2013- Year of the book series2

So this is the first year I am doing a reading challenge. I'm reading just series or a few books in a series.

Book Info

Start/end ~ February 23- 28

banked ~ 1 day

Favorite lines:

I was the physical & emotional equivalent of a ramen noodle: limp, tasteless, and with no nutritional value whatsoever

Letting the Corpse out of the Coffin

There's another books out in November

(review not showing in box.. so here it goes)

The Quote at the bottom of the book... works best. A world I don't want to leave

I love the pop cult reference Yasmine makes about Ramen noodles. (Sorry but it wouldn't be funny if I explain it to you. Its one of those you have to read up to it things for it to come off right. . ALong the lines of a Tension breaker! There's a Character that Calls Delilah (a werecat) 'Puss in boots' SO the gang looks like they may be up against Galakah a Ghost god who was from the netherworld & was banished from there. Camille has a training meet with the 'Triple Threat' as she calls them (The earth side fae queens). The APN is hanging around and wreaking havoc, & chaos with bone walkers, zombies & more at their disposal. Beltane is on its way and more and more emergencies and things just keep piling up and this is after 5 quiet weeks which they were still busy but kept up with research.

Along with all this going on the girls must find the last 2 of the 9 Spirit Seals (in which the big Bad Shadow wing has 2 of them) There's so much going on you will not be bored. The cast of characters is quite vast, not only is their families (not only the 3 sisters but all their husbands, & extended family live in the house & on the grounds! There's never a dull moment but is there any prive ones?!

If you'd like to read more on The series and the author please check out Yasmine Galenorn's Otherworld You will also find my EXCLUSIVE! interview with her there as well.

Book Info

Start/end ~ March 3-8

banked ~1

Cool Character name- Aziza Zorn

Favorite lines: PWS- Pre Wedding Syndrome (those last few weeks it seems the couple argues about everything)

Jessica's friend brings her to a salon called 'Hair Explosion of London' and wonders why a place of business that is not located in London has it in the name. (Like I do with Canada & Boston Pizza. NOt to mention What the F** BOSTON pizza, not New York or Chicago Pizza, which I can unerstand & are supposed to be the best) was beyond her & a good way to confuse the customers.

I do not have the 4th book or Fan guide. I'll see how the books are, if I like them enough, maybe I'll get the 4th book.The books I have, each have 3 stories in each.

I thought it was about time to read a series again.

Book 1 information

*Projected time to read -There are 3 stories so about 1 week for each

Start/ ended= March 28 - April 9

Banked= 7 days

Secret Vampire Started-March 28-30 Banked= 4 days

So far I'm just flying through it.. for the first 2 days I read past page 100- or 150 (have to look again) Who knows maybe I'll finish tonight (Sat 30th) Anyway so far

The story is about a 'pixie' looking girl with green eyes and curly copper hair named Poppy who has a twin brother Phil and whose best friend James seems to have some sort of secret and that she also has a crush on. Poppy has been having pains in her stomach that come & go.Finally her mother takes her to the doctor's office and Poppy ends up in the hopsital for more tests.

Turns out because she didn't go sooner, she has a cancer that has no spread and has until maybe the end of summer to live. In swoops the best friend with a big secret to save her, and to put a thorn in their side James' cousin Ash comes to visit. The end of the story is hardly climatic, and doesn't seem like an ending at all, at least include a one page afterword. Maybe inthe 2nd story it will go on.

Daughters of Darkness starting May 31- April 4 Banked days= 2

This is about 3 vampire sisters who run away from their world. Their vampire life in 'Night World' is full of limitations & most think humans are 'vermin'. The major rules however are like fight club... you don't talk about Night World or 'come out' to or fall in love with a human the the law says are to be put to death. (my question though is, what if its your soulmate?) If you turn someone it has to be cleared with the elders before you do it. The only humans that are aloud to know about Night World are those of the night themselves like Witches of either kind. The 2 kinds are those who know their heritage, & the others which sadly do not; but have some sort of (even if minimal) powers but are called clairvoiant, Psychic etc.

