Challenge
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | OmniLit*  | iTunes | Barnes & Noble
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

Lisa Ballantyne, international bestselling author of The Guilty One, delivers a compelling domestic thriller with impeccably observed characters and masterful edge-of-your-seat storytelling in a novel that leaps between past and present with page-turning finesse

They’re calling it the worst pile-up in London history. Driving home, Margaret Holloway has her mind elsewhere—on a troubled student, her daughter’s acting class, the next day’s meeting—when she’s rear-ended and trapped in the wreckage. Just as she begins to panic, a disfigured stranger pulls her from the car just seconds before it’s engulfed in flames. Then he simply disappears.

Though she escapes with minor injuries, Margaret feels that something’s wrong. She’s having trouble concentrating. Her emotions are running wild. More than that, flashbacks to the crash are also dredging up lost associations from her childhood, fragments of events that were wiped from her memory. Whatever happened, she didn’t merely forget—she chose to forget. And somehow, Margaret knows deep down that it’s got something to do with the man who saved her life.

As Margaret uncovers a mystery with chilling implications for her family and her very identity, Everything She Forgot winds through a riveting dual narrative and asks the question: How far would you go to hide the truth—from yourself…?

October Blog Ahead Challenge

Anna at Herding Cats & Burning Soup is once again hosting her Blog Ahead challenge and this time she's joined by Kimberly at Caffeinated Book Reviewer. The idea is to write and schedule posts ahead of time and have a cushion. The goal is 31 posts, scheduled for November onward.

Any blogger or author can join and pretty much any posts counts: memes, reviews, discussions, guest posts, cooking posts, etc. The posts do not have to be book related.

Want to join in? Go here and sign up.

I don't know if I can actually get 31 posts written but I'll try. I want to do 8 Cat Thursday posts, 2 Waiting on Wednesday posts, 2 Soapy Saturday posts, and a mix of reviews and discussion for the rest. I track all of my challenges in a monthly wrap up post and I'll try to remember to also track them in my weekly Sunday Share post.

Come join the fun and get ahead on your blogging!

Quote-Tastic & Review of Imposters of Patriotism by Ted Richardson

Publisher: CreateSpace
Series: Matt Hawkins #1
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: June 15, 2014
Challenges:  COYER Summer Scavenger Hunt | NetGalley and Edelweiss Reading Challenge
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | Barnes & Noble |
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

Savannah, Georgia antiques store owner Matt Hawkins discovers a two-hundred-year-old journal containing a stunning accusation. The journal claims that America's most revered hero, George Washington, wrote a secret surrender letter to the British during the Revolutionary War-a seditious act that would have ended America's fight for independence.

Meanwhile, the present-day race for president of the United States is a dead heat. The Republican nominee, a direct descendant of Washington's family, has shamelessly exploited his ties to the Founding Father-a strategy that has worked brilliantly to eliminate a once wide gap in the polls. As the past collides with the present, Hawkins and lovely historian Sarah Gordon are determined to unearth the truth about the journal's remarkable claim. But they must avoid a shadowy adversary who has a billion dollars riding on the election's outcome-and who will stop at nothing to ensure that Washington's surrender letter remains a secret. Ted Richardson's debut novel can perhaps best be described as historical fiction wrapped inside a modern-day mystery. Richardson ingeniously blends actual historical events with innovative mystery to create a fast-moving, well-plotted tale of suspense. 

Blog Tour Review & Quote-Tastic: Beautiful Criminal by Shady Grace

Publisher: Lyrical Press
Series: McCoy's Boys #1
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: June 9, 2015
Challenges: NetGalley and Edelweiss Reading Challenge
Buying Links: Amazon* | ARe* | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Google Play
*affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

Long days, precious nights…

Mima Etu lives a quiet life with her sled dogs in the stunning Canadian Rockies. But that all changes when she stumbles upon a plane crash while out on a supply run. She’s shocked to discover the pilot is still alive—though barely. With the sun setting and the temperatures quickly dropping, Mima knows he’d never survive the trip to the nearest hospital. So she takes the stranger back to her cabin. As he heals, his vague answers to Mima’s questions about the flight tell her he has secrets. But more disturbing is the consuming, immediate attraction she senses between them.

Before he lost control of his Cessna and plunged into a pilot’s hell, Gabriel Miller was on a deadly mission with precious cargo. Now he’s awakened in the comfort of a log cabin with a gorgeous woman tending to his every need. Her soft-spoken beauty sparks his longing for a different kind of life….and it isn’t long before they surrender to a blazing passion. But their blissful days are numbered. For the owners of the cargo are bent on finding Gabriel—and once they do, they don’t intend to leave any witnesses behind.