The one character that pretty much is in both stories is Ash the girls' brother. The cousin of James from the last story, and goes to reterive his run away sisters. The two stories end where it can be just that, or where we may see the characters again. So we shall see how this ends book wraps up, and then series.

Spellbinder Started= April 4 -9 Banked= 1 day

So this go round we have two witch cousins which are more like sisters as they are only born minutes apart. One a trouble maker in the ways of Aphrodite and the other with the specialty for getting in one's head literally; however Thea uses it mostly to find out how to help an animal.

So far no one from the past two stories have popped up but I'm guessing maybe these might be a couple of Ash's cousins as well? Thea & her Cousin Blaise (speaking of a 'B' witch: by that I mean change the w for a b) move around from family member to family member for each school it seems because Blaise keeps getting them in trouble. They have been expelled four times, becasue of Blaise's witchy antics playing with boys (her last one burned the school to show his love for her) .

Like with the rest of the night world, though Witches may be human they must abode by the do not fall in love with a human or reveal night world to them, however they all seem to know there is some soulmate for everyone, that they may or may not meet them but what is the rule if they meet them. Is it ok with the night world then if their soul mate is human Whether they be Vampire or witch? Let's hope if not this story then one of the other 2 books storeis will. Thea anyway has met Eric an athlete with the school playing multiple sports and who comes to the rescue when a snake is being threatened by a group of students which Thea tries to help on arriving at the school. So I was right, the girls are a cousin of Ash through the Blood binding done back in the 16 or 1700's. Also there may be an answer coming to whether that soulmate thing MIGHT be a loophole, as it sounds l ike its some old magic or something, really called 'The Soulmate principle' and jsut may be coming back (seemingly to her family). Maybe they'll put their stamp on ours & Night World and rewrite some laws. I think I liked this story best of the 3 in the book. I don't know if its because the good Thea did a 'big bad', and well I've never done something really bad as far as I can remember, but I recently burned a pot so I had to scrub, and there's no proof I did it! So I guess in a way I can relate to this one.

Quotes:

"Seem to sort of love you desperately"- Ash to Mary Lynette in Book 1- Daughters of Darkness

"2 wrongs don't make a right, .... ...but 3 lefts do. -Thea & Dani in SpellBinder

Vocab- Tyrannized (every witch in the country) - exercise absolute power, treat or covern a community in a cruel unfair way

There was also mention of a 'Thet' knot and a

BROOM plant (looked it up there is one, actually a few varieties. One is 'Snakeweed' there's a dessert one, sweet broom scotch broom

Book 2 Series Information

Started (book) = April 9 -23rd

Banked= 6

Dark Angel

Gillian is a mouse of a girl. Smaller than most and looks alot younger. On her way to school she hears someone calling for help and goes to try to, however this may have been some sort of premonition as she falls and well I can't ruin the rest. She's found by her crush who takes her home & helps her out and as for the rest and in between I won't ruin. I'll go with just saying what happened was a life altering experience and she makes a dramatic change in her looks with a little help from an angelic voice in her head. (no she's not crazy) Her classmates start to notice her and she starts to participate in class. What are the five Kingdoms of Life so I got a rehash (as I had to look up the one not mentioned)

Read from April 9-12 Banked 3

The Chosen started April 13-16

We've have Vampires, Witches & Werewolves so far it was bound to have a Slayer in it sooner or later. Rashel (who I think is who the cover art is supposed to be of) Her mother & little brother were killed by a vampire when she was five and since she's just been from foster home to foster home.

So there are so far 3 'covens' (so to speak) of witches in the stories to speak of .

Circle Twilight Circle Midnight (which would be dark magic) & Circle Daybreak which is trying to get humans & the Night world together (basically those who have soulmates join this)

There's also the vampire 'underground' a club etc. each family (liek a crest) is represented by some form of Black flower (same as the names of the clubs) Black Dahlia, Black Iris etc.