Review and Quote-Tastic: The Dead Play On by Heather Graham

Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Series: Cafferty & Quinn #3
Format Read: eGalley
Challenges: NetGalley & Edelweiss Reading Challenge
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: March 31, 2015
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | ARe* | Barnes & Noble |
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

Play a song for me…

Musicians are being murdered in New Orleans. But Arnie Watson apparently died by his own hand. When Tyler Anderson plays the saxophone he inherited from Arnie, a soldier and musician who died soon after his return, he believes he sees visions of his friend's life—and death. He becomes convinced Arnie was murdered and that the instrument had something to do with whatever happened, and with whatever's happening all over the city…

Tyler knows his theory sounds crazy to the police, so he approaches Danni Cafferty, hoping she and Michael Quinn will find out what the cops couldn't. Or wouldn't. After all, Cafferty and Quinn have become famous for solving unusual crimes.

They're partners in their personal lives, too. Quinn's a private investigator and Danni works with him. When they look into the case, they discover a secret lover of Arnie's and a history of jealousies and old hatreds that leads them back to the band Arnie once played with—and Tyler plays with now.

They discover that sometimes, for some people, the line between passion and obsession is hard to draw. Only in uncovering the truth can they hope to save others—and themselves—from the deadly hands of a killer.

Quote-Tastic & Review: Aden and Unforgiven by D.B. Reynolds

Publisher: ImaJinn Books-
Series: Vampires in America #7
Format Read: eGalley
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Challenges: NetGalley & Edelweiss Reading Challenge   
Release Date: November 26, 2013
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | ARe* | Barnes & Noble | 
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

She was seeking revenge. What she found was a vampire who swept her into the darkest depths of passion.

Chicago, Illinois... the windy city. Home to football greats, dinosaurs named Sue, and, when the sun goes down... powerful vampires battling for the right to rule the city and beyond.

Born into slavery, Aden is one of the most powerful vampires in North America, waging war on others of his kind in a struggle to become the next Lord of the Midwest. But in the midst of the deadliest fight of his long life, the ghosts of his past have come back to haunt him. Slavery still exists, and Aden is hellbent on destroying it and the vampires who profit from it.

Sidonie Reid is an investigative reporter in pursuit of the biggest story of her career, until that story costs the life of a friend and Sid realizes she has to do much more than write about it. Intent on bringing down the vampires and their slave network, Sid gains entry to the highest levels of vampire society, where she finds herself confronting the raw sexuality that is Aden.

Caught up in a dark passion that neither can resist, Aden and Sidonie join forces, determined to defeat the old regime and everything it stands for. The dangers are beyond calculation, but the ultimate reward is worth the risk. If they survive.

Quote-Tastic & Review: Star Trek Vol 9 The Q Gambit by Mike Johnson

Publisher: IDW Publishing
Series: Star Trek: Ongoing
Format Read: eGalley
Challenges:  NetGalley & Edelweiss Reading Challenge 
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: 
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository*  | Barnes & Noble | 
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

The crew of the new Star Trek film franchise encounters the classic villain Q for the first time in this galaxy-spanning adventure developed in association with screenwriter/producer Roberto Orci! The mischievous Q sends James T. Kirk on a quest that will see the Enterprise joining forces with familiar faces from Star Trek lore. Collects issues #35–40.

Group Review & Quote-Tastic: Dead Heat by Patricia Briggs

Publisher: Ace
Series: Alpha and Omega #4
Format Read: eGalley and hardcover
Source: publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: March 3, 2015
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | OmniLit* | Barnes & Noble | 
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

THE NEW CHARLES AND ANNA NOVEL
Praised as “the perfect blend of action, romance, suspense and paranormal,"* the Alpha and Omega novels transport readers into the realm of the werewolf, where Charles Cornick and Anna Latham embody opposite sides of the shifter personality. Now, a pleasure trip drops the couple into the middle of some bad supernatural business…
For once, mated werewolves Charles and Anna are not traveling because of Charles’s role as his father’s enforcer. This time, their trip to Arizona is purely personal--or at least it starts out that way...
Charles and Anna soon discover that a dangerous Fae being is on the loose, replacing human children with simulacrums. The Fae’s cold war with humanity is about to heat up—and Charles and Anna are in the cross fire.

*Rex Robot Reviews

Quote-Tastic: A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray

Join us every Monday and share a favorite quote that's grabbed you for one reason or another. Everyone's welcome to join in - authors, bloggers, readers. The more the merrier! Just grab the button and put up your post :) Don't have a blog? No worries, just leave your favorites in the comment section.  Quote-tastic is hosted by Herding Cats & Burning Soup.