Bokken- a sword made of wood that looks like a samurai sword only the whole blade is made of wood, see here

lignum vitae

also known as Ironwood

see what the wood looks like

Banked 3

Soulmate April 17-23

So far this is my least favorite of what I've read so far. Hannah a humman thinks she's going crazy, she's waking up finding notes in her handwriting that she didn't write on her toothbrush, in her pillow and so on. She wants to be an archeologist or was it palientologist and her mother is one as well.

convinced she's crazy, she goes to the only shrink in the montana area. She's an 'old soul' one who's been reincarnated many times, Hannah's is such an old one it goes back to the days of cavemen! So far I think the worst of the stories in these books, and definately not even on a 'favorite' list if i even have one (though there's one more Night world book to read after this.) This took me awhile as to me it really wasn't a good story for one reason or another. I liked the reincarnation idea in it, but things tend to get tedious when you go back & forth between current & a past life.

variegated- having descrete markings of different coloring

Book 3 Information

Started= April 24-May 10 2013

Huntress started April 24-29

I don't know what took me so long to read this, weather it was I was busy or that I wasn't into the story but I had to bust my brian readingit the last day as I fell quite behind. I think the last day I had at least 100 pages to read!

I wasn't crazy about this story. Honestly I'm a day or 2 removed from finishing it, and already I cannot recall anything of the story! Wait that's not right as I did just think of something. Jez (short for Jezabell) is half Vampire half human this is beyond just falling in love with a human but having a child withone is an abomination. She and her friends are trying to find some big new power that is supposed to keep apocolypse from happening.

The one thing I think I like about the stories & the books is that in some way or another all the stories are intertwined, be it characters from other stories names pop up and so on. To me this is a very complex story L.J. has weaved. (I wonder if she got help from the Norns of Fate?)

Cool Character Names- Valerian, Thistle & Iona Skelton

Banked= 1 day

Black Dawn started April 30- May 5 Banked = 1

So far I'm digging this story, and I think I only read the first 2-5 chapters (they were short though) the first night.

Maggie thinks her brother Miles' girlfriend is lying about an accident when they went camping. So Maggie goes off to follow after Sylvia and walks right into trouble's lair. Maggie wakes in an unfamiliar place first of all the imediate is in a horse drawn carrige, second, she's in some hidden reach of the world that very few know about.

Names- Hortense (?? need to see if i can find where that comes from)

Vocabulary- Seceded - to withdrawl formally a membership of organization etc

*Sorrel- a perrenial cultivated as a garden herb

*(This was a way to describe someone's eyes in the book and had no idea what it was)

See what Sorrel looks like?

Witchlight started May 6-may 10 Banked=2

Not only do we have the soulmate bond in each story, but now there is the 'big' power (I forget what its called) in each story so each one sort of feels like an outline only with different species of characters and such. This one has a were panther or was it puma? I just started it as far as writing so please bare with me. Oh yeah and there's a dragon shifter in this. The dragons used to rule over all shifters until the witches put a spell on them let's just say for an extended hybernation. 30,000 years the dragons have been asleep after reaping chaos, and now the Night world (Vampires etc that want to rule over the humans) some how brought one back. Circle Daybreak sends Keller and her group to look for the witch child who is a lost witch and supposed to have a Wild Power. The Witch Child is supposed to marry the son of the First house of shifters for a bond between the witches (which no longer are with the Vampires) & the shifters in the fight for Good.

There's a Character witht he Name Iliana I thought that was pretty.

Vocabulary- Ironwood

series Information

Started=March 28

Finished series=May 10

Banked (series) = 17

Necroscope-

The first book of the series, had to repost as there was a problem with the previous post of it.

There's a story of 2 Necroscopes those to talk with the dead. One from Russia and the other in England. Only one is the bad version and the other good

Not really keen on how it was written it just doesn't flow and as previously mentioned, it felt like one page took around 15 minutes (or more) to read. (for me) The chapters are too long, and I think each could have been at least split in half or to thirds. Interesting story but at leat 1 hundred pages too long (if not more) I grew bored of it around page 300 or so, even to the point where I skimmed read the pages just to find the more important parts. I would even doze off reading the book.

Finished for the most part the 24th but fell asleep with a page or 2 left.

Well I started with the prologue on the 12th so its a full 7 days and only 228 pages in... (wasn't feelning well to 'Read like a Wolf eats") I like that one of the characters in one of the sub-plots writes stories and is working on a novel.

The prologue to me was a jumble of babble; it has me confused, maybe more like lost. I felt like I was doing a word jumble only it was with part of a story. There's something about uprooting, someone who dies, another who can see a glimpse of the future but none seems to interconnect, and I don't see the connection with the first chapter, as far as I've read. The first chapter at least is way too many pages. I hate when chapters are longer than around 10-12 pages as it just feels like it drags. What I've grabbed is we are either in London or (communist) Russia (I've lost track). The cover of the book says Vampireism, necromancy, Supernatural mayhem & shreiking bloody terror. So far we've met one who reads the dead which is the necromancer, but still waiting for the scarey. I would have liked to have seen part of the first chapter as a movie with gore spattered walls etc.

So far it seems more like there's 3 seperate stories so why not just write it that way and have a smaller book. I think I'm getting a little confused with the what characters are what & to what sub plot of the story.

::Grumbles:: This feels like its taking me forever to finish & I still have about 2oo pages to read I really hope the other 2 books do not read liek the first one. Well the second one is at least 470 pages (yeah... still a few too many for me. The 3rd is 500 and 20 or 30 something pages.

Finally maybe a little more than half way thorugh the book, I think the two stories within are coming together.

This is a crazy sort of story where There's a Necromancer (but not in the Sorcerer sense) & a Necroscope (the later talks to the dead & they love him etc. The Necromancer is the bad version and steals the secrets of the dead from them.) There's all sorts of elements in this one by that I mean there's a litle time travel and things like that.

Book Notes:

started May 12 (This will take me longer being as its 500+ pages so I'll give myself til 25th)

Finished May 24

Cool names= Dragosani (surname)

Banked= 1

A blurb review by my friend Peter

"They do pick up. The first suffered from Harry's learning curve throughout the book. They can start slow bu they do get going. BTW, 1-3 are a story arc, but there's 5 total in the main series. And then there's like 10 more in sequel series"

Vamphyri! started may 30 Quit June 5th

This starts off where the first ended. The aftermath of the mess Dragosani & Kough made.I'm only on page 69 (after starting it May 29th or 30th) so I have been thinking of putting it off for another time to get through my other books. I like the premise of the story etc. it's just the writing (for me) style is making it difficult. It does not flow like other books that you end up finishing in a day or a few for whatever 'magic' those kinds have over us to plow through it.

I will be very slow in reading this one as it will likely be very slow in reading it so (look below & you'll see I've already started another book

Usually it takes me about 1 mnute or less to read one side of a page, this feels like it takes me 15 minutes to read 1 page! So struggling with deciding on penalizing myself for not finishing & get to another book or series & save this & the next necro book for a time when I'm not on deadlines!

canning rest of series for another time. Its good but as I said I don't care for the writing.. can you say BATHROOM READER! becasue that's what this may become instead of the regular reading book.

Series Information started May 12 (giving myself same amount of time or about.. I'm going to shoot for the 10th)

Banked=1

Started =June 7

Finished= June 18

Banked= - 2 days (didn't read fast enough)

KatieMacAlister official site

so I'm around or a little over 50 pages in, and gather that the subjects of the story are supernatural twins by that I mean one is a naiad along with her doppleganger shadowwalker. One is bound to a demon lord and has her stealing from others.