I borrowed the Kindle version of this book from my library. It had some excellent quotes but for this week I have two quotes around love. Meg is 18 and Paul is in his 20's, maybe mid-20's

It takes time to really, truly fall for someone. Yet I believe in a moment. A moment when you glimpse the truth within someone, and they glimpse the truth within you.In that moment, you don't belong to yourself any longer, not completely. Part of you belongs to him; part of him belongs to you.

"I would love you in any shape, in any world, with any past. Never doubt that."

Quote-Tastic and Review: Ghostly Liaison by Stacy McKitrick

Publisher: Lyrical Press
Series: Ghostly Encounters #1
Format Read: eGalley
Source: publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: January 19, 2015
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | ARe*/OmniLit | Barnes & Noble |
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

Avoiding love is hard. Catching a killer can be fatal…

When Rob’s sister passed away, she left him her dog and her house. He can handle the dog part, but he doesn’t need another home. Especially a fixer-upper the neighbor swears is haunted.

Then he meets Bridget, who’s working on getting her life back together after a car accident left her scarred in more ways than one. She can’t pass up Rob’s offer of free lodging, regardless of the shape it’s in. Or the roommate that’s part of the package. She’s never believed in ghosts, but now she’s living with one who wants Bridget’s help in catching a killer. There’s only one problem: the killer has unfinished business.

Quote-Tastic: Better Homes and Hauntings by Molly Harper

Join us every Monday and share a favorite quote that's grabbed you for one reason or another. Everyone's welcome to join in - authors, bloggers, readers. The more the merrier! Just grab the button and put up your post :) Don't have a blog? No worries, just leave your favorites in the comment section.  Quote-tastic is hosted by Herding Cats & Burning Soup.

"Better Homes and Hauntings" was a disappointing book but it had some humorous moments. After being awoken in the middle of the night by screams, a group of workers, including our heroine, find themselves at loose ends. This little bit made me laugh.

Nina looked up at Deacon. "What are we going to do now?"
Deacon only shook his head. "I have no idea."
Jake adjusted the basketball shorts he wore as pajamas. "Well, I'm wide awake. Being jolted into consciousness by bloodcurdling screams will do that."
Dotty ran her fingers through her hair and gave a forced, cheerful smile. "We're playing Vodka Pursuit!" Nina asked, "What is Vodka Pursuit?"
"It's like Trivial Pursuit, only with more vodka. It will cheer everybody up, trust me. It will help." Dotty jumped off the bed and went scampering down the hall, yelling for Stolichnaya and pie pieces.
Jake glanced at the clock, which read 12:42."This is not going to end well."

Quote-Tastic: No Flowers Required by Cari Quinn

Join us every Monday and share a favorite quote that's grabbed you for one reason or another. Everyone's welcome to join in - authors, bloggers, readers. The more the merrier! Just grab the button and put up your post :) Don't have a blog? No worries, just leave your favorites in the comment section.  Quote-tastic is hosted by Herding Cats & Burning Soup.

I read this a while ago. It's a sweet romance with some dirty loving, a huge secret between the hero and heroine, and a heroine with a sense of humor. You can find my review here.

She swept her gaze from his stubbled jaw to the dusty toes of his boots. As usual, her attention caught first on his gleaming eyebrow ring, then the bright blaze of his eyes. His brawny shoulders stretched his thin, yellow T-shirt until the fabric wept, and his muscular torso led to lean hips encased in low-slung jeans.

No doubt about it, the guy was sexy. Though she still wouldn't have called him classically handsome, his looks were growing on her. 

Like ivy. Or fungus.

Quote-Tastic: Against the Dark by Carolyn Crane

Join us every Monday and share a favorite quote that's grabbed you for one reason or another. Everyone's welcome to join in - authors, bloggers, readers. The more the merrier! Just grab the button and put up your post :) Don't have a blog? No worries, just leave your favorites in the comment section.  Quote-tastic is hosted by Herding Cats & Burning Soup.

I won this book a few months ago after it had been on my wish list for several years. It's a romantic suspense with a hero both brainy and skilled in fighting. The heroine is a semi-reformed criminal who is also smart, skilled and spunky. This scene occurs when they first notice each other and Angel is ruminating about her luck with men.