Some mistake her identity for being asian and that's the fun of this I have so far gathered. Oh right & there's some dragons (so things may get hot & torublesome)

Wed. 12th- SOOO behind! I'm only a little over 100 pages in :-( but then I've been erraticaly going through some of my stuff so I can sell it at my next tag sale. Plus a couple of other things I've been busy with. Oh well guess I'll have to try a mad dash for a day or 2 or use a few of my banked days.

So some of the info on the dragons is that There are Black green as well as Silver dragons. Wyverns are leaders of the septs. The Black & Silver dragons were part of one sept. and one of them (the silver) cursed the black to never have a mate born to them until one becomes leader of the silver dragons (or something like that.) Between May & her 'twin' and meeting dragons I'm sure you know what that's going to end up leading to.

This is a moderately good read. Enjoyable if you like ROmance, Dragons and other fantasy (or supernatural) presence in a story this would be good for you.
I can say this, its never boring, can be a bit funny and portrays a little of all the emotions.

yes the tv show has dripped onto the printed page, great for us diehards who have to suffer through summer

I used to get the official Supernatural Magazine, which would take you inside and behind the scenes. I love reading as well so when they included a chapter to one of the novels (actually I think 2 at different time as I can remember) I love dragons, so seeing this title plus getting to read some of piqued my interest. There is another book Nevermore by the same writer which I think is supposed to have something to do with Edgar Allen poe or his story the Raven so that's another I've been trying to track down & read.

As with the series, a playlist is also included in the back of the book of classic rock and thanks to the show some of those songs I loved that came out when i was born (or before) I know actually know at least the titles to if not the artist.

There's a mention of Basil Rathbone in the book, which caught me sort of funny as my grandmother is interred across from him in the mortuary.

Started= June 21-26

banked= 0

Ameliorated= to improve or make better

L.J. Smith wiki

Dark Visions

Dark Visions wiki page

Started (overall)- June 28th

The Strange Power Finished =July 2

Kaitlin or Kait, has some Psi ability, she gets premonitions in the form of drawings and they can be happening or happen in the future. They don't just happen in her town or state either. She goes to an institute where 4 others like her (though they have different powers) will have their powers tested as well as learn how to hone their powers as use them when they want as well.

When Kait arrives at the iair port some 'monk' attaks her with a few cryptic words of warning, then arriving at the institute, she is describes the exterior of the building and it reminded me of one of the houses in Cape May, NJ that as I called it a "Plum Crazy' color scheme, 3 different colors of purple. Kait & her new friends start to investigate what is going on and unravel a mystery. This

I've so far liked because of the mystery aspect of the story, plus I've read it in my normal amount of days.

The end of the story is a little anti-climatic but we move on to the next story

Banked = 2

Chiaroscuro- an art word meaning Light & Shade like in a drawing where you only use black & white)

The Possessed started= July 3

FInished = July 8th

as with the Night World series, this story picks up where the last left off.

The kids are all now on the run, and trying to find some place that Kait has had a recurring dream about that Anna thinks does exist. Kait thinks they may find help at a white house she sees in the dream. Gabriel seems to be gaining new powers & becoming more powerful as well since the incident at Mr. Zete's house. The group search the coast trying to find this white house to find they have to go to Canada to try to find this white house. On their way, they are the victims of Psychic attacks, of varying sorts.

Basalt- wiki defines it as "a common extrusive igneous (volcanic) rock formed from the rapid cooling of basaltic lava exposed at or very near the surface of a planet or moon"

Sepulchrally- pertaining to or serving as a tomb, burial

Banked= 1

The Passion

Started July 9 Banked=3 days

Finished overall = July 12

Kait goes off on her own to find and hopefully help Gabriel, as well as destroy the 'Evil' crystal. She is attacked on arriving near the Insitute but not sure by who (a bum maybe) and help arrives in the form of Gabriel.

The Forbidden Game (will come back to this at a later date)

will come back to this one in awhile

Forbidden Game wiki page

Forbidden Game Fan SIte

Due to the current Squidoo changes this lens is now 2 of (so far) 3 pages, You can find the link to the next page below the Guest Books