"Dangerously self-destructive man at oh-four-hundred hours. Angel, start your engine."
"It's not funny. At all."
They used to joke about it back in the day - if they wanted to know if a guy was troubled or self-destructive in some way, they just needed to check if Angel thought he was hot. 
Bad boyfriend radar, they called it.
Because if Angel was attracted to a guy, it meant he was probably wounded or feral, a doomed thug with a hurricane for a heart. It meant that she could love him, but never save him.
Which was why she didn't date men she was attracted to anymore, a policy that made for a shitty sex life, but the new and reformed Angel was all about avoiding trouble. 

 

Quote-Tastic - Night Shift by Nalini SIng, Ilona Andrews, Lisa Shearin and Milla Vane

Join us every Monday and share a favorite quote that's grabbed you for one reason or another. Everyone's welcome to join in - authors, bloggers, readers. The more the merrier! Just grab the button and put up your post :) Don't have a blog? No worries, just leave your favorites in the comment section.  Quote-tastic is hosted by Herding Cats & Burning Soup.

This quote is from the short story, "The Beast of Blackmoor" by Milla Vane. The hero and heroine are talking and whew, you'll need some cold water! It's part of a very hot scene between them involving voyeurism and public sex.

It's part of the Night Shift anthology. I'm giving away a copy and posted a review here. 

"Who needs leather and a collar? A man's leash grows between his legs. I would only have to tug on it a few times to make you mine." "Then a woman's leash must be much shorter. " She laughed. "So it is. And harder to find."

Quote-Tastic: Low Midnight by Carrie Vaughn

Join us every Monday and share a favorite quote that's grabbed you for one reason or another. Everyone's welcome to join in - authors, bloggers, readers. The more the merrier! Just grab the button and put up your post :) Don't have a blog? No worries, just leave your favorites in the comment section.  Quote-tastic is hosted by Herding Cats & Burning Soup.

This quote made me laugh but it also nicely illustrates differences in time and culture. Cormac is a former monster hunter and an American who is currently teamed up with Amelia, the ghost of a female British magician. She died over a hundred years. My review will be up later this month at Romance at Random then next month here at the Nook.

You know, he thought to Amelia, nobody says spinster anymore.
Well, yes, certainly. Etymologically, the word was doomed, considering so few of the women called spinsters actually spun wool anymore. So what do people call unmarried adult women now?
Um. Women, he said.

Quote-Tastic and Review: On the Naughty List by Lori Foster, Carly Phillips, Sugar Jamison, and Beth Ciotta

Publisher: St. Martin 
Format Read: eGalley
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: October 14, 2014
Buying Links: Amazon* | Kobo | ARe* | Barnes & Noble |
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

The most wonderful time of the year is back with On The Naughty List, bringing perennial favorite holiday stories from Lori Foster and Carly Phillips, along with two Christmas stories that delighted readers a year ago. This sexy anthology will make you want to give your heart to Christmas again and again…Lori Foster has two co-workers plan a Christmas party side-by-side-and discover a love worth celebrating in Christmas Bonus Carly Phillips explores a "mistletoe moment" when a no-nonsense lawyer intent on seducing her boss meets his twin instead--and gives him a scintillating kiss that leaves him begging for more in Naughty Under the Mistletoe.In Sugar Jamison’s Have Yourself a Curvy Little Christmas, former wild child Dina Gregory returns home to New York to find the father of her young son. Instead, she finds his stuffy older brother, Ben. Ben can’t help but admire her tenacity—and her bold beauty. Could it be that Dina has reignited his Christmas spirit? Beth Ciotta brings two friends who, after years apart, together at home for the holidays. They don’t seem to have much in common anymore, but when the two get stranded together during a blizzard, they are forced to reexamine if they are better off as "just friends"? Or could it be that true love was there all along? in Some Kind of Wonderful.

Quote-Tastic & Review - Maybe This Christmas by Sarah Morgan

Publisher: Harlequin
Series: O'Neill Brothers #3
Format Read: egalley
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: October 28, 2014
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | ARe* | Barnes & Noble |
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

This winter, ex-skiing champion, reformed heartbreaker and single dad Tyler O'Neil has only one mission—making sure his daughter, Jess, has the best Christmas ever. The fact that his best friend, Brenna, is also temporarily moving into his chalet at the overbooked Snow Crystal resort is a delicious distraction he's simply going to have to ignore. Theirs is the one relationship he's never ruined, and he's not about to start now.

Ski pro Brenna Daniels knows all about the perils of unrequited love—she's been in love with Tyler for years. But living with him is absolute torture…how can she concentrate on being his friend when he's sleeping in the room next door? Then when Tyler kisses Brenna, suddenly the relationship she's always dreamed of feels so close she could almost touch it. Could this be the Christmas her dreams of a happy-ever-after finally come true?